POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE CHURCH.
The identification of the cause of the Church with that of God was no
new thing. Long before the formulation of laws against heresy and the
organization of the Inquisition for its suppression, the advantage had
been recognized of denouncing as heretics all who refused obedience to
the demands of prelate and pope. In the quarrel between the empire and
papacy over the question of the investitures, the Council of Lateran, in
1102, required all the bishops in attendance to subscribe a declaration
anathematizing the new heresy of disregarding the papal anathema, and
though the Church as yet was by no means determined on the death-penalty
for ordinary heresy, it had no hesitation as to the punishment due to
the imperialists who maintained the traditional rights of the empire
against its new pretensions. In that same year the monk Sigebert, who
was by no means a follower of the antipope Alberto, was scandalized at
the savage cruelty of Paschal II. in exhorting his adherents to the
slaughter of all the subjects of Henry IV. Robert the Hierosolymitan of
Flanders, on his return from the first crusade, had taken up arms
against Henry IV. and had signalized his devotion by depopulating the
Cambresis, whereupon Paschal wrote to him with enthusiastic praises of
this good work, urging him to continue it as quite as pious as his
labors to recover the Holy Sepulchre, and promising remission of sins to
him and to all his ruthless soldiery. Paschal himself became a heretic
when, in 1111, yielding to the violence of Henry V., he conceded the
imperial right of investiture of bishops and abbots, although when
Bruno, Bishop of Segni and Abbot of Monte Casino, boldly proved his
heresy to his face, he deprived the audacious reasoner of the abbacy and
sent him back to his see. In his settlement with Henry, he had broken a
consecrated host, each taking half, and had solemnly said, "Even as
this body of Christ is divided, so let him be divided from the kingdom
of Christ who shall attempt to violate our compact;" but the stigma of
heresy was unendurable, and in 1112 he presided over the Council of
Lateran, which pronounced void his oath and his bulls. When Henry
complained that he had violated his oath, he coolly replied that he had
promised not to excommunicate Henry, but not that he should not be
excommunicated by others. If Paschal was not forced literally to abjure
his heresy he did so constructively, and the principle was established
that even a pope could not abandon a claim of which the denial had been
pronounced heretical. When, not long afterwards, the German prelates
were required at their consecration to abjure all heresy, and especially
the Henrician, the allusion was not to the errors of Henry of Lausanne,
but to those of the emperor who had sought to limit the encroachments of
the Holy See on the temporal power.[196]
As heresy, rightly so called, waxed and grew more and more threatening,
and the struggle for its suppression increased in bitterness and took an
organized shape under a formidable body of legislation, and as the
application of the theory of indulgences gave to the Church an armed
militia ready for mobilization without cost whenever it chose to
proclaim danger to the faith, the temptation to invoke the fanaticism of
Christendom for the defence or extension of its temporal interests
inevitably increased in strength. In so far as such a resort can be
justified, the Albigensian crusades were justified by a real antagonism
of faith which foreboded a division of Christianity, and their success
irresistibly led to the application of the same means to cases in which
there was not the semblance of a similar excuse. Of these one of the
earliest, as well as one of the most typical, was that of the
Stedingers.
The Stedingers were a mixed race who had colonized on the lower Weser
the lands which their industry won from the overflow of river and sea,
their territory extending southward to the neighborhood of Bremen. A
rough and semi-barbarous folk, no doubt--hardy herdsmen and fishermen,
with perhaps an occasional tendency to piracy in the ages which
celebrated the exploits of the Vikings of Jomsburg. They were freemen
under the spiritual care of the Archbishops of Bremen, who in return
enjoyed their tithes. This tithe question had been immemorially a
troublesome one, ever since a tincture of Christianity had overspread
those regions. In the eleventh century Adam of Bremen tells us that
throughout the archiepiscopate the bishops sold their benedictions and
the people were not only abandoned to lust and gluttony, but refused to
pay their tithes. The Stedingers were governed by judges of their own
choice, administering their own laws, until, about 1187, trouble arose
from the attempts of the Counts of Oldenburg to extend their authority
over the redeemed marshes and islands, by building a castle or two which
should keep the population in check. There were few churches, and, as
the parishes were large, the matrons were accustomed to carry their
daughters to mass in wagons. The garrisons were in the habit of sallying
forth and seizing these women to solace their solitude, till the people
arose, captured the castles, slew the garrisons, and dug a ditch across
a neck of their territory, leaving only one gate for entrance. John
Count of Oldenburg recovered his castles, but after his death the
Stedingers reasserted their independence. Among their rights they
included the non-payment of tithes, and they treated with contumely the
priests sent to compel their obedience. They strengthened their
defences, and their freedom from feudal and ecclesiastical tyranny
attracted to them refugees from all the neighboring lands. Hartwig,
Archbishop of Bremen, when on his way to the Holy Land in 1197, is said
to have asked Celestin III. to preach a crusade against them as
heretics, but this is evidently an error, for the Albigensian wars had
not as yet suggested the employment of such methods. Matters became more
embroiled when some monks who ventured to inculcate upon the peasants
the duty of tithe-paying were martyred. Still worse was it when a
priest, irritated at the smallness of an oblation offered at Easter by a
woman of condition, in derision slipped into her mouth the coin in place
of the Eucharist. Unable to swallow it, and fearing to commit sacrilege,
the woman kept it in her mouth till her return home, when she ejected it
in some clean linen and discovered the trick. Enraged at this insult her
husband slew the priest, and thus increased the general ferment. After
his return Hartwig endeavored, in 1207, to reduce the recalcitrant
population, but without success, except to get some money.[197]
Yet the Stedingers were welcomed as fully orthodox when their aid was
wanted in the struggle which raged from 1208 till 1217, between the
rival archbishops of Bremen, first between Waldemar and Burchard, and
then between Waldemar and Gerhardt. Ranged at first on the side of
Waldemar, after the triumph of Frederic II. over Otho their defection to
Gerhardt was decisive, and in 1217 the latter obtained his
archiepiscopal seat, where he held his allies in high favor until his
death in 1219. He was succeeded by Gerhardt II., of the House of Lippe,
a warlike prelate who endeavored to overthrow the liberties of Bremen
itself, and to levy tolls on all the commerce of the Weser. The
Stedinger tithes were not likely to escape his attention. Other
distractions, including a war with the King of Denmark and strife with
the recalcitrant citizens of Bremen, prevented any immediate effort to
subjugate the Stedingers, but at length his hands were free. His
