tl ilJl! liilll! Ill l: li lllill'liii'li 111 i!l|!' 'I!!''!:!'!'!! U'W.' THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Ce^A.-'^-Aji's^jL Vx. . ULvcAje^s^e Council of Constance 453 Motives Impelling Huss's Presence 455 His Reception and Treatment 457 X CONTENTS. His Arrest. — Question of the Safe-conduct 460 Communion in both Elements 471 The Trial of Huss, — Illustration of the Inquisitorial Process . . . 473 Exceptional Audiences Allowed to Huss 484 Extraordinary Efforts to Procure Recantation 486 The Inevitable Condemnation and Burning 490 Indignation in Bohemia 494 Jerome of Prague. — His Trial and Execution 495 Chapter VIII. — The Hussites. Inquisitorial Methods Attempted in Bohemia 606 Increasing Antagonism. — Fruitless Threats of Force 608 Parties Form Themselves. — Calixtins and Taborites 611 Sigismund Succeeds to the Throne. — Failure of Negotiations . . . 614 Crusade Preached in 1420. — Its Repulse 616 Religious Extravagance. — Pikardi, Chiliasts 617 The Four Articles of the Calixtins 619 Creed of the Taborites 622 Failure of Repeated Crusades. — The Hussites Retaliate 526 Efforts to Reform the Church. — Council of Siena 627 Council of Basle. — Negotiation with the Hussites a Necessity . . . 530 The Four Articles the Basis. — Accepted as the " Compactata " . . 533 The Taborites Crushed at Lipan 636 Difficulties Caused by Rokyzana's Ambition 636 Insincere Peace. — Sigismund's Reactionary Reign and Death . . . 638 The Calixtins Secure Control under George Podiebrad 541 Rome Disavows the Compactata. — Giacorao della Marca in Hungary. 642 The Use of the Cup the Only Distinction. — Capistrano Sent as In- quisitor 546 His Projected Hussite Crusade Impeded by the Capture of Constan- tinople 551 Efforts to Resist the Turks. — Death of Capistrano at Belgrade . . 552 Steady Estrangement of Bohemia. — Negotiations and Attacks . . . 555 The Compactata Maintained in Spite of Rome 559 The Bohemian Brethren Arise from the Remains of the Taborites . 561 Their Union with the "Waldenses 664 Their Growth and Constancy under Persecution 666 Appendix of Documents 669 THE INQUISITION. BOOK 11. THE INQUISITION IN THE SEVERAL LANDS OF CHRISTENDOM. CHAPTEE I. LANGUEDOO. The men who laid the foundations of the Inquisition in Langue- doc had before them an apparently hopeless task. The whole or- ganization and procedure of the institution were to be developed as experience might dictate and without precedents for guidance. Their uncertain and undefined powers were to be exercised under peculiar difficulties. Heresy was everywhere and all - pervading. An unknown but certainly large portion of the population was addicted to Catharism or Waldensianism, while even the orthodox could not, for the most part, be relied upon for sympathy or aid. Practical toleration had existed for so many generations, and so many families had heretic members, that the population at large was yet to be educated in the holy horror of doctrinal aberrations. National feeling, moreover, and the memory of common wrongs suffered during twenty years of bitter contest with invading sol- diers of the Cross, during which Catholic and Catharan had stood side by side in defence of the fatherland, had created the strongest bonds of sympathy between the different sects. In the cities the magistrates were, if not heretics, inchned to toleration and jealous of their municipal rights and liberties. Throughout the country many powerful nobles were avowedly or secretly heretics, and Raymond of Toulouse himself was regarded as little better than a II.— 1 2 LANGUEDOC. heretic. The Inquisition was the symbol of a hated foreign dom- ination which could look for no cordial support from any of these classes. It was welcomed, indeed, by such Frenchmen as had suc- ceeded in |)hinting themselves in the land, but they were scattered, and were themselves the objects of detestation to their neighbors. The popular feeUng is voiced by the Troubadours, who delight in expressing contempt for the French and hostility to the friars and their methods. As Guillem de Montanagout says: "Now have the clerks become inquisitors and condemn men at their pleasure. I have naught against the inquests if they would but condemn er- rors with soft words, lead the wanderers back to the faith without wrath, and allow the penitent to find mercy." The bolder Pierre Cardinal describes the Dominicans as disputing after dinner over the quality of their wines : " They have created a court of judg- ment, and whoever attacks them they declare to be a Waldensian ; they seek to penetrate into the secrets of all men, so as to render themselves dreaded."* The lands which Raymond had succeeded in retaining were, moreover, drained by the enormous sums exacted of him in the pacification. To enable him to meet these demands he was au- thorized to levy taxes on the subjects of the Church, in spite of their immunities, and this and the other expedients requisite for the discharge of his engagements could not fail to excite wide- spread discontent with the settlement and hostility to all that rep- resented it. That it was hard to extort these payments from a population exhausted by twenty years of war is manifest when, in 1231, two years after the treaty, the Abbey of Citeaux had not as yet received any part of the two thousand marks which were its share of the plunder, and it was forced to agree to a settlement under Avhich Eaymond promised to pay in annual instalments of two hundred marks, giving as security his revenues from the manor of Marmande.f The Inquisition, it is true, was at first warmly greeted by the Church, but the Church had grown so discredited during the * Diez, Lebcn und Werke der Troubadours, pp. 450, 576. — Millot, Hist. Lit- Wraire des Troubadours, III. 244-50. t Teulet, Layettes, II. 185, 236-8. In 1239 we find Raymond asking for six months' delay in the payment of one of the instalments (lb. p. 406). POSITION OF THE CHURCH. 3 events of the past half-century that its influence was less than in any other spot in Christendom. Even in Aragon the Council of Tarragona, in 1238, felt itself compelled to decree excommunica- tion against those who composed or applauded lampoons against the clergy. The abuse of the interdict had grown to such propor- tions that Innocent TV., in 1243, and again in 12-15, was obliged to forbid its employment throughout southern France, in all places suspected of heresy, because it afforded to heretics so manifold an occasion of asserting that it was used for private interests, and not for the salvation of souls. During the troubles which followed after the crusade of Louis VIII. the bishops had taken advantage of the confusion to seize many lands to which they had no claim, and this involved them in endless quarrels with the royal fisc in the territories which fell to the king, while in those which remained to Raymond, the pious St. Louis was forced to interfere to obtain for him a restoration of what they obstinately refused to surren- der. The Church itself was so deeply tainted with heresy that the faithful were scandalized at seeing the practical immunity en- joyed by heretical clerks, owing to the difficulty of assembling a sufficient number of bishops to officiate at their degradation, and Gregory IX. felt it necessary, in 1233, to decree that in such cases a single bishop, with some of his abbots, should have power to deprive them of holy orders and dehver them to the secular arm to be burned — a provision Avhich he subsequently embodied in the canon law. Innocent lY., moreover, in 1245, felt called upon to order his legate in Languedoc to see that no one suspected of her- esy was elected or consecrated as bishop. On the other hand, priests who were zealous in aiding the Inquisition sometimes found tliat the enmities thus excited rendered it impossible for them to reside in their parishes, as occurred in the case of Guillem Pierre, a priest of Narbonne, in 1246, who on this account was allowed to employ a vicar and to hold a plurality of benefices. About the same time Innocent IV. felt obliged to express his surprise that the prelates disobeyed his repeated commands to assist the Inqui- sition ; he has trustworthy information that they neglect to do so, and he threatens them roundly with his displeasure unless they manifest greater zeal. Bernard Gui, indeed, speaks of the bishops who favored Count Raymond as among the craftiest and most dangeroi\s enemies of the inquisitors. The natural antagonism 4 LANGUEDOC. between the Mendicants and the secular clergy was, moreover, in- creased by the pretension of the inquisitors to supervise the priest- hood and see that they performed their neglected duty in all that pertained to the extension of the faith. That under such circum- stances the Dominicans employed in the pious work should suffer constant molestation scarce needs the explanation given by the pope that it was through the influence of the Arch Enemy.* Another serious impediment to the operations of the Inqui- sition lay in the absence of places of detention for those accused and of prisons for those condemned. We have already seen how the bishops shirked their duty in providing jails for the multitudes of prisoners until St. Louis was obhged to step in and construct them, and during this prolonged interval the sentences of the in- quisitors show, in the number of contumacious absentees after a preliminary hearing, how impossible it often was to retain hold of heretics who had been arrested.f To undertake, in such an environment, the apparently hope- less task of suppressing heresy required men of exceptional char- acter, and they were not wanting. Repulsive as their acts must seem to us, we cannot refuse to them the tribute due to their fear- less fanaticism. No labor was too arduous for their unflagging zeal, no danger too great for their unshrinking courage. Regard- ing themselves as elected to perform God's work, they set about it with a sublime self-confidence which lifted them above the weakness of humanity. As the mouthpiece of God, the mendi- cant friar, who lived on charity, spoke to prince and people with all the awful authority of the Church, and exacted obedience or punished contumacy unhesitatingly and absolutely. Such men as * Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1238 c. 11 (Mart. Ampl. Coll. VII. 134). — Ripoll I. 120, 145, 165.— Potthast No. 9452, 11092, 11094, 11515.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 365. — Teulet, Layettes, II. 262. — Arch, dos FrSres Precheurs de Toulouse (Doat, XXXI. 19).— C. 1 Sexto v. 2.— Rayuald. ann. 1243, No. 30.— Arch, de Tlnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXI. 69). — Bern. Guidon, de Trib. Grad. Pr^edicat. (Bouquet, XXI. 739).— Practica super Inquisit. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin. No. 14930, fol. 224). When Cardinal Wolsey sought to reform the English Church he found the same difficulty in obtaining bishops to degrade clerical criminals, and he ob- tained from Clement VII. the same remedy (Rymer, XIV. 239). t Coll. Doat, XXI. 149, 153, 156, 158.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin. No. 9992. UNPROMISING ASPECT. 5 Pierre Cella, Guillem Arnaud, Arnaud Catala, Ferrer the Catalan, Pons de Saint-Gilles, Pons de TEsparre, and Bernard de Caux, beard- ed prince and prelate, were as ready to endure as merciless to inflict, were veritable Maccabees in the internecine strife with heresy, and 3^et were kind and pitiful to the miserable and overflowing with tears in their prayers and discourses. They were the culminating development of the influences which produced the Church Militant of the Middle Ages, and in their hands the Inquisition was the most effective instrument whereby it maintained its supremacy. A secondary result was the complete subjugation of the South to the King of Paris, and its unification with the rest of France. If the faithful had imagined that the Treaty of 1229 had end- ed the contest with heresy they were quickly undeceived. The blood-money for the capture of heretics, promised by Count Eay- mond, was indeed paid when earned, for the Inquisition undertook to see that this was done, but the earning of it was dangerous. Nobles and burghers alike protected and defended the proscribed class, and those who hunted them were slain without mercy when occasion offered. The heretics continued as numerous as ever, and we have already seen the fruitless efforts put forth by the Cardinal Legate Romano and the Council of Toulouse. Even the university which Raymond bound himself to establish in Toulouse for the propagation of the faith, though it subsequently performed its work, was at first a failure. • Learned theologians were brought from Paris to fill its chairs, but their scholastic subtleties were laughed at by the mocking Southrons as absurd novelties, and the heretics were bold enough to contend with them in debate. After a few years Raymond neglected to continue the stipends, and for a time the university was suspended.* * Practica super Inquisit. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 14930, fol. 224).— Guill. Pelisso Chron. (Ed. Molinier, Anicii, 1880, pp. 6, 15).— Epistt. Stccul. XIII. T. I. No. 688 (Monument. Hist. German.). —Bern. Guidon. Vit. Grcgor. PP. IX. (Muratori S. R.I. III. 573). One of the complaints made by Gregory IX. against Raymond, in 1236, was that he had neglected to pay the salaries of the professors, and that the school of Toulouse was dissolved (Teulct, Layettes, II. 315). In 1239, however, a re- ceipt in full for them was exhibited to the papal legate (lb. p. 397), and in 1242, when Raymond was under peril of death in the Agenois, his chief physician was Loup of Spain, the professor of medicine in the University (lb. p. 466). 6 L A N U U E D O U. The most encouraging feature of the situation, one, indeed, full of promise, was the steady progress of the Dominican Order. It had outgrown the modest Church of St. Eomano, bestowed upon it by J^ishop Foulques ; and in 1230 the piety of a prominent burgher of Touh>use, Pons de Capdenier, provided for it more commodious quarters in an extensive garden, situated partly in the city and partly in the suburbs. The inmates of the convent, some forty in number, were always ready to furnish champions of the Cross, whose ardent zeal shrank from neither toil nor peril ; and when, in 1232, the fanatic Bishop Foulques died and was suc- ceeded by the yet more fiery fanatic, the Dominican Provincial Raymond du Fauga, the Order was fully prepared to enter upon the exterminating war with heresy which was to last for a hun- dred 3'^ears.* The eager zeal of the friars did not wait to be armed with the organized authorization of inquisitorial powers. Their leading duty was to combat heresy, and their assaults on it were uninter- mitting. In 1231 a friar, in a sermon, declared that Toulouse was full of heretics, who held their assemblies there and disseminated their errors without hindrance. Already the magistrates seem to have looked askance on these pious efforts, for this assertion was made the occasion of a decided attempt at repression. The con- suls of the city met and summoned before them, in the capitole, or town-haU, the prior, Pierre d'Alais. There they roundly scold- ed and threatened him, declaring that it was false to assert the existence of heresy in the town, and forbidding such utterances for the future. Trivial as was the occurrence, it has interest as the commencement of the ill-will between the authorities of Tou- louse and the Inquisition, and as illustrating the sense of munici- pal pride and independence stiU cherished in the cities of the South. It required but a few years' struggle to trammel the civic liberties which had held their own against feudalism, but which could not stand against the subtler despotism of the Church.f Even thus early Dominican ardor refused to be thus restrained. Master Roland of Cremona, noted as the first Dominican licentiate of the University of Paris, who had been brought to Toulouse to teach theology in the infant IJniversity, was scandalized when he • Pelisso Chron. pp. 7-8. t Ibid. pp. 9-10, IRREGULAR PERSECUTION. 7 heard of the insolent language of the consuls, and exclaimed that it was only a fresh incentive to preach against heresy more bit- terly than ever. He set the example in this, and was eagerly fol- lowed by many of the brethren. He soon, too, had an opportunity of proving the falsity of the consuls' disclaimer. It transpired that Jean Pierre Donat, a canon of the ancient Church of Saint Sernin, who had recently died and been buried in the cloister, had been secretly hereticated on his death -bed. "Without authority, and apparently without legal investigation. Master Koland assembled some friars and clerks, exhumed the body from the cloister, dragged it through the streets, and publicly burned it. Soon afterwards he heard of the death of a prominent Waldensian minister named Galvan. After stirring up popular passion in a sermon, he marched at the head of a motley mob to the house where the heretic had died and levelled it to the ground ; then proceeding to the Ceme- tery of Villeneuve, where the body was interred, he dug it up and dragged it through the city, accompanied by an immense proces- sion, to the public place of execution beyond the walls, where it was solemnly burned.* All this was volunteer persecution. The episcopal court was as yet the only tribunal having power to act in such matters, and it, as we have seen, could only authorize the secular arm to do its duty in the final execution. Yet the episcopal court seems to have been in no way invoked in these proceedings, and no protest is re- corded as having been uttered against such irregular enforcements of the law by the mob. There was, in fact, no organization for the steady repression of heresy. Bishop Eaymond appears to have satisfied himself with an occasional raid against heretics outside of the city, and to have allowed those within it virtual immunity under the protection of the consuls, though he had, in virtue of his office, all the powers requisite for the purpose, and the machinery for their effective use could have readily been developed. No per- manent results were to be expected from fitful bursts of zeal, and the suppression of heresy might well seem to be as far off as ever. Urgent as was evidently the need of some organized body de- voted exclusively to persecution, the appointment of the first • Peliaso Chron. pp. 10-11. — Preger, Vorarbeiten zu einer Geschichte der deutschen Mystik, p. 17. 8 LANGUEDOC. inquisitors, in 1233, seems not to have been regarded as possess- ing any special significance. It was merely an experiment, from which no great results were anticipated. Frore Guillem Pehsson, who shared in the labors and perils of the nascent Inquisition, and who enthusiastically chronicled them, evidently does not con- sider it as an innovation worthy of particular attention. It was so natural an evolution from the interaction of the forces and materials of the period, and its future importance was so little suspected, that he passes over its founding as an incident of less moment than the succession to the Priory of Toulouse. " Frere Pons de Saint Gilles," he sa3^s, " was made Prior of Toulouse, who bore himself manfully and effectively for the faith against the heretics, together with Frure Pierre Cella of Toulouse and Frere Guillem Arnaud of MontpeUier, whom the lord pope made inquis- itors asrainst the heretics in the dioceses of Toulouse and Cahors. Also, the Legate Archbishop of Vienne made Frere Arnaud Cata- la, who was then of the Convent of Toulouse, inquisitor against the heretics." Thus colorless is the only contemporary account of the establishment of the Holy Office.* How Uttle the functions of these new officials were at first un- derstood is manifested by an occurrence, which is also highly sug- gestive of the tension of pubhc feeling. In a quarrel between two citizens, one of them, Bernard Peitevin, called the other, Bernard de Solier, a heretic. This was a dangerous reputation to have, and the offended man summoned his antagonist before the consuls. The heretical party, we are told, had obtained the upper hand in Toulouse, and the magistrates were all either sympatliizers with or believers in heresy. Bernard Peitevin was condemned to exile for a term of years, to pay a fine both to the complainant and to the city, and to swear publicly in the town-hall that he had lied, and that de Solier was a good Catholic. The sentence was a trifle vindictive, and Peitevin sought counsel of the Dominicans, Avho recommended him to appeal to the bishop. Episcopal jurisdiction in such a matter was perhaps doubtful, but Eaymond du Fauga entertained the appeal. A few years later, if any cognizance had been taken of the case it would have been by the Inquisition, but * Pelisso Cbron. p. 13. Cf. Bern. Guidon. Vit. Gregor. PP. IX. (Muratori S. R. I. III. 573). SUBORDINATION OF INQUISITORS. 9 now the inquisitors, Pierre Cella and Guillem Arnaud, appeared as advocates of the appellant in the bishop's court, and so clearly proved de Solier's heresy that the miserable wretch fled to Lorn- bardy.* Similar indefiniteness of procedure is visible in the next at- tempt. The inquisitors, Pierre and Guillem, began to make an inquest through the city, and cited numerous suspects, all of whom found defenders among the chief citizens. The hearings took place before them, but seem as yet to have been in public. One of the accused, named Jean Teisseire, asserted himself to be a good Catholic because he had no scruples in maintaining marital rela- tions with his wife, in eating flesh, and in lying and swearing, and he warned the crowd that they were liable to the same charge, and that it would be wiser for them to make common cause than to abandon him. When he was condemned, and the viguier, the official representative of the count, was about to conduct him to the stake, so threatening a clamor arose that the prisoner was hurried to the bishop's prison, still proclaiming his orthodoxy. Intense excitement pervaded the city, and menaces were freely uttered to destroy the Dominican convent and to stone all the friars, who were accused of persecuting the innocent. While in prison Teisseire pretended to fall mortally sick, and asked for the sacraments ; but when the bailli of Lavaur brought to Toulouse some perfected heretics and delivered them to the bishop, Teis- seire allowed himself to be hereticated by them in prison, and grew so ardent in the faith under their exhortations that when they were taken out for examination he accompanied them, de- claring that he would share their fate. The bishop assembled the magistrates and many citizens, in whose presence he examined the prisoners. They were all condemned, including Teisseire, who ob- stinately refused to recant, and no further opposition was offered when they were all duly burned.f Here we see the inquisitorial jurisdiction completely subordi- nate to that of the bishop, but when the inquisitors soon after- wards left Toulouse to hold inquests elsewhere they acted with full independence. At Cahors we hear nothing of the Bishop of Querci taking part in the proceedings under which they con- * Pelisso pp. 10-17. t Ibid. pp. 17-20. 10 LANGUEDOC. deraned a number of the dead, exhuming and burning their bodies, and inspiring sucli fear that a prominent believer, Raymond de Broleas, fled to Rome. At Moissac they condemned Jean du Gard, who fled to Montsegur, and they cited a certain Folquet, who, in terror, entered the convent of Belleperche as a Cistercian monk, and, finding that this was of no avail, finally fled to Lom- bardy. Meanwhile Frure Arnaud Catala and our chronicler, Guil- lem PeUsson, descended upon Albi, where they penanced a dozen citizens by ordering them to Palestine, and in conjunction with another inquisitor, Guillem de Lombers, burned two heretics, Pierre de Puechperdut and Pierre Bomassipio.* The absence of the inquisitors from Toulouse made no differ- ence in the good work, for their duties were assumed by their prior, Pons de Saint-Gilles. Under what authority he acted is not stated, but we find him, in conjunction with another friar, trying and condemning a certain Arnaud Sancier, who was burned, in spite of his protests to the last that he was a good Catholic, caus- ing great agitation in the city, but no tumultuous uprising.f The terror which Pelisson boasts that these proceedings spread through the land was probably owing not only to the evidence they afforded of an organized system of persecution, but also to their introduction of a much more effective method of prosecution than had heretofore been known. The " heretic," so called, was the perfected teacher who . disdained to deny his faith, and his burning was accepted by all as a matter of course, as also was that of the " credens," or believer, who was defiantly contumacious and persisted in admitting and adhering to his creed. Hitherto, how- ever, the believer who professed orthodoxy seems generally to have escaped, in the imperfection of the judicial means of proving his guilt. The friars, trained in the subtleties of disputation and learned in both civil and canon law, were specially fitted for the detection of this particularly dangerous secret misbelief, and their persistence in worrying their victims to the death was well calcu- lated to spread alarm, not only among the guilty, but among the innocent. How reasonable were the fears inspired by the speedy infor- mality of the justice accorded to the heretic is well illustrated by * Peliaso Cliron. pp. 20-1. t Ibid. p. 23. SUMMARY PROCEEDINGS. H a case occurring in 1234. When the canonization of St. Dominic was announced in Toulouse it was celebrated in a solemn mass performed by Bishop Raymond in the Dominican convent. St. Dominic, however, desired to mark the occasion with some more edifying manifestation of his peculiar functions, and caused word to be brought to the bishop, as the latter was leaving the church for the refectory to partake of a meal, that a woman had just been hereticated in a house hard by, in the Rue de TOlmet sec. The bishop, with the prior and some others, hurried thither. It was the house of Peitavin Borsier, the general messenger of the here- tics of Toulouse, whose mother-in-law lay dying of fever. So sud- den was the entrance of the intruders that the woman's friends could only tell her " the bishop is coming," and she, who expected a visit from the heretic bishop, was easily led on by Raymond to make a full declaration of her heresy and to pledge herself to be steadfast in it. Then, revealing himself, he ordered her to recant, and, on her refusal, he summoned the viguier, condemned her as a heretic, and had the satisfaction of seeing the dying creature car- ried off on her bed and burned at the place of execution. Borsier and his colleague, Bernard Aldric of Dremil, Tvere captured, and betrayed many of their friends ; and then Raymond and the fri- ars returned to their neglected dinner, giving thanks to God and to St. Dominic for so signal a manifestation in favor of the faith.* The ferocious exultation with which these extra-judicial hor- rors were perpetrated is well reflected in a poem of the period by Isarn, the Dominican Prior of Villemier. He represents himself as disputing with Sicard de Figueras, a Catharan bishop, and each of his theological arguments is clinched with a threat — " E' s'aquest no vols cvejre vec te '1 foe aizinat Que art tos companhos, Aras vuelh que m' respondas en un mot o en dos, Si cauziras et foe o remanras ab nos." " If you wiU not believe this, look at that raging fire which is con- suming your comrades. Now I Avisli you to reply to me in one word or two, for you will burn in the fire or join us." Or again, " If you do not confess at once, the flames are ah'eady lighted ; • Pelisso Chron. pp. 23-5. 12 LANGUEDOC. your name is proclaimed throughout the city with the blast of trumpets, and the people are gathering to see you burn." In this terrible poem, Isarn only turned into verse what he felt in his own heart, and what he saw passing under his eyes almost daily.* As tlie holy work assumed shape and its prospects of results grew more encouraging, the zeal of the hunters of men increased, while the fear and hatred of the hunted became more threatening. On both sides passion was fanned into flame. Already, in 1233, two Dominicans, sent to Cordes to seek out heretics, had been slain by the terrified citizens. At Albi the people, excited by the burning of the two heretics already referred to, rose, June 14, 1234, when Arnaud Catala ordered the episcopal bailli to dig up the bones of a heretic woman named Beissera whom he had con- demned. The bailli sent back word that he dared not do it. Ar- naud left the episcopal synod in which he was sitting, coolly went to the cemetery, himself gave the first strokes of the mattock, and then, ordering the officials to proceed with the work, returned to the synod. The officials quickly rushed after him, saying that they had been ejected from the burial-ground by the mob. Ar- naud returned and found it occupied by a crowd of howling sons pf Belial, who quickly closed in on him, striking him in the face and pummeUing him on all sides, with shouts of " Kill him ! he has no right to live !" Some endeavored to drag him into the shops hard by to slay him; others wished to throw him into the river Tarn, but he was rescued and taken back to the synod, followed by a mass of men fiercely shouting for his death. The whole city, indeed, seemed to be of one mind, and many of the principal burghers were leaders of the tumult. It is satisfactory to learn that, although Arnaud mercifully withdrew the excommunication which he launched at the rebellious city, his successor, Frere Fer- rer, wrought the judgment of God upon the guilty, imprisoning many of them and burning others, f * Millot, Troubadours, II. 65-77. — Mary-Lafon, Histoire du Midi de la France, III. 396-99. t Vaissette, III. 403. — Martene Thesaur. I. 985. — Pelisso Chrou. pp. 13-14, 52-9. Chabanaud (Vaissette, fid. Privat, X. 330) thinks it probable that this Ar- naud Catala is the troubadour of the same name, developing, like Folquet of Marseilles and others, from a poet to a persecutor. POPULAR RESISTANCE. 13 In Narbonne disturbances arose even more serious, although special inquisitors had not yet been sent there. In March, 1234, the Dominican prior, Francois Ferrer, undertook a volunteer in- quisition and threw in prison a citizen named Raymond d'Argens. Fifteen years previous the artisans of the suburb had organized a confederation for mutual support caUed the Amistance, and this body arose as one man and forcibly rescued the prisoner. The arclibishop, Pierre Amiel, and the viscount, Aimery of Narbonne, undertook to rearrest him, but found his house guarded by the Amistance, which rushed upon their followers with shouts of " Kill ! kill !" and drove them away after a brief skirmish, in which the prior was badly handled. The archbishop had recourse to ex- communication and interdict, but to little purpose, for the Amis- tance seized his domains and drove him from the city. Both sides sought aUies. Gregory IX. appealed to King Jayme of Aragon, while a complaint from the consuls of Narbonne to those of Nimes looks as though they were endeavoring to effect a confederation of the cities against the Inquisition, of whose arbitrary and illegal methods of procedure they give abundant details. A kind of truce was patched up in October, but the troubles recommenced when the prior, in obedience to an order from his provincial, undertook a fresh inquisition, and made a number of arrests. In December a suspension was obtained by the citizens appealing to the pope, the king, and the legate, but in 1235 the people rose against the Dominicans, drove them from the city, sacked their convent, and destroyed all the records of the proceedings against heresy. Arch- bishop Pierre had cunningly separated the city from the suburb, about equal in population, by confining the inquisition to the lat- ter, and this bore fruit in his securing the armed support of the former. The suburb placed itself under the protection of Count Raymond, w^ho, nothing loath to aggravate the trouble, came there and gave to the people as leaders Olivier de Termes and Gui- raud de Niort, two notorious defenders of heretics. A bloody civil war broke out between the two sections, which lasted until April, 1237, when a truce for a year was agreed upon. In the following August the Count of Toulouse and the Seneschal of Carcassonne were caUed in as arbitrators, and in March, 1238, a peace was concluded. That the Church trium])hed is sho^^^l by the conditions which imposed upon some of the participators 14 LANGUEDOC. in the troubles a year's service in Palestine or against the Moors of Spain.* In Toulouse, the centre both of heresy and persecution, in spite of mutterings and menaces, open opposition to the Inquisition was postponed longer than elsewhere. Although Count Eaymond is constantly represented by the Church party as the chief opponent of the Holy Office, it was probably his influence that succeeded in staving off so long the inevitable rupture. Hard experience from childhood could scarce have rendered him a fervent Catholic, yet that experience had shown him that the favor and protection of the Church were indispensable if he would retain the remnant of territory and power that had been left to him. He could not as yet be at heart a persecutor of heresy, yet he could not afford to antagonize the Church. It was important for him to retain the love and good-wiU of his subjects and to prevent the desolation of his cities and lordships, but it was yet more important for him to escape the stigma of favoring heresy, and to avoid calling down upon his head a renewal of the storm in which he had been so nearly wrecked. Few princes have had a more difficult part to play, with dangers besetting him on every side, and if he earned the reputation of a trimmer without religious convictions, that reputation and his retention of his position till his death are pei'- haps the best proof of the fundamental wisdom which guided his necessarily tortuous course. Pierre Cardinal, the Troubadour, de- scribes him as defending himself from the assaults of the worst of men, as fearing neither the Frenchman nor the ecclesiastic, and as humble only with the good.f He was always at odds with his prelates. Intricate questions with regard to the temporahties were a constant source of quarrel, and he lived under a perpetual reduplication of excommunications, » Vaissette, III. 402-3, 406; Pr. 370-1, 379-81. — Coll. Doat, XXXI. 33.— Teulet, Layettes, II. 321, 324. t " Car del pejors homes que son Se defen et de tot le mond ; Que Franses ni clergia Ni las autras gens ne raflfront ; Mas als bos s'humilia Et I'mal confond." (Peyrat, Les Albigeois et I'lnquisition, 11. 394), POSITION OF COUNT RAYMOND. 15 for he had been so long under the ban of the Church that no bishop hesitated for a moment in anathematizing him. Then, one of the conditions of the treaty of 1229 had been that within two years he should proceed to Palestine and wage war there with the infidel for five years. The two years had passed away without his per- forming the vow ; the state of the country at no time seemed to render so prolonged an absence safe, and for years a leading ob- ject of his policy was to obtain a postponement of his crusade or immunity for the non-observance of his vow. Moreover, from the date of the peace of Paris until the end of his life he earnestly and vainly endeavored to obtain from Rome permission for the sepul- ture of his father's body. These complications crippled him in multitudinous ways and exposed him to immense disadvantage in his fencing with the hierarchy. As early as 1230 he was taxed by the legate with inobservance of the conditions of the peace, and was forced to promise amend- ment of his ways. In 1232 we see Gregory IX. imperiously or- dering him to be energetic in the duty of persecution, and, possibly in obedience to this, during the same year, we find him personally accompanying Bishop Raymond of Toulouse in a nocturnal expe- dition among the mountains, which was rewarded with the capture of nineteen perfected heretics, male and female, including one of their most important leaders. Pagan, Seigneur de Becede, whose castle we saw captured in 1227. All these expiated their errors at the stake. Yet not long afterwards the Bishop of Tournay, as papal legate, assembled the prelates of Languedoc and formally cited Raymond before King Louis to answer for his slackness in carrying out the provisions of the treaty. The result of this was the drawing up of severe enactments against heretics, which he was obliged to promulgate in February, 1234. In spite of this, and of a letter from Gregory to the bishops ordering them no longer to excommunicate him so freely as before, he was visited within a twelvemonth with two fresh excommunications, for pure- ly temporal causes. Then came fresh urgency from the pope for the extirpation of heresy, with which Raymond doubtless made a show of compliance, as his heart was bent on obtaining from Rome a restoration of the Marquisate of Provence. In this he Avas strongly backed by King Louis, whose brother Alfonse was to be Raymond's heir, and towards the close of the year he sought an 16 LANGUEDOC. interview with Gregory and succeeded in effecting it. His recon- ciliation with the papacy ap])eared to be complete. His military reputation stood high, and Gregory made use of his visit to confide to him the leadership of the papal troops in a campaign against the rebellious citizens of Home, who had expelled the head of the Church from their city. Though he did not succeed in restoring the pope, they parted on the best of terms, and he returned to Toulouse as a favored son of the Church, ready on all points to obey her behests.''^ There he found matters rapidly approaching a crisis which tested to the utmost his skill in temporizing. Passions on both sides were rising to an uncontrollable point. At Easter, 1235, the promise of grace for voluntary confession brought forward such crowds of penitent heretics that the Dominicans were insufficient to take their testimony, and were obhged to call in the aid of the Franciscans and of all the parish priests of the city. Encouraged by this, the prior. Pons de Saint-Gilles, commenced to seize those who had not come forward spontaneously. Among these was a certain Arnaud Dominique, who, to save his life, promised to betray eleven heretics residing in a house at Cassers. This he fulfilled, though four of them escaped through the aid of the neighboring peasants, and he was set at liberty. The long-suffering of the heretics, however, was at last exhausted, and shortly afterwards he was murdered in his bed at Aigrefeuille by the friends of those whom he had thus sacrificed. Still more significant of the dan- gerous tension of popular feeling was a mob which, under the guidance of two leading citizens, forcibly rescued Pierre-GuiUem Delort from the hands of the viguier and of the Abbot of Saint- Sernin, who had arrested him and were conveying him to prison. The situation was becoming unbearable, and soon the ceremony of dragging through the streets and burning the bodies of some dead heretics aroused an agitation so general and so menacing that Count Kaymond was sent for in hopes that his interposition * Bern. Guidon. Vit. Gregor. PP. IX. (Muratori, S. R. I. III. 573) —Archives Nat. de France J. 430, No. 17, 18.— Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 42.— Peyrat, Hist, des Al- bigeois, I. 287.— Harduiu. Concil.VII. 203-8.— D'Achery Spicileg. III. 606.— Pot- thast No. 9771.— Epistt. Sseculi XIII. T. I. No. 577 (Mon. Germ. Hist.).— Matt Paris ann. 1234, p. 280.— Vaissette, III. 399-400, 406.— Hist. Diplom. Frid. H. T. IV. pp. 485, 799-803. TROUBLES AT TOULOUSE. 17 might avert the most deplorable consequences. Thus far, although perhaps somewhat lacking in alacrity of persecution, no serious charges could be laid against him. His officials, his baillis and viguiers, had responded to all appeals of the inquisitors and had lent the aid of the secular ami in seizing heretics, in burning them, and in confiscating their property. Yet when he came to Tou- louse and begged the inquisitors to suspend for a time the vigor of their operations he was not listened to. Then he turned to the papal legate, Jean, Archbishop of Vienne, complaining specially of Pierre Cella, whom he considered to be inspired with personal enmity to himself, and whom he regarded as the chief author of the troubles. His request that Cella's operations should be con- fined to Querci was granted. That inquisitor was sent to Cahors, where, with the assistance of Pons Delmont and Guillem Pelisson he vigorously traversed the land and forced multitudes to confess their guilt.* This expedient was of no avail. Persecution continued as ag- gressive as ever, and popular indignation steadily rose. The in- evitable crisis soon came which should determine whether the In- quisition should sink into insignificance, as had been the case with so many previous efforts, or whether it should triumph over all opposition and become the dominating power in the land. Guillem Arnaud was in no way abashed by the banishment of his colleague. Returning from a brief absence at Carcassonne, of which more anon, he summoned for trial as beUevers twelve of the leading citizens of Toulouse, one of them a consul. They re- fused to appear, and threatened him with violence unless he should desist. On his persisting, word was sent him, with the assent of Count Raymond, that he must either leave the city or abandon his functions as inquisitor. He took council with his Dominican brethren, when it was unanimously agreed that he should proceed manfully in his duty. The consuls then ejected him by force from the city ; he was accompanied to the bridge over the Garonne by all the friars, and as he departed the consuls recorded a protest to the eifect that if he would desist from the inquisition he could re- main ; otherwise, in the name of the count and in their own, they ordered him to leave the city. He went to Carcassonne, whence * Pelisso Cbron. pp. 35-8. II.— 2 18 L A N G U E D O C. he ordered the Prior of Saint-l^]ticnne and the parish priests to re- peat the citations to the parties already summoned. This order was bravely obeyed in spite of threats, when the consuls sent for the prior and priests, and after keeping them in the town-hall part of a night, expelled them from the town, and publicly proclaimed that any one daring to repeat the citations should be put to death, and that any one obeying the summons of an inquisitor should an- s\ver for it in body and goods. Another proclamation followed, in which the name of Count Raymond was used, prohibiting that any one should give or sell anything to the bishop, the Dominicans, or the canons of Saint-Etienne. This forced the bishop to leave the city, as we are told that no one dared even to bake a loaf of bread for him, and the populace, moreover, invaded his house, beat his clerks, and stole his horses. The Dominicans fared better, for they had friends hardy enough to supply them with necessaries, and when the consuls posted guards around their house, still bread and cheese and other food was thrown over their walls in spite of the arrest of some of those engaged in it. Their principal suffer- ing was from lack of water, which had to be brought from the Garonne, and as this source of supply was cut off, they were unable to boil their vegetables. For three weeks they thus exultingly endured their martyrdom in a holy cause. Matters became more serious when the indomitable Guillem Arnaud sent from Carcas- sonne a letter to the prior saying, that as no one dared to cite the contumacious citizens, he was forced to order two of the friars to summon them to appear before him personally in Carcassonne to answer for their faith, and that two others must accompany them as witnesses, Tolhng the convent bell, the prior assembled the brethren, and said to them with a joyful countenance : " Brethren, rejoice, for I must send four of you through martyrdom to the throne of the Most High. Such are the commands of our brother, Guillem the inquisitor, and whoever obeys them will be slain on the spot, as threatened by the consuls. Let those who are ready to die for Christ ask pardon." With a common impulse the whole body cast themselves on the gi'ound, which was the Dominican form of asking pardon, and the prior selected four, Ra3Tiiond de Foix, Jean de Saint-Michel, Gui de Navarre, and Guillem Pelisson. These intrepidly performed their duty, even penetrating when necessar}'^ into the bed-chambers of the accused. Only in one TROUBLES AT TOULOUSE. 19 house were they ill-treated, and even there, when the sons of the person cited drew knives upon them, the bystanders interfered. There was evidently nothing to be done with men who thus courted martyrdom. To gratify them would be suicidal, and the consuls decided to expel them. On being informed of this the prior distributed among trusty friends the books and sacred ves- sels and vestments of the convent. The next day (Nov. 5 or 6, 1235) the friars, after mass, sat down to their simple meal, during which the consuls came with a great crowd and threatened to break in the door. The friars marched in procession to their church, where they took their seats, and when the consuls entered and commanded them to depart they refused. Then each was seized and violently led forth, two of them who threw themselves on the ground near the door being picked up by the hands and feet and carried out. Thus they were accompanied through the town, but not otherwise maltreated, and they turned the aifair into a procession, marching two by two and singing Te Deum and Salve Regina. At first they went to a farm belonging to the church of Saint-fitienne, but the consuls posted guards to see that notliing was furnished to them, and the next day the prior dis- tributed them among the convents of the province. That the whole affair enlisted for them the sympathies of the faithful was shown by two persons of consideration joining them and entering the Order while it was going on.''^ It is significant of the position which Guillem Arnaud's stead- fastness had already won for his office that to him was conceded the vindication of this series of outrages on the immunity of the Church. Bishop Raymond had joined him in Carcassonne without anathe- matizing the authors of his exile, but now the anathema prompt- ly went forth, November 10, 1235, uttered by the inquisitor with the names of the Bishops of Toulouse and Carcassonne appended as assenting witnesses. It was confined to the consuls, but Count Raymond was not allowed to escape the responsibilit}^ The ex- communication was sent to the Franciscans of Toulouse for publi- cation, and when they obeyed they too were expeUed, in no gen- * Pelisso Chron. pp. 30-40. — Bern. Guidon. Hist. Fundat. Convent. Prijedicat. (Martene Thesaur. VL 460-1).— Epistt. Saeculi XIII. T. I. No. 688 (Men. Germ. Hist.).— Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 43. 20 LANGUEDOC. tie fashion, and the rebellious city was virtually left without eccle- siastics. Further excommunications followed, now including the count, and Prior Pons de Saint-Gilles hastened to Italy to pour the story of his woes into the sympathizing ears of the pope and the sacred college. Gregory assailed the count as the chief of- fender. A minatory brief of April 28, 1236, addressed to him, is couched in the severest language. He is held responsible for the audacious acts of the consuls ; he is significantly reminded of the unperformed vow of the crusade ; not only has he failed to extir- pate heresy according to his pledges, but he is a manifest fautor and protector of heretics ; his favorites and officers are suspect of heresy ; he protects those who have been condemned ; his lands are a place of refuge for those flying from persecution elsewhere, so that heresy is daily spreading and conversions from Cathohcism are frequent, while zealous churchmen seeking to restrain them are slain and abused with impunity. All this he is peremptorily ordered to correct and to sail with his knights to the Holy Land in the "general passage" of the following March. It scarcely needed the reminder, which the pope did not spare liim, of the labors which the Church and its Crusaders had undergone to purge his lands of heresy. He had too keen a recollection of the abyss from which he had escaped to risk another plunge. He had gone as far as he dared in the effort to protect his subjects, and it were manifest folly to draw upon his head and theirs another inroad of the marauders whom the pope with a word could let loose upon him to earn salvation with the sword,* The epistle to Raymond was accompanied with one to the le- gate, instructing him to compel the count to make amends and per- form the crusade. To Frederic II, he wrote forbidding him to call on Raymond for feudal services, as the count was under ex- communication and virtually a heretic, to which the emperor re- plied, reasonably enough, that, so long as Raymond enjoyed posses- sion of fiefs held under the empire, excommunication should not * Martene Thesaur. I. 993.— Epistt. Saeculi XIII. T. I. No. 688 (Mon. Germ. Hist.).— Teulet, Layettes, II. 314. The subordination of the bishop to the inquisitors is further shown in the excommunication of the viguier and consuls of Toulouse, July 24, 1237, in which Bishop Raymond and other prelates are mentioned as assessors to the inquisitors (Doat, XXI. 148). THE INQUISITION REINSTATED. 21 confer on him the advantage of release from their burdens. King Louis was also appealed to and was urged to hasten the marriage between his brother Alfonse and Raymond's daughter Jeanne. "With the spectre of all Europe in arms looming up before him Raymond could do nothing but yield. When, therefore, the legate summoned him to meet the inquisitors at Carcassonne he meekly went there and conferred with them and the bishops. The con- ference ended with his promise to return the bishop and friars and clergy to Toulouse, and this promise he kept. The friars were duly reinstated September 4, after ten months of exile. That Guillem Arnaud returned with them is a inatter of course.* Pierre Cella was still restricted to his diocese of Querci, and as Guillem required a colleague, a concession was made to popular feeling by the legate in appointing a Franciscan, it being imagined that the comparative mildness of that Order might serve to modify the hatred felt towards the Dominicans. The post was conferred on the provincial minister, Jean de Notoyra, but his other duties were too engrossing, and he substituted Frere fitienne de Saint-Thi- bery, who had the reputation of being a modest and courteous man. If hopes were entertained that thus the severity of the In- quisition would be tempered, they were disappointed. The two men Avorked cordially together, with a single purpose and perfect unanimity, f GuiUem Arnaud's activity was untiring. During his exile in Carcassonne he occupied himself with the trial of the Seigneur de Niort, whom he sentenced in February or March, 1236.:}: In the early months of 1237 we hear of him in Querci, co-operating with Pierre Cella in harrying the heretics of Montauban. During his absence there occurred a crowning mercy in Toulouse, which threw the heretics into a spasm of terror and contributed greatly to their destruction. Raymond Gros, who had been a perfected heretic for more than twenty years, one of the most loved and trusted leaders of the sect, was suddenly converted. Tradition relates that a quarter of a century before he had been seized and con- * Potthast No. 10152.— Epistt. Siecul. XIII. T. I. No. 700 (Mon. Germ. Hist.). —Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. IV. P. ii. p. 913.— Vaissctte, III. 408.— Pelisso Chron. pp. 40-1. t Pelisso Chron. p. 41-2. t Coll. Boat, XXI. 163. 22 LANGUEDOC. signed to the stake, when the pro])hetic spirit of St. Dominic, fore- seeing that he would return to the Church and perform shining service in the cause of God, rescued him from the flames. On April 2, without heralding, he presented himself at the Domini- can convent, humbly begged to be received into the Church, and promised to do whatever should be required of him. With the eagerness of an impassioned convert he proceeded to reveal all that Hfelong intercourse with the Cathari had brought to his knowledge. So full were his recollections that several days were required to write down all the names and facts that crowded to his hps. The lists were long and embraced prominent nobles and citizens, confirming suspicion in many cases, and revealing heresy in other quarters where it was wholly unlooked for. Guillem Arnaud hurried back from Montauban to take full ad- vantage of this act of Providence. The heretics were stunned. None of them dared to deny the truth of the accusations made by Kaymond Gros. Many fled, some of whose names reappear in the massacre of Avignonet and the final catastrophe of Montsegur. Many recanted and furnished further revelations. Long Usts were made out of those who had been hereticated on their death-beds, and multitudes of corpses were exhumed and burned, with the re- sultant harvest of confiscations. It is difficult to exaggerate the severity of the blow thus received by heresy. Toulouse w^as its headquarters. Here were the nobles and knights, the consuls and rich burghers who had thus far defied scrutiny and had protected their less fortunate comrades. Now scattered and persecuted, forced to recant, or burned, the power of the secret organization was broken irrevocably. We can well appreciate the pious exulta- tion of the chronicler as he winds up his account of the conster- nation and destruction thus visited upon the heretical community — " Their names are not written in the Book of Life, but their bod- ies here were burned and their souls are tortured in hell !" A single sentence of February 19, 1238, in which more than twenty penitents were consigned c?*. masse to perpetual imprisonment, shows the extent of the harvest and the haste of the harvesters.* * Pelisso Chron. pp. 43-51. — Coll. Doat, XXI. 149.— It is probable that among these victims perished Vigoros de Bocona, a Catharan bishop. Alberic de Trois Fontaines places his burning in Toulouse in 1233 (Chron. anu. 1233), but there is PROGRESS OP THE INQUISITION. 23 The Inquisition thus had overcome the popular horror which its proceedings had excited ; it had braved the shock and tri- umphed over the opposition of the secular authorities, and had planted itself firmly in the soil. After the harvest had been gath- ered in Toulouse it was evident to the indefatigable activity of the inquisitors that they could best perform their functions by riding circuit and holding assizes in all the towns subject to their juris- diction, and this was represented as a concession to avert the com- plaints of those who deemed it a hardship to be summoned to dis- tant places. Their incessant labors began to tell. Heretics were leaving the lands of Raymond at last and seeking a refuge else- where. Possibly some of them found it in the domains which had fallen to the crown, for in this year we find Gregory scolding the royal officials for their slackness of zeal in executing sentences against powerful heretics. Elsewhere, however, there was no rest for them. In Provence this year Pons de TEsparre made himself conspicuous for the energy and effectiveness with which he con- founded the enemies of the faith ; while Montpellier, alarmed at the influx of heretics and their success in propagating their errors, appealed to Gregory to favor them with some assistance that should effectively resist the rising tide, and Gregory at once or- dered his legate Jean de Vienne to go thither and take the neces- sary measures.* The progress of the Inquisition, however, was not destined to be uninterrupted. Count Raymond, apparently reckless of the nu- merous excommunications under which he lay, so far from sailing for Palestine in March, had seized Marseilles, which was in rebel- lion against its suzerain, the Count of Provence. This aroused anew the indignation of Gregory, not only because of its inter- ference with the war against the Saracens in Spain and the Holy Land, but because of the immunity which heretics would enjoy evidence of his being still alive and active in 1235 or 1236 (Doat, XXII. 222). He was ordained a "filius major" in Montsegur about 1229, by the Catharan bishop, Guillabert de Castres (Doat, XXII. 226), and his name as that of a re- vered teacher continues for many years to occur in the confessions of penitents. * Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 43.— Arch, de I'fiveche de BC'ziers (Doat, XXXI. 35).— Born. Guidon. Libell. de Magist. Ord. Pruedic. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 422), — Raynald. ann. 1237, No. 32. 2tt LANOUEDOC. during the quarrel of the Christian princes. He peremptorily or- dered Raymond to desist from his enterprise on Marseilles, and to perform his Crusader's vow. An appeal was made to King Louis and Queen Blanche, whose intervention procured for Raymond not only a postponement of the crusade for another year, but an order to the legate empowering him to grant the count's request to take the Inquisition entirely out of the hands of the Domini- cans, if, on investigation, he should find justification for Raymond's assertion that they were actuated by hatred towards himself. Fresh troubles had arisen at Toulouse. July 24, 1237, the inquis- itors had again excommunicated the viguier and consuls, because they had not arrested and burned Alaman de Roaix and some other heretics, condemned in absentia^ and Raymond was resolved, if possible, to relieve himself and his subjects from the cruel op- pression to which they were exposed.* In this his efforts were crowned with most unlooked-for suc- cess. May 13, 1238, he obtained a suspension for three months of all inquisitorial proceedings, during which time his envoys sent to Gregory were to be heard. They seem to have used most persua- sive arguments, for Gregory wrote to the Bishop of Toulouse to continue the suspension until the new legate, the Cardinal-bishop of Palestrina, should examine into the complaints against the Dominicans and consider the advisability of granting Raymond's request that the business of persecution should be confined, as for- merly, to the bishops. Raymond's crusade was also reduced to three years, to be performed voluntarily, provided he would give to King Louis sufficient security that he would sail the following year : by performing this, and making amends for the wrongs in- flicted on the Church, he was to earn absolution from his numer- ous excommunications, t The temporary suspension was unexpectedly prolonged, for, * Epistt. Sfficuli XIII. T. I. No. 706 (Mon. Germ. Hist.).— Potthast No. 10357, 10361.— Raynald. ann. 1237, No. 33, 37.— Teulet, Layettes, II. 339, No. 2514.— Vaissette, III. 410.— Coll. Doat, XXI. 146. A deposition of Raymond Jean of Albi, April 30, 1238 (Doat, XXIII. 273), probably marks the term of the activity of the Inquisition before its suspension. t Teulet, Layettes, IL 377, 386.— Epistt. Saeculi XIII. T. I. No. 731 (Mon. Germ. Hist.).— Raynald. ann. 1239, No. 71-3.— Arch, du Vatican T. XIX. (Ber- ger, Actes d'Innocent IV. p. xix.). THE INQUISITION SUSPENDED AND RESTORED. 25 owing to hostilities with Frederic II., tlie cardinal-legate's depart- ure was postponed for a year. "When at last he came, in 1239, he brought special orders to the inquisitors to obey his commands. What investigation he made and what were his conclusions we have no means of knowing, but this at least is certain, that until late in 1241 the Inquisition was effectually muzzled. No traces remain of its activity during these years, and Catholic and Catha- ran alike could draw a freer breath, reUeved of apprehension from its ever-present supervision and the seemingly superhuman energy of the friars.* We can readily conjecture the reasons which impelled its re- instatement. Doubtless the bishops were as negligent as of old, and looked after their temporalities to the exclusion of their duties in preserving the purity of the faith. Doubtless, too, the heretics, encouraged by virtual toleration, grew bolder, and cherished hopes of a retm'n to the good old times, when, secure under their native princes, they could safely defy distant Paris and yet more distant Rome. The condition of the country was, in fact, by no means reassuring, especially in the regions which had become domains of the cro^vn. The land was fuU of knights and barons who were more or less openly heretics, and who knew not when the blow might fall on them ; of seigneurs who had been proscribed for heresy; of enforced converts who secretly longed to avow their hidden faith, and to regain their confiscated lands ; of penitents burning to throw off the crosses imposed on them, and to avenge the humiliations which they had endured. ^Refugees, faidits, and heretic teachers were wandering through the mountains, dwelhng in caverns and in the recesses of the forests. Scarce a famil>' but had some kinsman to avenge, who had faUen in the field or had perished at the stake. The lack of prisons and the parsimony of the prelates had prevented a general resort to imprisonment, and the burnings had not been numerous enough to notably reduce the numbers of those who were of necessity bitterly opposed to the existing order. Suddenly, in 1240, an insurrection appeared, head- ed by Trencavel, son of that Viscount of Beziers whom we liave seen entrapped by Simon de Montfort and dying opportunely in * Arch. Nat. de France J. 430, No. 19, 20. — Guill. Pod. Laurent, c. 43. — Vaissctte, III. 411. 26 LANGUEDOC. his hands, not without suspicion of poison. He brought with him from Catalonia troops of proscribed knights and gentlemen, and was greeted enthusiastically by the vassals and subjects of his house, (/ount Raymond, his cousin, held aloof ; but his ambigu- ous conduct showed ])laiidy that he was prepared to act on either side as success or defeat might render advisable. At first the ris- ing seemed to prosper. Trencavel laid siege to his ancestral town of Carcassonne, and the spirit of his followers was shown when, on the surrender of the suburb, they slaughtered in cold blood thirty ecclesiastics who had received solemn assurance of free egress to Narbonne.* It required but a small force of royal troops under Jean de Beaumont to crush the insurrection as quickly as it had arisen, and to inflict a vengeance which virtually annihilated the petite noblesse of the region ; but, nevertheless, the lesson w^hich it taught was not to be neglected. The civil order, as now established in the south of France, evidently rested in the religious order, and the maintenance of this required hands more vigorous and watch- ful than those of the self-seeldng prelates, A great assembly of the Cathari held in 1241, on the bank of the Larneta, under the presidency of Aymeri de Collet, heretic Bishop of Albi, showed how bold they had become, and how confidently the}^ looked to the future. Church and State both could see now, if not before, that the Inquisition was a necessary factor in securing to both the advantages gained in the crusades.f Gregory IX., the founder of the Inquisition, died August 22, 1211. It is probable that, before his death, he had put an end to the suspension of the Inquisition and slipped the hounds from the leash, for his immediate successor, Celestin IV., enjoyed a pontifi- cate of but nineteen days — from September 20 to October 8 — and then followed an interregnum until the election of Innocent lY., June 28, 1213, so that for nearly two years the papal throne * Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 43.— Giiill. Nangiac. Gest. S. Liidov. ann. 1239.— Vais- sette, III. 420.— Bern. Guidon. Vit. Gregor. PP. IX. (Muratori S. E. I. III. 574). — Teulet, Layettes, II. 457. It was not until 1247 that Trencavel released the consuls of Bgziers from their allegiance to him. — Mascaro, Libre de Memorias, ann. 1247. t A. Molinier (Vaissette, fid. Privat, VII. 448-61). — Douais, Les Albigeois, Paris, 1879; Pieces justif No. 4. THE SEIGNEURS DE NIORT. 27 was practically vacant. Raymond's policy, for the moment, had leaned to^Yards gratifying the papacy, for he desired from Gregory not only the removal of his four excommunications and forbear- ance in the matter of the crusade, but also a dispensation to enable him to carry out a contract of marriage into which he entered with Sanche, daughter and heiress of the Count of Provence, not foreseeing that Queen Blanche would juggle him in this, and, by securing the brilliant match for her son Charles, found the House of Anjou-Provence, and win for the royal family another large portion of the South. Full of these projects, which promised so well for the rehabilitation of his power, he signed, April 18, 1241, with J ay me I. of Aragon, a treaty of alliance for the defence of the Holy See and the Catholic faith, and against the heretics. Under such influences he w^as not likely to oppose the renewal of active persecution. Besides, he had been compromised in Trenca- vel's insurrection ; he had been summoned to answer for his con- duct before King Louis, when, on March 14, he had been forced to take an oath to banish from his lands the faidits and enemies of the king, and to capture without delay the castle of Montse- gur, the last refuge of heresy.* The case of the Seigneurs de Niort, powerful nobles of Fenouil- ledes, who had taken part in Trencavel's insurrection, is interest- ing from the light which it throws upon the connection between the religion and the politics of the time, the difficulties which the Inquisition experienced in dealing with stubborn heresy and patri- otism, and the damage inflicted on the heretic cause by the abor- tive revolt. The three brothers — Guillem Guiraud, Bernard Otho, and Guiraud Bernard — w^ith their mother, Esclarmonde, had long been a quarry which both the inquisitors and the royal seneschal of Carcassonne had been eager to capture. Guillem had earned the reputation of a valiant knight in the wars of the crusades, and the brothers had managed to hold their castles and their power through all the vicissitudes of the time. In the general inquisition made by Cardinal Romano in 1 229 they were described as among the chief leaders of the heretics, and the Council of Toulouse, at the same time, denounced two of them as enemies of the faitii, and declared them excommunicate if they did not submit within • D'Achery Spicileg. III. 621.— Vaissette, III. 424; Pr. 400. 28 . LANGUEDOC. fifteen days. In 1233 we hear of their having, not long before, laid waste with fire and sword the territories of Pierre Amiel, Archbishop of Is^arbonne, and they had assailed and wounded him while on his way to the Holy See, an exploit which led Gregory IX. to order the archbishop, in conjunction with the Bishop of Toulouse, to proceed against them energetically, while at the same time he invoked the secular arm by a pressing command to Count Eaymond. It was probably under this authority that Bishop Raymond du Fauga and the Provost of Toulouse held an inquest on them, in which was taken the testimony of Pierre Amiel and of one hundred and seven other witnesses. The evidence was con- flicting. The archbishop swore at great length as to the misdeeds of his enemies. They were all heretics. At one time they kept in their Castle of Dourne no less than thirty perfected heretics, and they had procured the assassination of Andre Chaulet, Senes- chal of Carcassonne, because he had endeavored to obtain evidence against them. Other witnesses were equally emphatic. Bernard Otho on one occasion had silenced a priest in his own church, and had replaced him in the pulpit with a heretic, who had preached to the congregation. On the other hand, there were not wanting witnesses who boldly defended them. The preceptor of the Hos- pital at Puysegur swore to the orthodoxy of Bernard Otho, and declared that what he had done for the faith and for peace had caused the death of a thousand heretics. A priest swore to having seen him assist in capturing heretics, and an archdeacon declared that he would not have remained in the land but for the army which Bernard raised after the death of the late Idng, adding that he beheved the prosecution arose rather from hate than from charity. Nothing came of this attempt, and in 1234 we meet with Bernard Otho as a witness to a transaction between the royal Seneschal of Carcassonne and the Monastery of Alet ; but when the Inquisition was estabhshed it was promptly brought to bear on the nobles who persisted in maintaining their feudal indepen- dence in spite of the fact that their immediate suzerain was now the king. In 1235 Guillem Arnaud, the inquisitor, while in Car- cassonne, ^yiih the Archdeacon of Carcassonne as assistant, cited the three brothers and their mother to answer before him. Ber- nard Otho and Guillem obeyed the summons, but would confess nothing. Then, the seneschal seized them ; under compulsion THE SEIGNEURS DE NIORT. ^29 Guillera made confession ample to warrant the inquisitor in sen- tencing him to perpetual prison (March 2, 1236), while Bernard, remaining obdurate, was condemned as a contumacious heretic (February 13, 1236), and the seneschal made preparations to burn him. Guiraud and his mother, Esclarmonde, were further con- demned, March 2, for contumacious absence. Guiraud, however, who had wisely kept at large, began to fortify his castles and make warlike demonstrations so formidable that the Frenchmen scattered through the land took alarm. The Marechal de la Foi, Levis of Mirepoix, stood firm, but the rest so worked upon the seneschal that the brothers were released, and the inquisi- tors had only the barren satisfaction of condemning the whole family on paper — a disappointment alleviated, it is true, by gath- ering for the stake a rich harvest of less formidable heretics, both clerks and laymen. Equally vain was an effort made two years later by the inquisitors to compel Count Eaymond to carry out their sentence by confiscating the lands of the contumacious nobles, but the failure of Trencavel's revolt forced them to sue for peace. Bernard Otho was again brought before the Inquisition, and Guillem de Niort made submission for himself and brothers, surrendering their castles to the king on condition that he would procure their reconciliation with the Church, and that of their toother, nephews, and allies, and, faihng to accomplish this by the next Pentecost, that he would restore their castles and grant them a month of truce to put themselves in defence. King Louis rati- fied the treaty in January, 1241, but refused, when the time came, to restore the castles, only agreeing to pay over the revenues on consideration that the brothers should reside outside of Fenouil- ledes. Guillem died in 1256, when Louis kept both castles and revenues, under pretext that the treaty had been a personal one with Guillem. The new order of things by this time had become so firmly established that no further resistance was to be dreaded. The extinction of this powerful family is a typical example of the manner in which the independence of the local seigneurie was gradually broken down by means of the Inquisition, and the au- thority of crown and Church was extended over the land.* • Guillem de Tudela V. 8980, 9183. — Tr6sor des Chartcs du Roi a Carcas- sonne (Doat, XXII. 34-49).— Vaissette, £d. Privat, VIII. 975.— Tculet, Layettes, 30 L A N G U E D O C. Under the reaction consequent upon Trencavel's failure, and emboldened by the ruin of the local protectors of the people, the inquisitors returned to their work with sharpened zeal and re- doubled energy. Chance has preserved for us a record of sen- tences pronounced by Pierre Cella, during a circuit of a few months in C^uerci, from Advent, 1241, to Ascension, 1242, which affords us a singularly instructive insight into one phase of inquis- itorial operations. We have seen that, when an inquisitor visited a town, he proclaimed a " time of grace," during which those who voluntarily came forward and confessed were spared the harsher punishments of prison, confiscation, or the stake, and that the In- quisition found this expedient exceedingly fruitful, not only in the number of penitents Avhich it brought in, but in the testimony which was gathered concerning the more contumacious. The rec- ord in question consists of cases of this kind, and its crowded cal- endar justifies the esteem in which the method was held.* Summarized, the record shows — In Gourdon 219 sentences pronounced in Advent, 1241. ' In Montcucq.... 84 " " " Lent, 1242. In Sauveterre.... 5. In Belcayre 7. In Moutauban... 254 sentences pronounced in week before Ascension (May 21- 28, 1242). In Moissac 99 " " " week of Ascension (May 28- June 5, 1242). InMontpezat.... 22 » " " Lent, 1242. In Montaut 23 " " " " " InCastelnau.... 11 " " " " " Total 724 II. 252, No. 2241.— Vaissette, IIL 383, 422-3; Pr. 385, 397-99.— Ripoll VII. 9.— Potthast No. 9024.— Pelisso Chron. pp. 28-9.— Coll. Doat, XXL 163-164, 166; XXIV. 81. * The document is in the Collection Doat, XXI. 185 sqq. — Although it does not specify that the cases are of voluntary penitents within the time of grace, there is no risk in assuming this. The penances are all of the kind provided for such penitents; and in one case (fol. 220) it is mentioned that the party had not come in within the time, which would infer that the rest had done so. Besides, the extraordinary speed with which the business was transacted is wholly in- compatible with prosecutions of accused persons striving to maintain their in- nocence. SENTENCES OF PIERRE CELLA. 31 Of these penitents four hundred and twenty-seven were ordered to make the distant pilgrimage to Compostella, in the northAvest- ern corner of Spain — some four hundred or five hundred miles of mountainous roads. One hundred and eight were sent to Canter- bury, this pilgrimage, in all but three or four cases, being super- imposed on that to Compostella. Only two penitents were re- quired to visit Rome, but seventy-nine were ordered to serve in the crusades for terms varying from one to eight years. The first thing that impresses one in considering this record is the extraordinary speed wdth which the work was done. The whole was despatched in six months, and there is no evidence that the labor was continuous — in fact, it could not have been so, for the inquisitor had to move from place to place, to grant the neces- sary delays, and must have been frequently interrupted to gather in the results of testimony which implicated recusants. With what reckless lack of consideration the penances were imposed is shown by the two hundred and nineteen penitents of Gourdon, whose confessions were taken down and whose sentences were pronounced within the four weeks of Advent; and even this is outstripped by the two hundred and fifty-two of Montauban, de- spatched in the week before Ascension, at the rate of forty-two for each working-day. In several cases two culprits are included in the same sentence. Even more significant than this, however, are the enormous numbers — two hundred and nineteen for a small town like Gour- don and eighty-four for Montcucq. The number of these who were really heretics, both Catharan and Waldensian, is large, and shows how thoroughly the population was inter])enetrated with heresy. Even more, ho"\vever, were good Catholics whose cases prove how amicably the various sects associated together, and how impossible it was for the most orthodox to avoid the as- sociation with heretics which rendered him liable to punishment. This friendly intercourse is peculiarly notable in the case of a priest who confessed to having gone to some heretics in a vineyard, where he read in their books and ate pears with them. He was rudely reminded of his indiscretion by being suspended from liis functions, sent to Compostella and thence to Rome, with letters from the inquisitors w^hich doubtless were not for his benefit, for apparently they felt unable to decide Avhat ought to be done for 02 LANGUEDOC. an offence so enormous. Even the smallest derelictions of this sort were rigorously penanced. A citizen of Sauveterre had seen three heretics entering the house of a sick man, and heard that they had hereticated him, but knew nothing of his own knowledge, yet he was subjected to the disgrace of a penitential pilgrimage to Puy. Another, of Belcayre, had carried a message between two heretics, and was sent to Puy, St. Gilles, and Compostella. A physician of Montauban had bound up the arm of a heretic and was subjected to the same three pilgrimages, and the same penance was inflicted on a woman who had simply eaten at a table with heretics. The same was prescribed in several cases of boatmen who had igno- rantly transported heretics, without recognizing them until the voyage was under way or finished. A woman who had eaten and drunk with another woman who she heard was a heretic was sen- tenced to the pilgrimages of Puy and St. Gilles, and the same pen- ance was ordered for a man who had once seen heretics, and for a woman who had consulted a Waldensian about her sick son. The Waldenses had great reputation as skilful leeches, and two men who had called them in for their wives and children were pen- anced with the pilgrimages of Puy, St. Gilles, and Compostella. A man who had seen heretics two or three times, and had already purchased reconciliation by a gift to a monastery, was sent on a long series of pilgrimages, embracing both Compostella and Can- terbury, besides wearing the yellow cross for a year. Another was sent to Compostella because he had once been thrown into company with heretics in a boat, although he had left them on hearing their heresies ; and yet another because, when a boy, he had spent part of a day and night with heretics. One who had seen heretics when he was twelve years old was sent to Puy; while a woman who had seen them in her father's house was obliged to go to Puy and St. Gilles. A man who had seen two heretics leaving a place which he had rented was sent to Compos- tella, and another who had allowed his Waldensian mother to visit him and had given her an ell of cloth was forced to expiate it with pilgrimages to Puy, St. Gilles, and Compostella.* The list might be prolonged almost indefinitely, but these cases will suffice to * Coll. Boat, XXI. 210, 215, 216, 227, 229, 230, 238, 265, 283, 285, 293, 299, 300, 301, 305, 307, 308, 310. POrULAli TERROR. 33 show the character of the offence and the nature of the grace proffered for voluntary confession. There is no pretence that any of these particular culprits themselves were not wholly orthodox, but the people were to be taught that the toleration which had existed for generations was at an end ; that the neighborly inter- course which had estabhshed itself between Catholic and Catharan and Waldensian was in itself a sin ; that the heretic was to be tracked and captured like a wild beast, or at least to be shunned like a leper. "When such was the measure meted out to spontaneous peni- tents within the time of grace, with harsher measures in reserve for those subsequently detected, we can easily imagine the f eehngs inspired by the Inquisition in the whole population, without dis- tinction of creed, and the terror common to all when the rumor spread that the inquisitors were coming. Scarce any one but was conscious of some act — perhaps of neighborly charity — that ren- dered him a criminal to the awful fanaticism of Pierre Cella or Guillem Arnaud. The heretics themselves would look to be im- prisoned for life, with confiscation, or to be burned, or sent to Constantinople to support the tottering Latin Empire ; while the Catholics were likely to fare little better on the distant pilgrim- ages to which they were sentenced, even though they were spared the sterner punishments or the humiliation of the saffron cross. Such a visit would bring, even to the faithful, the desolation of a pestilence. The inquisitors would pass calmly on, leaving a neigh- borhood well-nigh depopulated — fathers and mothers despatched to distant shrines for months or years, leaving dependent families to starve, or harvests ungathered to be the prey of the first-comer, all the relations of a life, hard enough at the best, disturbed and broken up. Even such a record as that of Pierre Cella's sentences rendered within the time of grace sliows but a portion of the Avork. A year or two later we find the Council of Narbonne beseechino- tlie inquisitors to delay rendering sentences of incarceration, be- cause the numbers of those flocking in for reconciliation after the expiration of the term of grace were so great that it would be impos- sible to raise funds for their maintenance, or to find stones enough, even in that mountainous land, to build prisons to contain them.* * Conoil. Narbonn. ami. 1344 c. 19. TL— 3 34 L A N G U E D O C. That a whole vicinage, when it had timely notice, should bind it- self in a league to defeat the purpose of the inquisitors, as at Cas- tolnaudary, must have been a frequent experience ; that, sooner or later, despair should bring about a catastrophe like that of Avignonet was inevitable. Montsegur for 3^ears had been the Mount Tabor of the Cathari — the place of refuge in which, as its name implies, they could feel secure when safety could be hoped for nowhere else. It had been destroyed, but early in the century Eaymond de Pereille had re- built it, and for forty yeixrs he held it as an asylum for heretics, whom he defended to the utmost of his ability. In 1232 the Catha- ran bishops Tento of Agen and Guillabert de Castres of Toulouse, w^ith a number of ministers, foreseeing, in the daily increasing pressure of persecution, the necessity of some stronghold which should serve as an asylum, arranged with Raymond that he should receive and shelter all fugitives of the sect and guard the common treasure to be de]3osited there. His castle, situated in the territo- ries of the marshals of Mirepoix, had never opened its gates to the Frenchmen. Its almost inaccessible peak had been sedulously strengthened with all that military experience could suggest or earnest devotion could execute. Ever since the persecutions of the Inquisition commenced we hear of those who fled to Montse- gur when they found the inquisitor's hand descending upon them. Dispossessed knights, faidits of all kinds, brought their swords to its defence ; Catharan bishops and ministers sought it when hard pressed, or made it a resting-place in their arduous and dangerous mission -work. Raymond de Pereille himself sought its shelter when, compromised by the revelations of Raymond Gros, he fled from Toulouse, in 1237, with his wife Corba; the devotion of his race to heresy being further proved by the fate of his daughter Esclarmonde, who perished for her faith at the stake, and by the Catharan episcopate of his brother Arnaud Roger. Such a strong- hold in the hands of desperate men, fired with the fiercest fanati- cism, was a menace to the stability of the new order in the State ; to the Church it was an accursed spot whence heresy might at any moment burst forth to overspread the land again. Its de- struction had long been the desire of all good Catholics, and Ray- mond's pledge to King Louis, March 1-1, 12-115 to capture it had THE MASSACRE OF AYIGNONET. 35 been one of the conditions on which his suspicions relations with Trencavel had been condoned. In fact, he made some show of be- sieging it during the same year, but success w^ould have been most damaging to the plans which he was nursing, and his efforts can scarce have been more than a cover for mihtary preparations des- tined to a far different object. The French army, after the sup- pression of the rising, also laid siege to Montsegur, but were un- able to effect its reduction.* On Ascension night, 12-i2, while Pierre Cella was tranquilly winding up his work at Montauban, the world was startled with the news that a holocaust of the terrible inquisitors had been made at Avignonet, a little town ahoui twelve leagues from Toulouse, The stern Guillem Arnaud and the courteous Etienne de Saint- Thibery were making, like their colleague Pierre Cella, a circuit through the district subjected to their mercy. Some of their sen- tences which have been preserved show that in November, 1241, they were laboring at Lavaur and at Saint-Paul de Caujoux, and in the spring of 1242 they came to Avignonet. f Eaymond d'Al- faro was its bailli for the count, who was his uncle through his mother, Guillemetta, a natural daughter of Eaymond VI. When he heard that the inquisitors and their assistants were coming he lost no time in preparing for tlieir destruction. A swift messen- ger was despatched to the heretics of Montsegur, and in answer to his summons Pierre Roger of Mirepoix, with a number of knights and their retainers, started at once. They halted in the forest of Gaiac, near A^agnonet, where food was brought them, and they were joined by about thirty armed men of the vicinage, who wait- ed with them till after nightfall. Had this plot failed, d'Alfaro had arranged another for an ambuscade on the road to Castelnau- dary, and the fact that so extensive a conspiracy could be organ- ized on the spot, without finding a traitor to betray it, shows how general was the hate that had been earned by the cruel work of the Inquisition. Not less significant is the fact that on their re- turn to Montsegur the murderers were hospitably entertained at the Chateau de Saint-FeUx by a priest who was cognizant of their bloody deed. The victims came unsuspectingly to the trap. There were * Pelisso Chiou. pp. 49-50. — Coll. Doat, XXII. 216-17, 224, 228. — Schmidt, Cathares I. 315, 334. t Coll. Doat, XXI. 153, 155, 158. 36 L A N G U E D O C. eleven in all. The t^yo inquisitors, with two Dominican friars, and one Franciscan, the Benedictine Prior of Avignonet, llayraond de Costiran, Archdeacon of Lezat, a former troubadour, of whose verses only a single obscene song remains, a clerk of the archdea- con, a notary, and two apparitors — in all a court fully furnished for the despatch of business. They were hospitably received and housed in the castle of the count, where on the morrow they were to open their dread tribunal for the trembUng inhabitants. When darkness came a selected band of twelve, armed with axes, left the forest and stole cautiously to a postern of the castle, where they were met by Golairan, a comrade of d'Alfaro, who assured himself that all was right, and returned to see what the inquisitors were doing. Coming back, he reported that they were drinking ; but a second visit, after an interval, brought the welcome news that they were going to bed. As though apprehensive of danger, they had remained together in the great hall, and had barricaded the door. The gate was opened, the men of Montsegur were admit- ted and were joined by d'Alfaro, armed with a mace, and twenty- five men of Avignonet, and the fact that an esquire in the ser\^ce of the inquisitors was with him indicates that there was treachery at work. The hall-door was quickly broken down, the wild band of assassins rushed in, and, after despatching their victims, there was a fierce chorus of gratified vengeance, each man boasting of his share in the bloody deed — d'Alfaro especially, who shouted " Va he, esta le^'' and claimed that his mace had done its full duty in the murderous work. Its crushing of Guillem Arnaud's skull had deprived Pierre Koger de Mirepoix, the second in command at Montsegur, of the drinking-cup which he had demanded as his reward for the assistance furnished. The plunder of the victims was eagerly shared between the assassins — their horses, books, garments — even to their scapulars. When the news reached Home, the College of Cardinals made haste to express their behef that the victims had become blessed martyrs of Jesus Christ, and one of the first acts of Innocent IV., after his installation in June, 1243, was to repeat this declaration ; but they never Avere canon- ized, in spite of frequent requests to the Holy See, and of the nu- merous miracles which attested their sanctity in the popular cult, until, in 1866, Pius IX. gave them tardy recognition.^ • Vaissette, III. 431 ; Pr. 438-43. — Doat, XXIV. 160. — Guill. Pod. Laur. c. THE MASSACRE A BLUNDER. 37 Like the murder of the legate Pierre de Castelnau, in 1208, the massacre of Avignonet was a fatal error. Its violation of the tra- ditional sanctity of the ecclesiastic sent a thrill of horror even among those who had small sympathy with the cruelty of the In- quisition, while the deliberateness of its planning and its unspar- ing ferocity gave color to the belief that heresy was only to be • extirpated by force. Sympathy, indeed, for a time might well change sides, for the massacre was practically unavenged. Frere Ferrer, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, made due inquest into the affair, and after the capture of Montsegur, in 1244, some of the participants confessed all the details, but the real culprits escaped. Count Kaymond, it is true, when he had leisure from pressing business, hanged a few of the underlings, but we find Raymond d'Alfaro, in 1247, promoted to be Yiguier of Toulouse, and repre- senting his master in the proceedings with regard to the burial of the old count, and, finally, he was one of the nine witnesses to Raymond's last wiU. Another ringleader, Guillem du Mas-Saintes- Puelles, is recorded as taking the oath of allegiance to Count Al- fonse, in 1249, after the death of Raymond. Guillem's participa- tion in the murders has special interest, as showing the antagonism created by the violence of the Inquisition, for in 1233, as BaiUi of Lavaur, he had dutifully seized a number of heretics and carried them to Toulouse, where they were promptly burned.