CONFISCATION.
Although, for the most part, as we shall see, confiscation was
technically not the work of the Inquisition, the distinction was rather
nominal than real. Even in times and places in which the inquisitor did
not pronounce the sentence of confiscation, it was the accompaniment of
the sentence which he did pronounce. It was, therefore, one of the most
serious of the penalties at his disposal, and the largeness of the
results effected by it give it an importance worthy a somewhat minute
examination.
For the source of this, as of so much else, we must look to the Roman
law. It is true that, cruel as were the imperial edicts against heresy,
they did not go to the length of thus indirectly punishing the innocent.
Even when the detested Manichæans were mercilessly condemned to death,
their property was confiscated only when their heirs were likewise
heretics. If the children were orthodox they succeeded to the estate of
the heretic parent, who could not execute a will and disinherit them. It
was otherwise with crime. Any conviction involving deportation or the
mines carried with it confiscation, though the wife could reclaim her
dower and any gifts made to her before the commission of the offence,
and so could children emancipated from the _patria potestas_. All else
inured to the fisc. In _majestas_ or treason, the offender was liable to
condemnation after death, involving the confiscation of his estate,
which was held to have lapsed to the fisc at the time when he first
conceived the crime. These provisions furnished the armory whence pope
and king drew the weapons which rendered the pursuit of heresy
attractive and profitable.[460]
King Roger, who occupied the throne of the Two Sicilies during the first
half of the twelfth century, seems to have been the first to apply the
Roman practice by decreeing confiscation for all who apostatized from
the Catholic faith--whether to the Greek Church, to Islam, or to Judaism
does not appear. Yet the Church cannot escape the responsibility of
naturalizing this penalty in European law as a punishment for spiritual
transgressions. The great Council of Tours, held by Alexander III., in
1163, commanded all secular princes to imprison heretics and confiscate
their property. Lucius III., in his Verona decretal of 1184, sought to
obtain for the Church the benefit of the confiscation which he again
declared to be incurred by heresy. One of the earliest acts of Innocent
III., in his double capacity of temporal prince and head of
Christianity, was to address a decretal to his subjects of Viterbo, in
which he says,
"In the lands subject to our temporal jurisdiction we order the
property of heretics to be confiscated; in other lands we command
this to be done by the temporal princes and powers, who, if they
show themselves negligent therein, shall be compelled to do it by
ecclesiastical censures. Nor shall the property of heretics who
withdraw from heresy revert to them, unless some one pleases to
take pity on them. For as, according to the legal sanctions, in
addition to capital punishment, the property of those guilty of
_majestas_ is confiscated, and life simply is allowed to their
children through mercy alone, so much the more should those who
wander from the faith and offend the Son of God be cut off from
Christ and be despoiled of their temporal goods, since it is a far
greater crime to assail spiritual than temporal majesty."[461]
This decretal, which was adopted into the canon law, is important as
embodying the whole theory of the subject. In imitation of the Roman law
of _majestas_, the property of the heretic was forfeited from the moment
he became a heretic or committed an act of heresy. If he recanted, it
might be restored to him purely in mercy. When the ecclesiastical
tribunals declared him to be, or to have been, a heretic, confiscation
operated itself; the act of seizing the property was a matter for the
secular power to whom it inured, and the mercy which might spare it
could only be shown by that power. All this it is requisite to keep in
mind if we would correctly appreciate some points which have frequently
been misunderstood.
Innocent's decretal further illustrates the fact that at the
commencement of the struggle with heresy the chief difficulty
encountered by the Church in relation to confiscation was to persuade or
coerce the temporal rulers to do what it held to be their duty in taking
possession of heretical property. This was one of the principal offences
which Raymond VI. of Toulouse expiated so bitterly, as explained to him
by Innocent in 1210. His son proclaimed it as the law in his statutes of
1234, and included in its provisions, in accordance with the Ordonnance
of Louis VIII., in 1226, and that of Louis IX., in 1229, all who favored
heretics in any way or refused to aid in their capture; but his policy
did not always comport with its enforcement, and he sometimes had to be
sternly rebuked for non-feasance. After all danger of armed resistance
had disappeared, however, sovereigns, as a rule, eagerly welcomed the
opportunity of recruiting their slender revenues, and the confiscation
of the property of heretics and of fautors of heresy was generally
recognized in European law, although the Church was occasionally obliged
to repeat its injunctions and threats, and though there were some
regions in which they were slackly obeyed.[462]
The relation of the Inquisition to confiscation varied essentially with
time and place. In France the principle derived from the Roman law was
generally recognized, that the title to property devolved to the fisc as
soon as the crime had been committed. There was therefore nothing for
the inquisitor to do with regard to it. He simply ascertained and
announced the guilt of the accused and left the State to take action.
Thus Gui Foucoix treats the subject as one wholly outside of the
functions of the inquisitor, who at most can only advise the secular
ruler or intercede for mercy; while he holds that those only are legally
exempt from forfeiture who come forward spontaneously and confess before
any evidence has been taken against them. In accordance with this, there
is, as a rule, no allusion to confiscation in the sentences of the
French Inquisition, though in one or two instances chance has preserved
for us, in the accounts of the _procureurs des encours_, or royal
stewards of the confiscations, evidence that estates were sold and
covered into the fisc in cases in which the forfeiture is not specified
in the sentence. In condemnations of absentees and of the dead,
confiscation is occasionally declared, as though in these the State
might need some guidance, but even here the practice is not uniform. In
a sentence issued by Guillem Arnaud and Étienne de S. Thibery, November
24, 1241, on two absentees, their estates are adjudged to whom it may
concern. In the Register of Bernard de Caux (1246-1248), in thirty-two
cases of contumacious absentees confiscation is included in the
sentence, and in nine similar ones it is omitted, as well as in one
hundred and fifty-nine condemnations to prison in which it was
undoubtedly operative. In the Inquisition of Carcassonne, a sentence of
December 12, 1328, on five deceased persons, who would have been
imprisoned had they lived, ends with "_et consequenter bona ipsorum
dicimus confiscanda_," while a previous sentence, February 24, 1325,
identical in character, on four defunct culprits, has no such corollary
appended. In fact, strictly speaking, it was recognized that the
inquisitor had no power to remit confiscations without permission from
the fisc, and the custom of extending mercy to those who came forward
voluntarily and confessed was founded upon a special concession to that
effect granted by Raymond of Toulouse to the Inquisition in 1235. As
soon as a suspected heretic was cited or arrested the secular officials
sequestrated his property and notified his debtors by proclamation. No
doubt, when condemnation took place, the inquisitor communicated the
result to the proper officials, but as a rule no record of the fact
seems to have been kept in the archives of the Holy Office, although an
early manual of practice specifies it as part of his duty to see that
the confiscation was enforced. At a later period, in 1328, in a record
of an assembly of experts held at Pamiers, the presence is specified of
Arnaud Assalit, royal _procureur des encours_ of Carcassonne, so that
probably by this time it had become customary for that official to
attend these deliberations and thus obtain early notice of the sentences
to be passed.[463]
In Italy it was long before any settled practice was established. In
1252 a bull of Innocent IV. directs the rulers of Lombardy, Tarvisina,
and Romagna to confiscate without fail the property of all who were
excommunicated as heretics, or as receivers, defenders, or fautors of
heretics, thus recognizing confiscation as a matter belonging to the
secular power. Yet soon the papal authority succeeded in obtaining a
share of the spoils, even beyond the limits of the States of the Church,
as is seen in the bulls _Ad extirpanda_ of Innocent IV. and Alexander
IV., and the matter thus became one in which the Inquisition had a
direct interest. The indifference which so well became the French
tribunals was therefore not readily maintained, and the share of the
inquisitor in the results led him to participate in the process of
securing them. Yet there were variations in practice. Zanghino tells us
that formerly confiscations were decreed in the States of the Church by
the ecclesiastical judges and elsewhere by the secular power, but that
in his time (circa 1320) they were everywhere (in Italy) included in the
jurisdiction of the episcopal and inquisitorial courts, and the secular
authorities had nothing to do with them; but he adds that confiscation
is prescribed by law for heresy, and that the inquisitor has no
discretion to remit it, except in the case of voluntary converts with
the assent of the bishop. Yet though the forfeiture occurs _ipso facto_
by the commission of the crime, it requires a declaratory sentence of
confiscation. This consequently was expressed in the most formal manner
in the condemnation of the accused by the Italian Inquisition, and the
secular authorities were told not to interfere unless called upon.[464]
At a very early period in some places the Italian inquisitors seem to
have undertaken not only to decree but to control the confiscations.