brother, Hermann Count of Lippe, came to his assistance with other
nobles, for the independence of the Weser peasant-folk was of evil
import to the neighboring feudal lords. To take advantage of the ice in
those watery regions the expedition set forth in December, 1229, under
the leadership of the count and the archbishop. The Stedingers resisted
valiantly. On Christmas Day a battle was fought in which Count Hermann
was slain and the crusaders put to flight. To celebrate the triumph the
victors in derision appointed mock officials, styling one emperor,
another pope, and others archbishops and bishops, and these issued
letters under these titles--a sorry jest, which when duly magnified
represented them as rebels against all temporal and spiritual
authority.[198]
It was evident that some more potent means must be found to overcome the
indomitable peasantry, and the device adopted was suggested by the
success, in 1230, of the crusade preached by Wilbrand, Bishop of
Utrecht, against the free Frisians in revenge for their slaying his
predecessor Otho, a brother of Archbishop Gerhardt, and imprisoning his
other brother, Dietrich, Provost of Deventer, after their victory of
Coevorden. It was scarce possible not to follow this example. At a synod
held in Bremen in 1230, the Stedingers were put to the ban as the vilest
of heretics, who treated the Eucharist with contempt too horrible for
description, who sought responses from wise-women, made waxen images,
and wrought many other works of darkness.[199]
Doubtless there were remnants of pagan superstition in Steding, such as
we shall hereafter see existing throughout many parts of Christendom,
which served as a foundation for these accusations, but that in fact
there were no religious principles involved, and that the questions at
issue were purely political, is indicated by the praise which Frederic
II., in an epistle dated June 14, 1230, bestows on the Stedingers for
the aid which they had rendered to a house of the Teutonic Knights, and
his exhortation that they should continue to protect it. We learn,
moreover, that everywhere the peasantry openly favored them and joined
them when opportunity permitted. It was simply an episode in the
extension of feudalism and sacerdotalism. The scattered remains of the
old Teutonic tribal independence were to be crushed, and the combined
powers of Church and State were summoned to the task. How readily such
accusations could be imposed on the credulity of the people we have seen
from the operations of Conrad of Marburg, and the stories to which he
gave currency of far-pervading secret rites of demon-worship. Yet the
preliminaries of a crusade consumed time, and during 1231 and 1232
Archbishop Gerhardt had all he could do to withstand the assaults of the
victorious peasants, who twice captured and destroyed the castle of
Schlütter, which he had rebuilt to protect his territories from their
incursions; he sought support in Rome, and in October, 1232, after
ordering an investigation of the heresy by the Bishops of Lubeck,
Ratzeburg, and Minden, Gregory IX. came to his aid with bulls addressed
to the Bishops of Minden, Lubeck, and Verden, ordering them to preach
the cross against the rebels. In these there is nothing said about
tithes, but the Stedingers are described as heretics of the worst
description, who deny God, worship demons, consult seeresses, abuse the
sacrament, make wax figurines to destroy their enemies, and commit the
foulest excesses on the clergy, sometimes nailing priests to the wall
with arms and legs spread out, in derision of the Crucified. Gregory's
long pontificate was devoted to two paramount objects--the destruction
of Frederic II. and the suppression of heresy. The very name of heretic
seemed to awake in him a wrath which deprived him of all reasoning
powers, and he threw himself into the contest with the unhappy peasants
of the Weser marshes as unreservedly as he did into that which Conrad of
Marburg was contemporaneously waging with the powers of darkness in the
Rhinelands. In January, 1233, he wrote to the Bishops of Paderborn,
Hildesheim, Verden, Münster, and Osnabrück, ordering them to assist
their brethren of Ratzeburg, Minden, and Lubeck, whom he had
commissioned to preach a crusade, with full pardons, against the
heretics called Stedingers, who were destroying the faithful people of
those regions. An army had meanwhile been collected which accomplished
nothing during the winter against the steadfast resolution of the
peasants, and dispersed on the expiration of its short term of service.
In a papal epistle of June 17, 1233, to the Bishops of Minden, Lubeck,
and Ratzeburg, this lack of success is represented as resulting from a
mistaken belief on the part of the crusaders that they were not getting
the same indulgences as those granted for the Holy Land, leading them to
withdraw after gaining decisive advantages. The bishops are therefore
ordered to preach a new crusade in which there shall be no error as to
the pardons to be earned, unless meanwhile the Stedingers shall submit
to the archbishop and abandon their heresies. Already, however, another
band of crusaders had been organized, which, towards the end of June,
1233, penetrated eastern Steding, on the right bank of the Weser. This
district had hitherto kept aloof from the strife, and was defenceless.
The crusaders devastated the land with fire and sword, slaying without
distinction of age or sex, and manifesting their religious zeal by
burning all the men who were captured. The crusade came to an inglorious
end, however; for, encouraged by its easy success, Count Burchard of
Oldenburg, its leader, was emboldened to attack the fortified lands on
the west bank, when he and some two hundred crusaders were slain and the
rest were glad to escape with their lives.[200]
Matter's were evidently growing serious. The success of the Stedingers
in battling for the maintenance of their independence was awakening an
uneasy feeling among the populations, and the feudal nobles were no less
interested than the prelates in subduing what might prove to be the
nucleus of a dangerous and far-reaching revolt. The third crusade was
therefore preached with additional energy over a wider circle than
before, and preparations were made for an expedition in 1234 on a scale
to crush all resistance. Dominicans spread like a cloud over Holland,
Flanders, Brabant, Westphalia, and the Rhinelands, summoning the
faithful to defend religion. In Friesland they had little success, for
the population sympathized with their kindred and were rather disposed
to maltreat the preachers, but elsewhere their labors were abundantly
rewarded. Bulls of February 11 take under papal protection the
territories of Henry Raspe of Thuringia, and Otho of Brunswick, who had
assumed the cross--the latter, however, only with a view to
self-protection, for he was an enemy of Archbishop Gerhardt. The
heaviest contingent came from the west, under Hendrik, Duke of Brabant,
consisting, it is said, of forty thousand men led by the _preux
chevalier_, Florent, Count of Holland, together with Thierry, Count of
Cleves, Arnoul of Oudenarde, Rasso of Gavres, Thierry of Dixmunde,
Gilbert of Zotteghem, and other nobles, eager to earn salvation and
preserve their feudal rights. Three hundred ships from Holland gave
assurance that the maritime part of the expedition should not be
lacking. Apparently warned by the disastrous outcome of his zeal in the
affair of Conrad of Marburg, Gregory at the last moment seems to have
felt some misgiving, and in March, 1234, sent to Bishop Guglielmo, his
legate in North Germany, orders to endeavor by peaceful means to bring
about the reconciliation of the peasants, but the effort came too late.