* The massacre of Avignonet came at a time peculiarly unfortu- nate for Count Raymond, who was nursing comprehensive and far-reaching plans, then ripe for execution, for the rehabilitation of his house and the independence of his land. He could not es- cape the responsibility for the catastrophe which public opinion 45. — Pcyrat, Lcs Albigeois ct I'Inquisition, II. 304. — Dicz, Leben iind Werke tier Troubadours, p. 491. — RipoU I. 117. — Analccta Frauciscana, Quaracchi, 1887, II. 65. The Catholic tradition at Avignonet was that some of the inquisitors' follow- ers escaped to the church, where they were massacred with a number of Cntliolic inhabitants who had sought refuge there. In consequence of tliis pollution the church remained unused for forty years, and the anniversary of its reconciliation, on the first Tuesday in June, was still, in the last century, celebrated with illu- minations and rejoicing as a local feast (Bremond ap. RipoU 1. c). * Vaissette, III. 45G. — Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 45. — Molinier np. Pelisso Chron. p 19 _Molinier, L'Ensevelissement de Raimond VI. p. 21. — Vaissette, fid. Privat, VIII. 1358. ' 38 LANGUEDOC. everywhere attached to him. Although he had recently, on March 14, solemnly sworn to persecute heresy with his whole strength when, apparently sick unto death, he had sought absolution at the hands of the episcopal official of Agen, yet he was known to be hostile to the Dominicans as inquisitors, and had bitterly opposed the restoration of their functions. On May 1, just four weeks be- fore the event, he had made a solemn declaration in the presence of numerous prelates and nobles to the effect that he had appealed to Rome against the commission of Dominican inquisitors by the provincial in his territories, and that he intended to prosecute that appeal. He protested that he earnestly desired the eradication of heresy, and urged the bishops to exercise energetically their ordi- nary power to that end, promising his full support to them and the execution of the law both as to confiscation and the death- penalty. He would even accept the friars as inquisitors provided they acted independently of their Orders, and not under the au- thority of their provincials. One of his baillis even threatened, in the church of Moissac, seizure of person and property for all who should submit to the penalties imposed by the inquisitors, as they were not authorized by the count to administer justice. Such being his position, it was inevitable that he should be regarded as an accom- pUce in the murders, and that the cause which he represented should suffer greatly in the revulsion of public feeling which it occasioned.* Raymond had been busy in effecting a widespread alliance which should wring from the House of Capet its conquests of the last quarter of a centur}^ He had been joined by the Kings of England, Castile, and Aragon, and the Count de la Marche, and everything bid fair for his reconquest of his old domains. The massacre of Avignonet was a most untoward precursor of the re- volt which burst forth immediately afterwards. It shook the fidelity of some of his vassals, who withdrew their support ; and, to counteract its impression, he felt obliged to convert his sham siege of Montsegur into an active one, thus employing troops which he could ill spare. Yet the rising, for a while, promised success, and Raymond even reassumed his old title of Duke of * Teulet, Layettes, II. 466. — Maj. Cliron. Lemovicens. ann. 1242 (Bouquet, XXI. 765).— Vaissette, III. Pr. 410.— Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 45.— Schmidt, Catlia- res, I. 320.— Bern. Guidon. Vit. Coelestin. PP. IV. (Muratori S. R. I. III. 589;. TRIUMPH OF TPIE INQUISITION. 39 Narbonne. King Louis, however, was equal to the occasion, and allowed the allies no time to concentrate their forces. His victo- ries over the English and Gascons at Taillebourg and Saintes, July 19 and 23, deprived Kaymond of all hope of assistance from that quarter. Pestilence forced the withdrawal of the main army of Louis, but a force under the veteran Imbert de Beaujeu operated actively against Ka3^mond, who, without help from his allies and deserted by many of his vassals, was obliged to lay down his arms, December 22. When suing for peace he pledged himself to extir- pate heresy and to punish the assassins of Avignonet Avith an effu- siveness which shows the importance attached to these conditions. The sagacity and moderation of King Louis granted him easy terms, but one of the stipulations of settlement was that every male inhabitant over the age of fifteen should take an oath to assist the Church against heresy, and the king against Ea}'Tnond, in case of another revolt. Thus the purity of the faith and the supremacy of the foreign domination were once again recognized as inseparably allied.* The triumph of both had been secured. This ended the last serious effort of the South to recover its independence. Hence- forth, under the treaty of Paris, it was to pass irrevocably into the hands of the stranger, and the Inquisition was to have unre- stricted o])portunity to enforce conformity in religion. It was in vain that Raymond again, at the Council of Beziers, April 20, 1243, summoned the bishops of his dominions — those of Toulouse, Agen, Cahors, Albi, and Rodez — urging them personally or through proper deputies, whether Cistercians, Dominicans, or Franciscans, to make diligent inquisition after heresy, and pledged the assistance of the secular arm for its extirpation. It was equally in vain that, immediately on the accession of Innocent IV., in June, a deputation of Dominicans, frightened by the warning of Avignonet, earnestly alleged many reasons why the dangerous burden shoidd be lifted from their shoulders. The pope peremp- torily refused, and ordered them to continue their holy labors, even at the risk of martyrdom.f * Vaissette, III. 434-7, 439. — Teulet, Layettes, II. 470, 481-2, 484, 487, 488, 489, 493, 495, etc. t Vaissette, III. Pr. 435. — Ripoll I. 118. Innocent's bull is dated July 10, 40 LANGUEDOC. Despite this single exhibition of hesitation and weakness, the Order was not lacking in men whose eager fanaticism rendered them fully prepared to accept the perilous post. The peril, in- deed, was apparent rather than real — it had passed away in the revulsion which followed the useless bloodshed of Avignonet and the failure of Raymond's rebellion. There was a rising tide in favor of orthodoxy. A confraternity organized in October, 1243, by Durand, Bishop of Albi, is probably only the expression of what was going on in many places. Organized under the pro- tection of St. Cecilia, the members of the association pledged themselves not only to mutual protection, but to aid the bishop to execute justice on heretics, Vaudois and their fautors, and to defend inquisitors as they would their own bodies. Any member suspected of heresy was to be incontinently ejected, and a reward of a silver mark was offered for every heretic captured and deliv- ered to the association. The new pope had, moreover, spoken in no uncertain tone. His refusal to relieve the Dominicans was ac- companied with a peremptory command to all the prelates of the region to extend favor, assistance, and protection to the inquisitors in their toils and tribulations. Any slackness in this was freely threatened with the papal vengeance, Avhile favor was significantly promised as the reward of zeal. The Dominicans were urged to fresh exertion to overcome the threatened recrudescence of heresy. A new legate, Zoen, Bishop-elect of Avignon, ^vas also despatched to Languedoc, with instructions to act vigorousl3\ His predeces- sor had been complained of by the inquisitors for having, in spite of their remonstrances, released many of their prisoners and remit- ted penances indiscriminately. All such acts of misplaced mercy were pronounced void, and Zoen was ordered to reimpose all such penalties without appeal.* Still more menacing to the heretic cause was the reconciliation at last effected between Raymond and the papacy. In Septem- ber, 121:3, the count visited Ital}^ where he had an interview with Frederic II. in Apulia, and with Innocent in Rome. For ten years 1243, within a fortuiglit after his election. The deputation had evidently been sent to Celestiu IV., and the bull had been prepared in advance, awaiting the election of a successor. * Archives de rfevgch6 d'Alhi (Doat, XXXI. 47). — Archives de I'lnq. de Carcas- sonne (Doat, XXXI. 63, 65, 97).— Berger,Eegistres d'Innocent IV. No. 31, 102. RAYMOND WON OVER. 4,1 he had been under excommunication, and had carried on an un- availing struggle. He could no longer cherish illusions, and was doubtless ready to give whatever assurances might be required of him. On the other hand, the new pope was free from the pre- dispositions which the long strife had engendered in Gregory IX. There seems to have been little difficulty in reaching an under- standing, to which the good offices of Louis IX. powerfully con- tributed. December 2, Eaymond Avas released from his various excommunications ; January 1, 1244, the absolution was announced to King Louis and the prelates of the kingdom, who were ordered to publish it in all the churches, and January 7 the Legate Zoen was instructed to treat him with fatherly affection and not permit him to be molested. In all this absolution had only been given ad cautelam, or provisionally, for a special excommunication had been decreed against him as a fautor of heretics, after the massacre of Avignonet, by the inquisitors Ferrer and Guillem Eaymond. Against this he had made a special appeal to the Holy See in April, 1243, and a special bull of May 16, 1244, was required for its abrogation. No conditions seem to have been imposed respect- ing the long-deferred crusade, and thenceforth Eaymond lived in perfect harmony with the Holy See. Indeed, he was the recipient of many favors. A bull of March 18, 1244, granted him the priv- ilege that for five years he should not be forced by apostolic let- ters to answer in judgment outside of his own dominions ; another of April 27, 1245, took him, his family, and lands under the special pi'otection of St. Peter and the papacy; and yet another of May 12, 1245, provided that no delegate of the Apostolic See should have power to utter excommunication or any other sentence against him without a special mandate. Besides this, one of A])ril 21, 1245, imposed some limitations on the power of inquisitors, limita- tions which they seem never to have observed. Eaymond was fairly won over. He had evidently resolved to accommodate him- self to the necessities of the time, and the heretic had nothing fur- ther to hope or the inquisitor to fear from him. The preparation for increased and systematic vigor of operations is seen in the elaborate provisions, so often referred to above, of the Council of Narbonne, held at this period.* * Vaissette, III. 443; Pr. 411, 433-4. — Pottbast No. 10943, 11187, 11218, 42 LANGUEDOC. Yet so long as heresy retained tlie stronghold of Montsegur as a refuge and rallying - point its seciet and powerful organization could not be broken. The capture of that den of outlaws was a necessity of the first order, and as soon as the confusion, of the re- bellion of 1242 had subsided it was undertaken as a crusade, not by Raymond, but by the Archbishop of Narbonne, the Bishop of Albi, the Seneschal of Carcassonne, and some nobles, either led by zeal or b}^ the hope of salvation. The heretics, on their side, were not idle. Some baillis of Count Raymond sent them Bertrand de la Bacalairia, a skilful maker of military engines, to aid them in the defence, who made no scruple in afiirming that he came with the assent of the count, and from every side money, provisions, arms, and munitions of war were poured into the stronghold. In the spring of 1243 the siege began, prosecuted with indefatigable ardor by the besiegers, and resisted with desperate resolution by the besieged. As in the old combats at Toulouse, the women as- sisted their warriors, and the venerable Catharan bishop, Bertrand Martin, animated their devoted courage with promises of eternal bliss. It is significant of the public temper thnt sympathizers in the besiegers' camp permitted tolerably free communication be- tween the besieged and their friends, and gave them warning of the plans of attack. Even the treasure which had been stored up in Montsegur was conveyed away safely through the investing lines, about Christmas, 1243, to Pons Arnaud de Chateau verdun in the Savartes. Secret relations Avere maintained with Count Raymond, and the besieged were buoyed up with promises that if they would hold out until Easter, 1244, he would march to their rehef with forces supplied by the Emperor Frederic II. It was aU in vain. The siege dragged on its weary length for nearly a year, till, on the night of March 1, 1244, guided by some shep- herds who betrayed their fellow-countrymen, by almost inaccessi- ble paths among the cUifs, the crusaders surprised and carried one of the outworks. The castle was no longer tenable. A brief par- ley ensued, and the garrison agreed to surrender at dawn, dehver- ing up to the archbishop aU the perfected heretics among them. 11390, 11638. — Teulet, Layettes, II. 533, 524, 528, 534. — D'Achery, HI. 621.— Berger, Registres d'lnnocent IV. No. 21, 267, 360, 364, 594, 697, 1 283. — Douais, Les sources de I'histoire de rinquisition (loc. cit. p. 415). FALL OP MONTSfiGUR. 43 on condition that the lives of the rest should be spared. Although a few were let down from the walls with ropes and thus escaped, the capitulation was carried out, and the archbishop's shrift was short. At the foot of the mountain-peak an enclosure of stakes was formed, |)iled high with wood, and set on fire. The Perfect were asked to renounce their faith, and on their refusal were cast into the flames. Thus perished two hundred and five men and women. The conquerors might well write exultingly to the pope, " "We have crushed the head of the dragon !" * Although the Uves of the rest of the captives were guaranteed, they were utilized to the utmost. For months the inquisitors Fer- rer and P. Durant devoted themselves to the examinations to se- cure evidence against heretics far and near, dead and alive. From the aged Ea}inond de Pereille to a child ten years of age, they were forced, under repeated interrogatories, to recall every case of adoration and heretication that they could remember, and page after page was covered with interminable lists of names of those present at sermons and consolamenta through a period extending back to thirty or forty years before, and embracing the whole land as far as Catalonia. Even those who had brought victual to Montsegur and sold it were carefully looked after and set down. It can readily be conceived what an accession was made to the terrible records of the Inquisition, and how valuable was the in- sight obtained into the ramifications of heresy throughout the land during more than a generation — what digging up of bones would follow with confiscation of estates, and with what unerring cer- tainty the inquisitors w^ould be able to seize their victims and con- found their denials. We can only guess at the means by which this information was extracted from the prisoners. Torture had not yet been introduced ; life had been promised, and perpetual imprisonment was inevitable for such pronounced heretics ; and when we see Raymond de PereiUe liimself, who had endured un- flinchingly the vicissitudes of the crusades, and had bravely held out to the last, ransacking his memory to betray all whom he had ever seen adore a minister, we can imagine the horrors of the two ' Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 46.— Coll. Doat, XXIL 204, 210; XXIV. 7fi, 80, 168-72, j81. — Schmidt, Cathares, I. 335. — Peyrat, Les Albigcois et Tluquisition, IL 363 sqq. 44 LANGUEDOC. months' preliminary captivity which had so broken his spirit as to bring him to this depth of degradation. Even a perfected heretic, Arnaud de Bretos, captured while flying to Lombardy, was in- duced to reveal the names of all who had given him shelter and attended his ministrations during his missionary wanderings.* Henceforth the Cathari could hope only in God. All chance of resistance was over. One by one their supports had broken, and there was only left the passive resistance of martyrdom. The Inquisition could track and seize its victims at leisure, and king and count could follow with decrees of confiscation which were gradually to transfer the lands of the South to orthodox and loyal subjects. The strongest testimony that can be given to the living earnestness of the Catharan faith is to be found in the prolongar tion of this struggle yet through three hopeless generations. It is no wonder, however, if the immediate effect of these crowding events was to fiU the heretics with despair. In the poem of Isarn de YiUemur, written about this period, the heretic, Sicard de Fi- gueras is represented as saying that their best and most trusted friends are turning against them and betraying them. How many believers at this juncture abandoned their religion, even at the cost of lifelong imprisonment, we have no means of accurately es- timating, but the number must have been enormous, to judge from the request, already alluded to, of the Council of Narbonne about this time to the inquisitors to postpone their sentences in view of the impossibility of building prisons sufficient to contain the crowds who hurried in to accuse themselves and seek reconcilia- tion, after the expiration of the time of grace, which Innocent IV., in December, 1243, had ordered to be designated afresh.f Yet, in a population so thoroughly leavened with heresy, these thousands of voluntary penitents still left an ample field of activ- ity for the zeal of the inquisitors. Each one who confessed was bound to give the names of all whom he had seen engaged in he- retical acts, and of all who had been hereticated on the death-bed. Innumerable clews were thus obtained to bring to trial those who failed to accuse themselves, and to exhume and burn the bones of those who were beyond the ability to recant. For the next few * Collection Doat, XXII. 203, 214, 237; XXIV. 68, 160, 183, 198. t Millet, Troubadours, II. 77.— Berger, Registres d'lunoceut IV. No. 37. DEVELOPMENT OF INQUISITION. 45 years the life of the inquisitors was a busy one. The stunned populations no longer offered resistance, and grew used to the de- spair of the penitents sentenced to perpetual prison, the dragging of decomposed corpses through the streets, and the horror of the Tophets where the victims passed through temporal to eternal flame. Still there is a slight indication that the service was not wholly without danger from the goadings of vengeance or the courage of despair, when the Council of Beziers, in 1 2-i6, ordering travelling inquests, makes exception in the cases when it may not be safe for the inquisitors to personally visit the places where the inquisition should be held; and Innocent lY., in 1247, authorizes the inquisitors to cite the accused to come to them, in view of the perils arising from the ambushes of heretics.* The fearless and indefatigable men who now performed the functions of inquisitor in Languedoc can rarely have taken advan- tage of this concession to weakness. Bernard de Caux, who so well earned the title of the hammer of heretics, was at this time the leading spirit of the Inquisition of Toulouse, after a term of service in Montpellier and Agen, and he had for colleague a kin- dred spirit in Jean de Saint-Pierre. Together they made a thor- ough inquest over the whole province, passing the population through a sieve with a completeness which must have left few guilty consciences unexamined. There is extant a fragmentary record of this inquest, covering the years 1245 and 1246, during Avhich no less than six hundred places were investigated, embrac- ing about one half of Languedoc. The magnitude of the work thus undertaken, and the incredible energy with which it was pushed, is seen in the enormous number of interrogatories recorded in petty towns. Thus at Avignonet there are two hundred and thirty ; at Fanjoux, one hundred ; at Mas - Saintes - Puelles, four hundred and twenty. M. Molinier, to whom Ave are indebted for an account of this interesting document, has not made an accurate count of the whole number of cases, but estimates that the total cannot fall far short of eight thousand to ten thousand. When we consider what all this involved in the duty of examination and comparison we may well feel wonder at the superliuman energy of these founders of the Inquisition ; but we may also assume, as * Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1246, Consil. ad Inquis. c. 1. — Ripoll, I. 179. 46 L A N G U E D O C. with the sentences of Pierre Cella, that tlie fate of the victims who were sifted out of this mass of testimony must have been passed upon with no proper or conscientious scrutiny. At least, however, they must have escaped the long and torturing delays customary in the later and more leisurely stages of the Inquisi- tion. With such a record before us it is not easy to understand the complaint of the bishops of Languedoc, in 1245, that the In- quisition was too merciful, that heresy was increasing, and that the inquisitors ought to be urged to greater exertions. It was possibly in consequence of the lack of harmony thus revealed be- tween the episcopate and the Inquisition that Innocent, in April of the same 3'^ear, ordered the Inquisitors of Languedoc to proceed as usual in cases of manifest heresy, and in those involving slight punishment, while he directed them to suspend proceedings in matters requiring imprisonment, crosses, long pilgrimages, and confiscation until definite rules should be laid down in the Council of Lyons, which he was about to open. These questions, however, were settled in that of Beziers, w^hich met in 1246, and issued a new code of procedure.* In all this Count Raymond, now thoroughly fitted in the Cath- ohc groove, was an earnest participant. As his stormy hfe drew to its close, harmony with the Church was too great an element of comfort and prosperity for him to hesitate in purchasing it with the blood of a few of his subjects, whom, indeed, he could scarce have saved had he so willed. He gave conspicuous evidence of his hatred of heresy. In 1247 he ordered his officials to compel the attendance of the inhabitants at the sermons of the friars in all towns and villages through which they ptassed, and in 1249, at Berlaiges, near Agen, he coldly ordered the burning of eighty be- lievers who had confessed their errors in his presence — a piece of cruelty far transcending that habitual with the inquisitors. About the same time King Jayme of Aragon effected a change in the Inquisition in the territories of Narbonne. Possibly this may have had some connection with the murder by the citizens of two * Doat, XXII. 217. — Moliuier, L'Inquisition dans le midi de la France, pp. 186-90.— See also Peyrat, Les Albigeois et I'lnq. III. 467-73.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 446-8.— Teulet, Layettes, II. 566. M. I'Abbe Douais (loc. cit. p. 419) tells us that the examinations in the in- quest of Bernard de Caux number five thousand eight hundred and four, DEATH OF COUNT RAYMOND. 47 officials of the Inquisition and the destruction of its records, giv- ing endless trouble in the effort to reconstruct the lists of sentences and the invaluable accumulation of evidence against suspects. Be this as it may, Innocent IV., at the request of the king, forbade the archbishop and inquisitors from fmiher proceedings against heresy, and then empowered the Dominican Provincial of Spain and Eaymond of Pennaforte to appoint new ones for the French possessions of Aragon.* "When St. Louis undertook his disastrous crusade to Daraietta he was unwilling to leave behind him so dangerous a vassal as Eaymond. The vow of service to Palestine had long since been remitted by Innocent IV., but the count was open to persuasion, and the bribes offered show at once the importance attached to his presence with the host and to his absence from home. The king promised him twenty thousand to thirty thousand livres for his expenses and the restitution of the duchy of Narbonne on his return. The pope agreed to pay him two thousand marks on his arrival beyond seas, and that he should have during his absence all the proceeds of the redemption of vows and all legacies bequeathed to the crusade. The prohibition of imposing penitential crusades on converted heretics was also suspended for his benefit, while the other long pilgrimages customarily emplo3'ed as penances were not to be enjoined while he was in service. Stimulated by these dazzling rewards, he assumed the cross in earnest, and his ardor for the purity of the faith grew stronger. Even the tireless actiWty of Bernard de Caux was insufficient to satisfy him. While that incomparable persecutor was devoting aU his energies to working up the results of his tremendous inquests, Eaymond, early in 1248, complained to Innocent that the Inquisition was neglecting its duty ; that heretics, both living and dead, remained uncondemned ; that others from abroad were coming into his own and neighbor- ing territories and spreading their pestilence, so that the land which had been well-nigh purified was again filled with heresy, f Death spared Eaymond the misfortunes of the ill-starred Egyp- tian crusade. When his preparations were almost complete he * Vaissette, III. 457, 459 ; Pr. 467.— Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 48.— Baluz. et Mansi I. 210.— Arch, de ITnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXI. 105, 149).-Ripoll, I. 184. t Vaissette, III. 455-6 ; Pr. 468, 469.— Arch, de Tlnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXI. 77, 79, 80).— Murtene Thesaur. 1. 1040. 48 LANGUEDOC. was seized with mortal illness and died, September 27, 1249, with his latest breatli ordering liis heirs to restore the sums which he had received for the expedition, and to send fifty knights to serve in Palestine for a 3^ear. That his death was generally regretted by liis subjects ^ve can readily believe. Not only was it the ex- tinction of the great house which had bravely held its own from Carlovingian times, but the people felt that the last barrier be- tween them and the hated Frenchmen was removed. The heiress Jeanne had been educated at the royal court, and was French in all but birth. Moreover, she seems to have been a nonentity whose influence is imperceptible, and the sceptre of the South passed into the hands of Alphonse of Poitiers, an avaricious and politic prince, whose zeal for orthodoxy was greatly stimulated by the profitable confiscations resulting from persecution. Ray- mond had required repeated urging to induce him to employ this dreaded penalty with the needful severity. No such watchfulness was necessary in the case of Alphonse. When the rich heritage fell in, he and his wite w^ere wdth his brother, King Louis, in Egypt, but the vigilant regent. Queen Blanche, promptly took possession in their name, and on their return, in 1251, they personally received the homage of their subjects. By a legal subtlety Alphonse evaded the payment of the pious legacies of Raymond's will, and compound- ed for it by leaving, on his departure for the North, a large sum to provide for the expenses of the Inquisition, and to furnish wood for the execution of its sentences. Not long afterwards we find him urging his bishops to render more efficient support to the labors of the inquisitors ; in his chancery there "was a regular formula of a commission for inquisitors, to be sent to Rome for the papal sig- nature ; and throughout his t^venty years of reign he pursued the same policy without deviation. The urgency with w^hich, in De- cember, 1268, he wrote to Pons de Poyet and Etienne de Gatine, stimulating them to redoubled activity in clearing his dominions of heretics, w^as wholly superfluous, but it is characteristic of the line of action which he carried out consistently to the end.* The fate of Languedoc was now irrevocably sealed. Hitherto * Martene Thesaur. I. 1044.— Vaissette, III. 465.— Vaissette, £d. Privat, VIII. 135o, 1292, 1383, 1583.— Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 48.— Mary-Lafon, Hist, du midi de la France, III. 33, 49.— Arch, de Tliiq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXXI. 250). STUBBORNNESS OF HERESY. 4,9 there had been hopes that perhaps Raymond's inconstancy might lead him to retrace the steps of the last few years. Moreover, his subjects had shared in the desire, manifested in his repeated mar- riage projects, that he should have an heir to inherit the lands not pledged in succession to his daughter. He was but in his fifty-first year, and the expectation was not unreasonable that his line might be perpetuated and the southern nationality be preserved. All this was now seen to be a delusion, and the most sanguine Cath- aran could look forward to nothing but a life of concealment end- ing in prison or fire. Yet the heretic Church stubbornly held its own, though with greatly diminished numbers. Many of its mem- bers fled to Lombardy, where, even after the death of Frederic II., the civic troubles and the policy of local despots, such as Ezzelin da Eomano, afforded some shelter from the Inquisition. Yet many remained and pursued their wandering missions among the faithful, perpetually tracked by inquisitorial spies, but rarely be- trayed. These humble and forgotten men, hopelessly braving hardship, toil, and peril in what they deemed the cause of God, were true martyrs, and their steadfast heroism shows how little relation the truth of a religion bears to the self-devotion of its fol- lowers. Eainerio Saccone, the converted Catharan, who had the be&t means of ascertaining the facts, computes, about this time, that there were in Lombardy one hundred and fifty " perfected " refugees from France, while the churches of Toulouse, Carcas- sonne, and Albi, including that of Agen, then nearly destroyed, numbered two hundred more. These figures would indicate that a very considerable congregation of believers still existed in spite of the systematic and ruthless proscription of the past twenty years. Their earnestness was kept alive, not only by the occa- sional and dearly-prized visits of the travelHng ministers, but by the frequent intercourse which was maintained with Lombardy. Until the disappearance of the sect on tliis side of the Alps, there is, in the confessions of penitents, perpetual allusion to these pil- grimages back and forth, which kept up the relations between the refugees and those left at home. Thus, in 1254, Guillem Fournier, in an interrogatory before the Inquisition of Toulouse, relates that he started for Italy with five companions, including two women. His first resting-place was at Coni, where he met many heretics; then at Pa via, where he was hereticated by Raymond II. 50 LANGUEDOC. Mercicr, former deacon of Toulouse. At Cremona he lived for a year with Vivien, the much-loved Bishop of Toulouse, with whom he found a number of noble refugees. At Pisa he stayed for eight months ; at Piacenza he again met Yivien, and he finally returned to Languedoo with messages from the refugees to their friends at home. In 1300, at Albi, Etienne Mascot confesses that he had been sent to Lombardy by Master Raymond Calverie to bring back Raymond Andre, or some other perfected heretic. At Genoa he met Bertrand Fabri, who had been sent on the same errand by Guillem Golfier. They proceeded together and met other old ac- quaintances, now refugees, who conducted them to a spot where, in a wood, were several houses of refuge for heretics. The lord of the place gave them a Lombard, Guglielmo Pagani, who returned with them. In 1309 Guillem Falquet confessed at Toulouse to having been four times to Como, and even to Sicily, organizing the Church. He was caught while visiting a sick believer, and con- demned to imprisonment in chains, but managed to escape in 1313. At the same time was sentenced Raymond de Yerdun, who had likewise been four times to Lombardy.* The proscribed heretics, thus nursing their faith in secret, gave the inquisitors ample occupation. As their ranks were thinned by persecution and flight, and as their skill in concealment increased with experience, there could no longer be the immense harvests of penitents reaped by Pierre CeUa and Bernard de Caux, but there were enough to reward the energies of the friars and to tax * Rainer. Summa (Mart, Thesai;r. V. 1768). — Molinier, L'Inquis. dans le midi de la France, pp. 254-55. — MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin. No. 11847. — Lib. Sen- tentt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 13, 14. — See also the curious account of Ivo of Narbonne in Matt. Paris, ann. 1243, p. 412-13 (Ed. 1644). The Abbg Douais, in his analysis of the fragments of the " Registre de I'ln- quisition de Toulouse" of 1254 and 1256, tells us that it contains the names of six hundred and thirteen accused belonging to the departments of Aude, Arifege, Gers, Aveyron, and Tarne-et-Garonne, the greater part of whom were Perfects. That this is evidently an error is shown by the statistics of Rainerio Saccone, quoted in the text. At this time, in fact, the whole Catharan Church, from Con- stantinople to Aragon, contained only four thousand Perfects. Still the number of accused shows the continued existence of heresy as a formidable social factor and the successful activity of the Inquisition in tracking it. In this register eight witnesses contribute one hundred and seven names to the list of accused (Sources de Tbist. de I'lnquisition, loc. cit. pp. 432-33). THE INQUISITION PERFECTED. 51 the adroitness of their spies. The organization of the Inquisition, moreover, was gradually perfected. In 1254 the Council of Albi carefully revised the regulations concerning it. Fixed tribunals Avere established, and the limitations of the inquisitorial districts were strictly defined. For Provence and the territories east of the Rhone, Marseilles was the headquarters, eventually confided to the Franciscans. The rest of the infected regions were left to the Dominicans, with tribunals at Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Nar- bonne ; and, from such fragmentary documents as have reached us, at this time the Inquisition at Carcassonne rivalled that of Toulouse in energy and effectiveness. For a while safety was sought by heretics in northern France, but the increasing vigor of the Inquisition estabhshed there drove the unfortunate refugees back, and in 1255 a bull of Alexander IV. authorized the Provin- cial of Paris and his inquisitors to pursue the fugitives in the ter- ritories of the Count of Toulouse. At the same time the special functions of the inquisitors were jealously guarded against all en- croachments. We have seen how, in its early days, it was sub- jected to the control of papal legates, but now that it was firmly established and thoroughly organized it was held independent ; and when the legate Zoen, Bishop of A\'ignon, in 1257, endeav- ored, in virtue of his legatine authority, which fourteen j^ears be- fore had been so absolute, to perform inquisitorial work, he was rudely reminded by Alexander IV. that he could do so if he pleased in his own diocese, but that outside of it he must not in- terfere with the Inquisition. To this period is also to be ascribed the complete subjection of all secular officials to the behests of the inquisitors. The piety of St. Louis and the greed of Alphonse of Poitiers and Charles of Anjou rivalled each other in placing all the powers of the State at the disposal of the Holy Office, and in providing for its expenses. It was virtually supreme in the land, and, as we have seen, it was a law unto itself.* The last shadow of open resistance was dissipated in the year 1255. After the fall of Montsegur the proscribed and disinher- * MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, Nouv. Acquis. 139. — Molinier, op. cit. p. 404. — Ripoll I. 273-4.— Arch. Nat. de France, J. 431, No. 34.— Arch, de I'lnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXI. 239, 250, 252).— Vaissette, III. Pr. 528, 536.— Arch, di Napoli, Re- gestro 6, Lettere D, fol. 180. 52 L A N G U E D O C. ited knights, the faidits, and the heretics had sought to establish among the mountains some stronghold where they could feel safe for a moment. Driven from one retreat after another, they finally took possession of the castle of Queribus, in the Pyrenees of Fe- nouiUedes. In the early spring of 1255 this last refuge was be- sieged by Pierre d'Auteuil, the royal Seneschal of Carcassonne. The defence was stubborn. May 5 the seneschal appealed to the bishops sitting in council at Beziers to give him assistance, as they had done so energetically at Montsegur. The reply of the prel- ates was commendably cautious. They were not bound, they said, to render military service to the king, and when they had joined his armies it had been by command of a legate or of their primate, the Archbishop of Narbonne. Nevertheless, as common report described Queribus as a receptacle of heretics, thieves, and robbers, and its reduction was a good work for the faith and for peace, they would each one, without derogating from his rights, furnish such assistance as seemed to him fitting. It may be as- sumed from this that the seneschal had to do the work unaided ; in fact, he complained to the king that the prelates rather impeded than assisted him, but by August the place was in his hands, and nothing remained for the outlaws but the forest and the caverns. In that savage region the dense undergrowth afforded many a hiding-place, and an attempt was made to cut away the briers and thorns which served as shelter for ruined noble and hunted Catha- ran. The work Avas undertaken by a certain Bernard, who thence acquired the name of Espinasser or thorn-cutter. Popular hatred has preserved his remembrance, and expresses its sentiment in a myth which gibbets him in the moon.* With the land at its feet, the Inquisition, in the plenitude of its power, had no hesitation in attacking the loftiest nobles, for aU men were on a level in the eyes of the Most High, and the Holy Office was the avenger of God. The most powerful vassal of the houses of Toulouse and Aragon was the Count of Foix, whose ex- tensive territories on both sides of the Pyrenees rendered him al- most independent in his mountain fastnesses. Count Roger Ber- nard IL, known as the Great, had been one of the bravest and * Concil. Biterrens. aim. 1355.— Vaissette, III. 482-3; IV. 17. — A. Molinier (Vaissette, td. Privat, VI. 843).— Peyiat, op. cit. III. 54. ROGER BERNARD OF FOIX. 53 most obstinate defenders of the land, and, after the pacification of 1229, Eaymond had been obhged to threaten him with war to force him to submit. His memory was proudly treasured in the land as " Rogier Bernat lo pros et sens dengun reproche^ His family was deeply tinctured with heresy. His wife and one ©f his sisters were Waldenses, another sister was a Catharan, and the monk of Yaux-Cernay describes him as an enemy of God and a cruel persecutor of the Church. Yet, when he yielded in 1229, al- though he does not seem to have enei'getically fulfilled his oath to persecute heresy in his domains, for in 1233 we hear of his hold- ing a personal conference at Aix with the heretic bishop Bertrand Martin, he was in other respects a loyal subject and faithful son of the Church. In 1237 he counselled his son, then Yizconde de Castelbo in Aragon, to allow the Inquisition in his lands, which resulted in the condemnation of many heretics, although Ponce, Bishop of Urgel, his personal enemy, had refused to relieve him of excommunication as a fautor of heresy until 1240, when he sub- mitted to the conditions imposed, abjured heresy, and was recon- ciled. At his death, in 1241, he left liberal bequests to the Church, and especially to his ancestral Cistercian Abbey of Bolbonne, in which he died in monkish habit, after duly receiving the sacra- ments. His son, Iloger lY., gave the coup de grace to the rising of 1242, by placing himself under the immediate sovereignty of the crown, and defeating Raymond after the victories of St. Louis had driven back the English and Gascons. He had some troubles with the Inquisition, but a bull of Innocent lY., in 1248, eulogizes his devotion to the Holy See, and rewards him with the power to re- lease from the saffron crosses six penitents of his choice ; and in 1201 he issued an edict commanding the enforcement of the rule that no office within his domains should be held by any one con- demned to wear crosses, any one suspected of heresy, or the son of any one similarly defamed.* All this would seem to give ample guarantee of the orthodoxy and loyalty of the House of Foix, but the Inquisition could not * Miguel del Verms, Clnonique Bcarnaise. — P. Sarnaii Hist. Alhigons. c. 6. — Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 8.— Sclunidt, Catlmres, I. 299.— Vaissette, III. 42(5, 503 ; Pr. 383-5, 392-3.— Tculet, Layettes, II. 490.— Bern. Guidon. Vit. Crtlestin. PP. IV. (Muratori, S. R. I. III. 589).— Berger, Registres d'Innocent IV. No. 3030. 54: L A N G U E D O C. condone its ancient patriotism and tolerance. Besides, if Roger Bernard the Great could be convicted of heresy, the confiscation of the broad inheritance would effect a great political object and afford ample spoils for all concerned. Twenty-two years after his death, therefore, in 12G3, proceedings were commenced against his memory. A faithful servitor of the old count still survived, Ray- mond Bernard de Flascan, bailli of Mazeres, who had attended his lord day and night during his last sickness. If he could be brought to swear that he had seen heretication performed on the death-bed, the desirable object would be attained. Frere Pons, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, came to Mazeres, found the old man an unsatisfac- tory witness, and threw- him into a dungeon. Suffering under a se- vere strangury, he was starved and tormented with all the cruel in- genuity of the Inquisition, and interrogated at intervals, without his resolution giving way. This was continued for thirty-two days, when Pons resolved to carry him back to Carcassonne, where possi- bly the appliances for bringing refractory witnesses to terms were more efficacious. Before the journey, which he expected to be his last, the faithful bailli was given a day's respite at the Abbey of Bolbonne, w^hich he utilized by executing a notarial instrument, I^ovember 26, 1263, attested by two abbots and a number of monks, in which he recited the trials already endured, solemnly declared that he had never seen the old count do anything contrary to the faith of Rome, but that he had died as a good Catholic, and that if, under the severe torture to which he expected to be subjected, human weakness should lead him to assert anything else, he would be a liar and a traitor, and no credence should be given to his words. It would be difficult to conceive of a more damning reve- lation of inquisitorial methods ; yet fifty years later, when those methods had been perfected, all concerned in the preparation of the instrument, whether as notary or witnesses, would have been prosecuted as impeders of the Inquisition, to be severely punished as fautors of heresy.* What became of the poor wretch does not appear. Doubtless he perished in the terrible Mura of Carcassonne under the combi- nation of disease, torture, and starvation. His judicial murder, however, was gratuitous, for the old count's memory remained un- • Vaissette, IH. Pr. 551-3. ROGER BERNARD III. 55 condemned. Yet Roger Bernard III., despite the papal favor and the proofs he had given of adhesion to the new order of things, was a perpetual target for inquisitorial malice. When lying in mortal illness at Mazeres, in December, 1264, he received from Etienne de Gatine, then Inquisitor of Narbonne, an imperious or- der, with threats of prosecution in case of failure, to capture and deliver up his bailli of Foix, Pierre Andre, who was suspect of lieresy and had fled on being cited to appear. The count dared only in reply to express surprise that no notice had been given him that his bailli was wanted, adding that he had issued orders for his arrest, and would have personally joined in the pursuit had not sickness rendered him incapable. At the same time he requested " Apostoli," and appealed to the pope, to whom he retailed his grievances. The inquisitors, he said, had never ceased persecuting him ; at the head of armed forces they were in the habit of de- vastating his lands under pretext of searching for heretics, and they would bring in their train and under their protection his special enemies, until his territories were. nearly ruined and his jurisdiction set at naught. He, therefore, placed himself and his dominions under the protection of the Holy See. He probably escaped further personal troubles, for he died two months later, in February, 1265, like his father, in the Cistercian habit, and in the Abbey of Bolbonne ; but in 1292 his memory was assailed before Bertrand de Clermont, Inquisitor of Carcassonne. The effort was fruitless, for in 1297 Bertrand gave to his son, Roger Bernard lY., a declaration that the accusation had been disproved, and that neither he nor his father should suffer in person or property in consequence of it.* When such were the persecutions to which the greatest were exposed it is easy to understand the tyranny exercised over the whole land by the irresponsible power of the inquisitors. No one Avas so loftily placed as to be beyond their reach, no one so hum- ble as to escape their spies. When once they had cause of enmity with a man there was no further peace for him. The only appeal from them was to the pope, and not only was Rome distant, but the avenue to it lay, as we have seen, in their own hands. Human wickedness and foUy have erected, in the world's history, more vio • Vaissette, III. Pr. 575-77 ; IV. Pr. 109. 56 LANGUEDOC. lent despotisms, but never one more cruel, more benumbing, or more all-pervading. For the next twenty years there is little worthy of special note in the operations of the Inquisition of Languedoc. It pursued its work continuously with occasional outbursts of energy. Eticnne de Gatine, and Pons de Poyet, who presided over its tribunals for many years, were no sluggards, and the period from 1373 to 1375 rewarded their industry with an abundant harvest. Though here- tics naturally grew scarcer with the unintermitting pursuit of so many years, there was still the exhaustless catalogue of the dead, whose exhumation furnished an impressive spectacle for the mob, while their confiscations were welcome to the pious princes, and contributed largely to the change of ownership of land which was a political consummation so desirable. Yet heresy with incredi- ble stubbornness maintained itself, though its conceahnent grew ever more difficult, and Italy grew less safe as a refuge and less prolific as a source of inspiration.* In 1271 Alphonse and Jeanne, who had accompanied St. Louis in his unlucky crusade to Tunis, died without issue, during the home- ward journey. The line of Raymond was thus extinct, and the land passed irrevocably to the crown. Philippe le Hardi took pos- session even of the territories which Jeanne had endeavored, as Avas her right, to alienate by wiU, and though he surrendered the Age- nois to Henry III., he succeeded in retaining Querci. No opposi- tion was made to the change of masters. When, October 8, 1271, Guillamne de Cobardon, royal Seneschal of Carcassonne, issued his orders regulating the new regime, one of the first things thought of was the confiscations. All castles and villages which had been forfeited for heresy were taken into the king's hand, without preju- dice to the right of those to whom they might belong, thus throw- ing the burden of proof upon all claimants, and cutting out assigns under alienations. In 1272 Philippe paid a visit to his new terri- tories ; it was designed to be peaceful, but some violences commit- ted by Roger Bernard lY. of Foix caused him to come at the head of an army, with which he easily overcame the resistance of the count, occupied his lands, and threw him into a dungeon. Re- leased in 1273, the count in 1276 rendered such assistance in the * Coll. Doat, XXV. XXVI.— Martene Tliesaur. V. 1809. SUPREMACY OF THE CROWN. 57 invasion of Navarre that Philippe took him into favor and re- stored his castles, on his renouncing all allegiance to Aragon. Thus the last show of independence in the South was broken down, and the monarchy was securely planted on its ruins.* This consolidation of the south of France under the kinoes of Paris was not without compensating advantages. The monarch was rapidly acquiring a centralized power, which was very differ- ent from the overlordship of a feudal suzerain. The study of the Roman law was beginning to bear fruit in the State as well as in the Church, and the imperial theories of absolutism as inherent in kingsliip were gradually altering all tlie old relations. The king's court was expanding into the Parlement, and was training a school of subtle and resolute civil lawyers who lost no opportunity of ex- tending the royal jurisdiction, and of legislating for the whole land in the guise of rendering judgments. In the appeals which came ever more thickly crowding into the Parlement from every quar- ter, the mailed baron found himself hopelessly entangled in the legal intricacies which were robbing him of his seignorial rights almost without his knowledge ; and the Ordonnances, or general laws, which emanated from the throne, were constantly encroach- ing on old privileges, weakening local jurisdictions, and giving to the whole country a body of jurisprudence in which the crown combined both the legislative and the executive functions. If it thus was enabled to oppress, it was likewise stronger to defend, while the immense extension of the royal domains since the beg-in- ning of the century gave it the physical ability to enforce its grow- ing prerogatives. It was impossible that this metamorphosis in the national in- stitutions could be effected without greatly modifying the rela- tions between Church and State. Thus even the sainthness of Louis IX. did not prevent him from defending himself and his subjects from ecclesiastical domination in a spirit very different from that which any French monarch had ventured to exhibit since the days of Charlemagne. The change became stiU more manifest under his grandson, Philippe le Bel. Though but seventeen years of age when he succeeded to the throne in 128G, his rare ability and vigor- * Vaissette, IV. 3-5, 9-11, 16, 24-5. — Baudouin, Lettres infedites de Philippe le Bel, Paris, 1886, p. 125. 58 LANGUEDOC. ous temper soon led bim to assert the royal power in incisive fash- ion. He recognized, within the boundaries of his kingdom, no su- perior, secular or spiritual. Had ho entertained any scruples of conscience, his legal counsellors could easily remove them. To such men as Pierre Flotte and Guillaume de Kogaret the true po- sition of the Church was that of subjection to the State, as it had been under the successors of Constantine, and in their eyes Boni- face YIII. was to their master scarce more than Pope Yigilius had been to Justinian. Few among the revenges of time are more satisfying than the catastrophe of Anagni, in ] 303, when Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna laid hands on the vicegerent of God, and Boniface passionately replied to Nogaret's reproaches, " I can pa- tiently endure to be condemned and deposed by a Patarin" — for Nogaret was born at St. Felix de Caraman, and his ancestors were said to have been burned as Cathari. If this be true he must have been more than human if he did not feel special gratification when, at command of his master, he appeared before Clement Y. with a formal accusation of heresy against Boniface, and demanded that the dead pope's bones be dug up and burned. The citizens of Tou- louse recognized him as an avenger of their wrongs when they placed his bust in the gallery of their illustrious men in the Hotel- de-ville.* It was to the royal power, thus rising to supremacy, that the people instinctively turned for relief from the inquisitorial tyranny wliich was becoming insupportable. The authority lodged in the hands of the inquisitor was so arbitrary and irresponsible that even with the purest intentions it could not but be unpopular, while to the unworthy it afforded unlimited opportunity for oppression and the gratification of tlie basest passions. Dangerous as was any manifestation of discontent, the people of Albi and Carcas- sonne, reduced to despair by the cruelty of the inquisitors, Jean Galande and Jean Yigoureux, mustered courage, and in 1280 pre- sented their complaints to Philippe le Hardi. It was difficult to * Raynald. aun. 1303, No. 41.— Vaissette, IV. Note xi.— Guill. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1303, 1309, 1310.— Nich. Trivetti Chron. ann. 1306.— La Faille, Annales de Toulouse I. 284. The irresistible encroachment of the royal jurisdiction, in spite of perpetual opposition, is most effectively illustrated in the series of royal letters recently printed by M. Ad. Baudouin (Lettres inedites de Philippe le Bel, Paris, 1886). CONSPIRACY AT CARCASSONNE. 59 sustain their charges with specific proofs, and after a brief investi- gation their reiterated requests for relief were dismissed as frivo- lous. In the agitation against the Inquisition thus commenced, it must be borne in mind that heretics had little to do. By this time they were completely cowed and were quite satisfied if they could enjoy their faith in secret. The opposition arose from good Cath- olics, the magistrates of cities and substantial burghers, who saw the prosperity of the land withering under the deadly grasp of the Holy Office, and who felt that no man was safe whose wealth might arouse cupidity or whose independence might provoke re- venge. The introduction of the use of torture impressed the pop- ular imagination with special horror, and it was widely believed that confessions were habitually extorted by insufferable tonnent from rich men whose faith was unblemished. The cruel provisions w^iich brought confiscation on the descendants of heretics, more- over, were peculiarly hard to endure, for ruin impended over every one against whom the inquisitor might see fit to produce from his records evidence of ancestral heresy. It was against these records that the next attempt was directed. Foiled in their appeal to the throne, the consuls of Carcassonne and some of its prominent ecclesiastics, in 1283 or 12S'l:, formed a conspiracy to destroy the books of the Inquisition containing the confessions and deposi- tions. How far this was organized it would be difficult now to say. The statements of the witnesses conflict so hopelessly on material points, even as to dates, that there is little dependence to be placed on them. They were evidently extracted under torture, and if they are credible the consuls of the city and the archdeacon, Sanche Morlana, the episcopal Ordinary, Guillera Brunet, other episcopal officials and many of the secular clergy were not only implicated in the plot, but were heretics in full affili- ation with the Cathari. Whether true or false they show that there w^as the sharpest antagonism between the Inquisition and the local Church. The whole has an air of um'eality which ren- ders one doubtful about accepting any portion, but there must have been some foundation for the story. According to the evi- dence Bernard Garric, Avho had been a perfected heretic and a Jilius major, but had been converted and was now a familiar of the Inquisition, was selected as the instrument. lie was ap- proached, and after some bargaining he agreed to deliver the 60 LANGUEDOC. books for two hundred livres Tournois, for the payment of which the consuls went security. How the attempt failed and how it was discovered does not appear, but probably Bernard at the first overtures confided the plot to his superiors and led on the con- spirators to their ruin.* The whole community was now at the mercy of the Inquisi- tion, and it was not disposed to be lenient in its triumph. While the trials were yet going on, the citizens made a fresh appeal tc Pierre Chains, the royal chancellor, who was passing through Tou- louse on a mission from the court of Paris to that of Aragon. This was easily disposed of, for on September 13, 1285, the inquis- itors triumphantly brought before him Bernard Garric to repeat the confession made a week previous. He had thoroughly learned his lesson, and the only conclusion which the royal representative could reach was that Carcassonne was a hopeless nest of heretics, deserving the severest measures of repression. As a last resort recourse was had to Honorius IV., but the only result was a brief from him to the inquisitors expressing his grief that the people of Carcassonne should be impeding the Inquisition with all their strength, and ordering the punishment of the recalcitrants irre- spective of their station, order, or condition, an expression which shows that the opposition had not arisen from heretics.f In reply to these complaints the inquisitors could urge with some truth that heresy, though hidden, was still busy. Although heretic seigneurs and nobles had been by this time weU-nigh de- stroyed and their lands had passed to others, there was stiU infec- tion among the bourgeoisie of the cities and the peasantry. It is one of the noteworthy features of Catharism, moreover, that at * Bern. Guidon. Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 93, 97). — Molinier op. cit. p. 35. — Doat, XXVI. 197, 245, 265, 266.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. p. 282. Sanche Morlana, the archdeacon of Carcassonne, who is represented as bear- ing a leading part in the conspiracy, belonged to one of the noblest families of the city. His brother Arnaud, who at one time was Seneschal of Foix, was like- wise implicated, and died a few years later in the bosom of the Church. In 1328 Jean Duprat, then inquisitor, obtained evidence that Arnaud had been hereti- cated during a sickness, and again subsequently on liis death -bed (Doat, XXVIII. 128). This would seem to lend color to the charge of heresy against the con- spirators, but the evidence was considered too flimsy to warrant condemnation. t Doat, XXVI. 254.— Bern. Guidon. Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 93).— Arch, de I'Inq. de Care. (Doat, XXXII. 132). PERSISTENCE OF CATHAIIISM. 61 no time during its existence were lacking earnest and devoted min- isters, who took their lives in their hands and wandered around in secret among the faithful, administering spiritual comfort and instruction, making converts where they could, exhorting the young and hereticating the old. In toil and hardship and peril they pursued their work, gliding by night from one place of con- cealment to another, and their self-devotion was rivalled by that of their disciples. Few more touching narratives can be conceived than those Avhich could be constructed from the artless confes- sions extorted from the peasant-folk who fell into the hands of the inquisitors — the humble alms which they gave, pieces of bread, fish, scraps of cloth, or small coins, the hiding-places which they constructed in their cabins, the guidance given by night through places of danger, and, more than all, the steadfast fidel- ity which refused to betray their pastors when the inquisitor sud- denly appeared and offered the alternative of free pardon or the duno-eon and confiscation. The self-devotion of the minister was well matched with the quiet heroism of the believer. To this fidelity and the complete network of secret organization which extended over the land may be attributed the marvellously long exemption which many of these ministers enjoyed in their prose- lyting missions. Two of the most prominent of them at this period, Kaymond Delboc and Kaymond Godayl, or Didier, had already, in 1276, been condemned by the Inquisition of Carcas- sonne as perfected heretics and fugitives, but they kept at their work until the explosion of 1300, incessantly active, with the inquisitors always in pursuit but unable to overtake them. Guil- lem Pages is another whose name constantly recurs in the confes- sions of heretications during an almost equally long period. The inquisitors might well urge that their utmost efforts were needed, but their methods were such that even the best intentions would not have saved the innocent from suffering with the guilty.* The secretly guilty were quite sufficiently influential, and the innocent sufficiently apprehensive, to keep up the agitation which had been commenced, and at last it began to bear fruit. A new inquisitor of Carcassonne, Nicholas d' Abbeville, was quite as cruel * MSS. Bib. Nat.,fonds latin, No. 11847.— Doat, XXVI. 197.— Lib. Scntentt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 54, 109, 111, 130, 137, 138, 139, 143, 144, 14G, 147. 62 LANGUEDOC. and arbitrary as his predecessors, and when the people prepared an appeal to the king he promptly threw into jail the notary who drew up the paper. In their desperation they disregarded this warning; a deputation was sent to the court, and this time they were listened to. May 13, 1291, Phihppe addressed a letter to his Seneschal of Carcassonne reciting the injuries inflicted by the Inquisition on the innocent through the newly-invented system of torture, by means of which the hving and the dead were fraud- ulently convicted and the whole land scandalized and rendered desolate. The royal olRcials were therefore ordered no longer to obey the commands of the inquisitors in making arrests, unless the accused be a confessed heretic or persons worthy of faith vouch for his being publicly defamed for heresy. A month later he reit- erated these orders even more precisely, and announced his inten- tion of sending deputies to Languedoc armed with full authority to make permanent provision in the matter. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of these manifestoes as marking a new era in the relations between the temporal and spiritual authorities. For far less than this all the chivalry and scum of Europe had been promised salvation if they would drive Kaymond of Toulouse from his inheritance.* It was probably to break in some degree the force of. this unheard-of interference with inquisitorial supremacy that in Sep- tember, 1292, Guillem de Saint-Seine, Inquisitor of Carcassonne, ordered aU the parish priests in his district for three weeks on * There lias beeu great confusion as to the date of Philippe's action. The Ordonnance as printed by LauriSre and Isambert is of 1287. As given by Vais- sette (IV. Pr. 97-8) it is of 1291. A copy in Doat, XXXI. 266 (from the Regist. Curioe Francise de Carcass.), is dated 1297. Schmidt (Cathares I. 342) accepts 1287 ; A. Molinier (Vaissette, fid. Privat, IX. 157) confirms the date of 1291. The latter accords best with the series of events. 1287 would seem manifestly im- possible, as Philippe was crowned January 6, 1286, at the age of seventeen, and would scarcely, in fifteen months, venture on such a step so defiant of all that was held sacred; nor would Nicholas IV. in 1290 have praised his zeal in furthering the Inquisition (Ripoll II. 29), while 1297 seems incompatible with his subsequent action on the subject. In 1292 Philippe prohibited the capitouls of Toulouse from employing tort- ure on clerks subject to the jurisdiction of the bishop, a prohibition which had to be repeated in 1307. — Baudouin, Lettres inCdites de Philippe le Bel, pp. 16, 73. APOSTATE JEWS. , 63 Siincla3^s and feast-days to denounce as excommunicate all who should impede the business of the Inquisition and all notaries who should w^ickedly draw up revocations of confessions for heretics. This could not effect much, nor was anything accomplished by a Parlement held April 14, 1293, at MontpeUier, by the royal chamberlain, Alphonse de Konceyrac, of all the royal officials and inquisitors of Toulouse and Carcassonne to reform the abuses of all jurisdictions.* Shortly after this, in September, 1293, Philippe went a step fur- ther and threw his aegis over the unfortunate Jew. Although Jews as a class were not liable to persecution by the Inquisition, still, if after being once converted they reverted to Judaism, or if they proselyted among Christians to obtain converts, or if they were themselves converts from Christianity, they were heretics in the eyes of the Church, they fell under inquisitorial jurisdiction, and were liable to be abandoned to the secular arm. All these classes were a source of endless trouble to the Church, especially the " neophytes " or converted Jews, for feigned conversions were frequent, either for worldly advantage or to escape the incessant persecution visited upon the unlucky children of Israel.f The bull Turhato corde, ordering the inquisitors to be active and vigi- lant in prosecuting all who were guilty of these offences, issued in 12G8 by Clement IV., was reissued by successive popes with a pertinacity showing the importance attached to it, and when we see Frere Bertrand de la Roche, in 127-1, officially described as inquisitor in Provence against heretics and wicked Christians who * Arch, de Flnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXII. 251). — Chron. Bardin ann. 1293 (Vaissette IV. Pr. 9). f In 1278 the inquisitors of France applied to Nicholas III. for instructions, stating that some time previous, during a popular persecution of the Jews, many of them througli fear, though not absolutely coerced, had received baptism and allowed their children to be baptized. With the passing of the storm they had returned to their Jevi'ish blindness, whereupon the inquisitors had cast thera in prison. They were duly excommunicated, but neither this nor the '■'•squalor career is''"' had been of avail, and they iiiid thus remained for more than a year. The nonplussed inquisitors thereujwn sulmiittcd to the Holy See the question as to furtlicr proceedings, and Nicholas ordered them to treat such Jews as here- tics — that is to say, to burn them for continued obstinacy. — Archives de I'lnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXVII. 191). 64 LANGUEDOC. embrace Judaism, and Frcre Guillaume d'Auxerre, in 1285, quali- fied as " Inquisitor of Heretics and Apostate Jews in France," it is evident that these cases formed a large portion of inquisitorial business. As the Jews were peculiarly defenceless, this jurisdic- tion gave wide opportunity for abuse and extortion which was doubtless turned fully to account. Philippe owed them protec- tion, for in 1291 he had deprived them of their own judges and ordered them to plead in the royal courts, and now he proceeded to protect them in the most emphatic manner. To Simon Brise- tete. Seneschal of Carcassonne, he sent a copy of the bull Turbato corde^ with instructions that while this was to be implicitly obeyed, no Jew was to be arrested for any cause not specified therein, and, if there was any doubt, the matter was to be referred to the royal council. He further enclosed an Ordonnance directing that no Jew in France was to be arrested on the requisition of any person or friar of any Order, no matter what his office might be, without notifying the seneschal or bailli, who was to decide whether the case was sufficiently clear to be acted upon without reference to the royal council. Simon Brisetete thereupon ordered all officials to defend the Jews, not to allow any exactions to be imposed on them whereby their ability to pay their taxes might be impaired, and not to arrest them at the mandate of any one without informing him of the cause. It would not have been easy to limit more skilfully the inquisitorial power to oppress a despised class.* Philippe had thus intervened in the most decided manner, and the oppressed populations of Languedoc might reasonably hope for permanent relief, but his subsequent policy belied their hopes. It vacillated in a manner which is only partially explicable by the * Mag. Bull. Roman. 1. 151, 155, 159. — Archivio di Napoli, Registro 20, Lett. B, fol. 91.— MSS. Bib. Nat, fonds latin. No. 14930, fol. 227-8.— Wadding, ann. 1290, No. 5, 6.— C. 13, Sexto v. 2.— Coll. Doat, XXXII. 127 ; XXXVII. 193, 206, 209, 242, 255, 258.— Wadding, ann. 1359, No. 1-3.— Lib. Sentontt. Inq. Tolos. p. 230. In 1288 Philippe had already ordered the Seneschal of Carcassonne to pro- tect the Jews from the citations and other vexations inflicted on them by the ecclesiastical courts (Vaissette, fid. Privat, IX. Pr. 232). Yet in 1306 he had all the Jews of the kingdom seized and exiled, and forbidden to return under pain of death (Guill. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1306). INTERVENTION OF PHILIPPE LE BEL. 65 shifting political exigencies of the times so far as we can pene- trate them. In this same year, 1293, the Seneschal of Carcassonne is found instructing Aimeric, the Viscount of Narbonne, to exe- cute royal letters ordering aid to be rendered to the inquisitors there. This may have been a mere local matter, and Philippe, for a while at least, adhered to his position. Towards the end of 1295 there was issued an Ordonnance of the royal court, appli- cable to the whole kingdom, forbidding the arrest of any one on the demand of a friar of any Order, no matter what his position might be, unless the seneschal or bailli of the jurisdiction was satisfied that the arrest should be made, and the person asking it showed a commission from the pope. This was sent to all the royal officials with strict injunctions to obey it, although, if the accused were likely to fly, he might be detained, but not surren- dered until the decision of the court could be had. Moreover, if any persons were then in durance contrary to the provisions of the Ordonnance, they were to be set at liberty. Even this did not effect its object sufficiently, and a few months later, in 1296, Philippe complained to his Seneschal of Carcassonne of the num- bers who were arrested by the royal officers, and confined in the royal prisons on insufficient grounds, causing scandal and the heavy infliction of infamy on the innocent. To prevent this arrests were forbidden except in cases of such violent presumption of heresy that they could not be postponed, and the oflicials were instructed, when called upon by the inquisitors, to make such ex- cuses as they could. These orders were obeyed, for when, about this time, Foulques de Saint - Georges, Vice - inquisitor of Carcas- sonne, ordered the arrest of sundry suspects by Adam de Marolles, the deputy seneschal, the latter referred the matter to his princi- pal, Henri de Elisia, who, after consultation with Robert d'Artois, lieutenant of the king in Languedoc and Gascony, refused the de- mand.* No previous sovereign had ventured thus to trammel the In- quisition. These regulations, in fact, rendered it virtually power- less, for it had no organization of its own ; even its prisons were the king's and might be withdrawn at any time, and it depended • Regist. Curise Francis de Care. (Boat, XXXIT. 254, 267, 268, 269).— Vais- sette, IV. Pr. 99. n.— 5 66 LANGUEDOU. wholly upon the secular arm for physical force. In some places, as at Albi, it might rely upon episcopal assistance, but elsewhere it could do nothing of itself. Philippe had, moreover, been care- ful not to excite the ill-will of his bishops, for his Ordonnances and instructions alluded simply to the friars, thus excluding the Inquisition from royal aid without specifically naming it. His quarrel with Boniface VIII. was now beginning. Between Janu- ary, 1296, and February, 1297, appeared the celebrated bulls Cleri- cis laicos, Ineffabilis arnoris, Excitat nos, and Exiit a te^ whose arrogant encroachments on the secular power aroused him to re- sistance, and this doubtless gave a sharper zest to his desire to diminish in his dominions the authority of so purely papal an in- stitution as the Inquisition. So shrewd a prince could readily see its effectiveness as an instrument of papal aggression, for the Church could make what definition it pleased of heresy ; and Boniface did not hesitate to give him fair warning, when, in Oc- tober, 1297, he ordered the Inquisitor of Carcassonne to proceed against certain officials of Beziers who had rendered themselves in the papal eyes suspect of heresy because they remained under excommunication, incurred for imposing taxes on the clergy, boast- ing that food had not lost its savor to them nor sleep its sweet- ness, and who, moreover, dared with poUuted lips to revile the Holy See itself. Under such an extension of jurisdiction Philippe himself might not be safe, and it is no wonder that tentative ef- forts made in 1296 and 1297 to find some method of reconcihng the recent royal Ordonnances with the time-honored absolutism of the Inquisition proved failures.* Meanwhile, the exigencies of Italian politics caused Boniface suddenly to retrace his steps. His quarrel with the Cardinals Giacomo and Pietro Colonna rendered it advisable to propitiate Philippe. In May, 1297, he assented to a tithe conceded to the king by his bishops, and in the bull Noveritis (July, 1297) he ex- empted France from the operation of the Clericis laicos^ while in Licet jper s^eciales (July, 1298) he withdrew his arrogant preten- sion imperatively to prolong the armistice between France and * Du Puy, Histoire du DiflFerend, etc. Pr. 14, 15, 23, 24.— D'Argentr^, Collect. Judic. de novis Error. I. 1. 125. — Vaissette, IV. Pr, 99. — Arcb. de Tlnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXII. 264).— FaucoD, Registres de Boniface VIII. No. 2140. VARYING POLICY OF PHILIPPE. 67 England. A truce was thus patched up with Phihppe, who has- tened to manifest his good- will to the Holy See by abandoning his subjects again to the inquisitors. In the Liber Sextus of the Decretals, published by Boniface March 3, 1298, the pope included, with customary imperiousness, a canon commanding the absolute obedience of all secular officials to the orders of inquisitors under penalty of excommunication, which if endured for a year carried with it condemnation for heresy. This was his answer to the French monarch's insubordinate legislation, and Philippe at the moment was not inclined to contest the matter. In September he meekly enclosed the canon to his officials with instructions to obey it in every point, arresting and imprisoning all whom inquisi- tors or bishops might designate, and punishing all whom they might condemn. A letter of Frere Arnaud Jean, Inquisitor of Pamiers, dated March 2, of the same year, assuring the Jews that they need dread no novel measures of severity, would seem to in- dicate that the royal protection had been previously withdrawn from them. The good understanding between king and pope lasted until 1300, when the quarrel broke out afresh with greater acrimony than ever. In December of that year the provisions of CleriGis laioos were renewed by the bull Nuper ex rationaUlihus, followed by the short one, of which the authenticity is disputed, Scire te volum/us, asserting Philippe's subjection in temporal affairs and calling forth his celebrated rejoinder, Sciat tua maxima fatui- tas. The strife continued with increasing violence till the seizure of Boniface at Anagni, September 8, 1303, and his death in the following month.* Under this varying policy the fate of the people of Languedoc was hard. Nicholas d' Abbeville, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, was a man of inflexible severity, arrogantly bent on pushing his prerogatives to the utmost. He had an assistant Avorthy of him in Foulques de Saint-Georges, the Prior of the Convent of Albi, which was under his jurisdiction. He had virtually another assistant in the bishop, Bernard de Castanet, who delighted to act as inquisi- tor, impelled alike by fanaticism and by greed, for, as we have * Du Puy, op. cit. Pr. 39,41, 42, 44. — Faucon, Registres de Bouiface VTIT. No. 1822-3, No. 1829, No. 1830-1, No. 1930.— C. 18 Sexto v. 2.— Isambert. Anc. Loix Franp. II. 718.— Vaissette, fM. Privat, X. Pr. 347.— Aicliives de ll;vecli6 d'Albi (Doat, XXXII. 275). 68 LANGUEDOC. seen, the bishops of Albi, by a special transaction with St. Louia enjoyed a half of the confiscations. J?rior to his elevation in 1276 l>ernard had been auditor of the papal camera, which shows him to have been an accom[)lished legist, and he was also a patron of art and literature, but he Avas ever in trouble with his people. Al- ready, in 1277, he had succeeded in so exasperating them that his palace was swept l)y a howling jnob, and he barely escaped with his life. In 12S2 he commenced the erection of the cathedral of St. Cecilia, a gigantic building, half church, half fortress, which swallowed enormous sums, and stimulated his hatred of heresy by supplying a pious use for the estates of heretics.* To such men the protection granted to his subjects by Philippe was most distasteful, and not without reason. Heretics naturally took advantage of the restrictions imposed on the Inquisition and redoubled their activity. It might seem, indeed, to them that the day of supremacy of the Church was past, and that the rising in- dependence of the secular power might usher in an era of com- parative toleration, in which their persecuted religion would at length find its oft-deferred opportunity of converting mankind — a dream in which they indulged to the last. More demonstrative, if not more earnest, was the feeling which the royal policy aroused in Carcassonne. The Ordonnances had not only crippled the In- quisition, but had shown the disfavor with which it was regarded by the king, and in 1295 some of the leading citizens, who had been compromised in the trials of 1285, found no difiiculty in arousing the people to open resistance. For a while they con- trolled the city, and inflicted no little injury on the Dominicans, and on all who ventured to support them. Nicholas d' Abbeville was driven from the pulpit when preaching, pelted with stones and pursued with drawn swords, and the judges of the royal court on one occasion were glad to escape with their lives, while the friars were beaten and insulted when they appeared in public and were practically segregated as excommunicates. Bernard Gui, an * C. Molinier, L'luq. dans le midi de la France, p. 92. — A. Molinier (Vaissette, f^d. Privat, IX. 307). The character and power of tlie bishops of Albi are illus- trated in a successor of Bernard de Castanet, Bishop Geraud, who in 1312, to settle a quarrel with the Seigneur de Puygozon, raised an army of five thousand men with which he attacked the royal Chateau Vieux d'Albi, and committed much devastation. — Vaissette, IV. 160. SUBMISSION OF CARCASSONNE. 69 eye-witness, naturally attributes this to the influence of heresy, but it is impossible for us now to conjecture how much may have been clue to religious antagonism, and how much to the natural reaction among the orthodox against the intolerable oppression of the inquisitorial methods.* For some years the Inquisition of Carcassonne was suspended. As soon as secular support Avas withdrawn pubhc opinion was too strong, and it succumbed. This lasted until the truce between king and pope again placed the royal power at the disposal of the inquisitors. In their despair the citizens then sent envoys to Boni- face VIII., with Aimeric Castel at their head, supported by a num- ber of Franciscans. Boniface listened to their complaints and pro- posed to depute the Bishop of Vicenza as commissioner to examine and report, but the papal referendary, afterwards Cardinal of S. Sabina, required a bribe of ten tliousand florins as a preliminary. It was promised him, but Aimeric, having secured the good offices of Pierre Flotte and the Duke of Burgundy, thought he could ob- tain his purpose for less, and refused to pay it. When Boniface heard of tlie refusal he angrily exclaimed, " We know in whom they trust, but by God aH the kings in Christendom shaU. not save the people of Carcassonne from being burned, and specially the father of that Aimeric Castel !" The nenrotiation fell throuo;h, and Nicholas d'AbbeviUe had his triumph. A large portion of the citizens were wearied with the disturbances, and were impatient under the excommunication which rested on the community. The prosperity of the town was declining, and there were not wanting those who predicted its ruin. The hopelessness of further resist- ance was apparent, and matters being thus ripe for a settlement, a solemn assembly was held, April 27, 1209, when the civic magis- trates met the inquisitor in the presence of the Bishops of Albi and Beziers, Bertrand de Clermont, Inquisitor of Toulouse, the royal officials, sundry abbots and other notables. Nicholas dic- tated his own terms for the absolution asked at his hands, nor were they seemingly harsh. Those who were manifest heretics, or specially defamed, or convicted by legal proof must take their chance. The rest were to be penanced as the bishops and the Ab- * Bern. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Prgcdic. (Martcnc Coll. Ampl. VI. 477-8). — Ejusd. Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 94). 70 LANGUEDOC. bot of Fontfroidc might advise, excluding confiscation and per- sonal or humiliating penalties. All this was reasonable enough from an ecclesiastical point of view, but so deep-seated was the distrust, or so strong the heretical influence, that the people asked twenty-four hours for consideration, and on reasseml)ling the next day refused the terms. Six months passed, their helplessness and isolation each day becoming more apparent, until, Octo])er S, they reassembled, and the consuls asked for absolution in the name of the community. ]>[icholas was not severe. The penance imposed on the town was the building of a chapel in honor of St. Louis, which was accomplished in the j^ear 1300 at the cost of ninety livi*es Tournois. The consuls, in the name of the community, secretly ab- jured heresy. Twelve of the most guilty citizens were reserved for special penances, viz., four of the old consuls, four councillors, two advocates, and two notaries. Of these the fate was doubtless deplorable. Chance has preserved to us the sentence passed on one of the authors of the troubles, Guillem Garric, by which \re find that he rotted in the horrible dungeon of Carcassonne for twenty-two years before he was brought forward for judgment in 1321, when in consideration of his long confinement he was given the choice between the crusade and exile, and the crushed old man fell on his knees and gave thanks to Jesus Christ and to the in- quisitors for the mercy vouchsafed him. Some years later intense excitement was created when Frere Bernard Delicieux obtained sight of the agreement, and discovered that the consuls had been represented in it as confessing that the whole community had given aid to manifest heretics, that they had abjured in the name of all, and thus that all citizens were incapacitated for office and were exposed to the penalties of relapse in case of further trouble. This excited the people to such a point that the inquisitor, Geof- froi d'Ablis, was obliged to issue a solemn declaration, August 10, 1303, disclaiming any intention of thus taking advantage of the settlement ; and notwithstanding this, when King Philippe came to Carcassonne in 1305 the agreement was pronounced fraudulent, the seneschal Gui Caprier was dismissed for having affixed his seal to it, and confessed that he had been bribed to do so by Nicho- las d' Abbeville with a thousand livres Tournois.* MSS. Bib. Nat, fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 18, 119-23, 129, 135-6, 292.— Arch. PROSECUTIONS AT ALBI. 7X Encouraged by the crippling and suspension of the Inquisition, the Catliaran propaganda had been at work with renewed vigor. In 1299 the Council of Beziers sounded the alarm by announcing that perfected heretics had made their appearance in the land, and ordering close search made after them. At Albi, Bishop Bernard was, as usual, at variance with his flock, who were pleading against him in the royal court to preserve their jurisdiction. The occa- sion was op})ortune. He called to his assistance the inquisitors Nicholas d' Abbeville and Bertrand de Clermont, and towards the close of the year 1299 the town was startled by the arrest of twenty-five of the wealthiest and most respected citizens, whose regular attendance at mass and observance of all rebgious duties had rendered them above suspicion. The trials were pushed with unusual celerity, and, from the manner in which those who at first denied were speedily brought to confession and to revealing the names of their associates, there Avas doubtless good ground for the popular belief that torture was ruthlessly and unsparingly used ; in fact, allusions to it in the final sentence of Guilleni Calverie, one of the victims, leave no doubt on the subject. Abjuration saved them from the stake, but the sentence of perpetual impris- onment in chains was a doubtful mercy for those who were sen- tenced, while a number were kept interminably in jail awaiting judgment.* The whole country was ripe for revolt. The revival of Phi- lippe's quarrel with Boniface soon gave assurance that help might be expected from the throne ; but if this should fail there would be scant hesitation on the part of desperate men in looking for some other sovereign who would lend an ear to their complaints. The arrest and trial for treason of the Bishop of Pamiers, in 1301, shows us what was then the undercurrent of popular feeling in Languedoc, where the Frenchman was still a hated stranger, the king a foreign despot, and the people discontented and ready to shift their allegiance to either England or Aragon whenever they could see their advantage in it. The fragile tenure with which de I'Inq. de Care. (Boat, XXXII. 283).— Vaissette, IV. 91 ; Pr. 100-2.— Lib. Sen- tentt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 282-5.— Coll. Doat, XXXIV. 21. * Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1299, c. 3 (Vaissette, IV. 96).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fouds latin, No. 4270, fol. 264, 270.— Archives de I'Eveehg d'Albi (Doat, XXXV. 69). —MSS. Bib. Nat., fends latin, No. 11847.— Lib. Sententt. Inquis. Tolos. p. 266. 72 LANGUEDOC. the land was still held by the Kings of Paris must be kept in vie"W if we would understand I?hilippe's shifting policy.* The prosecutions of Albi caused general terror, for the victims were universally thouglit to be good Catholics, selected for spolia- tion on account of their wealth. The conviction was widespread that such inquisitors as Jean de Faugoux, Guillem de Mulceone, Jean de Saint -Seine, Jean Galande, Nicholas d' Abbeville, and Foulques de Saint-Georges had long had no scruple in obtaining, by threats and torture, such testimony as they might desire against any one whom they might wish to ruin, and that their records were falsified, and filled with fictitious entries for that purpose. Some years before, Frere Jean Martin, a Dominican, had invoked the interposition of Pierre de Montbrun, Archbishop of lN"arboniie (died 1286), to put a stop to this iniquity. Some investigation was made, and the truth of the charges was estab- lished. The dead were found to be the special prey of these ^allt- ures, who had prepared their frauds in advance. Even the fierce orthodoxy of the Marechaux de la Foi could not save Gui de Levis of Mirepoix from this posthumous attack ; and, when Gautier de Montbrun, Bishop of Carcassonne, died, they produced from their records proof that he had adored heretics and had been hereticated on his death-bed. In this latter case, fortunately, the archbishop happened to know that one of the witnesses, Jourdain Ferrolh, had been absent at the time when, by his alleged testimony, he had seen the act of adoration. Frere Jean Martin urged the arch- bishop to destroy all the records and cause the Dominicans to be deprived of their functions, and the prelate made some attempt at Eome to effect this, contenting himself meanwhile with issuing some regulations and sequestrating some of the books. It was probably during this flurry that the Inquisitors of Carcassonne and Toulouse, Nicholas d' Abbeville and Pierre de Mulceone, hear- ing that they were likely to be convicted of fraud, retired with their records to the safe retreat of Prouille and busied themselves in making a transcript, with the compromising entries omitted, which they ingeniously bound in the covers stripped from the old volumes, t * Du Puy, Hist, du DifFerend, Pr. 633 sqq. 653-4. — Martene Thesaur. I, 1320-36. + MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 125-8, 139. CASE OP CASTEL FABRI. 73 About this time occurred a case which confirms the po])ular behef in inquisitorial iniquity, and which had results of vastly greater importance than its promoters anticipated. When the disappointed Boniface VIII. swore that he would cause the burn- ing of Aimeric Castel's father, he uttered no idle threat. Nicholas d' Abbeville, a fitting instrument, was at hand, and to him he pri- vately gave the necessary verbal instructions. Castel Fabri, the father, had been a citizen of Carcassonne distinguished for piety and benevolence no less than for wealth. A friend of the Fran- ciscan Order, after duly receiving the sacraments, he had died, in 1278, in the hands of its friars, six of whom kept watch in the sick-room until his death, and he had been buried in the Francis- can cemetery. We have seen in the case of the Count of Foix how easily all these precautions could be brushed aside, and Nich- olas found no difficulty in discovering or making the evidence he required.