About 1245 we find the Florentine inquisitor, Ruggieri Calcagni,
sentencing a Catharan named Diotaiuti, for relapse, with a fine of one
hundred lire. Ruggieri acknowledges the receipt of this, to be applied
to the pope, or to the furtherance of the faith, and formally concedes
the rest of the heretic's estate to his wife Jacoba, thus exercising
ownership over the whole. Yet this was not maintained, for in 1283 there
is a sentence of the Podestà of Florence, reciting that the inquisitor
Frà Salomone da Lucca had notified him that the widow Ruvinosa, lately
deceased, had died a heretic, and that her property was to be
confiscated; whereupon he orders it to be seized and sold, and the
proceeds divided according to the papal constitutions. At length,
however, the inquisitors assumed and exercised full control over the
handling of the confiscations. In the conveyance of a confiscated house
by the municipal authorities of Florence, in 1327, to the Dominicans,
the deed is careful to assert that it is made with the assent of the
inquisitor. Even in Naples we see King Robert, in 1324, ordering the
inquisitors to pay out of the royal share of the confiscations fifty
ounces of gold to the Prior of the Church of San Domenico of Naples, to
aid in its completion.[465]
In Germany the Diet of Worms, in 1231, indicates the confusion existing
in the feudal mind between heresy and treason by allowing the allodial
lands and personal property of the condemned to descend to the heirs,
while fiefs were confiscated to the suzerain. If he was a serf, his
goods inured to his master; but from all personal property was deducted
the cost of burning its owner and the _droits de justice_ of the
seigneur-justicier. Two years later, in 1233, the Council of Mainz
protested against the injustice, which quickly showed itself in Germany
as elsewhere, of assuming guilt as soon as a man was accused, and
treating his property as though he were convicted. It directed that the
estates of those on trial should remain untouched until sentence was
rendered, and any one who meanwhile should plunder or partition them
should be excommunicated until he made restitution and rendered
satisfaction. Finally, however, when the Emperor Charles IV. endeavored
to introduce the Inquisition into Germany, in 1369, he adopted the
Italian custom and ordered one third of the confiscations to be made
over to the inquisitors.[466]
* * * * *
The exact degree of criminality which entailed confiscation is not
capable of very rigid definition. Even in states where the inquisitor
nominally had no control over it, the arbitrary discretion lodged with
him as to the fate of the accused placed the matter practically in his
hands, and his notification to the secular authorities would be a
virtual sentence. It is probable that custom varied with time and with
the temper of the inquisitor. We have seen that Innocent III. commanded
it for all heretics, but what constituted technical heresy was not so
easily determined. The statutes of Raymond decreed it not only for
heretics, but for those who showed them favor. The Council of Béziers,
in 1233, demanded it for all reconciled converts not condemned to wear
crosses, and those of Béziers, in 1246, and Albi, in 1254, prescribed it
for all whom the inquisitors should penance with imprisonment. Still, in
a sentence of February 19, 1237, in which the inquisitors of Toulouse
condemn some twenty or thirty penitents to perpetual imprisonment,
confiscation is only threatened as an additional punishment in case they
do not perform the penance. Imprisonment, however, finally was admitted
by legists as the invariable test; although St. Louis, when in 1259 he
mitigated his Ordonnance of 1229, ordered confiscation not only for
those who were condemned to prison, but for those who contumaciously
refused obedience to citations and those in whose houses heretics were
found, his officials being instructed to ascertain from the inquisitors
in all cases, while pending, whether the accused deserved imprisonment,
and if so, to retain the sequestrated property. When he further
provided, as a special grace, that the heirs should be restored to
possession in cases where the heretic had offered himself for conversion
before citation, had entered a religious order, and had worthily died
there, he shows how universal confiscation had previously been and how
ruthlessly the principle had been enforced that a single act of heresy
forfeited all ownership. In fact, even at the close of the fifteenth
century, the rule was laid down that confiscation was a matter of
course, while restoration of property to a reconciled penitent required
an express declaration.[467]
According to the most lenient construction of the law, therefore, the
imprisonment of a reconciled convert carried with it the confiscation of
his property, and as imprisonment was the ordinary penance, confiscation
was general. There may possibly have been exceptions. The six prisoners
released in 1248 by Innocent IV. had been in jail for some time--some of
them for four years and more after confessing heresy--and yet the
liberal contributions to the Holy Land which purchased their pardon show
that they or their friends must have had control of property--unless,
indeed, the money was raised on a pledge of the estates to be restored.
So when Alaman de Roaix was condemned to imprisonment by Bernard de
Caux, in 1248, the sentence provided for an annuity to be paid to a
person designated, and for compensation to be made for the rapine which
he had committed, which would look as though property were left to him;
but as he had for ten years been a contumacious and proscribed fugitive,
these fines must have been taken out of his estate in the hands of the
State. Apparent exceptions such as these can be accounted for, and the
proceedings of the Inquisition as a whole indicate that imprisonment and
confiscation were inseparable. Sometimes, even, it is stated in
sentences passed upon the dead that they are pronounced worthy of
imprisonment in order to deprive the heirs of succession to the estates.