In April the hosts were already assembling, and the legate did, and
probably could do, nothing to avert the final blow. Overwhelming as was
the force of the crusaders, the handful of peasants met it with their
wonted resolution. At Altenesch, on May 27, they made their stand and
resisted with stubborn valor the onslaught of Hendrik of Brabant and
Florent of Holland; but, in the vast disparity of numbers, Thierry of
Cleves was able to make a flank attack with fresh troops which broke
their ranks, when they were slaughtered unsparingly. Six thousand were
left dead upon the field, besides those drowned in the Weser in the vain
attempt at flight, and we are asked to believe that the divine favor was
manifested in that only seven of the crusaders perished. The land now
lay defenceless before the soldiers of the Lord, who improved their
victory by laying it waste with fire and sword, sparing neither age nor
sex. Six centuries later, on May 27, 1834, a monument was solemnly
dedicated on the field of Altenesch to the heroes who fell in desperate
defence of their land and liberty.[201]
Bald as was the pretence for this frightful tragedy, the Church assumed
all the responsibility and kept up the transparent fiction to the last.
When the slaughter and devastation were over, came the solemn farce of
reconciling the heretics. As the land had been so long under their
control, their dead were buried indistinguishably with the remains of
the orthodox, so, November 28, 1234, Gregory graciously announced that
the necessity of exhumation would be waived in view of the impossibility
of separating the one from the other, but that all cemeteries must be
consecrated anew to overcome the pollution of the heretic bodies within
them. Considerable time must have been consumed in the settlement of all
details, for it is not until August, 1236, that Gregory writes to the
archbishop that, as the Stedingers have abandoned their rebellion and
humbly supplicated for reconciliation, he is authorized to reconcile
them on receiving proper security that they will be obedient for the
future and make proper amends for the past. In this closing act of the
bloody drama it is noteworthy that there is no allusion to any of the
specific heresies which had been alleged as a reason for the
extermination of the heretics. Perhaps the breaking of Conrad of
Marburg's bubble had shown the falsity of the charges, but whether this
were so or not those charges had been wholly supererogatory except as a
means of exciting popular animosity. Disobedience to the Church was
sufficient; resistance to its claims was heresy, punishable here and
hereafter with all the penalties of the temporal and spiritual
swords.[202]
* * * * *
It is not to be supposed that Gregory neglected to employ in his own
interest the moral and material forces which he had thus put at the
disposal of Gerhardt of Bremen. When, in 1238, he became involved in a
quarrel with the Viterbians and their leader Aldobrandini, he commuted
the vow of the Podestà of Spoleto to serve in Palestine into service
against Viterbo, and he freely offered Holy Land indulgences to all who
would enlist under his banner. In 1241 he formally declared the cause of
the Church to be more important than that of Palestine, when, being in
want of funds to carry on his contest with Frederic II., he ordered that
crusaders be induced to commute their vows for money, while still
receiving full indulgences, or else be persuaded to turn their arms
against Frederic in the crusade which he had caused to be preached
against him. Innocent IV. pursued the same policy when he had set up a
rival emperor in the person of William of Holland, and a crusade was
preached in 1248 for a special expedition to Aix-la-Chapelle, of which
the capture was necessary in order to his coronation, and vows for
Palestine were redeemed that the money should be handed over to him.
After Frederic's death his son Conrad IV. was the object of similar
measures, and all who bore arms in his favor against William of Holland
were the subject of papal anathemas. To maintain the Italian interests
of the papacy, men slaughtered each other in holy wars all over Europe.
The disastrous expedition to Aragon which cost Philippe le Hardi his
life in 1284 was a crusade preached by order of Martin IV. to aid
Charles of Anjou, and to punish Pedro III. for his conquest of Sicily
after the Sicilian Vespers.[203]
With the systematization of the laws against heresy and the organization
of the Inquisition, proceedings of this nature assume a more regular
shape, especially in Italy. It was in their character as Italian princes
that the popes found the supreme utility of the Holy Office. Frederic
II. had been forced to pay for his coronation not only by the edict of
persecution, but by the confirmation of the grant of the Countess
Matilda. Papal ambition thus stimulated aspired to the domination of the
whole of Italy, and for this the way seemed open with the death of
Frederic in 1250, followed by that of Conrad in 1254. When the hated
Suabians passed away, the unification of Italy under the triple crown
seemed at hand, and Innocent IV., before his death in December, 1254,
had the supreme satisfaction of lording it in Naples, the most powerful
pope that the Holy See had known. Yet the nobles and cities were as
unwilling to subject themselves to the Innocents and Alexanders as to
the Frederics, and the turbulent factions of Guelf and Ghibelline
maintained the civil strife in every corner of central and upper Italy.
To the papal policy it was an invaluable assistance to have the power of
placing in every town of importance an inquisitor whose devotion to Rome
was unquestioned, whose person was inviolable, and who was authorized to
compel the submissive assistance of the secular arm under terror of a
prosecution for heresy in the case of slack obedience. Such an agent
could cope with podestà and bishop, and even an unruly populace rarely
ventured a resort to temporary violence. The statutes of the republics,
as we have seen, were modified and moulded to adapt them to the fullest
development of the new power, under the excuse of facilitating the
extermination of heresy, and the Holy Office became the ultimate
expression of the serviceable devotion of the Mendicant Orders to the
Holy See. From this point of view we are able to appreciate the full
significance of the terrible bulls _Ad extirpanda_, described in a
previous chapter.
It was possibly with a view thus to utilize the force of both Orders
that the Inquisitions of northern and central Italy were divided between
them, and their respective provinces permanently assigned to each. Nor
perhaps would we err in recognizing an object in the assignment to the
Dominicans, who were regarded as sterner and more vigorous than their
rivals, of the province of Lombardy, which not only was the hot-bed of
heresy, but which retained some recollections of the ancient
independence of the Ambrosian Church, and was more susceptible to
imperial influences from Germany.