* Suddenly, in 1300, the people of Carcassonne were startled by a notice, read in all the parish churches, summoning those wishing to defend the memory of Castel Fabri to appear be- fore the Inquisition on a day named, as the deceased was proved to have been hereticated on his death-bed. The moment was well chosen, as Aimeric Castel, the son, was absent. The Franciscans, for whom the accused had doubtless provided liberally in his will, felt themselves called upon to assume his defence. Hastily con- sulting, they determined to send their lector, Bernard de Licgossi, or Delicieux, to the General Chapter then assembling at Marseilles, for instructions, as, in the chronic antagonism between the Mendi- cants, the matter seemed to be regarded as an assault on the Or- der. The wife of Aimeric Castel provided for the expenses of the journey, and Bernard returned with instructions from the pro- vincial to defend the memory of the deceased, while Eleazar de * In a series of confessions extracted from Master Arnaucl Matha, a clerk of Carcassonne, in 1285, there are two, of October 4 and 10, in which he de- scribes all the details of the herctication of Castel Fabri on his death-bed, in 1278 (Doat, XXVI. 258-60). Wliile tliese cannot be positively said to be inter- polations, they have the appearance of being so, and it may safely be assumed as impossible that such a matter would have been allowed to lie dormant for fifteen years with so rich a prize within reach. Tlie case is doubtless one of the forged records which, as we have seen, were popularly believed to be customary in the Inquisition. 74 LANGUEDOC. Clermont, the syndic of the convent, was deputed by the Guardian of Narbonne to co-operate with him. Meanwhile ^Nicholas had proceeded to condemnation, and when, July 4, 1300, Bernard and Eleazar presented themselves to offer the testimony of the friars who had watched the dying man, Nicholas received them standing, refused to hsten to them, and on their urging their evi- dence left the room in the most contemptuous manner. In the afternoon they returned to ask for a certificate of their offer and its refusal, but found the door of the Inquisition closed, and could not effect an entrance. The next step was to take an appeal to the Holy See and ask for " Apostoli," but this was no easy matter. So general was the terror inspired by Nicholas that the doctor of decretals, Jean de Penne, to whom they applied to draw the paper, refused unless his name should be kept inviolably secret, and nmeteen years after- wards Bernard when on trial refused to reveal it until compelled to do so. To obtain a notary to authenticate the appeal was still harder. All those in Carcassonne absolutely refused, and it was found necessary to bring one from a distance, so that it was not un- til July 16 that the document was ready for service. How serious- ly, indeed, all parties regarded what should have been a very simple business is shown by the winding-up of the appeal, which places, until the case is decided, not only the body of Castel Fabri, but the appellants and the whole Franciscan convent, under the pro- tection of the Holy See. When they went to serve the instrument on Nicholas the doors, as before, were found closed and entrance could not be effected. It was therefore read in the street and left tacked on the door, to be taken down and treasured and brought forward in evidence against Bernard in 1319. We have no further records of the case, but that the appeal was ineffectual is visible in the fact that in 1322-3 the accounts of Arnaud AssaUt show that the royal treasury was still receiving an income from the confiscated estates of Castel Fabri ; while in 1329 the stiU unsatis- fied vengeance of the Inquisition ordered the bones of his wife Rixende to be exhumed.* * MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 14-16, 29-30, 35, 120, 148.— Coll. Boat, XXVII. 178; XXXIV. 123, 189. As late as 1338 the confiscated house of Castel Fabri at Carcassonne was the subject of a reclamation by Pierre de Manse who claimed that Philippe le Bel BERNARD DfiLICIEUX. 75 The case of Castel Fabri might have passed unnoticed, like thousands of others, had it not chanced to bring into collision with the Inquisition the lector of the convent of Carcassonne. Bernard Delicieux was no ordinary man, in fact a contemporary assures us that in the whole Franciscan Order there were few who were his equals. Entering the Order about 1284, his position of lector or teacher shows the esteem felt for his learning, for the Mendicants were ever careful in selecting those to whom they confided such functions ; and, moreover, we find him in relations with the lead- ing minds of the age, such as Raymond Lully and Arnaldo de Vilanova. His eloquence made him much in request as preacher ; his persuasiveness enabled him to control those with whom he came in contact, while his enthusiastic ardor prompted him to make any sacrifices necessary to a cause which had once enlisted his sympathies. He was no latitudinarian or time-server, for when the split came in his own Order he embraced, to his ruin, the side of the Spiritual Franciscans, with the same disregard of self as he had manifested in his dealings with the Inquisition. He was no admirer of toleration, for he devoutly wished the extermination of heresy, but experience and observation had convinced him that in Dominican hands the Inquisition was merel}" an instrument of oppression and extortion, and he imagined that by transferring it to the Franciscans its usefulness would be preserved while its evils would be removed. Boniface VIIL, as we have seen, about this time replaced the Franciscan inquisitors of Padua and Yicenza with Dominicans for the purpose of repressing similar evils, and in the jealousy and antagonism between the two orders the converse operation might seem worth attempting in Languedoc. In tlie hope of alleviating the sufferings of the people, Bernard devoted himself to the cause for years, incurring obloquy, persecution, and ingratitude. Those whom he sought to serve allowed him to sell his books in their service, and to cripple himself with debt, while the enmities which he excited hounded him relentlessly to the death. Yet in the struggle he had the sympathies of his own Order which everywhere throughout Languedoc manifested itself had given it to his queen, through whom it had come to him. The royal officials asserted that the gift had only been for life, and had seized it again, but Philippe de Valois abandoned it to the claimant. — Vaissctte, fid. Privat, X. Pr. 831-3. 76 LANGUEDOC. the enemy of the Dominican Inquisition. Already, in 1291, Fran- ciscans in Carcassonne had endeavored to intervene in cases of heresy, and had been sharply reproved by Pliilippe le Bel at the instance of the Inquisitor Guillaume de Saint-Seine. In 1298 they had supported the appeal of the men of Carcassonne to Boniface VIII., and throughout the whole of Bernard's agitation the Fran- ciscan convents are seen to be rally ing-points of the opposition. It is there that Bernard preaches his fiery sermons ; it is there that meetings are held to plan resistance. During the troubles in Carcassonne Foulques de Saint-Georges went with twenty-five men to the Franciscan convent to cite the opponents of the Inqui- sition. The friars would not admit them, but tolled the bell and an angry crowd assembled, while those inside the convent assailed them with stones and quarrels, and they were glad to escape with their lives.* Vainly the inquisitors complained to the Franciscan prelates of Bernard as an impeder of the Holy Office. The form of a trial would be gone through, and the offender would be furnished with letters attesting his innocence. The Dominicans asserted that Franciscan zeal was solely caused by jealousy ; the Franciscans re- torted that their friends were the special objects of inquisitorial persecution. King Phihppe's confessor was a Dominican, Queen Joanna's a Franciscan, and the two courtly friars took part, for and against the Inquisition, with a zeal which rendered them im- portant factors in the struggle. The undying hostility between the two Orders always led them to opposite sides in every ques- tion of dogma or practice, and this was one which afforded the amplest scope to bitterness.f The cotip-de-main executed on the so-called heretics of Albi, in December, 1299, and the early months of 1300, had excited con- sternation too general for the matter to be passed over. King Philippe's quarrel with Boniface was breaking out afresh, and he might not be averse to making his subjects feel that they had a * Historia Tribulationum (Archiv fur Litteratur- u. Kircbengeschichte, 1886, p. 148).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4370, fol. 231.— Vaissette, fid. Privat, X. 268. t MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 9, 19, 22, 24, 26, 32, 40, 63, 70, 73, 81, 82, 84, 119, 128, 149, 155, 163. — Bern. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Albiens. (D. Bouquet, XXI. 748).— Coll. Boat, XXXIV. 26. THE ROYAL REFORMERS. 77 protector in the throne. With the advice of his council an inves- tigation was ordered, and confided to the Bishops of Beziers and Maguelonne, but the inquisitors arrogantly and persistently re- fused to allow the secrets of their office to be invaded. This was not calculated to remove popular disquiet, and in 1301 Philippe sent to Languedoc two officials armed with supreme powers, un- der the name of Reformers. As the royal authority extended and established itself, special deputies for the investigation and correction of abuses were frequently despatched to the provinces. In the present case those who came to Languedoc perhaps had for their chief business the arrest of the Bishop of Pamiers, ac- cused of treasonable practices, but the colorable pretext for their mission was the correction of inquisitorial abuses. One of them, Jean de Pequigny, Yidame of Amiens, was a man of high char- acter for probity and sagacity ; the other was Richard Nepveu, Archdeacon of Lisieux, of whom we hear little in the following years, except that he quietly slipped into the vacant episcopate of Beziers. He must have done his duty to some extent, how- ever, for Bernard Gui tells us that he died in 1309 of leprosy, as a judgment of God for his hostility to the Inquisition.* The Reformers established themselves at Toulouse, where Foulques de Saint-Georges had been inquisitor since Michaelmas, 1300, and speedily gathered much damaging testimony against him, for he was accused not only of unduly torturing persons for purposes of extortion, but of gratifying his lusts by arresting women whose virtue he failed otherwise to overcome. Thither flocked representatives of Albi, with the wives and children of the prisoners, beseeching and imploring the representatives of the * MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4370, fol. 163. — Guillel. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1303. — Grandes Chroniques, T. V. pp. 156-7. — Girard de Fraclieto Chron. contin. ann. 1203 (D. Bouq. XXI. 23).— Vaissette, IV. 112.— Bern. Guidon. Hist. Fund. Conv. (Martene Ampl. Coll. V. 514). When, long years afterwards, in 1319, Bernard Delicieux was carried from Avignon to Toulouse for the trial which led to his death, one of the convoy, a notary named Arnaud de Nogaret, chanced to allude to a report that Pecjuiguy had been bribed with one thousand livres to oppose the Inquisition. Then the old man's temper flashed forth in defence of his departed friend—" Thou liest in the throat : the Vidame was an honest man !"— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 263. 78 LANGUEDOC. king for justice, and promising revelations if they would issue let- ters of safety to those who would give inforaiation — for the ter- ror inspired by the Inquisition was such that no one dared to testify concerning it unless he was assured of protection against its vengeance. The Bishop of Albi came also to justify himself, and on his return to his episcopal seat he was welcomed with a manifestation of the feeling entertained for him by his flock, whom the coming of the Reformers encouraged in the expression of their sentiments. When his approach was announced a crowd of men and women rushed forth from the gates to meet him with shouts of " Death, death, death to the traitor !" It may perhaps be doubted whether, as reported, he bore the threats and insults with patience akin to that of Christ, ordering his followers to keep their weapons down ; certain it is that he was roughly han- dled, and had difiiculty in safely reaching his palace. A conspir- acy was formed to burn the palace, in order, during the confu- sion, to liberate the prisoners, but the hearts of the conspirators failed them and the project was abandoned. Even more mena- cing was the action of a number of the chief citizens, who bound themselves by a notarial instrument to prosecute him and Nicho- las d' Abbeville in the king's court. As a consequence, the bish- op's temporalities were sequestrated, and eventually the enormous fine of twenty thousand livres stripped him of a portion of his iU- gotten gains for the benefit of the king, who was bitterly re- proached by Bernard Delicieux for thus preferring money to justice. Bernard de Castanet retained his uneasy seat until 1308, when, seeing under Clement Y. no prospect of better times, he pro- cured a transfer to the quieter see of Puy. One of the earliest signs of the revulsion under John XXII. was his advancement, in December, 1316, to the Cardinalate of Porto, which he held for only eight months, his death occurring in August, 1317.* The Reformers, meanwhile, had sent for Bernard Delicieux, who was then quietly performing his duties as lector in the con- vent of Narbonne. He must already have made himself conspic- * Bern. Guidon. Hist. Fund. Conv. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 510-11).— Arch. de I'lnq. de Care. (Boat, XXVII. 7).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270. fol. 6, 7, 11, 42, 45, 48, 71, 161, 270.— Arch, de l'h6tel-de-ville d'Albi (Boat, XXXIV. 169).— Vaissette, IV. 143. FOULQUES DE SAINT-GEORGES. 79 uous in the aifair of Cast el Fabri, and was evidently regarded as a desirable ally in the im})ending struggle. According to his own story he advised Pequigny to let the Inquisition alone, as experi- ence had shown that effort was useless ; but on being called again to Toulouse on some business connected with the Priory of la Daurade, and having to visit Paris in connection with the will of Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, it was arranged, at Pequigny's sugges- tion, that he should accompany a deputation which the citizens of Albi were sending to the king to invoke his active intervention. The court was at Senlis, a\ hither they repaired, and there came also Pequigny to justify himself, and Frere Foulques with several Dominicans, eager to establish the innocence of the Inquisition.* The battle was fought out before the king. Bernard urged the suspension of the inquisitors during an investigation, or that the Dominicans should be permanently declared ineligible while awaiting final action by the Holy See. Supported by Frere Guil- laume, the king's Dominican confessor, Foulques preferred charges against Pequigny, but could furnish no proofs. Pequigny retort- ed with accusations against Foulques, and a commission, consist- ing of the Archbishop of ISTarbonne and the Constable of France, was appointed to hear both sides. After due deliberation, it re- ported in favor of Pequigny, and the king took the unheard-of step of removing the inquisitor. He at first requested this of the Dominican Provincial of Paris, who possessed the power to do so, but that official called together a chapter, which contented itself with appointing an adjunct, and ordering Foulques to retain office tiU the middle of the following Lent, in order to complete the tri- als which he had already commenced. This gave Philippe great offence, which he expressed in the most outspoken terms in letters to his chaplain and to the Bishop of Toulouse, whom he bitterly reproached for advising acceptance of the terms. He did not content himself with words, for simultaneously, December 8, 1301, he wrote to the bishop, the Inquisitor of Toulouse, and the seneschals of Toulouse and Albi, stating that the imploring cries of his subjects, including prelates and ecclesiastics, counts, bar- ons, and other distiuguished men, convinced him that Foulques was guilty of the charges preferred against him, including crimes • MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 16, 149. 80 LANGUEDOC. abhorrent to the human mind. He afflicted the people with nu- merous exactions and oppressions ; he was accustomed to com- mence proceedings with torture inconceivable and incredible, and thus compel confession from those whom he suspected, and when this failed he suborned witnesses to testify falsely. His detesta- ble excesses had created such general terror that a rising of the people was to be apprehended unless some speedy remedy was had. Some further unavailing opposition was made to Foulques's removal, but not much was gained by the appointment of his suc- cessor, Guillaume de Morieres, who had previously succeeded him in the Priory of Albi. Foulques was gratified with the important Priory of Avignon, and when he subsequently died in poverty at Lyons he was regarded by his Order almost in the light of a martyr.* Philippe had not contented himself with getting rid of Foulques, but had endeavored to introduce reforms which are interesting not only as a manifestation of the royal supremacy which he assumed, but also as the model of all subsequent en- deavors to curb the abuses of the Inquisition. It was natural that this should take the shape of reviving the episcopal power which had become so completely suppressed. Firstly, the prison which the crown had built on its own land in Toulouse for the use of the Inquisition was to be placed under the charge of some one selected by both bishop and inquisitor, and in case of their disagreement by the royal seneschal. The inquisitor was deprived of the power of arbitrary arrest. He was obliged to consult the bishop, and when they could not agree the question was to be decided by a majority vote in an assemblage consisting of certain officials of the cathedral and of the Franciscan and Dominican convents. Arrests were only to be made by the seneschal, after these preliminaries had been observed, except in case of foreign heretics who might escape. The question of bail was to be set- tled in the same way as that of arrest. In no case was either bishop or inquisitor entitled to obedience when acting individual- ly, for, as the king declared, " We cannot endure that the life and • MSB. Bib. Nat, fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 121, 125, 132, 150, 159, 165.— Vais- sette, IV. Pr. 118-20.— Bern. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Prsedic. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 510).— Arch, dc I'hotel-de-viUe d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV. 169). INEFFECTIVE REFORMS. 81 death of our subjects shall be abandoned to the discretion of a single individual, who, even if not actuated by cupidity, may be insufficiently informed." Inadequate as these reforms eventually proved, they had an excellent temporary effect. For a time the Inquisition was paralyzed, and arrests which had been taking place every week were suddenly brought to an end, for during 1302 these provisions were embodied in a general Ordonnance, and the legislation of 1293 protecting the Jews was repeated. At the same time Philippe was careful to manifest due solicitude for the suppression of heresy, for he published anew the severe edict of St. Louis ; and on the appointment of GuiUaume de Morieres to the Inquisition of Toulouse he wrote to the seneschal instruct- ing him to place the royal prisons at the inquisitor's disposal, to pay him the customary stipend, and to aid him in every way un- til further orders.* While the new regulations may have promised relief elsewhere, they gave little comfort at Albi, the inquisitorial proceedings of whose bishop had given rise to the whole disturbance. Its citi- zens were still languishing in the prison of the Inquisition of Car- cassonne, and a numerous deputation of both sexes was sent to the king, accompanied by two Franciscans, Jean Hector and Ber- trand de Yilledelle. Again Bernard Dehcieux was present, hav- ing this time been opportunely chosen to represent the Order on a summons from Philippe for consultation on the subject of his quarrel with Pope Boniface. They aU followed the king to Pierre- fonds and then to Compiegne. He gave them fair words, prom- ised a speedy visit to Languedoc, when he would settle matters, and consoled them with a donation of one thousand Kvres, which he could well afford to do, for the confiscated estates of the pris- oners were in his hands, and were never released.f All this, of course, gave little satisfaction ; nor were the peo- ple placated by the removal of Nicholas d'AbbeviUe, for he was succeeded in the Inquisition of Carcassonne by Geoffroi d'Ablis, ' Vaissette, IV. Pr. 118-21.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 69.— Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran9. II. 747, 789. t Arch, de rii6tel-de-ville d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV. 169).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 16, 70, 134, 151. — Coll. Doat, XXXUI. 2«7-72; XXXIV. 189. II.— 6 g2 LANGUEDOC. who was as energetic and unsparing as his predecessor, and who brought royal letters, dated January 1, 1303, ordering all officials to render him the customary obedience. Popular excitement grew more and more threatening, and as Albi had no local inquis- itors of its own, being within the jurisdiction of the tribunal of Carcassonne, the discontent vented itself on the Dominicans, who were regarded as the representatives of the hated tribunal. On the first Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1302, when the friars went as usual to preach in the churches they were violently eject- ed and assailed with cries of " Death to the traitors !" and deemed themselves at length fortunate in being able to regain their con- vent. This state of things continued for several years, during which they scarce dared to show themselves in the streets, and were never secure from insult. All ahns and burial -fees were withdrawn, and the people refused even to attend mass in their church. The names of Dominic and Peter Martyr were erased from the crucifix at the principal gate of the town, and were re- placed with those of Pequigny and Nepveu, and of tAvo citizens who were leaders in the disturbances — Arnaud Garsia and Pierre Probi of Castres.* The prisoners of Albi were still as far as ever from liberation, and Bernard Delicieux urged Pequigny to come to Carcassonne and consider their case on the spot. In the summer of 1303 he did so, and was met by a large number of the people of Albi, men and women, praying him to liberate them. While he was inves- tigating the subject he came upon the instrument of pacification between ISTicholas d' Abbeville and the consuls of Carcassonne in 1299. This was communicated to the people by Frere Bernard in a fiery sermon, and a knowledge of its conditions aroused them almost to frenzy. Eiots ensued in which the houses of some of the old consuls and of those who were regarded as friends of the Inquisition were destroyed; the Dominican church was assailed, its windows broken, the statues in its porch overthrown, and the friars maltreated. To violate the prisons of the Inquisition was so serious a matter that Pequigny seems to have wished the backing of an enraged populace before he would venture on the step: and * Vaissette, Ed. Privat, X. Pr. 409. — ]\ISS. Bib. Nat., fonds latiu, No. 4270, fol. 165.— Bern. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Prtedic. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 511). CONFLICT BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE. 83 when he resolved upon it he anticipated resistance so confidently that with his privity Bernard assembled fourscore men, with skilled mechanics, in the Franciscan convent, ready to break open the jails in case of necessity. Their services were not needed. Geoffroi d'Ablis yielded, and in August, 1303, Pequigny removed the prisoners of Albi. He did not discharge them, however, but merely transferred them to the royal prisons, and refused to carry them to the king as Bernard advised. Possibly their treatment for a while may have been gentler, but they derived no perma- nent advantage from the movement. The grasp of the Inquisi- tion was unrelaxing. It obtained possession of them again, and we shall see that it held them to the last.^' Meanwhile advantage was taken of the access obtained to them to procure from tliem statements of the tortures which they had endured, and lists were made of the names of those whom they had been forced to accuse as heretics. These were circulated throughout the land and excited general alarm, the Franciscans being especially active in giving them publicity. On the other hand, the inquisitor Geoffroi d'Ablis was equal to the emergency. He cited Pequigny to appear and stand trial for impeding the In- quisition, and on his refusal excommunicated him, September 29 ; and as soon as word could be carried to Paris he was published as excommunicate by the Dominicans there. This audacious act brought all parties to a sense of the nature of the conflict which had sprung up between Church and State. The consuls and people of Albi addressed to the queen an earnest petition beseeching her to prevail upon the king not to abandon them by withdrawing the Keformers, who had already done so much good and on whom depended their last hope. A fruitless effort also was made to pre- vent the publication of the excommunication. At Castres, Oc- tober 13, Jean Ricoles, stipendiary priest of the Church of St. Mary, published it from the pulpit, as he was bound to do, and was promptly arrested by the deputy of the royal viguier of Albi and carried to the Franciscan convent, where he was threatened * MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 4370, fol. 8, 17, 19, 20, 32, 44, 49, 58, 156, 103, 229. — Pequigny is also said to have arrested some of the friars connected with the Inquisition (La Faille, Annales de Toulouse I. 34), but I think this impos- sible. 84 LANGUEDOC. and maltreated, and the friars used every effort to persuade him to withdraw it. This in itself was a grave violation of clerical immunity, and it was soon recognized that such proceedings were worse than useless. Pequigny's authority was paralyzed until the excommunication should be removed, and this could only be done by the man Avho had uttered it, or l)y the pope himself.* The prospect of relief was darkened by the election, October 21, of Benedict XI., himself a Dominican and necessarily pre- disposed in favor of the Inquisition. Special exertions evidently were required unless all that had been gained was to be lost, and, at the best, litigation in the Roman court was a costly business. Pequigny had appealed to the pope, and, October 29, he wrote from Paris to the cities of Languedoc asking for their aid in the persecution which he had brought upon himself in their cause. Bernard Delicieux promptly busied himself to obtain the required assistance. By his exertions the three cities of Carcassonne, Albi, and Cordes entered into an alliance and pledged themselves to fur- nish the sum of three thousand livres, one half by Carcassonne and the rest by the other two, and to continue in the same pro- portions as long as the affair should last. After Pequigny's death they renewed their obhgation to his oldest son Renaud ; but as the matter was much protracted, they grew tired, and Bernard, who had raised some of the money on his own responsibility, was left with heavy obligations, of which he vainly sought restitution at the hands of the ungrateful cities.f The quarrel was thus for a time transferred to Rome. Pe- quigny went to Italy with envoys from the king and from Carcas- sonne and Albi to plead his cause, and was opposed by Guillaume de Morieres, the Inquisitor of Toulouse, sent thither to manage the case against him. Benedict was not slow in showing on * MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 4270, fol. 27, 272.— Arch, de I'lnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXII. 114).— Bern. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Praedic. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 511).— Vaissette, IV. Pr. 128.— Coll. Doat, XXXIV. 26. The Dominican party declared that the statements purporting to come from the prisoners were fraudulent, and Bernard Gui relates with savage satisfaction that a monk named Raymond Baudicr, who was concerned in getting them up, hanged himself like Judas (1. c. p. 514). t MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 4270, fol. 63, 153-55, 272-3.— Haurgau, Bern. Dg- licieux pp. 187, 190. REHABILITATION OF PEQUIGNY. 85 "which side his sympathies lay. At Perugia, while the pope was conducting the solemnities of Pentecost, May 17, 1304, Pequigny ventured to enter the church. Benedict saw him, and, pointing to him, said to his marshal, P. de Brayda, " Turn out that Patarin !" an order which the marshal zealously obeyed. The significance of the incident was not small, and after the death of both Bene- dict and Pequigny, Geoffroi d'Ablis caused a notarial instrument recounting it to be drawn up and duly authenticated as one of the documents of the process. The climate of Italy was very un- healthy for Transmontanes. Morieres died at Perugia, and Pe- quigny followed him at Abruzzo, September 29, 1304, the anni- versary of his excommunication. Having remained for a year under the ban for impeding the Inquisition, he was legally a heretic, and his burial in consecrated ground is only to be ex- plained by the death of Benedict a short time before. Geoffroi d'Ablis demanded that his bones be exhumed and burned,while Pe- quigny's sons carried on the appeal for the rehabilitation of his memory. The matter dragged on till Clement V. referred it to a commission of three cardinals. These gave a patient hearing to both sides, who argued the matter exhaustively, and submitted all the necessary documents and papers. At last, July 23, 1308, they rendered their decision to the effect that the sentence of excommunication had been unjust and iniquitous, and that its revocation should be published in all places where it had been announced. Geoffroi fruitlessly endeavored to appeal from this, which was the most complete justification possible of all that had been said and done against the Inquisition, emphasized by Clem- ent's cutting refusal to listen to his statements — " It is false : the land never wished to rebel, but was in evil case in consequence of the doings of the Inquisition," while a cardinal told him that for fift}^ years the people had been goaded to resistance by the excesses of his predecessors, and that when a corrective was ap- plied they only added evil to evil.* Benedict XL had given other proofs of partisanship. It is true that in answer to the complaints of the oppressed ])eop]e he * Arch, de llnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXI. 10; XXXII. 114). — Bern. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Praedic. (Martcue Auipl. Coll. VI. 510-11). — MSS. Bib. Nat, fonds latin, 4270, fol. 88, 109, 122. 86 LANGUEDOC. appointed a commission of cardinals to investigate the matter, but there is no trace of their labors, which were probably cut short by his death, July 7, 1304. No commissioners of his selection Avould have been likely to report adversely to the Inquisition, for he manifested his prejudgment by ordering the Minister of Aqui- taine, under pain of forfeiture of office and future disability, to arrest Frere Bernard without warning and send him under suffi- cient guard to the papal court, as a fautor of heretics and presum- ably a heretic. The leading citizens of Albi, including G. de Pesenches the viguier and Gaillard Etienne the royal judge, who had sought to aid Pequigny, were also involved in the papal con- demnation. The Minister of Aquitaine intrusted to Frere Jean Kigaud the execution of the arrest, which he duly performed, June, 1304, in the convent of Carcassonne, adding an excommunication when Bernard, encouraged by the active sympathy of the people, delayed in obeying the papal summons. He never went, and it is a curious illustration of Franciscan tendencies to see that the minister absolved him from the excommunication, and that the provincial chapter of his Order at Albi decided that he had done all that was requisite, though perhaps Benedict's death in July had relieved them from fears as to the immediate consequences of their contumacy.* Meanwhile Philippe le Bel had at last fulfilled his promise to visit in person his southern provinces and rectify on the spot the wrongs of which his subjects had so long complained. He was expecting a favorable termination to his negotiation with Benedict for the removal of the excommunications launched by Boniface YIII. against himself and his subjects and chief agents, a result which he obtained May 13, 1304, with exception of the censure inflicted on Guillaume de Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna. When, therefore, he reached Toulouse on Christmas Day, 1303, he was not disposed to excite unnecessarily Benedict's prejudices. From Albi and Carcassonne multitudes flocked to him with cries for redress and protection, and Pequigny spoke eloquently in their behalf. The inquisitors were represented by GuiUem Pierre, the * Arch, de lliotel-de-ville d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV. 45).— Arch, de Tlnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXIV. 14).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 4270, fol. 23, 25, 31, 86, 132, 137, 140-1, 152, 153. PHILIPPE'S COMPROMISE. 87 Dominican provincial, while Bernard Delicieux was foremost in the debate. It was on this occasion that he made his celebrated assertion that St. Peter and St. Paul would be convicted of heresy if tried with inquisitorial methods, and when the scandalized Bishop of Auxerre tartly reproved him, he stoutly maintained the truth of what he had said. Friar Nicholas, the king's Dominican confessor, was suspected of exercising undue influence in favor of the Inquisition, and Bernard endeavored to discredit him by ac- cusing him of betraying to the Flemings all the secrets of the royal council. Geoifroi d'Ablis, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, moreover, was ingratiating himself with Philippe at the moment by skilful negotiations to bring about a reconciliation with Rome.* Philippe patiently heard both sides, and recorded his conclu- sions in an edict of January 13, 1304, which was in the nature of a compromise. It recited that the king had come to Languedoc for the purpose of pacifying the country excited by the action of the Inquisition, and had had prolonged consultation on the subject with all who were entitled to express an opinion. The result thus reached was that the prisoners of the Inquisition should be visited by royal deputies in company with inquisitors ; the prisons were to be safe, but not punitive. In the case of prisoners not yet sen- tenced the trials were to be carried to conclusion under the con- joined supervision of the bishops and inquisitors, and this co-opera- tion was to be observed in the future, except at Albi, where the bishop, being suspected, was to be replaced by Arnaud ISToveUi, the Cistercian Abbot of Fontfroide. The royal oiScials were strictly ordered to aid in every way the inquisitors and episcopal ordinaries when called upon, and to protect from injury and violence the Dominicans, their churches and houses.f At Albi the change had the wished-for effect. No more here- tics were found and no further prosecutions were required. Yet the refusal of the king to entertain any project of refonn other than his previous one of curbing the Inquisition with an illusory • Grandjean, Registres de Bcnoit XI. No. 1253-60, 127G.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fnuds latin, 4270, fol. 21, 73, 74, 158, 163, 278.— Molinier, Llnq. daus le midi de la France pp. 126-7.— Gcoffroi d'Ablis had sufficient influence with the king t« persuade him to found the Dominican convent of Poissy. t Vaissette, IV. Pr. 130-1.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 4270, fol. 139. 88 LANGUEDOC. episcopal supervision was a grievous disappointment. Men nat- urally argued that if the Dominicans had done right they ought not to be insulted by the proposed episcopal co-operation ; and if they had done wrong they ought to be replaced. If any change was called for, the projected one was insufficient. So many hopes had been built upon the royal presence in the land, that the result caused universal dismay, which was not relieved by Philippe's sub- sequent action. When he visited Carcassonne he was urged to see the unfortunate captives whose persecution had been the promi- nent cause of the troubles, but he refused, and sent his brother Louis to look at them. Worse than all, the citizens had designed to pro- pitiate him and demonstrate their loyalty by offering him some elaborate silver vessels. These were yet in the hands of the gold- smiths of Montpellier when the royal party came to Carcassonne, so they were sent after him to Beziers, where the presentation was made, a portion to him and the rest to the queen. She accepted the offering, but he not only rejected it, but, when he learned what the queen had done, forced her to return the present. This threw the consuls of Carcassonne into despair. Offerings of this kind from municipalities to the sovereign were so customary and their gracious acceptance so much a matter of course, that refusal in this instance seemed to argue some most unfavorable intentions on the part of the king, which was not unlikely, seeing that Ehas Patrice, the leading citizen of Carcassonne, had plainly told him when there that if he did not render them speedy justice against the Inquisi- tion they would be forced to seek another lord, and when Philippe ordered him from his presence the citizens obeyed Patrice's com- mand to remove the decorations from the streets. Imagining that he had been won over by the Dominicans and that his protection would be withdrawn, the prospect of being abandoned to the mercy of the Inquisition seemed so terrible that they wildly de- clared that if they could not find another lord to protect them they would burn the town and with the inhabitants seek some place of refuge. In consultation with Frere Bernard it was has- tily determined to offer their allegiance to Ferrand, son of the King of Majorca. The younger branch of the House of Aragon, which drew its title from the Balearic Isles, held the remnants of the old French possessions of the Catalans, including Montpellier and Perpignan. THE TREASON OF CARCASSONNE. 89 It had old claims to much of the land, and its rule might well be hailed by the people as much more welcome than the foreign domination to which they had been unwiUingly subjected. Had the whole region agreed to transfer its allegiance, its reduction might have cost Philippe a doubtful struggle, embarrassed as he was with the chronic disaffection of the Flemings. When, how- ever, the project was broached to the men of Albi, they refused peremptorily to embark in it, and there can be no stronger proof of the desperation of the Carcassais than their resolution to per- sist in it single-handed, Ferrand and his father were at Mont- pellier entertaining the French court, which they accompanied to IMimes. He eagerly listened to the overtures, and asked Frere Bernard to come to him at Perpignan. Bernard went thither with a letter of credence from the consuls, which he prudently destroyed on the road. The King of Majorca, when he heard of the offer, chastened his son's ambition by boxing his ears and pull- ing him. around by the hair, and he ingratiated himself with his powerful neighbor by communicating the plot to Philippe.* Although there could have been no real danger from so crazy a project, the relation of the southern provinces to the crown were too strained for the king not to exact a vengeance which should prove a warning. A court was assembled at Carcassonne which sat through the summer of 1305 and made free use of torture in its investigations. Albi, which had taken no part in the plot, escaped an investigation by a bribe of one thousand livres to the seneschal, Jean d'Alnet, but the damage inflicted on the Francis- can convent shows that the Dominicans were keen to make re- prisals for what they had suffered. The town of Limoux had been concerned in the affair ; it was fined and disfranchised, and * MSS. Bib. Nat., foods latin, 4370, fol. 26, 74-8, 88-9, 98, 103-8, 198, 200-3, 226, 233, 265, 279.— Mascaro, Memorias de Bezes, aim. 1336, 1389. For the tenure of Montpellier by the Kings of Majorca, see Vaissette, IV. 38, 42, 77-8, 151, 235-6. It was not until 1349 that Philippe de Valois bought out the rights of Jayme II., and in 1352 bis son Jean was obliged to extinguish the claims still asserted by Pedro IV. of Aragon (lb. 247, 268, Pr. 219). Bernard's attention was probably drawn to the House of Majorca by its strong adliesion to the Franciscan Order. Ferrand's older brother died in 1304, in the Franciscan habit, under tlie name of Fray Jayme. Another brother, Felipe, be- came a " Spiritual Franciscan," as we shall see hereafter. 90 L A N G U E D O C. forty of its citizens were hanged. As for Carcassonne, all of its eight consuls, with Elias I'atrice at their head, and seven other citizens were hanged in tlieir official robes, the city was deprived of self-government and subjected to the enormous fine of sixty thousand livres, a sentence from which it vainly appealed to the Parlement. As Bernartl Gui observes with savage exultation, those who had croaked like ravens against the Dominicans were exposed to the ravens. Aimeric Castel, who had sought in this way to obtain redress for the wrong done to his father's memory and estate, escaped by flight, but was captured and long lay a prisoner, finally making his peace with a heavy ransom, and a harvest of fines was gathered into the royal exchequer from all who could be accused of privity. As for Frere Bernard, he re- ceived early intelligence from Frere Durand, the queen's confessor, of the discovery of the plot, when he boldly headed a delegation of citizens of Albi who went to Paris to protest theu' innocence. There Durand informed them that Albi was not implicated, when they returned, leaving Bernard. At the request of the king, Clem- ent Y. had him arrested and carried to Lyons, whence he was taken by the papal court to Bordeaux ; and when it went to Poi- tiers he was confined in the convent of St. Junian of Limoges. In May, 1307, at the instance of Clement, Philippe issued letters of amnesty to all concerned, and remitted to Carcassonne the por- tion of its fine not yet paid, and in Lent, 1308, Bernard was al- lowed to come to Poitiers. On the king's arrival there he boldly complained to him of his arrest and of the punishment which had involved the innocent with the guilty. As he still had no license to leave the papal court, he accompanied it to Avignon, and was at length discharged with the royal assent — the heavy bribes paid to three cardinals by his friends of Albi having perhaps something to do with his immunity. He returned to Toulouse, and we hear of no further activity on his part. His narrow escape probably sobered his restless enthusiasm, and as the reform of the Inquisi- tion seemed to have been taken resolutely in hand by Clement Y. he might well persuade himself that there was no further caU for self-sacrifice.* » MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 4270, fol. 78-80, 90-1, 196, 247, 252-3, 257-9.— Bern. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Pioedic. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 479-80).— Vaissette, IV. 129-30.— Vaissette, fed. Privat, X. Pr. 4G1.— Bernard Gui's allusion refers ELECTION OF CLEMENT V. 91 The death of Benedict XI., in July, 1304, had given fresh hopes to the sufferers from the Inquisition. There was an inter- regnum of nearly a year before the election of his successor, Clement V., June 5, 1305. During this period a petition to the CoUege of Cardinals was presented by seventeen of the religious bodies of the Albigeois, including the canons of the cathedral of Albi, those of the church of St. Salvi, the convent of Gaillac, etc., imploring in the most pressing terms the Sacred College to inter- vene and avert the fearful dangers threatening the community. The land, they declare, is Catholic, the people are faithful, cher- ishing the religion of Rome in their hearts, and professing it with their hps. Yet so fierce are the dissensions between them and the inquisitors, that they are aroused to wrath and are eager to put to the sword those whom they have learned to regard as enemies. Doubtless the inquisitors had taken advantage of the revulsion consequent upon the fruitless treason of Carcassonne and of the altered attitude of the king. Philippe thenceforth interfered no further, save to urge his representatives to renewed vigilance in enforcing the laws against heretics and the disabilities inflicted upon their descendants. It was not only the treason of Carcas- sonne which indisposed him to interfere ; from 1307 onward he needed the indispensable aid of the Inquisition to carry out his designs against the Templars, and he could afford neither to an- tagonize it nor to limit its powers.* The Sacred College, monopohzed by electioneering intrigues, paid no heed to the imploring prayer of the Albigensian clergy, but when the year's turmoil was ended by the triumph of the French party in the election of Clement V. the hopes raised by the death of his predecessor might reasonably seem destined to fruition. Bertrand de Goth, Cardinal-Archbishop of Bordeaux, was a Gascon by birth, and, though an English subject, was doubt- less more famihar than the Italians with the miseries and needs of Languedoc. His transfer of the papacy to French soil was also to the insults offered to the Dominicans during the troubles of Carcassonne, when those who ventured into the streets were followed with cries of " Coac, Coac!" "-ad modum core/"— MS. No. 4270, fol. 281. * Arch, de I'hotel-de-villc d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV. 42).— Arch, de I'llvgchfi d'Albi (Doat, XXXII. 81). 92 LANGUEDOC. of good augury. Hardly had the news of his election reached Albi, when Frere Bernard was busy in organizing a mission to represent to him in the name of the city the necessity of relief, and when he visited Toulouse the wives of the prisoners, still lan- guishing in confinement, were taken thither to make their Avoes emphatically known. Hardly had he been consecrated at Lyons when these complaints poured in and were substantiated by two Dominicans, Bertrand Blanc and Francois Aimeric, who were as emphatic as the representatives of Albi in their denunciations of inquisitorial methods and abuses. Geoff roi d'Ablis hurried thither from Carcassonne to defend himself in such haste that he left no one to take his place, and was obliged to send from Lyons, Septem- ber 29, 1305, a commission to Jean de Faugoux and Gerald de Blumac to act in his stead. In this paper his fiery fanaticism breathes forth in his denunciations of the horrid beasts, the cruel beasts, who are ravaging the vineyard of the Lord, and who are to be tracked to their dens and extirpated with unsparing rigor. ''^ His efforts to justify the Inquisition were unavailing, more especially, perhaps, because the people of Albi bribed Cardinal Raymond de Goth, the pope's nephew, with two thousand livres Tournois, the Cardinal of Santa Croce with as much, and the Car- dinal Pier Colonna with five hundred. March 13, 1306, Clement commissioned two cardinals, Pierre of San Vitale (afterwards of Palestrina) and Berenger of SS. Nereo and Achille (afterwards of Frascati), who were about to pass through Languedoc on a mis- sion, to investigate and make such temporary changes as they should find necessary. The people of Carcassonne, Albi, and Cordes had offered to prove that good Catholics were forced to confess heresy through the stress of torture and the horrors of the prisons, and further that the records of the Inquisition were altered and falsified. Until the investigation was completed, the inquis- itors were not to consign to strict prison or to inflict torture on * MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 4270, fol. 10-11, 84, 128, 166-7.— Arch, de I'lnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXII. 83). Geofifroi's stay at Lyons was prolonged. November 29, we find him issuing commissions to those appointed by his deputies (Doat, XXXH. 85). Jean de Fnucoux had been connected with the Inquisition for at least twenty years (Doat, XXXII. 125). INVESTIGATION BY THE CARDINALS. 93 any one except in conjunction with the diocesan, and in the place of the Bishop of Albi the Abbot of Fontfroide was subro- gated. On April 16, 1306, the cardinals held a public session at Car- cassonne in presence of all the notables of the place. The consuls of Carcassonne and the delegates of Albi preferred their com- plaints and were supported by the two Dominicans, Blanc and Aimeric, who had appeared before the pope. On the other hand, Geoffroi d'Ablis and the deputy of the Bishop of Albi defended themselves and complained of the popular riots and the ill-treatment to which they had been exposed. After hearing both sides the cardinals adjourned further proceedings until January 25, at Bor- deaux, where Carcassonne, Albi, and Cordes were each to send four procurators to conduct the matter. As this office was a most dan- gerous one, the cardinals gave security to them against the Inqui- sition during the performance of their duty. This was no idle pre- caution, and Aimeric Castel, one of the representatives of Carcas- sonne, found himself in such danger that in September, 1308, he was obliged to procure from Clement a special bull forbidding the inquisitors to assail him until the termination of the affair. Even greater danger impended over any witnesses called upon to prove the falsification of records, as they were bound to silence under oaths which exposed them to the stake as relapsed heretics in case they revealed their evidence, and the cardinals were asked to absolve them from these oaths.* If there were any further formal proceedings in this matter, which thus assumed the shape of a litigation between the people and the Inquisition, they have not reached us. Yet the cardinals, before continuing their journey, took some steps which showed that they were convinced of the truth of the accusations. They visited the prison of Carcassonne, and caused the prisoners, forty in num- ber, of whom three were women, to be brought before them. Some of these were sick, others worn with age, and all tearfuUy com- plaining of the horrors of their lot, the insufficiency of food and bedding, and the cruelty of their keepers. The cardinals were moved to dismiss all the jailers and attendants except the chief. • MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 254.— Arch, de riiotel-de-ville d'Albi (Boat, XXXIV. 45).— Arch, de I'Inq. de Care. (Doat, XXXIII. 48). 94 LANGUEDOC. and to put the prison under the control of the Bishop of Carcas- sonne. It is significant that the oath imposed on the new officials bound them never to speak to a prisoner except in the presence of an associate, and not to steal any of the food destined for those under their charge. One of the cardinals visited the prison of the Bishop of Albi, where he found the jailers well spoken of, but was shocked with the condition of the prisoners. Many of them were in chains and all in narrow, dark cells, where some of them had been confined for five years or more without being yet con- demned. He ordered all chains removed, that light should be in- troduced in the cells, and that new and less inhuman ones should be built within a month. As regards general amelioration in in- quisitorial proceedings, the only regulation which they issued was a confirmation of Philippe's expedient, requiring the co-operation of the diocesan with the inquisitor, and this was withdrawn by Clement, August 12, 1308, in an apologetic bull declaring that the cardinals had exceeded his intentions.^ The existence of the evils complained of was thus admitted, but the Church shrank from appl3ang a remedy, and, after the struggle of years, relief was as illusory as ever. Even with regard to the crying and inexcusable abuse of the detention of prisoners in these fearful dungeons for long years without conviction or sentence, Clement found himself powerless to effect reform in the most flagrant cases. The inquisitors had in their archives a bull of Innocent IV. authorizing them to defer indefinitely passing sentence when they deemed that delay was in the interest of the faith, and of this they took full advantage. Of the captives seized by the Bishop of Albi in 1299, many were still unsentenced when the Cardinal of San Yitale examined his prisons. This visit passed away without result. Five years afterwards, in 1310, Clement wrote to the Bishop of Albi and Geoffroi d'Ablis that the citizens *Arch. de I'liotel-de-ville d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV. 45).— Arch, de I'lnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXIV. 89, 113). — Bern. Guidon Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 95-6.) — Ripoll II. 112. I designed printing in the Appendix the Gravamina of Bernard Gui and the report of the Cardinals. M. Charles Molinier, however, I understand, is engaged on an edition of these documents, to be accompanied with a complete apparatus, which will render any other publication superfluous. INQUISITORIAL CONTUMACY. 95 of Albi, whom he names, had repeatedly appealed to him, after more than eight years of imprisonment, to have their trials com- pleted either to condemnation or absolution. He therefore ordere the trials proceeded with at once and the results submitted for confirmation to the Cardinals of Palestrina and Frascati, his for- mer commissioners. Bertrand de Bordes, Bishop of Albi, and Geof- froi d'Ablis contemptuously disregarded this command, because some of the prisoners named in it had died before its date, whence they argued that the papal letter had been surreptitiously ob- tained. When this contumacy reached the ears of Clement, some year or two later, he wrote to Geraud, then Bishop of Albi, and Geoffroi, peremptorily reiterating his commands and ordering them to try both living and dead. In spite of this, Geoffroi maintained his sullen contumacy. We have no means of know- ing the fate of most of these unfortunates, who probably rotted to death in their dungeons without their trials being concluded ; but of some of them we have traces, as related in a former chapter. After Clement and his cardinals had passed away, and no further interference was to be dreaded, in 1319 two surviving ones, Guillem Salavert and Isarn Colli, were brought out for further examination, when the former confirmed his confession and the latter retracted it as extorted under torture. Six months later, Guillem Calverie of Cordes, who had been imprisoned in 1301, was abandoned to the secular arm for retracting his confession (probably before Clement's cardinals), and Guillem Salavert was allowed to escape with wearing crosses, in consideration of his nineteen years' imprisonment without conviction. Even as late as 1328 attested copies made by order of the royal judge of Carcas- sonne, of inventories of personal property of Raymond Calverie and Jean Baudier, two of the prisoners of 1299-1300, show that their cases were still the subject of litigation. Even more remark- able as a manifestation of contumacy is the case of Guillem Gar- ric, held in prison for complicity in the attempt to destroy the records at Carcassonne in 1284. Royal letters of 1312 recite that his merits and piety had caused Clement Y. to grant him full par- don, wherefore the king restores to him and his descendants his confiscated castle of Monteirat. Yet the Inquisition did not re- lax its grip, but waited until 1321, when he was brought forth from prison, and in consideration of his contrition Bernard Gni 96 L A N G U E D O C. mercifully sentenced the old man to perpetual banishment from France within thirty days.* Another endeavor was made by Clement to repress the abuses of the Inquisition by transferring from its jurisdiction to that of the bishops the Jews of the provinces of Toulouse and Narbonne on account of the undue molestation to which they were continu- ally subjected. This transfer even included cases then pending, but after Clement's death a bull was produced in which he an- nulled the previous one and restored the jurisdiction of the Inqui- sition.f The outcome of all this struggle and investigation is to be found in the measures of reform adopted in 1312 by the Council of Vienne at Clement's instance. The five books of canon law known as the " Clementines," which were enacted by the council, were retained for revision by Clement, who was on the point of pubhshing them when he died, April 20, 1314. They were held in suspense during the long interregnum which followed, and were not authoritatively given to the world until October 25, 1317, by John XXII. The canons relating to the Inquisition have been alluded to above, and it will be remembered that they only re- stricted the power of the inquisitor by requiring episcopal concur- rence in the use of torture, or of harsh confinement equivalent to torture, and in the custody of prisons. There was a hrutum ful- men of excommunication denounced against those who should abuse their power for purposes of hate, affection, or extortion, and the importance of the whole Hes far less in the remedies it proposes than in its emphatic testimony of the existence of cruelty and * Arch, de I'Inq. de Care. (Boat, XXXI. 74 ; XXXIV. 89).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 11847.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 238, 366-7, 283-5.— Coll. Doat, XXXII. 309, 316.— Vaissette, fid. Privat, X. Pr. 536. t Archives de Tlnq. de Carcassonne (Doat, XXXVII. 855). The Inquisition seems to have by some means acquired jurisdiction over the Jews of Languedoc. In 1379 there is a charter granted by Bernard, Abbot of S. Antonin of Pamiers, to the Jews of Pamiers, approving of certain statutes agreed upon among themselves concerning their internal affairs, thus showing them subjected to the abbatial jurisdiction. Yet in 1397 we have a letter from the inquisitor, Frfere Amaud Jean, ordering the Jews of Pamiers to live accord- ing to the customs of the Jews of Narbonne, and promising not to introduce " aliquas graves et insolitas noritates.^' During the interval they had thus passed into the hands of the Inquisition.— Coll. Doat, XXXVII. 156, 160. CLEMENTS REFORMS NUGATORY. 97 corruption in every detail of inquisitorial practice, Bernard Gui vainly raised his voice in an earnest and elaborate protest against the publication of the new rules, and after their promulgation he did not hesitate openly to tell his brethren that they required to be modified or rather wholly suspended by the Holy See, but his expostulations were totally uncalled for. The closest examination of inquisitorial methods before and after the publication of the Clementines fails to reveal any influence exercised by them for good or for evil. ISlo trace of any practical effort for their en- forcement is to be found, and inquisitors went on, as was their wont, in the arbitrary fashion for which their office gave them such unlimited opportunity.* One case may indeed be cited to show a special relaxation of the procedure against heretics. Philippe's hatred of Boniface YIII. was undying, and could not be quenched even by the miser- able end of his enemy. Yet the one thing which he failed to wring from his tool in the papal chair was the condemnation of the memory of Boniface as a heretic. After repeated efforts he compelled Clement to take testimony on the subject, and a cloud of witnesses were produced who swore with minute detail to the unbelief of the late pope in the immortality of the soul, and in all the doctrines of the incarnation and the atonement, and to his worship of demons, to his cynical and unnatural lasciviousness, and to the coimnon fame Avhich existed in the community as to his evil beliefs and habits. The witnesses were reputable church- men for the most part, and their evidence was precise. A tithe of such testimony would have sufficed to burn the bones and dis- inherit the heirs of a score of ordinary culprits, but for once the recognized rules of procedure were set aside. Philippe was forced * Martin Fuldens. Chron. ann. 1312. — C. 1, 2, 3, Clement, v. iii.— Bern. Guidon. Gravam. (Doat, XXX.). — Bern. Guidon. Practica, P. rv. c. 1. It is due to Clement to say that doubtless he devised a much more thorough reform, and the meagreness of the outcome is probably attributable to the final revision under John XXII. Angelo da Clarino, writing from Avignon in 1313, about the new canons, which were then supposed to be ready for issue, says: '•'■ Inquisitores etiam heretice pratitntis restrmriuntur et sujyponuntur ejnscopis''^ — which would argue something much more decisive than the regulations as they finally appeared. — Franz Ehrle, Archiv. fiir Litteratur- u. Kirchengeschichte, 1885, p. 545. II.— Y 98 LANGUEDOC. to desist from the pursuit, though Clement in his final bull of April 27, 1311, declared that the king and his witnesses had been actuated solely by zeal for the Church, and the affair fell through. The pretensions put forth by J3oniface in his offensive decretals were formally withdrawn, and Guillaume de Nogaret obtained his long-withheld absolution.* Clement died at Carpentras April 20, 1314, carrying with him the shame and guilt of the ruin of the Templars, and was followed in about seven months (November 29) by his tempter and ac- complice, Philippe le Bel. The cardinals on whom devolved the choice of a successor to St. Peter were torn with dissensions. The Italians demanded that the election should be held in the Eternal City. The French, or Gascons, as they were called, insisted on the observance of the rule that the selection should be made on the spot where the last pontiff had expired, knowing that in Italy they would be exposed to the same insults and annoyances as were inflicted in France on their Italian brethren. Shut up in the episcopal palace of Carpentras, the conclave awaited in vain the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, even though those outside tried the gentle expedient of cutting off the food of the members and pil- laging their houses. The situation grew so insupportable that, as a last desperate resort, on July 23, 1314, the Gascon faction, under the lead of Clement's nephews, set fire to the palace and threat- ened the Italians with death, so that the latter were glad to escape with their lives by breaking a passage through the rear wall. Two years passed away without the election of a visible head of the Church, and the faithful might well fear that they had seen the last of the popes. The French court, however, had found itself so well abetted by a French pope that its policy required the chair of St. Peter to be filled, and in 1216 Louis Hutin sent his brother, Philippe le Long, then Count of Poitiers, to Lyons with orders to get the cardinals together. To accomplish this Philippe was obliged to swear that he would neither do them violence nor imprison them, and they, having thus secured their independence, were no more disposed to accord than before. For six months the business thus lagged without prospect of result, when Philippe received the news of the sudden death of his brother, and that the • Du Puy, Histoire du Diflferend, Preuves, pp. 522-603. ELECTION OF JOHN XXII. 99 widowed queen claimed to be pregnant. The prospect of a vacant throne, or at least of a regency, awaiting him in Paris rendered further dallying in Lyons insupportable, nor could he well depart without bringing his errand to a successful issue. Hastily coun- selHng with his lawyers, it was discovered that his oath was un- lawful and therefore not to be observed. Consequently he invited the reverend fathers to a colloquy in the Dominican convent, and when they were thus safely hived he sternly told them that they should not depart till they had chosen a pope. His guards blocked every entrance, and he hastened off to Paris, leaving them to de- liberate in captivity. Thus entrapped they made a merit of neces- sity, though forty days were still required before they proclaimed Jacques d'Ozo, Cardinal of Porto, as the Vicar of Christ — the Itahans having been won over by his oath that he would never mount a horse or mule except to go to Rome. This oath he kept during his whole pontificate of eighteen years, for he slipped down the Rhone to Avignon by boat, ascended on foot to the palace, and never left it except to visit the cathedral which adjoined it. Such a process of selection was not likely to result in the evolu- tion of a saint, and John XXII. was its natural exponent. His distinguished learning and vigorous abilities had elevated him from the humblest origin, while his boundless ambition and im- perious temper provoked endless quarrels from which his daring spirit never shrank.* With his election the troubles of the Inquisition of Languedoc were over. Though he pubhshed the Clementines, he soon let it be seen that the inquisitors had nothing to fear from him, and they made haste to pay off the accumulated scores of vengeance. The first victim was Bernard Delicieux. During the pontificate of Clement and the interregnum he had lived in peace, and might weU imagine that his enthusiasm for the people of Languedoc hiid been forgotten. His earnest nature had led him to join the sec- tion of his order known as the Spirituals, and he had been promi- * Joann. Canon. S.Victor. Chron. ann. 1314-16. — Rymer, Foedera, III. 494-5 — Grandcs Chroniques, ann. 1314-lG. — Bern. Guidon. Vit. Joann. PP. XXII.- Ptolmaei Lucens. Append. John XXII. has always passed as the son of a cobbler of Cahors. Recent re- searches, however, render it probable that lie belonged to a well-to-do burgher family. — A. Moliuier (Vaissette, lid. Privat, X. 303). 100 LANGUEDOC. nent in the movements by which, during the vacancy of the Holy See, they had gained possession of the convents of Beziers and Narbonne. One of the first cares of John XXII. was to heal this schism in the Order, and he promptly summoned before him tlic friars of Beziers and Narbonne. Bernard had not hesitated in signing an appeal to the pope, and he now boldly came before him at the head of his brethren. When he undertook to argue their cause he was accused of having impeded the Inquisition and was promptly arrested. Besides the charge of impeding the In- quisition, others of encompassing by magic arts the death of Bene- dict XI., and of treason in the affair of Carcassonne, were brought against him. A papal commission was formed to investigate these matters, and for more than two years he was held in close prison while the examination went slow^ly on. At length it w^as ready for trial, and September 3, 1319, a court w^as convened at Castel- naudari consisting of the Archbishop of Toulouse and the Bishops of Pamiers and St. Papoul, w^hen the archbishop excused himself and left the matter in the hands of his associates, who transferred the court to Carcassonne, September 12. The importance attached to the trial is shown by the fact that at it the Inquisition was rep- resented by the inquisitor Jean de Beaune, and the king by his Seneschal of Carcassonne and Toulouse and his " Eeformers," Kaoul, Bishop of Laon, and Jean, Count of Forez.* The official report of the trial has been preserved in all its im- mense prolixity, and there are few documents of that age more in- structive as to what was then regarded as justice. Some of Ber- nard's old accomplices, such as Arnaud Garsia, GuiUem Fransa, Pierre Probi, and others, who had already been seized by the In- quisition, were brought forward to be tried with him and were used as witnesses to save their own hves by swearing his away. The old man, worn with two years of imprisonment and constant examination, was subjected for two months to the sharpest cross- questioning on occurrences dating from twelve to eighteen years previous, the subjects of the multiform charges being ingeniously intermingled in the most confusing manner. Under pretext of * Joann. Can. S.Victor. Chron. ann. 1311, 1316-19. — Historia Tribulationum (Archiv. flir Litteratur- u. Kircbengeschichte, 1886, pp. 145-8).— Wadding, ann. 1318, No. 26-7.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4370, fol. 1, 39. CONDEMNATION OF BERNARD DELICIEUX. 101 seeking the salvation of his soul he was solemnly and repeatedly- admonished that he ^yas legally a heretic for remaining for more than a year under the ipso facto excommunication incurred by im- peding the Inquisition, and that nothing could save him from the stake but absolute submission and full confession. Twice he was tortured, the first time, October 3, on the charge of treason, and the second, November 20, on that of necromancy ; and though the torture was ordered to be " moderate," the notaries who assisted at it are careful to report that the shrieks of the victim attested its sufficiency. In neither case was anything extracted from him, but the efficacy of the combined pressure thus brought to bear on a man weakened by age and suffering is shown by the manner in which he was brought day by day to contradict and criminate himself, until at last he threw himself on the mercy of the court, and humbly begged for absolution.* In the sentence, rendered December 8, he was acquitted of at- tempting the life of Benedict XI., while on the other charges his guilt was aggravated by no less than seventy perjuries committed under examination. After abjuration, he was duly absolved and condemned to degradation from holy orders and imprisonment for fife, in chains and on bread and water, in the inquisitorial prison of Carcassonne. Considering the amnesty proclaimed in 1307 by Philippe le Bel, and the discharge of Frere Bernard in 1308, it seems strange that now the representatives of Philippe le Long at once protested against the sentence as too mild, and appealed to the pope. The judges themselves did not think so, for in deliver- ing the prisoner to Jean de Beaune they humanely ordered that in view of his age and debility, and especially the weakness of his hands (doubtless crippled in the torture-chamber), the penance of chains and bread and water should be omitted. Jean de Beaune may be pardoned if he felt a fierce exultation when the ancient enemy of his office was thus placed in his hands to expiate the of- fence which had so harassed his predecessors ; and that exulta- tion was perhaps increased when, February 26, 1320, the relentless * MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 5, 81, 103-4, 146-7, 169. Aruaud Garsia and Pierre Probi were kept in prison until 1325, when they were released on payment of two thousand gold florins, and such penance as Jean Duprat, the inquisitor, miglit impose on them. Their sequestrated property was ordered to be restored. — Vaissette, ;&d. Privat, X. Pr. 645. 102 LANGUEDOC. pope, possibly to gratify the king, countermanded the pitying or- der of the bishops, and required the sentence to be executed in all its terrible rigor. Under these hardships the frail body which had been animated by so dauntless a spirit soon gave way, and in a few months merciful death released the only man who had dared to carry on a systematic warfare with the Inquisition.''^ The progress of reaction had been rapid. In 1315 Louis Hutin had issued an edict in which were embodied most of the provisions of the laws of Frederic II. This piece of legislation, perfectly superfluous in view of the eighty years' career of the Inquisition in his dominions, is only of interest as sho^ving the influence al- ready obtained by the Dominicans during the papal interregnum. With the election of John XXII., notwithstantling his pubhcation of the Clementines, aU fear of interference disappeared, and the populations were surrendered again to the unchecked authority of the inquisitors. There was a significant notice to this effect in the withdrawal by the new pope, March 30, 1318, of the security given by Clement's cardinals to Aimeric Castel and the other citizens of Carcassonne, Albi, and Cordes, who were deputed to carry on the case of those cities against the inquisitors, and the latter were di- rected to prosecute them diligently. The Inquisition recognized that its hour of triumph had come, and took in hand the survivors of those who had been conspicuous in the disturbances of fifteen years before. The unconvicted prisoners of 1299 and 1300, whom it had held in defiance of the reiterated orders of Clement — at least those who had not rotted to death in its dungeons — were brought forth and disposed of. A still more emphatic assertion of its renewed mastery was the subjection and " reconciliation " of the rebellious towns. Of what took place at Carcassonne we have no record, but it probably was the same as the ceremonies per- formed at Albi. There, March 11, 1319, the consuls and council- lors and a great crowd of citizens were assembled in the cathedral cemetery, before Bishop Bernard and the inquisitor Jean de Beaune. There, with upHfted hands, they aU professed repentance in the most humiliating terms, and swore to accept whatever penance * Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 268-73.— MSS. Bib, Nat., fonds latin, No. 4370, fol. 186-93.— Jo. a S. Victore Memor. Historiale ann. 1319 (Bouquet, XXI. 664;. VICTORY OF THE INQUISITION. 103 might be imposed upon them, and thereafter to ol)ey imphcitly the bishop and inquisitor. Then those present, together with the dead who had shown signs of penitence, were reheved from excommu- nication, the rest of the population being required to apply for ab- solution within a month. The announcement of the penances fol- lowed. The town was to make good all expenses and losses ac- cruing to the episcopate and Inquisition by reason of the troubles ; it was to build and complete within two years a chapel to the cathedral, and a portal to the Dominican church ; to give fifty livres to the Carmelites to be expended on their church, and, finally, to construct marble tombs for ]S[icholas d'Abbeville, and Foulques de Saint-Georges at Lyons and Carcassonne, where those inquisitors had died in poverty and exile by reason of the rebellion of the in- habitants. Ten pilgrimages, moreover, were designated for the survivors of those who in 1301 had bound themselves to prosecute Bishop Bertrand and Nicholas d'Abbeville in the royal court, as well as for those who had served as consuls and councillors from 1302 to 1304. Jean de Beaune seems to have considered it a special gi-ace when, in December, 1320, he postponed the performance of their pilgrimages during the year from Easter, 1321, to 1322. The town of Cordes, June 29, 1321, was " reconciled " with a similar humiliating ceremony and pledges of future obedience. Thus the Inquisition celebrated its triumph in the long struggle. It had won the victory, and its opponents could only save themselves by unconditional surrender.* Whether the citizens of Albi Avhose arrest in 1299 gave rise to so many troubles were really heretics or not cannot now be deter- mined. Their confessions were precise and detailed, but, as their defenders alleged, the Inquisition had ample means of extorting what it pleased from its victims, and the long delay in convicting them would seem to argue that the tribunal had good reason for not wishing its sentences to see the light while there was chance of their being subjected to scrutiny under Clement V. The in- quisitors urged in justification a single case, that of Lambert de * Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran9. III. 123. — Arch, de ITuq. de Care. (Doat, XXXIL 138).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 11847.— Lib. Seutentt. Inq. Tolos, pp. 228, 244-8, 266-7, 277-81. -Arcli. de riiOtel-de-ville d'Albi (Doat, XXXIV. 169, 185). 104 LANGUEDOC. Foyssenx, who complained to Clement's cardinals that he had been unjustly accused, but who subsequently asserted his heresy defiant- ly, refused to recant, and was l)urncd in 1309. This is the only in- stance of the kind, for the wretched survivors who were led to ab- jure and recant in 1319 were broken by prison and torture, and their evidence is worthless.* Yet Bernard Gui was undoubtedly correct when he asserted that the troubles and limitations imposed on the Inquisition under Philippe le Bel led to the recrudescence of a heresy which had been nearly extinguished. In the debate before the king at Tou- louse, in 1304, Guillem Pierre, the Dominican provincial, asserted that there were then in Languedoc no heretics except some forty or fifty in Albi, Carcassonne, and Cordes, and for a few leagues around them. This was doubtless an exaggeration, but with im- proved prospects of immunity perfected missionaries were invited from Lombardy and Sicily, and the number of believers rapidly increased, Bernard Gui boasts that from 1301 to 1315 there were more than a thousand detected by the Inquisition, who confessed and were publicly punished, f The registers of Geoff roi d'Ablis at Carcassonne in 1308-9 show great activity rewarded by abundant results, and one of the witnesses in the trial of Bernard Delicieux tells us that, when the Inquisition was able to resume its labors there, many heretics and believers were promptly discovered.:}: About the same period commence the sentences of the Inquisition of Toulouse published by Limborch. In 1306 Bernard Gui had been appointed inquisitor at Toulouse. His numerous works attest his wide range of learn- ing and incessant mental activity, while his practical skill in affairs was animated with a profound conviction of the wickedness of heresy and of the duty of his Order to enforce, at every cost, sub- mission to Rome. Two missions as papal legate, one to Italy and the other to France, and two bishoprics, those of Tuy and Lodeve, attest the value set on his services by John XXII. With his ap- pointment at Toulouse he promptly commenced the long campaign * Bern. Guidon. Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 97). t Ibid. (Doat, XXX. 96, 98).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 138- 9, 213. J Molinier, L'Inq. dans le midi de la France, p. 111. — MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 285. PIERRE AUTIER. 105 which resulted in the virtual extirpation of Catharism in Lan- guedoc. Yet, though stern and unsparing when the occasion seemed to demand it, his record bears no trace of useless cruelty or abusive extortion.* Catharism by this time had been forced back to the humbler class among whom it had found its first disciples. The nobles and gentlemen who had so long upheld it had perished or been im- poverished by the remorseless confiscations of three quarters of a century. The rich burghers of the cities — merchants and profes- sional men — had learned the temptations held out by their wealth and the impossibility of avoiding detection. The fascinations of martyrdom have their limits, and the martyrs among them had been gradually but surely weeded out. Yet the old beliefs were still rooted among the simple folk of country hamlets and especial- ly in the wild valleys among the foothills of the eastern Pyrenees. The active intercourse with Lombardy, and even with Sicily, was still kept up, and there were not wanting earnest ministers who braved every danger to administer to believers the consolations of their religion and to spread the faith in the fastnesses which were its last refuge. Chief among these was Pierre Autier, formerly a notary of Ax (Pamiers). His early life had not been pure, for we hear of his druda, or mistress, and his natural children, but with advancing years he embraced all the asceticism of the sect, to which he devoted his life. Driven to Lombardy in 1295, he re- turned in 1298 to remain on his native soil to the end, and to en- dure a war to the knife from the Inquisition. His property was confiscated and his family dispersed and ruined. The region to which he belonged lay at the foot of the Pyrenees, rugged, with few roads and many caves and hiding-places, whence escape across tlie frontier to Aragon was comparatively facile ; it was full of his kindred who were devoted to him, and here for eleven years he maintained himself, lurking in disguise and wandering from place to place with the emissaries of the Holy Office ever on his track. He had been ordained to the ministry at Como, and speedily acquired authority in the sect of which he became one of the most zealous, indefatigable, and intrepid missionaries. Already, in 1300, he was * Bern. Guidon. Hist. Conv. Prcedic. (Marteue Ampl. Coll. VI. 4C9).— Touron, Hommes illustres de TOrdre de S. Dominique, II. 94. 106 LANGUEDOC. SO conspicuous that every effort was made for his apprehension. A certain Guillem Jean offered the Dominicans of Pamiers to be- tray him, but the treachery became known among tlie faithful, two of whom, Pierre d'Aere and Philippe de Larnat enticed Guil- lem to tlie bridge at Aliiat l)y night, seized him, gagged him, car- ried him off to the mountains, and, after extorting a confession, cast him over a precipice. Worthy lieutenants of Pierre Autier were his brother Guillem and his son Jacques, Amiel de Perles, Pierre Sanche, and Sanche Mercadier, whose names occur everywhere throughout the confessions as active missionaiics. Jacques Autier on one occasion had the boldness to preach at midnight to a gathering of heretic women in the Church of Sainte-Croix in Tou- louse, the spot being selected as one in which they could best hold their meeting undisturbed.* The work of Geoffroi d'Ablis in Carcassonne seems to be prin- cipally directed to determining the protectors and refuges of Pierre Autier. At Toulouse Bernard Gui was energetically em- ployed in the same direction. The heretic was driven from place to place, but the wonderful fidelity of his disciples seemed to ren- der all efforts vain, and finally Bernard was driven to the expe- dient of issuing, August 10, 1309, a special proclamation as an in- citement for his capture. "Friar Bernard Gui, Dominican, Inquisitor of Toulouse, to all worshippers of Christ, the reward and crown of tternal life. Gird yourselves, Sons of God; arise with me, Soldiers of Christ, against the enemies of his Cross, those corrupters of the truth and purity of Catholic faith, Pierre Autier, the heresiarch, and his coheretics and accomplices, Pierre Sanche and Sanche Mercadier. Hiding in concealment and walking in darkness, I order them by the virtue of God, to be tracked and seized wherever they may be found, promising eternal reward from God, and also a fitting temporal payment to those who will capture and produce them. Watch, therefore, O pastors, lest the wolves snatch away the sheep of your flock ! Act manfully, faithful zealots, lest the adversaries of the faith fly and escape !" This stirring exhortation was probably superfluous, for the prey was captured before it could have been published througli- out the land. The arrest of nearly all his family and friends, in 1308-9, had driven Pierre Autier from his accustomed haunts. * Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 2, 3, 12, 13, 32, 68, 76, 81, 159.— Molinier, Llnq. dans le midi de la France, pp. 145-56. CATHARISM SUPPRESSED. 107 About St. John's Day (June 24), 1309, he found refuge with Per- rin Maurel of Belpech, near Castelnaudari, where he lay for five weeks or more. Thither came his daughter Guillelma, who re- mained with him a short time, and the two departed together. The next day he was captured. Perrin Maurel was likewise seized, and with customary fidelity stoutly denied everything until Pierre Autier, in prison, advised him in December to confess.* This triumph was followed in October by the capture of Amiel de Perles, who forthwith placed himself in endura^ refusing to eat or drink, and, as he was fast sinking, to prevent the stake from being robbed of its prey, a special auto defe was hurriedly arranged for his burning, October 23. While yet his strength lasted, how- ever, Bernard Gui enjoyed the ghastly amusement of making the two heresiarchs in his presence perform the act of heretical "ado- ration."f Pierre Autier was not burned until the great auto defe of April, 1310, when Geoffroi d'Ablis came from Carcassonne to share in the triumph. The heresiarch had not sought to conceal his faith, but had boldly declared his obnoxious tenets and had pronounced the Church of Rome the synagogue of Satan. That he was sub- jected to the extremity of torture, however, there can be no rea sonable doubt — -not to extract a confession, for this was super- fluous, but to force him to betray his disciples and those who had given him refuge. His intimate acquaintance with all the heretics of the land was a source of information too important for Bernard Gui to shrink from any means of acquiring it ; and the copious details thus obtained are alluded to in too many subsequent sen- tences for us to hesitate as to the methods by which the heresi- arch was brought to place his friends and associates at the mercy of his tormentors.:}; This may be said to close the bloody drama of Catharism in Languedoc. Armed with the revelations thus obtained, Bernard Gui and Geoifroi d'Al)lis required but a few years more to con- vert or burn the remnant of Pierre Autier's disciples who could be caught, and to drive into exile those who eluded their spies. JSTo new and self -de voted missionaries arose to take liis place, and * Molinier, op. cit. p. 157. — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos, p. 103. t Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. p. 37. \ lAh. Sententt. luq. Tolos. pp. 59, 60, 64, 73, 74, 75, 92-3, 132. 108 LANGUEDOC. after 1315 the Patarin almost disappears from the records of the Inquisition in France. Some few scattering cases subsequently occur, but their offences are of old date and almost invariably revert to the missionary work of Pierre Autier and his associates. One of the latest of these is recorded in an undated sentence, probably of 1327 or 1328, in which Jean Duprat, Inquisitor of Carcassonne, condemns Guillelma Torniere, She had abjured and had been long confined in prison, where she was detected in mak- ing converts and praising Guillem Autier and Guillem Balibaste as good and saintly men. Under interrogation she refused to take an oath, and was accordingly burned. In 1328, Henri de Chamay of Carcassonne condemned to prison Guillem Amiel for Catharism, and in 1329 he sentenced two Cathari, Bartolome Pays and Raymond Garric of Albi, whose offences had been committed respectively thirty-five and forty years before. In the same year he ordered four houses and a farm to be demolished because their owners had been hereticated in them, but these acts had doubtless been performed long previous. Confiscations still continued for ancestral offences, but Catliarism as an existing belief may be said at this period to be virtually extinct in Languedoc, where it had a hundred and fifty years before had a reasonable prospect of be- coming the dominant religion.* In the same year, 1329, occurred a case which is not without interest as showing how an earnest but unstable brain pondering over the crime and misery of the world, wove some of the cruder elements of Catharism and Averrhoism into a fantastic theory. * Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 341-2.— Coll. Doat, XXVII. 198-200, 248; XXVIII. 