At a later date, indeed, Eymerich, who dismisses the whole matter
briefly as one with which the inquisitor has no concern, speaks as
though confiscation only took place when a heretic did not repent and
recant before sentence, but his commentator, Pegna, easily proves this
to be an error. Zanghino assumes as a matter of course that property is
forfeited by the act of heresy; and he points out that pecuniary
penances cannot be imposed because the whole estate is gone, although
there may be mercy shown at discretion with the assent of the bishop,
and simple suspicion is not subject to confiscation.[468]
In the early zeal of persecution everything was swept away in wholesale
seizure, but, in 1237, Gregory IX. assumed that the dowers of Catholic
wives ought to be exempt in certain cases, and in 1247 Innocent IV.
erected it into a rule that such dowers should be restored to the wives
and should not be included in future forfeitures, although heresy would
not justify divorce, and, in 1258, St. Louis accepted this rule. It was
subject to serious limitations, however, since under the canon law the
wife could not claim it if she had been cognizant of the husband's
heresy when she married, and, according to some authorities, if she had
lived with him after ascertaining it, or even if she had failed to
inform against him within forty days after discovering it. As the
children were incapable of inheritance, she only held the dower for
life, after which it fell into the fisc.[469]
Although in principle confiscation was an affair of the State, the
division of the spoils did not follow any invariable rule. Before the
organization of the Inquisition, when the Waldenses of Strassburg were
burned, it is mentioned that their forfeited property was equally
divided between the Church and the secular authorities. Lucius III., as
we have just seen, endeavored to turn the forfeitures to the benefit of
the Church. In the papal territory there could be little question as to
this, and Innocent IV., in his bull _Ad extirpanda_ of 1252, showed
disinterestedness in devoting the whole proceeds to the stimulation of
persecution. One third was given to the local authorities, one third to
the officials of the Inquisition, and one third to the bishop and
inquisitor, to be expended in the assault on heresy--provisions which
were retained in the subsequent recensions of the bull by Alexander IV.
and Clement IV., while forfeited bail went exclusively to the
inquisitor. Yet this was speedily held to refer only to the independent
states of Italy, for, in 1260, we find Alexander IV. ordering the
inquisitors of Rome and Spoleto to sell the confiscated estates of
heretics and pay over the proceeds to the pope himself; and a
transaction of 1261 shows Urban IV. collecting three hundred and twenty
lire from some confiscations at Spoleto.[470]
At length, both in the Roman province and elsewhere throughout Italy,
the custom settled down to a tripartite division between the local
community, the Inquisition, and the papal camera, the reason for the
latter, as given by Benedict XI., being that the bishops appropriated to
themselves the share intrusted to them for the persecution of heresy. In
Florence a transaction of 1283 shows this to be the received regulation;
and documents of various dates during the next half-century indicate
that it was the custom of the republic to appoint attorneys or trustees
to take seisin of confiscated property in the name of the city, which in
1319 liberally granted its share for the next ten years to the
construction of the church of Santa Reparata. That the amounts were not
small may be guessed from a petition of the inquisitors to the republic
in 1299, setting forth that the Holy Office must have funds wherewith
to pay its stipendiary officials, and therefore praying leave to invest
in real estate the sums accruing to the Inquisition from this
source--showing accumulations prudently garnered for the future. The
request was granted to the extent of one thousand lire, with the proviso
that none of the city's share be taken. This latter precaution would
seem to argue no great confidence in the integrity of the inquisitors,
nor was the insinuation uncalled for. By this time the money-changers
had fairly occupied the Temple, and, as we have seen in the last
chapter, it seemed almost impossible to preserve official honesty when
persecution had become almost as much a financial speculation as a
matter of faith. That plain-spoken Franciscan, Alvaro Pelayo, Bishop of
Silva, writing about the year 1335, bitterly reproaches those of his
brethren who act as inquisitors with their abuse of the funds accruing
to the Holy Office. The papal division into thirds he declares was
generally disregarded; the inquisitors monopolized the whole and spent
it on themselves or enriched their kindred at their pleasure. Chance has
preserved in the Florentine archives some documents confirmatory of this
accusation. It seems that in 1343 Clement VI. obtained evidence that the
inquisitors of both Florence and Lucca were habitually defrauding the
papal camera of its third of the fines and confiscations, and
accordingly he sent to Pietro di Vitale, Primicerio of Lucca, authority
to collect the sums in arrears and to prosecute the embezzlers. How it
fared with them we have no means of knowing, but the camera seems not to
have gained much. In filling the vacancies thus occasioned Pietro di
Aquila, a Franciscan of high standing, was appointed in Florence, who
fell at once into the same evil ways, and within two years was obliged
to fly from a prosecution by the primicerio, in addition to the charges
of extortion brought against him by the republic.[471]
In Naples, under the Angevines, when the Inquisition was first
introduced, Charles of Anjou monopolized the confiscations with the same
rapacity that was customary in France. As early as March, 1270, we find
him writing to his representatives in the Principato Ultra that three
heretics had recently been burned at Benevento, whose estates he orders
looked after and accounted for in detail. In 1290, however, Charles II.
ordered the fines and confiscations to be divided into thirds, of which
one should inure to the royal fisc, one be used for the promotion of the
faith, and one be given to the Inquisition. Feudal lands, however, were
to revert to the crown or to the immediate lord as the case might
require.[472]
In Venice the compromise reached in 1289 between the signiory and
Nicholas IV., whereby the republic permitted the introduction of the
Inquisition, provided that all receipts of the Holy Office should be for
the benefit of the State, and this arrangement seems to have been
maintained. In Piedmont the confiscations were divided between the State
and the Inquisition until, in the latter half of the fifteenth century,
Amedeo IX. took the whole, allowing to the Holy Office only the expenses
of the proceedings.[473]
In the other Italian states the papal curia grew dissatisfied with its
share, when there was no longer a necessity of purchasing the
co-operation of the civil power with a third of the spoils. It is a
disputed point with the jurists when and how the change was effected,
but in the first quarter of the fourteenth century the Church succeeded
in grasping the whole of the confiscations, which were divided equally
between the Inquisition and the papal camera. The rapacity with which
this source of income was exploited is illustrated in a case occurring
at Pisa in 1304. The inquisitor Angelo da Reggio had condemned the
memory of a deceased citizen, Loterio Bonamici, and confiscated his
property, part of which he then gave away and part he sold at prices
which the papal curia esteemed too low. Benedict XI. thereupon ordered
the Bishop of Ostia not to punish the inquisitor, but to use freely the
censures of the Church in hunting up the assets in the hands of the
holders and to take it from them. Finally, in 1438, Eugenius IV.
generously handed back to the bishops the share of the papal camera in
order to stimulate their slackness in persecution, and, where the bishop
was also the temporal lord of his see, the confiscations were to be
equally divided between him and the Inquisition. Bernardo di Como,
however, writing about the year 1500, asserts that the whole
confiscations inure to the inquisitor to be expended at his discretion;
but he subsequently admits that the subject is confused and uncertain,
owing to contradictory papal decisions and conflicting jurisdictions in
different territories.[474]
In Spain the rule was laid down that if the heretic were a clerk, or a
lay vassal of the Church, the confiscation went to the Church; if
otherwise, to the temporal seigneur.[475]
* * * * *
This greed for the plunder of the wretched victims of persecution is
peculiarly repulsive as exhibited by the Church, and may to some extent
palliate the similar action by the State in countries where the latter
was strong enough to seize and retain it. The threats of coercion, which
at first were necessary to induce the temporal princes to confiscate the
property of their heretical subjects, soon became superfluous, and
history has few displays of man's eagerness to profit by his fellow's
misfortunes more deplorable than that of the vultures which followed in
the wake of the Inquisition to batten on the ruin which it wrought.