With the development of the laws against heresy, and the organization of
special tribunals for the application of those laws, it was soon
perceived that an accusation of heresy was a peculiarly easy and
efficient method of attacking a political enemy. No charge was easier to
bring, none so difficult to disprove--in fact, from what we have seen of
the procedure of the Inquisition, there was none in which acquittal was
so absolutely impossible where the tribunal was desirous of
condemnation. When employed politically the accused had the naked
alternative of submission or of armed resistance. No crime, moreover,
according to the accepted legal doctrines of the age, carried with it a
penalty so severe for a potentate who was above all other laws. Besides,
the procedure of the Inquisition required that when a suspected heretic
was summoned to trial, his first step was humbly to swear to stand to
the mandates of the Church, and perform whatever penance it should see
fit to impose in case he failed to clear himself of the suspicion. Thus
an immense advantage was gained over a political enemy by merely citing
him to appear, when he was obliged either to submit himself in advance
to any terms that might be dictated to him, or, by refusing to appear,
expose himself to condemnation for contumacy with its tremendous
temporal consequences.
It mattered little what were the grounds on which a charge of heresy was
based. In the intricate intrigues and factional strife which seethed and
boiled in every Italian city, there could be no lack of excuse for
setting the machinery of the Inquisition in motion whenever there was an
object to be attained. With the organization of the Hildebrandine
theocracy the heretical character of simple disobedience, which had been
implied rather than expressed, came to be distinctly formulated. Thomas
Aquinas did not shrink from proving that resistance to the authority of
the Roman Church was heretical. By embodying in the canon law the bull
_Unam Sanctam_ the Church accepted the definition of Boniface VIII. that
whoever resists the power lodged by God in the Church resists God,
unless, like a Manichæan, he believes in two principles, which shows him
to be a heretic. If the supreme spiritual power errs, it is to be judged
of God alone; there is no earthly appeal. "We say, declare, define, and
pronounce that it is necessary to salvation that every human creature be
subjected to the Roman pontiff." Inquisitors, therefore, were fully
justified in laying it down as an accepted principle of law that
disobedience to any command of the Holy See was heresy; so was any
attempt to deprive the Roman Church of any privilege which it saw fit to
claim. As a corollary to this was the declaration that inquisitors had
power to levy war against heretics and to give it the character of a
crusade by granting all the indulgences offered for the succor of the
Holy Land. Armed with such powers, it would be difficult to exaggerate
the importance of the Inquisition as a political instrument.[204]
Incidental allusion has been made above to the application of these
methods in the cases of Ezzelin da Romano and Uberto Pallavicino, and we
have seen their efficacy even in the tumultuous lawlessness of the
period as one of the factors in the ruin of those powerful chiefs. When
the crusade against Ezzelin was preached in the north of Europe he was
represented to the people simply as a powerful heretic who was
persecuting the faith. Even more conspicuous was the application of this
principle in the great struggle on which all the rest depended, which
in fact decided the destiny of the whole peninsula. The destruction of
Manfred was an actual necessity to the success of the papal policy, and
for years the Church sought throughout Europe a champion who could be
allured by the promise of an earthly crown and assured salvation. In
1255 Alexander IV. authorized his legate, Rustand, Bishop of Bologna, to
release Henry III. of England from his crusader's vow if he would turn
his arms against Manfred, and the bribe of the Sicilian throne was
offered to Henry's son, Edmund of Lancaster. When Rustand preached the
crusade against Manfred and offered the same indulgences as for the Holy
Land the ignorant islanders wondered greatly at learning that the same
pardons could be earned for shedding Christian blood as for that of the
infidel. They did not understand that Manfred was necessarily a heretic,
and that, as Alexander soon afterwards declared to Rainerio Saccone, it
was more important to defend the faith at home than in foreign lands. In
1264, when Alphonse of Poitiers was projecting a crusade, Urban IV.
urged him to change his purpose and assail Manfred. Finally, when
Charles of Anjou was induced to strive for the glittering prize, all the
enginery of the Church was exerted to raise for him an army of crusaders
with a lavish distribution of the treasures of salvation. The shrewd
lawyer, Clement IV., seconded and justified the appeal to arms by a
formal trial for heresy. Just as the crusade was bursting upon him,
Clement was summoning him to present himself for trial as a suspected
heretic. The term assigned to him was February 2, 1266; Manfred had more
pressing cares at the moment, and contented himself with sending
procurators to offer purgation for him. As he did not appear personally,
Clement, on February 21, called upon the consistory to declare him
condemned as a contumacious heretic, arguing that his excuse that the
enemy were upon him was invalid, since he had only to give up his
kingdom to avert attack. As but five days after this, on February 26,
Manfred fell upon the disastrous field of Benevento, the legal
proceedings had no influence on the result, yet none the less do they
serve to show the spirit in which Rome administered against its
political opponents the laws which it had enacted against heresy.[205]
This was the virtual destruction of the imperial power in Italy. With
the Angevines on the throne of Naples and the empire nullified by the
Great Interregnum and its consequences, the popes had ample opportunity
to employ the penalties for heresy to gratify hatred or to extend their
power. How they used the weapon for the one purpose is seen when
Boniface VIII. quarrelled with the Colonnas and condemned them as
heretics, driving the whole family out of Italy, tearing down their
houses and destroying their property; though after Sciarra Colonna
vindicated his orthodoxy by capturing and causing the death of Boniface
at Anagni, Benedict XI. made haste to reverse the sentence, except as to
confiscation.[206] How the principle worked when applied to temporal
aggrandizement may be estimated from the attempt of Clement V. to gain
possession of Ferrara. When the Marchese Azzo d' Este died, in 1308, he
left no legitimate heirs, and the Bishop of Ferrara was Frà Guido
Maltraverso, the former inquisitor who had succeeded in burning the
bones of Armanno Pongilupo. He forthwith commenced intriguing to secure
the city for the Holy See, which had some shadowy claims arising under
the donations of Charlemagne. Clement V. eagerly grasped at the
opportunity. He pronounced the rights of the Church unquestionable, and
condoled with the Ferrarese on their having been so long deprived of the
sweetness of clerical rule and subjected to those who devoured them.
There were two pretenders, Azzo's brother Francesco and his natural son
Frisco. The Ferrarese desired neither; they even manifested a disregard
for the blessings promised them by Clement and proclaimed a republic.