128, 158. The entire disappearance of a sect once so numerous and powerful as the Cathari has appeared so unlikely that there has been a widespread belief that their descendants were to be found in the Cagots — the accursed race of the Pyre- nees who in French Navarre were only admitted to common legal rights in 1709, and in the Spanish province in 1818, some of them still existing in the latter. The Cagots themselves even assumed this to be their origin in an appeal to Leo X., in 1517, to be restored to human society, and claimed that their ancestral er- rors had been long atoned for. Yet among all the conjectures as to the origin of this mysterious class, the descent from Catharans would seem to be the least admissible, and M. de Lagrfeze's opinion that they are descendants of lepers is sustained by arguments which appear to be convincing. — Lagrfeze, La Navarre Fran9aise I. 53-60. Cf Vaissette, Liv. xxxiv. c. 79. CASE OF LIMOUX NOIR. 109 Limoux Noir, of Saint-Paul in the diocese of Alet, had already been tried by his bishop in 1320, but had been able to evade the unskilled officials of the episcopal tribunal. The Inquisition had surer methods and speedily brought him to confession. He had formed a philosophy of the Universe which superseded all religion. God had created the archangels, these the angels, and the latter the sun and moon. These heavenly bodies, as being unstable and corruptible, were females. Out of their urine the world was formed, and was necessarily corrupt, with all that sprang from it. Moses, Mahomet, and Christ were all sent by the sun and were teachers of equal authority. In the under world Christ and Ma- homet are now disputing and seeking to gain followers. Baptism was of no more use than the circumcision of Israel or the blessinsr of Islam, for those who renounced evil in baptism grew up to be robbers and strumpets. The Eucharist was naught, for God would not let himself be handled by adulterers such as the priests. Matrimony was to be shunned, for from it sprang robbers and strumpets. Thus he explained away and rejected all the doc- trines and practices of the Church. To see whether the Saviours fast of forty days was possible, he had fasted in a cabin ten days and nights, at the end of which this system of philosophy had been revealed to him by God. Again, in 1327, he had placed him- self in endura^ with the resolve to carry it to the end, but had been persuaded by his brother to take the Eucharist, to save his bones from being burned after his death. He was sixty years old, and his crazy doctrines had brought him a few disciples, but the sect was crushed at the outset. He declared to the inquisitor that he would rather be flayed alive than believe in transubstan- tiation, and he proved his resolute character by resisting all at- tempts to induce him to recant, so that there was no alternative but to abandon him to the secular arm, which was duly done and his belief perished with him,* Thus the Inquisition triumphed, as force will generally do when it is sufficiently strong, skilfuDy applied, and systematically continued without interruption to the end. In the twelfth cen- tury the south of France had been the most civilized land of Eu- • Coll. Boat, XXVII. 216-25, 234. no LANGUEDOC. rope. There commerce, industry, art, science, had been far in advance of the age. Tlie cities had won virtual self-government, were proud of their wealth and strength, jealous of their hberties, and self-sacrificing in their patriotism. The nobles, for the most part, were cultivated men, poets themselves or patrons of poetry, who had learned that their prosperity depended on the prosperity of their subjects, and that municipal liberties were a safeguard, rather than a menace, to the wise ruler. The crusaders came, and their unfinished work was taken up and executed to the bitter end by the Inquisition. It left a ruined and impoverished country, with shattered industry and failing commerce. The native nobles were broken by confiscation and replaced by strangers, who occu- pied the soil, introducing the harsh customs of Northern feudahsm, or the despotic principles of the Roman law, in the extensive do- mains acquired by the crown. A people of rare natural gifts had been tortured, decimated, humiliated, despoiled, for a century and more. The precocious civilization which had promised to lead Europe in the path of culture was gone, and to Italy was trans- ferred the honor of the Renaissance. In return for this was unity of faith and a Church which had been, hardened and vitiated and secularized in the strife. Such Avas the work and such the out- come of the Inquisition in the field which afforded it the widest scope for its activity, and the fullest opportunity for developing its powers. Yet in the very triumph of the Inquisition was the assurance of its decline. Supported by the State, it had earned and repaid the royal favor by the endless stream of confiscations which it poured into the royal coffers. Perhaps nothing contributed more to the consolidation of the royal supremacy than the change of ownership which threw into new hands so large a portion of the lands of the South. In the territories of the great vassals the right to the confiscations for heresy became recognized as an im- portant portion of the droits seigneuriaux. In the domains of the crown they were granted to favorites or sold at moderate prices to those who thus became interested in the new order of things. The royal officials grasped everything on which they could lay their hands, whether on the excuse of treason or of heresy, with httle regard to any rights ; and although the integrity of Louis IX. caused an inquest to be held in 1262 which restored a vast amount RESULTS OF THE INQUISITION. HI of property illegally held, this was but a small fraction of the whole. To assist his Parlement in setthng the innumerable cases which arose, he ordered, in 12G0, the charters and letters of great- est importance to be sent to Paris. Those of each of the six sene- chaussees filled a coffer, and the six coffers were deposited in the treasury of the Sainte-Chapelle. In this process of absorption the case of the extensive Viscounty of Fenouilledes may be taken as an illustration of the zeal with which the Inquisition co-operated in securing the political results desired by the crown. Fenouil- ledes had been seized during the crusades and given to Nunez San- cho of Koussillon, from whom it passed, through the King of Aragon, into the hands of St. Louis. In 1264 Beatrix, widow of Hugues, son of the former Viscount Pierre, apphed to the Parle- ment for her rights and dower and those of her children. Imme- diately the inquisitor, Pons de Poyet, commenced a prosecution against the memory of Pierre, who had died more than twenty years previously in the bosom of the Church, and had been buried with the Templars of Mas Deu, after assuming the religious habit and receiving the last sacraments. He was condemned for having held relations with heretics, his bones were dug up and burned, and the Parlement rejected the claim of the daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Pierre, the eldest of these, in 1300, made a claim for the ancestral estates, and Boniface VIII. espoused his quarrel with the object of giving trouble to Philippe le Bel ; but, though the affair was pursued for some years, the inquisitorial sentence held good. It was not only the actual heretics and their descend- ants who were dispossessed. The land had been so deeply tinct- ured with heresy that there were few indeed whose ancestors could not be shown, by the records of the Inquisition, to have in- curred the fatal taint of associating with them.* * Vaissette, III. 362, 496 ; IV. 104-5, 211.— Archives de Fl&veclig de Bfeziers (Doat, XXXI. 35). — Beugnot, Les Olira I. 1029-30. — Les Olim I. 580.— Coll. Doat, XXXIII. 1. The extent of the change of the proprietorship is well illustrated by a list of the lands and rents confiscated for heresy to the profit of Philippe de Montfort from his vassals. It embraces fiefs and other properties in Lautrec, Montredon, Senegats, Rabastain, and Lavaur. The knights and gentlemen and peasants thus stripped are all named, with their offences — one died a heretic, another was hereticatcd on his death-bed, a third was condemned for heresy, and a fourth 112 LANGUEDOC. The rich bourgeoisie of the cities were ruined in the same way. Some inventories have been preserved of the goods and chattels sequestrated when the arrests were made at Albi in 1299 and 1300, which show how thoroughly everything was swept into the maelstrom. That of Raymond Calverie, a notary, gives us every detail of the plenishing of a well-to-do burgher's house — every pil- low, sheet, and coverlet is enumerated, every article of kitchen gear, the salted provisions and grain, even his wife's little trin- kets. His farm or bastide was subjected to the same minuteness of seizure. Then we have a similar insight into the stock and goods of Jean Baudier, a rich merchant. Every fragment of stuff is duly measured — cloths of Ghent, Ypres, Amiens, Cambray, St. Omer, Rouen, Montcornet, etc., with their valuation — pieces of miniver, and other articles of trade. His town house and farm were inventoried with the same conscientious care. It is easy to see how prosperous cities were reduced to poverty, how industry languished, and how the independence of the municipalities was broken into subjection in the awful uncertainty which hung over the head of every man.* In this respect the Inquisition was building better than it knew. In thus aiding to establish the royal power over the new- ly-acquired provinces, it was contributing to erect an authority which was destined in the end to reduce it to comparative insig- nificance. With the disappearance of Catharism, Languedoc be- came as much a part of the monarchy as I'lsle de France, and the career of its Inquisition merges into that of the rest of the king- dom. It need not, therefore, be pursued separately further. was burned at Lavaur, while in other cases the mother, or the father, or both were heretics (Doat, XXXII. 258-63). Many examples of donations and sales are preserved in the Doat collection. I may instance T. XXXI. foL 171, 237, 255 ; T. XXXII. fol. 46, 53, 55, 57, 64, 67, 69, 244, etc. In the possessions of the English crown in Aquitaine tlie same process was going on, though in a minor degree (Rymer, Fcedera, III. 408). • Coll. Doat, XXXII. 309, 316. CHAPTER 11. FRANCE. Although Catharism never obtained in the Worth sufficient foot- hold to render it threatening to the Church, yet the crusades and the efforts which followed the pacification of 1229 must have driven many heretics to seek refuge in places where they might escape suspicion. In organizing persecution in the South, there- fore, it was necessary to provide some supervision more watchful than episcopal negligence was likely to supply, over the regions whither heretics might fly when pursued at home, or the efforts made in Languedoc would only be scattering the infection. Vigi- lant guardians of the faith were consequently requisite in lands where heretics were few and hidden, as well as in those where they were numerous and enjoyed protection from noble and city. Under the pious king, St. Louis, who declared that the only argument a layman could use with a heretic was to thrust a sword into him up to the hilt, they were sure of ample support from the secular power.* Accordingly when, in 1233, the experiment was tried of ap- pointing Pierre Cella and Guillem Arnaud as inquisitors in Tou- louse, a similar tentative effort was made in the northern ]')art of tlie kingdom. Here also it was the Dominican Order which was called upon to furnish the necessary zealots. I have already al- luded to the failure of the attempt to induce the Friars of Franche- Comte to undertake the work. In western Burgundy, however, the Church was more fortunate in finding a proper instrument. Like Rainerio Saccone, Frere Robert, known as le Biigrc, had been a Patarin. The peculiar fitness thence derived for detecting the hidden heretic was rendered still more effective by the special gift which he is said to have claimed, of being able to recognize • Joinvillc, P. I. (Ed. 1785, p. 23). II.— 8 1 I-i FRANCE. them by their speech and carriage. Tn addition, he was fitted for the work by the ardent fanaticism of the convert, by his learning, liis fiery eloquence, and his mercilessness. AVhen, early in 1233, instructions to persecute heresy were sent to the Prior of Besan^on, Robert was nominated to represent him and act as his substitute ; and, eager to manifest his zeal, he lost no time in making a de- scent upon La Charite. It w411 be remembered that this place was notorious as a centre of heresy in the twelfth centur}'-, and that re- peated efforts had been made to purify it. These had proved fruit- less against the stubbornness of the misbelievers, and Frere Robert found Stephen, the Cluniac prior, vainly endeavoring to win or force them over. The new inquisitor seems to have been armed with no special powers, but his energy speedily made a profound impression, and heretics came forward and confessed their errors in crowds, husbands and wives, parents and children, accusing themselves and each other without reserve. He reported to Greg- ory IX. that the reality was far worse than had been rumored ; that the whole town was a stinking nest of heretical wickedness, where the Catholic faith was almost Avholly set aside and the peo- ple in their secret conventicles had throAvn off its yoke. Under a specious appearance of piety they deceived the wisest, and their earnest missionary efforts, extending over the whole of France, were seducing souls from Flanders to Britanny. Uncertain as to his authority, he applied to Gregory for instructions and was told to act energetically in conjunction with the bishops, and, under the statutes recently issued by the Holy See, to extirpate heresy thor- oughly from the whole region, invoking the aid of the secular arm, and coercing it if necessary with the censures of the Church.* We have no means of knowing what measures Robert adopted, but there can be no doubt that under this stimulus, and clothed with tliis authority, he was active and unsparing. His crazy fanati- cism probably exaggerated greatly the extent of the evil and con- founded the innocent with the guilty. It was not long before the Archbishop of Sens, in whose province La Charite lay, expostu- lated with Gregory upon this interference with his jurisdiction, and in this he was joined by other prelates, alarmed at the au- * Alberic. Triuiii Font. Cliron. ann. 1336.— Grcgor. PP. IX. Bull. Gaudemus^ 19 Ap. 1233 (Ripoll I. 45-6).— Rayuald. ann. 1233, No. 59. ROBERT LE BUGRE. 115 thority given to the Dominican Provincial of Paris to appoint in- quisitors for all portions of the kingdom. They assured the pope that there was no heresy in their provinces and no necessity for these extraordinary measures. Gregory thereupon revoked all commissions early in February, 1234, and urged the prelates to bo vigilant, recommending them to make use of Dominicans in all cases where action appeared desirable, as the friars were specially skilled in the refutation of heresy. Had Robert been an ordinary man this might have postponed for some time the extension of the Inquisition in France, but he was too ardent to be repressed. In June, 1234, we find St. Louis paying for the maintenance of heretics in prison at St. Pierre-le-Moutier, near Nevers, which would seem as though Frere Robert had succeeded in getting to work again on his old field of operations. Meanwhile he had not been idle elsewhere. King Louis furnished him with an armed guard to protect him from the enmities which he aroused, and, secure in the royal favor, he traversed the country carrying terror everywhere. At Peronne he burned five victims ; at Elincourt, four, besides a pregnant woman who was spared for a time at the intercession of the queen. His methods were speedy, for before Lent was out we find him at Caml)rai, where, with the assistance of the Arch- bishop of Reims and three bishops, he burned about twenty and condemned others to crosses and prison. Thence he hastened to Douai, where, in May, he had the satisfaction of burning ten more, and condemning numerous others to crosses and prison in the pres- ence of the Count of Flanders, the Archbishop of Reims, sundry bishops and an immense multitude who crowded to the spectacle. Thence he hurried to Lille, where more executions followed. All this was sufficient to convince Gregory that he had been misin- formed as to the absence of heresy. Undisturbed by the severe experience which he had just undergone with a similar apostle of persecution, Conrad of Marburg, we find him, in August, 1235, ex- citedly announcing to the Dominican provincial that God had re- vealed to him that the whole of France was boiling with the venom of heretical reptiles, and that the business of the Inquisition must be resumed with loosened rein. Frere Robert was to be commis- sioned again, with fitting colleagues to scour the Avhole kingdom, aided by the prelates, so that innocence should not suffer nor guilt escape. The Archbishop of Sens was strictly ordered to lend effi- IIG FRANCE. cient help to Robert, whom God had gifted with especial grace in these matters, and Robert himself was honored with a special papal commission empowering him to act throughout the whole of France. The pope, moreover, spurred him on with exhortations to spare no labor in the work, and not to shrink from martyrdom if necessary for the salvation of souls.* This was pouring oil upon the flames. Robert's untempered fanaticism had required no stimulus, and now it raged beyond all bounds. The kingdom, by Gregory's thoughtless zeal, was delivered up to one who was little better than a madman. Supported by the piety of St. Louis, the prelates were obliged to aid him and carry out his behests, and for several years he traversed the prov- inces of Flanders, Champagne, Burgundy, and France with none to curb or oppose him. The crazy ardor of such a man was not hke- ly to be discriminating or to require much proof of guilt. Those whom he designated as heretics had the alternative of abjuration with perpetual imprisonment or of the stake — varied occasionally with burial alive. In one term of two or three months he is said to have thus despatched about fifty unfortunates of either sex, and the whole number of his victims during his unchecked career of several years must have been large. The terror spread by his ar- bitrary and pitiless proceedings rendered him formidable to high and low ahke, until at length the evident confounding of the in- nocent with the guilty raised a clamor to which even Gregory IX. was forced to listen. An investigation was held in 1238 which exposed his misdeeds, though not before he had time, in 1239, to burn a number of heretics at Montmorillon in Vienne, and twenty- seven, or, according to other accounts, one hundred and eighty-three, at Mont-Wimer — the original seat of Catharism in the eleventh century — where, at this holocaust pleasing to God, there were pres- ent the King of Navarre with a crowd of prelates and nobles and a multitude wildly estimated at seven hundred thousand souls. Robert's commission was withdrawn, and he expiated his insane cruelties in perpetual prison. The case ought to have proved, like * Greg. PP. IX. Bull. Olim, 4 Feb. 1234 ; Ejusd. Bull. Di/dinn, 21 Aug. 1335; Ejusd. Bull. Quo inter mteras, 22 Aug. 1235 ; Ejusd. Bull. Diuhan, 23 Aug. 1235 (Ripoll I. 80-1).— Potthast No. 9386.— Chron. breve Lobieus. ann. 1235 (Marteue Thes. III. 1427).— D. Bouquet, XXII. 570.— Chron. Rim6e de Philippe Mousket, V. 28871-29025.— Alberic. Trium Font. ann. 1235. THE INQUISITION ESTABLISHED. 117 that of Conrad of Marburg, a wholesome warning. Unfortunately tlie spirit which he had aroused survived him, and for three or four years after his fall active persecution raged from the Rhine to the Loire, under the belief that the land was full of heretics.* The unlucky termination of Robert's career did not affect his colleagues, and thenceforth the Inquisition was permanently estab- lished throughout France in Dominican hands. The prelates at first were stimulated to some show of rivalry in the performance of their neglected duties. Thus the provincial council of Tours, in 1239, endeavored to revive the forgotten system of synodal wit- nesses. Every bishop was instructed to appoint in each parish three clerks — or, if such could not be had, three laymen worthy of trust — who were to be sworn to reveal to the officials all ecclesi- astical offences, especially those concerning the faith. Such de- vices, however, were too cumbrous and obsolete to be of any avail against a crime so sedulously and so easily concealed as heresy, even if the prelates had been zealous and earnest persecutors. The Dominicans remained undisputed masters of the field, always on the alert, travelling from place to place, scrutinizing and question- ing, searching the truth and dragging it from unwilling hearts. Yet scarce a trace of tlieir strenuous labors has been left to us. Heretics throughout the North were comparatively few and scat- tered ; the chroniclers of the period take no note of their discovery and punishment, nor even of the establishment of the Inquisition itself. That a few friars should be deputed to the duty of hunt- ing heretics was too unimpressive a fact to be worthy of record. "We know, however, that the pious King Louis welcomed them in his old hereditary dominions, as he did in the newly-acquired ter- ritories of Languedoc, and stimulated their zeal by defraying their expenses. In the accounts of the royal bailhs for 1248 we find en- * Chron. S. Medardi Suessionens. (D'Achery, II. 491).— Cone. Trevirens. ann. 1238, c. 31 (Martene Ampl. Coll. VII. 130).— Wadding. Annal. ann. 123G, No. 3.— MejuTi Annal. Flandrens. Lib. viri. ann. 12:30.— Raynald. ann. 1238, No. 52.— Matt. Paris ann. 1236, 1238, pp. 293, 326 (Ed. 1644).— Chron. Gaufridi de Collonc ann. 1239 (Bouquet, XXIL 3).— Alberic. Trium Font. Chron. ann. 1239.— Chron. Rim6e de Phil, de Mousket, v. 30525-34. Frcire Bremond endeavors to clear Robert's fame from the accusations brought against him by Matthew Paris, and states that he died in the convent of St. Jacques in Paris in 1235. 118 FRANCE. tries of sums disbursed for them in Paris, Orleans, Tssoudun, Sen- lis, Amiens, Tours, Yevre - le - Chatel, Beaumont, St. Quentin, Laon, and Macon, showing that his hberahty furnished them with means to do their work, not only in the domains of the crown, but in those of the great vassals ; and these items further illustrate their activity in every corner of the land. That their sharp pursuit rendered heresy unsafe is seen in the permission already alluded to, in 1255, to pursue their quarry across the border into the ter- ritories of Alphonse of Toulouse, thus disregarding the limitations of inquisitorial districts.* This shows us that already the Inquisition was becoming or- ganized in a systematic manner. In Provence, w^here Pons de I'Esparre, the Dominican prior, had at first carried on a kind of vol- unteer chase after heretics, we see an inquisitor officially acting in 1245. This district, comprising the whole southeastern portion of modern France, with Savoy, was confided to the Franciscans. In 1266, when they were engaged in Marseilles in mortal strife with fhe Dominicans, the business of persecution would seem to have been neglected, for we find Clement IV. ordering the Benedictines 01 St. Victor to make provision for extirpating the numerous here- tics of the valley of Kousset, where they had a dependency. The Inquisition of Provence was extended in 1288 over Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, whose governor was ordered to defray from the confiscations the moderate expenses of the inquisitors, Bertrand de Cigotier and Guillem de Saint-Marcel. In 1292 Dauphine was likewise included, thus completing the organization in the terri- tories east of the Rhone. The attention of the inquisitors was specially called to the superstition which led many Christians to frequent the Jewish synagogues with lighted candles, offering ob- lations and watching through the vigils of the Sabbath, when af- flicted with sickness or other tribulations, anxious for friends at sea or for approaching childbirth. AU such observances, even in Jews, were idolatry and heresy, and those who practised them were to be duly prosecuted.f * Concil. Turonens. ann. 1239, c. 1.— D. Bouquet, XXI. 262, 264, 268, 278, 274, 276, 280, 281.— RipoU I. 273-4. t Coll. Doat, XXXI. 68.— M.irtene Coll. Ampl. 1. 1284.— Wadding. Annal. ann. 1288, No. 14, 15 ; ann. 1290, No. 3, 5, 6 ; ann. 1292, No. 3. ORGANIZATION. II9 With this exception the whole of France was confided to the Dominicans. In 1253 a bull of Innocent IV. renders the Provin cial of Paris supreme over the rest of the kingdom, including the territories of Alphonse of Toulouse. Numerous buUs foUow during the next few years which speak of the growth of heresy requiring increased efforts for its suppression and of the solicitude of King Louis that the Inquisition should be effective. Elaborate instruc- tions are sent for its management, and various changes are made and unmade in a manner to show that a watchful eye was kept on the institution in France, and that there was a constant effort to render it as efficient as possible. By a papal brief of 1255 we see that at that time the Inquisition of Languedoc was independent of the Paris provincial ; in 1257 it is again under his authority ; in 1261 it is once more removed, and in 1264 it is restored to him — a provision which became final, rendering him in some sort a grand- inquisitor for the whole of France. In 1255 the Franciscan pro- vincial was adjoined to the Dominican, thus dividing the functions between the two Orders ; but this arrangement, as might be ex- pected, does not seem to have worked weU, and in 1256 Ave find the power again concentrated in the hands of the Dominicans. The number of inquisitors to be appointed was always strictly limited by the popes, and it varied with the apparent exigencies of the times and also with the extent of territory. In 1256 only two are specified ; in 1258 this is pronounced insufficient for so extensive a region, and the provincial is empowered to appoint four more. In 1261, when Languedoc was withdrawn, the num- ber is reduced to two; in 1266 it is increased to four, exclusive of Languedoc and Provence, to whom in 1267 associates were ad- joined, and in 1273 the number was made six, including Langue- doc, but excluding Provence. This seems to have been the final organization, but it does not appear that the Northern kingdom was divided into districts, strictly dehmitated as those of the South.* The Inquisition at Besangon appears to have been at first in- * Arch, de I'Inq. de Care. (Doat. XXXI. 90 ; XXXII. 41).— Wadding. Annal. ann. 1255, No. 14.— Raynald. ann. 1255, No. 33.— Arch. Nat. de France, J. 431, No. 30, 31, 34, 35, 36.— Ripoll I. 273-4, 291, 362,472, 512 ; II. 29.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fends latin. No. 149:50, fol. 226.— Martene Thesaur. V- 1814, 1817. 120 FRANCE. dependent of that of Paris. After the failure to estabhsh it in 1233 it seems to have remained in abeyance until 1247, when Inno- cent lY. ordered the Prior of Bcsanyon to send friars throughout Burgundy and Lorraine for the extirpation of heresy. The next year John Count of Burgundy urged greater activity, but his zeal does not seem to have been supplemented with liberality, and in 1255 the Dominicans asked to be relieved of the thankless task, which proved unsuccessful for lack of funds, and Alexander IV. acceded to their request. There are some evidences of an Inquisi- tion being in operation there about 1283, and in 1290 Nicholas IV. ordered the Provincial of Paris to select three inquisitors to serve in the dioceses of Besaneon, Geneva, Lausanne, Sion, Metz, Toul, and Verdun, thus placing Lorraine and the French Cantons of Switzerland, as well as Franche Comte, under the Inquisition of France, an arrangement wliich seems to have lasted for more than a century.'^ Little remains to us of the organization thus perfected over the wide territory stretching from the Bay of Biscay to the Rhine. The laborers were vigorous, and labored according to the light which was in them, but the men and their acts are buried beneath the dust of the forgotten past. That they did their duty is visible in the fact that heresy makes so little figure in France, and that the slow but remorseless extermination of Catharism in Langue- doc was not accompanied by its perpetuation in the North. "We hear constantly of refugees from Toulouse and Carcassonne flpng for safety to Lombardy and even to Sicily, but never to Touraine or Champagne, nor do we ever meet with cases in which the earnest missionaries of Catharism sought converts beyond the Cevennes. This may fairly be ascribed to the vigilance of the inquisitors, who were ever on the watch. Chance has preserved for us as models in a book of formulas some documents issued by Frere Simon Duval, in 1277 and 1278, which afford us a momen- tary glimpse at his proceedings and enable us to estimate the activ- ity requisite for the functions of his office. He styles himself inquisitor " in regno Francm^'' which indicates that his commis- sion extended throughout the kingdom north of Languedoc, and * RipoU I. 179, 183; II. 29.— Potthast No. 15995.— Lib. Sentt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 252-4. ACTIVITY OF INQUISITION. 121 he speaks of himself as acting in virtue of the apostolical author- ity and royal power, showing that Philippe le Ilardi had dutifully commissioned him to smnmon the whole forces of the State to his assistance Avhen requisite. November 23, 1277, he gives pubhc notice that two canons of Liege, Suger de Yerbanque and Berner de Niville, had fled on being suspected of heresy, and he cites them to appear for trial at St. Quentin in Vermandois on the 23d of the ensuing January, This trial was apparently postponed, for on January 21, 1278, we find him summoning the people and clergy of Caen to attend his sermon on the 23d. Here he at least found an apostate Jewess who fled, and we have his proclamation calling upon every one to aid Copin, sergeant of the Bailli of Caen, who had been despatched in her pursuit. Frere Duval was apparently making an extended inquest, for July 5 he summons the people and clergy of Orleans to attend his sermon on the 7th. A fort- night later he is back in Normandy and has discovered a nest of heretics near Evreux, for on July 21 we have his citation of thir- teen persons from a little village hard by to appear before him. These fragmentary and accidental remains show that his life was a busy one and that his labors were not unfruitful. A letter of the young Philippe le Bel, in February, 1285, to his officials in Champagne and Brie, ordering them to lend all aid to the inquis- itor Frere Guillaume d'Auxerre, indicates that those provinces were about to undergo a searching examination.* The inquisitors of France complained that their work was im- peded by the universal right of asylum which gave protection to criminals who succeeded in entering a church. No officer of the law dared to follow and make an arrest within the sacred walls, for a violation of this privilege entailed excommunication, remov- able only after exemplary punishment. Heretics were not slow in availing themselves of the immunity thus mercifully afforded by the Church which they had wronged, and in the jealousy which existed between the secular clergy and the inquisitors there was apparently no effort made to restrict the abuse. Martin TV. was accordingly appealed to, and in 1281 he issued a bull addressed to all the prelates of France, declaring that such perversion of the " Martene Thesaur. V. 1809, 1811-13.— Arch, de ITnq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXXII. 127). 122 FRANCE. right of asylum was no longer to be permitted ; that in such cases the inquisitors Avere to have full op]iortunity to vindicate the faith, and that so far from being imjiedcd in the performance of their duty, they were to be aided in every way. The special mention in this bull of apostate Jews along with other heretics indicates that this unfortunate class formed a notable portion of the objects of inquisitorial zeal. Several of them, in fact, were burned or other- wise penanced in Paris between 1307 and 1310, * There was one class of offenders who would liave afforded the Inquisition an ample field for its activity, had it been dis])osed to take cognizance of them. By the canons, any one who had en- dured excommunication for a year without submission and seeking absolution was pronounced suspect of heresy, and we have seen Boniface YIII., in 1297, directing the inquisitors of Carcassonne to prosecute the authorities of Beziers for this cause. The land was full of such excommunicates, for the shocking abuse of the anath- ema by priest and prelate for personal interests had indurated the people, and in a countless number of cases absolution was only to be procured by the sacrifice of rights which even faithful sons of the Church were not prepared to make. This growing disregard of the censure was aggravating to the last degree, but the inquisi- tors do not seem to have been disposed to come forward in aid of the secular clergy, nor did the latter call upon them for assistance. In 1301 the Council of Reims directed that proceedings should be commenced, when it next should meet, against all who had been under excommunication for two years, as being suspect of heresy ; and in 1303 it called upon all such to come forward and purge themselves of the suspicion, but the court in which this was to be done was that of the bishops and not of the Inquisition. Mutual jealousy was seemingly too strong to admit of such co-operation.f In 1308 we hear of a certain fitienne de Yerberie of Soissons, accused before the inquisitor of blasphemous expressions concern- ing the body of Christ. He alleged drunkenness in excuse, and was mercifully treated. Shortly afterwards occurred the first • Ripoll II. 1.— Guill. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1307, 1310. t Martene Ampl. Collect. VII. 1335-7. Ci'. Concil. Trident, Sess. xxv. Do- cret. Reform, c. 3. MxVRGUERITE LA PORETE. 123 formal auto defe of which we have cognizance at Paris, on May 31, 1310. A renegade Jew was burned, but the principal victim was Marguerite de Hainault, or la Porete. She is described as a " heguvne dergesse,^^ the first apostle in France of the German sect of Brethren of the Free Spirit, whom we shall consider more fully hereafter. Her chief error was the doctrine that the soul, absorbed in Divine love, could yield without sin or remorse to all the de- mands of the flesh, and she regarded with insufficient veneration the sacrifice of the altar. She had written a book to propagate these doctrines which had, before the year 1305, been condemned as heretical and burned by Gui IL, Bishop of Cambrai. He had mercifully spared her, while forbidding her under pain of the stake from circulating it in future or disseminating its doctrines. In spite of this she had again been brought before Gui's successor, Philippe de Marigny, and the Inquisitor of Lorraine, for spreading it among the simple folk called Begghards, and she had again escaped. Unwearied in her missionary work, she had even ven- tured to present the forbidden volume to Jean, Bishop of Chalons, without suffering the penalty due to her obstinacy. In 1308 she extended her propaganda to Paris and fell into the hands of Frere Guillaume de Paris, the inquisitor, before whom she persistently refused to take the preliminary oath requisite to her examination. He was probably too preoccupied with the affair of the Templars to give her prompt justice, and for eighteen months she lay in the inquisitorial dungeons under the consequent excommunication. This would alone have sufficed for her conviction as an impenitent heretic, but her previous career rendered her a relapsed heretic. Instead of calling an assembly of experts, as was customary in Languedoc, the inquisitor laid a written statement of the case be- fore the canonists of the University, who unanimously decided, May 30, that if the facts as stated were true, she was a relapsed heretic, to be relaxed to the secular arm. Accordingly, on May 31, she was handed over, with the customary adjuration for mercj'-, to the prevot of Paris, who duly burned her the next day, when her noble manifestation of devotion moved the people to tears of compassion. Another actor in the tragedy was a disciple of Mar- guerite, a clerk of the diocese of Beauvais named Guion de Cres- sonessart. He liad endeavored to save INIarguerite from the clutches of the Inquisition, and on being seized had, like her, 124 FRANCE. refused to take the oath during eighteen months' imprisonment. His brain seems to have turned during his detention, for at length he astonished the inquisitor by proclaiming himself the Angel of Philadelphia and an envoy of God, who alone could save mankind. The inquisitor in vain pointed out that this was a function reserved solely for the pope, and as Guion would not withdraw his claims he was convicted as a heretic. For some reason, however, not specified in the sentence, he was only condemned to degradation from orders and to perpetual imprisonment.* The next case of which we hear is that of the Sieur de Partenay, in 1323, to which allusion has already been made. Its importance to us lies in its revealing the enormous and almost irresponsible authority wielded by the Inquisition at this period. The most powerful noble of Poitou, when designated as a heretic by Frere Maurice, the Inquisitor of Paris, is at once thrown into the prison of the Temple by the king, and all his estates are sequestrated to await the result. Fortunately for Partenay he had a large circle of influential friends and kindred, among them the Bishop of Noy- on, who labored strenuously in his behalf. He was able to appeal to the pope, alleging personal hatred on the part of Frere Maurice ; he was sent under guard to Avignon, where his friends succeeded in inducing John XXII. to assign certain bishops as assessors to try the case with the inquisitor, and after infinite delays he was at length set free — probably not without the use of means which greatly diminished his wealth. When such a man could be so handled at the mere word of an angry friar, meaner victims stood little chance.f This case in the North and the close of Bernard Gui's career in Toulouse, about the same time, mark the apogee of the Inquisition in France. Thenceforth we have to foUow its decline. Yet for some years longer there was a show of activity at Car- cassonne, where Henri de Chamay was a worthy representative of the older inquisitors. January 16, 1329, in conjunction with Pierre Bruni he celebrated an auto de fe at Pamiers, where thirty-five persons were permitted to lay aside crosses, and twelve were re- * Arch. Niit. de France, J. 428, No. 15, 19 J^'s.— Guillel. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1308, 1310.— Grandes Chroniques, V. 188. t Guillel. Naugiac. Contiu. ann. 1323.— Grandes Chroniques, V. 273-4.— Chron. Johann. S. Victor. Contin. ann. 1323 (Bouquet, XXI. 681). ACTIVITY IN LANGUEDOC. 125 ieased from prison with crosses, six were pardoned, seven were condemned to perpetual imprisonment, together with four false witnesses, eight had arbitrary penances assigned them, four dead persons were sentenced, and a friar and a priest were degraded. As the see of Pamiers, to which this aitto was confined, was a small one, the number of sentences uttered indicates active work. De- cember 12, of the same year, Henri de Chamay held another at Narbonne, where the fate of some forty dehnquents was decided. Then, January 7, 1329, lie held another at Pamiers ; May 19, one at Beziers ; September 8, one at Carcassonne, where six unfortu- nates were burned and twenty-one condemned to perpetual prison. Shortly afterwards he burned three at Albi, and toAvards the end of the year he held another auto at a place not named, where eight persons were sentenced to prison, three to prison in chains, and two were burned. Some collisions seem to have occurred about this time with the royal oiRcials, for, in 1334, the inquisitors com- plained to Phihppe de Valois that their functions were impeded, and Philippe issued orders to the seneschals of ISTimes, Toulouse, and Carcassonne that the Inquisition must be maintained in the full enjoyment of its ancient privileges.* Activity continued for some little time longer, but the records have perished which would supply the details. We happen to have the accounts of the Senechaussee of Toulouse, for 1337, which show that Pierre Bruni, the inquisitor, was by no means idle. The re- ceiver of confiscations enumerates the estates of thirty heretics from which collections are in hand ; there was an auto defe celebrated and paid for ; the number of prisoners in the inquisitorial jail is stated at eighty-two, but as their maintenance during eleven months amounted to the sum of three hundred and sixty-five livres four- teen sols, the average number at three deniers per diem must have been ninety. The terrible vicissitudes of the English war doubt- less soon afterwards slackened the energy of the inquisitors, but we know that there were autos defe celebrated at Carcassonne in 1346, 135Y, and 1383, and one at Toulouse in 1374. The office of inquisitor continued to be filled, but its functions diminished greatly in importance, as we may guess from the fact that it is related of * Coll. Boat, XXVII. 119, 132, 140, 146, 156, 178, 193, 198, 232.— Vaissette, IV. Pr. 23. 126 FRANCE. Pierre de Mcrcalme, who was Provincial of Toulouse from 1350 to 1363, that during more than two years of this period he also served as in(j[uisitor." In the North we hear little of the Inquisition during this period. The English wars, in fact, must have seriously interfered with its activity, but we have an evidence that it was not neglect- ing its duty in a complaint made by the Provincial of Paris to Clement VI., in 1351, that the practice of excepting the territories of Charles of Anjou from the commissions issued to inquisitors de- prived the provinces of Touraine and Maine of the blessings of the institution and allowed heresy to flourish there, whereupon the pope promptly extended the authority of Frere GuiUaume Chev- alier and of all future inquisitors to those regions.f With the return of peace under Charles le Sage the Inquisition had freer scope. The Begghards, or Brethren of the Free Spirit, undeterred by the martyrdom of Marguerite la Porete, had con- tinued to exist in secret. In September, 1365, Urban V. notified the prelates and inquisitors throughout France that they were ac- tively at work propagating their doctrines, and he sent detailed information as to their tenets and the places where they were to be found to the Bishop of Paris, with orders to communicate it to his fellow-prelates and the Inquisition. If any immediate response to this was made, the result has not reached us, but in 1372 we find Frere Jacques de More, '■'• inquisiteur des Bougres,^'' busy in eradicating them. They called themselves the Company of Pov- erty, and were popularly kno\vn by the name of Turelupins ; as in Germany, they were distinguished by their pecuhar vestments, and they propagated their doctrines largely by their devotional writ- ings in the vernacular Charles Y. rewarded the labors of the in- quisitor with a donation of fifty francs, and received the thanks of Gregory XL for his zeal. The outcome of the affair was the burn- ing of the books and garments of the heretics in the s^vine-market beyond the Porte Saint-Honore, together with the female leader of the sect, Jeanne Daubenton. Her male colleague escaped by death in prison, but his body was preserved in quicklime for fif- * Vaissette, fid. Privat, X. Pr. 782-3, 792, 802, 813-14.— Arch, de rfivechg d'Albi (Boat, XXXV. 120).— Vaissette, IV. 184.— Marteue Ampl. Coll. VI. 438. t RipoU II. 236. TURELUPIKS. 127 teen days, in order that he might accompany his partner in guilt in the flames. That such a spectacle was sufficiently infrequent to render it a matter of importance is shown by its being recorded in the doggerel of a contemporary chronicler — "L'an MDCCCLXXII. je vous dis tout pour voir Furent les Turelupins condannez pour ardoir, Pour ce qu'ils desvoient le peuple a decepvoir Par feaultcs heresies, TEveque en soult levoir." The sect was a stubborn one, however, especially in Germany, as we shall see hereafter, and in the early part of the next century Chancellor Gerson still considers it of sufficient importance to combat its errors repeatedly. Its mystic libertinism was danger- ously seducing, and he was especially alarmed by the incredible sub- tlety with which it was presented in a book written by a woman known as Mary of Valenciennes. In May, 1421, twenty-five of these sectaries were condemned at Douai by the Bishop of Arras, Twenty of them recanted and were penanced with crosses and banishment or imprisonment, but five were stubborn and sealed their faith Avith martyrdom in tlie flames.* In 1381 Frere Jacques de More had a more iUustrious victim in Hugues Aubriot. A Burgundian by birth, Aubriot's energy and ability had won for him the confidence of the wise King Charles, who had made him Prevot of Paris. This office he filled with unprecedented vigor. To him the city owed the first system of sewerage that had been attempted, as well as the Bastille, which he built as a bulwark against the English, and he imposed some hmitation on the flourishing industry of the filles de me. His good government gained him the resjiect and affection of the people, but he made a mortal enemy of the University by disregarding • Raynald. ann. 13G5, No. 17; ann. 1373, No. 19, 21.— Gaguini Hist. Francor. Lib. IX. c. 2. (Ed. 1576, p. 158).— Meyeri Annal. Flandr. Lib. xiii. ann. 1372.— Du Cange s. v. Tiirlvpini.—Gers.om de Consolat. Theolog. Lib. rv. Prosa 3; Ejusd. de Mystica Tlieol. Specul. P. i. Cousid. 8; Ejusd. de Distinctione verarum Visionum Signuni, 5. — Altmeycr, Prgcurseurs de la Rfiforme aux Pays-Bas, L 85. Prol)aljly there may l)e some connection between the Turehipins and certain wandering bands known as " ^c Pexariaclto''^ and suspected of lieresy. A mem- ber of tliese, named Bidon de Puy-Guillem, of tlie diocese of Bordeaux, was con- demned to perpetual imprisonment, and was liberated by Gregory XL in 1371 (.Coll. Doat, XXXV. 134). 128 FKANCE. the immunities on the proservation of which, in the previous cen- tury, it had staked its existence. In savage mockery of its wrath, when building the Petit-Chutelet, he named two foul dungeons after two of the principal quarters of the University, le Clos Bruneau and la Hue du Foing, saying that they were intended for the students. Under the strong rule of Charles Y. the University had to digest its wrongs as best it could, but after his death, in 1380, it eagerly watched its opportunity. This was not long in coming, nor, in the rivalry between the Dukes of Berri and Bur- gundy, was it difficult to enlist the former against Aubriot as a Burgundian. The rule of the princes, at once feeble and despotic, invited disorder, and when the people, November 25, 1380, rose against the Jews, pillaged their houses, and forcibly baptized their children, Aubriot incurred the implacable enmity of the Church by forcing a restoration of the infants to their parents. The com- bination against him thus became too strong for the court to re- sist. It yielded, and on January 21, 1381, he w^as cited to appear before the bishop and inquisitor. He disdained to obey the sum- mons, and his excommunication for contumacy was pubhshed in all the churches of Paris. This compelled obedience, and when he came before the inquisitor, on February 1, he was at once thrown into the episcopal prison while his trial proceeded. The charges were most frivolous, except the affair of the Jewish children and his having released from the Chatelet a prisoner accused of her- esy, placed there by the inquisitor. It was alleged that on one occasion one of his sergeants had excused himself for delay by say- ing that he had waited at church to see God (the elevation of the Host), when Aubriot angrily rejoined, " Sirrah, know ye not that I have more power to harm you than God to help ;" and again that when some one had told him that they would see God in a mass celebrated by Silvestre de la Cervelle, Bishop of Coutances, he replied that God would not permit himself to be handled by such a man as the bishop. His enemies were so exasperated that on the strength of this flimsy gossip he was actually condemned to be burned without the privilege allowed to all heretics of sav- ing himself by abjuration ; but the princes intervened and suc- ceeded in obtaining this for him. He had no reason to complain of undue delay. On May 17 a solemn auto defe was held. On a scaffold erected in front of Notre Dame, Aubriot humbly con- HUGUES AUBRIOT.— THOMAS OF APULIA. 129 fessed and recanted the heresies of which he had been convicted, and received the sentence of perpetual imprisonment, which of course carried with it the confiscation of his wealth, while the re- joicing scholars of the University lampooned him in halting verses. He was thence conveyed to a dungeon in the episcopal prison, where he lay until 1382, when the insurrection of the Maillotins occurred. The first thought of the people was of their old prevot. They broke open the prison, drew him forth and placed him at their head. He accepted the post, but the same night he quietly withdrew and escaped to his native Burgundy, where his advent- urous hfe ended in peaceful obscurity. The story is instructive as showing how efficient an instrument was the Inquisition for the gratification of mahce. In fact, its functions as a factor in pohti- cal strife were of sufficient importance to require more detailed consideration hereafter.* After this we hear little more of the Inquisition of Paris, al- though it continued to exist. When, in 1388, the eloquence of Thomas of Apulia drew wondering crowds to hsten with venera- tion to his teaching that the law of the Gospel was simply love, with the deduction that the sacraments, the invocation of saints, and all the inventions of the current theology were useless ; when he wrote a book inveighing against the sins of prelate and pope, and asserting, with the Everlasting Gospel, that the reign of the Holy Ghost had supplanted that of the Father and the Son, and when he boldly announced himself as the envoy of the Holy Ghost sent to reform the world, the Inquisition was not called upon to silence even this revolutionary heretic. It was the Prevot of Paris who ordered him to desist from preaching, and, when he refused, it was the bish- op and University who tried him, ordered his book to be burned on the Place de Greve, and would have him burned had not the medi- cal ahenists of the day testified to his insanity and procured for him a commutation of his punishment to perpetual imprisonment, f Yarious causes had long been contributing to deprive the In- * Grandes Chroniques, ann. 1380-1.— Religieux de S. Denis, Hist, de Charles VI. Liv. I. c. 13, liv. II. c. 1. t Religieux de S. Denis, op. cit. Liv. rv. ch. 1 3.— D'Argentrfe, Collect. Judic. de novis error. I. ii. 151. II.— 9 130 FRANCE. quisition in France of the importance which it had once enjoyed. It no longer as of old poured into the royal fisc a stream of con- fiscations and co-operated efficiently in consolidating the monarchy. It had done its work too well, and not only had it become super- fluous as an instrument for the throne, but the throne which it had aided to estabhsh had become supreme and had reduced it to sub- jection. Even in the plenitude of inquisitorial power the tendency to regard the royal court as possessing a jurisdiction higher than that of the Holy Office is shown in the case of Amiel de Lautrec, Abbot of S. Sernin. In 1322 the Yiguier of Toulouse accused him to the Inquisition for having preached the doctrine that the soul is mortal in essence and only immortal through grace. The In- quisition examined the matter and decided that this was not her- esy. The royal procureur-genei'al, dissatisfied with this, appealed from the decision, not to the pope but to the Parlement or royal court. No question more purely spiritual can weU be conceived, and yet the Parlement gravely entertained the appeal and asserted its jurisdiction by confirming the decree of the Inquisition.* This was ominous of the future, although the indefatigable Henri de Chamay, apparently alarmed at the efforts successfully made by Philippe de Valois to control and limit spiritual jurisdic- tions, procured from that monarch, in November, 1329, a Mande- merit confirming the privileges of the Inquisition, placing all tem- poral nobles and officials afresh at its disposal, and annulling all letters emanating from the royal court, whether past or future, which should in any way impede inquisitors from performing their functions in accordance with their commissions from the Holy See. The evolution of the monarchy was proceeding too rapidly to be checked. Henri de Chamay himself, in 1328, had officially qualified himself as inquisitor, deputed, not by the pope, as had al- ways been the formula proudly employed, but by the king, and a judicial decision to this effect followed soon after. It was Philippe's settled policy to enforce and extend the jurisdiction of the crown, and in pursuance of this he sent Guillaume de YiUars to Toulouse to reform the encroachments of the ecclesiastical tribunals over the royal courts. In 1330 de Yillars, in the per- formance of his duty, caused the registers of the ecclesiastical * Chrou. Bardin, ann. 1323 (Vaissette, IV. Pr. 21-22). INQUISITION SUBORDINATED TO THE STATE. 131 courts to be submitted to him, after which he demanded those of the Inquisition. When we remember how jealously these were guarded, how arrogantly Nicholas d' Abbeville had refused a sight of them to the bishops sent by Philippe le Bel, and how long Jean de Pequigny hesitated before he interfered with Geoflfroi d'Ablis, we can measure the extent of the silent revolution which had occurred during the interval in the relations between Church and State, by the fact that de Y illars, on being refused, coolly pro- ceeded to break open the door of the chamber in which the regis- ters were kept. The inquisitor appealed, and again it was not to the pope, but to the Parlement, and that body, in condemning de Yillars to pay the costs and damages, did so on the ground that the Inquisition was a royal and not an ecclesiastical court. This was a Pyrrhic victory ; the State had absorbed the Inquisition. It was the same when, in 1334, Philippe listened to the complaints of the inquisitors that his seneschals disturbed them in their juris- diction, and gave orders that they should enjoy all their ancient privileges, for these are treated as derived wholly from the royal power. Henceforth the Inquisition could exist only on sufferance, subject to the supervision of the Parlement, while the Captivity of Avignon, followed by the Great Schism, constantly gave to the temporal powers increased authority in spiritual matters.* How completely the Inquisition was becoming an affair of state is indicated by two incidents. In 1340, when the lieutenant of the king in Languedoc, Louis of Poitou, Count of Die and Yalentinois, was making his entry into the good cit}^ of Toulouse, he found the gate closed. Dismounting and kneeling bareheaded on a cushion, he took an oath on the Gospels, in the hands of the inquisitor, to preserve the privileges of the Inquisition, and then another oath to the consuls to maintain the liberties of the city. Thus both institutions were on the same footing and required the same illusory guarantee, the very suggestion of which would have been laughed to scorn by Bernard Gui. Again, in 1368, when the royal revenues wxre depleted by the English wars and the ravages of the Free Companies, and were insufficient to pay the wages of the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, Pierre Scatisse, the royal * Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran9. IV. 364-5.— Coll. Doat, XXVII. 118.— Vaissettc, IV. Pr. 23. 132 FRANCE. treasurer, ordered a levy by the consuls of twenty -six livres tournois to complete the payment. Confiscations had long since ceased to meet the expenditures, but the inquisitor was a royal official and must be paid by the city if not by the state.* How thorough was the subjection of all ecclesiastical institu- tions, and how fallen the Inquisition from its high estate, is mani- fested by an occurrence in 1364, at a moment when the royal au- thority was at the lowest ebb. King John had died a prisoner in London, April 8, and the young Charles Y. was not crowned until May 19, while his kingdom was reduced almost to anarchy by foreign aggression and internal dissensions. Yet, April 16, Mar- shal Arnaud d'Audeneham, Lieutenant du Roi in Languedoc, con- voked at Nimes an assembly of the Three Estates presided over by the Archbishop of Narbonne. One of the questions discussed was a quarrel between the Archbishop of Toulouse and the inquis- itor whom he had prohibited from exercising his functions, saying that the Inquisition had been established at the request of the province of Languedoc, and that now it had become an injury. All the prelates, except Aymeri, Bishop of Yiviers, sided with the archbishop, while the representatives of Toulouse asked to be ad- mitted as parties to the suit on the side of the inquisitor. No one seems to have doubted that the marshal, as royal deputy, had full jurisdiction over the matter, and his decision was against the archbishop, t Even in Carcassonne, where the Dominicans had lorded it so imperiously, aU fear of them had disappeared so utterly that in 1354 a sturdy blacksmith named Hugues erected a shop close to the church of the Friars, and carried on his noisy avocation so vigorously as to interrupt their services and interfere with their studies. Remonstrances and threats were of no avail, and they were obliged to appeal, not to the bishop or the inquisitor, but to the king, who graciously sent a peremptory order to his seneschal to remove the smithy or to prevent Hugues from working in it.:j: Towards the end of the century some cases occurring in Reims illustrate how completely the Inquisition was falling into abey- * Chron. Bardin, ann. 1340, 1368 (Vaissette, IV. Pr. 27, 31). t Chron. Bardin, ann. 1364 (Vaissette, IV. Pr. 30. Cf. A. Molinier, |)d. Privat. X. 763). X Martens Thesaur. I. 1399. SUBORDINATION OF INQUISITION. I33 ance throughout the kingdom, and how the jurisdiction of the royal court of the Parlement was accepted as supreme in spiritual matters. In 1385 there arose a dispute between the magistrates of the city and the archbishop as to jurisdiction over blasphemy, which was claimed by both. This was settled by an agreement recognizing it as belonging to the archbishop, but twenty years later the quarrel broke out afresh over the case of Drouet Largele, who was guilty of blasphemy savoring of heresy as to the Passion and the Virgin. The matter was appealed to the Parlement, which decided in favor of the archbishop, and no allusion throughout the whole affair occurs as to any claim that the Inquisition might have to interpose, showing that at this time it was practically dis- regarded. Yet we chance to know that Reims was the seat of an Inquisition, for in 1419 Pierre Floree was inquisitor there, and preached, October 13, the funeral sermon at the obsequies of Jean sans Peur of Burgundy, giving great offence by urging Philippe le Bon not to avenge the murder of his father. We see also the scruples of the Inquisition on the subject of blasphemy in 1423 at Toulouse, where it had become the custom to submit to the inquis- itor the names of all successful candidates in municipal elections in order to ascertain whether they were in any way suspect of heresy. Among the capitouls elected in 1423 was a certain Fran- gois Albert, who was objected to by the acting inquisitor, Frere Bartolome Guiscard, on account of habitual use of the expletives Tete-Dieu and Ventre-Dieu, whereupon the citizens substituted Pierre de Sarlat. Albert appealed to the Parlement, which ap- proved of the action of the inquisitor.* Still more emphatic as to the supreme authority of the Parle- ment was the case of Marie du Canech of Cambrai, to which I have already had occasion to refer. For maintaining that when under oath she was not bound to tell the truth to the prejudice of her honor, she was prosecuted for heresy by the Bishop of Cam- brai and Frere Nicholas de Peronne, styling himself deputy of the inquisitor-general or Provincial of Paris. Being severely mulcted, she appealed to the Archbishop of Reims, as the metropohtan, * Arch. Administratives de Reims, III. 037-45.— Meyeri Annal. Flandr. Lib. XVI. ann. 1419. — Lafaille, Annales de Toulouse I. 183. — Chrou. Bardin, aun. 1423 (Vaissette. IV. Pr. 38). 134 PRANCE. and he issued inhibitory letters. Then the bishop and inquisitor appealed from the archl)ishop to the Parleraent. The matter was elaborately argued on both sides, the archbishop alleging that there was at that time no inquisitor in France, and drawing a number of subtle distinctions. The Parlement had no hesitation in accepting jurisdiction over this purely spiritual question. It paid no attention to the cautious arguments of the archbishop, but decided broadly that the bishop and inquisitor had no grounds for disobeying the citation of the archbishop evoking the case to his own com't, and it condemned them in costs. Thus the ancient supremacy of the episcopal jurisdiction was reasserted over that of the Inquisition.* The Great Schism, followed by the councils of Constance and Basle, did much to shake the papal power on which that of the Inquisition was founded. The position of Charles VII. towards Rome Avas consistently insubordinate, and the Pragmatic Sanction which he published in 1438 secured the independence of the Gal- ilean Church, and strengthened the jurisdiction of the Parlement. When Louis XL abrogated it, in 1461, the remonstrances of his Parlement form a singularly free-spoken indictment of papal vices, and that body continued to treat the instrument as practically in force, while Louis himself, by successive measures of 1463, 1470, 1472, 1474, 1475, and 1479, gradually re-estabUshed its principles. Had not the Concordat of Francis I., in 1516, swept it away, when he conspired with Leo X. to divide the spoils of the Church, it would eventually have rendered France independent of Rome. Francis knew so well the opposition which it would excite that he hesi- tated for a- year to submit the measure to his Parlement for regis- tration, and the Parlement deferred the registration for another year, tiU at last the negotiator of the concordat. Cardinal Duprat, brought to bear sufficient pressure to accomplish the object. Dur- ing the discussion the University had the boldness to protest pub- licly against it, and to lodge Avlth the Parlement an appeal to the next general council.f * Arch. Administratives de Reims, III. 639-43. t Isambert, Anc. Loix Frang. IX. 3; X. 393, 396-416, 477.— Bochelli Decret. Eccles. Gallican. Lib. iv. Tit. 4, 5. — Bull, de la Soc. de I'Hist. du Protestantisme en France, 1860, p. 121. — D'Argentrg Coll. Judic. de novis Error. I. li. 357. — Fascic. Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend. I. 68 (Ed. 1690). INFLUENCE OF THE UNIVERSITY. 135 During this period of antagonism to Rome the Univereity of Paris had contributed no little to the abasement of the Inquisition by supplanting it as an investigator of doctrine and judge of her- esy. Its ancient renown, fully maintained by an uninterrupted succession of ardent and learned teachers, gave it great authority. It was a national institution of which clergy and laity aUke might weU be proud, and at one time it appeared as though it might rival the Parlement in growing into one of the recognized powers of the State. In the fearful anarchy which accompanied the insan- ity of Charles YI. it boldly assumed a right to speak on public affairs, and its interference was welcomed. In 1411 the king, who chanced at the time to be in the hands of the Burgundians, ap- pealed to it to excommunicate the Armagnacs, and the University zealously did so. In 1412 it presented a remonstrance to the king on the subject of the financial disorders of the time and demanded a reform. Supported by the Parisians, at its dictate the financiers The feelings with which the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction in 1461 was received are well expressed in the " PragmaticcB Sanctionis Passio,'" Baluz. et Mansi, IV. 29. Pius II. is singularly candid in his account of the simoniacal transaction through which he purchased the abrogation by giving the cardinal's hat to Jean, Bishop of Arras. The suggestion at first provoked the liveliest remonstrances from the members of the Sacred College, who, through their spokesman, the Car- dinal of Avignon, warned Pius that there would be no peace in the Consistory, for the bishop would set them all by the ears, and that his unquiet spirit showed that he must be the offspring of an Incubus. Pius admitted all this, but argued that it was an unfortunate necessity ; both Louis XL and Philippe le Bon had asked for his promotion ; unless the request was granted the Pragmatic Sanc- tion would not be abolished, for the fury of the disappointed man would con- vert him into its supporter, and, as he was learned, he would readily find ample Scriptural warrant to adduce in its favor, which would be decisive, as he was the only man in France who urged the abrogation, and he could readily lead the king to change his mind. These arguments were convincing, and Pius enjoyed the supreme triumj^h of destroying the last relic of the reforms of Con- stance and Basle. He paid dearly for it, however, in the annoyances inflicted on him by the new cardinal, whom he describes as a liar and a perjurer, avari- cious and ambitious, a glutton and a drunkard, and excessively given to women. He was so irascible that at meals he would frequently throw the silver plates and vessels at the servants, and occasionally would push tlie whole table over, to the dismay of his guests. — ^n. Sylvii 0pp. inedd. (Atti dclla Acrad. dci Lin- cei, 1883, pp. 531, 546-8). 136 FRANCE. and thieves of the government, with the exception of the chancel- lor, were dismissed in 1413, greatly to the discontent of the comt- iers, who ridiculed the theologians as bookworms ; and in the same year it co-operated with the Parlement in securing momentary peace between the angry factions of the land. The thanks which the heir-apparent, the Duke of Guienne, accompanied by the Dukec of Berri, Burgundy, Bavaria, and Bar, solemnly rendered to the assembled Faculty, virtually recognized it as a part of the State. But when, in 1415, it sent a deputation to remonstrate against the oppression of the people through excessive taxation, the Duke of Guienne, who was angry at the part taken by it, without consult- ing the court, in degrading John XXIII. at the Council of Con- stance, curtly told the spokesmen that they were interfering in matters beyond their competence ; and when the official orator attempted to reply, the duke had him arrested on the spot and kept in prison for several days.* Though its temporary ambition to rival the Parlement in state affairs was fortunately not gratified, in theology such a body as this was supreme. It would naturally be called upon, either as a whole or by delegates, to furnish the experts whose counsel was to guide bishop and inquisitor in the decision of cases ; and as the old heresies died out and new ones were evolved, every deviation from orthodoxy came to be submitted to it as a matter of course, when its decision was received as final. These were for the most part scholastic subtleties to which I shaU recur hereafter, as weU as to the great controversies over the Immaculate Conception of the Yirgin, and over Nominalism and Realism, in which it took a distinguished part. Sometimes, however, the questions were more practical. When some insolent wretch, in 1432, impudently told Frere Pierre de Yoie, the deputy-inquisitor of Evreux, that his citations were simply abuses, the offended functionary, in place of promptly clapping the recalcitrant into prison, plaintively re- ferred the case to the University, and had the satisfaction of re- ceiving a solemn decision that the words were audacious, pre- sumptuous, scandalous, and tending to rebellion (it did not say heretical), and that the utterer was liable to punishment. Ber- * Juvenal des Ursins, ann. 1411, 1413. — Religieux de S. Denis, Hist, de Charles VI. Liv. xxxn. ch. 14; xxxiii. ch. 1, 15, 16; xxxv. ch. 18. INFLUENCE OF THE UNIVERSITY. I37 nard Gui or Nicholas d' Abbeville would have asked for no such warrant.* To what an extent the University in time replaced the Inqui- sition in its neglected and forgotten functions is shown in 1498, in the case of the Observantine Franciscan, Jean Vitrier. In the restlessness and insubordination which heralded the Reformation, this obscure friar anticipated Luther even more than did John of Wesel, although in the strictness of his asceticism he taught that a wife might better break her marriage-vow than her fasts. In his preaching at Tournay he counselled the people to drag the concubines and their priests from theb houses with shame and de- rision ; he affirmed that it was a mortal sin to hsten to the masses of concubinary priests. Pardons and indulgences were the off- spring of heU : the faithful ought not to purchase them, for they were not intended for the maintenance of brothels. Even the intercession of the saints was not to be sought. These were old heresies for which any inquisitor would promptly offer the utterer the alternative of abjuration or the stake ; but the prelates and magistrates of Tournay referred the matter to the University, which laboriously extracted from Yitrier's sermons sixteen propo- sitions for condemnation, f Even more significant of the growing authority of the Univer- sity and the waning power of the Papacy was a decision rendered in 1502. Alexander YI. had levied a tithe on the clergy of France, with the customary excuse of prosecuting the war against the Turks. The clergy, whose consent had not been asked, refused to pay. The pope rejoined by excommunicating them, and they ap- phed to the University to know whether such a papal excommuni- cation was valid, whether it was to be feared, and whether they should consequently abstain from the performance of divine ser- vice. On all these points the University replied in the negative, unanimously and without hesitation. Had circumstances permit- ted the same independence in Germany, a little more progress in this direction would have rendered Luther superfluous.:}: It is not to be supposed, ho^vever, that the Inquisition, though fallen from its former dignity, had ceased to exist or to perform D'Argentrg, op. cit. I. n. 370. + Ibid. 1. 11. 340. t Ibid. I. n. 346. 138 FRANCE. its functions after a fasliion. It was to the interest of the popes to maintain it, and the position of inquisitor, though humble in comparison with that which his predecessors enjoyed, was yet a source of influence, and possibly of profit, which led to its being eagerly sought. In 1414 we find two contestants for the post at Toulouse, and in 1424 an unseemly quarrel between two rivals at Carcassonne. The diocese of Geneva was also the subject of con- tention embittered by the traditional rivalry between the two Mendicant Orders. It will be remembered that in 1290 this, with other French cantons, was included by Nicholas lY. in the in- quisitorial province of Besangon, which was Dominican. Geneva belonged, however, ecclesiastically to the metropoUs of Vienne, which was under the Franciscan Inquisition of Provence, and Gregory XI. so treated it in 1375. When Pons Feugeyron was commissioned, in 1409, Geneva was not mentioned in the enumera- tion of the dioceses under him ; but when his commission was re- newed by Martin V., in 1418, it was included, and he began to ex- ercise his powers there. There at once arose the threat of a most scandalous quarrel between the combative Orders ; the Domini- cans appealed to Martin, and in 1419 he restored Geneva to them. Yet in 1434, when Eugenius lY. again confirmed Pons Feugey- ron's commission, the name of Geneva once more slipped in. The Dominicans must again have successfully reclaimed it, for in 1472, when there was a sudden resumption of inquisitorial activity un- der Sixtus lY., in confirming Frere Jean Yaylette as Inquisitor of Provence, with the same powers as Pons Feugeyron, Geneva was omitted in the fist of his jurisdictions, while the Dominicans, Yic- tor Rufl and Claude Pufi, were appointed respectively at Geneva and Lausanne ; and in 1491 another Dominican, Francois Granet, was commissioned at Geneva.* Yet the position thus eagerly sought had no legitimate means of support. In the terrible disorders of the times the royal sti- pends had been withdrawn. Alexander Y., in 1409, instructed his legate, the Cardinal of S. Susanna, that some method must be de- vised of meeting the expenses of the inquisitor, his associate, his notary, and his servant. He suggests either levying three hundred * Wadding, ann. 1375, No. 17; 1418, No. 1, 2; 1419, No. 2 ; 1434, No. 2, 3; 1472, No. 24.— RipoU II. 522, 566-9, 637, 644 ; III. 487 ; IV. 6. DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION. 139 gold florins on the Jews of Avignon ; or that each bishop shall de- fray the cost as the inquisitor moves from one diocese to another ; or that each bishop shall contribute ten florins annually out of the legacies for pious uses. Which device was adopted does not ap- pear, but they all seem to have proved fruitless, for in 1418 Mar- tin Y. wrote to the Archbishop of Narbonne that he must find some means of supplying the necessary expenses of the Inquisi- tion. Under such circumstances the attraction of the office may, perhaps, be discerned from a petition, in this same year 1418, from the citizens of Avignon in favor of the Jews. The protection af- forded by the Avignonese popes to this proscribed class had ren- dered the city a Jewish centre, and they were found of much utih- ty ; but they were constantly molested by the inquisitors, who in- stituted frivolous prosecutions against them, doubtless not without profit. Martin listened kindly to the appeal, and it proves the degradation of the Inquisition that he gave the Jews a right to appoint an assessor who should sit with the inquisitor in all cases in which they were concerned.* Still the Inquisition was not wholly without evidence of ac- tivity in its purposed sphere of duty. We shall see hereafter that Pierre d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai, when, in 1411, he prosecuted the Men of Intelligence, duly called in the inquisitor of the prov- ince, who was Dominican Prior of St. Quentin in Vermandois, to join in the sentence. In 1430 we hear of a number of heretics who had been burned at LiUe by the deputy - inquisitor and the Bishop of Tournay ; and in 1431 Philippe le Bon ordered his of- ficials to execute all sentences pronounced by Brother Heim-ich Kaleyser, who had been appointed Inquisitor of Cambrai and LiUe by the Dominican Provincial of Germany — a manifest invasion of the rights of his colleague of Paris, doubtless due to the political complications of the times. This order of Philippe le Bon, how- ever, shows that the example of supervision set by the Parlement was not lost on the feudatories, for the officials are only instructed to make arrests when there has been a proper preliminary inquest, with observance of aU the forms of law. I shall have occiision hereafter to speak of the part played by the Inquisition in the tragedy of Joan of Arc, and need here only allude to the appoint- » Wadding, ann. 1409, No. 13 ; 1418, No. 1, 2, 4. 140 FRANCE. ment, in 1431, by Eugenius IV., of Frere Jean Graveran to be In- quisitor of Rouen, where he was already exercising tlie functions of the office, and where he was succeeded in 1433 by Frore Sebastien I'Abbe, who had been papal penitentiary and chaplain — another evidence of the partition of France during the disastrous English war. People were growing more careless about excommunication than ever. About 1415, a number of ecclesiastics of Limoges were prosecuted by the inquisitor, Jean du Puy, as suspect of heresy for this cause ; they appealed to the Council of Constance, and in 1418 the matter was referred back to the archbishop. Still the indif- ference to excommunication grew, and in 1435 Eugenius IV. in- structed the Inquisitor of Carcassonne to prosecute all who re- mained under the censure of the Church for several years without seeking absolution.* With the pacification of France and the final expulsion of the English, Nicholas V. seems to have thought the occasion oppor- tune for reviving and establishing the Inquisition on a firmer and broader basis. A bull of August 1, 1451, to Hugues le Noir, In- quisitor of France, defines his jurisdiction as extending not only over the Kingdom of France, but also over the Duchy of Aquitaine and all Gascony and Languedoc. Thus, with the exception of the eastern provinces, the whole was consolidated into one district, with its principal seat probably in Toulouse. The jurisdiction of the inquisitor was likewise extended over all offences that had hitherto been considered doubtful — blasphemy, sacrilege, divina- tion, even when not savoring of heresy, and unnatural crimes. He was further released from the necessity of episcopal co-opera- tion, and was empowered to carry on all proceedings and render judgment without calling the bishops into consultation. Two centuries earlier these enormous powers would have rendered Hugues ahnost omnipotent, but now it was too late. The Inqui- sition had sunk beyond resuscitation. In 1458 the Franciscan Minister of Burgundy represented to Pius II. the deplorable con- dition of the institution in the extensiv^e territories confided to Ms Order, comprising the great archiepiscopates of Lyons, Vienne, Aries, Aix, Embrun, and Tarantaise, and covering both sides of * Baluz. et Mansi I. 288-93.— Arch. Ggn. de Belgique, Papiers d'f:tat, v. 405.— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds Moreau, 444, fol. lO.-RipoU II. 533 ; III. 6, 8, 21, 193. DECLINE OF THE INQUISITION. 141 the Rhone and a considerable portion of Savoy. In the thirteenth century Clement IV. had placed this region under the control of the Burgundian Minister, but with the lapse of time his supervis- ion had become nominal. Ambitious friars had obtained directly from the popes commissions to act as inquisitors in special dis- tricts, and therefore acknowledged no authority but their own. Others had assumed the office without appointment from any one. There was no power to correct their excesses ; scandals were nu- merous, the people were oppressed, and the Order exposed to op- probrium. Pi as hastened to put an end to these abuses by re- newing the obsolete authority of the minister, with full power of removal, even of those who enjoyed papal commissions.* The Inquisition was thus reorganized, but its time had passed. To so low an ebb had it fallen that in this same year, 1458, Frere Berard Tremoux, Inquisitor of Lyons, who had aroused general hostilit}'^ by the rigor with which he exercised his office, was thrown in prison through the efforts of the citizens, and it re- quired the active interposition of Pius II. and his legate. Cardinal Alano, to effect his release. The venahty and corruption of the papal curia, moreover, was so ineradicable that no reform was pos- sible in anything subject to its control. But three years after Pius had placed the whole district under the Minister of Burgun- dy we find him renewing the old abuses by a special appointment of Brother Bartholomiius of Eger as Inquisitor of Grenoble. That such commissions were sold, or conferred as a matter of favor, there can be no reasonable doubt, and the appointees were turned loose upon their districts to wring what miserable gains they could from the fears of the people. Only this can explain a form of ap- pointment which became common as " inquisitor in the Kingdom of France," " without prejudice to other inquisitors authorized by us or by others " — a sort of letter-of -marque to cruise at large and make what the appointees could from the faithful. Similarly significant is the appointment of Frere Pierre Cordrat, confessor of Jean, Duke of Bourbon, in 1478, to be Inquisitor of Bourges, thus wholly disregarding the consolidation of the kingdom by Nicholas V. It is hardly necessary to extend the list further. Inquisitors were appointed by the popes in constant succession, Ripoll III. 301. — Wadding, ann. 1458, No. 12. 142 FRANCE. either for the kingdom of France or for special districts, as though tlie institution were at the height of its power and activity. That something was to be gained by all this there can be no question, but there is Uttle risk in assuming that the gainer was not re- ligion.* Several cases occurring about this period are interesting as illustrations of the spread of the spirit of inquiry and indepen- dence, and of the subordinate position to which the Inquisition had sunk. In 1459, at LiUe, there was burned a heretic known as Alphonse of Portugal, who led an austere life as an anchorite and frequented the churches assiduously, but who declared that since Gregory the Great there had been no true pope, and consequently no vahd administration of the sacraments. In the account which has reached us of his trial and execution there is no allusion to the intervention of the Holy Offica Still more significant is the case, in 1484, of Jean LaiUier, a priest in Paris, a theological licentiate, and an applicant for the doctorate in theology. In his sermons he had been singularly free-spoken. He denied the validity of the rule of celibacy; he quoted Wickliff as a great doctor; he rejected the supremacy of Rome and the binding force of tradition and decretal ; John XXIL, he said, had had no powei- to condemn Jean de PoiUy; so far from St. Francis occupying the vacant throne of Lucifer in heaven, he was rather with Lucifer in heU; since the time of Silvester the Holy See had been the church of avarice and of imperial power, where canonization could be ob- tained for money. So weak had become the traditional hold of the Church on the consciences of men that this revolutionary preaching seems to have aroused no opposition, even on the part of the Inquisition ; but Laillier, not content with simple toleration, applied to the University for the doctorate, and was refused ad- mission to the preliminary disputations unless he should purge himself, undergo penance, and obtain the assent of the Holy See. * Wadding, aun. 1458,'No. 13; 1461, No. 3. — Ripoll III. 317, 423, 487; IV. 103, 217, 303, 304, 356, 373. A MS. of Bernard Gui's Practica, now in the Municipal Library of Toulouse, bears a marginal note that it was lent by the Inquisition of Toulouse, in 1483, to the Dominicans of Bordeaux to be transcribed, thus showing that there was an Inquisition in operation in the latter city of which the members required instruc- tion in their duties (Moliuier, L'Inq. dans le midi de la France, p, 201). CASE OF JEAN LAILLIER. 143 Laillier thereupon boldly applied to the Parlement, now by tacit assent clothed with supreme jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters, asking it to compel the University to admit him. The Parlement entertained no doubts as to its own competence, but decided the case in a manner not looked for by the hardy priest. It ordered Louis, Bishop of Paris, in conjunction with the inquisitor and four doctors selected by the University, to prosecute Laillier to due punishment. The bishop and inquisitor agreed to proceed sepa- rately and communicate their processes to each other ; but Laillier must have had pow^erful backers, for Bishop Louis, without con- ferring with his colleague or the experts, allowed Lailher to make a partial recantation and a public abjuration couched in the most free and easy terms, absolved him, June 23, 1486, pronounced him free from suspicion of heresy, restored him to his functions, and declared him capable of promotion to all grades and honors. Frere Jean Cossart, the inquisitor, who had been diligently col- lecting evidence of many scandalous doctrines of LaiUier's and vainly communicating them to the bishop, was forced to swallow this affront in silence, but the University felt its honor engaged and was not incHned to submit. November 6, 1486, it issued a formal protest against the action of the bishop, appealed to the pope, and demanded " Apostoh." Innocent YIII. promptly came to the rescue. He annulled the decision of the bishop and ordered the inquisitor, in conjunction with the Archbishop of Sens and the Bishop of Meaux, to throw Laillier into prison, while they should investigate the unrecanted heresies and send the papers to Rome for decision. Very suggestive of the strong influences sup- porting Laillier is the pope's expression of fear lest the pressure brought to bear on the University should have forced it to admit him to the doctorate ; if so, such action is pronounced void, and all engaged in the attempt are ordered to desist under pain of in- curring suspicion of heresy. It is not a httle singular that the Bishop of Meaux, who was thus selected to sit in judgment on Laillier, was at this very time under censure by the University for reviving the Donatist heresy of the insufficiency of the sacraments in polluted hands — the Eucharist of a fornicating priest was of no more account, he said, than the barking of a dog. Many an un- fortunate Waldensian had been burned for less than this, but ihe inquisitor had not dared to hold him to account. Nor do we hear 144 FRANCE. of his intervention in the case of Jean Langlois, priest of St. Cris- pin, who, when celebrating mass, June 3, 1491, horrified his flock by casting on the floor and trampling the consecrated wine and host. On his arrest he gave as his reason that the body and blood of Christ were not in the elements, and as he stubbornly refused to recant, he expiated his error at the stake. Similar was the fate of Aymon Picard, who, at the feast of St. Louis in the Sainte-Cha- pelle, August 25, 1503, snatched the host from the celebrant and cast it in pieces on the floor, and obstinately declined to abjure. All this was significant of the time coming when the Inquisition would be more necessary than ever.* The present degradation which it shared with the rest of the Church in the constantly growing supremacy of the State is mani- fested by a commission issued in 1485, by Frere Antoine de Clede, appointing a vicar to act for him in Kodez and Yabres. In this document he styles himself Inquisitor of France, Aquitaine, Gas- cony, and Languedoc, deputed by the Holy See and the Parlement. The two bodies are thus equal sources of authority, and the ap- pointment by the pope would have been insuflicient without the confirmation by the royal court. How contemptible, indeed, the Inquisition had become, even in the eyes of ecclesiastics, is brought instructively before us in a petty quarrel between the Inquisitor Raymond Gozin and liis Dominican brethren. When he succeeded Frere Gaillard de la Roche, somewhere about 1516, he found that the house of the Inquisition at Toulouse had been stripped of its furniture and utensils by the friars of the Dominican convent. He made a reclamation, and some of the articles were restored ; but the friars subsequently demanded them back, and on his re- fusal procured from the General Master instructions to the vicar, under which the latter proceeded to extremities ^vith him, wholly disregarding his appeal to the pope, though he finally, in 1520, succeeded in obtaining the intervention of Leo X. Imagination could scarcely furnish a more convincing proof of decadence than this exhibition of the successor of Bernard de Caux and Bernard Gui vainly endeavoring to defend his kitchen gear from the rapar cious hands of his brethi^en.f * Mfemoires de Jacques du Clercq, Liv. iii. ch. 43. — D'Argentrfe, op. cit. L ll, 308-18, 319-20, 323, 347. t Bremond, ap. Ripoll IV. 373.— RipoU IV. 390. THE WALDENSES. 145 It is quite probable that this dispute was envenomed by the inevitable jealousy between the main body of the Order and its puritan section known as the Reformed Congregation. Of this latter Raymond Gozin was vicar-general, and his anxiety to re- gain his furnishings was probably due to the fact that he was al- tering the house of the Inquisition so as to accommodate within it a Reformed convent. The vast buildings which it had requu'ed in the plenitude of its power had become a world too wide for its shrunken needs. The original home of the Dominican Order, before the removal in 1230 through the liberality of Pons de Capdenier, it contained a church with three altars, a refectory, cells (or prison), chambers, guest-rooms, cloisters, and two gardens. In approving of the proposed alterations, Leo X. stipulated that some kind ot retiring-room with convenient offices must still be reserved for the use of the Inquisition. This epitomizes the history of the institu- tion. Yet it had by no means wholly lost its power of evil, for in 1521 Johann Bomm, Dominican Prior of Poligny, and inquisitor at Besangon had the satisfaction of despatching two lycanthropists, or wer-wolves.* The career of the Waldenses forms so interesting and well- defined an episode in the history of persecution that I have hitherto omitted aU reference to that sect, in order to present a brief, con- tinuous outline of its relations with the Inquisition, which found in it, after the disappearance of the Cathari, the only really im- portant field of labor in France, Although by no means as numerous or as powerful in Langue- doc as the Cathari, tlie Waldenses formed an important lieretical element. They were, however, mostly confined to the humbler classes, and we hear of few nobles belonging to the sect. In the sentences of Pierre Cella, rendered in Querci in 1241 and 1212, we have abundant testimony as to their numbers and activity. Thus, references occur to them — At Gourdon in 55 cases out of 219 AtMontcucqin 44 " " " 84 At Sauveterre in 1 case " " 5 * RipoU IV. 376.— Wieri de Prsestig. Daemon. Lib. vi. c. 11, II.