The Inquisition Part 4

[1] "Exterminati sunt," says Raoul Glaber, _Hist_., lib. ii, cap.

xii, _Hist. des Gaules_, vol. x, p. 23. _Exterminati_ may mean banished as well as put to death. The context, however, seems to refer to the death penalty.

The Cathari of Toulouse were also arrested, and executed. A few years later, in 1114, the Bishop of Soissons arrested a number of heretics and cast them into prison until he could make up his mind how to deal with them. While he was absent at Beauvais, asking the advice of his fellow-bishops a.s.sembled there in council, the populace, fearing the weakness of the clergy, attacked the prison, dragged forth the heretics, and burned them at the stake. Guibert de Nogent does not blame them in the least. He simply calls attention to "the just zeal"

shown on this occasion by "the people of G.o.d," to stop the spread of heresy.

In 1144 the Bishop of Liege, Adalbero II, compelled a number of Cathari to confess their heresy; "he hoped," he said, "with the grace of G.o.d, to lead them to repent." But the populace, less kindly-hearted, rushed upon them, and proceeded to burn them at the stake; the Bishop had the greatest difficulty to save the majority of them. He then wrote to Pope Lucius II asking him what was the proper penalty for heresy.[1] We do not know what answer he received.

[1] Letter of the church of Liege to Pope Lucius II, in Martene, _Amplissima collectio_, vol. i, col. 776-777.

About the same time a similar dispute arose between the Archbishop and the people of Cologne regarding two or three heretics who had been arrested and condemned. The clergy asked them to return to the Church. But the people, "moved by an excess of zeal," says an historian of the time, seized them, and despite the Archbishop and his clerics led them to the stake. "And marvelous to relate,"

continues the chronicler, "they suffered their tortures at the stake, not only with patience, but with joy."[2]

[1] Letter of Evervin, provost of Steinfeld to St. Bernard, cap. ii, in _Bernardi Opera_, Migne, P.L., vol. clx.x.xii, col. 677.

One of the most famous heretics of the twelfth century was Peter of Bruys. His hostility toward the clergy helped his propaganda in Gascony. To show his contempt for the Catholic religion, he burned a great number of crosses one Good Friday, and roasted meat in the flames. This angered the people against him. He was seized and burned at St. Giles about the year 1126.[1]

Henry of Lausanne was his most ill.u.s.trious disciple. We have told the story of his life elsewhere.[1] St. Bernard opposed him vigorously, and succeeded in driving him from the chief cities of Toulouse and the Albigeois, where he carried on his harmful propaganda. He was arrested a short time afterwards (1145 or 1146), and sentenced to life imprisonment, either in one of the prisons of the Archbishop, or in some monastery of Toulouse.

[1] _Vie de Saint Bernard_, 1st edit., Paris, 1895, vol. ii, pp.

218-233.

Arnold of Brescia busied himself more with questions of discipline than with dogma; the only reforms he advocated were social reforms.[1] He taught that the clergy should not hold temporal possessions, and he endeavored to drive the papacy frown Rome. In this conflict, which involved the property of ecclesiastics and the temporal power of the Church, he was, although successful for a time, finally vanquished.[2] St. Bernard invoked the aid of the secular arm to rid France of him. Later on Pope Eugenius III excommunicated him.

He was executed during the pontificate of Adrian IV, in 1155. He was arrested in the city of Rome after a riot which was quelled by the Emperor Frederic, now the ally of the Pope, and condemned to be strangled by the prefect of the city. His body was then burned, and his ashes thrown into the Tiber, "for fear," says a writer of the time, "the people would gather them up, and honor them as the ashes of a martyr."[3]

[1] For details concerning Arnold of Brescia, cf. Vacandard, _Vie de Saint Bernard_, vol. ii, pp. 235-258, 465-469.

[2] Otto Frising, _Gesta Friderici_, lib. ii. cap. xx. Cf. _Historia Pontificalis_, in the _Mon. Germ. SS_., vol. xx, p. 538.

[3] Boso, _Vita Hadriani_, in Watterich, _Romanorum pontific.u.m Vitae_, vol. ii. pp. 326, 330.