Frisco sought the aid of the Venetians, while Francesco secured the
support of the Church. Frisco obtained possession, but fled when
Francesco advanced with the papal legate, Arnaldo di Pelagrua, who
assumed the domination of the city--as a contemporary chronicler
observes, Francesco had no reason to be disappointed, for ecclesiastics
always act like rapacious wolves. Then, with the aid of the Venetians,
Frisco regained possession, and peace was made in December, 1308. This
was but the commencement of the struggle for the unhappy citizens. In
1309 Clement proclaimed a crusade against the Venetians. March 7 he
issued a bull casting an interdict over Venice with confiscation of all
its possessions, excommunicating the doge, the senate, and all the
gentlemen of the republic, and offering Venetians to slavery throughout
the world. As their ships sailed to every port, many Venetian merchants
were reduced to servitude throughout Christendom. The legate assiduously
preached the crusade, and all the bishops of the region assembled at
Bologna with such forces as they could raise. Multitudes took the cross
to gain the indulgence, Bologna alone furnishing eight thousand troops,
and the legate advanced with an overwhelming army. After severe fighting
the Venetians were defeated with such slaughter that the legate, to
avert a pestilence, offered an indulgence to every man who would bury a
dead body, and the fugitives drowned in the Po were so numerous that the
water was corrupted and rendered unfit to drink. All the prisoners taken
he blinded and sent to Venice, and on entering the city he hanged all
the adherents of Frisco. Appointing a governor in the name of the
Church, he returned to Avignon and was splendidly rewarded for his
services in the cause of Christ, while Clement unctuously congratulated
the Ferrarese on their return to the sweet bosom of the Church, and
declared that no one could, without sighs and tears, reflect upon their
miseries and afflictions under their native rulers. In spite of this the
ungrateful people, chafing under the foreign domination, arose in 1310
and massacred the papalists. Then the legate returned with a Bolognese
force, regained possession and hanged the rebels, with the exception of
one, who bought off his life. Fresh tumults occurred, with bloody
reprisals and frightful atrocities on both sides until, in 1314.
Clement, wearied with his prize, made it over to Sancha, wife of Robert
of Naples. The Gascon garrison excited the hatred of the people, who in
1317 invited Azzo, son of Francesco, to come to their relief. After a
stubborn resistance the Gascons surrendered on promise of life, but the
fury of the people would not be restrained, and they were slain to the
last man. From this brief episode in the history of an Italian city we
can conceive what was the influence of papal ambition stimulated by the
facility with which its opponents could be condemned as heretics and
armies be raised at will to defend the faith.[207]
John XXII. was not a pope to allow the spiritual sword to rust in the
sheath, and we have seen incidentally the use which he made of the
charge of heresy in his mortal combat with Louis of Bavaria. Still more
characteristic were his proceedings against the Visconti of Milan. On
his accession in August, 1316, his first thought was to unite Italy
under his overlordship, and to keep the empire beyond the Alps, for
which the contested election of Louis of Bavaria and Frederic of Austria
seemed to offer full opportunity. Early in December he despatched
Bernard Gui, the Inquisitor of Toulouse, and Bertrand, Franciscan
Minister of Aquitaine, as nuncios to effect that purpose. Neither Guelfs
nor Ghibellines were inclined to accept his views--the Ferrarese
troubles, not as yet concluded, were full of pregnant warnings.
Especially recalcitrant were the three Ghibelline chiefs of Lombardy,
Matteo Visconti, known as the Great, who ruled over the greater part of
the region and still retained the title of Imperial Vicar bestowed on
him by Henry VII., Cane della Scala, Lord of Verona, and Passerino of
Mantua. They received his envoys with all due honor, but found excuses
for evading his commands. In March, 1317, John issued a bull in which he
declared that all the imperial appointments had lapsed on the death of
Henry, that until his successor had received the papal approval all the
power of the empire vested in the Holy See, and that whoever presumed to
exercise those powers without permission was guilty of treason to the
Church. Papal imperiousness on one side and Ghibelline stubbornness on
the other rendered a rupture inevitable. It is not our province to trace
the intricate maze of diplomatic intrigue and military activity which
followed, with the balance of success preponderating decidedly in favor
of the Ghibellines. April 6, 1318, came a bull decreeing excommunication
on Matteo, Cane, Passerino, and all who refused obedience. This was
speedily followed by formal monitions and citations to trial on charges
of heresy, Matteo and his sons being the chief objects of persecution.
It was not difficult to find materials for these, furnished by refugees
from Milan at the papal court--Bonifacio di Farra, Lorenzo Gallini, and
others. The Visconti were accused of erring in the faith, especially as
to the resurrection, of invoking the devil, with whom they had compacts,
of protecting Guglielma; they were fautors of heretics and impeders of
the Inquisition; they had robbed churches, violated nuns, and tortured
and slain priests. The Visconti remained contumaciously absent and were
duly condemned as heretics. Matteo summoned a conference of the
Ghibelline chiefs at Soncino, which treated the action of the pope as an
effort to resuscitate the failing cause of the Guelfs. A Ghibelline
league was formed with Can Grande della Scala as captain of its forces.
To meet this John called in the aid of France, appointed Philippe de
Valois Imperial Vicar, and procured a French invasion which proved
bootless. Then he sent his son or nephew, Cardinal Bertrand de Poyet as
legate, with the title of "pacifier," at the head of a crusading army
raised by a lavish distribution of indulgences. As Petrarch says, he
assailed Milan as though it were an infidel city, like Memphis or
Damascus, and Poyet, whose ferocity was a proof of his paternity, came
not as an apostle, but as a robber. A devastating war ensued, with
little advantage to the papalists, but the spiritual sword proved more
effective than the temporal. May 26, 1321, the sentence of condemnation
was solemnly promulgated in the Church of San Stefano at Bassegnano, and
was repeated by the inquisitors March 14, 1322, at Valenza.[208]
Strange as it may seem, these proceedings appear to have had a decisive
influence on public opinion. It is true that when, in the seventeenth
century, Paolo Sarpi alluded to these transactions and assumed that
Matteo's only crime was his adherence to Louis of Bavaria, Cardinal
Albizio admitted the fact, and argued that those who adhered to a
schismatic and heretic emperor, and disregarded the censures of the
Church, rendered themselves suspect of heresy and became formal
heretics. Yet this was not the impression at the time, and John had
recognized that something more was required than such a charge of mere
technical heresy. The Continuation of Nangis, which reflects with
fidelity the current of popular thought, recounts the sins of Matteo and
his sons, described in the papal sentence, as a new heresy arisen in
Lombardy, and the papalist military operations as a righteous crusade
for its suppression. Although this was naturally a French view of the
matter, it was not confined to France. In Lombardy Matteo's friends were
discouraged and his enemies took fresh heart. A peace party speedily
formed itself in Milan, and the question was openly asked whether the
whole region should be sacrificed for the sake of one man. In spite of
Matteo's success in buying off Frederic of Austria, whom John had bribed
with gold and promises to intervene with an army, the situation grew
untenable even for his seasoned nerves. It is, perhaps, worthy of
mention that Francesco Garbagnate, the old Guglielmite, association with
whom was one of the proofs of heresy alleged against Matteo, was one of
the efficient agents in procuring his downfall, for Matteo had
estranged him by refusing him the captaincy of the Milanese militia.