— 10 146 FRANCE. At Belcayre in 3 cases out of 7 At Moutauban in 175 At Moissac in 1 At Montpezat in no At Montaut in no At Castelnau in 1 253 94 22 23 11 and although many of these are mere allusions to having seen them or had dealings with them, the comparative frequency of the reference indicates the places where their heresy was most flourishing. Thus, Montauban was evidently its headquarters in the district, and at Gourdon and Montcucq there were vigorous colonies. They had a regular organization — schools for the young where their doctrines were doubtless implanted in the children of ortho- dox parents ; cemeteries where their dead were buried ; missiona- ries who traversed the land diligently to spread the faith, and who customarily refused all alms, save hospitality. A certain Pierre des Yaux is frequently referred to as one of the most active and most beloved of these, regarded, according to one of his dis- ciples, as an angel of light. Public preaching in the streets was constant, and numerous allusions are made to disputations held be- tween the Waldensian ministers and the Catharan perfects. Still, the utmost good feeling existed between the two persecuted sects. Men were found who confessed to beheving in the Waldenses and to performing acts of adoration to the Cathari — in the common enmity to Rome any faith which was not orthodox was regarded as good. The reputation of the Waldenses as skilful leeches was a powerful aid in their missionary labors. They were constantly consulted in cases of disease or injury, and almost without excep- tion they refused payment for their ministrations, save food. One woman confessed to giving forty sols to a Catharan for medical services, while to Waldenses she gave only wine and bread. We learn also that they heard confessions and imposed penance ; that they celebrated a sacramental supper in which bread and fish were blessed and partaken of, and that bread which they consecrated with the sign of the cross was regarded as holy by their disciples. Notmthstanding the strength and organization of the sect, the Waldenses were evidently looked upon by Pierre Cella with a less THE WALDENSES. 147 unfavorable eye than the Cathari, and the penances imposed on them were habitually Ughter.* From Lyons the Waldensian belief had spread to the North and East, as well as to the South and "West. It is a curious fact that while the Cathari never succeeded in establishing themselves to any extent beyond the Romance territories, the Waldenses were already, in 1192, so numerous in Lorraine that Eudes, Bishop of Toul, in ordering them to be captured and brought to him in chains for judgment, not only promises remission of sins as a re- ward, but feels obhged to add that if, for rendering this service, the faithful are driven away from their homes, he will find them in food and clothing. In Tranche Comte, John, Count of Bur- gundy, bears emphatic testimony to their numbers in 1248, when he sohcited of Innocent IV. the introduction of the Inquisition in his dominions, and its discontinuance in 1257 doubtless left them to multiply in peace. In 1251 we find the Archbishop of Narbonne condemning some female Waldenses to perpetual im- prisonment. It was, however, in the mountains of Auvergne and the Alpine and sub -Alpine regions stretching between Geneva and the Mediterranean that they found the surest refuge. While Pierre CeUa was penancing those of Querci, the Archbishop of Embrun was busy with their brethren of Freyssinieres, Argen- tiere, and Yal-Pute, which so long continued to be their strong- holds. In 1251, when Alphonse and Jeanne, on their accession, guar- anteed at Beaucaire the hberties of Avignon and the Comtat Ye- naissin, the Bishop-legate Zoen earnestly urged them to destroy the Waldenses there. There were ample laws on the municipal statute-books of Avignon and Aries for the extermination of "heretics and Waldenses," but the local magistracy was slack in their enforcement and was obhged to swear to extirpate the sec- taries. The Waldenses were mostly simple mountain folk, with • Coll. Doat, XXI. 197, 203, 208, 223, 225, 232, 233, 234, 236, 238, 241, 244, 250, 252, 254, 261-2, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 269, 270, 271, 275, 276, 281, 282, 289, 296. It is perhaps worthy of note that Raymond de P6reille, the Castellan of MontsSgur, and his companions, when on trial, while freely giving evidence about innumerable Cathari. declared that they knew nothing whatever about Waldenses, which would seem to indicate that there was little communication between the sects (Doat, XXTT. 217 ; XXIII. 344; XXIV. 8). 148 FRANCE. possessions that offered no temptation for confiscation, and perse- cuting energy was more profitable and more usefully directed against the richer Cathari. We hear, indeed, that from 1271 to 1274 the zeal of Guillaume de Cobardon, Seneschal of Carcas- sonne, urged the inquisitors to active work against the Waklenses, resulting in numerous convictions, but among the far more popu- lous communities near the Rhone the Inquisition was not intro- duced into the Comtat Venaissin until 1288, nor into Dauphine until 1292, and in both cases we are told that it was caused by the alarming spread of heresy. In 1288 the same increase is al- luded to in the provinces of Aries, Aix, and Embrun, when Nich- olas IV. sent to the nobles and magistrates there the laws of Frederic II., with orders for their enforcement, and to the inquis- itors a code of instructions for procedure.* About the same period there is a curious case of a priest named Jean Philibert, who was sent from Burgundy into Gascony to track a fugitive Waldensian. He followed his quarry as far as Ausch, where he found a numerous community of the sectaries, holding regular assemblies and preaching and performing their rites, although they attended the parish churches to avert suspi- cion. Their evangehcal piety so won upon him that, after going home, he returned to Ausch and formally joined them. He wan- dered back to Burgundy, where he fell under suspicion, and in 1298 he was brought before Gui de Reims, the Inquisitor of Be- sangon, when he refused to take an oath and was consigned to prison. Here he abjured, and on being Uberated returned to the Waldenses of Gascony, was again arrested, and brought before Bernard Gui in 1311, who finally burned him in 1319 as a re- lapsed. In 1302 we hear of two Waldensian ministers haunting the region near Castres, in the Albigeois, wandering around by night and zealously propagating their doctrines. Still, in spite of these evidences of activity, little effort at repression is visible at * Statut. Synod. Odonis Tullensis ann. 1192, c. ix., x. (Martene Thesaur. IV. 1180). — RipoU I. 183. — Douais, Les sources de I'histoire de I'Inq. (Revue des Questions Historiques, Oct. 1881, p. 434). — Peyrat, Les Alb. et I'lnquis. III. 74. — Chabrand, Vaudois et Protestants des Alpes, Grenoble, 1886, p. 34. — Havet, L'heresie et le bras seculier (Bib. de rf^cole des Chartes, 1880, p. 585). — Vais- sette, IV. 17. — A. Molinier (Vaissette, fid. Privat, VI. 819). — Wadding, ann. 1288, No. 14-15; 1292, No. 3.— Raynald. ann. 1288, No. 27-8. THE WALDENSES. 149 this period. The Inquisition was crippled for a while by its con- test with Philippe le Bel and Clement V., and when it resumed unrestricted operations, Pierre Autier and his Catharan disciples absorbed its energies. Although the sentences of Bernard Gui at Toulouse commence in 1308, it is not until the auto de fS of 1316 that any Waldenses appear among its victims, \vhen one was con- demned to perpetual imprisonment and one was burned as an un- repentant heretic. The auto of 1319 appears to have been a jail- delivery, for poor wretches appear in it whose confessions date back to 1309, 1311, 1312, and 1315. On this occasion eighteen Waldenses were condemned to pilgrimages with or without cross- es, twenty-six to perpetual prison, and three were burned. In the auto of 1321 a man and his wife who obstinately refused to ab- jure were burned. In that of 1322 eight were sentenced to pil- grimages, of whom five had crosses, two to prison, six dead bodies were exhumed and burned, and there is an allusion to the brother of one of the prisoners who had been burned at Avignon. This comprises the whole work of Bernard Grui from 1308 to 1323, and does not indicate any very active persecution. It is perhaps note- worthy that all of those punished in 1319 were from Ausch, while the popular name of " Burgundians," by which the Waldenses were known, indicates that the headquarters of the sect were still in Franche Comte. In fact, an allusion to a certain Jean de Lor- raine as a successful missionary indicates that region as busy in proselyting efforts, and there are not wanting facts to prove that the Inquisition of Besangon was active during this period. In the auto of 1322 many of the sufferers were refugees from Burgundy, and we learn that they had a provincial named Girard, showing that the Waldensian Church of that region had a regular organi- zation and hierarchy.* In his "Pracfo'ca" Bernard Gui gives a clear and detailed statement of the Waldensian belief as it existed at this time, the chief points of which may be worth enumerating as affording us a definite view of the development of the faith in its original seat after a century and a half of persecution. There ^vas no longer any self-deceit as to connection with the Roman Church. Perse- » Lib. Sententt. Tiki. Tolos. pp. 200-1, 207-8, 21G-43, 252^. 262-r), 289-90, 340-7, 352, 355, 3G4-66.— Arch, de I'luci. de Carcass. (Doat, XXVII. 7 sqq.). 150 FRANCE. cution had done its work, and the Waldenses were permanently severed. Theirs was the true Church, and that of the pope was but a house of hes, whose excommunication was not to be re- garded, and whose decrees were not to be obeyed. They had a complete organization, consisting of bishops, priests, and deacons, and they held in some large city one or two general chapters ev- ery year, in which orders were conferred and measures for mission work were perfected. The Waldensian orders, however, did not confer exclusive supernatural power. Although they still believed in transubstantiation, the making of the body and blood of Christ depended on the purity of the ministrant ; a sinner was impotent to effect it, while it could be done by any righteous man or wom- an. It was the same with absolution : they held the power of the keys direct from Christ, and heard confessions and imposed pen- ance. Their antisacerdotahsm was strongly expressed in the sim- plification of their faith. There was no purgatory, and conse- quently masses for the dead or the invocation of the suffrages of the saints were of no avail; the saints, in fact, neither heard nor helped man, and the miracles performed in their name in the churches were fictitious. The fasts and feasts prescribed in the calendar were not to be observed, and the indulgences so lavishly sold were useless. As of old, oaths and homicide were forbidden. Yet enough of the traditional ascetic tendencies were preserved to lead to the existence of a monastic fraternity whose members divested themselves of all individual property, and promised chas- tity, with obedience to a superior. Bernard Gui refers, with a brevity which shows how little importance he attached to them, to stories about sexual abominations performed in nocturnal as- semblies, and he indicates the growth of popular superstition by a brief allusion to a dog which appears in these gatherings and sprinkles the sectaries with his tail.'* The non-resistance doctrines of the Waldenses rendered them, as a rule, a comparatively easy prey, but human nature sometimes asserted itself, and a sharp persecution carried on at this period by Frere Jacques Bernard, Inquisitor of Provence, provoked a bloody reprisal. In 1321 he sent two deputies — Freres Catalan Fabri and Pierre Paschal — to the diocese of Valence to make in- * Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. v. (Doat, XXX.). THE WALDENSES. 151 quisition there. Former raids had left the people in an angry mood. Multitudes had been subjected to the humiliation of crosses, and these and their friends vowed revenge on the appearance of the new persecutors. A plot was rapidly formed to assassinate the inquisitors at a village where they were to pass the night. For some reason, however, they changed their plans, and passed on to the Priory of Montoison. The conspirators followed them, broke down the doors, and slew them. Strangely enough, the Prior of Montoison was accused of comphcity in the murder, and was ar- rested when the mm'derers were seized. Tlie bodies of the mar- tyrs were solemnly buried in the Franciscan convent at Yalence, where they soon began to manifest their sanctity in miracles, and they would have been canonized by John XXII. had not the quarrel which soon afterwards sprang up between him and the Franciscans rendered it impolitic for him to increase the number of Franciscan saints.* A few Waldenses appear in the prosecutions of Henri de Cha- may of Carcassonne in 1328 and 1329, and, from the occasional notices which have reached us in the succeeding years, we may conclude that persecution, more or less fitful, never whoUy ceased ; while, in spite of this, the heresy kept constantly growing. After the disappearance of Catharism, indeed, it was the only refuge for ordinary humanity when dissatisfied with Eome. The Beggliards were mystics whose speculations were attractive only to a certain order of minds. The Spirituals and FraticeUi were Franciscan as- cetics. The Waldenses sought only to restore Christianity to its simphcity; their doctrines could be understood by the poor and iUiterate, groaning under the burdens of sacerdotalism, and the}'^ found constantly wider acceptance among the people, in spite of aU the efforts put forth by the waning power of the Inquisition. Benedict XII., in 1335, summoned Humbert II., Dauphin of Yien- nois, and Adhemar of Poitou to assist the inquisitors. Humbert obeyed, and from 1336 to 13-16 there were expeditions sent against them which drove them from their homes and captured some of them. Of these a portion abjured and the rest were burned ; their possessions were confiscated and the bones of the dead exhumed. The secular and ecclesiastical officials of Embrun joined in these * Wadding, aim. 1321, No. 21-4. 152 FRANCE. efforts, but they had no permanent result. In Languedoc Frere Jean Dumoulin, Inquisitor of Toulouse, in 1344 attacked them vigorously, but only succeeded in scattering them throughout Beam, Foix, and Aragon. In 1348 Clement VI. again urged Humbert, who responded Avith strict orders to his officers to aid the ecclesiastical authorities with what force might be necessary, and this time we hear of twelve Waldenses brought to Embrun, and burned on the square in front of the cathedral. When Dau- phine became a possession of the crown the royal officials were equally ready to assist. Letters of October 20, 1351, from the governor, order the authorities of Briancon to give the inquisitor armed support in his operations against the heretics of the Brian- connais, but this seems to have been ineffective ; and the next year Clement VI. appealed to the Dauphin Charles, and to Louis and Joanna of l^aples, to aid Frere Pierre Dumont, the Inquisitor of Provence, and summoned prelates and magistrates to co-operate in the good work. The only recorded result of this was the pen- ancing of seven "Waldenses by Dumont in 1353. More successful w^ere the Christian labors of Guillaume de Bordes, Archbishop of Embrun from 1352 to 1363, surnamed the Apostle of the Walden- ses, who tried the unusual expedient of kindness and persuasion. He personally visited the mountain vaUeys, and had the satisfac- tion of winning over a number of the heretics. With his death his methods were abandoned, and Urban Y., from 1363 to 1365, was earnest in caUhig upon the ci\^l power and in stimulating the zeal of the Provencal inquisitors, Freres Hugues Cardihon and Jean Richard. The celebrated inquisitor Frangois Borel now appears upon the scene. Armed expeditions were sent into the mountains which had considerable success. Many of the heretics were obstinate and were burned, while others saved their lives by abjuration. Their pitiful little properties were confiscated; one had a cow, another two cows and clothes of white cloth. In the purse of another, more wealth}^, were found two florins — a booty which scarce proved profitable, for the wood to burn him and a comrade cost sixty-two sols and six deniers. One woman named Juven who was burned possessed a vineyard. The vintage was gathered and the must stored in her cabin, when the wrathful neighbors fired it at night and destroyed the product.* * Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXVII. 119 sqq.). — Raynald. ann. 1335, THE WALDENSES. 153 All this was of no avail. When Gregory XI. ascended the pon- tifical throne, in 13Y0, his attention was early directed to the de- plorable condition of the Church in Provence, Dauphine, and the Lyonnais. The whole region was full of Waldenses, and many nobles were now beginning to embrace the heresy. The prelates were powerless or negUgent, and the Inquisition ineffective. He set to work vigorously, appointing inquisitors and stimulating their zeal, but the whole system by this tune was so discredited that his labors were ineffectual. The royal officials, so far from aiding the inquisitors, had no scruple in impeding them. Unsafe places were assigned to them in which to conduct their operations ; they were forced to permit secular judges to act as assessors with them ; their proceedings were submitted for revision to the secular courts, and even their prisoners were set at liberty without consulting them. The secular officials refused to take oaths to purge the land of heresy, and openly protected heretics, especially nobles, when prosecutions were commenced against them.* Gregory duly complained of this to Charles le Sage in 1373, but to little purpose at first. The evil continued unabated, and in 13Y5 he returned to the charge still more vigorously. No stone was left unturned. Not only was the king requested to send a special deputy to the infected district, but the pope wrote directly to the royal lieutenant, Charles de Banville, reproaching him for his protection of heretics, and threatening him if he did not mend his ways. Certain nobles who had become conspicuous as favorers of heresy were significantly reminded of the fate of Raymond of Toulouse ; the prelates were scolded and stimulated ; Amedeo of Savoy was summoned to ;;ssist, and the Tarantaise was added to the district of Provence that nothing might interfere with the i)ro- jected campaign. As the spread of heresy was attributable to the lack of preachers, and to the neglect of prelates and clergy in in- structing their flocks, the inquisitor was empowered to call in the services of Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians, to spread over the land and teach the people the truths of religion. No. 63; 1344, No. 9; 1352, No. 20. — Chabrand, op. cit. pp. 36-7. — Wadding ann. 1353, No. 14, 15; 1363, No. 14, 15; 1364, No. 14, 15; 1365, No. 3.— Lom- bard, Pierre Valdo et les Vaudois du Brian^onnais, Geneve, 1880, pp. 17, 20, 23-7. • Raynald. ann. 1372, No. 34 ; ann. 1373, No. 19. 154 FRANCE. These multiplied efforts at length began to tell. Charles issued orders to enforce the laws against heresy, and when Gregory sent a special Apostolic Internuncio, Antonio, Bishop of Massa, to direct operations, persecution began in earnest. Frere Frangois Borel, the Inquisitor of Provence, had long been struggling against the indifference of the prelates and the hostility of the secular power. Now that he was sure of efficient seconding he was Uke a hound shpped from the leash. His forays against the miserable popula- tions of Freyssinieres, I'Argentiere, and Val-Pute (or Val-Louise) have conferred on him a sinister reputation, unredeemed by the efficient aid which he contributed to regaining the liberties of his native town of Gap.* The immediate success which rewarded these efforts was so overwhelming as to bring new cause for solicitude. The Bishop of Massa's mission commenced early in May, 1375, and already, by June 17, Gregory is concerned about the housing and support of the crowds of wretches who had been captured. In spite of nu- merous burnings of those who proved obstinate, the prisons of the land were insufficient for the detention of the captives, and Gregory at once ordered new and strong ones to be built in Embrun, Avi- gnon, and Yienne. To solve the financial comphcations which im- mediately arose, the bishops, whose negligence w^as accountable for the growth of heresy, were summoned within three months to fur- nish four thousand gold florins to build the prisons, and eight hundred florins per annum for five years for the support of the prisoners. This they were allowed to take from the legacies for pious uses, and the restitutions of wrongly-acquired funds, with a threat, if they should demur, that they should be deprived of these sources of income and be excommunicated besides. The bishops, however, were no more amenable to such arguments than those of Languedoc had been in 1245, and, after the three months had passed, Gregory answers, October 5, the anxious inquiry of the Bishop of Massa as to how he shaU feed his prisoners, by teUing him that it is the business of every bishop to support those of his diocese, and that any one who refuses to do so is to be coerced with excommunication and the secular arm. This was a mere hrutum * Wadding, aun. 1375, No. 11-19.— D'Argentre, op. cit. I. i. 394.— Ripoll II. 289.— Raynald. ann. 1375, No. 36.— Gautier, Hist, de la Ville de Gap, p. 39. THE WALDENSES. 155 fulmen, Sind in 1376 he endeavored to secure a share in the con- fiscations, but King Charles refused to divide thorn, though in 1878 he at last agreed to give the inquisitors a yearly stipend for their own support, similar to that paid to their brethren at Toulouse.* All other devices being exhausted, Gregory at last had recourse to the unfailing resource of the curia — an indulgence. There is something so appallingly grotesque in tearing honest, industrious folk from their homes by the thousand, in thrusting them into dungeons to rot and starve, and then evading the cost of feeding them by presenting them to the faithful as objects of charity, that the proclamation which Gregory issued August 15, 1376, is per- haps the most shameless monument of a shameless age — "To all the faithful in Christ: As the help of prisoners is counted among pious works, it befits the piety of the faithful to mercifully assist the incarcerated of all kinds who suffer from poverty. As we learn that our beloved son, the In- quisitor Fran9ois Borelli, has imprisoned for safe-keeping or punishment many heretics and those defamed for heresy, who in consequence of their poverty can- not be sustained in prison unless the pious liberality of the faithful shall assist them as a work of charity ; and as we wish that these prisoners shall not starve, but shall have time for repentance in the said prisons; now, in order that the faithful in Christ may througli devotion lend a helping hand, we admonish, ask, and exhort you all, enjoining it on you in remission of your sins, that from the goods which God has given you, you bestow pious alms and grateful charity for the food of these prisoners, so that they may be sustained by your help, and you, through this and other good works inspired by God, may attain eternal blessed- ness 1" t Imagination refuses to picture the horrors of the economically constructed jails where these unfortunates were crowded to wear out their dreary hves, while their jailers vainly begged for the miserable pittance that should prolong their agonies. Yet so far was Gregory from being satisfied with victims in number far beyond his ability to keep, that, December 28, 1375, he bitterly scolded the officials of Dauphine for the negligent manner in which they obeyed the king's commands to aid the inquisitors — a com- plaint which he reiterated May 18, 1376. From some expressions in these letters it is permissible to assume that this whole inhuman * Lombard, op. cit. pp. 27-8.— Wadding, ann. 1375, No. 21-3.— Isambert, Auc. LoixFran9. IV.491. t Wadding, ann. 1376, No. 3. 156 FRANCE. business had shocked even the dull sensibilities of that age of vio- lence. Yet in spite of all that had been accomplished the heretics remained obstinate, and in 1377 Gregory indignantly chronicles their increase, while reproaching the inquisitors with their slack- ness in performing the duties for which they had been appointed.* What effect on the future of the Waldenses a continuance of Gregory's remorseless energy would have wrought can only be matter of conjecture. He died March 27, 1378, and the Great Schism which speedily followed gave the heretics some rehef, dur- ing which they continued to increase, although in 1380 Clement YII. renewed the commission of Borel, whose activity was un- abated until 1393, and his victims were numbered by the hundred. A good many conversions rewtarded his labors, and the converts were allowed to retain their property on payment of a certain sum of money, as shown by a list made out in 1385. In 1393 he is said to have burned a hundred and fifty at Grenoble in a single day. San Vicente Ferrer was a missionary of a different stamp, and his self -devoted labors for several years in the Waldensian valleys won over numerous converts. His memory is stiU cher- ished there, and the village of Puy-Saint-Yincent, with a chapel dedicated to him, shows that his kindly ministrations were not altogether lost.f The Waldenses by this time were substantially the only heretics with whom the Church had to deal outside of Germany. The French version of the Schwabe^isjnegel, or South German municipal code, made for the Romande speaking provinces of the empire, is assignable to the closing years of the century, and it attests the predominance of Waldensianism in its chapter on heresy, by trans- lating the Kdczer (Catharus) of the original by vaudois. Even " Leschandus " (Childeric III.) is said to have been dethroned by Pope Zachary because he was a protector of vaudois. That at this period the Inquisition had become inoperative in those regions where it had once been so busy is proved by the episcopal tribunals being alone referred to as having cognizance of such cases — the * Wadding, ann. 1375, No. 34; ann, 1376, No. 3.— Arch, de I'lnq. de Carcasi. (Doat, XXXV. 163). t Perrin's Waldenses, translated by Lennard, London, 1624, Bk. 2 pp. 18, It. — Leger, Hist, des ^glises Vaudoises II. 26. — Cliabrand, op. cit. pp. 39, 40. THE WALDENSES. I57 tieretic is to be accused to his bishop, who is to have him examined by experts.^ How completely the Waldenses dropped out of sight in the struggles of the Great Schism is seen in a bull of Alexander V., in 1409, to Frcre Pons Feugeyron, whose enormous district ex- tended from Marseilles to Lyons and from Beaucaire to the Val d'Aosta. This comprehended the whole district Avhich Francois Borel and Vicente Ferrer found swarming with heretics. The in- quisitor is urged to use his utmost endeavors against the schismatic followers of Benedict XIIL and Gregory XII,, against the increas- ing numbers of sorcerers, against apostate Jews and the Talmud, but not a word is said about Waldenses. They seem to have been completely forgotten, f After the Church had reorganized itself at the Council of Con- stance it had leisure to look after the interests of the faith, although its energies were mostly monopohzed by the Hussite troubles. In 1417 we hear of Catharine Sauve, an anchorite, burned at Mont- peUier for Waldensian doctrines by the deputy - inquisitor, Frere Raymond Cabasse, assisted by the Bishop of Maguelonne. The absence of persecution had by no means been caused by a diminu- tion in the number of heretics. In 1432 the Council of Boursres complained that the Waldenses of Dauphine had taxed themselves to send money to the Hussites, whom they recognized as brethren ; and there were plenty of them to be found by any one who took the trouble to look after them. On August 23, of this same year, we have a letter from Frere Pierre Fabri, Inquisitor of Embrun, to the Council of Basle, excusing himself for not immediately obey- ing a summons to attend it on the ground of his indescribable poverty, and of his preoccupations in persecuting the Waldenses. In spite of the great executions which he had already made, he describes them as flourishing as numerously as ever in the valleys of Freyssinieres, Argentiere, and Pute, which had been almost de- populated by the ferocious raids of Frangois Borel. He now has in his dungeons of Embrun and Briangon six relapsed heretics, Avho have revealed to him the names of more than five hundred others whom he is about to seize, and whose trials wiU be a work of time, * Miroir de Souabe, ch. 89 (Ed. Matile, Neuchatel, 1843). t Wadding, arm. 1409, No. 12. 158 FRANCE. but as soon as he can absent himself without prejudice to the faith his (ii'st duty will be to attend the council. Evidently the harvest was abundant and the reapers were few.* In l-i-il the Inquisitor of Provence, Jean Yoyle, made some effort at persecution, but apparently with little result, and the Waldensian churches seem to have enjoyed a long respite, for the terrible episode of the so-called Yaudois of Arras, in 1460, as we shall see hereafter, was merely a delirium of witchcraft. In France, so completely had the Waldenses monopolized the field of misbelief in the public mind that sorcery became popularly known as vauderie and witches as vaudoises. Accordingly, when, in 1465, at LiUe, five " Poor Men of Lyons " were tried, and four of them recanted and one was burned, it was necessary to find some other name for them, and they were designated as Turelu- pins.f It is not until 14Y5 that we find the inquisitors again at work in their old hunting-ground among the valleys around the head- waters of the Durance. The Waldenses had quietly multiplied again. They held their conventicles undisturbed, they dared openly to preach their abhorred faith, and their missionary zeal was rewarded with abundant conversions. Worse than all, when the bishops and inquisitors sought to repress them in the accus- tomed manner, they appealed to the royal court, which was so un- true to its duty that it granted them letters of protection and they waxed more insolent than ever. In vain Sixtus lY. sent special commissions armed with full powers to put an end to this disgrace- ful state of things. Men at this time in France recked little of papal authority, and the commissioners found themselves scorned. Sixtus, therefore, July 1, 1475, addressed an earnest remonstrance to Louis XL The king was surely ignorant of the acts of his representatives ; he would hasten to disavow them and lend the * Mary-Lafon, Hist, du raidi de la France, III. 384.— C. Bituricens. ann. 1432 (Harduin. VIII. 1459).— Martcne Ampl. Coll. VII. 161-3. t Leger, Hist, des l^glises vaudoises, II. 24. — Duverger, La Vuuderie dans les !&tats de Philippe le Bon, Arras, 1885, p. 112. Even in the early part of the sixteenth century, Robert Gaguin, in speaking of riding on a broomstick and worshipping Satan, adds " quod impietatis genus Valdensium esse dicitur " (Rer. Gallican. Annal. Lib. x. p. 242. Francof ad M. 1587). THE WALDENSES. I59 whole power of the State, as of old, to the support of the Inqui- sition.* The correspondence which ensued would doubtless be interest- ing reading if it were accessible. Its purport, however, can read- ily be discerned in the Ordonnance of May 18, 1478, which marks in the most emphatic manner the supremacy which the State had obtained over the Church. The king assumed that his subjects of Dauphine were all good Catholics. In a studied tone of contemp- tuous insolence he alludes to the old Mendicants {meiix mendiens) styhng themselves inquisitors, who vex the faithful with accusa- tions of heresy and harass them with prosecutions in the royal and ecclesiastical courts for purposes of extortion or to secure the confiscation of their property. He therefore forbids his officers to aid in making such confiscations, decrees that the heirs shall be re- instated in all cases that have occurred, and in order to put a stop to the frauds and abuses of the inquisitors he strictly enjoins that for the future they shaU not be permitted to prosecute the inhabi- tants in any manner, f Such was the outcome of the efforts which, for two hundred and fifty years, the Church had unremittingly made to obtain des- potic control over the human mind. For far less tlian such defi- ance it had destroyed Raymond of Toulouse and the civilization of Languedoc. It had built up the monarchy with the spoils of heresy, and now the monarchy cuffed it and bade it bury its In- quisition out of the sight of decent men. This put an end for a time to the labors of the Inquisition against the Waldenses of Dauphine, but the troubles of the latter were by no means over. The death of Louis, in 1483, deprived them of their })7'otector, and the Italian policy of Charles VIII. rendered him less indifferent to the wishes of the Holy See. At the request of the Archbishop of Embrun, Innocent YIII. ordered the persecutions renewed. The Franciscan Inquisitor, Jean Veyleti, whose excesses had caused the appeal to the throne in 1475, was soon again at work, and had the satisfaction of burning both consuls of Freyssinieres. Though the Waldenses had represented themselves to Louis XL as faithful Cathohcs, the ancient errors were readily brought to * Martene Ampl. Collect. II. 1506-7. t Isambert, Anc. Loix Fran9. X. 793^. 160 FRANCE. light by the efficient means of torture. Though they believed in transubstantiation, tliey denied that it could be effected l)y sinful priests. Their ha/rbes, or pastors, were ordained, and administered absolution after confession, but the pope, the bishops, and the priests had lost tliat power. They denied the existence of purga- tory, the utility of prayers for the dead, the intercession of saints, the power of the Virgin, and the obligation of keeping any feast- days save Sunday. Wearied with their stubbornness, the arch- bishop, in June and July, 1486, summoned them either to leave the country or to come forward and submit, and as they did neither he excommunicated them. This was equally ineffective, and he appealed again to Innocent VIII., who resolved to end the heresy with a decisive blow. Accordingly, in 1488, a crusade on a large scale was organized in both Dauphine and Savoy. The papal commissioner, Alberto de' Capitanei, obtained the assistance of the Parlement of Grenoble, and a force was raised under the command of Hugues de La Palu, Comte de Vanax, to attack them on every side. The attack was delayed by legal formalities, during which they were urged to submission, but refused, saying that their faith was pure and that they would die rather than abandon it. At length, in March, 1489, the crusaders advanced. The valley of Pragelato was the first assailed, and, after a few days, was reduced to the alternative of death or abjuration, when fifteen obstinate heretics were burned. In Val Cluson and Freyssinieres the resist- ance was more stubborn and there was considerable carnage, which so frightened the inhabitants of Argentiere that they submitted peaceably. In Val Louise the people took refuge in the cavern of Aigue Fraide, which they imagined inaccessible, but La Palu suc- ceeded in reaching it, and built fires in the mouth, suffocating the unhappy refugees. This, and the confiscations which followed, divided between Charles VIII. and the Archbishop of Embrun, gave a fatal blow to Waldensianism in the vaUeys. To prevent its resuscitation the legate left behind him Francois Ploireri as Inquisitor of Provence, who continued to harass the people with citations and pronounced condemnations for contumacy, burning an occasional hai^he and confiscating the property of relapsed and hardened heretics.* • Chabrand, op. cit. pp. 43, 48-53, 70.— Herzog, Die romanischen Waldenser THE WALDENSES. 161 With a new king, in the person of Louis XII., there came a new phase in the affairs of the Waldenses. A conference was held in Paris before the royal chancellor, where envoys from Freys- sinieres met Rostain, the new Archbishop of Embrun, and deputies of the Parlement of Grenoble. It was resolved to send to the spot papal and royal commissioners, with power to determine the status of the so-caUed heretics. They went to Freyssinieres and examined witnesses, who satisfied them that the population were good Cathohcs, in spite of the urgent assertions of the archbishop that they were notorious heretics. All the excommunications were removed, which put an end to the prosecutions. On October 12, 1502, Louis XII. confirmed the decision, and Alexander VI., to whose son, Caesar Borgia, Louis had given the Duchy of Valenti- nois, embracing the territory in question, ^vas not disposed to run counter to the royal wishes. The Waldenses were, however, un- able to loosen the grip of the Archbishop of Embrun on the prop- erty which he had confiscated, in spite of positive orders for its restoration from the king, but at least they were allowed, under the guise of Cathohcism, to worship God after their own fashion, until the crowding pressure of the Reformation forced them to a merger with the Calvinists. In the Brianconnais, in spite of occasional burnings, heresy continued to spread until, in 1514, Antoine d'Estaing, Bishop of Angouleme, was sent tliither, when the measures he adopted, vigorously enforced by the secular authorities, put an end to it in a few years.* pp. 277-82.— D'Argentrfe 1. 1. 105.— Leger, Hist, des flglises Vaudoises H. 23-5. — Filippo de Boni, I Calabro-Valdesi p. 71.— Comba, Histoire des Vaudois d'ltalie, Paris, 1887, I. 160-66, 169. Tlie Waldensian legend relates that in the cavetn of Aigue-Fraide the num- ber of victims was three tiiousand, of whom four hundred were children, but I think that M. Cliabrand has sufficiently demonstrated its exaggerated improba- bility (Op. cit. pp. 53-9). * Herzog, op. cit. pp. 283-5. — Perrin, Hist. Waldens. B. ii. ch. 3. — Chabrand, op. cit. pp. 73-4. IL— 11 CHAPTER III. THE SPANISH PENINSULA. The kingdom of Aragon, stretching across both sides of the Pyrenees, with a population kindred in blood and speech to that of Mediterranean France, was particularly hable to inroads of her- esy from the latter. The Counts of Barcelona had been Carlo- vingian vassals, and even owned a shadowy allegiance to the first Capetians. We have seen how ready were Pedro II. and his suc- cessors to aid in resisting Prankish encroachments, even at the cost of encouraging heresy, and it was inevitable that schismatic missions should be estabhshed in populous centres such as Barce- lona, and that heretics, when hard-pressed, should seek refuge in the mountains of Cerdana and Urgel. In spite of this, however, heresy never obtained to the west of the Pyrenees the foothold which it enjoyed to the east. Its manifestations there were only spasmodic, and were suppressed with effort comparatively slender. It is somewhat remarkable that we hear nothing specifically of the Cathari in Aragon proper. Matthew Paris, indeed, teUs a wild tale of how, in 1234, they were so numerous in the parts of Spain that they decreed the abrogation of Christianity, and raised a large army with which they burned churches and spared neither age nor sex, until Gregory IX. ordered a crusade against them throughout western Europe, when in a stricken field they were all cut off to a man ; but this may safely be set down to the imag- ination of some pilgrim returning from Compostella and desiring to repay a night's hospitality at St. Alban's. In the enumeration of Rainerio Saccone, about 1250, there is no mention of any Cath- aran organization west of the Pyrenees. That many Cathari existed in Aragon there can be no doubt, but they are never de- scribed as such, and the only heretics of whom we hear by name are los eticabata— the Insabbatati or Waldenses. It will be remem- bered that it was against these that the savage edicts of Alonso II. ARAGON. 163 and Pedro 11. were directed, towards the close of the twelfth cen- tury.* After this, for a while, persecution seems to have slept. The sympathies and ambition of King Pedro were enlisted with Kay- mond of Toulouse, and after his fall at Muret, during the minority of Jayme I., the Aragonese probably awaited the results of the Albigensian war with feelings enlisted in favor of their race rather than of orthodoxy. As it drew to a close, however, Don Jayme, in 1226, issued an edict prohibiting all heretics from entering his kingdom, doubtless moved thereunto by the numbers who sought escape from the crusade of Louis VIII., and he foUowed this, in 1228, with another, depriving heretics, with their receivers, fautors, and defenders, of the public peace. The next step, we are told by the chroniclers of the Inquisition, was taken in consequence of the urgency of Kaymond of Pennaforte, the Dominican confessor of the young king, who prevailed on him to obtain from Gregory IX. inquisitors to purge his land. This is based on the bull Decli- nante, addressed. May 26, 1232, to Esparrago, Archbishop of Tar- ragona, and his suffragans, instructing them to make inquest in their dioceses after heretics, either personally or by Dominicans or other fitting persons, and to punish such as might be found, according to the statutes recently issued by him and by Annibaldo, Senator of Rome. This doubtless gave an impulse to what f oUowed, but as yet there was no thought of a papal or Dominican Inquisi- tion, or of adopting foreign legislation. In the foUo^ving year, 1233, Don Jayme issued from Tarragona, with the advice of his assembled prelates, a statute on the subject, showing that the matter was regarded as pertaining to the State rather than to the Church. Seigneurs who protected heretics in their lands forfeited them to the lord, or, if aUodial, to the king. Houses of heretics, if allodial, were to be torn down ; if held in fief, forfeited to the lord. All defamed or suspected of heresy were declared ineligible to ofBce. That the innocent might not suffer with the guilty, no one was to be punished as a heretic or believer except by his bishop or such ecclesiastic as had authority to determine his guilt. Bishops were ordered, when it might seem expedient to them in * Matt. Paris ann. 1234 (p. 270, Ed. 1644).— Reinerii Summa (Martene Thesaur. V. 1767-8). 1^4 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. places suspected of heresy, to appoint a priest or clerk, while the king or his bailli would appoint two or three laymen, whose duty it should be to investigate heretics, and, taking precautions against their escape, to report them to the bishop or to the royal oiRcials, or to the lord of the place. In this incongruous mixture of cler- ical and lay elements there may, it is true, be discovered the germ of an Inquisition, but one of a character very different from that which was at this time taking shape at Toulouse. The subordi- nate position of these so-called inquisitors is seen in the provision that any negligence in the performance of their functions was punishable, in the case of a clerk, by the loss of his benefice, in that of a layman, by a pecuniary mulct.* To what extent this crude expedient was put in practice we have no means of knowing, but probably some attempts were made which only proved its inefficiency. Esparrago died soon afterwards and was succeeded in the archiepiscopal seat of Tar- ragona by Guillen Mongriu, whose vigorous and martial temper- ament was illustrated by his conquest of the island of Iviza. Mongriu speedily found that the domestic Inquisition would not work, and applied for the solution of some doubts to Gregory, who sent him, April 30, 1235, a code of instructions drawn up by Raymond of Pennaforte. About this time we find the first record of active work in persecution, which illustrates the absence of all formal inquisitorial procedure. Robert, Count of RoseUon, was one of the great feudatories of the crown of Aragon. He seems to have been involved, as most nobles were, in some disputes as to fiefs and tithes with the Bishop of Elne, whose diocese was in his territories. The bishop accused him of being the chief of the heretics of the region and of using his castles as a refuge for them. AU this was very likely true — at least the bishop had no difficulty in finding witnesses to prove it, when Robert obediently abjured, but subsequently relapsed. Don Jayme accordingly had him arrested and imprisoned, but Robert managed to escape and shut himself in one of his inaccessible mountain strongholds. His posi- * Archives Nat. de France, J. 426, No. 4.— D'Achery Spicileg III. 598.— Paramo de Orig. OflSc. S. Inquis. p. 177. — Zurita, Afiales de Aragon, Lib. in. c. 94.— Ripoll I. 38. (Cf. Llorente, Ch. iii. Art. i. No. 3).— Marca Hispanica, pp. 1425-6. ARAGON. 165 tion, however, was desperate, and his lands liable to confiscation ; he therefore expressed to Gregory IX. his desire to return to the bosom of the Church, and offered to serve with his followers against the Saracen as long as the pope might designate. Gregory there- fore wrote, February 8, 1237, to Eaymond of Pennaforte, that if the count would for three years with his subjects assist in the conquest of Yalencia, and give sufficient security that in case of relapse his territories should be forfeited to the crown, he could be absolved. On hearing this the good bishop hastened to the papal court and declared that if Robert was absolved he and his witnesses would be exposed to the imminent peril of death, and that heresy would triumph in his diocese ; but, on receiving assur- ances that his fiefs and tithes would be taken care of, he quieted down and offered no further opposition.* Under the impulsion of Gregory and of Raymond of Penna- forte, Dominican inquisitors had at last been resorted to, and in this year, 1237, we first become cognizant of them. In right of his wife Ermessende, Roger Bernard the Great of Foix was Yiz- conde of Castelbo, a fief held of the Bishop of Urgel, with whom he had had a bitter war. He gave Castelbo to his son Roger, who, by the advice of his father, in 1237, allowed the Inquisi- tion free scope there, placing the castle in the hands of Ramon Fulco, Yizconde of Cardona, in the name of the Archbishop of Tarragona and the bishops assembled at the Council of Lerida, That council thereupon appointed a number of inquisitors, includ- ing Dominicans and Franciscans, who made a descent on Castelbo. It had long been noted as a nest of Catharans. In 1225, under the protection of Arnaldo, then lord of the place, perfected heretics publicly preached their doctrines there. In 1234 we hear of a heretic of Mirepoix going thither to receive the consolamentum on his death-bed. The inquisitors, therefore, had no difficulty in finding victims. They ordered two houses to be destroyed, ex- humed and burned the bones of eighteen persons, condemned as heretics, and carried off as prisoners some forty-five men and women, condemned fifteen who fled, and were undecided about sundry others. Still, the Bishop of Urgel was not satisfied, and he gratified his rancor by condemning and excommunicating Roger • Llorente, Ch. ni. Art. i. No. 5.— RipoU I. 91-2. 166 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. Bernard as a defender of heretics, and it was not until 1240 that the latter, through the intervention of the Archbishop of Tarra- gona, and by submitting, abjuring heresy, and swearing to per- form any penance assigned to him, procured from the bishop absolution and a certificate that he recognized him "^>6r hon et per leyal e per Catholichr * In 1238 the Inquisition of Aragon may be said to be founded. In April of that year Gregory IX. wrote to the Franciscan Minis- ter and Dominican Prior of Aragon deploring the spread of her- esy through the whole kingdom, so that heretics no longer seek secrecy, but openly combat the Church, to the destruction of its liberties ; and though this may be an exaggeration, we know from a confession before the Inquisition of Toulouse that there were enough scattered through the land to afford shelter to the wan- dering Catharan missionaries. Gregory, therefore, placed in the hands of the Mendicants the sword of the Word of God, which was not to be restrained from blood. They were instructed to make dil- igent inquisition against heresy and its abettors, proceeding in ac- cordance with the statutes which he had issued, and caUing in when necessary the aid of the secular arm. At the same time he made a similar provision for Navarre, which was likewise said to be swarming with heretics, by commissioning as inquisitors the Fran- ciscan Guardian of Pamplona and the Dominican Pedro de Leo- degaria. As an independent institution the Inquisition of ISTavarre seems never to have advanced beyond an embryonic condition. In 1246 we find Innocent IV. writing to the Franciscan Minis- ter there to publish that Grimaldo de la Mota, a citizen of Pam- plona, is not to be aspersed as a heretic because while in Lom- bardy he had eaten and drunk with suspected persons, but this is the only evidence of vitality that I have met with, and Na- varre was subsequently incorporated into the Inquisition of Ar- agon. f In Aragon the institution gradually took shape. Berenger de Palau, Bishop of Barcelona, was busily engaged in organizing it • Vaissette, III. Pr. 383-5, 393-3.— Doat, XXII. 218; XXIV. 184. t Wadding, ann. 1238, No. 6. — Doat, XXIV. 182. — Pet. Rodulphii Hist. Seraph. Lib. ii. fol. 385&.— Berger, Registres d'Innoc. IV. No. 2357.— Monteiro, Hist, da Inquisi9ao, P. i. Liv. ii. ch. 36. ARAGON. 167 throughout his diocese at the time of his death in 1241, and the vicar, who replaced him while the see was vacant, completed it. Ill 1242 Pedro Arbalate, who had succeeded Guillen Mongriu as archbishop, with the assistance of Raymond of Pennaforte, held the Council of Tarragona to settle the details of procedure. Under the guidance of so eminent a canonist, the code drawn up by the council showed a thorough knowledge of the principles guiding the Church in its dealings with heretics, and long continued to be referred to as an authority not only in Spain, but in France. At the same time its careful definitions, which render it especially interesting to us, indicate that it was prepared for the instruction of a Church which as yet practically knew nothing of the princi- ples of persecution firmly established elsewhere. It was probably under the impulse derived from these movements that active per- secution was resumed at Castelbo, which does not seem to have been purified by the raid of 1237. This time the heretics were not as patient as before, and resorted to poison, with which they succeeded in taking off Fray Ponce de Blanes, or de Espira, the inquisitor, who had made himself peculiarly obnoxious by his vig- orous pursuit of heresy for several years. This aroused all the martial instincts of the retired archbishop, Guillen Mongriu, who assembled some troops, besieged and took the castle, burned many of the heretics, and imprisoned the rest for life. An organ- ized effort was made to extend the Inquisition throughout the kingdom, and the parish priests were individually summoned to lend it all the aid in their power. ITrgel seems to have been the headquarters of the sectaries, for subsequently we hear of their sharp persecution there by the Dominican inquisitor, Bernardo Travesser, and of his martyrdom by them. As usual, both he and Ponce de Blanes shone forth in miracles, and have remained an object of worsliip in the Church of Urgel, though in 1262 the lat- ter was translated to Montpelher, where he lies magnificently en- tombed.* StiU, the progress of organization seems to have been exceed- ingly slow. In 1241 a case decided by Innocent lY. shows a com- plete absence of any effective system. The Bishop of Elne and a * Lloreute, Cli. in. Art. 1. No. 7, 8, 19. — Concil. Tarraconens. anu. 1242.— Paramo, pp. 110, 177-8. 168 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. Dominican friar, acting as inquisitors, had condemned Ramon de Malleolis and Helena his wife as heretics. By some means they succeeded in appealing to Gregory IX., who referred the matter to the Archdeacon of Besalu and the Sacristan of Girona. These acquitted the culprits and restored them to their possessions ; but the case was carried back to Rome, and Innocent finally confirmed the first sentence of conviction. Again, in 1248, a letter from Innocent lY. to the Bishop of Lerida, instructing him as to the treatment in his diocese of heretics who voluntarily return to the Church, presupposes the absence of inquisitors and absolute igno- rance as to the fundamental principles in force. The power con- ferred the same year on the Dominican Provincial of Spain to appoint inquisitors seems to have remained unused. The efforts of Archbishop Mongriu and Raymond of Pennaforte had spent themselves apparently without permanent results. King Jayme grew dissatisfied, and, in 1254, urgently demanded a fresh effort of Innocent lY. This time the pope concluded, at Jayme's sugges- tion, to place the matter entirely in Dominican hands ; but so little had been done in the way of general organization that he confided the choice of inquisitors to the priors of Barcelona, Lerida, Per- pignan, and Elne, each one to act within his own diocese, unless, indeed, there are inquisitors already in function under papal com- missions — a clause which shows the confusion existing at the time. Innocent further felt it necessary to report this action to the Arch- bishops of Tarragona and Narbonne, and to call upon them to assist the new aj)pointees. This device does not seem to have worked satisfactorily. At that time the whole peninsula consti- tuted but one Dominican province, and, in 1262, Urban lY. again adopted definitely the plan, in general use elsewhere, of empower- ing the provincial to appoint the inquisitors — now limited to two. A few days before he had sent to those of Aragon a bull defining their powers and procedure, and a copy of this was enclosed to the provincial for his guidance. This long remained the basis of organization ; but after the division of the province into two, by the General Chapter of Cologne in 1301, the Aragonese chafed under their suJDordination to the Provincial of Spain, whose terri- tories consisted only of Castile, Leon, and Portugal. The struggle was protracted, but the Inquisition of Aragon at last achieved in- dependence in 1351, when Fray Nicholas RoselU, the Provincial of A RAG ON. 169 Aragon, obtained from Clement YI. the power of appointing and removing the inquisitors of the kingdom.* Meanwhile the inquisitors had not been inactive. Fray Pedro de Cadreyta rendered himself especially conspicuous, and as usual Urgel is the prominent scene of activity. In conjunction with his colleague, Fray Pedro de Tonenes, and Arnaldo, Bishop of Barce- lona, he rendered final judgment, January 11, 1257, against the memory of Eamon, Count of Urgel, as a relapsed heretic who had abjured before the Bishop of Urgel, and whose bones were to be exhumed ; but, with unusual lenity, the widow, Timborosa, and the son, Guillen, were admitted to reconciliation and not deprived of their estates. Twelve years later, in 1269, we find Cadreyta, to- gether with another colleague, Fray Guillen de Colonico, and Abril, Bishop of Urgel, condemning the memory of Arnaldo, Viz- conde of Castelbo, and of his daughter Ermessende, whom we know as the heretic wife of Roger Bernard the Great of Foix. They had both been dead more than thirty years, and her grand- son, Roger Bernard III. of Foix, who had inherited the Yizcondado of Castelbo, was duly cited to defend his ancestors ; but if he made the attempt, it was vain, and their bones were ordered to be ex- humed. It is not hkely that these sturdy champions of the faith confined their attention to the dead, though the only execution we happen to hear of at this period is that of Berenguer de Amoros, burned in 1263. That the Uving, indeed, were objects of fierce persecution is rendered more than probable by the martyrdom of Cadreyta, who was stoned to death by the exasperated populace of Urgel, and who thus furnished another saint for local cult.f During the remainder of the century we hear little more of the Inquisition of Aragon, but the action of tlie Council of Tarragona, in 1291, would seem to show that it was neither active nor much respected. Otherwise the council would scarce have felt called upon to order the punishment of heretics who deny a future exist- ence, and, further, that aU detractors of the Cathohc faith ought * Berger, Registres d'Innocent IV. No. 799, 3904.— Baluz. et Mansi I. 208.— RipoU I. 245, 427, 439; II. 235.— P:ymeric. Dirert. Inquis. pp. 129-36.— Paramo, p. 132. t Llorente, Ch. iii. Art. i. No. 14, 17. — Monteiro, Hist, da Inquisi(;ao. P. i. Liv. ii. ch. 10.— Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espafioles, I. 492.— Zurita, Anales dr Ara- gon, Lib. u. c. 76. — Paramo, p. 178. 170 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. to be punished as they deserve, to teach them reverence and fear. Still more significant is the injunction on parish priests to receive kindly and aid efficiently the beloved Dominican inquisitors, who are laboring for the extirpation of heresy.* With the opening of the fourteenth century there would ap- pear to be an increase of vigor. In 1302 Fray Bernardo cele- brated several autos de fe, in which a number of heretics were abandoned to the secular arm. In 1304 Fray Domingo Pere- grino had an auto in which we are told that those who were not burned were banished, with the assent of King Jayme II. — one of the rare instances of this punishment in the annals of the Inquisition. In 1314 Fray Bernardo Puigcercos was so fortunate as to discover a number of heretics, of whom he burned some and exiled others. To Juan de Longerio, in 1317, belongs the doubt- ful honor of condemning the works of Arnaldo de Yilanova. The names of Arnaldo Burguete, GuiUen de Costa, and Leonardo de Puycerda have also reached us, as successful inquisitors, but their recorded labors were principally directed against the Spiritual Franciscans, and will be more particularly noted hereafter. The Aragonese seem not to have relished the methods of the Inquisi- tion, for in 1325 the Cortes, with the assent of King Jayme II., prohibited for the future the use of the inquisitorial process and of torture, as violations of the Fueros. Whether or not this was intended to apply to the ecclesiastical as well as to the secular courts it is impossible now to tell, but, if it were, it had no permar nent result, as we learn from the detailed instructions of Eymerich fifty years later. About the middle of the century, the merits of the Inquisitor Nicholas Roselli earned him the cardinalate. It is true that when the energetic action of the Inquisitor Jean Dumou- lin, in 1344, drove the Waldenses from Toulouse to seek refuge beyond the Pyrenees, Clement YI. wrote earnestly to the kings and prelates of Aragon and Navarre to aid the Inquisition in destroying the fugitives, but there is no trace of any correspond- ing result, t To RoseUi, however, belongs the credit of raising a question * Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1291, c. 8 (Martene Ampl. Coll. VIL 294). t Llorente, Ch. in. Art. ii. No. 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14. — Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. p. 265. — Ripoll II. 245. — Zurita, Anales, Lib. vi. c. 61. — Raynald. ann. 1344, No. 9. ARAGON. 171 which inflamed to a white heat the traditional antagonism of the two great Mendicant Orders. It is worth brief attention as an illustration of the nicety to which doctrinal theology had attained under the combined influence of scholastic subtlety in raising ques- tions, and inquisitorial enforcement of implicit obedience in the minutest articles of faith. In 1351 the Franciscan Guardian of Barcelona, in a public sermon, stated that the blood shed by Christ in the Passion lost its divinity, was sundered from the Logos, and remained on earth. The question was a novel one and a trifle dif- ficult of demonstration, but its raising gave RoseUi a chance to in- flict a blow on the hated Franciscans, and he referred it to Rome. The answer met his most ardent anticipations. The Cardinal of Sabina, by order of Clement YL, wrote that the pope had heard the proposition with horror ; he had convened an assembly of theo- logians in which he himself argued against it, when it was con- demned, and the inquisitors everywhere were ordered to proceed against all audacious enough to uphold it. RoseUi' s triumph was complete, and the unfortunate guardian was obhged to retract his speculations in the pulpit where he had promulgated them. The Franciscans were restless under this rebuff, which they construed as directed against their Order. In spite of the papal decision the question remained an open one in the schools, where it was eagerly debated on both sides. The Franciscans argued, with provoking reasonableness, that the blood of Christ might well be believed to remain on earth, seeing that the foreskin severed in the Circum- cision was preserved in the Lateran Church and reverenced as a relic under the very eyes of pope and cardinal, and that portions of the blood and water which flowed in the Crucifixion were ex- hibited to the faithful at Mantua, Bruges, and elsewhere. After the lapse of a century, the Franciscan, Jean Bretonelle, professor of theology in the University of Paris, in 1448 brought the matter before the faculty, stating that it was causing discussion at Ro- cheUe and other places. A commission of theologians was ap- pointed, which, after due debate, rendered a solemn decision that it was not repugnant to the faith to believe that the blood shed at the Passion remained on earth. Thus encouraged, the Franciscans grew bolder. The Observantine Franciscan, Giacomo da Monteprandone. better known as deUa Marca, was one of the most prominent 172 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. ecclesiastics of the fifteenth century. His matchless eloquence, his rigid austerity, his superhuman vigor, and his unquenchaV)]e zeal for the extermination of heresy well earned the l:)eatification conferred on him after death; and since 1417 he had l)een known as a hammer of heretics. He held a commission as universal in- quisitor which clothed him with power throughout Christendom, and the heretics in every corner of Italy, in Bohemia, Hungary, Bosnia, and Dalmatia, had learned with cause to tremble at his name. It required no httle nerve to assail such a man, and yet when, April 18, 1462, at Brescia, he publicly preached the forbid- den doctrine, the Dominican Inquisitor, Giacomo da Brescia, lost no time in calling him to account. First a courteous note ex- pressed disbehef in the report of the sermon and asked a disclaimer ; but on the Observantine adhering to the doctrine, a formal sum- mons followed, citing him to appear for trial on the next da^^ The two Orders had thus fairly locked horns. The Bishop of Brescia interfered and obtained a withdrawal of the summons, but the question had to be fought out before the pope. The bitterness of feeling may be judged by the complaint of the inquisitor that his opponent had so excited the people of Brescia against him and the Dominicans that but for prompt measures many of them would have been slain ; while, from Milan to Verona, every Dominican pulpit resounded with denunciations of Giacomo deUa Marca as a heretic. The politic Pius II. feared to quarrel with either Order, and had a tortuous path to tread. To the Dominicans he furnished an authenticated copy of the decision of Clement VI. To Giacomo della Marca he wrote that this had been done because he could not refuse it, and not to give it authority. It had not been issued by Clement, but only in his name, and the question w^as still an open one. Giacomo might rest in peace in the conviction that the pope had full confidence in his zeal and orthodoxy, and that his calumniators should be silenced. On May 31 he issued com- mands that all discussions of the question should cease, and that both sides should send their most learned brethren to an assembly which he would hold in September for exhaustive debate and final decision. This he hoped would put an end to the matter, while skilful postponement of the conference would allow it to die out ; but he miscalculated the enmity of the rival Orders. The ARAGON. 173 quarrel raged more fiercely than ever. The Franciscans declared that the inquisitor who started it would be deprived of his office and mastership in theology. Pius thereupon soothed him by as- suring him that he had only done his duty, and that he had noth- ing to fear. The conference had become an inevitable evil, and Pius found himself obliged to allow it to meet in December, 1463. Each side selected three champions, and for three days, in the presence of the pope and sacred college, they argued the point with such ar- dent vehemence that, in spite of the bitter winter weather, they were bathed in sweat. Then others took part and the question was debated pro and con. The Franciscans put in evidence the blood of Christ exhibited for the veneration of the faithful in many shrines, and to the foreskin which was in the Lateran and also in the royal chapel of France. They also appealed to the cuttings of Christ's hair and beard, the parings of his nails, and all his excretions — did these remain on earth or were they divine and carried to heaven ? To these arguments the Dominican reply is a curious exhibition of special pleading and sophistry ; but as no one could allege a single text of Scripture bearing upon the ques- tion, neither side could claim the victory. The good Bishop of Brescia, who had at first played the part of peacemaker, consist- ently presented a written argument in which he proved that the pope ought not to settle the question because such a determination would, firstly, be doubtful ; secondly, superfluous ; and, thirdly, perilous. This wise utterance was probably inspired, for Pius re- served his decision, and, August 1, 1464, only eight days before his death, issued a bull in which he recited how the faithful had been scandalized by the quarrel between the two Orders, and, there- fore, he forbade further discussion on the subject until the Holy See should finally decide it. The Dominicans were emphatically prohibited from denouncing the Franciscans as heretics on ac- count of it, and any infraction of his commands was punishable by i/pso facto excommunication supplemented with harsh impris- onment. He tells us himself that after the public discussion the cardinals debated the matter for several da3^s. The majority in- chned to the Dominicans and he agreed with them, but the preach- ing of the Franciscans was necessar}'' for the crusade against the Turks which he proposed to lead in person, and it was impolitic 174 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. to offend them, so he postponed the decision. Mutterings of dis- cussion, without open quarrel, have since then occasionally oc- curred between the Orders, but the popes have never seen fit to issue a definite decision on the subject, and the momentous ques- tion started by Roselli remains still unsettled — a pitfall for un- wary feet.* In 1356 Eoselli was created Cardinal of S. Sisto, and was suc- ceeded after a short interval by Nicolas Eymerich, the most note- worthy man of whom the Aragonese Inquisition can boast, al- though after more than thirty years of service he ended his days in disgrace and exile. Trained in varied learning, and incessant in industry, of his numerous works but one has had the honors of print — his "Directorium Inquisitorum," in which, for the first time, he systematized the procedure of his beloved institution, giv- ing the principles and details which should guide the inquisitor in all his acts. The book remained an authority to the last, and formed the basis of almost all subsequent compilations. Eyme- rich's conception of the model inquisitor was lofty. He must be fuUy acquainted with all the intricacies of doctrine, and with all the aberrations of heresy — not only those which are current among the common people, but the recondite speculations of the schools, Averrhoism and AristoteUan errors, and the beliefs of Saracen and Tartar. At a time when the Inquisition was declining and falling into contempt, he boldly insisted on its most extreme pre- rogatives as an imprescriptible privilege. If he assumed that the heretic had but one right — that of choosing between submission and the stake — he was in this but the conscientious exponent of his age, and his writings are instinct with the conviction that the work of the inquisitor is the salvation of souls. From Eymerich's lament over the difficulty of providing for the expenses of an institution so necessary to the Church, it is evi- dent that the kings of Aragon had not felt it their duty to sup- port the Holy Office, while the bishops, he tells us, were as firm as their brethren in other lands in evading the responsibility * Eymeric. Direct. Inq. p. 262.— Ripoll III. 421 ; VII. 90. —Wadding, ann, 1351, No. 16, 18, 21 ; anu. 1462, No. 1-18; 1463, No. 1-5 ; 1464, No. 1-6.— D'Ar- gentrg, I. i. 372 ; ii. 250, 254. — Gradonici Pontif. Brixianorum Series, Brixise, 1755, pp. 348-51. — Mn. Sylvii Comment. Lib. xi. ; Ejusd. Lib. de Contentione Di- vini Sanguinis. ARAGON. 175 which by right was incumbent on them. The confiscations, he adds, amounted to httle or nothing, for heretics were poor folk— "VValdenses, Fraticelli, and the hke. In fact, so far as we can gather, the sum of Eymerich's activity during his long career is so small that it shows how little was left of heresy by this time. Occasional FraticeUi and Waldenses and renegade Jews or Sara- cens were aU. that rewarded the inquisitor, with every now and then some harmless lunatic whose extravagance unfortunately took a rehgious turn, or some over-subtle speculator on the intri- cacies of dogmatic theology. Thus, early in his career, about 1360, Eymerich had the satisfaction of burning as a relapsed heretic a certain Nicholas of Calabria, who persisted in asserting that his teacher, Martin Gonsalvo of Cuenca, was the Son of God, who would Mve forever, would convert the world, and at the Day of Judgment would pray for all the dead and liberate them from hell. In 1371 he had the further gratification of silencing, by a decision of Gregory XI., a Franciscan, Pedro Bonageta. The ex- act relation between the physical matter of the consecrated host and the body of Christ under certain circumstances had long been a source of disputation in the Church, and Fray Pedro taught that if it fell into the mud or other unclean place, or if it were gnawed by a mouse, the body of Christ flew to heaven and the wafer be- came simple bread; and so also when it was ground under the teeth of the recipient, before he swallowed it. Gregory did not venture to pronounce this heretical, but he forbade its pubhc enun- ciation. About the same time Eymerich had a good deal of trouble with Fray Eamon de Tarraga, a Jew turned Dominican, whose numerous philosophical writings savored of heresy. After he had been kept in prison for a couple of years, Gregory ordered him to have a speedy trial, and threatened Eymerich with punishment for contumacy if his commands were disobeyed. Ramon must have had powerful friends in the Order whom Eymerich feared to provoke, for six months later Gregory wrote again, saying that if Ramon could not be punished according to the law in Aragon, he must be sent to the papal court under good guard with aU the papers of the process duly sealed. In fact, the Inquisition was not estabhshed for the trial of Dominicans. At the same time another Jew, Astruchio de Piera, held by Eymerich on an accusation of sorcery and the invocation of demons, was claimed as justiciable 176 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. by the civil power, and was sequestrated until Gregory ordered his delivery to the inquisitor, who forced him to abjure and im- prisoned him for life. Somewhat earher was a certain Bartolo Janevisio, of Majorca, w^ho indulged in some apocalyptic writing about Antichrist, and was forced, in 1361, by Eymerich to recant, while his book was publicly burned. More practical, from a po- litical point of view, w^as Eymerich's doctrine that aU who lent assistance to the Saracens w^ere punishable by the Inquisition as fautors of heresy, but this seems to have remained a theoretical assertion which brought no business to the Holy Office. We shall see hereafter how he fared in seeking the condemnation of Ray- mond LuUi's writings, and need only say here that the result w^as his suspension from office, to be succeeded by his capital enemy Bernardo Ermengaudi, in 1386, and that after the succession to the throne, in 1387, of Juan I., who was bitterly hostile to him, he w^as twice proscribed and exiled, and was denounced by the king as an obstinate fool, an enemy of the faith inspired by Satan, anointed with the poison of infidelity, together with other unflattering quali- fications. He did not succeed better when in his rash zeal he as- sailed the holy San Yicente Ferrer for saying in a sermon that Judas Iscariot had a true and salutary repentance ; that, being un- able to reach Christ and obtain forgiveness owing to the crowd, he hanged himself and was pardoned in heaven. When the case was drawing to a conclusion, Pedro de Luna, then Cardinal of Aragon, took Vicente under his protection and made him his con- fessor, and, after his election in 1394 as Avignonese pope, under the name of Benedict XIII., he forced Eymerich to surrender the pa- pers, which he unceremoniously burned. The next inquisitor, Ber- nardo Puig, is said to have been earnest and successful, punishing many heretics and confuting many heresies. In Valencia, about 1390, there was a case in which Pedro de Ceplanes, priest of CeUa, read in his church a formal declaration that there ^vere three nat- ures in Christ — divine, spiritual, and human. A merchant of the town loudly contradicted it, and a tumult arose. The inquisitor of Valencia promptly arrested the too ingenious theologian, who only escaped the stake by public recantation and condemnation to perpetual imprisonment ; but he broke jail and fled to the Balearic Isles, interjecting an appeal to the Holy See.* » Eymeric. Direct. Inquis. pp. 44, 266, 314-6, 351, 357-8, 652-3.— Mag. Bull ARAGON. iffj The creation, in 1262, of the kingdom of Majorca, comprising the Balearic Isles, Rosellon, and Cerdaiia, by Jay me I. of Aragon, for the benefit of his younger son Jayme, seemed to render a sepa- rate inquisition requisite for the new realm. At what time it was established is uncertain, the earliest inquisitor of Majorca on record being Fr. Ramon Durf ort, whose name occurs as a witness on a charter of 1332, and he continued to occupy the position un- til 1343, when he was elected Provincial of Toulouse. From that time, at least, there is a succession of inquisitors, and the forcible reunion in 1348, by Pedro IV., of the outlying provinces to the crown of Aragon did not effect a consolidation of the tribunals. As the Inquisition declined in dignity and importance, indeed, it seems to have sought a remedy in multiplying and localizing its offices. In 1413 Benedict XIII. (who was still recognized as pope in Aragon) made a further division by separating the coun- ties of Rosellon and Cerdana from the Balearic Isles, Fray Ber- nardo Pages retaining the former, and GuiUen Sagarra obtaining the latter. Both of these were energetic men who celebrated a number of autos defe, in which numerous heretics were reconciled or burned. Sagarra was succeeded by Bernardo Moyl, and the lat- ter by Antonio Murta, who was confirmed in 1420, when Martin V. approved of the changes made. At the same time Martin, at the request of the king and of the consuls of Valencia, erected that province also into a separate Inquisition. The Provincial of Ara- gon appointed Fray Andrea Ros to fiU the position ; he was con- finned in 1433 by Eugenius IV., but was removed without cause assigned the next year by the same pope, although we are told that he inflexibly persecuted the " Bohemians " or " Wickliffites " with fire and sword. His successors, Domingo Corts and Antonio de Cremona, earned equal laurels in suppressing Waldenses.* A case occurring in 1423 would seem to indicate that the In- quisition had lost much of the terror which had rendered it for- Rom. I. 263.— Ripoll H. 268, 269, 270.— Martene Thesaur. II. 1181-2, 1182 W», 1189.— Raynald. ann. 1398, No. 23.— Wadding, ann. 1371, No. 14-24.— Paramo, p. 111.— Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espaiioles, I. 499-500, 528. * Dameto, Mut, y Alemany, Historia Geueral de Mallorca (Ed. 1840, 1. 101-3, II. 652).— Libell. de Magist. Ord. Prsedic. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 432).— Paramo, pp. 179, 186-7.— Ripoll IL 579, 594 ; III. 20, 28.— Mouteiro, P. i, Liv. ii. c. 30.— Llorente, Ch. lu. Art. iii. No. 4, 8. XL— 12 J78 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. midable. Fray Pedro Salazo, Inquisitor of Rosellon and Cerdafla, threw in prison on charges of heresy a hermit named Pedro Fre- serii, who enjoyed great reputation for sanctity among the people. The accused declared that the witnesses were personal enemies, and that he was ready to purge himself before a proper judge, and his friends lodged an appeal with Martin Y. The pope re- ferred the matter, with power to decide without appeal, to Ber- nardo, Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Aries, in the diocese of Elne. Bernardo deputed the case to a canon of the church of Elne, who acquitted the accused without awaiting the result of another appeal to the pope interjected by the inquisitor; and Martin finally sent the matter to the Ordinary of Narbonne, with power to summon all parties before him and decide the case defi- nitely. The whole transaction shows a singular want of respect for the functions of the Inquisition.* Even more significant is a complaint made in 1456 to Calixtus III. by Fray Mateo de Rapica, a later inquisitor of Rosellon and Cerdana. Certain neophytes, or converted Jews, persisted in Judaic practices, such as eating meat in Lent and forcing their Christian servants to do likewise. When Fray Mateo and Juan, Bishop of Elne, prosecuted them, they were so far from submit- ting that they published a defamatory Ubel upon the inquisitor, and, with the aid of certain laymen, afflicted him with injuries and expenses. Finding himself powerless, he appealed to the pope, who ordered the Archbishop and Ofiicial of ISTarbonne to intervene and decide the matter. The same spirit, in even a more aggravated form, was exhibited in a case already referred to, when, in 1458, Fray Miguel, the Inquisitor of Aragon, was mal- treated and thrown in prison for nine months by some nobles and high officials of the kingdom, whom he had offended in obeying the instructions sent to him by Nicholas Y.f Yet, as against the poor and friendless, the Inquisition retained its power. Wickliffitism — as it had become the fashion to designate "Waldensianism — had continued to spread, and about 1440 numbers of its sectaries were discovered, of whom some were reconciled, and more were burned as obstinate heretics by Miguel Ferriz, • Ripoll II. 613. t Ripoll III. 347.— Arch, de I'Inq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXXV. 192). ARAGON. 179 Inquisitor of Aragon, and Martin Trilles of Valencia. Possibly among these was an unfortunate woman, Leonor, wife of Doctor Jay me de Liminanna, of whom, about this time, we hear that she- refused to perform the penance assigned to her by the Inquisition of Cartagena, and that she was consequently abandoned to the secular arm. The post of inquisitor continued to be sought for. To multiply it, Catalonia was separated from Aragon by Nicholas y. shortly after his accession in 144Y. In 1459 another division took place, the diocese of Barcelona being erected into an inde- pendent tribunal by Martiale AuribeUi, Dominican General Mas- ter, for the benefit of Fray Juan Conde, counsellor and confessor of the infant Carlos, Prince of Viane. The new incumbent, how- ever, had not a peaceful time. It was probably the Inquisitor of Catalonia, objecting to the fractioning of his district, who obtained from Pius II., in 1461, a brief annulling the division, on the ground that one inquisitor had always sufficed. Pray Juan re- sisted and incurred excommunication, but the influence of his royal patron was sufficient to obtain from Pius, October 13, 1461, an- other bull restoring him to his position and absolving him from the excommunication. In 1479 a squabble occurring at Valencia shows that the office possessed attractions worth contending for. The Provincial of Aragon had removed Fray Jayme Borell and appointed Juan Marquez in his stead. BoreU carried the tale of his woes to Sixtus IV., who commanded the General Master to replace him and retain him in peaceful possession.* Ferdinand the Cathohc succeeded to the throne of Aragon in 1479, as he had already done, in 1474, to that of Castile by right of his wife Isabella. Even before the organizing of the new In- quisition in Aragon, in 1483, it is probable that the influence of Ferdinand had done much to restore the power of the institution. In 1482, on the eve of the change, we find the Inquisition of Ara- gon acting with renewed vigor and boldness, under the Domini- can, Juan de Epila. A number of cases are recorded of this pe- riod, including the prosecution of the father and mother of Felipe de Clemente, Prothonotary of the kingdom. As a preparatory step to placing the dominions of the crown of Aragon under Tor- * Llorente, Ch. ni. Art. iii. No. 11. — Albertini Repertor. Inquis. s. v. Deficiena. — Ripoll m. 397, 415, 572. ISO THE SPANISH PENINSULA. quemada as Inquisitor-general, it was requisite to get rid of Cris- tobal Gualvez, who had been Inquisitor of Valencia since 1452, and who had disgraced his office by his crimes. Sixtus IT. had a special enmity to him, and, in ordering his deposition, stigmatized him as an impudent and impious man, whose unexampled excesses were worthy of severe chastisement; and when Sixtus, in 1483, extended Torquemada's authority over the whole of Spain, with power to nominate deputies, he excepted " that son of iniquity, Cristobal Gualvez," who had been interdicted from the office in consequence of his demerits, and whom he even deprived of the function of preaching.* The great kingdom of Castile and Leon, embracing the major portion of the Spanish peninsula, never enjoyed the blessing of the mediaeval Inquisition. It was more independent of Eome than any other monarchy of the period. Lordly prelates, turbulent nobles, and cities jealous of their liberties aUowed scant opportu- nity for the centraUzation of power in the crown. The people were rude and uncultured, and not much given to vain theological speculation. Their superfluous energy, moreover, found ample occupation in the task of winning back the land from the Saracen. The large population of Jews and of conquered Moors gave them pecuMar problems to deal with which would have been comphcated rather than solved by the methods of the Inquisition, until the union of Aragon and Castile under Ferdinand and Isabella, fol- lowed by the conquest of Granada, enabled those monarchs to un- dertake seriously the business, attractive both to statecraft and to fanaticism, of compelling uniformity of faith. It is true that the Dominican legend relates how Dominic re- turned from Eome to Spain as Inquisitor -general, on the errand of estabhshing there the Inquisition for the purpose of punishing the renegade converted Jews and Moors; how he was warmly seconded by San Fernando III. ; how he organized the Inquisition throughout the land, celebrating himself the first auto de fe at * Llorente, Ch. vii. Art. ii. No. 2. — Herculano, Da Origem, etc., da Inquisi9ao em Portugal, I. 44.— Ripoll IH. 422.— Paramo, p. 187. CASTILE. 181 Burgos, where three hundred apostates were burned, and the sec- ond auto in the presence of the saintly king, who himself carried on his shoulders fagots for the burning of his subjects, and the pertinacious wretches defiantly rejoiced in the flames Avhich were consuming them ; how, after this, he established the Inquisition in Aragon, whence he journeyed to Paris and organized it through- out France ; how, in 1220, he sent Conrad of Marburg as inquisitor to Germany, and in 1221 finished his labors by founding it in all the parts of Italy. All this can rank in historical value with the veracious statement of an old chronicler — a compatriot of the Pied Piper of Hamelin — that St. Boniface was an inquisitor, and that, with the support of Pepin le Bref, he burned many heretics. Detailed lists, moreover, are given of the successive inquisitors- general of the Peninsula — Frailes Suero Gomes, B. Gil, Pedro de Huesca, Arnaldo Segarra, Garcia de Yalcos, etc., but these are simply the Dominican provincials of Spain, who were empowered by the popes to appoint inquisitors, and whose exercise of that power did not extend beyond Aragon. Even Paramo, although he tries to prove that there were inquisitors nominally in Castile, is forced to admit that practically there was no Inquisition there.* Yet, even in the distant city of Leon, Catharism had obtained a foothold. Bishop Rodrigo, who died in 1232, expelled a number of Cathari, on his attention being called to them by their circulat- ing a story to excite hatred of the priesthood, relating how a poor woman placed a candle on the altar in honor of the Virgin, and on her leaving it a priest took it for his own use. The following night the Virgin appeared to her votary and cast burning wax into her eyes, saying, " Take the wages of your service. As soon as you went away a priest carried off the candle ; as you would have been rewarded had the candle been consumed on my altar, so you must bear the punishment, since your carelessness gave me the light only for a moment." This diabolical story, says Lucas of Tuy, an eye-witness, so affected the minds of the simple that the devotion of offering candles ceased, and it required two genu- ine miracles to restore the faith of the people. During the inter- • Monteiro, P. i. Liv. i. c. 38, 44, 46, 48-51 ; Liv. ii. c. 5-12.— Clirou. Eccles. Hamelens. (Scriptt. Rer. Bruusv. II. 508). — Herculauo, I. 39. — Baluz. et Munsi, I. 208.— Paramo de Orig. Offic. S. Inquis. p. 131. 182 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. val between the death of Bisliop Rodrigo, in March, 12B2, and the election of his successor, Arnaldo, in August, 1234, the honjtics had ample opportunity to work their wicked will. A Catharan named Arnaldo had been burned, about 1218, in a place in the sub- urbs used for depositing filth. There was a spring there which the heretics colored red, and proclaimed that it had miraculously been turned to blood. Many of them, simulating bhndness, lameness, and demoniacal possession, were carried there and pre- tended to be cured, after which they dug up the heretic's bones and declared them to be those of a holy martyr. The people were fired with enthusiasm, erected a chapel, and worshipped the relics with the utmost ardor. In vain the clergy and the friars endeavored to stem the tide ; the people denounced them as here- tics, and despised the excommunication with which the neighbor- ing bishops visited the adoration of the new saint ; whUe the real heretics made many converts by secretly relating how the affair had been managed, and pointing it out as a sample of the manu- facture of saints and miracles. God visited the sacrilege with a drouth of ten months, which was not broken until Lucas, at the risk of his life, destroyed the heretic chapel ; and when the rains came there was a revulsion of feeling which enabled him to expel the heretics. All this would seem to indicate that the heretics were nmnerous and organized ; it certainly shows that there was no machinery for their suppression; but after the elevation of Lucas to the see of Tuy, in 1239, we hear no more of heretics or of persecutions. The whole affair, apparently, was a sporadic manifestation, probably of some band of fugitives from Langue- doc, who disappeared and left no following.* If what Lucas tells us be true, that ecclesiastics frequently joined in and enjoyed the ridicule with which heretics derided the sacraments and the clergy, the Spanish Church was not likely to give much aid to the introduction of the Inquisition. How little its methods were understood appears in the fact that when, in 1236, San Fernando III. found some heretics at Palencia, he proceeded to brand them in the face, which brought them to reason and led them to seek absolution. No one seemed to know * Lucae Tudens. de altera Vita, Lib. in. c. 7, 9. Cf. c. 18, 20. — Florez, Espafia Sagrada, XXII. 130-23, 136-30. CASTILE. 133 what to do with them, so Gregory IX. was applied to, and he authorized the Bishop of Palencia to reconcile them. There is probably no truth in the statement of some historians that the king, on several occasions, was obhged to levy from his subjects a tribute of wood with which to burn the unrepentant, and the story only serves to show how utterly vague have been the cur- rent conceptions of the period.