In Languedoc at first the Inquisition endeavored to control the
confiscations for the purpose of building prisons and maintaining
prisoners, but these pretensions received no attention. Under the feudal
system, the confiscations were for the benefit of the seigneur
haut-justicier. The rapid extension of the royal jurisdiction, in the
second half of the thirteenth century in France, ended by practically
placing them in the hands of the king, but during the earlier and more
profitable period there were quarrels over the spoils. After the treaty
of Paris, in 1229, St. Louis, in granting fiefs in the newly-acquired
territories, seems to have endeavored to provide for these questions by
reserving the confiscations for heresy. The prudence of this is shown
by the suit brought by the Maréchaux de Mirepoix--one of the few
families founded by the adventurers who accompanied de Montfort--who
claimed the movables of all heretics captured in their lands, even if
the goods were in the lands of the king--a demand which was rejected by
the Parlement of Paris, in 1269. The bishops put in a claim to the
confiscations of all real and personal property of heretics living under
their jurisdiction, and at the Council of Lille (Comtat Venaissin) in
1251, they threatened with excommunication any one who should dispute
it. The groundlessness of this claim is seen in an agreement made under
the auspices of the Legate Romano in December, 1229, between the Bishop
of Béziers and the king, in which the royal right to the confiscations
is recognized as incontestable, and the bishop only stipulates that in
case of fiefs they shall, if granted, be held subject to his seignorial
rights, or if the king retains them some compensation shall be made for
the loss of the suzerainty. This indicates a source of reasonable
complaint, for, in the annexation of fiefs to the crown, the bishops
found themselves losing in place of profiting by persecution. Various
efforts were made to adjust these conflicting claims over the spoil. By
a transaction of 1234 we see that the king had subjected himself to the
stipulation of parting with all confiscated property within a year and a
day. The Council of Béziers, in 1246, adopted a canon on the subject,
but it could not be enforced, and at length, about 1255, St. Louis
agreed upon a compromise, whereby all confiscated lands subject to the
bishops were equally divided, with a right on the part of the prelates
to buy out, within two months, the royal share at a price fixed by
arbitration; if this right was not exercised the king was bound, within
a year and a day, to pass the lands out of his hands into those of a
person of the same condition as the former owner, to be held under the
same terms of service or villeinage; but all movables were declared to
belong unreservedly to the crown. Under this arrangement the
temporalities of the sees grew rapidly. We have seen the apostolic
poverty which afflicted the bishops of Toulouse prior to the crusades:
during the succeeding century the whole land was impoverished and the
cities suffered especially, yet when, in 1317, John XXII. carved six new
bishoprics out of the see of Toulouse, his reason was found in the
excessive revenues of the bishop, amounting to forty thousand livres
Tournois per annum, although it had already been shorn of nearly half
of its territory by Boniface VIII. to form the see of Pamiers.[476]
The bishops of Albi were especially active and fortunate in this
saturnalia of plunder. During the confusion of the wars and the
settlement they assumed rights, including _haute justice_ and the
confiscations, which led to contests with the representatives of the
crown, lasting for thirty years. They were specially active in the
pursuit of heretics, which they thus found profitable as well as
praiseworthy. In 1247 Bishop Bertrand procured from Innocent IV. a
special deputation of inquisitorial power, probably to strengthen his
claims, and the next year he drove a thriving business in selling
commutations for confiscation to condemned and repentant heretics--an
expedient more lucrative than regular, for when Alphonse of Poitiers, in
1253, endeavored to speculate in the confiscations in the same way, he
was compelled to desist by the Archbishop of Narbonne and the Bishop of
Toulouse, who declared that it would lead to the scandal of the faithful
and the destruction of religion. Finally, to settle the claims of the
bishop on the confiscations, St. Louis, in December, 1264, made with
Bernard de Combret, the incumbent of the see, a convention, promptly
confirmed by Urban IV., by which the prelate was entitled to one half of
all confiscations of realty and personalty within the diocese, with the
further advantage that the king's share of the real estate passed into
possession of the bishop if it was not sold within a twelvemonth, and
became his absolute property if not sold within three years.
Accordingly in the accounts of the royal _procureurs des encours_ of
Carcassonne we constantly find the confiscations in Albi shared with the
bishop. Although between St. John's day 1322 and 1323 this share in
money amounted only to one hundred and sixty livres, there were times
when it was much greater. About the year 1300 Bishop Bernard de Castanet
generously gave to the Dominican Church of Albi his portion of the
estates of two citizens, Guillem Aymeric and Jean de Castanet, condemned
after death, which amounted to more than one thousand livres. It can
readily be imagined that this arrangement with the crown gave rise to
constant quarrels. In vain Philippe le Bel, in 1307, ordered the
observance of the agreement with restitution for any infractions. In
1316 we find the bishop claiming properties which had not been sold
within the three years, and Arnaud Assalit, the _procureur_, arguing
that he had been prevented from effecting sales by just and legitimate
causes, when the seneschal, Aymeric de Croso, decided that the
impediments had been legitimate, and that the rights of the king were
not forfeited.[477]
These were not the only questions arising from this wholesale spoliation
which afforded an ample harvest to the legal profession. A suit brought
by the bishops of Rodez for some lands held by the crown as heretic
confiscations dragged on for thirty years until it reached the Parlement
of Paris, which coolly annulled all the proceedings on the ground that
those who had acted for the crown had lacked the requisite authority.
Almost equally protracted and confused was a suit between Eleanor de
Montfort, Countess of Vendôme, and the king over the lands of Jean
Baudier and Raymond Calverie. The confiscations occurred in 1300; in
1327 the suit was still pursuing its weary way, to be finally
compromised in 1335.[478]
All prelates were not as rapacious as those of Albi, one of whom we find
still, in 1328, complaining of the evasions resorted to by the victims
to save a fragment of their property for their families; but the
princes and their representatives were relentless in grasping all that
they could lay their hands on. I have mentioned that as soon as a
suspect was cited before the Inquisition his property was sequestrated
to await the result, and proclamation was made to all his debtors and
those who held his effects to bring everything to the king. Charles of
Anjou carried this practice to Naples, where a royal order, in 1269, to
arrest sixty-nine heretics contains instructions to seize simultaneously
their goods, which are to be held for the king. So assured were the
officials that condemnation would follow trial that they frequently did
not await the result, but carried out the confiscation in advance. This
abuse was coeval with the founding of the Inquisition. In 1237 Gregory
IX. complained of it and forbade it, but to little purpose, for in 1246
the Council of Béziers again prohibited it, unless, indeed, the offender
had knowingly adhered to those who were known to be heretics, in which
case, apparently, it was sanctioned. When, in 1259, St. Louis mitigated
the rigors of confiscation, he indirectly forbade this wrong by
instructing his officials that, when the accused was not condemned to
imprisonment, they should give him or his heirs a hearing to reclaim the
property; but, if there was any suspicion of heresy, it was not to be
restored without taking security that it should be surrendered if
anything was proved within five years, during which period it was not to
be alienated. Yet still the outrage of confiscation before conviction
continued with sufficient frequency to induce Boniface VIII. to embody
its prohibition in the canon law. Even this did not put a stop to it.