Matteo sent to the legate to beg for terms, and was told that nothing
short of abdication would be listened to; he consulted the citizens and
was given to understand that Milan would not expose itself to ruin for
his sake. He yielded to the storm--perhaps his seventy-two years had
somewhat weakened his powers of resistance--he sent for his son
Galeazzo, with whom he had quarrelled, and resigned to him his power,
with an expression of regret that his quarrel with the Church had made
the citizens his enemies. From that time forth he devoted himself to
visiting the churches. In the Chiesa Maggiore he assembled the clergy,
recited the Symbol in a loud voice, crying that it had been his faith
during life, and that any assertion to the contrary was false, and of
this he caused a public instrument to be drawn up. Departing thence like
to one crazed, he hastened to Monza to visit the Church of S. Giovanni
Battista, where he was taken sick and was brought back to the Monastery
of Cresconzago, and died within three days, on June 27, to be thrust
into unconsecrated ground. The Church might well boast that its ban had
broken the spirit of the greatest Italian of the age.[209]
The younger Visconti--Galeazzo, Lucchino, Marco, Giovanni, and
Stefano--were not so impressionable, and rapidly concentrated the
Ghibelline forces which seemed to be breaking in pieces. To give them
their _coup de grâce_, the pope, December 23, 1322, ordered Aicardo, the
Archbishop of Milan, and the Inquisition to proceed against the memory
of Matteo. January 13, 1323, from the safe retreat of Asti, Aicardo and
three inquisitors, Pace da Vedano, Giordano da Montecucho, and Honesto
da Pavia, cited him for appearance on February 25, in the Church of
Santa Maria at Borgo, near Alessandria, to be tried and judged, whether
present or not, and this citation they affixed on the portals of Santa
Maria and of the cathedral of Alessandria. On the appointed day they
were there, but a military demonstration of Marco Visconti disturbed
them, to the prejudice of the faith and impeding of the Inquisition.
Transferring themselves to the securer walls of Valenza, they heard
witnesses and collected testimony, and on March 14 they condemned Matteo
as a defiant and unrepentant heretic. He had imposed taxes on the
churches and collected them by violence; he had forcibly installed his
creatures as superiors in monasteries and his concubines in nunneries;
he had imprisoned ecclesiastics and tortured them--some had died in
prison and others still lingered there; he had expelled prelates and
seized their lands; he had prevented the transmission of money to the
papal camera, even sums collected for the Holy Land; he had intercepted
and opened letters between the pope and the legates; he had attacked and
slain crusaders assembled in Milan for the Holy Land; he had disregarded
excommunication, thus showing that he erred in the faith as to the
sacraments and the power of the keys; he had prevented the interdict
laid upon Milan from being observed; he had obstructed prelates from
holding synods and visiting their dioceses, thus favoring heresies and
scandals; his enormous crimes show that he is an offshoot of heresy, his
ancestors having been suspect and some of them burned, and he has for
officials and confidants heretics, such as Francesco Garbagnate, on whom
crosses had been imposed; he has expelled the Inquisition from Florence
and impeded it for several years; he interposed in favor of Maifreda who
was burned; he is an invoker of demons, seeking from them advice and
responses; he denies the resurrection of the flesh; he has endured papal
excommunication for more than three years, and when cited for
examination into his faith he refused to appear. He is, therefore,
condemned as a contumacious heretic, all his territories are declared
confiscated, he himself deprived of all honors, station, and dignities,
and liable to the penalties decreed for heresy, his person to be
captured, and his children and grandchildren subjected to the customary
disabilities.[210]
This curious farrago of accusations is worth reciting, as it shows what
was regarded as heresy in an opponent of the temporal power of the
papacy--that the simplest acts of self-defence against an enemy who was
carrying on active war against him were gravely treated as heretical,
and constituted valid reasons for inflicting all the tremendous
penalties prescribed by the laws for lapses in faith. Politically,
however, the portentous sentence was inoperative. Galeazzo maintained
the field, and in February, 1324, inflicted a crushing defeat on the
papal troops, the cardinal-legate barely escaping by flight, and his
general, Raymondo di Cardona being carried a prisoner to Milan. Fresh
comminations were necessary to stimulate the faithful, and March 23 John
issued a bull condemning Matteo and his five sons, reciting their evil
deeds for the most part in the words of the inquisitorial sentence,
though the looseness of the whole incrimination is seen in the omission
of the most serious charge of all--that of demon-worship--and the
defence of Maifreda is replaced by a statement that Matteo had
interfered to save Galeazzo, who was now stated to have been a
Guglielmite. The bull concludes by offering Holy Land indulgences to all
who would assail the Visconti. This was followed, April 12, by another,
reciting that the sons of Matteo had been by competent judges duly
convicted and sentenced for heresy, but in spite of this, Berthold of
Nyffen, calling himself Imperial Vicar of Lombardy, and other
representatives of Louis of Bavaria, had assisted the said heretics in
resisting the faithful Catholics who had taken up arms against them.