* We reach firmer ground with the codes known as El Fuero Eeal and Las Siete Partidas, the first issued by Alonso the Wise, in 1255, and the second about ten years later. By this time the Inquisition was at its height. It was thoroughly organized, and wherever it existed the business of suppressing heresy was exclu- sively in its hands. Yet not only does Alonso take no count of it, but in his regulation by secular law of the relations between the heretic and the Church he shows how completely, up to this period, Spain, had remained outside of the great movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Heresy, it is true, is one of the matters pertaining to the ecclesiastical tribunals, and any one can accuse a heretic before his bishop or vicar. If the ac- cused is found not to believe as the Church teaches, effort is to be made to convert him, and if he returns to the faith lie is to be pardoned. If he proves obstinate, he is to be handed over to the secular judge. Then, however, his fate is decided without refer- ence to the laws which the Church had endeavored to introduce throughout Christendom. If the culprit had received the consola- Tnentum, or is a behever observing the rites, or one of those who deny the future Ufe, he is to be burned ; but if a believer not ob- serving the rites, he is to be banished or imprisoned until he returns to the faith. Any one learning heresy, but not yet a believer, is fined ten pounds of gold to the fisc, or, if unable to pay, to receive fifty lashes in public. In the case of those who die in heresy or are executed, their estates pass to Cathohc descendants, or, in default of these, to the next of kin ; if without such kindred, the property of laymen goes to the fisc, of ecclesiastics, to the Church, if claimed within a year, after which it inures to the fisc. Chil- dren disinherited for heresy recover their portions, but not the * Lucsc Tudens. Lib. iii. c. 12.— Raynald. ann. 1236, No. 60.— Rodrigo, Hist. Verdadera de la Inquisicion, II. 10. 184 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. mesne profits, on recantation. TSTo one, after condemnation for heresy, can hold office, inherit property, make a will, execute a sale, or give testimony. The house where a wandering heretic missionary is sheltered is forfeited to the Church, if inhabited by the owner ; if rented, the offending tenant is fined ten pounds of gold or publicly scourged. A rico home or noble sheltering here- tics in his lands or castles, and persisting after a year's excommu- nication, forfeits the land or castle to the king ; and if a non-noble his body and property are at the king's pleasure. The Christian who turns Jew or Moslem is legally a heretic, and is to be burned, as well as one who brings up a child in the forbidden faith. Prose- cutions of the dead, however, are humanely limited to five years after decease.* All this shows that Alonso and his counsellors recognized the duty of the State to preserve the purity of the faith, but that they considered it wholly an affair of the State, in which the Church had no voice beyond ascertaining the guilt of the accused. All the voluminous and minute legislation of Gregory IX., Innocent IV., and Alexander TV. was wholly disregarded — the canon law had no currency in Castile, which regulated such matters to suit its own needs. That in this respect the popular needs were met is shown by the Ordenamiento de Alcala, issued in 1348, which is silent on the subject of heresy. Apparently no change was deemed necessary in the provisions of the Partidas, which were then for the first time confirmed by the popular assembly. Under such legislation it follows as a matter of course that the Domini- can provincial had no inquisitors to appoint, except in Aragon, under the bull of Urban lY. in 1262. Castile continued unvexed by the Inquisition, and persecution for heresy was almost unknown. In 1316 Bernard Gui, of Tou- louse, discovered in his district some of the dreaded sectaries known as Dolcinists or Pseudo-Apostoli, who fled to Spain to escape his energetic pursuit. May 1, 1316, he wrote to all the prelates and friars of Spain describing their characteristics and urging their apprehension and punishment. Had there been an Inquisition there he would have addressed himself to it. From remote Com- • Las Siete Partidas, P. i. Tit. vi. 1. 58; P. vii. Tit. xxiv. 1. 7; Tit. xxv. 11. 2-7.— El Fuero real, Lib. rv. Tit. i. 11. 1, 2. CASTILE. 185 postella he received an answer, written by Archbishop Rodrigo, March 6, 131Y, announcing that five persons answering to the description had been captured there and were held in chains, and asking for instructions as to the mode of trying them and the punishment to be inflicted in case they are found guilty, " for all this is heretofore unaccustomed in our parts." Evidently there was no Inquisition in Castile and Leon to which to apply, and even the provisions of the Partidas were unknown, though of all places in the kingdom Compostella must have been the one most famiUar with the outer world and with heretics, from the stream of penitents continually sent thither as pilgrims.* In 1401 Boniface IX. made a demonstration by appointing the provincial, Vicente de Lisboa, inquisitor over all Spain, directing that his expenses should be paid by the bishops, and that no supe- rior of his Order could remove him. The only heresy specifically alluded to in the bull is the idolatrous worship of plants, trees, stones, and altars — apparently superstitious relics of paganism which indicate the condition of religion and culture in the Penin- sula. Boniface's action could hardly have been taken with any expectation of result, as Spain rendered obedience to Benedict XIII., the Antipope of Avignon, and it was probably only a move in the poMtical game of the Great Schism. Whatever the motive, however, the effort was fruitless, for Fray Vicente was already dead in the odor of sanctity at the date of the bull. On learning this, Boniface returned to the charge, February 1, 1402, b}^ em- powering forever thereafter the Dominican Provincial of Spain to appoint and remove inquisitors, or to act as such himself, with all the privileges and powers accorded to the office by the canons. Inoperative as this remained, it at least had the advantage of sup- plying to the Spanish historians an unbroken line of inquisitors- general to be catalogued. About the same time King TIenry III. increased the penalties of heresy by decreeing confiscation to the royal treasury of one-half of the possessions of heretics condemned by the ecclesiastical judges.f * Coll. Doat, XXX. 132 sqq.— Arclibishop Rodrigo's letter is dated 1315. This I presume to be an error of a copyist, probably misled by the use ol the Spanish era in which 1355 is equivalent to 1317. t RipoU II. 421,433. — Monteiro, P. i. Liv. ii. c. 35, 36. — Ordenanzas Reales, Lib. VIII. Tit. ir. 1. 4. 186 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. This, perhaps, technically justifies Alonso Tostado, Bishop of Avila, who soon afterwards alludes to inquisitors in Spain inves- tigating those defamed for heresy, and it explains the remarks of Sixtus IV. when, in January, 14S2, he confirmed the two inquis- itors appointed at Seville by Ferdinand and Isabella at the com- mencement of their reforms, and forbade their naming more, for the reason that the appointees of the Dominican provincial were sufficient. In spite of all this, the Spanish Inquisition was sim- ply potential, not existent. When, in 1453, Alonso de Almarzo, Abbot of the great Benedictine foundation of Antealtares of Com- postella, with his accomplices, was tried for selling throughout Spain and Portugal indulgences warranted to release the souls of the damned from hell, for counterfeiting the papal Agnus Dei, for forging and altering papal letters, and for persuading Jewish converts to apostatize, had there been an Inquisition it would promptly have taken cognizance of the culprits ; but in place of this the case was referred to Nicolas V., who instructed the Bishop of Tarazona to proceed against them. A few years later Alonso de Espina, about 1460, sorrowfully admits the absence of all per- secution of heresy. Bishops and inquisitors and preachers ought aU to resist the heretics, but there is no one to do it. " Ko one investigates the errors of heretics. The ravening wolves, O Lord, have gained admittance to thy flock, for the shepherds are few. There are many hirehngs, and because they are hirelings they care only for shearing, not for feeding the sheep !" and he di'aws a deplorable picture of the Spanish Church, distracted with here- tics, Jews, and Saracens. Soon after this, in 1464, the Cortes assembled at Medina turned its attention to the subject and com- plained of the great number of " malos cristianos e sospechosos en la fe" but the national aversion to the papal Inquisition stiU manifested itself, and its introduction was not suggested. The archbishops and bishops were requested to set on foot a rigid investigation after heretics, and King Henry IV. was asked to lend them aid, so that every suspected place might be thoroughly searched, and offenders brought to light, imprisoned, and punished. It was represented to the king that this would be to his advan- tage, as the confiscations would inure to the royal treasury, and he graciously expressed his assent ; but the effort was resultless.* * Monteiro, P. i. Liv. ii. c. 30.— Rodrigo, 11. 11, 14-15.— Paramo, p. 136.— CASTILE. 187 For the most part the orthodoxy of Spain had been vexed only with a few Fraticelli and Waklenses, not numerous enough to call for active repression. The main trouble lay in the multitudes of Jews and Moors who, under the law, were entitled to toleration, but whom popular fanaticism had forced to conversion in great numbers, and whose purity of faith was justly liable to suspicion. Hereafter I hope to have the opportunity of showing that from both the religious and the political standpoint of the age the measures taken by Ferdinand and Isabella were by no means with- out justification, however mistaken they were both in morals and in policy, and however unfortunate in their ultimate results. At present it suffices to point out this condition of affairs to explain the dissatisfaction which was widely prevalent and the demand for an efficient remedy. At the same time even Spain was not wholly unmoved by the spirit of unrest and inquiry which marked the second half of the fifteenth century, sapping the foundations of tradition and reject- ing the claims of sacerdotalism. About 14G0 we learn from Alonso de Espina that many were beginning to deny the efficacy of oral confession, and this point could not have been reached without calling in question many other doctrines and observances which the Church taught to be necessary to salvation. At length these innovators grew so bold that Pedro de Osma, a professor in the great University of Salamanca, ventured to promulgate their ob- noxious opinions in print. Oral confession, he asserted, was of human, not of divine precept, and was unnecessary for the forgive- ness of sins ; no papal indulgence could insure the living from the fires of purgatory ; the papacy could err, and had no power to dispense with the statutes of the Church. Had there been any machinery of persecution at hand, short work would have been made with so bold a heretic, but the authorities were so much at a loss what to do with him that they applied to Sixtus IV., who sent a commission to Alonso CarriUo, Archbishop of Toledo, the dignitary next in rank to the king, to tr}- him. In 1470 a council was assembled for the purpose at Alcala, consisting of fifty-two of the best theologians in Spain, besides a number of canon law- Raynald. ann. 1453, No. 19.— Alphons. de Spina Fortalic. Fidei Prolog, fol. 565 (Ed. 1494). 188 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. yers. Pedro was summoned to appear, and on his failing to do so his doctrine was condemned as heretical, and he was sentenced — not to the stake for contumacy, but to recant publicly in the pulpit. He submitted and did so, and we are told in the official report of the proceedings that all the faithful burst into tears at this signal manifestation of the conquering hand of God. Pedro died peacefully in the bosom of the Church during the next year, 1480, and Sixtus IV., in confirming the action of the council, ordered the archbishop to prosecute as heretics any of his follow- ers who would not imitate his obedience.* Evidently some more efficient and less cumbrous method was requisite if the population of reunited Spain was to enjoy the blessing of uniformity in faith. It did not take long for the piety of Isabella and the poMcy of Ferdinand to discover appro- priate means. In Portugal, Affonso II., at the commencement of his reign, in 1211, had manifested his zeal by inducing his Cortes to adopt severe laws for the repression of heresy ; but Avhen Sueiro Gomes, the first Dominican Provincial of Spain, endeavored to introduce in his kingdom inquisitors of the order, Affonso refused to admit them, and successfully insisted that heretics should be tried as heretofore by the ordinary episcopal courts. This rebuff sufficed for nearly a century and a half, and there must have been con- siderable freedom of thought, for, about 1325, Alvaro Pelayo gives a long list of the errors publicly defended in the schools of Lisbon by Thomas Scotus, a renegade friar. Their nature may be appre- ciated from his Averrhoistic assertion that there had been three deceivers — Moses who deceived the Jews, Christ the Christians, and Mahomet the Saracens. He seems to have enjoyed immunity until he declared that St. Antony of Padua kept concubines, when the Franciscan prior had him incarcerated, and his trial followed. At last, by a bull, dated January 17, 1376, Gregory XL authorized Agapito Colonna, Bishop of Lisbon, to appoint, for this time only, a Franciscan inquisitor, as heresies were known to be spreading, * Alphons. de Castro adv. Hasreses Lib. iii. s. v. Cmfessio. — Illescas, Historia Pontifical, Lib. vi. c. 18.— Aguirre Concil. Hispan. V. 351-8. — D'Argentrg, I. ii. 298-302. PORTUGAL. Ig9 and there were no inquisitors in the kingdom. The nominee was to receive an annual salary of two hundred gold florins assessed upon all the dioceses in the proportion of their contributions to the apostolic chamber. Under this authority Agapito appointed the first Portuguese inquisitor, Martino Yasquez. From what we have seen elsewhere we may reasonably doubt his success in col- lecting his stipend ; but, small as his receipts may have been, they were the equivalent of his service, for no trace of any labors per- formed by him remains.* The Great Schism commenced in 1378, and as Portugal ac- knowledged Urban YI. while Spain adhered to the antipope Clem- ent YIL, the Dominican province of Spain divided itself, the Portuguese choosing a vicar -general, and finally a provincial, Gongalo, in 1418, when Martin Y. legalized the separation. This perhaps explains why Martino Yasquez was succeeded by another Franciscan. In 1394 Kodrigo de Cintra, calling himself Inquisitor of Portugal and Algarve, applied to Boniface IX. for confirma- tion, which was graciously accorded to him. Apparently the revenues of the ofiice were nil, for the privilege was granted to him of residing with one associate at will in any Franciscan con- vent, which was bound to minister to his necessities, the same as to any other master of theology. Kodrigo was preacher to King Joao L, who requested this favor of Boniface, and his career, hke that of his predecessor, is a blank. He was followed by a Do- minican, Yicente de Lisboa, who had been Provincial of Spain at the time of the disruption, when he returned to Portugal and be- came confessor of Dom Joao. The king, in 1399, requested of Boniface his appointment as inquisitor, which was duly granted ; and, as we have seen, in 1401, the pope endeavored to extend his jurisdiction over Castile and Leon. No trace of his inquisitorial activity exists. After his death, in 1401, there appears to have been an interval. The ofiice apparently was regarded as a per- quisite of the royal chapel for those who would condescend to ac- cept it. The next appointment of which we hear is that of another confessor of Dom Joao, in 1413, this time a Franciscan, Affonso de Alprao, of whose doings no record has been preserved. When, * Herculano, I. 40. — Monteiro, P. i. Liv. ii. c. 34. — Pelayo, TTetcrodoxos Espanoles, I. 782-3. 190 THE SPANISH PENINSULA. in 1418, the kingdom was reorganized as an independent Domini- can province, the earnest annahsts of the Inquisition assume that under the bull of Boniface IX., in 1402, each successive provincial was likewise an inquisitor-general, and the lists of these worthies are laboriously paraded as such, until the founding of the New Inquisition in 1531. Ko acts of theirs in such capacity, however, are recorded. The Holy Office continued dormant, without even a titular official, until, in the early years of the sixteenth century, Dom Manoel, stimulated by the example of his Castilian neigh- bors, and feehng soMcitude as to the status of the ISTew Christians, or converts from Judaism and Islam, bethought him of its revival. Although he had the Dominican provincial at hand, no purpose of utilizing him in this manner seems to have been entertained. The king applied to the pope and obtained the appointment of a Fran- ciscan, Henrique de Coimbra, but there is no trace of liis activity.* The I^ew Inquisition of Spain was a model which the smaller kingdom would naturally be expected to adopt, and in fact, to ardent Catholics, there might well seem to be a necessity for such an institution in view of the problems arising from the large influx of New Christians flying from Spanish persecution. Dom Manoel, indeed, at one time entertained so seriously the idea of establish- ing the Spanish Inquisition in his dominions that, in 1515, he ordered his ambassador at Rome, D. Miguel da Silva, to obtain from Leo X. the same privileges as those which had been conceded to Castile, but from some cause the project was abandoned. His son, Dom Joao III., who succeeded him in 1521, was a weak- minded fanatic, and it is only singular that the introduction of the Inquisition on the Spanish model was delayed for still ten years. The struggle which took place over the measure belongs, however, to a period beyond our present limits, f * Llorente, Ch. ni. Art. ii. No. 24.— Monteiro, P. i. Liv. ii. c. 35, 37, 38, 39. —Wadding, ann. 1394, No. 4 ; 1418, No. 4.— Ripoll II. 389. + Herculano, Da Origem, etc., da Inquisi9ao, I. 163-5. CHAPTER IV. ITALY. In France we have seen the stubbornness of heresy in alliance with feudalism resisting the encroachments of monarchy. In Italy we meet with different and more compHcated conditions, which gave additional stimulus to antagonism against the estab- lished Church, and rendered its suppression a work of much greater detail. Here heresy and pohtics are so inextricably intermingled that at times differentiation becomes virtually impossible, and the fate of heretics depends more on political vicissitudes than even on the zeal of men hke St. Peter Martyr, or Rainerio Saccone. For centuries the normal condition of Italy was not far re- moved from anarchy. Spasmodic attempts of the empire to make good its traditional claim to overlordship were met by the steady policy of the papacy to extend its temporal power over the Penin- sula. During the century occupied by the reigns of the Hohen- staufens (1152-1254), when the empire seemed nearest to accom- phshing its ends, the popes sought to erect a rampart by stimulating the attempts of the cities to establish their independence and fonn self-governing republics, and it thus created for itself a party in all of them. North of the Patrimony of St. Peter the soil of Italy thus became fractioned into petty states under institutions more or less democratic. For the most part they were torn with savage internal feuds between factions which, as Guelf or Ghibelline, hoisted the banner of pope or kaiser as an excuse for tearing each other to pieces. As a rule, they were involved in constant war with each other. Occasionally, indeed, some overmastering neces- sity might bring about a temporary union, as when the Lombard League, in 1177, broke the Barbarossa's power on the field of Legnano, but, in general, the chronicles of that dismal period are a confused mass of murderous strife inside and outside the gates of every town. 192 ITALY. Heresy could scarce ask conditions more favorable for its spread. The Church, worldly to the core, was immersed in temporal cares and pleasures, and during the strife between Alexander III. and the four antipopes successively set up by Frederic I. — Victor, Pas- cal, Calixtus, and Innocent — the enforcement of orthodoxy was out of the question. After the triumph of the papacy, stringent decrees, as we have seen, were issued by Lucius III., and edicts were promulgated by Henry YI. in 1194, and by Otho lY. in 1210, but they were practically inefficient. When every town was divided against itself heresy could bargain for toleration by hold- ing the balance of power, and was frequently able, by throwing its weight on one side or the other, to obtain a share in the government. The larger struggles of city against city and of pope against emperor afforded a still wider field for the exercise of this diplomatic ability, of which full advantage was taken. When the formulas of persecution became defined under Honorius III., Gregory IX., and Frederic II., and fautorship was made equivalent to heresy, the factions and the nobles who tolerated or protected heretics became involved in the common anathema, and whole communities were stigmatized as given over to false idols. Yet although GhibeUine and heretic were frequently held by the popes to be almost convertible terms, there was in reality no test capable of universal application. Traditional hostility to the empire rendered Milan an intensely Guelf community, and yet it was everywhere recognized as the greatest centre of heresy. Though heresy was by no means so universal as the papal anathemas would indicate, yet heretics were quite numerous enough to possess political importance, and to have some justifi- cation for their hopes of eventually loecoming dominant. Little concealment was deemed necessary. When Otho lY. was in Rome for his coronation in 1209, under the vigilant rule of Innocent HI., the ecclesiastics who accompanied him were scandalized at finding schools where Manichaean doctrines were openly taught, appar- ently without interference. The earlier Dominican persecutors are represented as constantly holding public disputations with heretics in the most populous cities of Italy, and the miracles re- lated of them were mostly occasioned by the taunts and challenges of heretics. Otho, at Ferrara, in 1210, was obhged to order the magistrates to put to the ban the Cathari who refused, at the THE CATHARAN CHURCHES. 193 instance of the bishop, to return to the Church, and also those who publicly supported them,* Although Stephen of Bourbon relates that a converted heretic informed htm that in MUan there were no less than seventeen heterodox sects which bitterly disputed with each other, yet they can, as in France, be reduced to two main classes — Cathari, or Pa- tarins, and Waldenses. The Cathari, it will be remembered, made their appearance in the first half of the eleventh century, at Mon- forte, in Lombardy, and they had continued to multiply since then. About the middle of the thirteenth century Rainerio Sac- cone gives us an enumeration of their churches. In Lombardy and the Marches there were about five hundred perfected Cathari of the Albanensian sect, more than fifteen hundred Concorrezenses, and about two hundred Bajolenses. The Church of Vicenza reckoned about a hundred ; there were as many in Florence and Spoleto, and in addition about one hundred and fifty refugees from France in Lombardy. As he estimates the total number, from Constantinople to the Pyrenees, at four thousand, mth a countless congregation of believers, it will be seen that nearly two thirds of the whole number were concentrated in northern Italy, chiefly in Lombardy, and that they constituted a notable portion of the population, f Lombardy, in fact, was the centre whence Catharism was propagated throughout Europe. We have seen above how for more than half a century it served as a refuge to the persecuted saints of Languedoc, and as a source whence to draw missionaries and teachers. About 1240 a certain Yvo of Narbonne was false- ly accused of heresy and fled to Italy, where he was received as a martyr, and had fuU opportunity of penetrating into the secrets of the sectaries. In a letter to Geraud, Archbishop of BordeaoK, he describes their thorough organization throughout Italy, with ramifications extending into aU the neighboring lands. From ^11 the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany their j^outh were sent to Paris to perfect themselves in logic and theology, so as to be able successfully to defend their errors. Catharan merchants * Caesar. Heisterbacens. Dial. Mirac. Dist. v. c. 25. — Muratori Autiq. Ital. Diss. LX. (T. XII. p. 447). t D'Argentrg, Coll. Judic. de novis Error. I. i. 86. — Reinerii Summa (Martene Thesaur. V. 1767). IL— 13 194 ITALY. frequented fairs and obtained entrance into houses where they lost no opportunity of scattering the seed of false doctrine. Full of zeal and courage, the Catharan believed his faith to be the re- ligion of the future, and his ardor courted martyrdom in the ef- fort to spread it everywhere. Milan was the headquarters whither every year delegates were sent from the churches throughout Christendom, bringing contributions for the support of the central organization, and receiving instructions as to the symbol, changed every twelvemonth, whereby the wandering Patarin could recog- nize the houses of his brethren and safely claim hospitality. It was in vain that, in 1212, Innocent III. warned the heretical city of the fate of Languedoc, and threatened to send a similar crusade for its extirpation. Fortunately for the Lombards he had no one to summon to their destruction, for Germany, however desirous of conquering Italy, was too distracted for such an enterprise, and the popes dreaded imperial domination quite as much as heresy. There was bitter irony in the reply of Frederic II., when, in 1236, he was subduing the rebellious Lombards, and he answered the clamor of Gregory IX., who called upon him to transfer his arms to Syria, by pointing out that the Milanese were much worse than Saracens, and their subjugation much more important.* We have no means of obtaining an approximate estimate of the Waldenses, but in some districts they must have been almost as numerous as the Cathari. The remains of the Arnaldistse and Umiliati had eagerly welcomed the missionaries of the Poor Men of Lyons, and had not only adopted their tenets, but had pushed them to a further development in antagonism to Rome. As early as 1206 we see Innocent III. alluding to Umihati and Poor Men of Lyons as synonymous expressions, and endeavoring with little success to effect their expulsion from Faenza, where they were spreading and infecting the people. In Milan they had built a school where they publicly taught their doctrines ; this was at length torn down by a zealous archbishop, and when, in 1209, Duran de Huesca sought to bring them back to the fold, a hun- dred or more of them consented to be reconciled if the building * Matt. Paris, ann. 1236, p. 293; ann. 1243, pp. 412-13 (Ed. 1644).— Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1230.— Innoc. PP. III. Regest. xv. 189.— Hist. Djplom. Frid. n. T. IV. p. 881. THE WALDENSES. I95 were restored to them. Evidently they had little to dread from active persecution, and subsequent letters of Innocent show them to be still flourishing there. The Waldenses who were burned at Strassburg in 1212 admitted that their chief resided in Milan, and that they were in the habit of collecting money and remitting it to him.* It was, however, in the valleys of the Cottian Alps, to which they spread from Dauphine, that they settled themselves most firmly. In those inhospitable regions, till then almost uninhab- ited, their marvellous and self-denying industry occupied every spot where incessant labor could support life. There they rapid- ly increased and filled the vaUeys of Luserna, Angrogna, San Mar- tino, and Perosa. In 1210 Giacomo di Carisio, Bishop of Turin, alarmed at the constant growth of this heresy in his diocese, ap- plied to Otho IV. for aid in its suppression, but the emperor in reply merely ordered him to use severity in their punishment and expulsion. Authority for this he already had in abundance under the canons, but he lacked the physical force to render it effective, and the imperial rescript went for naught. This shows that the local suzerains took no measures to enforce persecution, and the heretics continued to increase. The immediate sovereign of the district most deeply infected was the Abbey of Ripaille, which found itself unable to control them, and made over its temporal rights to Tommaso I., Count of Savoy. He issued an edict, to which I have already referred, imposing a fine of ten sols for giving refuge to heretics, which proved altogether ineffective. Thus, in the absence of efficient repression, were established those Alpine communities whose tenacity of belief supplied through centuries an unfailing succession of humble mart^^rs, and who ennobled human nature by their marvellous example of constancy and endurance, f * Montet, Hist. litt. des Vaudois du Pigmout, pp. 40-1.— Innoc. PP. IH. Re- gest. IX. 18, 19, 204 ; xii. 17 ; xiir. 63.— Kaltner, Konrad v. Marburg, pp. 42, 44.— Annal. Marbacens. ann. 1231 (Urstisii Germ. Hist. Scriptt. H. 90). t Bobmer, Regest. Imp. V. 110. — Comba, La Riforma in Italia, I. 254-57. — Ejnsd. Histoire des Vaudois d'ltalie, I. 124 sqq., 140.— Charvaz, Origine dei Val- desi, App. No. xxii. Giuseppe Manuel di S. Giovanni (Un' Episodia della Storia del Piemonte, Torino, 1874, pp. 15-21) argues that tbe letter of Otho IV. is only the draft of one 196 ITALY. Although the Lombard Waklenses admitted their descent from the Poor Men of Lyons, their more rapid development gave rise to differences, and in 1218 a conference was held at Bergamo be- tween delegates of both parties. This did not succeed in remov- ing the points of dissidence, and about 1230 the Lombards sent to the brethren in Germany a statement of the discussion and of their views. It is not our province to enter into these minute de- tails of faith and Church government, but the affair is worth allud- ing to as illustrating the flourishing condition of the Church, the practical toleration which it enjoyed, and the active communica- tion which existed between its organizations throughout Europe.* The aggressiveness of the heretics, the favor shown them by the people, and the impossibility of any systematic suppression by the Church under existing political conditions are well exhibited in the troubles which commenced at Piacenza in 1204. There the heretics were strong enough to provoke a quarrel between the au- thorities and Bishop Grimerio, which resulted in either the with- drawal or the expulsion of the prelate and all the clergy. The exiles transferred themselves to Cremona, but in 1205 that city likewise quarrelled with its pastors, and the wanderers were again driven forth, to find a refuge in Castell' Arquato. For three years and a half Piacenza remained without an orthodox priest, and deprived of all the observances and consolations of religion. So weak was the hold of the Church upon the people that this de- privation was acquiesced in with the utmost indifference. In Oc- tober, 1206, Innocent III. sent three Apostohc Yisitors to effect a reconciUation, with a threat of dividing the diocese and apportion- ing it among the neighboring sees, but the citizens cared nothing for this, and refused the terms demanded, which required them to compensate their bishop for the damage inflicted on him. After some six months wasted in fruitless negotiations the Yisitors de- parted, and it was not till July, 1207, that another commission, of- fering more favorable conditions, succeeded in effecting a recon- which the bishop desired to procure, but the question is merely of archaeological interest, for in either case it was equally ineffective. * Rescript. Heres. Lombard. (Preger, Beitrage, Miincheu, 1875, pp. 56-63).— Eeinerii Summa (Martene Thesaur. V. 1775). IMPEDIMENTS TO PERSECUTION. 197 ciliation which enabled the clergy to return from exile. About the same period Innocent found himself obliged to use persuasion and argument in the endeavor to urge the people of Treviso to expel their heretics. So far from threatening them, he begged them to have faith that their bishop would reform the excesses of the clergy whose evil example had disturbed them. It is easy thus to understand the exulting confidence with which the heretics anticipated the eventual triumph of their creeds, and the despair Avhich led Abbot Joachim of Flora, in expounding the Apocalypse, to see in them the locusts with the power of scorpions who issue from the bottomless pit at the sounding of the fifth trumpet (Eev. IX. 3, 4). These heretics are the Antichrist ; they are to grow in power and their king is already chosen, that king of the locusts " whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon " (Kev. ix. 11). Resistance to them will be in vain ; they are to unite with the Saracens, with whom, in 1195, he says they are already entering into negotiations.* "When Honorius III., in 1220, obtained from Frederic II. the ferocious coronation-edict against heresy, he may weU have im- agined that the way was open for its immediate suppression. If so, he was not long in discovering his mistake. Whatever pro- fessions Frederic might make, or whatever rigor he might exer- cise in his Sicilian dominions, it was no part of his policy to es- trange the Ghibelline leaders, or to strengthen the Guelfic factions in the turbulent little republics which he sought to reduce to sub- jection. His whole reign was an internecine conflict, open or con- cealed, with Rome, and he was too much of a free-thinker to have any scruples as to the sources whence he could draw strength for himself or annoyance for his enemy. In central and upper Italy, therefore, his laws were for the most part virtually a dead letter. Alread}^, in 1221, Ezzelin da Romano, the most powerful Ghibel- line in the March of Treviso, was complained of for the protection which he afforded to heretics, and his continuing to do so to the end shows that he found it to be good policy. "When, in 1227, * Campi, Deir Historia Ecclesiastica di Piacenza, P. ii. pp. 92 sqq. — Innoc. PP. III. Regest. IX. 131, 1C6-9; x. 54, 64, 222.— Tocco, L'Hercsia nel l\[e(lio Evo, pp. 364, 366 (Fireoze, 1884). — Cf. Pseudo-Joachim de septem temporibus Ecclesiae P.v. 198 ITALY. Ingheramo da Macerata, the late podesta of Kimini, was perse- cuted by the citizens because he had delivered for burning as heretics some of their daughters and sisters, and because he had wished to inscribe on their statute-books the constitutions of Fred- eric, it was not to the emperor that he appMed for protection, but to Honorius III,* Something more than imperial edicts was plainly necessary, and Honorius, in casting around for methods to check the spread of heresy, appointed, in 1224, the Bishops of Brescia and Modena as commissioners with special powers to exterminate the heretics of Lombardy — as inquisitors, in fact, this being one of the steps which gradually led to the establishment of the Inquisition, the usefulness of the Dominicans in this respect not having yet been divined. The Bishop of Modena, however, undertook a mission to convert the pagans of Prussia, and the Bishop of Rimini was substituted in his place. The prelates commenced with Brescia itself, whose prelate doubtless knew where to strike. They or- dered the tearing down of certain houses where heretical preach- ers had been accustomed to hold forth. At once an armed insur- rection broke out. The perennial factions of the city took sides. Several churches were burned, and the heretics parodied from them the anathema by casting lighted torches from the windows, and solemnly excommunicating all members of the Church of Eome, It was not until after a severe and prolonged conflict that the Catholics obtained the upper hand, and then the terms prescribed by Honorius were so mild as to indicate that it was not deemed politic to drive the defeated party to despair. AU excommuni- cates were required to apply personally for absolution to the Holy See. The fortified houses of the lords of Gambara, of Ugona, of the Oriani, of the sons of Botatio, who had been the leaders in the troubles, were ordered to be razed to the ground, never to be re- built, while other strongholds, which had been defended against the Catholics, were to be cut down one-third or one-half. Beni- ficed clerks who were children of heretics or of fautors were to be suspended for three years or more as their individual participation in the troubles might indicate. A levy of three hundred and thirty lire was ordered on the clergy of Lombardy and the Trivigiana * Epistt. Ssecul. XIH. T. I. No. 451 (Mon. Hist. Germ.J.— Potthast No. 7672. EFFORTS OF GREGORY IX. 199 to recompense the Catholics for the losses endured in contending with the heretics. So unaccustomed as yet were the Lombards to persecution that even these conditions were deemed too harsh. The city of Milan interceded, and finally even the authorities of Brescia itself urged that moderation would be conducive to peace ; and, May 1, 1226, Honorius authorized the bishops to use their discretion in diminishing the penalties. When, however, the Do- minican Guala was elected Bishop of Brescia in 1230, he speedily succeeded in introducing in the local statutes the law of Frederic, of March, 1224, which decreed for heretics the stake or loss of the tongue, and he forced the podesta to swear to its execution.* Gregory IX. was a man of sterner temper than Honorius, and, despite his octogenary age, his advent to the pontificate, in 1227, was the signal for unrelenting war on heresy. Within three weeks of his accession peace was signed, under the auspices of the papacy, between Frederic II. and the Lombard League, with pro- visions for the suppression of heresy. Gregory immediately, in the most imperious fashion, summoned the Lombards to perform their duty. Hitherto, he told them, aU their pretended efforts had been fraudulent, l^o enforcement of the imperial constitutions had been attempted. If the heretics had at any time been driven away, it was with a secret understanding that they would be al- lowed to return and dwell in peace. If fines had been inflicted, the money had been covertly refunded. If statutes had been en- acted, there was always a reservation by which they were ren- dered ineffective. Thus heresy had grown and strengthened while the liberties of the Church had been subverted. Heretics had been permitted to preach their doctrines publicly, while ecclesias- tics had been outlawed and imprisoned. All this must cease, the provisions of the treaty of peace must be enforced, and, if they continued in their evil courses, the Holy See would find means to coerce them in their perversity, f These were brave words, though the political condition of Lombardy rendered them ineffective. Nearer home, however, Gregory had fairer opportunity of enforcing his will, and we have * Epistt. Ssec. XIII. T. I. No. 264-66, 2V5, 295 (Mon. Hist. Germ.). — Havet, Bibl. de I'ficole des Chartes, 1880, p. 602. t Epistt. Ssec. Xni. T. I. No. 355. 900 ITALY. already seen how promptly he recognized the utility of the Ordel of Dominic and laid the foundations of the Inquisition by his ten- tative action in Florence. While this was taking shape his zeal was stimulated by the discovery, in 1231, that in Rome itself her- esy had become so bold that it ventured to assert itself openly, and that many priests and other ecclesiastics had been converted. Probably the first auto defe on record was that held by the Sen- ator Annibaldo at the portal of Santa Maria Maggiore, when these unfortunates were burned or condemned to perpetual pris- on, and Gregory took advantage of the occasion to issue the de- cretal which became the basis of inquisitorial procedure, and to procure the enactment of severe secular laws in the name of the senator. The details I have already given (Yol. I. p. 325), and they need not be repeated here ; but Gregory did not content himself with what he thus accomplished in Rome. His aid just then was desirable to Frederic II. in his Lombard complications, and to Gregory's urgency may doubtless be attributed the severe legislation of the Sicilian Constitutions, issued about this time, and the Ravenna decrees of 1232. Shortly afterwards, indeed, we find Frederic writing to him that they are like father and son ; that they should sharpen the spiritual and temporal swords respectively committed to them against heretics and rebels, with- out wasting effort on sophistry, for if time be spent in disputation nature wiU succumb to disease. It is not probable that Gregory counted much on the zeal of the emperor, but he sent the edict of Annibaldo to Milan, with instructions that it be adopted and en- forced there. Already, in 1228, his legate, Goffredo, Cardinal of San Marco, had obtained of the Milanese the enactment of a law by which the houses of heretics were to be destroyed, and the secular authorities were required to put to death within ten days all who were condemned by the Church ; but thus far no execu- tions seem to have taken place under it.* It was now that Gregory, seeing the futility of all efforts thus far save those which the Dominicans were making in Florence, * Raynald. Annal. ann. 1231, No. 13-18. — Constit. Sicular. Lib. i. Tit. i. — Rich. S. Germ. Chron. (Muratori, S. R. L VII. 1026). — Vit. Gregor. PP. IX. (lb. m. 578).— Hist. Diplom. Frid. XL T. IV. pp. 299-300, 409-11.— Verri, Storia di Milano, I. 242.— Bern. Corio, Hist. Milanese, ann. 1228. DOMINICANS AS INQUISITORS. 201 hit upon the final and successful experiment of confiding to the Order the suppression of heresy as part of theu' regular duties. A fresh impulse was felt all along the line. The Church suddenly found that it could count upon an unexpected reserve of enthusi- asm, boundless and exhaustless, despising danger and reckless of consequences, which in the end could hardly fail to triumph. A new class of men now appears upon the scene — San Piero Mar- tire, Giovanni da Yicenza, Rolando da Cremona, Hainerio Sac- cone — worthy to rank with their brethren in Languedoc, who devoted themselves to what they held to be their duty with a sin- gleness of purpose which must command respect, however repul- sive their labors may seem to us. On one hand these men had an easier task than their "Western colleagues, for they had not to contend with the jealousy, or submit to the control, of the bish- ops. The independence of the Italian episcopate had been broken down in the eleventh century. Besides, the bishops natm^ally belonged to the Guelfic faction, and welcomed any alUes who promised to aid them in crushing the antagonistic party in their turbulent cities. On the other hand, the political dissensions which raged everywhere with savage ferocity increased enor- mously the difficulties and dangers of the task. In Italy, as in France, the organization of the Inquisition was gradual. It advanced step by step, the earlier proceedings, as we have seen both in Florence and Toulouse, being characterized by little regularity. As the tribunal by degrees assumed shape, a definite code of procedure was established which was virtually the same everywhere, except with regard to the power of confis- cation, the application of the profits of persecution, and the ac- quittal of the innocent. To these attention has already been called, and they need not detain us further. The problems which the founders of the Inquisition had to meet in Italy, and the methods in which these were met, can best be illustrated by a rapid glance at what remains to us of the careers of some of the earnest men who undertook the apparently hopeless task. The earliest name I have met with bearing the title of Inquis- itor of Lombardy is that of a Fra Alberico in 1232. The Cardinal Legate Goffredo, whom we have seen busy in Milan, undertook to quiet civil strife in Bergamo, with the consent of all fnctions, by appointing as podesta Pier Torriani of Milan; and at the same 202 ITALY. time he seized the opportunity to make a raid on heretics, a num- ber of whom he cast into prison. No sooner was his back turned than the citizens refused to receive his podesta, elected in his place a certain R. di Madello, and, what was worse, set at liberty the captive heretics. Thereupon the legate placed the city under in- terdict, which brought the people to their senses, and they agreed to stand to the mandate of the Church, Gregory accordingly, November 3, 1232, instructed Alberico, as Inquisitor of Lombardy, to reconcile the city on condition that the people refund to Pier Torriani all his expenses and give sufficient security to extermi- nate heresy. Here we see how intimate were the relations be- tween pontics and heresy, and what difficulties the alliance threw in the way of persecution.* Fra E-olando da Cremona we have already met as professor in the inchoate University of Toulouse, and we have seen how rigid and unbending was his zeal. Hardly had he quitted Languedoc when we find him, in 1233, already actively at work in the conge- nial duty of suppressing heresy at Piacenza. The twenty -five years which had elapsed since the Piacenzans had shown them- selves so indifferent to their spiritual privileges had not greatly increased their respect for orthodoxy, Rolando assembled them, preached to them, and then ordered the podesta to expel the her- etics. The result did not correspond to his expectations. "With the connivance of the podesta, the heretics and their friends arose and made a general onslaught on the clergy, including the bishop and the friars, in which a monk of San Sabino was slain and Ro- lando and some of his comrades were wounded. The Dominicans carried Rolando half -dead from the city, which was placed under interdict by the bishop. Then a revulsion of feeling occurred; Rolando was asked to return, and full satisfaction was promised. He prudently kept away, but ordered the imprisonment of the podesta and tAventy-four others till the pleasure of the pope should be known. Gregory took advantage of the opportunity by sending thither the Archdeacon of Novara, with instructions to place the city under control of the orthodox party, taking ample security that the heretics should be suppressed ; but this arrange- ment did not please the citizens, who rose again and liberated the * RipoU I, 41. GIOVANNI DA VICENZA. 203 prisoners. Sharp as was this experience, it did not dull the edge of Rolando's zeal, for the next year we find him at work in the Milanese, where he received rough treatment at the hands of Lantelmo, a noble who sheltered heretics in his castle near Lodi. For this Lantelmo was condemned to be led through the streets, stripped and with a halter around his neck, to Eolando's presence, and there to accept such penance as the friar, at command of the pope, might enjoin on him. A month later we hear of his seizing two Florentine merchants, Feriabente and Capso, with all their goods. They evidently were persons of importance, for Gregory ordered their release in view of having received bail for them in the enormous sum of two thousand silver marks.* During this transition period, while the Inquisition was slowly taking shape, one of the most notable of the Dominicans engaged in the work of persecution was Giovanni Schio da Yicenza. I have alluded in a previous chapter to his marvellous career as a pacificator, and it may perhaps not be unjust to assume that his motive in employing his unequalled eloquence in harmonizing dis- cordant factions was not only the Christian desire for peace, but also to remove the obstruction to persecution caused by perpetual strife, for in almost all these movements we may trace the con- nection between heresy and politics. After his wonderful success at Bologna, Gregory urged him to undertake a similar mission to Florence, where constant civic war was accompanied by recrudes- cence of heresy. In spite of the efforts of the embryonic Inquisi- tion there, heresy was undisguised, and the ministers of Christ were openly opposed and ridiculed. Gregory assumed that Gio- vanni acted under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and did not venture to send him orders, but only requests. He was, like all his colleagues, popularly regarded as a thaumaturgist, and * Epistt. Ssc. Xin. T. I. No. 559. — Raynald. ann. 1233, No. 40. — RipoU I. 69, 71. Probably about this period may have occurred tlie incident related of Mone- ta, the disciple of St. Dominic, whose eflForts against the heretics of Lombardy are said to have aroused their animosity to the point that a noble named Peraldo hired an assassin to despatch him. Word was brought to Moiieta, who seized a crucifix and assembled a band of the faithful, with whom he captured Peraldo and tiie bravo, delivered them to tlie secular authorities, and they were both burned alive.— Ricchini Vit. Monetis, p. viii. 204 ITALY. stories were told of his crossing rivers dry-shod, and causing vult ures to descend from on high at his simple command. The Bolognese were so loath to part with him that they used gentle violence to retain him, and only let him go after (Tregory had ordered their city laid under interdict, and had threatened to de- prive of its episcopal dignity any place which should detain him against his will. After completely succeeding in his mission to Florence he was despatched on a similar one to Lonibardy. The League, which had been so efficient an instrument in curbing the imperial power, was breaking up. Fears were entertained that Frederic would soon return from Germany with an army, and a portion of the Lombard cities and nobles were disposed to invite him. Some countervailing influence was required, and nothing more effective than Giovanni's eloquence could be resorted to. At Padua, Treviso, ConigUano, Ceneda, Oderzo, Belluno, and Fel- tre he preached on the text " Blessed are the feet of the bearers of peace" with such effect that even the terrible Ezzelin da Ko- mano is said to have twice burst into tears. The whole land was pacified, save the ancestral quarrel between Ezzelin and the counts of Campo San Piero, which unpardonable wrongs had rendered implacable. After a visit to Mantua, the apostle of peace went to Yerona, then besieged by an army of Mantuans, Bolognese, Brescians, and Faenzans, where he persuaded the assailants to withdraw, and the Veronese, in gratitude, proclaimed him podesta by acclamation. He promptly made use of the position to burn in the market-place some sixty heretics of both sexes, belonging to the noblest famihes of the city. Then he summoned to a great assembly in a plain hard by all the confederate cities and nobles. Obedient to his call there came the Patriarch of Aquileia, the Bishops of Mantua, Brescia, Bologna, Modena, Keggio, Treviso, Yicenza, Padua, and Ceneda, Ezzelin da Komano, the Marquis of Este, who was Lord of Mantua, the Count of San Bonifacio, who ruled Ferrara, and delegates from all the cities, with their carro- chi. The multitude was diversely estimated at from forty thou- sand to five hundred thousand souls, who were wrought by his eloquence to the utmost enthusiasm of mutual forgiveness. After denouncing as rebels and enemies of the Church all who adhered to Frederic or invited him to Italy, Giovanni induced his auditors to swear to accept such settlement of their quarrels as he should GIOVANNI DA VICENZA. 205 dictate, and when he announced the terms they unanimously signed the treaty.* So great became his reputation that Gregory IX. was seriously disturbed at a report that Giovanni contemplated makino- himself pope. A consistory was assembled to consider the advisability of excommunicating him, and that step would have been taken had not the Bishop of Modena sworn upon a missal that he had once seen an angel descend from heaven while Giovanni was speaking, and place a golden cross upon his brow. A confidential mission was sent to Bologna to investigate his career there, which returned with authentic accounts of numberless miracles performed by him, among them no less than ten resuscitations of the dead. So holy a man could not well be thrust from the pale of the Church, and the project was abandoned.f Meanwhile he had visited his native place, Vicenza, on invita- tion of the bishop, and had so impressed the people that they gave him their statutes to revise at his pleasure, and proclaimed him duke, marquis, and count of the city — titles which belonged to the bishop, who also offered to make over the episcopate to him. As at Verona, he used his power to burn a number of heretics. Dur- ing his absence at Verona, Uguccione Pileo, an enemy of the Schia family, induced the people to revolt, when Giovanni hastened back and suppressed the rebellion, putting to death, with torture, a number of citizens, who are charitably supposed to have been heretics. Uguccione brought up reinforcements ; a fierce battle was fought in the streets, and Giovanni was worsted and taken prisoner. A letter of condolence, addressed to him in prison, by Gregory, under date of September 22, 1233, serves to fix the date of this, and to show how powerless was the papacy to protect its agents in the fierce dissensions of the period. Giovanni was obliged to ransom himself and return to Verona, and thence to Bologna. The peace which he had effected was of short duration. The chronic wars broke out afresh, and Giovanni, at the instance of Gregory, came again to pacify them. In this he succeeded, but no sooner was his back turned than hostilities were renewed. * RipoU I. 48, 56-9.— Matt. Paris, ann. 1238, p. 320.— Chron. Veroneus. ann. 1233 (Muratori, S. R. I. Vni. 67).— Gerardi Maurisii Hist. (lb. pp. 37-9).— Barba- rano de' Mironi, Hist. Eccles. di Vicenza, II. 79-84. t Barbarano de' Mironi, op. cit. II. 90 1. 206 ITALY. Gregory made a third attempt, through the Bishops of Keggio and Treviso, who induced the warring factions to lay down their arms for a while ; but the main object, of presenting a united front and keeping Frederic out of Italy, was lost. Ezzelin and a number of the cities urged his coming, and the decisive victory of Corte- nuova, in November, 1237, dissolved the Lombard League which had so long held the empire in check, and made him master of Lombardy.* During all this time Gregory had been untiring in his efforts to subdue heresy in Lombardy, undeterred by the disheartening lack of result. All his legates to that province were duly in- structed to regard this as one of their chief duties. In May, 1236, he had even attempted to establish there a rudimentary Inquisi- tion, but, in the existing condition of the land, even he could hardly have expected to accomplish anything. Frederic came with professions that the extirpation of heresy was one of the motives impelling him to the enterprise ; and when Gregory re- proached him with suppressing the preaching of the friars and thus favoring heresy, he astutely retorted, with a reference to Giovanni, by alluding to those who, under pretext of making war on heresy, were busy in establishing themselves as potentates, and were taking castles as security from those suspect in faith. Greg- ory, in reply, could only disclaim all responsibility for the acts of the adventurous friar. Yet Gregory himself, when it suited his Lombard policy, did not hesitate to relax his severity against the heretics, and it became a popular cry in Germany that he had been bribed with their gold.f For some years Giovanni Schio led a comparatively quiet ex- istence in Bologna, but in 1247, by which time the Inquisition was fairly taking shape. Innocent I Y. appointed him perpetual inquisi- tor throughout Lombardy, arming him with full powers and re- leasing him from all subjection or accountability to the Dominican general or provincial. In the existing condition of the north of Italy the commission was virtually inoperative, and its only inter- * Ripoll I. 60-1. — Barbarano de' Miroui op. cit. II. 86, 91-2. + Greg. PP. IX. Bull. Ille humani generis, 20 Maii, 1236 (Ripoll I. 9.5, gives this in 1237, probably a reissue). — Epistt. Ssecul. XIII. T. I. No. 693, 700, 702, 704.— Hist. Diplom. Frid. II. T. IV. P. ii. pp. 907-8.— Schmidt, Cathares, I. 161. SAN PIERO MARTIRE. 207 est lies in its terms, which show that up to this time there was no organized Inquisition there. We hear nothing further of his ac- tivity, even after the death of Frederic, in 1250, until, in 1256, the long-delayed crusade was undertaken against Ezzelin da Eomano. By his fiery eloquence he raised in Bologna a considerable force of crusaders, at whose head he marched against the tyrant of the Trevisan, but, disgusted with the quarrels of the leaders, he re- turned to Bologna before the final catastrophe, and he is supposed to have perished, in 1265, in the crusade against Manfred, when there was a contingent of ten thousand Bolognese in the army of Charles of Anjou.* Yet the most noteworthy in all respects of the dauntless zealots who fought the seemingly desperate battle against heresy was Piero da Verona, better known as St. Peter Martyr. Bom at Verona in 1203 or 1206, of a heretic family, his legend relates that he was divinely led to recognize their errors. "When a schoolboy of only seven years of age his uncle chanced to ask him what he learned, and he repeated the orthodox creed. His uncle there- upon told him he must not say that God created the heaven and the earth, for he was not the creator of the visible universe ; but the child, fiUed with the Holy Ghost, overcame his elder in argu- ment, who thereupon urged the parents to remove him from school, but the father, who hoped to see him become a leader of the sect, allowed him to complete his education. His orthodox zeal grew with his growth, and in 1221 he entered the Dominican Order. His confessor testified that he never committed a mortal sin, and the bull of his canonization bears emphatic evidence to his humility, his meek obedience, his sweet benignity, his exhaust- less compassion, his unfailing patience, his wonderful charity, his passionate supplications to God for martyrdom, and the innumera- ble miracles which illustrated his life.f Before the Dominicans were armed with the power of perse- cution Piero earnestly devoted himself to the original function of the Order, that of controverting heresy, and preaching against heretics. In this the success of the young apostle was marvel- lously aided by his thaumaturgic development. At Ravenna, * RipoU I. 174-5.— Barbarano de' Mironi, op. cit. II. 94-6. t Jac. de Voragine Legenda Aurea s. v. — Mag. Bull. Rom. I. 94. 208 ITALY. Mantua, Yenice, Milan, and other places, numerous wonders are related of his performance. Thus, at Cesena, the success of his efforts at conversion irritated the heretics, who, on one occasion, interrupted his preaching in the public square by volleys of filth and stones discharged from a house near by. He several times mildly entreated them to desist, but in vain, when, inspired by divine wrath, he launched a terrible imprecation against them. Instantly the house crumbled in ruin, burying the sacrilegious wretches, nor could it be rebuilt until long afterwards.* When the Dominicans were charged with the duty of persecu- tion his earnest zeal naturally caused him to be selected as one of the earliest laborers. In 1233 he was sent to Milan, where, thus far, all the efforts of papal missives and legates had proved in- effectual to rouse the authorities and the citizens to undertake the holy work. The laws which, in 1228, Cardinal Goffredo had inscribed on the statute-book had remained a dead letter. All this was changed when Piero da Verona made his influence felt. Not only did he cause Gregory's legislation of 1231 to be adopted in the municipal law, but he stimulated the podesta, Oldrado da Tresseno, and the archbishop, Enrico da Settala, to work in earn- est. A number of heretics were burned, who were probably the first victims of fanaticism which Milan had seen since the time of the Cathari of Monf orte. So strong was the impression made by these executions that they earned for the podesta Oldrado the honor of an equestrian portrait in bas-relief, with the inscription, " Qui soliiiin struxit, Catharos ut debiiit uxit^'' which is still to be seen adorning the wall of the Sala del ConsigUo, now the Archi^ao pubblico. It fared worse with the archbishop, who was rendered so unpopular that he was banished, for which the magistracy was duly excommunicated ; but he, too, had posthumous reward, for his tomb bore the legend " mstituto inquisitore jugulavit hceresesP Piero likewise founded in Milan a company, or association, for the suppression of heresy, which was taken under immediate papal protection — the model of that which ten years later did such bloody work in Florence. We may safely assume that his fiery activity continued unabated, though we hear nothing of him until 1242, when we again find him in j\Iilan so vigorously at work that • Campana, Storia di San Piero-Martire, Milano, 1741, pp. 38-39, HERESY IN FLORENCE. 209 he is said to have caused a sedition which nearly ruined the city.* Two years later we meet him fighting heresy in Florence. That city, it will be remembered, was the subject of the earliest inquisitorial experiments, Fra Giovanni di Salerno, Prior of Santa Maria Novella, having been commissioned to prosecute heretics in 1228, and being succeeded after his death, in 1230, by Frk Aldobrandini Cavalcante, and about 1241 by Fra Ruggieri Cal- cagni. The first two of these accomphshed little, being, in fact, rather preachers than inquisitors. The heretics were protected by the Ghibelline faction and the partisans of Frederic II., and heresy, far from decreasing, spread rapidly in spite of occasional burnings. When the Catharan Bishop Paternon fled, his posi- tion was successively held by three others, TorseUo, Brunnetto, and Giacopo da Montefiascone. Many of the most powerful fami- lies were heretics or open defenders of heresy — the Baroni, Pulci, Cipriani, Cavalcanti, Saraceni, and Malpresa. The Baroni built a stronghold at San Gaggio, beyond the waUs, which served as a refuge for the Perfected, and there were plenty of houses in the town where they could hold their conventicles in safety. The Cipriani had two palaces, one at Mugnone and the other in Flor- ence, where troops of Cathari assembled under the leadership of a heresiarch named Marchisiano, and there were great schools at Poggibonsi, Plan di Cascia, and Ponte a Sieve.f The whole of central Italy, in fact, was almost as deeply infected with heresy as Lombardy, and little had as yet been done to purify it. That as late as 1235 no comprehensive attempt had been made to establish the Inquisition is shown by a papal brief addressed in that year to the Dominicans of Yiterbo, empowering them, in all the dioceses of Tuscany, Viterbo, Orta, BaLneoreggio, Castro, So- ano, A merino, and Narni, to absolve heretics not publicly defamed for heresy, who should spontaneously accuse themselves, provided the bishops assented and sufficient bail were given ; and the bish- ops were ordered to co-operate. Heretics not thus voluntarily confessing were to be dealt with according to the papal statutes. * Bern. Corio, Hist. Milanese, ann. 1233, 1242. — Verri, Storia di Milano, I. 241-3.— Ripoll I. 65.— Annal. Mediolanens. c. xiv. (Muratori, S. R. I. XVI. 651). — Sarpi, Discorso (Ed. Helmstad. 1763, IV. 21). t Lami, Autichita Toscane, pp. 497, 500. II.— 14 210 ITALY. At Yiterbo dwelt Giovanni da Benevento, who was called the pope of the heretics, but it was not until Gregory went thither in 1237 and undertook the task of purifying the place himself that any efficient action was taken ; he condemned Giovanni and many other heretics, and ordered the palaces of some of the noblest f am- ihes of the city to be torn down, as having afforded refuge to here- tics. At the same time the Bishop of Padua was urged to perse- vere in the good work, and at Parma the Knights of Jesus Christ were instituted with the same object by Jordan, the Dominican general. All this indicates the commencement of systematic operations, and the pressure grew stronger year by year. Un- der the energetic management of Ruggieri Calcagni the Floren- tine Inquisition rapidly took shape and executions became fre- quent, while in the confessions of the accused allusions are made to heretics burned elsewhere, showing that persecution was be- coming active wherever political conditions rendered it possible. Thus in a confession of 1244 there is a reference to two, Maffeo and Martello, burned not long before at Pisa.* In Florence Fra Ruggieri's vigor was reducing the heretics to desperation. Each trial revealed fresh names, and as the circle spread the prosecutions became more numerous and terrible. The Signoria was coerced by papal letters to enforce the citations of the inquisitor, and as the prisoners multiplied and their depositions were taken, fully a third of the citizens, including many nobles, were found to be involved. Excited by the magnitude of the de- velopments, Ruggieri determined to strike at the chiefs, and, invok- ing the aid of the Priors of the Arts, he seized a number of them and condemned to the stake those who proved contumacious. The time had evidently come when they must choose between open resistance and destruction. The Baroni assembled their followers, broke open the jails, and carried off the prisoners, who were dis- tributed through various strongholds in the Florentine territory, where they continued to preach and spread their doctrines. Matters were rapidly approaching a crisis. On the one hand it was impossible for so large a body as the heretics to permit themselves to be slaughtered in detail with impunity, to say noth- * Ripoll I. 79-80.— Raynald. ann. 1235, No. 15.— Vit. Gregor. PP. IX. (Mu- ratori, S. R. I. III. 581).— Lami op. cit. pp. 554, 557. PIER MARTIRE AT FLORENCE. 211 ing of the spoliation and gratification of private feuds which could not fail to involve the innocent with tlie guilty in a persecution of such extent so recklessly pursued. On the other hand, the persecutors were maddened with excitement and with the pros- pects of at last triumphing over the adversaries who had so long defied them. Innocent IV. wrote pressingly to the Signoria com- manding energetic support for the inquisitor, and he summoned from Lombardy Piero da Verona to lend his aid in the approach- ing struggle. Towards the end of 1244 Piero hastened to the con- flict, and his eloquence drew such crowds that the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella had to be enlarged to accommodate the multitude. He utilized the enthusiasm by enrolling the orthodox nobles in a guard to protect the Dominicans, and formed a military order under the name of the Societa de' Capitani cU Santa Maria, uni- formed in a white doublet with a red cross, and these led the organization known as the Compagnia della Fede, sworn to defend the Inquisition at all hazards, under privileges granted by the Holy See. Thus encouraged and supported, Ruggieri pushed for- ward the trials, and numbers of victims were burned. This was a challenge which the heretics could only decline under pain of annihilation. They likewise organized under the lead of the Baroni, and it was not difiicult to persuade the podesta, Ser Pace di Pesannola of Bergamo, recently appointed by Frederic II., that the interest of his master required him to protect them. Thus the perennial quarrel between the Church and the empire filled the streets of Florence with bloodshed under the banners of ortho- doxy and heterodoxy. Ruggieri provoked the conflict without flinching. He cited the Baroni before him, and when they contemptuously refused to ap- pear he procured a special mandate from Innocent IV. This they obeyed with the utmost docility, about August 1, 1245, swearing to stand to the mandates of the Church, and depositing one thou- sand fire as security ; but when they understood that he was about to render sentence against them, they appealed to the podesta. Ser Pace thereupon sent his officers, August 12, to Euggieri, order- ing him to annul the proceedings as contrary to the mandate of the emperor, to return the money taken as bail, and, in case of contumacy, to appear the next day before the ])(ieguines are ordered to be sold and the proceeds divided into thirds, one part being assigned to repairing roads and the walls of the towns, another to be given to inquisitors, to be expended on pious uses, among which is included the maintenance of prisoners. But three days' notice is given to the victims prior to expulsion from their homes.* If the Inquisition could have been permanently established in Germany this unscrupulous measure would have accomphshed the object. "What between the imperial favor and Kerhnger's energy it at last had a fair start. The last edict alludes to two additional inquisitors vyhom Kerhnger was authorized to appoint and to his successful labors, by which the heretic Brethren of the Free Spirit had been completely destroyed in the provinces of Magdeburg and Bremen, and in Thuringia, Hesse, Saxony, and elsewhere. Proba- bly this is exaggerated, but we learn from other sources that Ker- linger was zealously active and that his labors were rewarded with success. In Magdeburg and Erfurt he burned a number of here- tics and forced the rest to outward conformity or to flight. We hear of him at Nordhausen in 1369, where he captured forty Beg- hards ; of these seven were obdurate and were burned, and the rest abjured and accepted penance. This is probably a fair example of his work, and we may believe Gregory XI. when, in 1372, he says that the Inquisition had destroyed heres}^ and heretics in the central provinces and driven them to the outlying districts of Brabant, Holland, Stettin, Breslau, and Silesia, where they are gathered in such multitudes that they hope to be able to maintain themselves ; wherefore he earnestly calls upon the prelates and nobles to bring the good work to an end by efficiently supporting the Holy Office in its final labors. Apparently Kerlinger had not been anxious to divide his authority by exercising his power to appoint two additional colleagues, and Gregory now intervened to reUeve him of this duty and place the German Inquisition on a • Mosheim de Beghardis pp. 356-62. — Mosbeira suggests that the distinction between the bouses of the Beghards and the Beguincs jjrobably arose from the former being larger and situated in the cities, the latter smaller, more numerous, and scattered among the towns and villages. THE INQUISITION ORGANIZED. 391 permanent footing by assimilating its organization to that of the institution elsewhere. He increased the number of inquisitors to five and placed their appointment and removal in the hands of the Dominican master and provincial, or either of them. Kerlinger and Louis, however, were to remain as two of the five, and no power, whether imperial or episcopal, should have authority to in- terfere with the free exercise of their functions.* A further extension of the power of the Inquisition granted by Charles lY. was of no great importance at the time, but has the highest interest to us as the first indication of what was to come. A leading feature of the Beghard propaganda was the circulation among the laity of written tracts and devotional works. Com- posed in the vernacular, they reached a class which was not wholly illiterate and yet was unable to profit by the orthodox works of which Latin was the customary vehicle. For the suppression of this effective method of missionary work the Inquisition was in- trusted with a censorship of literature, to which further reference will be made hereafter. Less interesting to us, but probably more important at the time, was the permission granted to the inquisitors to appoint notaries. It will be remembered how jeal- ously these appointments were guarded, and this concession was evidently looked upon as a special favor. The inquisitors ap- parently had been trammelled by the lack of notaries, and they were now authorized to appoint one in each diocese, and to re- place him when removed by death or disability.f As regards the seizure of the Beguinages, it was ruthlessly carried out by Kerlinger. Those of Miihlhausen had been very flourishing, and on February 16, 1370, four of them were deliv- ered by him to the magistrates to be converted to public uses — probably the city's share of the plunder. It would seem, how- ever, that obstacles were thrown in his way. The jealousy of the bishops was not hkely to look with favor upon this permanent establishment of the Inquisition in their dioceses, with prisons and landed property that would render it independent. Mosheim * Chron. Magdeburg. (Leibnitii S. R. Brunsv. III. 749).— Herm. Corneri Chron. (Eccard. Corp. Hist. II. 1113-4).— Raynald. ann. 1372, No. 34.— RipoU II. 275.— Mosheim de Begliardis pp. 380-3. t Mosheim de Beghardis pp. 368-74, 378-9.— Bohmer, Regest. Karl. IV. No. 4761 392 GERMANY. judiciously suggests that as tlicse houses were benevolent gifts for pious uses tiie bishops could assert them to be under their jurisdiction and not subject to an imperial edict ; nobles and citi- zens, moreover, had been trained to regard their inoffensive in- mates with favor, and were not eager to share in the spoils. Whatever may have been their motives, Kerlinger could not have found the way open to the general confiscation that he desired. In 1371 he was obliged to petition Gregory XI., reciting the ex- istence of heretics called Beghards and Beguines, and the imperial edict confiscating their conventicles, the confirmation of which he desired. There Avas nothing to lead Gregory to suppose that there was in this anything but the well-understood confiscation of heretical property, and he willingly gave the desired confirma- tion.* Thus, after a desultory struggle lasting for nearly a century and a half, the Inquisition finally established itself in Germany as an organized body. For a while, at least, the ofiice of inquisitor was kept regularly filled as vacancies occurred. When Kerlinger died, in 1373, his successor in the Provincialate of Saxony, Her- mann Hetstede, is qualified as being an inquisitor, and the same title is given to Henry Albert, who followed Hetstede in 1376. The Holy Ofiice seems to have been almost exclusively in Domin- ican hands, and we rarely hear of its functions as performed by Franciscans. The good work proceeded apace. In 1372 Kerlin- ger had a heretic of higher rank than usual to deal with in the person of Albert, Bishop of Ilalberstadt, who pubhcly taught fatalistic doctrines — possibly some form of predestination such as Wicklifi" was commencing to formulate. This resulted in a great decrease in pious works, for it struck at the root of the invocation of saints, masses for the dead, and liberality to the clergy, and the consequences threatened to be so serious that Gregory XI. ordered Kerlinger, together with Hervord, Provost of Erfurt, and an Augustinian named Rodolph, to force the bishop to an abjura- tion, and in case of disobedience to transmit him to the papal court for judgment. In the same year Gregory recounts with much satisfaction the success of the inquisitors in driving the Beg- * Mosheim de Beghardis pp. 364-66.— Martini Append, ad Mosheim pp. 541-2. FLAGELLANTS.— THE DANCING MANIA. 393 hards out of central and northern Germany ; he stimulated the emperor to support tlieir labors with fresh zeal, and sent encycU- cals to the princes, prelates, and magistrates, commanding them to use ever}'- effort to render the work complete, by exterminating the heretics in the regions where they had taken refuge. Early in the next year he commissioned the Dominican, John of Boland, an imperial chaplain, as inquisitor in the dioceses of Treves, Co- logne, and Liege, the Beghards and Beguines being the objects specially indicated ; and Charles hastened to invest him with all the powers specified in his letters of 1369, ordering the Dukes of Luxembourg, Limburg, Brabant, and Juliers, the Princes of Mons and Cleves, and the Counts of La Marck, Kirchberg, and Span- helm to serve as conservators and guardians of the edict.* Although the Brethren of the Free Spirit were the chief ob- jects of all this inquisitorial activity, the Flagellants were not neglected. In 1361 a demonstration of these enthusiasts in far-off Naples awakened the solicitude of Innocent YI. In 1369 we hear of an outbreak of women coming from Hungary, which was sum- marily suppressed in Saxony. In 1372 Flagellants reapjoeared in various parts of Germany, asserting the peculiar efficacy of their penance as replacing the sacraments of the Church, so that Greg- ory XL felt it necessary to direct the inquisitors to exterminate them. In 13Y3 and 137-1 this irrepressible tendenc}^ took a new shape, known as the Dancing Mania, which broke out at the con- secration of a church in Aix-la-Chapelle. Bands of both sexes, mostly consisting of poor and simple folk, poured into Flanders from the Rhinelands, dancing and singing as though possessed by the Furies. Under intense spiritual excitement the performer would leap and dance until he fell to earth with convulsions, when his comrades Avould revive him by jumping upon him, or a cloth which he wore, tied around the belly, would be tightly twisted with a stick. This was generally looked upon as a Idnd of demo- niacal possession until a multitude of these dancers assembled at Herestal and consulted together as to the best plan for slaying aU the priests, canons, and clergy of Liege, when the madness was • Cat. Praedic. Prov. Saxon. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 344). — Raynald. aun. 1372, No. 33, 34.— Mosheim de Begbaidis pp. 388-92.— Martini Append, ad Mos- heim pp. 647-8. 394 GERMANY. recognized as no longer harmless. Still it spread over a large por- tion of Germany and lasted for several years. Tliough not in it- self a heresy, it led in some places to heretical opinions on the sacraments, for it was popularly explained by attributing it to de- fective baptism, caused by the universal practice among priests of keeping concubines.* Scarce had the Inquisition been fairly organized and had set- tled to its work, when its arbitrary proceedings awakened active opposition. As the heretic Beghards and Beguines were the prin- cipal objects of its activity, and the orthodox ones of its cupidity, the sufferings of the latter speedily awoke compassion which found expression in terms so decided that Gregory XI, could not refuse to hsten. Accordingly, in April, 1374, he wrote to the Archbishops of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne, reciting these com- plaints and ordering a report about the life and conversation of the persons concerned, who should be protected and cherished if innocent, and be punished if guilty. At least from Cologne and "Worms, probably from the other prelates, came answers that the persecuted communities were composed of faithful Catholics. In Cologne the magistrates intervened and complained energetically to the pope that a Dominican inquisitor was vexing the poor folk, and they asked that his proceedings be stopped. The victims, they said, were people of Uttle culture, who were interrogated with ques- tions so difficult that the most skilful theologians could scarce an- swer them, while their edifying lives had led the clergy to pro- tect them against the threats of the Inquisition. Proceedings were thus checked, but stiU the peculiar garments which the dev- otees had always worn furnished an excuse for continued persecu- tion, and another appeal was made to Gregory, to which he re- sponded in December, 13YT, by ordering the prelates not to permit their molestation on this account so long as they were good Catho- lics and obedient to the ecclesiastical authorities. The German bishops were thus fully armed Avith papal authority to restrict the operations of the inquisitors, and those who, like Bishop Lambert * Martene Thesaur. II. 960-1.— Chron. Cornel. Zantfliet Qlartene Ampl. Coll. V. 293, 301-2).— Rayuald. ann. 1372, No. 33.— Meyeri Annal. Flandri£e ann. 1373.— Mag. Chron. Belgic. ann. 1374.— Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1374.— P. de Herentals Vit. Gregor. XI. ann. 1375 (Muratori S. R. I. III. ii. 674-5). THE INQUISITION REPRESSED. 395 of Strassburg, were themselves disposed to persecution, did not dare to proceed further. The regular communities of Beghards and Beguines were assured of toleration, and if the heretical Brethren of the Free Spirit managed to share in this immunity, it probably did not give the prelates much concern.* All this was discouraging to the zeal of inquisitors whose in- stitution had hardly yet taken root in the land, but worse was still to follow. In 1378 died both Gregory XI. and Charles IV. The election of Urban VI. gave rise to the Great Schism, and Wenceslas, the son and successor of Charles, was notoriously in- different to the interest of religion as represented by the Church. Thus deprived of its two indispensable supporters, the Inquisition could not make head against episcopal jealousy. In 1381 there could have been no inquisitors in the extensive dioceses of Ratis- bon, Bamberg, and Misnia, for we lind the Archbishop of Prague as papal legate ordering the bishops to appoint them, and threat- ening to do so himself in case of disobedience. Still the Inquisi- tion did not entirely pretermit its labors. In 1392 we hear of a papal inquisitor named Martin who travelled through Suabia to Wtirzburg, finding in the latter place a number of peasants and simple folk belonging to the sect of Flagellants and Beghards. They had not in them the stuff of martyrs, and accepted the pen- ance imposed upon them of joining in a crusade then preaching against the Turks — the first time for nearly a century that we meet with this penalty. Then Martin went to Erfurt — always a heretical centre — where he came upon numerous heretics of the same kind. Some of these were obstinate and were duly burned, others accepted penance, and the rest sought safety in flight. The following year there was burned at Cologne, by the papal inquisi- tor, Albert, a leading Beghard known as Martin of Mainz, a for- mer Benedictine monk and a disciple of the celebrated Nicholas of Basle ; and in his trial there are allusions to others of the sect ex- ecuted not long before at Heidelberg.f About this period, after a long interval, we again become cog- • Mosheim de Beghardis pp. 394-8.— Haupt, Zeitschrift fiir K. G. 1885, pp. 525-6, 553-4, 563-4.— HaMiimciiin Glosa quariimd. Bullar. per Beghardos impe- tratar. (Basil. 1497, c. 4 sqq.). t Ilollor, Prager Concilieu, pp. 26-7. — Tritlicm. Cliron. Hirsaug. ann. 1392.— » Jundt, Lcs Amis dc Dieu, p. 3. — Ilaupt, ubi sup. p. 510. 396 GERMANY. nizant of the existence of Waldenses. The Beghards had sue. ceeded in concentrating upon themselves the attention of the papal and episcopal inquisitions, and the followers of Peter Waldo had remained unnoticed, doubtless owing their safety to outward conformity, though by absenting themselves from their parishes about the Easter tide they sometimes managed to escape taking communion for live or six years in succession. Thus laboring quietly and peacefully, preaching by night in cellars, mills, stables, and other retired places, they gained numerous converts among the peasants and artisans, who saw in the sanctity of their Hves, as sadly admitted by the so-called Peter of Pilichdorf, the strong- est contrast with the scandalous license of the clergy.* Thus they multiplied in secret until all Germany was full of them, including the closely-related sect of Winkelers. About 1390 they were dis- covered in Mainz, where for a hundred years they had lurked un- disturbed. The Archbishop, Conrad II., kept the matter in his * There has recently been discovered at St. Florian, in Austria, an epistle written in 1368 by the Waldenses of Lorabardy to some of their German breth- ren on the occasion of the withdrawal of certain members of the sect, who al- leged in justification that the Waldenses were ignorant, that they had no di- vine authority, and that they were mercenary. Evidently the local church had appealed to the Lombards as to a central head, for an answer to these accusa- tions, and the reply, together with a rejoinder by one of the apostates, throws valuable light upon the current beliefs of the sectaries. It appears that they carried their origin back to the primitive Church, claiming that their predeces- sors had opposed the reception of the Donation of Constantine, and that when Silvester refused to reject the perilous gift a voice sounded from heaven, " This day hath poison been spread in the Church of God." As they were unyielding, they were driven out and persecuted, since when they had preserved the genuine tradition of the Church in obscurity and affliction. They asserted that Peter Waldo had been ordained to the priesthood, and that they possessed full author- ity, transmitted from God, but nothing is said as to the apostolical succession, and the apostate, Sigfried, reproaches them with only hearing confessions and sending their disciples to the Catholic churches for the other sacraments. Tliere is no word as to transubstantiation, which must therefore have been an accepted doctrine among them, and their frequent quotations from Augustine and Ber- nard show that they admitted the authority of the doctors of the Church. They allude to two Franciscans who had recently joined the sect, to a priest who had done so and had been burned, and to a Bishop Bestardi, who, for the same of- fence, had been summoned to Rome, whence he had never returned. — Comba, Histoire des Vaudois d'ltalie, I. 243-55. THE WALDENSES. 397 own hands. In 1392 he issued a commission, as episcopal inquisi- tors, to Frederic, Bishop of Toul, Nicholas of Saulheim, the Dean of St. Stephen, and John Wasmod, of Homburg, a priest of the cathedral, to whom the papal inquisitor could adjoin himself if he so chose. These inquisitors were armed with full authority to arrest, try, torture, sentence, and abandon to the secular arm all heretics, and were instructed to proceed in accordance with the practice of the Inquisition. They zealously discharged their duty. A number of Waldenses were already in the episcopal prison, and they made diligent perquisition after the rest. By free use of tort- ure they obtained the necessary avowals and evidence. Those who were obstinate were handed over to the secular arm, and an auto de fe celebrated at Bingen in 1392, where six-and-thirty wretches were burned, proved that the papal Inquisition itself could not have been more effective. A little tract on the exam- ination of Waldenses, evidently written on this occasion, shows that the inquisitorial process was fairly weU understood, and that the episcopal officials had not much to learn from their rivals.* When attention was once attracted to this secret heresy, it was not long before Waldenses were discovered everywhere. In a short list of them, dated 1391, Poland, Hungary, Bavaria, Suabia, * Index Error. Waldens. (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 340).— Petri Herp Annal. Fran- cofurt. ann. 1389 (Senckenberg Select. Juris II. 19). — Gudeni Cod. Diplom. III. 598-600.— Serrarii Hist. Mogunt. Lib. v. p. 707.— Hist. Ordin. Carthus. (Martene Ampl. Coll. VI. 214).— Modus examinandi Haereticos(Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 341-2). John Wasmod subsequentlj^ wrote a tract against the Beghards which has been printed by Haupt (Zeitsclirift fiir Kirchengeschichte, 1885, pp. 567-76). Its chief interest lies in its attributing to the Beghards the tenets of the Wal- denses. There is no allusion to pantheism, to union with God, to refusal of the sacraments, to the denial of hell and purgatory. Either he confounds the sects, or else the Waldenses concealed themselves under the guise of Beghards, or else there were among the Beghards a certain number who constituted a church separate from that of Rome without adopting the distinctive principles of Amau- rianism. Wasmod tells us that they do not easily receive applicants, whose obedience they test by making them eat putrid flesh, drink water foul with maggots, etc., at the risk of their lives. One of their strongest arguments is found in the corruption of the Church, which is thus deprived of the power of the keys. Distinctively referable to Beghardism is the assertion that these heretics are greatly favored and defended by the magistrates of the cities; and not very flattering to Rome is the explanation that the bulls in favor of the Be- guines were obtained by the use of money. 398 GERMANY. and Saxony are represented. The author of the tract which passes under the name of Peter of PiHchdorf, who took an energetic part both with the pen and in action in suppressing this suddenly dis- covered heresy, informs us, in 1395, that the Netherlands, West- phalia, Prussia, and Poland were not infected with it, while Thu- ringia, Misnia, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, and Hungary numbered their heretics by thousands. Curiously enough, in this list he omits Pomerania, where, along the Baltic regions, the Waldenses were thickly scattered from Stettin to Konigsberg. The heresy had been deeply rooted there for at least a century, and the local priesthood seem to have borne no ill-will to the harmless sectaries, who conformed outwardly to the orthodox observances. Even when in confession intimations of the heresy escaped, as sometimes happened, they w^ere wisely and mercifully overlooked. Yet there is evidence of previous persecution in the confession of Sophia Myndekin, of Fleit, who said that she had been fifty years in the sect, that her husband had been burned at Angermiinde, and that she had only escaped on account of pregnancy, while all their Httle property was confiscated. They were poor folk, mostly peasants and laborers, and though there are occasional allusions in the trials to men of gentle blood, the tenets of the sect excluded all who owed feudal military service, war and bloodshed being strictly for- bidden. They were visited yearly by their ministers, some of whom were mechanics, and others learned men skilled in Holy Writ, probably from Bohemia, who preached, heard confessions, and granted absolution, the utmost secrecy being observed in these ministrations. Moreover, collections were made and remitted to the headquarters of the sect, showing that they formed part of the great Waldensian organization.