The Inquisition had so habituated men's minds to the belief that no one
escaped who had once fallen into its hands, that the officials
considered themselves safe in acting upon the presumption. By an unusual
coincidence we have the data from various sources in a single case of
this kind which is doubtless the type of many others. In the
prosecutions at Albi in 1300, a certain Jean Baudier was first examined
January 20, when he acknowledged nothing. At a second hearing, February
5, he confessed to acts of heresy, and he was condemned March 7. Yet his
confiscated property was sold January 29, not only before his sentence,
but before his confession. Guillem Garric, charged with complicity in
the plot to destroy the inquisitorial records of Carcassonne in 1284,
was not sentenced until 1319, but in 1301 we find the Count of Foix and
the royal officials quarrelling over his confiscated castle of
Monteirat.[479]
The ferocious rapacity with which this process of confiscation was
carried on may be conceived from a report made by Jean d'Arsis,
Seneschal of Rouergue, to Alphonse of Poitiers, about 1253, as an
evidence of the zeal with which he was guarding the interests of his
suzerain. The Bishop of Rodez was conducting a vigorous episcopal
inquisition, and at Najac had handed over a certain Hugues Paraire as a
heretic, whom the seneschal burned "incontinently" and collected over
one thousand livres Tournois from his estate. Hearing, subsequently,
that the bishop had cited before him at Rodez six other citizens of
Najac, d'Arsis hastened thither to see that no fraud was practised on
the count. The bishop told him that these men were all heretics, and
that he would make the count gain one hundred thousand sols from their
confiscations, but both he and his assessors begged the seneschal to
forego a portion to the culprits or their children, which that loyal
servitor bluntly refused. Then the bishop, following evil counsel, and
in fraud of the rights of the count, endeavored to elude the forfeiture
by condemning the heretics to some lighter penance. The seneschal,
however, knew his master's rights and seized the property, after which
he allowed some pittance to the penitents and their children, reporting
that in addition to this he was in possession of about one thousand
livres; and he winds up by advising the count, if he wishes not to be
defrauded, to appoint some one to watch and supervise the further
inquisitions of the bishop. On the other hand the bishops complained
that the officials of Alphonse permitted heretics, for a pecuniary
consideration, to retain a part or the whole of their confiscated
property, or else condemned to the flames those who did not deserve it
in order to seize their estates. These frightful abuses grew so
unbearable that, in 1254, the officials of Alphonse, including Gui
Foucoix, endeavored to reform them by issuing general regulations on the
subject, but the matter was one which in its inherent nature scarce
admitted of reform. Yet Alphonse, with all his greed, was not unwilling
to share the plunder with those who secured it for him, and several of
his not wholly disinterested liberalities of this kind are on record. In
1268 we have a letter of his assigning to the Inquisition a revenue of
one hundred livres per annum on the confiscated estate of a heretic; and
in 1270 another, confirming the foundation of a chapel from a similar
source.[480]
Nothing could exceed the minute thoroughness with which every fragment
of a confiscated estate was followed up and seized. The account of the
collections of confiscated property from 1302 to 1313 by the _procureurs
des encours_ of Carcassone is extant in MS., and shows how carefully the
debts due to the condemned were looked after, even to a few pence for a
measure of corn. In the case of one wealthy prisoner, Guillem de
Fenasse, the estate was not wound up for eight or ten years, and the
whole number of debts collected foots up to eight hundred and
fifty-nine, in amounts ranging from five deniers upward. As the
collectors never credit themselves with amounts paid in discharge of
debts due by these estates, it is evident that the rule that a heretic
could give no valid obligations was strictly construed and that
creditors were shamelessly cheated. In this seizure of debts the nobles
asserted a right to claim any sums due by debtors who were their
vassals, but Philippe de Valois, in 1329, decided that when the debts
were payable at the domicile of the heretic they inured to the royal
fisc, irrespective of the allegiance of the debtor. Another illustration
of the remorseless greed which seized everything is found in a suit
decided by the Parlement of Paris in 1302. On the death of the Chevalier
Guillem Prunèle and his wife Isabelle, the guardianship of their orphans
would legally vest in the next of kin, the Chevalier Bernard de
Montesquieu, but he had been burned some years before for heresy, and
his estate, of course, confiscated. The Seneschal of Carcassonne
insisted that the guardianship which thus subsequently fell in formed
part of the assets of the estate, and he accordingly assumed it, but a
nephew, an Esquire Bernard de Montesquieu, contested the matter and
finally obtained a decision in his favor.[481]
Equal care was exercised in recovering alienated property. As, in
obedience to the Roman law of _majestas_, forfeiture occurred _ipso
facto_ as soon as the crime of heresy was committed, the heretic could
convey no legal title, and any assignments which he might have made were
void, no matter through how many hands the property might have passed.
The holder was forced to surrender it, nor could he demand restitution
of what he had paid, unless the money or other consideration were found
among the goods of the heretic. The eagerness with which, in such cases,
the rigor of the law was enforced may be estimated from one occurring in
1272. Charles of Anjou had written from Naples to his viguier and
sous-viguier at Marseilles telling them that a certain Maria Roberta,
before condemnation to prison for heresy, had sold a house which was
subject to confiscation; this he ordered them to seize, to sell by
auction, and to report the proceeds; but they neglected to do so. The
viguiers were changed, and now the unforgetful Charles writes to the new
officials, repeating his orders and holding them personally responsible
for obedience. At the same time he writes to his seneschal with
instructions to look after the matter, as it lies very near to his
heart.[482]
The cruelty of the process of confiscation was enhanced by the pitiless
methods employed. As soon as a man was arrested for suspicion of heresy
his property was sequestrated and seized by the officials, to be
returned to him in the rare cases in which his guilt might be declared
not proven. This rule was enforced in the most rigorous manner, every
article of his household gear and provisions being inventoried, as well
as his real estate.[483] Thus, whether innocent or guilty, his family
were turned out-of-doors to starve or to depend upon the precarious
charity of others--a charity chilled by the fact that any manifestation
of sympathy was dangerous. It would be difficult to estimate the amount
of human misery arising from this source alone.