They are therefore allowed two months in which to lay down their
pretended offices and submit, as they have rendered themselves
excommunicate and subject to all the penalties, spiritual and temporal,
of fautorship.[211]
It is scarce worth while to pursue further the dreary details of these
forgotten quarrels, except to indicate that the case of the Visconti was
in no sense exceptional, and that the same weapons were employed by John
against all who crossed his ambitious schemes. The Inquisitor Accursio
of Florence had proceeded in the same way against Castruccio of Lucca,
as a fautor of heretics; the inquisitors of the March of Ancona had
condemned Guido Malapieri, Bishop of Arezzo, and other Ghibellines for
supporting Louis of Bavaria. Frà Lamberto del Cordiglio, Inquisitor of
Romagnuola, was ordered to use his utmost exertions to punish those
within his district. Louis of Bavaria, in his appeal of 1324, states
that the same prosecutions were brought, and sentences for heresy
pronounced, against Cane della Scala, Passerino, the Marquises of
Montferrat, Saluces, Ceva, and others, the Genoese, the Lucchese, and
the cities of Milan, Como, Bergamo, Cremona, Vercelli, Trino, Vailate,
Piacenza, Parma, Brescia, Alessandria, Tortona, Albenga, Pisa, Aretino,
etc. We have a specimen of Frà Lamberto's operations in a sentence
pronounced by him, February 28, 1328, against Bernardino, Count of Cona.
He had already condemned for heresy Rainaldo and Oppizo d' Este, in
spite of which Bernardino had visited them in Ferrara, had eaten and
drunk with them, and was said to have entered into a league with them.
For these offences Lamberto summoned him to stand trial before the
Inquisition. He duly appeared, and admitted the visit and banquet, but
denied the alliance. Lamberto proceeded to take testimony, called an
assembly of experts, and in due form pronounced him a fautor of
heretics, condemning him, as such, to degradation from his rank and
knighthood, and incapacity to hold any honors; his estates were
confiscated to the Church, his person was to be seized and delivered to
the Cardinal-legate Bertrand or to the Inquisition, and his descendants
for two generations were declared incapable of holding any office or
benefice. All this was for the greater glory of God, for when, in 1326,
John begged the clergy of Ireland to send him money, it was, he said,
for the purpose of defending the faith against the heretics of Italy.
Yet the Holy See was perfectly ready, when occasion suited, to admit
that this wholesale distribution of damnation was a mere prostitution of
its control over the salvation of mankind. After the Visconti had been
reconciled with the papacy, in 1337, Lucchino, who was anxious to have
Christian burial for his father, applied to Benedict XII. to reopen the
process. In February of that year, accordingly, Benedict wrote to Pace
da Vedano, who had conducted the proceedings against the Visconti and
against the citizens of Milan, Novara, Bergamo, Cremona, Como, Vercelli,
and other places for adhering to them, and who had been rewarded with
the bishopric of Trieste, requiring him to send by Pentecost all the
documents concerning the trial. The affair was protracted, doubtless
owing to political vicissitudes, but at length, in May, 1341, Benedict
took no shame in pronouncing the whole proceedings null and void for
irregularity and injustice. Still the same machinery was used against
Bernabo Visconti, who was summoned by Innocent VI. to appear at Avignon
on March 1, 1363, for trial as a heretic, and as he only sent a
procurator, he was promptly condemned by Urban V. on March 3, and a
crusade was preached against him. In 1364 he made his peace, but in 1372
the perennial quarrel broke out afresh, he was excommunicated by Gregory
XI., and in January, 1373, he was summoned to stand another trial for
heresy on March 28.[212]
In the same way heresy was the easiest charge to bring against Cola di
Rienzo when he disregarded the papal sovereignty over Rome. When he
failed to obey the summons to appear he was duly excommunicated for
contumacy; the legate Giovanni, Bishop of Spoleto, held an inquisition
on him, and in 1350 he was formally declared a heretic. The decision was
sent to the Emperor Charles IV., who held him at that time prisoner in
Prague, and who dutifully despatched him to Avignon. There, on a first
examination, he was condemned to death, but he made his peace, and there
appeared to be an opportunity of using him to advantage; he was
therefore finally pronounced a good Christian, and was sent back to Rome
with a legate.[213]
The Maffredi of Faenza afford a case very similar to that of the
Visconti. In 1345 we find them in high favor with Clement VI. In 1350
they are opposing the papal policy of aggrandizement in Romagnuola.
Cited to appear in answer to charges of heresy, they refuse to do so,
and in July, 1352, are excommunicated for contumacy. In June, 1354,
Innocent VI. recites their persistent endurance of this excommunication,
and gives them until October 10 to put in an appearance. On that day he
condemns them as contumacious heretics, declares them deprived of all
lands and honors, and subject to the canonical and civil penalties of
heresy. To execute the sentence was not so easy, but in 1356 Innocent
offered Louis, King of Hungary, who had shown his zeal against the
Cathari of Bosnia, three years' tithe of the Hungarian churches if he
would put down those sons of damnation, the Maffredi, who have been
sentenced as heretics, and other adversaries of the Church, including
the Ordelaffi of Friuli. Frà Fortanerio, Patriarch of Grado, was also
commissioned to preach a crusade against them, and succeeded in raising
an army under Malatesta of Rimini. The appearance of forty thousand
Hungarians in the Tarvisina frightened all Italy; the Maffredi
succumbed, and in the same year Innocent ordered their absolution and
reconciliation.[214]
It would be easy to multiply instances, but these will probably suffice
to show the use made by the Church of heresy as a political agent, and
of the Inquisition as a convenient instrumentality for its application.
When the Great Schism arose it was natural that the same methods should
be employed by the rival popes against each other. As early as 1382 we
find Charles III. of Naples confiscating the property of the Bishop of
Trivento, just dead, as that of a heretic because he had adhered to
Clement VII. In the commission issued in 1409 by Alexander V. to Pons
Feugeyron, as Inquisitor of Provence, the adherents of Gregory XII. and
of Benedict XIII. are enumerated among the heretics whom he is to
exterminate. It happened that Frère Étienne de Combes, Inquisitor of
Toulouse, held to the party of Benedict XIII., and he retaliated by
imprisoning a number of otherwise unimpeachable Dominicans and
Franciscans, including the Provincial of Toulouse and the Prior of
Carcassonne, for which the provincial, as soon as he had an opportunity,
removed him and appointed a successor, giving rise to no little
trouble.[215]
The manner in which the Inquisition was used as an instrument by the
contending factions in the Church is fairly illustrated by the
adventures of John Malkaw, of Prussian Strassburg (Brodnitz). He was a
secular priest and master of theology, deeply learned, skilful in
debate, singularly eloquent, and unflinching even to rashness. Espousing
the cause of the Roman popes against their Avignonese rivals with all
the enthusiasm of his fiery nature, he came to the Rhinelands in 1390,
where his sermons stirred the popular heart and proved an effective
agency in the strife. After some severe experiences in Mainz at the
hands of the opposite faction, he undertook a pilgrimage to Rome, but
tarried at Strassburg, where he found a congenial field. The city had
adhered to Urban VI. and his successors, but the bishop, Frederic of
Blankenheim, had alienated a portion of his clergy by his oppressions.