* They had long been unmolested when one of their ministers, known as Brother Klaus, who had visited them in 1391 and had heard many confessions, apparently became frightened at the movement against them. He apostatized, and seems to have be- trayed the names of his penitents. The Church made haste to secure the fruits of his repentance. Brother Peter, Provincial of • Gretseri Prolegom. c. 6 (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 292).— Refutat. Waldens. (lb. p. 835). — P. de Pilichdorf. c. 15 (lb. p. 315).— Wattenbach, Sitzungsberichte der Preuss. Akad. 1886, pp. 48-9, 51. THE WALDENSES. 399 the Celestinian Order, was appointed papal inquisitor, and early in 1393 he came to Stettin armed with full powers from the Arch- bishop of Prague and the Bishops of Lebus and Camin to represent them. He issued citations, both general ones from the pulpits of the infected region, and special summonses to individuals. This naturally caused great excitement, and some of the suspects fled ; in Klein-Wurbiser, indeed, there was a faint demonstration made against the inquisitorial apparitors, but there was no resistance, and the great majority submitted to the inevitable. Friar Peter, as customary, was lenient with those who spontaneously confessed and abjured ; all took the oaths, including that of persecuting her- esy and heretics, with only an occasional manifestation of hesitancy. Torture seems to have been unnecessary ; there was no exhibition of obstinacy, and no burnings. They were condemned to wear crosses and perform other penance, and when, as was usually the case, their parents had died in the sect, they were required to in- dicate the place of burial, presumably for exhumation. From January, 1393, until February, 1394, Friar Peter was engaged in this work. One of his registers, comprising four hundred and forty-three cases, was in the hands of Flacius Illyricus, fragments of which have recently been discovered and described by Herr "Wattenbach.^ From Pomerania, Friar Peter hastened to the south, where he found Waldenses as numerous, and less inclined to submission. He has left a brief memorial of his labors, written in 1395, in which he expresses his fears that the heresy would become dominant, as the Waldenses were resorting to force, and were employing arson and homicide to intimidate the orthodox. His only evidence of this, however, is that on September 8, those of Steyer, to ])unish the parish priest for receiving the inquisitors in his house, burned his barn, and affixed to the town gates, by night, a warning in the shape of a half-burned brand and a bloody knife. This offence was cruelly avenged, for in 1397, at Steyer, more than a hundred Waldenses of either sex were burned. In this relentless persecu- tion the case of a child of ten condemned to wear crosses shows how unsparing were the tribunals, while others in which the cul- • Wattcnbacb, op. cit. pp. 49-50, 54-55.— Flac. lUyr. Cat. Test. Vcritatis Lib. XV. pp. 1506, 1524; Lib. xviii. p. 1803 (Ed. 1608). 400 GERMANY. prits were burned for relapse, having already abjured before the inquisitor, Henry of Olmiitz, indicate that this was not the first effort made to exterminate the heresy. IIow extended it was, and how vigorous its repression, may be gathered from the pseudo Peter of Pilichdorf, who tells us that from Thuringia to Moravia a thousand converts were made in two years, and that the inquisi- tors who were busy in Austria and Hungary expected soon to have a thousand more.* About the year 1400, in Strassburg, there was active persecu- tion against a sect known as "Winkelers, who were discovered to have four assemblies in the city, and others in Mainz and Hagenau. In their confessions they alluded to their comrades in many other places, such as Nordlingen, Ratisbon, Augsburg, Tischengen, So- leure, Berne, Weissenberg, Speier, Holzhausen, Schwiibisch-Worth, Friedberg, and Yienna. Although, strictly speaking, not "Walden- ses, they had so many traits in common that the distinction is rather one of organization than of faith. In 1374 one of their number returned to the Church, and the fear of his betraying the little community led to his deliberate murder, the assassins being paid, and undergoing penance to obtain absolution. Some years later the inquisitor, John Arnoldi, was threatened with similar vengeance and left the city. In the final persecution some thirty families were put on trial, while many succeeded in remaining con- cealed. There was but one noble among them, Blumstein, who abjured, and who, some twenty years later, is found filling impor- tant civic posts. Though reference is made in one of the trials to members of the sect who had been burned at Eatisbon, those of Strassburg were more fortunate. The inquisitor, Bockeln, is said to have received bribes for assigning private penance to some of the guilty ; and though the Dominicans demanded the burning of the heretics, the magistrates interceded with the episcopal official, and banishment was the severest penalty inflicted. Torture, how- ever, had been freely used in obtaining confessions. After this, nothing more is heard in Strassburg of either Winkelers or "Wal- denses until the burning of Frederic Eeiser in 1458.f * W. Preger, Beitrage, pp. 51, 53-4, 68, 73.— P. de Pilichdorf c. 15 (Mag. Bib. Pat. XIII. 315). t Hoffmann, Geschichte der Inquisition, II. 384-90. — C. Schmidt, Real-Ency- klop. 8. V. Wiukeler. THE BEGHARDS. — CHANGES OF POLICY. 401 There evidently was ample work for the Inquisition in Ger- many, but it seems to have been more anxious to repair its defeat in the contest with the Beghards than to operate against the Waldenses. In the general excitement on the subject of heresy it was not difficult to render the Beghards objects of renewed suspi- cion and persecution. To some extent the bishops and most of the inquisitors joined in this, but the suspects had friends among the prelates, Avho wrote, towards the close of 1393, to Boniface IX., eulo- gizing their piety, obedience, and good works, and asking protec- tion for them. To this Boniface responded, January T, 1394, in a brief addressed to the German prelates, ordering them to investi- gate whether these persons are contaminated with the errors con- demned by Clement Y. and John XXII., and whether they follow any reproved religious Order ; if not, they are to be efficiently protected. An exemplified copy of this brief, given by the Arch- bishop of Magdeburg, October 20, 1396, shows that it continued to be used and was relied upon in the troubles which followed, soon after, through a sudden change of policy by Boniface. The Inquisition did not remain passive under this interference with its operations. It represented to Boniface that for a hundred years heresies had lurked under the outward fair-seeming of the Beg- hards and Beguines, in consequence of which, almost every year, obstinate heretics had been burned in the different cities of the empire, and that their suppression was impeded by certain papal constitutions which were urged in their protection. Boniface was easily moved to reversing his recent action, and by a bull of Janu- ary 31, 1395, he restored to vigor the decrees of Urban Y., Greg- ory XI., and Charles lY., under which he ordered the Inquisition to prosecute earnestly the Beghards, LoUards, and Zwestriones. This gave f uU power to molest the orthodox associations as well as the heretic Brethren of the Free Spirit, and a severe storm of persecution burst over them. Even some of the bishops joined in this, as appears from a synod held in Magdeburg about this time, which ordered the priests to excommunicate and expel them. Yet this again aroused their friends, and Boniface was induced to re- issue his bull with an addition which, like the contradictory pro- visions of the Clementines, shows the perplexity caused by the ad- mixture of orthodoxy and heresy among the Beguines. After repeating his commands for their su})pression, he adds that there II.— 26 402 GERMANY. are pious organizations known as Beghards, Lollards, and Zwestri- oties, which shall be permitted to wear their vestments, to beg, and to continue their mode of life, excommunication being threatened against any inquisitor who shall molest thorn, unless they have been convicted by the ordinaries of the diocese.* This left the matter very much to the discretion of the local authorities, but the spirit of persecution was fairly revived, and the Inquisition made haste to fortify its position. Under pretext that the bulls of Gregory XI. were becoming worn by age and use, it procured their renewal from Boniface IX., in 1395, though the pope is careful to express that he grants no new privileges. In 1399 it succeeded in having the number of inquisitors increased to six for the Dominican province of Saxony alone, on the plea that its wide extent and populous cities rendered the existing force insufficient. This was not without reason, for the province em- braced the great archiepiscopal districts of Mainz, Cologne, Magde- burg, and Bremen, to which were added Eiigen and Camin. Camin belonged to the province of Gnesen, and Riigen formed part of the diocese of Roskild, which was suffragan to the metropoUtan of Liinden in Sweden, thus furnishing the only instance of inquisi- torial jurisdiction in any region that can be caUed Scandinavian, save a barren attempt made, in 1421, under the stimulus of the Hussite troubles. A few weeks later Boniface issued another bull, ordering the prelates and secular rulers of Germany to give all aid and protection to Friar Eylard Schoneveld and other inquisitors, and especially to lend the use of their prisons, as the Inquisition in those parts is said to have none of its own, which shows that Kerlinger's scheme of obtaining them from the property of the Beghards had not proved a success. Eylard set vigorously to work in the lands adjoining the Baltic, which from their remoteness had probably escaped his predecessors. At Lubec, in 1402, he pro- cured the arrest of a Dolcinist named Wilhelm by the municipal officials, showing that he had no familiars of his own ; the accused was examined several times in the presence of numerous clerks, monks, and laymen, showing that the secrecy of the inquisitorial process was unknown or unobserved, and he w^as finally burned. • Martini Append, ad Mosheim pp. 652-66, 674-5. — Mosheim pp. 409-10, 430-1.— Hartzheim V. 676.— Haupt. Zntsclnift fiir K. G. 1885, pp. 565-7. FLAGELLANTS. — BEGHARDS. 403 He had a comrade named Bernhard, who fled to Wismar, whither Schoneveld followed him and had him burned in 1403. The same year he seized a priest at Stralsund, who rejected all soKcitations to abjure, and was burned as a persistent heretic ; and at Rostock he condemned for heresy a woman who drove away with the bit- terest reproaches her son, a Cistercian monk, when he urged her to recant, and who likewise perished in the flames.* About this period heresy appears to have had also to contend with a reaction on the part of the secular authorities. When, in 1400, the Flagellants made a demonstration in the Low Countries, the magistrates of Maestricht expelled them, and when the people took their side the energetic interference of the Bishop of Liege put an end to the insubordination ; besides, the Sire de Perweis threw a band of Flagellants into his dungeons and Tongres closed its gates upon them, so that the epidemic was checked. With the year 1400 the comparative peace which the Beguines had enjoyed for some fifteen years came to an end. Their most dreaded enemy was the Dominican, John of Miihlberg, whose purity of life and energy in battling with the moral and spiritual errors of his time won him a wide reputation throughout Germany, so that when he died in exile, driven from Basle by the clergy whom his attacks had embittered, he was long regarded by the people as a saint and a martyr. About 1400 he stirred up in Basle a struggle with the Beguines, which for ten years kept the city in an uproar. Prima- rily an episode in the hostihty between the Dominicans and Fran- ciscans, it extended to the clergy and magistrates, and finally to the citizens at large. In 1405 the Beguines were expelled, but the Franciscans obtained from the papacy bulls ordering their restora- tion, and the retraction of all that had been said against them. At last, in 1411, Bishop Humbert and the town council, excited by a fiery sermon of John Pastoris, abolished the associations, which were forced to abandon their living in common and tlieir vestments, or to leave the place. The city of Berne followed this example, and the magistrates of Strassburg took the same course, when some of the Beguines adopted the former alternative and • Mosheim de Beghardis pp. 225-8, 383-4.— Martini Append, ad j^fosheim pp. 656-7.— Herm. Corneri Chron. ann. 1402-3 (Eccard. Corp. Hist. II. 1185-C). — Raynald. ann. 1403, No. 23. 404 GERMANY. some the latter. Many of tliese took refuge secretly at Mainz. They were discovered, and the archbishop, John 11., holding them to be heretics, ordered them to be prosecuted. The matter was intrusted to Master Henry von Stein, who set vigorously about it. The refugees from Strassburg, mostly women, were thrown into prison ; we also hear of a nun who was likewise incarcerated, and of a youth from Rotenburg, who was mounted on a hogshead in the public square, and in the presence of the populace was obliged to accept the penance of crosses, in an auto de fe much less impressive than those which Bernard Gui was wont to cele- brate.* It was not long before this that the Brethren of the Free Spirit were deprived of their greatest leader, Nicholas of Basle. As a wandering missionary he had for many years been engaged in propagating the doctrines of the sect, and had gained many pros- * Chron. Cornel. Zantfliet ann. 1400 (Martene Amplis. Coll. V. 358).— Haupt, Zeitschrift fur K. G. 1885, pp. 513-15.— Chron. Glassberger ann. 1410 (Analecta Franciscana II. 233-5). — Martini Append, ad Mosheim p. 559. — Mosheim p. 455. — Serrarii Lib. v. (Scriptt. Rer. Mogunt. I. 724). In 1399 an outbreak very similar to that of the Flagellants took place in Italy, stimulated by a pestilence which was ravaging the land. The pilgrims were known as Bianchi, from the white linen vestments which they wore, and they first brought to popular notice the " Stabat Mater," which was their favorite hymn. The only reference to flagellation, however, is that in Genoa they were joined by the old fraternities of the Verberati or guilds, founded in 1306, which publicly used the scourge. The Archbishop of Genoa and many of the Lombard bishops lent the movement their countenance ; universal peace was proclaimed, enemies forgave each other, and even the strife of Guelf and Ghibelline for a moment was forgotten. When we are told that twenty-five thousand Modenese made the pilgrimage to Bologna, we can readily understand wliy suspicious rulers, such as Galeazzo Visconti and the Signory of Venice, forbade the entry of their states to such armies. Boniface IX. probably felt the same alarm when tlie move- ment reached Rome, and the whole population, including some of the cardinals, put on white garments and marched in procession through the neighboring towns. He caused one of the leaders to be seized at Aquapendente ; the free use of tort- ure brought a confession that the whole affair was a fraud, and the poor wretch was burned, when the movement collapsed. — Georgii Stella Annal. Genuens. ann. 1399 (Muratori, S. R. I. XVII. 1170).— Matthsei de Griffonibus Memor. Historial. ann. 1399 (lb. XVIII. 207).— Cronica di Bologna ann. 1399 (lb. XVIII. 565).— Annal. Estens. ann. 1398 (lb. XVIII. 956-8).— Conrad Urspurgens. Chron. Contin. ann. 1399. — Theod. a Niem de Schismate, Lib. ii. c. 26. BRETHREN OF THE FREE SPIRIT. 405 elytes. The Inquisition had been eagerly on his track, but he was shrewd and crafty, and had eluded its pursuit. Forced, probably about 1397, to fly to "Vienna with two of his disciples, John and James, they were discovered and seized. The celebrated Henry of Hesse (Langenstein) undertook their conversion, and flattered himself that he had succeeded, but they all relapsed and were burned. As Peter, the Celestinian abbot, was at this time Inquis- itor of Passau, he probably had the satisfaction of ridding the Church of this dangerous heresiarch, whose belief in his own di- vine inspiration was such that he considered his wiU to be equal to that of God. Not long after a similar martyrdom occurred at Constance, where a Beghard, named Burgin, had founded a sect of extreme austerity. Captured with his disciples by the bishop, he would not abandon his doctrines, and was duly relaxed. Gerson's nu- merous allusions to the Turelupins and Beghards show that at this period the sect was attracting much attention and was regarded as seductively dangerous. With all his tendency to mysticism, Gerson could recognize the peril incurred by those whom he de- scribes as deceived through too great a desire to reach the sweet- ness of God, and who mistake the delirium of their own hearts for divine promptings : thus disregarding the law of Christ, they follow their own inclinations without submitting to rule, and are precipitated into guilt by their own presumption. He was espe- cially averse to the spiritual intimacy between the sexes, where devotion screened the precipice on the brink of which they stood. Mary of Valenciennes, he says, was especially to be avoided on this account, for she applied what is set forth about the divine fruition to the passions seething in her own soul, and she argues that he who reaches the perfection of divine love is released from the observance of all precepts. Thus the Brethren of the Free Spirit were practically the same in the fifteenth century as in the times of Ortlieb and Amauri.* Giles Cantor, who founded in Brussels the sect which styled itself Men of Intelligence, was probably a disciple of Mary of Ya- * Nider Formicar. Lib. in. c. 2.— Haupt, Zeitschrift fur K. G. 1885, pp. 510- 11. — Gersoni de Consolat. Theolog. Lib. rv. Prosa iii. ; Ejusd. de IMystica Tlieol. speculat. P. I. consid. viii. ; Ejusd. de Distinct, verar. Vision, a falsis, Signum v. 406 GERMANY. lenciennes, and the name was adopted merely to cover its affilia- tion with the proscribed Brethren of the Free Spirit. Its doc- trines were substantially the same in their mystic pantheism and illuminism ; and their practical application is seen in the story that on one occasion Giles was moved by the spirit to go naked for some miles when carrying provision to a poor person. So open a manifestation would have insured his prosecution had there been any machinery for persecution in efficient condition in Bra- bant ; but he was allowed to propagate his doctrines in peace until he died. lie was succeeded in the leadership of the sect by a Car- melite known as William of Ililderniss, and at length it attracted, in 1411, the attention of Cardinal Peter d'Ailly, Bishop of Cam- brai. Fortunately for "William, the bishop cliose to direct the proceedings himself, and they show complete disregard of inquisi- torial methods. He appointed special commissioners, who made an inquisition ; both the names and the testimony of the witnesses were submitted to William, Avho made what defence he could. In rendering judgment d'Ailly called in the Dominican Prior of St. Quentin, who was inquisitor of the district of Cambrai, and the sentence was as irregular as the proceedings. William had no de- sire for martyrdom, and abjured the heresy ; he was required to purge himself with six compurgators, after which he was to un- dergo the penance of three years' confinement in a castle of the bishop's, while if he failed in his purgation he was to be im- prisoned in a convent of his order during the archbishop's pleas- ure — a most curious and illogical medley. He succeeded in find- ing the requisite number of compurgators, but though he disap- peared from the scene his sect was by no means extinguished, and we hear of the persecution of a heresiarch as late as 11:28.* That Clement YI. did not err when he foresaw the dangerous errors lurking under the devotion of the Flagellants was demon- strated in 1111. The sect still existed, and its crude theories as to the efficacy of flagellation had gradually been developed into an antisacerdotal heresy of the most uncompromising character. A certain Conrad Schmidt was the constructive heresiarch who gave to its belief an organized completeness, and his death made * Baluz. et Mansi I. 288-93. — Altmeyer, Les Precurseurs de la Reforme aux Pajs-Bas, I. 84. BRETHREN OF THE CROSS. 407 no diminution of the zeal of his disciples, nor did the failure of his prophecy of the end of the world in 1369. The curious connec- tion l^etween the Flagellants and the Beghards is indicated by the fact that these Flagellant Brethren, or Brethren of the Cross, as they styled themselves, regarded Conrad as the incarnation of Enoch, and a certain Beghard, who had been burned at Erfurt about 1364r, as Elias — an angel having brought their souls from heaven and infused them into Schmidt and this Beghard while yet in the womb. Schmidt was to preside at the approaching Day of Judgment, which was constantly believed to be at hand. Anti- christ being the pope and the priests, whose reign was drawing to an end. "When, in 1343, the letter commanding flagellation, to which I have already alluded, was brought by an angel and laid on the altar of St. Peter, God withdrew all spiritual power fi'om the Church and bestowed it on the Brethren of the Cross. Since then all sacraments had lost their virtue, and to partake of them was mortal sin. Baptism had been replaced by that of the blood drawn by the scourge ; the sacrament of matrimony only defiled marriage ; the Eucharist was but a device by which the priests sold a morsel of bread for a penny — if they beheved it to be the body of Christ they were worse than Judas, who got thirty pieces of silver for it; flagellation replaced them all. Oaths were a mortal sin, but to avoid betraying the sect the faithful could take them and receive the sacraments, and then expiate it by flagella- tion. The growth of such a belief and the mingled contempt and hatred manifested for the clergy prove that to the people the Church was as much a stranger and an oppressor as it had been in the twelfth century. It had learned nothing, and was as far from Christ as ever. Conrad Schmidt had promulgated his errors in Thuringia, where his sectaries were discovered, in 1-1:14, at Sangerhausen. Thither sped the inquisitor SchOneveld— called Henry by the chroniclers, but probably the same as the Eylard, whom we have seen at work some years before on the shores of the Baltic. The princes of Thuringia and Misnia were ordered to assist him, and they were eager to share in the suppression of a heresy which threatened to revolutionize the social order. The proceedings must have been more energetic than regular. Torture must have 408 GERMANY. been freely used to gather into the net so many victims ; nor can a })atient hearing have been given to the accused. Tlieir shrift was short, and before Schonoveld had left the scene of action he had caused the burning of ninety-one at Sangerhausen, forty-four in the neighboring town of Winkel, and many more in other vil- lages. Yet such was the persistence of tlie heresy that even this wholesale slaughter did not suffice for its suppression. Two years later, in 1416, its remains were discovered, and again Schoneveld was sent for. He examined the accused. To those who abjured he assigned penances, and handed over the obstinate to the secu- lar arm. His assizes must have been hurried, for he did not stay to witness the execution of those whom he had condemned, and after his departure the princes gathered all together, both peni- tents and impenitents, some three hundred in number, and burned the whole of them in one day. This terrible example produced the profound impression that was desired, and hereafter the sect of Flagellants may be regarded as unimportant. Some discussion, as we have seen, took place the next year at the Council of Con- stance, when San Vicente Ferrer expressed his approbation of this form of discipline, and Gerson mildly urged its dangers ; but when, in 1434, a certain Bishop Andreas specified, among the objects of the Council of Basle, the suppression of the heresies of the Huss- ites, "Waldenses, Fraticelli, Wicldiffltes, the Manichfeans of Bosnia, the Beghards, and the schismatic Greeks, there is no allusion in the enumeration to Flagellants. Yet the causes which had given rise to the heresy continued in full force and it was still cherished in secret. In 1453 and 1454 Brethren of the Cross were again discovered in Thuringia, and the Inquisition was speedily at work to reclaim them. Besides the errors propagated by Conrad Schmidt, it was not difficult to extort from the accused the cus- tomary confessions of foul sexual excesses committed in dark sub- terranean conventicles, and even of Luciferan doctrines, teaching that in time Satan would regain his place in heaven and expel Christ ; though when we hear that they alleged the evil lives of the clergy as the cause of their misbelief we maj^ reasonably doubt the accuracy of these reports. Aschersleben, Sondershausen, and Sangerhausen were the centres of the sect, and at the latter place, in 1454, twenty-two men and women were burned as obstinate THE BEGHARDS AT CONSTANCE. 409 heretics. In 1481 a few were punished in Anhalt, and the sect gradually disappeared.* The case of the Beghards and Beguines came before the Coun- cil of Constance in several shapes. To guard themselves from the incessant molestations to which they were exposed they had, to a large extent, affiliated themselves, nominally at least, as Tertiaries, to the Mendicant Orders, chiefly to the Franciscan, whose scapular they adopted. In a project of reform, carefully prepared for ac- tion by the council, this is strongly denounced ; they are said to live in forests and in cities, free from subjection, indulging in inde- cent habits, not without suspicion of heresy, and though able of body and fit to earn their livelihood by labor, they subsist on alms, to the prejudice of the poor and miserable. It was therefore proposed to forbid the wearing of the scapular by all who were not bound by vows to the Orders and subjected to the Rules. It was also pronounced necessary to make frequent visitations of their communities on account of the peculiarities of their Ufe, and magistrates and nobles were to be ordered not to interfere with such wholesome supervision under pain of interdict. It was possibly to meet this attack that numerous testimonial letters from the clergy and magistrates of Germany certifying to the orthodoxy, piety, and usefulness of the associations were sent to Martin V., who submitted them to Angelo, Cardinal of SS. Peter and Mar- cellus, and received from him a favorable report. Towards the close of the council, in 1418, a more formidable assault was made upon them by Matthew Grabon, a Dominican of Wismar, who * Theod. Vrie, Hist. Concil. Constant. Lib. iv. Dist. 13. — Marieta, Los Santos de Espana, Lib. xi. c. xxviii. — Gobelini Person. Cosmodrom. iEt. vi. c. 93. — Chron. S. ^gid. in Brunswig (Leibnitii S. R. Brunsv. III. 595). — Gieseler, Lehr- buch der Kirchengeschichte, H. iii. 317-18. — Herm. Corneri Chron. ann. 1416 (Eccard. Corp. Hist. IL 1206). — Andreae Gubernac. Concil. P. iv. c. 11 (Von der Hardt VL 194). — Chron. Magdeburgens. ann. 1454 (Meibom. Rer. German. H. 362). — Haupt, Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte, 1887, 114-18. — Herzog, Abriss, n. 405. In 1448, when pestilence and famine in Italy brought men to a sense of tlieir sins, the eloquence of Fra Roberto, a Franciscan, excited multitudes to repent- ance, and the streets of the cities were again filled with Flagellants, disciplining themselves and weeping (Illoscas, Historia Pontifical, II. 130). 410 GERMANY. laid before Martin Y. twenty-four articles to prove that all such associations outside of the approved religious orders ought to be abolished. To accomplish this, after the approved style of scho- lastic logic, he was obliged to ass(;rt sucli a])surd general principles as that it was equivalent to suicide, and thei'cfore a mortal sin, for any secular person to give away his property in charity, and that the pope had no power to grant a dispensation in such cases. Grabon's propositions and conclusions were referred to Antonio, Cardinal of Yerona, who submitted them to Cardinal Peter d'Ailly and Chancellor Gerson. The former reported that the paper was heretical and should be burned, while the jurists should be called upon to decide what ought to be done to its writer. The latter, that the doctrine was pestiferous and blasphemous, and that its author, if obstinate, should be arrested. Grabon was glad to es- cape by publicly abjuring some of his articles as heretical, others as erroneous, and others as scandalous and offensive to pious ears. The triumph of the Beguines was decisive, and they might at last hope for a respite from persecution. The associations increased and flourished accordingly, and under their shelter the Brethren of the Free Spirit continued to propagate their heresy.* From this time forward the attention of the Church was main- ly directed to Ilussitism, the most formidable enemy that it had encountered since the Catharism of the twelfth century. This will be considered in a following chapter, and meanwhile I need only say that its secret but threatening progress throughout Ger- many called for active means of repression and led to more thor- ough organization of the Inquisition. The bull of Martin Y., issued February 22, 1418, against Wickliffites and Hussites, is ad- dressed not only to prelates but to inquisitors commissioned in the dioceses and cities of Salzburg, Prague, Gnesen, Olmiitz, Litomysl, Bamberg, Misnia, Passau, Breslau, Patisbon, Cracov/, Posen, and Neutra. While of course this is not to be taken literally, as though there were an organized tribunal of the Holy Office in each of these places, still it indicates that in the districts infected or exposed to infection the Church was arming itself with its * Cone. Constant. Decret. Refonn. Lib. iii. Tit. x. c. 13; Tit. v. c. 5 (Von der Hardt, I. 715-17).— Hemmerlin Glosa quarund. Bullar. (0pp. c. d.). — De Rebus Matthaei Grabon (Von der Hardt, III. 107-20). THE BEGHARDS PERSECUTED. 411 most effective Aveapons. The growing danger, moreover, was lead- ing the bishops to abandon somewhat their traditional jealousy. In this same year, 1418, the council of the great province of Salz- burg not only urged the bishops to extirpate heresy and to enforce the canons against the secular powers neglecting their duty in this respect, but commanded all princes and potentates to seize and imprison all who were designated as suspect of heresy by the prel- ates and the inquisitors. Thus at last the episcopate recognized the Inquisition and came to its support.* Yet the attention of the persecutors was not so exclusively directed to the Hussites as to allow tlie Brethren of the Free Spirit to escape, and in their zeal they continued to molest the orthodox Beguines in spite of the action of Martin Y. at Constance. In 1431 Eugenius lY. found himself obliged to intervene for their protection. In a bull, addressed to the German prelates, he recites the favorable action of his predecessors and the troubles to which, in spite of this, they were exposed by the inquisitors. Those who ■wander around without fixed habitations he orders to be compelled to dwell in the houses of the confraternity, and tliose who reside quietly and piously are to be efficiently protected. This buU af- fords perhaps the only instance in which the episcopal power is rendered superior to the Inquisition, for the bishops are authorized to enforce its provisions by the censures of the Church, without appeal, even if those who interfere with the Beguines enjoy special immunities, thus subjecting the inquisitors to excommunication by the prelates. This stretch of papal power exasperated Doctor Felix Hemmerlin, Cantor of Zurich, who detested the Beguines. He wrote several bitter tracts against them, and explained the favor shown them by Eugenius by irreverently stating that the pope had himself been once a Beghard at Padua. In one of his numerous assaults upon them, written probably about 1436, he alludes to several recent cases within a limited region, which would indicate that in spite of the papal protection of the Beguines, the Brethren of the Free Spirit were actively persecuted, and that, if the statistics of the whole empire could be procured, tlie number of victims would be found not smaU. Thus in Zurich a certain * Von der Har(lt,IV. 1518. — Concil. Salisburg. xxxiv. c. 32 (Dalham, Concil Salisb. p. 186). 412 GERMANY. Burchard and his disciples were tried and penanced with crosses ; but they were subsequently found to be relapsed and were all burned. At Uri, Charles and his followers were similarly burned. At Constance Henry de Tierra was forced to al^jure. At Ulm, John and a numerous company were subjected to public penance. In Wiirtemberg there was a great heresiarch punished, whose con- viction was only secured after infinite pains. Then from Bohemia there come Beghards every year who seduce a countless number to heresy in Berne and Soleure. This leads one to think that Heramerhn, in his passion, may confound Hussites with Beghards, and this is confirmed by his assertion that there is in Upper Ger- many no heresy save that introduced by the foxes of this perni- cious sect. Nider, in fact, writing immediately after the Council of Basle had effected a settlement with the Hussites, when, for a time at least, in Germany they were no longer considered enemies of the Church, declares that heretics were few and powerless, skulk- ing in concealment and not to be dreaded, although he had, in describing the errors of the Brethren of the Free Spirit, stated that they were still by no means uncommon in Suabia. It was evidently a member of this sect whom he describes as seeing at Ratisbon when proceeding with the Archdeacon of Barcelona on a mission from the Council of Basle to the Hussites. She was a young woman of spotless character, who made no effort to propa- gate her faith, but she could not be induced to recant. The arch- deacon advised that she be tortured to break her spirit, which was done without success and without forcing her to name her con- federates ; but when Nider visited her in her cell during the even- ing, he found her exhausted with suffering, and he readily brought her to acknowledge her error, after which she made a public re- cantation. This shows us that there could have been no Inquisi- tion in Ratisbon, and that the local authorities had even lost the memory of inquisitorial proceedings.* In 1446 the Council of Wiirzburg found it necessary to repeat the canon of that of Mainz in 1310, ordering the expulsion of aU wandering Beghards using the old cry of '•'■ Brod durch GotV and preaching in caverns and secret places, showing the maintenance • Hemmerlin Glosa quarund. BuUar ; Ejusd. LoUardorum Descriptio. — Nider Formicar. iii. 5, 7, 9. END OF THE BEGHARDS. 413 of the traditioiical customs and also the absence of more active persecution. In 1453 Nicholas V. formaUy adjoined them to the Mendicant Orders as Tertiaries. Some of them obeyed and formed a distinct class, known as Zepperenses, from their principal house at Zepper. They diminished greatly in number, however, and in 1650 Innocent X. united them with the Tertiaries of Italy, under the General Master residing in Lombardy. The female portion of the associations, which became distinctively known as Beguines, were more fortunate. They were able to preserve their identity and their communities, which remain flourishing to the present day, especially in the Netherlands, where in 1857 the great Be- guinage of Ghent contained six hundred Beguines and two hun- dred locataires or boarders.* Still there remained a considerable number both of heretic Brethren of the Free Spirit and of orthodox Beghards of both sexes who recalcitrated of being thus brought under rule and de- prived of their accustomed independence. Thus it is related of Bernhard, who was elected Abbot of Ilirsau in 1400, that among other reforms he ejected all the Beguines from their house at Alt- burg, on account of their impurity of life, and replaced them with Dominican Tertiaries. This aroused the hostility of the Beghards who dwelt in hermitages in the forest of Ilirsau, and they con- spired against the abbot, but only to their own detriment. In 14G3 the Synod of Constance complains of the unlawful wearing of the Franciscan scapular by Lollards and Beguines ; all who do so are required to prove their right or to lay it aside, and able-bodied Lollards are ordered to live by honest labor and not by beggary. This latter practice was ineradicable, however, and twenty years later another synod was compelled to repeat the command. In 1491 a synod of Bamberg refers to the provisions of the Clemen- tines against the Beguines as though their enforcement was still called for; and Friar John of Moravia, who died at Briinn in 1492, is warmly praised as a fierce and indefatigable persecutor of Hus- sites and Beghards. These insubordinate rehgionists continued to exist under almost constant persecution, until the Keformation, • Concil. Herbipolens. ann. 1446 (Hartzheira V. 336). — Mosheim de Beg- hardis pp. 173-9, 190, 194-5. — Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary, p. 73. 414 GERMANY. when they served as one of the elements which contributed to the spread of Lutheranism.* It was impossible that Tlussitism should triumph in Bohemia without awakening an eclio tliroughout Germany, or that the Hussites should abstain from missionary and proselyting efforts, but the spread of the heresy through the Teutonic populations was sternly and successfully repressed. In 1423 the Council of Siena, under the presidency of papal legates, showed itself fully alive to the danger. It sharply reproved both inquisitors and episcopal ordinaries for the supineness which alone could explain tlie threat- ening spread of heresy. They were urged to constant and unspar- ing vigilance under pain of four months' suspension from entering a church and such other punishment as might seem opportune. They were further ordered to curse the heretics with bell, book, and candle every Sunday in all the principal churches. Holy Land indulgences were offered to all who would assist them in capturing heretics, as well as to rulers who, unable to capture them, should at least expel them from their territories. The earnest tone of the council reflects the alarm that was everywhere felt, and it unquestionably led to renewed exertions, though only a few instances of successful activity chance to be recorded. Thus, in 1420, a priest, known as Henry Griinfeld, who had embraced Hussite doctrines, was burned at Ratisbon, where likewise, in 1423, another priest named Henry Rathgeber met the same fate. In 1424 a priest named John Drandorf suffered at Worms, and in 1426 Peter Turman Avas burned at Speier. Even after the Council of Basle had recognized the Hussites as orthodox, and under the Compactata they enjoyed toleration in states where they held temporal authority, they were still persecuted as heretics else- where. About 1450 John Midler ventured to preach Hussite doctrines throughout Franconia, where he met with much accept- ance and gained a numerous following, but he was forced to fly, and one hundred and thirty of his disciples were seized and carried to Wiirzburg. There they were persuaded to recant by the Abbot John of Grumbach and Master Anthony, a preacher of the cathe- * Trithera. Chron. Hirsaug. aun. 1460.— Hartzheim V. 464, 507, 560, 578. Wadding, ann. 1492, No. 8. — Martini Append, ad Mosheiui p. 579. HUSSITES AND WALDENSES, 415 dral. More tragic was the fate of Frederic Reiser, a Suabian, educated in Waldensianism. Under the guise of a merchant he had served as a preacher among the Waklensian churches which maintained a secret existence throughout Germany. At Ileils- bronn he was captured in a Hussite raid, when, carried to Mount Tabor, he recognized the practical identity of the faiths and re- ceived ordination at the hands of the Taborite Bishop Nicholas. He labored to bring about a union of the churches, and wandered as a missionary through Germany, Bohemia, and Switzerland. Finally he settled at Strassburg, which was always a heretic centre, and gathered a community of disciples around him. He called himself " Frederic, by the grace of God bishop of the faithful in the Eoman Church who spurn the Donation of Constantine." He was detected in 1458 and arrested with his followers. Under tort- ure he confessed all that was required of him, only to withdraw it when removed from the torture-chamber. The burgomaster, Hans Drachenfels, and the civic magistracy earnestly opposed his execution, but they were obliged to yield, and he was burned, together with his faithful servant, Anna Weiler, an old woman of Niirnberg.* Reiser had been specially successful with the descendants of the Pomeranian Waldenses who, as we have seen, abjured before the inquisitor Peter in 1393. They appear to have by no means abandoned their heresy, and were easily brought to the modifica- tions which assimilated them to the Hussites— the adoption of bishops, priests, and deacons, the communion in both elements, and the honoring of "Wickliff, Huss, and Jerome of Prague. In this same year, 1458, a tailor of Selchow, named Mattliew Ilagen, was arrested with three disciples and carried to Berlin for trial by order of the Elector Frederic II. He had been ordained as a priest in Bohemia by Reiser, and had returned to propagate the doctrines of the sect and administer its sacraments. His followers weakened and abjured, but he remained steadfast, and was aban- doned to the secular arm. To root out the sect. Dr. John Canne- • Concil. Senens. ann. 1423 (Hartluin. VIII. lOlC-17).— Ullinnnn's Keforraers before the Reformation, Menzics' Transl. I. ;]83-4. — Flac. Illyr. Catal. Test. Veri- tatis Lib. xix. p. 1836 (Ed. 1G08). — Coinl)a, Ilistoire dcs Vaiidois d'ltalic, I. 97.— HoflFmann, Gcschichte der Inquisition, II. 390-1. 416 GERMANY. man, who had tried Ilagen, was sent to Angermiinde as episcopal inquisitor; he found many sectaries but no obstinacy, for they willingly submitted and abjured.* There was, in fact, enough in common between the doctrines of the more radical Hussites and those of the Waldenses to briner the sects eventually together. The Waldenses had by no means been extirpated, and when, in 1467, the remnant of the Taborites known as the Bohemian Brethren opened communication with them, the envoys sent had no difficulty in finding them on the confines between Austria and Moravia, where they had existed for more than two centuries. They had a bishop named Stephen, who speedily called in another bishop to perform the rite of ordi- nation for the Brethren, showing that the heretic communities were numerous and well organized. The negotiations unfortu- nately attracted attention, and the Church made short work of those on whom it could lay its hands. Bishop Stephen was burned at Vienna and the flock was scattered, many of them finding refuge in Moravia. Others fled as far as Brandenburg, where already there were flourishing Waldensian communities. These were soon afterwards discovered, and steel, fire, and water were unsparingly used for their destruction, without blotting them out. A portion of those who escaped emigrated to Bohemia, where they were gladly received by the Bohemian Brethren and incorporated into their societies. The close association thus formed between the Brethren and the Waldenses resulted in a virtual coalescence which gave rise to a new word in the nomenclature of heresy. When, in 1479, Sixtus IV. confirmed Friar Thomas Gognati as Inquisitor of Vienna, he urged him to put forth every exertion to suppress the Hussites and ISTicolinistas. These latter, who took their name from Nicholas of Silesia, were evidently Bohemian Brethren who adhered to the extreme doctrine common to both sects, that nothing could justify putting a human being to death. Thus the struggle continued, and though the danger was averted which had once seemed threatening, of the widespread adoption of Hussite theories, there remained concealed enough Hussite and Waldensian hostility to Rome to serve as a nucleus of discontent and to give sufficient support to revolt when a man was found, * Wattenbach, Sitzungsberichte der Preuss. Akad. 1886, pp. 57-8. GREGORY OF HEIMBURG. 41 i" like Luther, bold enough to clothe in words the convictions which thousands were secretly nursing.* Signs, indeed, were not wanting in the fifteenth century or the inevitable rupture of the sixteenth. Prominent among those who boldly defied the power of Kome was Gregory of Heimburg, whom UUman well designates as the citizen-Luther of the fifteenth century. He first comes into view at the Council of Basle, in the service of ^neas Sylvius, who was then one of the foremost advo- cates of the reforming party, and he remained steadfast to the principles which his patron bartered for the papacy. A forerun- ner of the Humanists, he labored to diffuse classical culture, and with his admiration for the ancients he had, like Marsiglio of Padua , imbibed the imperial theory of the relations between Church and State. With tongue and pen inspired by dauntless courage he was indefatigable to the last in maintaining the rights of the empire and the supremacy of general councils. The power of the keys, he taught, had been granted to the apostles collectively ; these were represented by general councils, and the monopoly in the hands of the pope was a usurpation. His free expression of opin- ion infallibly brought him into collision with his early patron, and the antagonism was sharpened when Pius II. convoked the assem- bly of princes at Mantua to provide for a new crusade. Gregory, who was there as counsellor of the princes, boldly declared that this was only a scheme to augment the papal power and drain all Germany of money. When Nicholas of Cusa, a time-server like Pius, was appointed Bishop of Brixen and claimed property and rights regarded by Sigismund of Austria as belonging to himself, Sigismund, under Gregory's advice, arrested the bishop. There- upon Pius, in June, l-iGO, laid Sigismund's territories under inter- dict, and induced the Swiss to attack him. Gregory drew u]) an appeal to a general council, which Sigismund issued, although Pius had forbidden such appeals, and he further had the hardihood to prove by Scripture, the fathers, and history, that the Church was subject to the State. It was no wonder that Gregory shared his master's excommunication. In October, 1-160, he was declared a heretic, and all the faithful were ordered to seize his property • Hist. Persccut. Ecclcs. Bohem. pp. 71-2 (s. 1. 1G48).— Camerarii Hist, Frat. Orthodox, pp. 116-17 (IIcidclberga3, 1G05).— RipoU III. 577. IL— 27 4:18 GERMANY. and punish him. To this he responded in vigorous appeals and replications, couched in the most insolent and contemptuous lan- guage towards both Pius and Nicholas. In October, 1461, Pius sent Friar Martin of Rotenburg to preach the faith and preserve the faithful from the errors of Sigismund and his heresiarch Greg- ory, and, professing to believe that Martin was in personal danger, he offered an indulgence of two years and eighty days to all who would render him assistance in his need, lie also ordered the magistrates of JSTiirnburg to seize Gregory's property and expel him or deliver him up for punishment. We next find Gregory aiding Diether, Archbishop of Cologne, in his quarrel with Pius over the unprecedented and extortionate demand of the Holy See for annates ; but Diether resigned, Sigismund made his peace, and Gregory was abandoned to his excommunication, even the city of Niirnburg withdrawing its protection. He then took refuge in Bohemia wdth George Podiebrad, whom he served efficiently as a controversialist, earning a special denunciation as a heretic of the worst type from Paul IL, in 1469 ; but Podiebrad died in 1471. Gregory then w^ent to Saxony, where Duke Albert protected him and effected his reconciliation with Sixtus IV. He was absolved at Easter, 1472, only to die in the following August, after spend- ing a quarter of a century in ceaseless combat with the papacy.* If Gregory of Heimburg embodies the revolt of the ruling classes against Pome, Hans of Niklaushausen shows us the rest- less spirit of opposition to sacerdotalism which w^as spreading among the lower strata of society. Hans Boheim w^as a wander- ing drummer or fifer from Bohemia, who chanced to settle at M- klaushausen, near Wiirzburg. He doubtless brought with him the revolutionary ideas of the Hussites, and he seems to have entered into an alliance with the parish priest and a Mendicant Friar or Beghard. He began to have revelations from the Virgin which suited so exactly the popular wishes that crowds speecUly began to assemble to listen to him. She instructed him to announce to her people that Christ could no longer endm^e the pride, the avarice, * Ullmann, op. cit. I. 195-207.— JSn. Sylvii Epist. 400 (0pp. 1571, p. 932).— Fasciculus Rerum Expetendarum et Fugiendurum II. 115-28 (Ed. 1690). — Freber et Struv. II. 187-266.— Wadding, aun. 1461, No. 5.— Ripoll III. 466.— Chron. Glassberger ann. 1462. HANS OF NIKLAUSHAUSEN. 419 and the lust of the priesthood, and that the workl would be de- stroyed in consequence of their wickedness, unless they promptly showed signs of amendment. Tithes and tribute should be purely voluntary, tolls and customs dues were to be abolished, and game was no longer to be preserved. As the fame of these revelations spread, crowds flocked to hear the inspired teacher, from the Rhine^ lands, Bavaria, Thuringia, Saxony, and Misnia, so that at times he addressed an audience of twenty thousand to thirty thousand souls. So great was the reverence felt for him that those who could touch him deemed themselves sanctified, and fragments of his garments were treasured as relics, so that his clothes were rent in pieces whenever he appeared, and a new suit was requisite daily. That no one doubted the truth of the Virgin's denunciations of the clergy shows the nature of the popular estimation of the Church, for the vast crowds who came eagerly to listen were by no means composed of the dangerous elements of society. They were peaceful and orderly ; men and women slept in the neigh- boring fields and woods and caves without fear of robbery or violence ; they had money to spend, moreover, for the offerings of gold and silver, jewels, garments, and wax were large — large enough, indeed, to tempt the greed of the potentates, for after the downfall of Hans the spoils were divided between the Count of Wertheim, suzerain of Niklaushausen, the Bishop of Wiirzburg, and his metropolitan, the Archbishop of Mainz. The latter used a portion of his plunder in building a citadel near Mainz, the de- struction of which soon afterwards by fire was generally regarded as indicating the displeasure of the Virgin. Bishop Rudolph of Wiirzburg repeatedly forbade the pilgrim- age to Niklausliausen, but in vain, and at length he was led to take more decided steps. The great festivity of the region was the feast of St. Kilian, the martyr of Wiirzburg, falling on July 8. On the Sunday previous, July 6, 1476, Hans significantly told his audience to return the following Saturday armed, but to leave their women and children at home. Matters were evidently ap- proaching a crisis, and the bishop did not wait for tlie result, but sent a party of guards, who seized Hans and conveyed him to a neighboring stronghold. The next day about six thousand of his deluded followers, including many women and children, set out for the castle, without arms, believing that its walls would fall at 420 GERMANY. their demand. They refused to disperse when summoned, but were readily scattered by a sally of men-at-arms, supported by a discharge from the cannon of the castle, in w^hich many were slain. Hans was easily forced by torture to confess the falsity of his rev- elations and the deceits by which he and his confederates had stimulated the excitement by false miracles ; but his confession did not avail him, and he was condemned to be burned. At the place of execution his followers expected divine interference, and to prevent enchantment the executioner shaved him from head to foot. He walked resolutely to the stake, singing a hymn, but his fortitude gave w^ay and he shrieked in agony as the flames reached him. To prevent his ashes from being treasured as relics, they were carefully collected and cast into the river. The priest and Beghard who had served as his confederates sought safety in flight, but w^ere caught and confessed, after which they were dis- charged ; but two peasants — one who had suggested the advance upon the castle and one who had wounded the horse of one of the guards who captured Hans — were beheaded.* If Gregory of Heimburg and Hans of ISTiklaushausen repre- sent the antagonism to Rome which pervaded the laity from the highest to the lowest, John von Ruchrath of AVesel indicates that even in the Church the same spirit was not wanting. One of the most eminent theologians and preachers of whom Germany could boast, celebrated in the schools as the " Light of the World " and the " Master of Contradictions," he was a hardy and somewhat violent disputant, who in his sermons had no scruple in presenting his opinions in the most offensive shape. Like Luther, of whom he was the true precursor, he commenced by an assault upon in- dulgences, moved thereto by the Jubilee of 1450, when pious Eu- rope precipitated itself upon Rome to take heaven by assault. Step by step he advanced to strip the Church of its powers, and was led to reject the authority of tradition and the fathers, recur- ring to Scripture as the sole basis of authority. He even banished from the creed the word " Filioque^'' and his predestinarian views deprived the Church of all the treasures of salvation. How little he recked of the feelings of those w^hose faith he assailed is seen in his remark that if fasting was instituted by St. Peter, it was probably to obtain a better market for his fish. • Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. aun. 1476. — Ullmann, op. cit. I. 377 sqq. JOHN OF WES EL. 421 It shows how rusty had become the machinery of persecution and the latitude allowed to free speech that John of Wesel was per- mitted so long, without interference, to ripen into a heresiarch and to disseminate from the pulpit and professorial chair these opin- ions, as dangerous as any emitted by Waldenses, Wickliffites, or Hussites. In fact, but for the bitter quarrel between the Realists and Nominalists, which fiUed the scholastic world with strife, it is probable that he would have been unmolested to the end and enabled to close his days in peace. He was a leader of the Nom- inahsts, and the Dominican Thomists of Mainz were resolved to, silence him. The Archbishop of Mainz was Diether of Isenburg, who had been forced to abandon his see in 1463, but had resumed it in 1475 on the death of his competitor, Adolph of IN^assau ; he did not wish another conflict with Rome, to which he was exposed in consequence of his public denunciations of the papal auctions of the archiepiscopal pallium ; he was threatened with this unless he would surrender John of Wesel as a victim, and he yielded to the pressure in 1479. In the great province of Mainz there was no inquisitor ; trial by the regular episcopal officials would be of uncertain result; and as there Avas a Dominican inquisitor at Cologne, in the person of Friar Gerhard von Elten, he was sent for. He came, accom- panied by Friar Jacob Sprenger, not yet an inquisitor, but whom we shall see hereafter in that capacity busy in burning witches. With him came the theologians from the universities of Heidel- berg and Cologne, who were to sit as experts and assessors, and so carefully were they selected that one of the Heidelberg doc- tors, to whom we are indebted for an account of the proceedings, tells us that among them all there was but one Nominahst. He evidently regards the whole matter as an incident in the scholas- tic strife, and says that the accused would have been acquitted had he been allowed counsel and had he not been so harshly treated. The proceedings are a curious travesty of the inquisitorial proc- ess, which show that, however much its forms had been forgot- ten, the principle was rigidly maintained of treating the accused as guilty in advance. There was no secrecy attempted ; every- thing was conducted in an assembly consisting of laymen as well as ecclesiastics, prominent among whom we recognize the Count of Wertheim, fresh from tlic plunder of Hans of JS'ililaushausen. 422 GERMANY. After a preliminary meeting, when the assembly convened for business, February 8, 1479, the inquisitor von Elten presided, with Archbishop Diether under him, and opened the proceedings by suggesting that two or three friends of the accused should Avarn him to repent of his errors and beg for mercy, in which case he should have mercy, but otherwise not. A deputation was thereupon despatched, but their mission was not speedily per- formed ; the inquisitor chafed at the delay, and began blustering and threatening. A high official was sent to hurry the matter, but at that moment John of Wesel entered, pallid, bent with age, leaning on his staff, and supported by two Franciscans. lie was made to sit on the floor ; von Elten repeated to him the message, and when he attempted to defend himself he was cut short, badg- ered and threatened, until he was brought to sue for pardon. After this he was put through a long and exhausting examina- tion, and was finally remanded until the next day. A commission consisting principally of the Cologne and Heidelberg doctors was appointed to determine w^hat should be done with him. The next day he was again brought out and examined afresh, when he endeavored to defend his views. " If all men renounce Christ," he said, " I will stiU worship him and be a Christian," to which von Elten retorted, " So say all heretics, even when at the stake." FinaUy it was resolved that three doctors should be deputed, piously to exhort him to abandon his errors. As in the case of Huss, it was not his death that was wanted, but his humihation. On the 10th the deputies labored with him. " If Christ were here," he told them, " and were treated like me, you would con- demn him as a heretic — but he would get the better of you with his subtlety." At length he was persuaded to acknowledge that his views were erroneous, on the deputies agreeing to take the re- sponsibility on their own consciences. He had long been sick when the trial was commenced, all assistance was withheld from him ; age, weakness, and the dark and filthy dungeon from which he had vainly begged to be relieved broke down his powers of re- sistance, and he submitted. He publicly recanted and abjured, his books were burned before his face, and he was sentenced to imprisonment for life in the Augustinian monastery of Mainz. He did not long survive his mortification and misery, for he died in 1481. The trial excited great interest among all the scholars JOHN REUCHLIN. 4,23 of Germany, who were shocked at this treatment of a man so eminent and distinguished. Yet his writings survived him and proved greatly encouraging to the early Reformers. Melanchthon enumerates him among those who by their works kept wo the continuity of the Church of Christ.* It is evident from this case that the Inquisition, though not extinct in Germany, was not in working order, and that even where it existed nominally a special effort was requisite to make it function. Still we hear occasionally of the appointment of in- quisitors, and from the career of Sprenger we know that their la- bors could be fruitfully directed to the extirpation of witchcraft. Sorcery, indeed, had become the most threatening heresy of the time, and other spiritual aberrations were attracting little atten- tion. In the elaborate statutes issued by the Synod of Bamberg, in 1491, the section devoted to heresy dwells at much length on the details of witchcraft and magic, and mentions only one other doctrinal error — the vitiation of sacraments in polluted hands — and it directs that all who neglect to denounce heretics are to be themselves treated as accomplices, but it makes no allusion to the Inquisition. Still there is an occasional manifestation showing that inquisitors existed and sometimes exercised their powers. I shall hereafter have occasion to refer to the case of Herman of Ryswick, who was condemned and abjured in 1499, escaped from prison, and was burned as a relapsed by the inquisitor at The Hague, in 1512, and only allude to it liere as an evidence of con- tinued inquisitorial activity.f The persecution of John Reuchlin, like that of John of Wesel, sprang from scholastic antagonisms, but its development shows how completely, during the interval, the inquisitorial power had wasted away. Reuchlin was a pupil of John Wessel of Groningen ; as the leader of the Humanists, and the foremost representative in Germany of the new learning, he was involved in bitter contro- versy with the Dominicans, who, as traditional Thomists, were ready to do battle to the death for scholasticism. The ferocious * D'Argentrfe I.ii. 291-8.— Ullmann, op.cit. I. 258-9, 277-94, 356-7.— Trithem. Chron. Ilirsaug. aun. 1479.— Conr. Ursperg. Chron. Coutinuat. aim. 1479. — Me- laochthon. Respons. ad Bavar. Inquis., V^ltebergae, 1559, Sig. B 3. t RipoU IV. 5.— Synod Bamberg, nnu. 1491, Tit. 44 (Ludewig Scriptt. Ren Germ. I. 1242-44).— D'Aigcntie I. ii. 342. 424 GERMANY. jocularity with which Sebastian Brandt dilates, in his most finished Latinity, upon the torture and burning of four Dominicans at Berne, in 1509, for frauds committed in the controversy over the Immaculate Conception, indicates the temper which animated the hostile parties, even as its lighter aspect is seen in the unsparing satire of Erasmus and of the Epistolce Ohscurorum Virorum. When, therefore, Reuchlin stood forward to protect Jews and Jewish literature against the assaults of the renegade Pfefferkorn, the opportunity to destroy him was eagerly seized. In 1513 a Dominican inquisitor, the Prior Jacob von Hochstraten, came from Cologne to Mainz on an errand precisely similar to that of his predecessor von Elten. Unlike John of Wesel, however, Reuchlin felt that he could safely appeal to Rome, where Leo X. was himself a man of culture and a Humanist, Leo was well dis- posed, and commissioned the Bishop of Speier to decide the ques- tion, which was in itself a direct blow at the inquisitorial power. Still more contemptuously damaging was the bishop's judgment. Eeuchlin was declared free of all suspicion of heresy, the prosecu- tion was pronounced frivolous, and the costs were put upon Hoch- straten, with a threat of excommunication for disobedience. This was confirmed at Rome, in 1415, where silence was imposed on Reuchlin' s accusers under a penalty of three thousand marks. The Humanists celebrated their victory with savage rejoicing. Eleu- therius Bizenus printed a tract summoning, in rugged hexameters, aU Germany to assist in the triumph of Reuclilin, in which Hoch- straten — that thief, who as accuser and judge persecutes the in- nocent — marches in chains, with his hands tied behind his back, while Pfefferkorn, with ears and nose cut off, is dragged hy a hook through his heels, face downwards, until his features lose the sem- blance of humanity. The Dominicans are characterized as worse than Turks, and more worthy to be resisted, and the author won- ders what unjust pope and cowardly emperor had enabled them to impose their yoke on the land. These were brave words, but premature. The quarrel had attracted the attention of aU Europe, the Dominican Order itself and aU it represented were on trial, and it could not afford to submit to defeat. Hochstraten hastened to Rome ; the Dominicans of the great University of Cologne did not hesitate to say that if the pope maintained the sentence they would appeal to the future council, they would refuse to abide by THE INQUISITION USELESS. 425 his decision, they would pronounce him to be no pope and organ- ize a schism, and much more, which shows upon what a slender tenure the papacy held the allegiance of its Janissaries. Leo cow- ered before the storm which he had provoked, and in 1416 he issued a mandate superseding the sentence, but the spirit of insub- ordination was growing strong in Germany, and Franz von Sick- ingen, the free-lance, compelled its observance. As the Lutheran revolt grew more threatening, however, the support of the Domin- icans became more and more indispensable, and in 1420 Leo settled the matter by setting aside the decision of the Bishop of Speier, imposing silence on Reuchlin, and laying all the costs on him. Hochstraten, moreover, was restored to his office.* The reparation came too late to render the Inquisition of any service, now that its efficiency was more sorely needed than ever before. Had it existed in Germany in good working order, Lu- ther's career would have been short. When, October 31, 1517, he nailed his propositions concerning indulgences on the church-door of Wittenberg, and publicly defended them, an inquisitor such as Bernard Gui would have speedily silenced him, either destroying his influence by forcing him to a public recantation, or handing him over to be burned if he proved obstinate. Hundreds of hardy thinkers had been thus served, and the few who had been found stout enough to withstand the methods of the Holy Office had perished. Fortunately, as we have seen, the Inquisition never had struck root in German soil, and now it was thoroughly discredited and useless. Hochstraten's hands were tied ; Doctor John Eck, inquisitor for Bavaria and Franconia, was himself a Humanist, who could argue and threaten, but could not act. In France the University had taken the place of the almost forgotten Inquisition, repressing all aberrations of faith, while a centralized monarchy had rendered — at least until the Concordat of Francis I. — the national Church in a great degree independent of the papacy. In Germany there was no national Church ; there was subjection to Rome which was growing unendurable for ♦ Pauli Langii Chron. Citicens. (Pistorii Rer. Germ. Scriptt. I. 1276-6). — Gieseler, Lehrbuch derKircbengescbichte II. iv. 532 sq. — Herzog, Abriss, II. 397- 401. — SpalatiniAnnal.ann. 1515 (Menken. 11.591). — Eleutb. Bizeni Joannis Reuch- lin Encomion (sine nota, sed c. ann. 15 IG). — II. Corn. Agrippa; Epist. ii. 54. 426 GERMANY. financial reasons, but there was nothing to take the place of the Inquisition, and a latitude of speech had become customary whicli was tolerated so long as the revenues of St. Peter were not inter- fered with. This perhaps explains why the significance of Luther's revolt was better appreciated at Rome than on the spot. After he had been formally declared a heretic by the Auditor-general of the Apostolic Chamber at the instance of the promotor fiscal, the legate, Cardinal Caietano, wrote that he could terminate the matter himself, and that it was rather a trifling affair to be brought before the pope. He did not fulfil his instructions to arrest Luther and teU him that if he would appear before the Holy See, to excuse himself, he would be treated with undeserved clemency. After the scandal had been growing for a twelvemonth, Leo again wrote to Caietano to summon Doctor Martin before him, and, after dili- gent examination, to condemn or absolve him as might prove requisite. It was now too late. Insubordination had spread, and rebellion was organizing itself. Before these last instructions reached Caietano, Luther came in answer to a previous summons, but, though he professed himself in all things an obedient son of the Church, he practically manifested an ominous independence, and was conveyed away unharmed. The legate trusted to his powers as a disputant rather than to force ; and had he attempted the latter, he had no machinery at hand to frustrate the instructions given by the Augsburg magistrates for Luther's protection. In the paralysis of persecution the inevitable revolution went for- ward.* _^ * RipoU IV. 378.— Lutheri 0pp., Jense, 1564, I. 185 sqq.— Henke, Neuere Kirchengeschichte, I. 43-6. CHAPTEK VII. BOHEMIA. There is no historical foundation for the legend that Peter Waldo's missionary labors carried him into Bohemia, where he died, but there can be no question that the Waldensian heresy found a foothold among the Czechs at a comparatively early date. Bohemia formed part of the great archi episcopal province of Mainz, whose metropolitan could exercise but an ineffective supervision over a district so distant. The supremacy of Rome pressed lightly on its turbulent ecclesiastics. In the last decade of the twelfth century a papal legate, Cardinal Pietro, sent thither to levy a tithe for the recovery of the Holy Land, was scandalized to find that the law of celibacy was unknown to the secular priesthood ; he did not venture to force it on those already in orders, and his efforts to make postulants take the vow of continence provoked a tumult which required severe measures of suppression. In a Church thus partially independent the abuses which stimulated re- volt elsewhere might perhaps be absent, but the field for missionary labor lay open and unguarded.* We have seen how the Inquisitor of Passau, about the middle of the thirteenth century, describes the flourishing condition of the AValdensian churches in Austria, along the borders of Bohemia and Moravia, and the intense zeal of propagandism which ani- mated their members. Close to the west, moreover, they were to be found in the diocese of Ratisbon. That the heresy should cross the boundary line was inevitable, and it ran little risk of detec- tion and persecution by a worldly and slothful ])riestliood, until it gained strength enough to declare itself openly. The alarm was first sounded by Innocent IV. in 1245, who summoned the prelates Dubrav. Hist. Bohem. Lib. 14 (Ed. 1587, pp. 380-l> 428 BOHEMIA. of Hungary to intervene, as those of Bohemia apparently were not to be depended upon, and there was evidently no inquisitorial ma- chinery which could be employed. Innocent describes the heresy as established so firmly and widely that it embraced not only the simple folk, but also princes and magnates, and it was so elabo- rately organized that it had a chief who was reverenced as pope. These are all declared excommunicate, their lands confiscated for the benefit of the first occupant, and any who shall relapse after recantation are to be abandoned to the secular arm without a hear- ing, in accordance with the canons.* We have no means of knowing whether any action was taken in consequence of this decree, but if efforts were made they did not succeed in eradicating the heresy. In 1257 King Premysl Otokar II. applied to Alexander lY. for aid in its suppression, as it continued to spread, and to this request was due the first introduction of the Inquisition in Bohemia. Two Franciscans, Lambert the German and Bartholomew lector in Briinn, received the papal commission as inquisitors throughout Bohemia and Mo- ravia. It is fair to assume that they did their duty, but no traces of their activity have reached us, nor is there any evidence that their places were filled when they died or retired. The Inquisi- tion may be considered as non-existent, and when, after a long in- terval, we again hear of persecution, it is in a shape that shows that the Bishop of Prague, like his metropohtan of Mainz, was not disposed to in\ate papal encroachments on his jurisdiction. In 1301 a synod of Prague deplored the spread of heresy and ordered every one cognizant of it to give information to the episcopal in- quisitors, from which we may infer that heretics were active, that they had been little disturbed, and that the elaborate legislation * Palacky, Beziehungen der Waldenser, Prag, 1869, p. 10. — Potthast No. 11818. Palacky (pp. 7-8) conjectures that these heretics were Cathari, but his reason- ing is quite inadequate to overcome the greater probability that they were of Waldensian origin. He is, however, doubtless correct in suggesting that the al- lusion to princes and magnates may properly connect the movement with the commencement of the conspiracy which finally dethroned King Wenceslas I. in 1253. Wenceslas was a zealous adherent of the papacy and opponent of Frederic II., and the connection between antipapal politics and heresy was too close for US to discriminate between them without more details than we possess. WALDENSES AND LUCIFERANS. 429 elsewhere in force for the detection and punishment of heresy was virtually unknown in Bohemia.* In 1318 John of Drasic, the Bishop of Prague, was summoned to Avignon by John XXII. to answer accusations brought against him by Frederic of Schonberg, Canon of Wyschehrad, as a fautor of heresy. The complaint set forth that heretics were so numer- ous that they had an archbishop and seven bishops, each of whom had three hundred disciples. The description of their faith Avould seem to indicate that there were both Waldenses and Luciferans — the latter forming part of the sect w^hich we have seen described about this time as flourishing in Austria, where they are said to have been introduced by missionaries from Bohemia — and that their doctrines have been commingled. They are described as considering oaths unlawful ; confession and absolution could be administered indifferently by layman or priest ; rebaptism was allowed ; the divine unity and the resurrection of the dead were denied ; Jesus had only a phantasmic body ; and Lucifer was ex- pected finally to reign. Of course there were also the customary accusations of sexual excesses committed in nocturnal assemblies held in caverns, which only proves that there was sufficient dread of persecution to prevent the congregations from meeting openly. The good bishop, it appears, only permitted these wretches to be arraigned by his inquisitors after repeated pressure from John of Luxembourg, the king. Fourteen of them were convicted and handed over to the secular arm, but the bishop interfered, to the great disgust of the king, and forcibly released them, except a physician named Kichard, who was imprisoned ; the bishop, more- over, discharged the inquisitors, who evidently were his own offi- cials and not papal appointees. These were serious offences on the part of a prelate, and he expiated his lenity by a confinement of several years in Avignon. Possibly his hostility to the Francis- cans may have rendered him an object of attack.f Papal attention being thus called to the existence of heresy in * Wadding, ann. 1257, No. 16. — Potthast No. 16819. — Ilofler, Prager Con- cilien, Einleitung, p. xix. t Palacky, op. cit. pp. 11-13. — Sclirodl, Passavia 8acra, Pasaau, 1879, p. 243. — Dubravius (Hist. Bohem. Lib. 20) relates that in 1315 King John burned fourteen Dolcinists in Prague. Palacky (ubi sup.) argues, and I think successfully, that this relates to the above atTair and that tliere were no executions. 430 BOHEMIA. the east of Europe, and to the ineiRciency of the local machinery for its extermination, steps were immediately taken for the intro- duction of the Inquisition. In 1,318 John XXII. commissioned the Dominican Peregrine of Oppoka and the Franciscan Nicholas of Cracow as inquisitors in the dioceses of Cracow and Breslau, while Bohemia and Poland were intrusted to the Dominican Colda and the Franciscan Hartmann, As usual, the secular and ecclesi- astical powers were commanded to afford them assistance when- ever called upon, Poland, doubtless, was as much in need as Bo- hemia of inquisitorial supervision, for John Muscata, the Bishop of Cracow, was as negligent as his brother of Prague, and drew upon himself in 1319 severe reprehension from John XXII. for the sloth and neglect which had rendered heresy bold and aggressive in his diocese. This does not seem to have accomplished much, for in 1327 John found himself obliged to order the Dominican Provin- cial of Poland to appoint inquisitors to stem the flood of heresy which was infecting the people from regions farther west, Ger- many and Bohemia apparently were sending missionaries, whose labors met with much acceptance among the people. King Ladis- las was especially asked to lend liis aid to the inquisitors ; he promptly responded by ordering the governors of his cities to support them with the civil power, and their vigorous action was rewarded with abundant success.* Among these heretics there may have been Brethren of the Free Spirit, but they were probably for the most part Waldenses, who at this time had a thoroughly organized Church in Bohemia, whence emissaries were sent to Moravia, Saxony, Silesia, and Po- land. They regarded Lombardy as their headquarters, to which they sent their youth for instruction, together with moneys col- lected for the support of the parent Church. All this could not be concealed from the vigilance of the inquisitors appointed by Jolm XXII. No doubt active measures of repression were carried out with little intermission, though chance has only preserved an in- dication of inquisitorial proceedings about the year 1330, Saaz and Laun are mentioned as the cities in which heresy was most prevalent. With the open rupture between the papacy and Louis ♦ Wadding, ann. 1318, No. 2-6.— Ripoll II. 138-9, 174-6. -Gustav Schmidt, Pabstliche Urkunden und Regesten, Halle, 1886, p. 105. — Raynald. ann. 1319, No. 43. JOHN OF PIRNA. 431 of Bavaria its repression became more difficult, although Bohe- mia under John of Luxembourg remained faithful to the Holy- See. Heretics increased in Prague and its neighborhood ; after a brief period of activity the Inquisition seems to have disappeared ; John of Drasic, whose tolerance we have seen, was still Bishop of Prague, and fresh efforts were necessary. In 1335 Benedict XII. accordingly appointed the Franciscan Peter Naczeracz as inquisi- tor in the diocese of Olraiitz and the Dominican Gall of ISTeuburg: for that of Prague. As usual, all prelates were commanded to lend their aid, and King John was specially reminded that he held the temporal sword for the purpose of subduing the enemies of the faith. His son, the future Emperor Charles TV., at that time in charge of the kingdom, was similarly appealed to.* In the subject province of Silesia, about the same period, a bold heresiarch known as John of Pirna made a deep impression. He was probably a Fraticello, as he taught that the pope was Anti- christ and Rome the Whore of Babjdon and a synagogue of Satan. In Breslau the magistrates and people espoused his doctrines, which were openly preached in the streets. Breslau was ecclesiastically subject to Poland, and in 1341 John of Schweidnitz was commis- sioned from Cracow as inquisitor to suppress the growing heresy. The people, however, arose, drove out their bishop and slew the inquisitor, for which they were subsequently subjected to humiliat- ing penance, and John of Pirna's bones were exhumed and burned. The unsatisfied vengeance of Heaven added to their punishment by a conflagration which destroyed nearly tlie whole city, during which a pious woman saw an angel with a drawn sword casting fi.ery coals among the houses.f Bohemia and its subject provinces were thus thoroughly in- fected with heresy, mostly Waldensian, when several changes took place which increased the prominence of the kingdom and stimulated vastly its intellectual activity. In 1344 Prague was separated from its far-off metropofis of Mainz and was erected into an archbishopric, for which the piety of Charles, then Mar- grave of Bohemia, provided a zealous and enlightened prelate in * Palacky, op. cit. pp. 15-18. —Flac. Illyr. Catal. Test. Veritatis Lib. xv. p. 1505 (Ed. 1608).— Raynald. ann. 1335, No. 61-2.— Wadding, aun. 1335, No. 3-4. t Krasinsky, Reformation in Poland, London, 1838, 1. 55-6.— Rayuald. ann. 1341, No. 27. 432 BOHEMIA. the person of Arnest of Pardubitz. Two years later, in 1340, Charles was elected King of the Romans by the Electors of Treves and Cologne in opposition to Louis of Bavaria, as the supporter of the papacy ; and a month later he succeeded to the throne of Bohemia through the knightly death of the blind King John at Crecy. Still more influential and far-reaching in its results was the founding in 1347 of the University of Prague, to which tlic combined favor of pope and emperor gave immediate lustre. Archbishop Arnest assumed its chancellorship, learned schoolmen filled its chairs ; students flocked to it from every quarter, and it soon rivalled in numbers and reputation its elder sisters of Oxford, Paris, and Bologna.* During the latter half of the century, Bohemia, under these auspices, was one of the most flourishing kingdoms of Europe. Its mines of the precious metals gave it wealth ; the freedom enjoyed by its peasantry raised them mentally and morally above the level of the serfs of other lands ; culture and enlightenment were diffused from its university. It was renowned throughout the Continent for the s])lendor of its churches, which in size and number were nowhere exceeded. At the monastery of Konig- saal, where the Bohemian kings lay buried, around the walls of the garden the whole of the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revela- tions, was engraved, with letters enlarging in size with their dis- tance from the ground, so that all could be easily read. In the bitter struggles of after generations the reign of King Charles was fondly looked back upon as the golden age of Bohemia. Wealth and culture, however, were accompanied with corrup- tion. ISTowhere were the clergy more w^orldly and depraved. Concubinage was well-nigh universal, and simony j^ervaded the Church in aU its ranks, the sacraments were sold and penitence compounded for. All the abuses for Avhich clerical immunity furnished opportunity flourished, and the land was overrun by vagrants whose tonsure gave them charter to rob and brawl, and dice and drink. The influences from above which moulded the Bohemian Church may be estimated from a single instance. In 1344 Clement Y I. wrote to Arnest, then simple Bishop of Prague, * Werunsky Excerptt. ex Registt. Clem. VI. i^p. 28, 47. — Raynald. ann. 1347, No. 11. CONDITION OF THE CHURCH. 433 calling attention to the numerous cases in his diocese wherein pre- ferment had been procured for minors either by force or simony. The horror which the good pope expresses at this abuse is sig- nificantly illustrated by his having not long before issued dispen- sations to five members of one family in France, aged respectively seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven years, to hold canonries and other benefices. Apparently the Bohemians had not taken the proper means to obtain the sanction of the curia for such infrac- tion of the canons, so Clement ordered Arnest to dispossess the incumbents in all such cases, and to impose due penance on them. But he was also instructed, in conjunction with the papal collector, to force them to compound with the papal camera for all the rev- enues which they had thus illegally received, and after they had undergone this squeezing process he was authorized to reinstate them.* Such unblushing exhibitions of rapacious simony did not tend either to the purity of the Bohemian Church, or to enhance its respect for the Holy See, especially as the frequently recurring papal exactions strained to the last degree the relations between the papacy and the German churches. When, in 1354, Innocent VI., to carry on his Italian wars, suddenly demanded a tenth of all the ecclesiastical revenues of the empire, it threw, for several years, the whole German Church into an uproar of rage and in- dignation. Some prelates refused to pay, and, when legal pro- ceedings were commenced against them, formulated appeals which were contemptuously rejected as frivolous. The Bishops of Camin and Brandenburg were only compelled to yield by the direct threat of excommunication. Others pleaded poverty, and were mockingly reminded of the large sums which they had succeeded in exacting from their miserable subjects ; others made the best bargain they could, and compounded for yearly payments ; others banded together and formed associations mutually pledged to re- * (En. Sylvii Hist.Bohem. c. 36.— Nauclcri Cliron. ann. 1360.— Ilofler, Prager Concilicn, pp. 2, 3, 5, 7.— Loscrth, IIus urul Wicklif, Prag, 1884, pp. 261 sqq.— Wcruiisky Excerptt. ex Rcgistt. Clem. VI. pp. 1, 2, 3, 13, 25. Dispensations for children to hold preferment were an abuse of old date, as we have seen in a former chapter. In 1297 Boniface VIII. authorized a boy of Florence, twelve years old, to take a benefice involving the cure of souls. — • Faucon, Registres de Boniface VIII. No. 17G1, p. 666. II.— 28 434: BOHEMIA. sist to the last. Frederic, Bishop of Katisbon, took the audacious step of seizing the papal collector and conveying him away to a convenient castle. An ambush was laid for the Bishop of Ca- vaillon, the papal nuncio charged with tlie business, and his life, and that of his assistant, Henry, Archdeacon of Liege, were only saved by the active interposition of William, Archbishop of Co- logne. When, in 1372, the levy was repeated by Gregory XI., the same spirit of resistance was aroused. The clergy of Mainz bound themselves to each other in a solemn engagement not to pay it, and Frederic, Archbishop of Cologne, promised his clergy to give them all the assistance he safely could in their refusal to submit. Trilling incidents such as these afford us a valuable in- sight into the complex relations between the Holy See and the churches of Christendom. On the one hand, there was the su- perstitious awe generated by five centuries of unquestioned dom- ination, as the representative of Christ, and there was, moreover, the dread of the material consequences of unsuccessful revolt. On the other, there was the indignation born of lawless oppression ever exciting to rebellion, and the clear-sighted recognition of the venality and corruption which rendered the Roman curia a source of contagion for all Europe. There was ample inflammable ma- terial, which the increasing friction might at any moment kindle into flame.* Bohemia was peculiarly dangerous soil, for it was thoroughly interpenetrated with the leaven of heresy. We hear nothing of papal inquisitors after those commissioned by Benedict XII. in 1335, and it is presumable that for a while the heretics had peace. Archbishop Arnest, however, soon after his accession, set reso- lutely to work to purify the morals of his Church and to uproot heresy. He held synods frequently, he instituted a body of Cor- rectors whose duty it was to visit aU portions of the pro\nnce and punish all transgressions, and he organized an episcopal Inquisi- tion for the purpose of tracking out and suppressing heresy. In the fragmentary remains of his synodal acts, the frequency and earnestness with which this latter duty is insisted upon serve as a measure of its importance, and of the numbers of those who had • Werunsky op. cit. pp. 89, 94, 98, 99, 102, 111, 120, 135, 136, 140, 141.- Gudeni Cod. Diplom. III. 509.— Hartzheim Concil. Germ. IV. 510. PREVALENCE OF HERESY. 435 forsaken the Church. In the earliest synod whose proceedings have reached us the first place is given to this subject ; the arch- deacons were directed to make diligent perquisition in their re- spective districts, both personally and through the deans and parish priests, without exciting suspicion, and all who were found guilty or suspect of heresy were to be forthwith denounced to the archbishop or the inquisitor. Similar instructions were is- sued in 1355 ; and after Arnest's death, in 1364, his successor, John Ocko, was equally vigilant, as appears from the acts of his synods in 1366 and 1371. The neighborhood of Pisek was especially con- taminated, and from the acts of the Consistory of 1381 it appears that a priest named Johl, of Pisek, could not be ordained because both his father and grandfather had been heretics. What was this heresy that thus descended from generation to generation is not stated, but it was doubtless Waldensian. In this same year Archbishop John, as papal legate for his own province and for the dioceses of Ratisbon, Bamberg, and Misnia, held a council at Prague, in which he mournfully described the spread of the Wal- denses and Sarabites — the latter probably Beghards. He sharply reproved the bishops who, through sloth or parsimony, had not appointed inquisitors, and threatened that if they did not do so forthwith, he would do it himseK. When, ten years later, the Church took the alarm and acted vigorously, the Waldenses of Brandenburg, who were prosecuted, declared that their teachers came from Bohemia.