In 1148, the Council of Rheims judged the case of the famous eon de l'Etoile (Eudo de Stella). This strange individual had acquired a reputation for sanct.i.ty while living a hermit's life. One day, struck by the words of the liturgy, _Per Eum qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos_, he conceived the idea that he was the Son of G.o.d. He made some converts among the lowest cla.s.ses, who, not content with denying the faith, soon began to pillage the churches. eon was arrested for causing these disturbances, and was brought before Pope Eugenius III, then presiding over the Council of Rheims. He was judged insane, and in all kindness was placed under the charge of Suger, the Abbot of St. Denis. He was confined to a monastery, where he died soon after.

Strangely enough, some of his disciples persisted in believing in him; "they preferred to die rather than renounce their belief," says an historian of the time. They were handed over to the secular arm and perished at the stake. In decreeing this penalty, the civil power was undoubtedly influenced by the example of Robert the Pious.

It is easy to determine the responsibility of the Church, i.e., her bishops and priests, in this series of executions (1020 to 1150). At Orleans, the populace and the king put the heretics to death; the historians of the time tell us plainly that the clergy merely declared the orthodox doctrine. It was the same at Goslar. At Asti, the Bishop's name appears with the names of the other n.o.bles who had the Cathari executed, but it seems certain that he exercised no special authority in the case. At Milan, the civil magistrates themselves, against the Archbishop's protest, gave the heretics the choice between reverencing the cross, and the stake.

At Soissons, the populace, feeling certain that the clergy would not resort to extreme measures, profited by the Bishop's absence to burn the heretics they detested. At Liege, the Bishop managed to save a few heretics from the violence of the angry mob. At Cologne, the Archbishop was not so successful; the people rose in their anger and burned the heretics before they could be tried. Peter of Bruys and the Manichean at Cambrai were both put to death by the people. Arnold of Brescia, deserted by fortune, fell a victim to his political adversaries; the prefect of Rome was responsible for his execution.[1]

[1] The case of Arnold, however, is not so clear. The _Annales Augustani minores_ (_Mon. Germ. SS_., vol. x, p. 8) declare that the Pope hanged the rebel. Another anonymous writer (cf. Tanon, _Hist.

des tribunaux de l'Inq. en France_, p. 456, n. 2) says with more probability, that Adrian merely degraded him. According to Otto of Freisingen (_Mon. Germ. SS_., vol. xx, p. 404), Arnold _principis examini reservatus est, ad ultimum a praefecto Urbis ligno adactus_.

Finally, Geroch de Reichersberg tells us (_De investigatione Antichristi_, lib. i, cap. xiii, ed. Scheibelberger, 1875, pp. 88-89) that Arnold was taken from the ecclesiastical prison and put to death by the servants of the Roman prefect. In any case, politics rather than religion was the cause of his death.

In a word, in all these executions, the Church either kept aloof, or plainly manifested her disapproval.

During this period, we know of only one bishop, Theodwin of Liege, who called upon the secular arm to punish heretics. This is all the more remarkable because his predecessor, Wazo, and his successor, Adalbero II, both protested in word and deed against the cruelty of both sovereign and people.

Wazo, his biographer tells us, strongly condemned the execution of heretics at Goslar, and, had he been there, would have acted as St.

Martin of Tours in the case of Priscillian.[1] His reply to the letter of the Bishop of Chalons reveals his inmost thoughts on the subject. "To use the sword of the civil authority," he says, "against the Manicheans,[2] is contrary to the spirit of the Church, and the teaching of her Divine Founder. The Saviour ordered us to let the c.o.c.kle grow with the good grain until the harvest time, lest in uprooting the c.o.c.kle we uproot also the wheat with it.[3] Moreover, continues Wazo, those who are c.o.c.kle to-day may be converted to-morrow, and be garnered in as wheat at the harvest time.

Therefore, they should be allowed to live. The only penalty we should use against them is excommunication."[4]

The Bishop of Liege, quoting this parable of Christ which St.

Chrysostom had quoted before him, interprets it in a more liberal fas.h.i.+on than the Bishop of Constantinople. For he not only condemns the death penalty, but all recourse to the secular arm.