In the quarrel he excommunicated them; they appealed to Rome and had the
excommunication set aside, whereupon he went over, with his following,
to Clement VII., the Avignonese antipope, giving rise to inextricable
confusion. The situation was exactly suited to Malkaw's temperament; he
threw himself into the turmoil, and his fiery eloquence soon threatened
to deprive the antipapalists of their preponderance. According to his
own statement he quickly won over some sixteen thousand schismatics and
neutrals, and the nature of his appeals to the passions of the hour may
be guessed by his own report of a sermon in which he denounced Clement
VII. as less than a man, as worse than the devil, whose portion was with
Antichrist, while his followers were all condemned schismatics and
heretics; neutrals, moreover, were the worst of men and were deprived of
all sacraments. Besides this he assailed with the same unsparing
vehemence the deplorable morals of the Strassburg clergy, both regular
and secular, and in a few weeks he thus excited the bitterest
hostility. A plot was made to denounce him secretly in Rome as a
heretic, so that on his arrival there he might be seized by the
Inquisition and burned; his wonderful learning, it was said, could only
have been acquired by necromancy; he was accused of being a runaway
priest, and it was proposed to arrest him as such, but the people
regarded him as an inspired prophet and the project was abandoned. After
four weeks of this stormy agitation he resumed his pilgrimage, stopping
at Basle and Zurich for missionary work, and finally reached Rome in
safety. On his return, in crossing the Pass of St. Bernard, he had the
misfortune to lose his papers. News of this reached Basle, and on his
arrival there the Mendicants, to whom he was peculiarly obnoxious,
demanded of Bishop Imer that he should be arrested as a wanderer without
license. The bishop, though belonging to the Roman obedience, yielded,
but shortly dismissed him with a friendly caution to return to his home.
His dauntless combativeness, however, carried him back to Strassburg,
where he again began to preach under the protection of the burgomaster,
John Bock. On his previous visit he had been personally threatened by
the Dominican inquisitor, Böckeler--the same who in 1400 persecuted the
Winkelers--and it was now determined to act with vigor. He had preached
but three sermons when he was suddenly arrested, without citation, by
the familiars of the inquisitor and thrown in prison, whence he was
carried in chains to the episcopal castle of Benfeld and deprived of his
books and paper and ink. Sundry examinations followed, in which his rare
dexterity scarce enabled him to escape the ingenious efforts to entrap
him. Finally, on March 31, 1391, Böckeler summoned an assembly,
consisting principally of Mendicants, where he was found guilty of a
series of charges, which show how easily the accusation of heresy could
be used for the destruction of any man. His real offence was his attacks
on the schismatics and on the corruption of the clergy, but nothing of
this appears in the articles. It was assumed that he had left his
diocese without the consent of his bishop, and this proved him to be a
Lollard; that he discharged priestly functions without a license,
showing him to be a Vaudois; because his admirers ate what he had
already bitten, he was declared to belong to the Brethren of the Free
Spirit; because he forbade the discussion as to whether Christ was alive
when pierced with the lance, he was asserted to have taught that
doctrine, and, therefore, to be a follower of Jean Pierre Olivi. All
this was surely enough to warrant his burning, if he should obstinately
refuse to recant, but apparently it was felt that the magistracy would
decline to execute the sentence, and the assembly contented itself with
referring the matter to the bishop and asking his banishment from the
diocese. Nothing further is known of the trial, but as, in 1392, Malkaw
is found matriculating himself in the University of Cologne, the bishop
probably did as he was asked.
We lose sight of Malkaw until about 1414, when we meet him again in
Cologne. He had maintained his loyalty to the Roman obedience, but that
obedience had been still further fractioned between Gregory XII. and
John XXIII. Malkaw's support of the former was accompanied with the same
unsparing denunciation of John as he had formerly bestowed on the
Avignonese antipopes. The Johannites were heretics, fit only for the
stake. Cologne was as attractive a field for the audacious polemic as
the Strassburg of a quarter of a century earlier. Two rival candidates
for the archbishopric were vindicating their claims in a bloody civil
war, one of them as a supporter of Gregory, the other of John. Malkaw
was soon recognized as a man whose eloquence was highly dangerous amid
an excitable population, and again the Inquisition took hold of him as a
heretic. The inquisitor, Jacob of Soest, a Dominican and professor in
the university, seems to have treated him with exceptional leniency, for
while the investigation was on foot he was allowed to remain in the St.
Ursula quarter, on parole. He broke his word and betook himself to
Bacharach, where, under the protection of the Archbishop of Trèves, and
of the Palsgrave Louis III., both Gregorians, he maintained the fight
with his customary vehemence, assailing the inquisitor and the
Johannites, not only in sermons, but in an incessant stream of pamphlets
which kept them in a state of indignant alarm. When Cardinal John of
Ragusa, Gregory's legate to the Council of Constance, came to Germany.
Malkaw had no difficulty in procuring from him absolution from the
inquisitorial excommunication, and acquittal of the charge of heresy;
and this was confirmed when on healing the schism the council, in July,
1415, declared null and void all prosecutions and sentences arising from
it. Still, the wounded pride of the inquisitor and of the University of
Cologne refused to be placated, and for a year they continued to seek
from the Council the condemnation of their enemy. Their deputies,
however, warned them that the prosecution would be prolonged, difficult,
and costly, and they finally came to the resolution that the action of
the Cardinal of Ragusa should be regarded as binding, so long as Malkaw
kept away from the territory of Cologne, but should be disregarded if he
ventured to return--a very sensible, if somewhat illogical, conclusion.
The obstinacy with which Benedict XIII. and Clement VIII. maintained
their position after the decision of the Council of Constance prolonged
the struggle in southwestern Europe, and as late as 1428 the remnants of
their adherents in Languedoc were proceeded against as heretics by a
special papal commissioner.[216]