In this chaos of plunder we may readily imagine that those who were
engaged in such work were not over-nice as to securing a share of the
spoliations. In 1304 Jacques de Polignac, who had been for twenty years
keeper of the inquisitorial jail at Carcassonne, and several of the
officials employed on the confiscations, were found to have converted
and detained a large amount of valuable property, including a castle,
several farms and other lands, vineyards, orchards, and movables, all of
which they were compelled to disgorge and to suffer punishment at the
king's pleasure.[484]
It is pleasant to turn from this cruel greed to a case which excited
much interest in Flanders at a time when in that region the Inquisition
had become so nearly dormant that the usages of confiscation were almost
forgotten. The Bishop of Tournay and the Vicar of the Inquisition
condemned at Lille a number of heretics, who were duly burned. They
confiscated the property, claiming the movables for the Church and the
inquisitor, and the realty for the fisc. The magistrates of Lille boldly
interposed, declaring that among the liberties of their town was the
privilege that no burgher could forfeit both body and goods; and, acting
for the children of one of the victims, they took out _apostoli_ and
appealed to the pope. The counsellors of the suzerain, Philippe le Bon
of Burgundy, with a clearer perception of the law, claimed that the
whole confiscations inured to him, while the ecclesiastics declared the
rule to be invariable that the personalty went to the Church and only
the real estate to the fisc. The triangular quarrel threatened long and
costly litigation, and finally all parties agreed to leave the decision
to the duke himself. With rare wisdom, in 1430, he settled the matter,
with general consent, by deciding that the sentence of confiscation
should be treated as not rendered, and the property be left to the
heirs, at the same time expressly declaring that the rights of Church,
Inquisition, city, and state, were reserved without prejudice, in any
case that might arise in future, which was, he said, not likely to
occur. He did not manifest the same disinterestedness in 1460, however,
in the terrible persecution of the sorcerers of Arras, when the
movables were confiscated to the episcopal treasury, and he seized the
landed property in spite of the privileges alleged by the city.[485]
* * * * *
In addition to the misery inflicted by these wholesale confiscations on
the thousands of innocent and helpless women and children thus stripped
of everything, it would be almost impossible to exaggerate the evil
which they entailed upon all classes in the business of daily life. All
safeguards were withdrawn from every transaction. No creditor or
purchaser could be sure of the orthodoxy of him with whom he was
dealing; and, even more than the principle that ownership was forfeited
as soon as heresy had been committed by the living, the practice of
proceeding against the memory of the dead after an interval virtually
unlimited, rendered it impossible for any man to feel secure in the
possession of property, whether it had descended in his family for
generations, or had been acquired within an ordinary lifetime.
The prescription of time against the Church had to be at least forty
years--against the Roman Church, a hundred, and this prescription ran,
not from the commission of the crime, but from its detection. Though
some legists held that proceedings against the deceased had to be
commenced within five years after death, others asserted that there was
no limit, and the practice of the Inquisition shows that the latter
opinion was followed. The prescription of forty years' possession by
good Catholics was further limited by the conditions that they must at
no time have had a knowledge that the former owner was a heretic, and,
moreover, he must have died with an unsullied reputation for
orthodoxy--both points which might cast a grave doubt on titles.[486]
Prosecution of the dead, as we have seen, was a mockery in which
virtually defence was impossible and confiscation inevitable. How
unexpectedly the blow might fall is seen in the case of Gherardo of
Florence. He was rich and powerful, a member of one of the noblest and
oldest houses, and was consul of the city in 1218. Secretly a heretic,
he was hereticated on his death-bed between 1246 and 1250, but the
matter lay dormant until 1313, when Frà Grimaldo, the Inquisitor of
Florence, brought a successful prosecution against his memory. In the
condemnation were included his children Ugolino, Cante, Nerlo, and
Bertuccio, and his grandchildren, Goccia, Coppo, Frà Giovanni, Gherardo,
prior of S. Quirico, Goccino, Baldino, and Marco--not that they were
heretics, but that they were disinherited and subjected to the
disabilities of descendants of heretics. When such proceedings were
hailed as pre-eminent exhibitions of holy zeal, no man could feel secure
in his possessions, whether derived from descent or purchase.[487]
An instance of a different character, but equally illustrative, is
furnished by the case of Géraud de Puy-Germer. His father had been
condemned for heresy in the times of Raymond VII. of Toulouse, who
generously restored the confiscated estates. Yet, twenty years after the
death of the count, in 1268, the zealous agents of Alphonse seized them
as still liable to forfeiture. Géraud thereupon appealed to Alphonse,
who ordered an investigation, but with what result does not appear.[488]
Not only were all alienations made by heretics set aside and the
property wrested from the purchasers, but all debts contracted by them,
and all hypothecations and liens given to secure loans, were void. Thus
doubt was cast upon every obligation that a man could enter into. Even
when St. Louis softened the rigor of confiscation in Languedoc, the
utmost concession he would make was that creditors should be paid for
debts contracted by culprits before they became heretics, while all
claims arising subsequently to an act of heresy were rejected. As no man
could be certain of the orthodoxy of another, it will be evident how
much distrust must have been thrown upon every bargain and every sale in
the commonest transactions of life. The blighting influence of this upon
the development of commerce and industry can readily be perceived,
coming as it did at a time when the commercial and industrial movement
of Europe was beginning to usher in the dawn of modern culture. It was
not merely the spiritual striving of the thirteenth century that was
repressed by the Inquisition; the progress of material improvement was
seriously retarded. It was this, among other incidents of persecution,
which arrested the promising civilization of the south of France and
transferred to England and the Netherlands, where the Inquisition was
comparatively unknown, the predominance in commerce and industry which
brought freedom and wealth and power and progress in its train.[489]
The quick-witted Italian commonwealths, then rising into mercantile
importance, were keen to recognize the disabilities thus inflicted upon
them. In Florence a remedy was sought by requiring the seller of real
estate always to give security against possible future sentences of
confiscation by the Inquisition--the security in general being that of a
third party, although there must have been no little difficulty in
obtaining it, and though it might likewise be invalidated at any moment
by the same cause. Even in contracts for personalty, security was also
often demanded and given. This was, at least, only replacing one evil by
another of scarcely less magnitude, and the trouble grew so intolerable
that a remedy was sought for one of its worst features. The republic
solemnly represented to Martin IV. the scandals which had occurred and
the yet greater ones threatened, in consequence of the confiscation of
the real estate of heretics in the hands of _bona fide_ purchasers, and
by a special bull of Nov. 22, 1283, the pontiff graciously ordered the
Florentine inquisitors in future not to seize such property.[490]
* * * * *