[1] _Vita Vasonis_, cap. xxv, xxvi, Migne, P.L., vol. cxlii, col.

753.

[2] Ibid., col. 752.

[3] Matt. xiii. 29-30.

[4] _Vita Vasonis_, loc. cit., col. 753.

Peter Cantor, one of the best minds of northern France in the twelfth century, also protested against the infliction of the death penalty for heresy, "Whether," he says, "the Cathari are proved guilty of heresy, or whether they freely admit their guilt, they ought not to be put to death, unless they attack the Church in armed rebellion."

For the Apostle said, "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid;" he did not say: "Kill him." "Imprison heretics if you will, but do not put them to death."[1]

[1] _Verb.u.m abbreviatum_, cap. lxxviii, Migne, P.L., vol. ccv, col.

231.

Geroch of Reichersberg, a famous German of the same period, a disciple and friend of St. Bernard, speaks in a similar strain of the execution of Arnold of Brescia. He was most anxious that the Church, and especially the Roman curia, should not be held responsible for his death. "The priesthood," he says, "ought to refrain from the shedding of blood." There is no doubt whatever that this heretic taught a wicked doctrine, but banishment, imprisonment, or some similar penalty would leave been ample punishment for his wrong-doing, without sentencing him to death.

St. Bernard had also asked that Arnold be banished. The execution of heretics at Cologne gave him a chance to state his views on the suppression of heresy. The courage with which these fanatics met death rather disconcerted Evervin, the provost of Steinfeld, who wrote the Abbot of Clairvaux for an explanation.[1]

[1] Evervin's letter in Migne, P.L., vol. clx.x.xii, col. 676 and seq.

"Their courage," he replies, "arose from mere stubbornness; the devil inspired them with this constancy you speak of, just as he prompted Judas to hang himself. These heretics are not real but counterfeit martyrs (_perfidiae martyres_). But while I may approve the zeal of the people for the faith, I cannot at all approve their excessive cruelty; for faith is a matter of persuasion, not of force: _fides suadenda est, non imponenda_."[1]

[1] In Cantica, Sermo lxiv, n. 12.

On principle, the Abbot of Clairvaux blames the bishops and even the secular princes, who through indifference or less worthy reasons fail to hunt for the foxes who are ravaging the vineyards of the Savior.

But once the guilty ones have been discovered, he declares that only kindness should be used to win them back. "Let us capture them by arguments and not by force,"[1] i.e., let us first refute their errors, and if possible bring them back into the fold of the Catholic Church.

[1] Ibid., n. 8.

If they stubbornly refuse to be converted, let the bishop excommunicate them, to prevent their doing further injury; if occasion require it, let the civil power arrest them and put them in prison. Imprisonment is a severe enough penalty, because it prevents their dangerous propaganda:[1] _aut corrigendi sunt, ne pereant; aut, ne perimant, coercendi_.[2] St. Bernard was always faithful to his own teaching, as we learn from his mission in Languedoc.[3]

[1] _De Consideratione_, lib. iii, cap. i, n. 3.

[2] Ibid.; cf. Ep. 241 and 242. For more details, cf. Vacandard, _Vie de Saint Bernard_, vol. ii, pp. 211-216, 461-462.

[3] Cf. Vacandard, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 217-234.

Having ascertained the views of individual churchmen, we now turn to the councils of the period, and find them voicing the self-same teaching. In 1049, the Council held at Rheims by Pope Leo IX declared all heretics excommunicated, but said nothing of any temporal penalty, nor did it empower the secular princes to aid in the suppression of heresy.[1]

[1] Cf. Labbe, _Concilia_, vol. ix, col. 1042.

The Council of Toulouse in 1119, presided over by Calixtus II, and the General Council of the Lateran, in 1139, were a little more severe; they not only issued a solemn bull of excommunication against heretics, but ordered the civil power to prosecute them: _per potentates exteras coerceri praecipimus._[1] This order was, undoubtedly an answer to St. Bernard's request of Louis VII to banish Arnold from his kingdom. The only penalty referred to by both these councils was imprisonment.

[1] Council of Toulouse, can. 3, Labbe, vol. x, col. 857; Council of Lateran, can. 23, ibid., col. 1008.