The princes who enjoyed the results of confiscations recognized that
they carried with them the correlative duty of defraying the expenses of
the Inquisition; indeed, self-interest alone would have prompted them to
maintain in a state of the highest efficiency an instrumentality so
profitable. Theoretically, it could not be denied that the bishops were
liable for these expenses, and at first the inquisitors of Languedoc
sought to obtain funds from them, suggesting that at least pecuniary
penances inflicted for pious uses should be devoted to paying their
notaries and clerks. This was fruitless, for, as Gui Foucoix (Clement
IV.) remarks, their hands were tenacious and their purses constipated,
and as it was useless to look to them for resources, he advises that the
pecuniary penances be used for the purpose, providing it be done
decently and without scandalizing the people. Throughout central and
northern Italy, as we have seen, the fines and confiscations rendered
the Inquisition fully self-supporting, and the inquisitors were eager to
make business out of which they could reap a pecuniary harvest. In
Venice the State defrayed all expenses and took all profits. In Naples
the same policy was at first pursued by the Angevine monarchs, who took
the confiscations and, in addition to maintaining prisoners, paid to
each inquisitor one augustale (one quarter ounce of gold) per diem for
the expenses of himself and his associate, his notary, and three
familiars, with their horses. These stipends were assigned upon the
Naples customs on iron, pitch, and salt; the orders for their payment
ran usually for six months at a time and had to be renewed; there was
considerable delay in the settlements, and the inquisitors had
substantial cause of complaint, although the officials were threatened
with fines for lack of promptness. In 1272, however, I find a letter
issued to the inquisitor, Frà Matteo di Castellamare, providing him with
a year's salary, payable six months in advance. When, as mentioned
above, Charles II., in 1290, divided the proceeds according to the papal
prescription, he liberally continued to contribute to the expenses,
though on a somewhat reduced scale. In letters of May 16, 1294, he
orders the payment to Frà Bartolomeo di Aquila of four tareni per diem
(the tareno was one thirtieth of an ounce of gold), and July 7 of the
same year he provides that five ounces per month be paid to him for the
expenses of his official family.[491]
In France there was at first some question as to the responsibility for
the charges attendant upon persecution. The duty of the bishops to
suppress heresy was so plain that they could not refuse to meet the
expenses, at least in part. Before the establishment of the Inquisition
this consisted almost wholly in the maintenance of imprisoned converts,
and at the Council of Toulouse they agreed to defray this in the case of
those who had no money, while those who had property to be confiscated
they claimed should be supported by the princes who obtained it. This
proposition, like the subsequent one of the Council of Albi, in 1254,
was altogether too cumbrous to work. The statutes of Raymond, in 1234,
while dwelling elaborately on the subject of confiscation, made no
provision for meeting the cost of the new Inquisition, and the matter
remained unsettled. In 1237 we find Gregory IX. complaining that the
royal officials contributed nothing for the support of the prisoners
whose property they had confiscated. When, in 1246, the Council of
Béziers was assembled, the Cardinal Legate of Albano reminded the
bishops that it was their business to provide for it, according to the
instructions of the Council of Montpellier, whose proceedings have not
reached us. The good bishops were not disposed to do this. As we have
seen, they claimed that prisons should be built at the expense of the
recipients of the confiscations, and suggested that the fines should be
used for their maintenance and for that of the inquisitors. The piety of
St. Louis, however, would not see the good work halt for lack of the
necessary means; with a more worldly prince we might assume that he
recognized the money spent on inquisitors as profitably invested. In
1248 we find him defraying their expenses in all the domains of the
crown, and we have shown above how he assumed the cost of prisons and
prisoners; in addition to which, in 1246, he ordered his Seneschal of
Carcassonne to pay out of the confiscations ten sols per diem to the
inquisitors for their expenses. It may fairly be presumed that Count
Raymond contributed with a grudging hand to the support of an
institution which he had opposed so long as he dared; but when he was
succeeded, in 1249, by Jeanne and Alphonse of Poitiers, the latter
politic and avaricious prince saw his account in stimulating the zeal of
those to whom he owed his harvest of confiscations. Not only did he
defray the cost of the fixed tribunals, but his seneschals had orders to
pay the expenses of the inquisitors and their familiars in their
movements throughout his territories. He paid close attention to detail.
In 1268 we find Guillem de Montreuil, Inquisitor of Toulouse, reporting
to him the engagement of a notary at six deniers per diem and of a
servitor at four, and Alphonse graciously ordering the payment of their
wages. Charles of Anjou, who was equally greedy, found time amid his
Italian distractions to see that his Seneschal of Provence and
Forcalquier kept the Inquisition supplied on the same basis as did the
king in the royal dominions.[492]
Large as were the returns to the fisc from the industry of the
Inquisition, the inquisitors were sometimes disposed to presume upon
their usefulness, and to spend money with a freedom which seemed
unnecessary to those who paid the bills. Even in the fresh zeal of 1242
and 1244, before the princes had made provision for the Holy Office, and
while the bishops were yet zealously maintaining their claims to the
fines, the luxury and extravagance of the inquisitors called down upon
them the reproof of their own Order as expressed in the Dominican
provincial chapters of Montpellier and Avignon. It would be, of course,
unjust to cast such reproach upon all inquisitors, but no doubt many
deserved it, and we have seen that there were numerous ways in which
they could supply their wants, legitimate or otherwise. It might,
indeed, be a curious question to determine the source whence Bernard de
Caux, who presided over the tribunal of Toulouse until his death, in
1252, and who, as a Dominican, could have owned no property, obtained
the means which enabled him to be a great benefactor to the convent of
Agen, founded in 1249. Even Alphonse of Poitiers sometimes grew tired of
ministering to the wishes of those who served him so well. In a
confidential letter of 1268 he complains of the vast expenditures of
Pons de Poyet and Étienne de Gâtine, the inquisitors of Toulouse, and
instructs his agent to try to persuade them to remove to Lavaur, where
less extravagance might be hoped for. He offered to put at their
disposal the castle of Lavaur, or any other that might be fit to serve
as a prison; and at the same time he craftily wrote to them direct,
explaining that, in order to enable them to extend their operations, he
would place an enormous castle in their hands.[493]
Some very curious details as to the expenses of the Inquisition, thus
defrayed from the confiscations, from St. John's day, 1322, to 1323, are
afforded by the accounts of Arnaud Assalit, _procureur des encours_ of
Carcassonne and Béziers, which have fortunately been preserved. From the
sums thus coming into his hands the _procureur_ met the outlays of the
Inquisition to the minutest item--the cost of maintaining prisoners, the
hunting up of witnesses, the tracking of fugitives, and the charges for
an _auto de fé_, including the banquets for the assembly of experts and
the saffron-colored cloth for the crosses of the penitents. We learn
from this that the wages of the inquisitor himself were one hundred and
fifty livres per annum, and also that they were very irregularly paid.
Frère Otbert had been appointed in Lent, 1316, and thus far had received
nothing of his stipend, but now, in consequence of a special letter from
King Charles le Bel, the whole accumulation for six years, amounting to
nine hundred livres, is paid in a lump. Although by this time
persecution was slackening for lack of material, the confiscations were
still quite profitable. Assalit charges himself with two thousand two
hundred and nineteen livres seven sols ten deniers collected during the
year, while his outlays, including heavy legal expenses and the
extraordinary payment to Frère Otbert, amounted to one thousand one
hundred and sixty-eight livres eleven sols four deniers, leaving about
one thousand and fifty livres of profit to the crown.[494]
Persecution, as a steady and continuous policy, rested, after all, upon
confiscation. It was this which supplied the fuel to keep up the fires
of zeal, and when it was lacking the business of defending the faith
languished lamentably. When Catharism disappeared under the brilliant
aggressiveness of Bernard Gui, the culminating point of the Inquisition
was passed, and thenceforth it steadily declined, although still there
were occasional confiscated estates over which king, prelate, and noble
quarrelled for some years to come. The Spirituals, Dulcinists, and
Fraticelli were Mendicants, who held property to be an abomination; the
Waldenses were poor folk--mountain shepherds and lowland peasants--and
the only prizes were an occasional sorcerer or usurer. Still, as late as
1337 the office of bailli of the confiscations for heresy in Toulouse
was sufficiently lucrative to be worth purchasing under the prevailing
custom of selling all such positions, and the collections for the
preceding fiscal year amounted to six hundred and forty livres six
sols.[495]
The intimate connection between the activity of persecuting zeal and the
material results to be derived from it is well illustrated in the
failure of the first attempt to extend the Inquisition into Franche
Comté. John, Count of Burgundy, in 1248, represented to Innocent IV. the
alarming spread of Waldensianism throughout the province of Besançon and
begged for its repression. Apparently the zeal of Count John did not
lead him to pay for the purgation of his dominions, and the plunder to
be gained was inconsiderable, for, in 1255, Alexander IV. granted the
petition of the friars to be relieved from the duty, in which they
averred that they had exhausted themselves fruitlessly for lack of
money. The same lesson is taught by the want of success which attended
all attempts to establish the Inquisition in Portugal. When, in 1376,
Gregory XI. ordered the Bishop of Lisbon to appoint a Franciscan
inquisitor for the kingdom, recognizing apparently that there would be
small receipts from confiscations, he provided that the incumbent should
be paid a salary of two hundred gold florins per annum, assessed upon
the various sees in the proportion of their forced contributions to the
papal camera. The resistance of inertia, which rendered this command
resultless, doubtless arose from the objection of the prelates to being
thus taxed; and the same may be said of the effort of Boniface IX., when
he appointed Fray Vicente de Lisboa as Inquisitor of Spain and ordered
his expenses defrayed by the bishops.[496]
Perhaps the most unscrupulous attempt to provide for the maintenance of
the Inquisition was that made by the Emperor Charles IV. when, in 1369,
he endeavored to establish it in Germany on a permanent basis. Heretics
were neither numerous nor rich, and little could be gained from their
confiscations to sustain the zeal of Kerlinger and his brethren; and we
shall see hereafter how the houses of the orthodox and inoffensive
Beghards and Beguines were summarily confiscated in order to provide
domiciles and prisons for the inquisitors, while the cities were invited
to share in the spoils in order to enlist popular support for the odious
measure; we shall see also how it failed in consequence of the steady
repugnance of prelates and people for the Holy Office.[497]
Eymerich, writing in Aragon, about 1375, says that the source whence
the expenses of the Inquisition should be met is a question which has
been long debated and never settled. The most popular view among
churchmen was that the burden should fall on the temporal princes, since
they obtained the confiscations and should accept the charge with the
benefit; but in these times, he sorrowfully adds, there are few
obstinate heretics, fewer still relapsed, and scarce any rich ones, so
that, as there is little to be gained, the princes are not willing to
defray the expenses. Some other means ought to be found, but of all the
devices which have been proposed each has its insuperable objection; and
he concludes by regretting that an institution so wholesome and so
necessary to Christendom should be so badly provided.[498]
It was probably while Eymerich was saddened with these unpalatable
truths that the question was raising itself in the most practical shape
elsewhere. As late as 1337 in the accounts of the Sénéchaussée of
Toulouse there are expenditures for an _auto de fé_ and for repairs to
the buildings and prison of the Inquisition, the salaries of the
inquisitor and his officials, and the maintenance of prisoners, but the
confusion and bankruptcy entailed by the English war doubtless soon
afterwards caused this duty to be neglected. In 1375 Gregory XI.
persuaded King Frederic of Sicily to allow the confiscations to inure to
the benefit of the Inquisition, so that funds might not be lacking for
the prosecution of the good work. At the same time he made a vigorous
effort to exterminate the Waldenses who were multiplying in Dauphiné.
There were prisons to be built and crowds of prisoners to be supported,
and he directed that the expenses should be defrayed by the prelates
whose negligence had given opportunity for the growth of heresy.
Although he ordered this to be enforced by excommunication, it would
seem that the constipated purses of the bishops could not be relaxed,
for soon after we find the inquisitor laying claim to a share in the
confiscations, on the reasonable ground of his having no other source
whence to defray the necessary expenses of his tribunal. The royal
officials insisted on keeping the whole, and a lively contest arose,
which was referred to King Charles le Sage. The monarch dutifully
conferred with the Holy See, and, in 1378, issued an _Ordonnance_
retaining the whole of the confiscations and assigning to the
inquisitor a yearly stipend--the same as that paid to the tribunals of
Toulouse and Carcassonne--of one hundred and ninety livres Tournois, out
of which all the expenses of the Inquisition were to be met; with a
proviso that if the allowance was not regularly paid then the inquisitor
should be at liberty to detain a portion of the forfeitures. No doubt
this agreement was observed for a time, but it lapsed in the terrible
disorders which ensued on the insanity of Charles VI. In 1409 Alexander
V. left to his legate to decide whether the Inquisitor of Dauphiné
should receive three hundred gold florins a year, to be levied on the
Jews of Avignon, or ten florins a year from each of the bishops of his
extensive district, or whether the bishops should be compelled to
support him and his officials in his journeys through the country. These
precarious resources disappeared in the confusion of the civil wars and
invasion which so nearly wrecked the monarchy. In 1432, when Frère
Pierre Fabri, Inquisitor of Embrun, was summoned to attend the Council
of Basle, he excused himself on account of his preoccupation with the
stubborn Waldenses, and also on the ground of his indescribable poverty,
"for never have I had a penny from the Church of God, nor have I a
stipend from any other source."[499]
* * * * *
Of course it would be unjust to say that greed and thirst for plunder
were the impelling motives of the Inquisition, though, when complaints
were made that the fisc was defrauded of its dues by the immunity
promised to those who would come in and confess during the time of
grace, and when Bernard Gui met this objection by pointing out that
these penitents were obliged to betray their associates, and thus, in
the long run, the fisc was the gainer, we see how largely the minds of
those who urged on persecution were occupied by its profits.[500] We
therefore are perfectly safe in asserting that but for the gains to be
made out of fines and confiscations its work would have been much less
thorough, and that it would have sunk into comparative insignificance
as soon as the first frantic zeal of bigotry had exhausted itself. This
zeal might have lasted for a generation, to be followed by a period of
comparative inaction, until a fresh onslaught would have been excited by
the recrudescence of heresy. Under a succession of such spasmodic
attacks Catharism might perhaps have never been completely rooted out.
By confiscation the heretics were forced to furnish the means for their
own destruction. Avarice joined hands with fanaticism, and between them
they supplied motive power for a hundred years of fierce, unremitting,
unrelenting persecution, which in the end accomplished its main
purpose.