* In all this activity for the suppression of heresy it is worthy of note that the episcopal Inquisition alone is referred to. In fact there was no papal Inquisition in Bohemia. The bull of Gregory XI., in 1372, ordering the appointment of five inquisitors for Germany, confines their jurisdiction to the provinces of Co- logne, Mainz, Utrecht, Magdeburg, Salzburg, and Bremen, and pointedly omits that of Prague, although the zeal of Charles IV. might have been expected to secure the blessings of the institu- tion for his hereditary realm. f This is the more curious, more- • Hofler, Prager Concilien, pp. 2, 5, 12, 14, 26-7. — Loserth, Hus unci Wiclif, pp. 32-33, 37.— W. Preger, Beitrage, p. 51.— Plac. Iliyr. Catal. Test. Veritatis Lib. XV. p. 1506 (Ed. 1608). t Moslieim cle Beghardis p. 381. 436 BOHEMIA. over, since the intellectual movement started by the University of Prague was producing a number of men distinguished not only for learning and piety, but for their bold attacks on the corruptions of the Cliurc.li, and their questioning of some of its most profitable dogmas. The appearance of these precursors of Huss IS one of the most remarkable indications of the tendencies of the age in Bohemia, and shows how the Waldensian spirit of revolt had unconsciously spread among the population. Conrad of Waldhausen, who died in 1369, is reckoned the ear- liest of these. He maintained strict orthodoxy, but his denuncia- tion in his sermons of the vices of the clergy, and especially of the Mendicants, created a deep sensation. More prominent in every way was Milicz of Kremsier, who, in 1363, resigned the office of private secretary to the emperor, the function of Cor- rector intrusted to him by Archbishop Arnest, and several rich preferments, in order to devote himself exclusively to preaching. His sermons in Czech, German, and Latin were filled with auda- cious attacks on the sins and crimes of clergy and laity, and the evils of the time led him to prophesy the advent of Antichrist between 1365 and 1367. In the latter year he went to Rome in order to lay before Urban V. his views on the present and future of the Church. "While awaiting Urban's advent from Avignon, he affixed on the portal of St. Peter's an announcement of a ser- mon on the subject, which led the Inquisition to throw him into prison, but in October, on the arrival of the pope, he was released and treated with distinction. On his return to Prague he preached with greater violence than ever. To get rid of him the priest- hood accused him to the emperor and archbishop, but in vain. Then they formulated twelve articles of accusation against him to the pope, and obtained, in January, 1374, from Gregory XI., bulls denouncing him as a persistent heresiarch who had filled aU Bohemia, Poland, Silesia, and the neighboring lands with his er- rors. According to them, he taught not only that Antichrist had come, that the Church was extinct, that pope, cardinals, bishops and prelates showed no light of truth, but he permitted to his followers the unlimited gratification of their passions. Milicz undauntedly pursued his course until an inquisitorial prose- cution was commenced agamst him, when he appealed to the pope. In Lent, 1374, he went to Avignon, where he readily proved his THE PRECURSORS OF HUSS. 437 innocence, and on May 21 was admitted to preach before the cardinals, but he died June 29, before the formal decision of his case was published. It is highly probable that he was a Joa- chite — one of those who, as we shall see hereafter, reverenced the memory and believed in the apocalyptic prophecies of the Ab' bot Joachim of Flora.* The spirit of indignation and disquiet did not confine itself to denunciations of clerical abuses. Men were growing bolder, and began to question some of the cherished dogmas which gave rise to those abuses. In the synod of 1381: one of the subjects dis- cussed was whether the saints were cognizant of the prayers ad- dressed to them, and whether the worsliipper was benefited by their suJffrages — the mere raising of such a question showing how dangerously bold had become the spirit of inquiry. The man who most fitly rejiresented this tendency was Mathias of Janow, whom the Archbishop John of Jenzenstein utilized in his efforts to re- form the incurable disorders of the clergy. Mathias was led to trace the troubles to their causes, and to teach heresies from the consequences of which even the protection of the archbishop could not wholly defend him. In the synod of 1389 he was forced to make public recantation of his errors in holding that the images of Christ and the saints gave rise to idolatry, and that they ought to be banished from the churches and burned ; that relics were of no service, and the intercession of saints was useless ; while his teaching that evcrj^ one should be urged to take communion daily foreshadowed the eucharistic troubles which play so large a part in the Hussite excitement. Yet he was allowed to escape with six months' suspension from preaching and hearing confessions outside of his own parochial church, a mistaken lenity which he repaid by continuing to teach the same errors more audaciously than ever, and even urging that the laity be admitted to com- munion in both elements. Mathias was not alone in his hetero- doxy, for in the same synod of 1389 a priest named Andreas was obliged to revoke the same heresy respecting images, and another named Jacob was suspended from ]7rcaching for ten years for a still more offensive expression of similar behefs, with the addition * Loserth, Hus und Wiclif, pp. 49, 50-3. — Lechler (Real-Encyklopadie, X. 1-3).— Raynald. ann. 1374, No. 10-11. 438 BOHEMIA. that suffrages for the dead were useless, that the Virgin could not help her devotees, and that the archbishop had erred in granting an indulgence to those who adored her image, and that the utterances of the holy doctors of the Church are not to be received.* Other earnest men who prepared the way for what was to fol- low were Henry of Oyta, Thomas of Stitny, John of Stekno, and Matthew of Cracow. Step by step the progress of free thought advanced, and when, in 1393, a papal indulgence was preached in Prague, Wenceslas Kohle, pastor of St. Martin's in the Altstadt, ventured to denounce it as a fraud, though only under his breath, for fear of the Pharisees. All this, it is evident, could only be fa- vorable to the growth of Waldensianism, as is seen in the activity of the sectaries. It was missionaries from Bohemia who founded the communities in Brandenburg and Pomerania ; and, as we have seen, a well-informed writer, in 1395, asserts that they were num- bered by thousands in Thuringia, Misnia, Bohemia, Moravia, Aus- tria, and Hungary, notwithstanding that a thousand of them had been converted within two years in the districts extending from Thuringia to Moravia. f "While Bohemia was thus the scene of an agitation the out- come of which no man could foretell, a similar movement was running a still more rapid course in England, which was destined to exercise a decisive influence on the result. The assaults of John Wickliff w^ere the most serious danger encountered by the hierarchy since the Hildebrandine theocracy had been established. For the first time a trained scholastic intellect of remarkable force and clearness, informed with all the philosophy and theolog}^ of the schools, was led to question the domination which the Church had acquired over the life, here and hereafter, of its members. It was not the poor peasant or artisan who found the Scriptures in contradiction to the teaching of the pulpit and the confessional, and with the practical examples set by the sacerdotal class ; but it was a man who stood in learning and argumentative power on * Hofler, Prager Concilien, pp. 33, 37-9. — De Schweinitz, History of the Unitas Fratrum (Bethlehem, Pa., 1885, pp. 25-6). t Loserth, Hus und Wiclif, pp. 54, 56-7, 63-4, 68-9.— Montet, Hist. Lit. dcs Vaudois, p. 150. — Pseudo-Pilichdorf Tract, contra Waldens. c. 15 (Mag. Bib. Pat. Xin. 315). JOHN WICKLIFF. 439 a level with the foremost schoolmen of the Middle Ages ; who could quote not only Christ and the apostles, but the fathers and doctors of the Church, the decretals and the canons, Aristotle and his commentators ; who could weave all these into the dialectics so dear to students and masters of theology, and who could frame a system of philosophy suited to the intellectual wants of the age. It is true that William of Ockham had been bold in his attacks on the overgrown papal system, but he was a partisan of Louis of Bavaria, and, with Marsiglio of Padua, his aim had merely been to set the State above the Church. With the subjection of the em- pire to the papacy the works of both had perished and their labors had been forgotten. The infidelity of the Averrhoists had never taken root among the people, and had been wisely treated by the Church with the leniency of contempt. It was the secret of Wick- liif's influence that he had worked out his conclusions in single- hearted efforts to search for truth ; his views developed gradually as he was led from one point to another ; he spared neither prince nor prelate ; he labored to instruct the poor more zealously per- haps than to influence the great, and men of all ranks, from the peasant to the schoolman, recognized in him a leader who sought to make them better, stronger, more valiant in the struggle with ApoUyon. It is no wonder that his work proved not merely ephemeral; that his fame as a heresiarch filled all the schools and became everywhere synonymous Avith rebellion against the sacerdotal system ; that simple Waldenses in Spain and Germany became thereafter known as Wickliflites. Yet the endurance of his teachings was due to his Bohemian disciples ; at home, after a brief period of rapid development, they were virtually crushed out by the combined power of Cliurch and State. As the heresy of Huss was in nearly aU details copied from his master, WickUff, it is necessary, in order to understand the nature of the Hussite movement, to cast a brief glance at the views of the English reformer. About four years after his death, in 1388 and 1389, twenty-five articles of accusation were brought against his foUowers, whose reply gives, in the most vigorous Enghsh, a summary of his tenets. Few documents of the period are more interesting as a picture of the worldhness and corruption of tlie Church, and of the wrathful indignation aroused by the liideous contrast between the teaching of Christ and the lives of those who 440 BOHEMIA. claimed to represent him. It is observable that the only purely speculative error admitted is that concerning the Eucharist; all the others relate to the doctrines which gave to the Church con- trol over the souls and purses of the faithful, or to the abuses arising from the worldly and sensual character of the clergy. It was an essentially practical reform, inspired for the most part with rare common-sense and with wonderfully little exaggeration, considering the magnitude of the evils which pressed so heavily upon Christendom. The document in question shows the Wickliffite belief to be that the popes of the period were Antichrist ; all the hierarchy, from the pope down, were accursed by reason of their greed, their simony, their cruelty, their lust of power, and their evil lives. Unless they give satisfaction " thai schul be depper dampned then Judas Scarioth." The pope was not to be obeyed, his decretals were naught, and his excommunication and that of his bishops were to be disregarded. The indulgences so freely proffered in return for money or for the services of crusaders in slaying Chris- tians were false and fraudulent. Yet the power of the keys in pious hands was not denied — " Certes, as holy prestis of ly vynge and cunnynge of holy writte han keyes of heven and bene vicaris of Jesus Crist, so viciouse prestis, unkonnynge of holy writte, ful of pride and covetise, han keyes of helle and bene vicaris of Sa- thanas." Though auricular confession might be useful, it was not necessary, for men should trust in Christ. Image-worship was unlawful, and representations of the Trinity were forbidden — " Hit semes that this offrynge ymages is a sotile cast of Anti- christe and his clerkis for to drawe almes fro pore men. . . . Certis, these ymages of hemself e may do nouther gode nor yvel to mennis soules, but thai myghtten warme a man's body in colde if thai were sette upon a fire." The invocation of saints was useless; the best of them could do nothing but what God ordained, and many of those customarily invoked were in heU, for in modern times sinners stood a better chance of canonization than holy men. It was the same with their feast-days ; those of the apostles and early saints might be observed, but not the rest. Song was not to be used in divine service, and prayer was as efficient anywhere as in church, for the churches were not holy — " all suche chirches bene gretely poluted and cursud of God, nomely for sellynge of WICKLIFFITE DOCTRINES. 441 lecclierie and fals swering upon bokus. Sitlien tho chirches bene dunnus of thefis and habitacionis of fendis." Ecclesiastics must not live in luxury and pomp, but as poor men " gyvynge ensaum- ple of holynes by ther conversacion." The Church must be de- prived of all its temporalities, and whatever was necessary for the support of its members must be held in common. Tithes and of- ferings were not to be given to sinful priests ; it was simony for a priest to receive payment for his spiritual ministrations, though he might sell his labor in honest vocations, such as teaching and the binding of books, and though no one was forbidden to make an oblation at mass, provided he did not seek to obtain more than his share in the sacrifice. All parish priests and vicars who did not perform their functions were to be removed, and especially all who were non-resident. All priests and deacons, moreover, were to preach zealously, for which no special license or commis- sion was required. All these tenets of which they were accused the Wickliffites admitted and defended in the most incisive fashion, but there were two articles which they denied. Wickliff's teaching so closely resembled that of the Waldenses that it was natural that the orthodox should attribute to him the two Waldensian errors which regarded all oaths as unlawful, and held that priests in mortal sin could not administer the sacraments. To the former, his followers replied that, though they rejected all unnecessary swearing, they admitted that " If hit be nedef ul for to swere for a spedf ul treuthe men mowe wele swere as God did in the olde lawe." As to the latter, they said that tlie sinful priest can give sacra- ments efficient to those who worthily receive them, though he re- ceive damnation unto himself. The prominence of the FraticeUi also suggested the imputation that the Wickliffites beUeved the entire renunciation of property to be essential to salvation ; but this they denied, saying that a man might make lawful gains and hold them, but that he must use them well.* All these antisacerdotal teachings flowed directly from the » Arnold's English Works of Wyclif, III. 454-96. Cf. Va3 Octuplex (lb. II. 380); Of jMynyslris in the Chirch (lb. II. 394); Vaughan's Tracts and Treatises, p. 226; Trialogi in. 6, 7; Trialogi Supplcm. c. 2. — Loscrth, IMittlicilungen des Vereiues fiir Gescb. der Deutschen in Bolimen, 1886, })p. 384 .stjcp 442 BOHEMIA. resoluteness with which "Wickliff carried out to its logical conclu- sion the Augustinian doctrine of predestination, thus necessarily striking at the root of all human mediation, the suffrages of the saints, justification by works, and all the machinery of the Church for the purchase and sale of salvation. In this, as in the rest, Huss followed him, though the distinction between his principles and the orthodox ones of the Thomists and other schoolmen was too subtle to render this point one which the Church could easily condemn.* The one serious speculative error of "Wickliff lay in his effort to reconcile the mystery of the Eucharist with the stubborn fact that after consecration the bread remained bread and the wine continued to be wine. He did not deny conversion into the body and blood of Christ ; they were really present in the sacrifice, but his reason refused to acknowledge transubstantiation, and he in- vented a theory of the remanence of the substance coexisting with the divine elements. Into these dangerous subtleties Huss refused to follow his master. It was the one point on which he decUned to accept the reasoning of the Englishman, and yet, as we shall see, it served as a principal excuse for hurrying him to the stake. Wickliff's career as a heresiarch was unexampled, and its pe- culiarities serve to explain much that would otherwise be incom- prehensible in the growth and tolerance of his doctrines in Bohe- mia, and in the simplicity with which Huss refused to believe that he could himself be regarded as a heretic. Although, as early as 1377, the assistance which Wickliff rendered to Edward III. in diminishing the papal revenues moved Gregory XI. to command his immediate prosecution as a heretic, yet the political situation was such as to render ineffectual all efforts to carry out these in- structions ; he was never even excommunicated, and was allowed to die peacefully in his rectory of Lutterworth on the last day of the year 1384. No further action was taken by Rome until the question of his heres}'- was raised in Prague. Although, in 1409, * Trialogi 11. 14 ; IV. 22. — Jo. Hus de Ecclesia, c. 1 (Monument. I. fol. 196-7, Ed. 1558). — Wil. Wodford adv. Jo. Wiclefum (Fascic.Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend. I. 250, Ed. 1690). — In the condemnation of the innovations by the Council of Prague, in 1412, predestination is not among the errors enumerated (Hoflcr, Prager Concilien, p. 72), though it appears in the final proceedings against Huss in the Council of Constance (P. Mladenowic Relatio, Palacky Documenta, p. 317). WICKLIFF IN BOHEMIA. 443 Alexander Y. ordered Archbishop Zbinco not to permit his errors to be taught or his books to be read, yet when, in 1410, John XXIII. referred his writings to a commission of four cardinals, who convoked an assembly of theologians for their examination, a majority decided that Archbishop Zbinko had not been justified in burning them. It was not until the Council of Rome, in 1413, that there was a formal and authoritative condemnation pro- nounced, and it was left for the Council of Constance, in 1415, to proclaim Wickliff as a heresiarch, to order his bones exhumed, and to define his errors with the authority of the Church Univer- sal. Huss might weU, to the last, believe in the authenticity of the spurious letters of the University of Oxford, brought to Prague about 1403, in which Wickliff was declared perfectly orthodox, and might conscientiously assert that his books continued to be read and taught there.^ The marriage of Anne of Luxembourg, sister of Wenceslas of Bohemia, to Richard II., in 1382, led. to considerable intercourse between the kingdoms until her death, in 1394. Many Bohemi- ans visited England during the excitement caused by Wickliff's controversies, and his writings were carried to Prague, where they found great acceptance. Huss tells us that about 1390 they com- menced to be read in the University of Prague, and that they con- tinued thenceforth to be studied. No orthodox Bohemian had hitherto ventured as far as the daring Englishman, but there were many who had entered on the same path, to say nothing of the secret Waldensian heretics, and the general feeling excited through- out Germany by the reckless simony and sale of indulgences which marked the later years of Boniface IX. Thus the movement which had been in progress since the middle of the century received a fresh impulsion from the circumstances under which the works of Wickliff were perused and scattered abroad in innumerable copies. All of his treatises were eagerly sought for. A MS. in the Hof- bliothek of Vienna gives a catalogue of ninety of them which * Raynald. ann. 1377, No. 4-6. — Lechler's Life of WickliflF, Lorimer's Trans- lation, II. 288-90, 343-7.— Loserth, ITns und Wiclif, pp. 101-2, 121.— Palacky Documenta Mag. Johaunis IIus, p. 189, 203, 313, 374-G, 426-8, 467.— Ilarduin. Concil. VIII. 203.— Von dcr Ilardt III. xii. 168; IV. 153, 328.— Jo. IIus Replica contra P. Stokes (Monument. I. 108 a). — Hofler, Prager Concilien, p. 53. 444 BOHEMIA. were known in Bohemia, and it is to those regions that we must look for the remains of his voluminous labors, the greater part of which were successfully suppressed at home. In time he came to be reverenced as the fifth Evangelist, and a fragment of stone from his tomb was venerated at Prague as a relic. Still more suggestive of his commanding influence is the fidelity with which Huss followed his reasoning, and oftentimes the arrangement, and even the words, of his treatises.* John of Husinec, commonly known as Huss, who became the leading exponent and protomartyr of Wickliffltism in Bohemia, is supposed to have been born in 1369, of parents whose poverty forced him to earn his own hvelihood. In 1393 he obtained the degree of bachelor of arts ; in 139-1 that of bachelor of theol- ogy ; in 1396 that of master of arts ; but the doctorate he never attained, though in 1398 he was already lecturing in the univer- sity ; in 1101 he was dean of the philosophical faculty, and rec- tor in 1402. Curiously enough, he embraced the Eeahst philoso- phy, and won great applause in his combats with the Nominalists. So little promise did his early years give of his career as a reformer that, in 1392, he spent his last four groschen for an indulgence, when he had only dry crusts for food. In 1400 he was ordained as priest, and two years later he was appointed preacher to the Bethlehem chapel, where his earnest eloquence soon rendered him the spiritual leader of the people. The study of "Wickliff's writ- ings, begun shortly after this, quickened his appreciation of the evils of a corrupted Church, and when Archbishop Zbinco of Ha- senburg, shortly after his consecration in 1403, appointed him as preacher to the annual synods, Huss improved the opportunity to address to the assembled clergy a series of terrible invectives against their worldliness and filthiness of living, which excited general popular hatred and contempt for them. After one of pe- culiar vigor, in October, 1407, the clamor among the ecclesiastics grew so strong that they presented a formal complaint against him to Archbishop Zbinco, and he was deprived of the position. * Loserth, op. cit. pp. 79, 114, 161 sqq. — Mittbeilungen des Vereines fiir Gesch. d. Deutschen in Bohmen, 1886, 395 sqq. — Jo. Hus Monument. I. 25a, 108a. — Nider Formicar. Lib. iii. c. 9. fol. 50a,— Von der Hardt IV. 328.— Gobelin. Per- sonae Cosmodrom. ^tat. vi. c. 86-7 (Meibom. Rer. German. I. 319-21). COMMENCEMENT OF DISCORD. 445 By this time he was recognized as the leader in the effort to purify the Church, and to reduce it to its ancient simplicity, with such men as Stephen Palecz, Stanislas of Znaim, John of Jessinetz, Je- rome of Prague, and many others eminent for learning and piety as his collaborators. To some of these he was inferior in intel- lectual gifts, but his fearless temper, his unbending rectitude, his blameless life, and his kindly nature won for him the affectionate veneration of the people and rendered him its idol.* Discussion grew hot and passions became embittered. Old jealousies and hatreds between the Teutonic and Czech races con- tributed to render the religious quarrel unappeasable. The vices and oppression of the clergy had alienated from them popular respect, and the fiery diatribes of the Bethlehem chapel were lis- tened to eagerly, while the Wickliffite doctrines, which taught the baselessness of the whole sacerdotal system, were welcomed as a revelation, and spread rapidly through all classes. King "Wen- ceslas was inclined to give them such support as his indolence and self-indulgence would permit, and his queen, Sophia, was even more favorably disposed. Yet the clergy and their friends could not submit quietly to the spohation of their privileges and wealth, although the Great Schism, in weakening the influence of the Ro- man curia, rendered its support less efficient. Preachers who assailed their vices were thrown into prison as heretics and were exiled, and the writings of Wickliff, which formed the key of the position, were fiercely assaulted and desperately defended. The weak point in them was the substitution of remanence for tran- substantiation ; and although this was discarded by Huss and his followers, it served as an unguarded point through which the whole position might be carried. The synod of 14:05 asserted the doctrine of transubstantiation in its most absolute shape ; any one teaching otherwise was pronounced a heretic, and was ordered to be reported to the archbishop for punishment. In 1406 this was * Loserth, op. cit. pp. 13, 75-8, 98-100.— Jo. Hus Monument. II. 25-52. Even ^neas Sylvius (Hist. Bohetn. c. 35) speaks of Huss as distinguished for the purity of his life ; and the Jesuit Balbinus says that his austerity and mod- esty, his kindness to all, even to the meanest, won for him universal favor. No one believed that so holy a man could deceive or be deceived, so that the mem- ory of the thief was worshipped at Prague as that of a saint (Bohuslai Balbini Epit. Rer. Bohem. Lib. v. c. v. p. 431). 446 BOHEMIA. repeated in a still more threatening form, showing that the "Wick- liffite views had obstinate defenders ; as, indeed, is to be seen by a tract of Thomas of Stitny, Avritten in 1400. Already, in 1403, a series of forty -five articles extracted from AVickliff' s works was formally condemned by the university. Around these the battle raged with fury ; the condemnation was repeated in 1408, and in 1410 Archbishop Zbinco solemnly burned in the courtyard of his palace two hundred of the forbidden books, while the populace revenged itself by singing through the streets rude rhymes, in which the prelate is said to have burned books which he could not read ; for his ignorance was notorious, and he was reported to have first acquired the alphabet after his elevation.* In the strife between rival popes it suited the policy of King Wenceslas, in 1408, to maintain neutrality, and he induced the university to send envoys to the cardinals who had renounced allegiance to both Benedict XIII. and Gregory XII. In this mis- sion were included Stephen Palecz and Stanislas of Znaim, but the whole party fell, in Bologna, into the hands of Balthasar Cossa, the papal legate (afterwards John XXIII.), who threw them all in prison as suspect of heresy, and it required no Httle effort to secure their release. This adventure cooled the zeal of Stephen and Stan- islas ; they gradually changed sides, and from the warmest friends of Huss they became, as we shaU see, his most dangerous and im- placable enemies.f In this affair the university had not seconded the wishes of the king with the alacrity which he had expected, and Huss took advantage of the royal displeasure to effect a revolution in that institution, which had hitherto proved the chief obstacle in the progress of reform. It was divided, in the ordinary manner, into four " nations." As each of these nations had a vote, the Bohe- mians constantly found themselves outnumbered by the foreign- * Palacky Documenta, pp. 3, 56. — Berger, Johannes Hus u. Konig Sigmund, p. 5.— Loserth, op. cit. pp. 82, 98-100, 103-5, 111-13, 270.— Hofler, Prager Con- cilien, pp. 43-6, 51-3, 57, 60, 61-2.— Hist. Persecut. Eccles. Bohem. p. 29. Wickliif continued to the end to be the chief authority of the Hussites. A half a century later he is appealed to by both factions into which they were divided. See Peter Chelcicky's reply to Rokyzana, in GoU, Quellen und Unter- suchungen zur Geschichte der Bohmischen Briider, 11. 83-4. t Loserth, pp. 105-6. — Palacky Documenta, pp. 345-6, 363-4. PROGRESS OF REFORM. 447 ers. It was now proposed to adopt the constitution of the Uni- versity of Paris, where the French nation had three votes, and all the foreign nations collectively but one. The vacillation of Wen- ceslas delayed decision, but in January, 1409, he signed the decree which ordered the change. The German students and professors bound themselves by a vow to procure the revocation of the de- cree or to leave the university. Failing in the former alternative, they abandoned the city in vast numbers, founding the University of Leipsic, and spreading throughout Europe the report that Bo- hemia was a nest of heretics. The dyke was broken down, and the flood of Wickliffitism poured over the land with little to check its progress. In vain did Alexander Y. and John XXIII. com- mand Archbishop Zbinco to suppress the heresy, and in vain did the struggling prelate hold assemblies and issue comminatory decrees. The tide bore all before it, and Zbinco at last, in 1411, abandoned his ungrateful see to appeal to Wenceslas's brother Sigismund, then recently elected King of the Komans, but died on the journey.* This removed the last obstacle. The new archbishop, Albik of Unicow, previously physician to Wenceslas, was old and weak, and more given to accumulating money than to defending the faith. He was said to carry the key of his wine-cellar himself, to have only a wretched old crone for a cook, and to sell habitually all presents made to him. Thoroughly unfitted for the crisis, he resigned in 1413, and was succeeded by Conrad of Yechta, who, after some hesitation, cast his lot with the followers of Huss. Yet, during these troubles, the papal Inquisition seems to have been established in Prague, and, strangely enough, to have seen nothing in the Hussite movement to call for its interference, though it could act against Waldenses and other recognized here- tics. When, in 1408, the king ordered Archbishop Zbinco to make a thorough perquisition after heresy, Nicholas of Yilemonic, known as Abraham, priest of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Prague, was tried before the inquisitors Moritz and Jaroslav for Walden- sianism, and was thrown into prison for asserting that he could preach under authority from Christ without that of the archbishop. * Loscrtb, op. cit. pp. 106-10, 123-4.— Palacky Documeuta, pp. 181, 347, 350- 62.— Hofler, Prager Coucilien, pp. 64-70.— Raynald. ann. 1409, No. 89. 448 BOHEMIA. Huss interposed in his favor, but his liberation was postponed through his refusal to repeat, on the Gospels, an oath which he had already sworn by God. One of the accusations brought against Huss at Constance was the favor which he showed to Waldensian and other heretics ; and yet, when he was about to depart on his fateful journey to Constance, the papal inquisitor Nicholas, Bishop of Nazareth, gave him a formal certificate, attested by a notarial act, to the effect that he had long known him intimately, and had never heard an heretical expression from him, and that no one had ever accused him of heresy before the tribunal. The Hussite and Waldensian movements were too nearly akin for Huss not to sym- pathize with the acknowledged heretics, and in the virtual spirit- ual anarchy of these tumultuous years "Waldensian influence must have made itself more and more felt, and the sectaries must have been emboldened to show themselves ever more openly.* Everything thus conspired to accelerate the progress of the revolution. Huss, who had hitherto, for the most part, confined himself to assaults upon the local ecclesiastical estabhshment, be- gan to direct his attacks at the papacy itself, and in the writings of Wickliff he found ample store of arguments, which he used with great effect. He also made use of another of Wickliff's methods by the employment of itinerant priests. This was peculiarly well adapted to accomplish the object in view, for the Bohemians were given to listening to sermons, and the unlicensed preaching for which the negligence of the estabhshed clergy gave opportunity had been a frequent source of complaint since the year 1371. The repetition of the prohibitions shows their ineffectiveness ; the pop- ular craving for spiritual instruction, which the Church could have turned to such good account, was abandoned to the agitators ; the people flocked in crowds to hear them, in spite of priestly anathe- mas, and the great mass of the nation, from nobles to peasants, eagerly adopted the new doctrines, and were prepared to support them to the death. f Matters were rapidly tending to an open rupture with Rome. * ^nese Sylv. Hist. Bohem. c. 35.— Loserth, op. cit. p. 137. — Palacky Docu- menta, pp. 184-5, 342-3.— Palacky, Beziehungen, pp. 19-20. — Jo. Hus Monument. I. 2-3. t Loserth, op. cit. pp. 120, 123-4. — Hofler, Prager Concilien, pp. 5, 15, 18, 31, 32, 46, 57. THE QUESTION OF INDULGENCES. 419 In 1410 John XXIII., soon after his accession, referred to Cardi- nal Otto Colonna the complaints which came to Rome against Huss. On September 20 Colonna summoned him to appear in per- son. He sent deputies, who appealed from the cardinal to the pope, but they were thrown into prison and severely handled ; and while the appeal was pending, in February, l-lll, Colonna excommunicated him. On March 1 5 the excommunication was pub- lished in all the churches of Prague save two ; the people stood by Huss, and an interdict was extended over the city, which was generally disregarded, and Huss continued to preach. While af- fairs were in this threatening position a new cause of trouble led to an explosion. Just as Wickliff had been stirred to fresh hos- tility against the papacy by the crusade which, under orders from Urban VI., the Bishop of Norwich had preached against France for its support of the rival pope Clement VII. ; just as Luther was to be aroused from his obscurity by the indulgence-selling of Tetzel when Leo X. wanted money, so the Bohemians were stim- ulated to active opposition when John XXIII., towards the close of 1411, proclaimed a crusade with Holy Land indulgences against Ladislas of Naples, who upheld the claims of Gregory XII. Ste- phen Palecz, till then associated with Huss, was dean of the the- ological faculty. His experience of the Bolognese prison rendered him timorous about withstanding John XXIIL, and he declared that there was no authority to prevent the publication of the in- dulgence. Huss was bolder, and a controversy arose between them which converted their former friendship into an enmity destined to bear bitter fruits. June 16, 1412, he held in the Carolinum a disputation which was a very powerful and eloquent attack upon the power of the keys, which lay at the foundation of the whole papal system. Absolution was dependent on the subjective con- dition of the penitent ; as many popes who concede indulgences are damned, how can they defend their pardons before God ? the sellers of indulgences are thieves, who take by cunning lies that which they cannot seize by violence ; the pope and the whole Church Militant often err, and an unjust papal excommunication is to be disregarded. This was followed by other tracts and ser- mons which aroused popular enthusiasm to a lofty pitch. "Wences- las Tiem, the Dean of Passau, to whom the preaching of the cru- sade in Bohemia was confided, farmed out the indulgences to the II.— 29 450 BOHEMIA. highest bidders, and their sale to the people was accompanied by the usual scandals, which were well calculated to excite indignation.* A few days after the disputation a crowd led by Wok of "Waldstein, a favorite of King Wenceslas, carried the papal bulls of indulgence to the pillory and pubhcly burned them. The well- known legend attributes to Jerome of Prague a leading part in this, and relates that the bulls were strung around the neck of a strumpet mounted on a cart, who solicited the favor of the mob with lascivious gestures. No punishment was inflicted on the participants, and Wok of Waldstein continued to enjoy the royal favor. The defiance of the pope was complete, and the temper of the people was shown on July 12, when in three several churches three young mechanics named Martin, John, and Stanislas, inter- rupted the preachers proclaiming the indulgences, and declared them to be a lie. They were arrested and beheaded in spite of Huss's intercession ; many others were imprisoned, and some were exposed to torture. Then the people assumed a threatening as- pect ; the three who had been executed were reverenced as mar- tyrs ; tumults occurred, and the prisoners were released. Soon afterwards a Carmelite was begging at the doors of his church with an array of relics displayed upon a table, with the indulgences attached to them to excite the liberality of the pious. A dis- ciple of Huss denounced the affair as a fraud and kicked over the table, and when he was seized by the friars a band of armed men broke into the house and released him, not without bloodshed. f John XXIII. could not avoid taking up the gage of battle thus thrown down. The Bohemian clergy appealed to him pite- ously, representing the oppression to which they were subjected, and stating that many of them had been slain. He promptly re- sponded. The major excommunication, to be published in aU its awful solemnit}^ in Prague, was pronounced against Huss ; the Bethlehem chapel was ordered to be levelled with the earth ; his * Loserth, op. cit. pp. 121-3, 130.— Palacky Documenta, pp. 19-21, 191, 233 — Mladeuowic Relatio (Palacky p. 319). — Jo. Hus Disputatio contra Indulgent. (Monument. I. 174-89); Ejusd. contra Bull. PP. Joannis (lb. I. 189-91); Ejusd. Scrm. XXII. de Remissione Peccatorum (lb. II. 74-5). t Loserth, op. cit. p. 131. — Palacky Documenta, p. 640. — De Schweinitz, Tlist. of the Unitas Fratrum, pp. 41-2. — Stephani Cartas. Antihussus c. 5 (Pez Thesaur. Anecd. IV. ii. 380, 383). COMPROMISE IMPOSSIBLE. 45I followers were excommunicated, and all who would not within thirty days abjure heresy were summoned to answer in person be- fore the Roman curia. In spite of this Huss continued to preach, and when an attempt was made to arrest him in tlie pulpit the threatening aspect of the congregation prevented its execution. He appealed to a general council, and then to God, in a protest which, in lofty terms, asserted the nullity of the sentence pro- nounced against him. In his treatise " De Ecclesia," which fol- lowed not long after, he attacked the papacy in unmeasured lan- guage borrowed from Wicldiff. The pope is not a pope and a true successor of Peter unless he imitates Peter ; a pope given to avarice is the vicar of Judas Iscariot. So of the cardinals ; if they enter save by the door of Christ they are thieves and robbers. Yet the clergy, for the most part gladly, obeyed the bull of ex- communication, and Huss's presence in Prague led to a cessation of all church observances ; divine service was suspended, the new-born were not baptized, and the dead lay unburied. At the request of the king, to relieve the situation of its tension, Huss left Prague and retired to Kosi hradek, whence he directed the movements of his adherents in the city and busied himself in active contro- versial writing, the chief product of which was the " De Ecclesia," which was publicly read in the Bethlehem chapel on July 8, 1413.* King Wenceslas had vainly tried to bring about a pacification of the troubles in which passions were daily growing wilder, com- plicated by the race hatred between Teuton and Czech. A con- fused series of disputations and conferences and controversial tracts occupied the first half of the year 1413, which only embit- tered those who took part in them and rendered harmony more distant than ever. In fact there was no possible middle term, no compromise in which the disputants could unite. It was no longer a question of reforming the morals of the clergy, as to the neces- sity of which all were agreed. The controversy had drifted to the causes of clerical corruption, springing, as AVickliff and Huss and their disciples clearly saw, from the very principles on which the whole structure of Latin Christianity was based. Either the * Hofler, Prager Concilion, pp. 7.3, 110.— Loserth, op. cit. pp. 132-5.— J. Ilua Monument. I. 17; Ejusd. de Ecclesia c. 14 (Monument. T. 223. Cf. Wicklif. de Ecoles. c. 18, «^). Losertli, p. 188). — Pulacky Documentii, pp. 458, 464-60. 452 BOHEMIA. power of the keys was a truth vital to the salvation of mankind, or it was a lie cunningly invented and boldly utilized to gratify the lust of power and the greed of avarice. Between these two antagonistic postulates dialectic subtlety was powerless to frame a project of reconciliation, and argument only hardened each side in its belief. One or the other must triumph utterly, and force alone could decide the controversy. "Wearied at last with his una- vailing efforts,"VVenceslas finally cut the matter short by banishing the leaders of the conservatives, Stephen Palecz, Stanislas of Znaim, Peter of Znaim, and John Eli as. Stanislas retired to Moravia, where, after incredible industry in controversial writing, he died on the road to the Council of Constance ; Stephen survived him and revenged them both.* Huss and his adherents were now masters of the field; and though he abstained from returning to Prague, except an occa- sional visit incognito, until his departure for Constance, he could truly say, when he stood up in the council to meet his accusers, " I came hither of my own free will. Had I refused to come neither the king nor the emperor could have forced me, so numer- ous are the Bohemian lords who love me and who would have afforded me protection." And when the Cardinal Peter d'Ailly indignantly exclaimed, " See the impudence of the man," and a murmur ran around the whole assembl}^, John of Chlum calmly arose and said, "He speaks the truth, for though I have little power compared with others in Bohemia, I could easily defend him for a year against the whole strength of both monarchs. Judge, then, how much more could they whose forces are greater and whose castles are stronger than mine." f While thus in Bohemia the upholders of the old order of things were silenced and reformation in the morals of the clergy was en- forced with no gentle hand, the news spread around Christendom that the long-desired general council was to be convoked at last for the settlement of the Great Schism, the reformation of the Church from its head downwards, and the suppression of heresy. * Hofler, Piager Concilien, pp. 73-100. — Loserth, op. cit. pp. 142-5. — Palacky Documenta, p. 510. — Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky Documenta, p. 246). t Von der Hardt IV. 313. THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 4,53 Many strivings had there been to effect this, but the poUcy of the Italian popes, as at Pisa, had thus far successfully eluded the dreaded decision. The pressure grew, however, until it became overwhelming. With the rival vicars of Christ each showering perdition upon the adherents of the others, the spiritual condition of the faithful was most anxious and a solution of the tremendous question was the most pressing necessity for all who believed what the Latin Church had assiduously taught for a thousand years. The politics of Europe, moreover, were hopelessly comphcated by the strife, and no peace was to be expected while so dangerous an element of discord continued to exist. This was especially the case in Germany, where independent princes and prelates each selected for himself the pope of his preference, leading to bitter and intricate quarrels. Second only in importance to this was the reform of the abuses and corruption, the venality and license of the clergy, which made themselves felt everywhere, from the courts of the pontiffs to the meanest hamlet. Heresy likewise was to be met and suppressed, for though England could deal single- handed with the Lollardry within her shores, the aspect of matters in Bohemia was threatening, and Sigismund, the emperor-elect, as the heir of his childless brother Wenceslas, was deeply concerned in the pacification of the kingdom. In vain John XXIII. endeav- ored to have the council held in Italy, where he could control it. The nations insisted on some place where the free parliament of Christendom could convene unshackled and debate unchecked. Sigismund selected the episcopal city of Constance ; John, hard pressed by Ladislas of Naples and driven from Rome, was forced to yield, and, December 9, 1413, issued his bull convoking the as- semblage for the first of the following November. Not only were all prelates and religious corporations ordered to be represented, but all princes and rulers were commanded to be there in person or by deputy. Imperial letters from Sigismund, which accompanied the bull, gave assurance that the powers of State and Church Avould be combined to reach the result desired by all.* * Leouardi Aretini Comment. (Muratori S. R. I. XIX. 927-8).— Harduin. VIII. 231.— Tbeod. a Nicm Vit. .Joanii. XXIII. Lib. ii. c. 37 (Von der Hardt IL 384).— Palacky Documcnta, pp. 512-18. For the confusion existing in Germany, caused by the Schism, sec Haupt, Zeitsclirift I'iir Kirchcngcscliichte, 1883, pp. 356-8. 454 BOHEMIA. No such assemblage had been seen in Christendom since Inno- cent III., two centuries before, in the ]ilenitude of his power, had summoned the representatives of Latin Cliristianity to sit with him in the Lateran. The later council might boast fewer mitred heads than the earlier, but it Avas a far more important body. Called primarily to sit in judgment on the claims of rival popes, its mere convocation was a recognition of its supremacy over the successor of Peter. From its decision there could be no appeal, and the questions to be submitted to it were far more weighty than those which had tasked the consciences of the Lateran fathers. From every part of Europe the Church sent its best and worthiest to take counsel together in this crisis of its fate — men like Chancellor Gerson and Cardinal Peter d'Ailly of Cambrai, as earnest for re- form and as sensible of existing wrongs as "Wickliff or Huss them- selves. The universities poured forth their ablest doctors of theol- ogy and canon law. Princes and potentates were there in person or by their representatives, and crowds of every rank in life, from the noble to the juggler. The mere magnitude of the assemblage produced a powerful effect on the minds of all contemporaries, and the wildest estimates were current of the numbers present. One chronicler assures us that there were, besides members of the council, sixty thousand five hundred persons present, of whom six- teen thousand were of gentle blood, from knights and squires up to princes. The same authority informs us that there were four hundred and fifty public women, but an official census of the coun- cil, carefully taken, reports that the number was not less than seven hundred, and even succubi were popularly said to have joined in the nefarious trade. Thus the strength and the weakness, the virtue and the vice of the fifteenth century were gatliered to- gether to find relief as best they might for the troubles which threatened to overwhelm the Church. After many doubts and much hesitation John XXIII. fulfilled his promise to be present, relying upon his stores of gold to win a triumph over his adver- saries and over the council itself.^ It was inevitable that Huss should tempt his fate at Constance. * Jo. Fistenport. Chron. ann. 1415 (Hahn. Coll. Monum. I. 401). — Dacherii Hist, Magnatum (Von der Hardt V. ii. 50).— Tlicod. a Niem Vita Joann. XXHL Lib. I. c. 40 (lb. n. 388).— Nider Formicar. Lit), v. c. ix. IIUSS'S PRESENCE NECESSARY. 455 To both Sigismnnd and AVenceslas it was of the utmost impor- tance that some authoritative decision should put an end to the strife within the Bohemian Church. The reformers had always professed their desire to submit their demands to a free general council, and Huss himself had appealed to such a council from the papal sentence of excommunication. To hesitate now would be to abandon his life's work, to admit that he dared not face the as- sembled piety and learning of the Church, and to confess himself a heretic. The host of adversaries in the Bohemian clergy whom his bitter invectives had inflamed and whose preferment had been forfeited through the agitation Avhich he had led would surely be there to blacken him and to misrepresent his cause, and all would be lost if he were not present to defend it in person. They had long jeered him for not daring to present himself to the Holy See in obedience to its summons, and had pronounced blasphemous his appeal to Christ from its excommunication. To hesitate to submit his cause to the council would give his adversaries an inestimable advantage. Besides, incredible as it may seem in view of the violence of his assaults upon the doctrine which ren- dered the high places in the hierarchy profitable, and his persist- ent denial of the validity of his excommunication, he believed him- self to be in full communion with the Church, that he would find the council in sympathy with his views, and that certain sermons which he had prepared would, when delivered before the assem- bled prelates, be efficient in bringing about the reforms which he advocated. In his singleness of mind he could not comprehend that men who had thundered as vehemently as himself against current abuses and corruptions, but who had not dared to assail the principles from which those evils sprang, would shrink back aghast from his bolder doctrinal aberrations, and would regard him as a heretic subject to the inquisitorial rule prescribing the naked alternative of recantation or the stake.* * Stephani Cartus. Dial. Volatilis c. 11, 14, 21 (Pez Thesaur. Anecd. IV. ii. 405, 473, 492). — The three sermons prepared for this purpose are jjrinted in Huss's works (Monument. I. 44-56). The first is on the sufficiency of the law of Clirist for the government of the Church: the second is an elaborate exposi- tion of his belief; the third on Peace, in which lie attributes the schisms and troubles of the Church to the pride and greed and vices of the clergy. 45G BOHEMIA. When, therefore, the imperial and royal wishes for his presence at Constance were signified to him, with a promise of safe-conduct and full security, he willingly assented, and so anxious was he to be present at the opening of the council that he did not even wait for the promised safe-conduct, which reached him only after his arrival there. That some discussion took place among his friends as to the danger to be incurred there can be no doubt. Jerome of Prague, when on his trial, asserted that he had persuaded Huss to go, and Huss in one of his letters from prison alludes to the warn- ings which he had received. He himself was evidently not wholly without misgivings. A sealed letter left with his disciple, Master Martin, not to be opened till news should be received of his death, alludes to the persecution which he had suffered for restraining the inordinate lives of the clergy, and his expectation that it would soon reach its consummation. He makes disposition of his slender effects — his gray gown, his white gown, and sixty grossi, which comprise the whole of his worldly gear — and expresses his remorse for the time wasted before his ordination, when he used to play chess to the loss of his own temper and that of others. The unaf- fected simplicity and pure-heartedness of the man shine like a divine light through the brief words of his last request. A letter in the vernacular to his disciples also announces his fear that his enemies may seek in the council to take his life by false testimony. He asks the prayers of his friends that he may have eloquence to uphold the truth and constancy to endure to the last. Still, he did not wholly neglect precautions. Not only did he procure from the inquisitor Nicholas, Bishop of Nazareth, the certificate of his orthodoxy already alluded to, but he posted, August 26, through- out Prague a notice in Latin and Bohemian that he would appear before the archbishop, then holding a convocation of the Bohemian clergy, and challenged ah who impugned his faith to come forward and accuse him either there or at Constance, asserting his readi- ness to submit to the punishment of heresy in case he was con- victed, but that accusers who failed should be subjected to the talio. When John of Jessinetz, his representative, presented him- self the next day at the door of the convocation, he was refused ad- mission on the pretext that the body was dehberating on national affairs, and he was told to come back another time. In the as- sembly of nobles, however, Huss obtained an audience of the arch- THE JOURNEY TO CONSTANCE. 457 bishop, who was also papal legate, and who declared that he knew of nothing to render Huss guilty except that he ought to purge himself of the excommunication. Of this a certified notarial in- strument was sent to Sigismund by Huss with the statement that under the imperial safe-conduct he was ready to go to Constance to defend publicly the faith for which he was prepared, if neces- sary, to die.* Huss set out, October 11, 1414, under the escort and protec- tion of John and Henry of Chlum and Wenceslas of Duba, all his friends, and delegated for the purpose by Sigismund. The caval- cade consisted of more than thirty horse and two carriages. It was preceded, a day in advance, by the Bishop of Lubec, who an- nounced that Huss was being carried in chains to Constance, and warned the people not to look at him, as he could read men's minds. Already his name had filled all Germany, and this advertisement was an additional incentive for crowds to gather and gaze on him as he passed. His reception served to foster the fatal illusions which he nursed. Everywhere, he wrote to his friends, he was treated as an honored guest and not as an excommunicate ; no in- terdict was proclaimed where he stopped to rest, and he held dis- cussions with magistrates and ecclesiastics. In all cities he posted notices on the church-doors that he was on his way to Constance to defend his faith, and that any one who desired to assail it was invited to do so before the council. On reaching^ Nuremburo:, October 19, in place of deflecting to seek King Sigismund and obtain the promised safe-conduct, he proceeded direct to Constance, while Wenceslas of Duba went to the court and brought the docu- ment to him there a few days after his arrival. It was dated October IS.f On November 2 Huss reached Constance, to be greeted by a crowd of twelve thousand men assembled to look upon the dread- ed reforming heretic. The council had not yet been opened. On the 10th a letter from one of the party states that as yet no am- bassadors from any of the kings had arrived, and though John " Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky Documenta, p. 237). — Von der Hardt IV. 754.— Jo. Hus Monument. I. 2-4, 57, 68. — Palacky Documenta, pp. 70, 73. t Richeutals Chronik des Constanzer Concils p. 76 (Tiiliincfcn, 1882). — Jo. Hus Epistt. iii. vi. (Monument. I. 57-8). — Monument. I. 4rt. 458 BOHEMIA- XXIII. was there with his cardinals, no representatives from his rivals, Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII. , had presented them- selves. What to do with the Bohemian Wiclvliilite was a problem which puzzled pope and cardinal, and after much discussion it was determined to suspend liis excommunication, and permit him to frequent the churches freely, at the same time requesting him not to be present at the solemnities of the council, lest it might lead to disorder. Considerable apprehension, moreover, was felt as to a sermon to the clergy which he was understood to propose deliv- ering. Huss himself was utterly blind as to the position which he occupied. On November 4, the day before the council was opened, he ^\Tote to his friends at home that overtures had been made to him to settle matters quietly, but that he expected to win a great victory after a great fight. On the IGth he men- tioned that when the pope was celebrating mass every one but himself had assigned to him some function in the ceremony, and he characterized the omission as neglect, evidently considering that his position entitled him to recognition and distinction.* He knew that his opponents had not been idle, but he did not fear them. He had been preceded in Constance by two of his bitterest enemies — Michael of Deutschbrod, known as de Causis, and Wenceslas Tipm, Dean of Passau — and these, in a few days, were reinforced by a more formidable antagonist, Stephen Palecz, fully equipped rrith most dangerous extracts from Huss's writings. Wenceslas Tiem had been the bearer to Prague of the bull offer- ing indulgences for the crusade against Ladislas of Naples, and his profitable trade had been broken up by Huss. Michael de Causis had been priest of the Church of St. Adalbert in the Neustadt of Prague ; he had gained the confidence of King Wenceslas by pre- tending that he could render profitable some abandoned gold- mines near Iglau, and the king had intrusted him with a consid- erable sum of money for the purpose. After working a few days at the mines he decamped to Eome with the funds, which enabled him to purchase a commission as papal procurator "<^e causis fidei,^'' whence his appellation. He had already, in 1-112, sent to Rome charges against Huss, which the latter pronounced to be lies. The day after Huss's arrival in Constance, Michael posted * Richentals Chronik p. 58. — Jo. Hus Epistt. iv. vi. vii. (Monument. I. 58-9). HUSS'S IMPRUDENCE. 459 on the church-doors that he would accuse him to the council as an excommunicate and suspect of heresy, but Huss treated the mat- ter very lightly, and adopted the advice of his friends to take no notice of it until the arrival of Sigismund, who was not expected until Christmas. Meanwhile IIuss himself gave ample cause for adverse comment. So perfect was his sense of innocence and secu- rity that he could not be content with prudent obscurity. Almost immediately on his arrival he began to celebrate mass in his lodg- ings. This attracted the jieople in crowds, and was necessarily a cause of scandal. Otto, Bishop of Constance, sent John Tenger, his vicar, and Conrad Ilelye, his official, to request IIuss to cease, as he had long been under papal excommunication ; but he re- fused, saying that he did not consider himself excommunicated, and that he would celebrate mass as often as he pleased. Al- tliough thus defied, the bishop, to avoid disturbance, contented himself with forbidding the people from attendance. Soon after this IIuss placed himself, with some provisions, in a covered for- age-wagon which was to be sent for hay. "When the knights who were responsible for him could not find him, Henry of Las- tenbock (Chlum) rushed to the burgomaster and demanded that he be searched for. The city was in an uproar ; the gates Avere closed, horse and foot were sent in every direction to find him, and the circumstance was easily magnified into an attempt to escape.* The sturdy Bohemian was evidently a troublesome subject to deal with. In the eyes of the faithful it was quite scandal enough to see at liberty a priest who had openly defied a papal excommu- nication, and had defended the recognized errors of Wickliff ; there was, moreover, every probability that he would carry out his audacious design of preaching to the clergy a sermon in which the vices of the papal court and the shortcomings of the whole ecclesiastical body would be pitilessly and eloquently exposed, and it would be proved from Scripture that the whole system had no warrant in tlie law of Christ. The path which the ])ope and his cardinals had to tread in managing the council was likely to * Hus Epistt. V. vi. (Monument. I. 58).— Monument. I. 4 7*.— Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. ann. 1414 (Ludewig Reliq. MSS. VI. 124).— Palacky Document, p. 170.— Richentals Chronik i>p. 76-77.— Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, pp. 217-8). — Naucleri Cliron. ann. 1414. 460 BOHEMIA. be tortuous and thorny enough without this additional element of disturbance and turbulence. It was far safer to disarm him at once, to anticipate his attacks by treating him legally as one ac- cused of heresy and awaiting trial. Stephen Palecz and Michael de Causis, and a crowd of other Bohemian doctors and priests whom Huss had roughly handled, had already furnished ample material for his indictment, and in the inquisitorial process the first step was to make sure that the accused should not escape. Even had the case been one in which bail could be taken, Huss had the whole kingdom of Bohemia at his back ; bail to any amount would be furnished and forfeited, and, once safe at home, he would have laughed to scorn a condemnation for contumacy. Such might reasonably be the arguments of the cardinals when the resolve was taken to arrest him, but the execution of the design was either inexcusably insidious, or the manifestation of irresolu- tion which reached its conclusion only by degrees. On November 28 the cardinals, in consistory with the pope, sent to Huss's lodg- ings the Bishops of Augsburg and Trent, with Henry of Ulm, the burgomaster of Constance, to summon him at once before them to defend his faith. The envoys greeted him kindly, and though both he and John of Chlum protested that the summons was a viola- tion of the safe-conduct, he immediately consented to go, although he said he had come to Constance to appear openly in the council, and not secretly before the cardinals. He added that he could not be imprisoned because he had a safe-conduct. John of Chlum and some friends accompanied him to the palace occupied by the pope. When the cardinals told him he was accused of dissemi- nating many heresies, he replied that he would rather die than be con\acted of a single one ; he had come with alacrity to Constance, and if he was found in error he would wilKngly abjure. To this the cardinals said, " You have answered well." No further exam- ination was had, but John XXIII., whose policy was to embroil the council with Sigismund, took occasion to ask John of Chlum whether Huss had an imperial safe-conduct, to which Chlum re- plied, " Holy father, you know that he has." Again the pope asked the question and received the same answer, but none of the cardinals requested to see the document. When the morning ses- sion was over, guards were placed over Huss and John of Chlum. The weary afternoon wore away in suspense, while the cardinals HUSS'S ARREST. 4C1 held another session in Avhich Stephen Palecz and Michael de Cau- sis were busy. The tedium of detention was only broken by a simple-looking Franciscan, who accosted IIuss and asked for in- struction on the subject of transubstantiation, and, on being satis- factorily answered, inquired about the union of humanity and divinity in Christ. Huss recognized that he was no simple in- quirer, for he had asked the most difficult question in theology ; he declined further colloquy, and on the retiring of the friar was informed by the guards that he was Master Didaco, renowned as the subtlest theologian of Lombardy. About nightfall John of Chlum v/as allowed to depart, while IIuss was detained, and soon after Stejihen and Michael came exultingly and told him that he was now in their power, and should not escape tiU he had paid the last penny. He was taken under guard to the house of the pre- centor of the cathedral, in charge of the Bishop of Lausanne, regent of the apostolic chamber, and after eight days was trans- ferred to the Dominican convent on the Ehine. Here he was confined in a cell adjoining the latrines, where a fever soon caused his life to be despaired of. His sudden death would have been a most untoward event, and the pope sent his own physicians to re- store him. It was in vain that his friends in Prague procured from Archbishop Conrad a declaration affirming that he had never found Huss to vary from the faith in a single word. His fate had already been virtually decided.* John of Chlum's first thought on regaining his liberty was to hasten to the pope and to expostulate with him. When the safe- conduct had reached Constance, Chlum had at once exhibited it to John XXIII., who is reported to have declared, on reading it, that if his own brother had been slain by IIuss the latter should be safe while in Constance so far as he was concerned. Now he dis- claimed all responsibility and threw the blame on the cardinals. f * Richentals Chronik p. 77. — Jo. Hus Monument. I. 5 h. — Von der Hardt IV. 23, 33, 313.— Mladeuowic Relatio (Palacky Document, pp. 346-53). The special rigor of confinement near the latrines was well understood. In 1317, wlien John XXII. delivered some Spiritual Franciscans to their brethren for safe-keeping, Friar Francois Sanche '■' jwsiierunt fralres in quodam carcere juxta latrinasy — Historia Tribulationum (Archiv. fur Litteratur- u. Kirchen- geschichte, 1886, p. 146). t Von der Hardt IV. 11-12, 22.— IVIladenowic Relatio (Palacky, p. 251). 162 BOHEMIA. This question as to the safe-conduct and its violation has been the subject of so warm a discussion, and it iUustrates so completely a phase of the relations between the Church and heretics, that its brief consideration here is not out of place. The imperial safe-conduct issued to IIuss was in the ordinary- form, without limitation or condition. It was addressed to all the princes and subjects of the empire, ecclesiastical and secular, and to all nobles and magistrates and officials, informing them that Huss was taken into the protection of the king and of the empire, and ordering that he be permitted to pass, remain, and return without impediment, and that all help which he might require should be extended to him. Thus it was not a simple viaticum for protection during the journey from Bohemia, and it was not so regarded by any one. That it was intended as a safeguard during the council and the return home is shown by its issue, Oc- tober 18, after Huss's departure from Prague, and its reaching him in Constance after his arrival there. That his imprisonment was at once looked upon as a gross \'iolation of the imperial pledge is seen in the protests which John of Chlum affixed to the church doors on December 15, probably as soon as Sigismund could be heard from, and again on the 24th, when the king was near Con- stance and was to arrive the next day. This paper recited that Huss had come under the imperial protection and safe-conduct to answer in public audience all who might question his faith. That, in the absence of Sigismund, who would not have permitted it, and in contempt of his safe-conduct, Huss had been thrown into prison. That the imperial ambassadors had vainly demanded his release, and that when Sigismund comes he should plainly make known to aU men his grief and indignation at this \aolation of the imperial pledge.* The suggestion that the safe - conduct was a mere passport de- signedly insufficient to protect Huss is a recent discovery which would not have been left to the ingenuity of modern times if it could have been alleged during the warm debate which raged over the question at Constance. That nobody thought of it then is suffi- * Palacky Documenta, p. 238.— Von der Hardt IV. 12, 28.— Richentals Chro- nik p. 76. — Jo. Hus Epist. Ivii. (Monument. 1.75). — Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, p. 253). THE SAFE-CONDUCT. 463 cient proof that such an excuse is untenable. Such an assertion would have been all-sufficient when, May 13, 141 5, the Bohemians in Constance presented a memorial to the council in which they re- ferred to the treatment of Huss as a violation of the safe-conduct. Yet in its answer the council had no thought of making such an allegation, while at the same time Sigismund's services in the quar- rel with John XXIII. were too recent, and still too necessary, for the good fathers to inflict on him the disgrace of publicly declaring that they had righteously overruled his attempt to protect a here- tic. They therefore had recourse to a lie manufactured for the oc- casion, by asserting, in spite of the notorious existence of the safe- conduct in Constance at the time of Huss's arrest, that witnesses worthy of credit had proved that it had not been procured until fifteen days after that occurrence, and therefore that no public faith had been violated in the proceedings. This argument, which Sigismund himself asserted to be false in the public session of June 7, is an admission that the public faith Avas violated. A single fact such as this outweighs all the special pleadings of modern apologists.* * Von der Hardt IV. 189, 209. Berger's labored collection of safe-conducts and their comparison with the one given to Huss (Johann IIus u. Kouig Sigmund pp. 180-208) prove nothing but his own industry. Huss went to Constance as an excommunicate to defend himself and his faith, Sigismund, knowing tliis, gave him a safe-conduct with- out limitation or condition. The only contemporaneous documents with which this can fairly be compared are those offered by the council and by Sigismund to John XXni. when they summoned him back to Constance, May 3, 141.5, and the one offered by the council to Jerome of Prague, April 17. Of these the first was limited by the clause '■'•justitla tamen semper salva,'''' the second by " in quantum idem dominus rex tenetur sihi dare de jure et servare alios salvos condue- tus sibi datos,^'' the third by " quantum in nohis est et fides exegit orthodoxa " (V. d. Hardt IV. 119, 143, 145). No ingenious reasoning can explain this awa}'. The allusion in Sigismund's safe-conduct to other letters already given by him to the pope refers to those which John had required of him and of the city of Con- stance before he would trust himself there (Raynald. ann. 1413, No. 22-3). These the council set aside as coolly as it did that of Huss. Sigismund, as we shall see, had no power to give a safe-conduct that would protect a heretic, but Burger's argument that he therefore could not have de- signedly issued an unlimited one to Huss (Berger, op. cit. 92-3, 109) is worthless in view of his readiness, which Berger freely concedes (p. 85), to enter into en- 464 BOHEMIA. Sigismund at first fully justified the confidence reposed in him by IIuss and John of Chlum. lie made no attempt to say that his letters were not intended to protect IIuss from prosecution, but treated them as having been wrongfully violated. As soon as he had heard of the arrest he had ordered Huss's release with a threat to break open the prisons in case of refusal. On his arrival at Constance, on Christmas Day, his indignation was boundless, and there was consequently great excitement. lie protested that he would leave Constance, and, in fact, made a show of doing so ; he even threatened to withdraw the imperial protection from the council, but was plainly told by the cardinals that they would themselves break it up unless he yielded. The hopes of Christen- dom had been raised to too high a pitch as to the results expected from the assemblage for him to venture on such a risk. Naturally faithless, his insistence was a matter of pride, and self-interest easily won the day. We have better materials for estimating his character than that of any other prince of the century, and from first to last we find fully justified the opinion of his contemporaries gagements which he knew he could not fulfil. From his indignation it is evi- dent that he was unacquainted with the niceties of the canon law ; but even if he were, his giving the letters is easily explicable by the fact, which Berger has well pointed out (pp. 100-1), that Huss's certificates of orthodoxy, obtained in August, were laid before him (Palacky Document, p. 70). He could thus easily persuade himself that there was no risk of his pledge causing him trouble. It was of the greatest moment to him that Huss should be reconciled to the Church, and to a man of his temperament it was inconceivable that Huss's delicate conscientious- ness would in the end render martyrdom inevitable. Hefele (Conciliengeschichte VII. 224), following Palacky, calls attention to the absence, in the letter of the Bohemian magnates to the council, September 2, 1415, of any reproach for violating the safe - conduct, and he argues thence that they admitted that it could not protect Huss from judgment as a heretic. So little is this the case that they emphatically declare that Huss was not a heretic, and if there is no allusion to the safe-conduct this is evidently attributable to their referring to certain previous letters to Sigismund which the council had ordered burned, and which they defiantly desired to be considered as embodied and repeated in the present one (Monument I. 78). Anything they might have to say on the subject must have been said in those letters, which presumably were the occasion of the projected decree of September 23, 1415, punishing as fautors of heresy all who vilified Sigismund for permitting the violation of his safe-conduct. SIGISMUND YIELDS. 465 that he was wholly unworthy of trust. During the long negotia- tions between the Council of Basle and the Hussites, in which he took part, we see him endeavoring impartially to deceive both sides, making solemn engagements with no intention of fulfilling them, and regarded by all parties as utterly devoid of honor. Un- fortunate in war and chronically impecunious, he was ever ready to adopt any temporary expedient to evade a difficulty, and to sacrifice his plighted word to obtain an advantage.* It cost him little, therefore, to withdraw from the assertion of his own honor, and the matter was so speedily arranged that when on January 1, 1415, the council formally asked him that free course of justice be allowed in the case of Huss, in spite of the pretext of safe-conduct, he at once issued a decree declaring the council free in all matters of faith and capable of proceeding against all who were defamed for heresy ; moreover, he pledged himself to set at naught the threats which were freely uttered of defending Huss at all hazards. Yet the discussion stiU continued during January, and the pressure on him from Bohemia was so strong that for a while he still fluctuated irresolutely, but, April 8, he formally revoked all letters of safe-conduct. Huss himself had no hesitation in declar- ing that he had been betrayed and that Sigismund had promised his safe return. His friends took the same position. In February an assembly of the magnates of Bohemia and Moravia, gathered at Mezeritz, sent an address to Sigismund pointing out in language more forcible than courtly the disgrace and humiliation attendant upon the disregard of the imperial faith. Again, in May, after * Martene Thesaur. II. 1611. — Von der Hardt II. x. 255; IV. 26. — Palacky Documenta, p. 612.— Berger, Johann Hus u. Konig Sigmund, pp. 133, 136. — Fisten- port. Chron. aim. 1419 (Halm Collect. Monument. 1. 404). — ^gid. Carlerii Lib.de Lcgationibus (Monument. Cone. General. Stcc. XV. T. I. pp. 531, 536-7,595-6, 612-13, 662-73, 680-4, 688-93, 695-7). — Thomae Ebeudorferi Diar. (lb. p. 767).— Jo. de Turonis Regestr. (lb. pp. 834-5). Even in France Sigismund was reproached for surrendering Huss after giving him a safe-conduct, and was accused of disregarding otlier engagements of the same kind. — (Martene Ampl. Coll. II. 1444-5.) Yet had he persisted he would have been liable to excommunication and heavy penalties as an inipeder of the Inquisition ; and had he carried out his threat of forcibly liberating Huss, under the l)ull Ad extirpanda he would have been punishable by perpetual relegation and tlie forfeiture of all his dominions (Mag. Bull. Rom. Ed. Luxcmb. 1742, 1. 92, 149). II.— 30 466 BOHEMIA. the flight of John XXIII. had inspired new hopes as to the action of the council, two similar assemblages held at Briinn and Prague approached him with even stronger representations. It was all in vain. Sigismund had finally taken his position, and he redeemed his hesitation with great show of zeal. When, on June 7, Huss had his second hearing before the council, Sigismund thanked the prelates for their consideration for him as shown in their leniency to iluss, whom he sternly advised to submit, for he could look for no human help ; " We will never protect you in your errors and pertinacity. Rather, indeed, than do so we wiU prepare the fire for you with our own hands." In the final session of July 6, Huss declared, " I came freely to the council under the public faith promised by the emperor, here present, that I should be free from all constraint, to bear witness to my innocence and to answer for my faith to all who call it in question." With this he fixed his eyes on Sigismund, who blushed deeply. The impression made in Bohemia by Sigismund's calculated faithlessness was ineffaceable. When, in 1433, the legates of the Council of Basle sought to throw the responsibility of the result at Constance on the false witnesses, John Rokyzana pertinently asked them how, if the council was inspired by the Holy Ghost, it could have been misled by per- jurers, and he alluded to the violation of the safe -conduct in terms showing that it had been neither forgotten nor forgiven. This had been practically manifested a year earlier, in September, 1432, when the Council of Basle was eager to have Hussite depu- ties come to it, and the Bohemians would not stir without the most exaggerated provisions to guarantee their safety. Three safe-conducts had been furnished them — one from Sigismund, one from the council, and one from the city of Eger, but the}'' still re- quired others, from the city of Basle, the Margrave of Branden- burg, and the Counts Palatine Dukes of Bavaria, one of whom was the protector of the council. These were very different from that which had satisfied the simplicity of Huss. Thus Frederic of Brandenburg and John of Bavaria pledged themselves to furnish suificient troops to conduct the Bohemians safely to Basle, to guard them while there, and to bring them back to any designated place in Bohemia. The princes, moreover, guaranteed the safe-con- ducts of Sigismund and the council, and agreed to forfeit honors and lands, to be entered upon and taken in possession by the Bohe- THE SAFE-CONDUCT VALUELESS. 46T mians in case of any unredressed violation of the pledge. These pre- cautions were superfluous, for the envoys had at their back the terrible Bohemian levies which could enforce respect for plighted faith ; but when reconciliation had taken place and Sigismund was seated on the throne of his fathers, his guarantees were again re- garded as valueless. In April, 1437, he urged John Rokyzana to visit the council, and on the latter alleging fear that he might be treated as was Huss at Constance, the emperor was greatly moved and exclaimed, " Do you think that for you or for this city I would do aught against mine honor ? I have given a safe-conduct and so also has the council ;" but Rokyzana was not to be tempted by this appeal to the forfeited imperial honor, and steadfastly refused to go.* The explanation of the controversy over the violation of the safe-conduct is perfectly simple. Germany and especially Bohemia knew so Httle about the Inquisition and the systematic persecution of heresy that surprise and indignation were excited by the appli- cation to the case of Huss of the recognized principles of the canon law. The council could not have done otherwise than it did with- out surrendering those principles. To allow a heresiarch who had become conspicuous to all Christendom, like Huss, to evade the punishment due to his crimes on so flimsy a pretext as that of his having confided himself to them on a promise of safety to which the public faith was pledged, would have seemed to the most con- scientious jurists of the council the most absurd of solecisms. In point of fact, the best men who were there — the Gersons, the Peter d'Aillys, the Zabarellas — were as unflinching as the worst creatures of the curia. It had been, as we have seen, too long a principle of inquisitorial practice that the heretic had no rights, * Von der Hardt IV. 32, Bll-13, 329. — Martene Thesaur. IL 1611. — Berger, Johann Hus u. Konig Sigmund, p. 138. — Palacky Documenta, 541, 543, 54G-53. — Jo. Hus Epistt. xxxiii., liv., lix., Ix. (Monument. 1. 68-9, 74-77).— Mladenowic Relat. (Palacky, p. 314-15).— Narr. Hist, de Condemnatione (Monument. H. 346 a; Von der Haidt IV. 393).— -Egid. Carlerii Lib. de Legat. (Monument. Concil. Gen. Sffic.XV. Tom. I. p. 435).— Martene Ampl. Coll. VIII. 174-6, 179-83.— Jo. de Turonis Reges- trum (Monument. Con. Gen. Stec. XV. T. I. p. 860). The incident of Sigismund's blush has been disputed by some recent writers. It is a matter not worth controversy, but as the only evidence to his credit in the whole affair it may be hoped to be true. 468 BOHEMIA. and that the man accused of heresy by sufficient witnesses was to be treated as a heretic until he could clear himself, for any one to hesitate about putting it in force in this case. When Sigismund complained that he was dishonored by the imprisonment of Huss, the canonists of the council promptly assured him, in the words of a contemporary orthodox burgher of Constance, that " it could not and might not be in any law that a heretic could enjoy a safe-con- duct," and though this was prejudging the case, we have seen how customary that was in all inquisitorial trials. These words Sigis- mund himself virtually repeated in his address to Huss in the ses- sion of June 7: "Many say that we cannot, under the law, pro- tect a heretic or one suspect of heresy." When Huss's execution aroused the wildest indignation throughout Bohemia, expressed to the council in missives of scant courtesy, the council asserted its position in a decree formally adopted September 23, 1415, that no safe-conduct from any secular potentate could work prejudice to the Catholic faith, or could prevent any competent tribunal from trying, judging, and condemning a heretic or suspected heretic, even though, if trusting to the safe-conduct, he had come to the place of judgment and would not have come without it. So thoroughly did the council cause this to be recognized that, in 1432, in the Convention of Eger, stipulating the bases of negotiation be- tween the Hussites and the Council of Basle, it was expressly agreed that no canons or decretals should be alleged to derogate, infringe, or annul the safe-conducts under which the Bohemian en- voys were to appear before the council.* * Richentals Chronik p. 78.— Von der Hardt IV. 313, 531-22.— Chron. Glass- berger ann. 1415. — Martene Ampl. Collect. VIII. 131-33. Cf. Noel Alexander's justification of the decree of September 23 (Hist. Eccles. Ed. Paris, 1699. T. VIII. p. 496). It is customary with modern Catholic writers to stigmatize as a Protestant calumny the assertion that the Church held the doctrine that faith is not to be kept with heretics. See, for instance, Van Ranst, Regent of the College of Ant- werp, in his " Historia Hsereticorum " (4th. Ed. Venet. 1759, p. 263), together with his ingenious endeavor to argue away the case of Huss. I have already al- luded to this subject (Vol. I. p. 228), and have shown that it was a recognized prin- ciple of the Church that faith and oaths pledged to heretics were void. It has also been seen how the eflforts of the popes procured the insertion in the public law of Eurojje of the principle that suspicion of heresy in the lord released the vassal from the most binding engagement known to the Middle Ages — the oath THE TRIAL OF H L b tt. 469 The trial of Huss has been the subject of much indignant elo- quence. It is the most conspicuous instance of an inquisitorial of allegiance (Lib. v. Extra, vii. xiii. § 3). When thus the basis on which society itself was founded was destroyed by heresy all minor pledges were necessarily invalidated. The Church did not allow this to become obsolete. When, in 1327, John XXIL sentenced the Emperor Louis of Bavaria aa a heretic, he not only released all his vassals from their oaths of allegiance, but declared void all compacts and agreements made with him (Martene Thesaur. II. 702, 775-6, 791). So, in 1463, when it pleased Pius II. to declare George Podiebrad a heretic, he released the communities of Breslau and Namslau from their allegiance, and ex- communicated all who should lend their aid or service to their monarch (^En. Sylvii Epist. 401) ; and when Frederic III. asked him to compel Breslau to sub- mit to George, lie rejilied by arguing that heresy dissolved compacts as effectual- ly as death (Martene Ampl. Coll. I. 1598-99). When, in 14G9, Paul II. again de- clared George a heretic he pronounced that each and every obligation, promise, and oath made to that heretic was null and void, for faith was not to be kept witli him who kept not faith with God. Acting under this, when George re- leased from prison Wenccslas of Biberstein, on bail of six thousand florins fur- nished by John and Ulric of Hazemburg, the papal legate Rudolph incontinently ordered the bailors neither to surrender the accused nor to pay the forfeit (Lude- wig Reliq. MSS. VI. 77). The play upon the double meaningof the word faith by which this was epigram- matically justified was seriously accepted by Christendom. In April, 1415, Fernan- do of Aragon wrote to Sigismund earnestly remonstrating with him for the delay in judging IIuss, and expressing the hope that the safe-conduct would not be al- lowed to protect him ^^quoniam noii est f ranger ejidem in eo qui Deojidemfrangity — Andreae Ratisponens Cliron. ann. 1414 (Pez Thesaur. Anecd. IV. iii. 626. — Pa- lacky Documenta, p. 540). All statutes and laws impeding the free action of the Inquisition, directly or indirectly, were null and void ifso jure, as we have repeatedly seen above (see also Farinaccii de Hajresi Qusest. 182 No. 76) ; and what Sigismund could not have done at the head of the Imperial Diet, he certainly could not do by a sim- ple safe-conduct, and no ecclesiastical jurisdiction was bound to respect it. If the Church thus disregarded the pledges of laymen, it was equally unmind- ful of its own when heretics were concerned. Even late in the sixteenth century the bull Multi]>Ucc« inter of Pius V. annulled all letters of absolution and de- crees of acquittal for heresy issued by inquisitors, bishops, popes, and even I)y the Council of Trent, showing how scant was the ceremony customarily used in such cases, and how completely suspicion of heresy deprived a man of all rights (Lib. T. in Septimo iii. x.). Even without this general principle, however, there would have been no diffi- culty in soothing SigismuiuFs scruples of conscience, if, pcrcliance, he had any. The system of the mediajval Church so completely confused the ideas of right 470 BOHEMIA. process on record, and to those unacquainted with the system of procedure which had grown up in the development of the Holy Office, its practical denial of justice has seemed a wilful perversity on the part of the council, while the sublimely pathetic figure of the sufferer has necessarily awakened the warmest sympathy. Yet, in fact, the only deviations of the council from the ordinary course of such affairs were special marks of lenity towards the ac- cused. He was not subjected to the torture, as in the customary practice in such cases he should have been, and, at the instance of Sigismund, he was thrice permitted to appear before the whole body and defend himself in public session. "When, therefore, we see how inevitable was his condemnation, how he could have saved himself only at the cost of burdening his soul with perjury and converting his remaining years into a living lie, Ave obtain a meas- ure of the infamy of the system, and can in some degree estimate the innumerable wrongs inflicted on countless thousands of obscure and forgotten victims. In this aspect the trial is worthy of ex- amination, for though it presents no novel points of procedure, ex- cept the concessions made to Huss, it affords an instructive exam- ple of the manner in which the inquisitorial process described in preceding chapters was practically applied. The case against Huss was rendered stronger, almost at the outset, by the action of his friends at home. It must have been shortly after his arrival in Constance that Jacobel of Mies, who had and wrong that the ordinary notions of morality were superseded. The power of the keys was such that a papal dispensation could release any one from an in- convenient vow or promise, no matter how binding might be its form. Sigis- mund's father, Charles, when Margrave of Moravia, was released, in 1346, by Clement VI. from a troublesome oath which he had taken (Werunsky Excerptt. ex Regist. Clem. VI. p. 44) ; and the sin of perjury was one for which the popes were accustomed to grant efficacious pardons when it was committed in their in- terest (Ludewig op. cit. VI. 14). It was deemed only a reasonable precaution in compacts for the parties to pledge themselves that they would not seek a re- lease by a papal dispensation (Hartzheim IV. 329 ; Preger, Der kirchenpolitische Kampf unter Ludwig dem Baier, p. 59). Sigismund, in the case of Huss, admitted that his pledge was dissolved by heresy and a dispensation was superfluous, but it could liave been had for the asking. In view of these facts all attempts to argue away the betrayal of Huss are useless, nor is it possible to accuse the good fathers of Constance of conscious bad faith. They but accepted and enforced the principles in which they were trained. COMMUNION IN BOTH ELEMENTS. 471 succeeded Michael de Causis in the Church of St. Adalbert, com- menced to administer communion in both elements to the laity, and thus gave rise to the most distinguishing and obstinate feature of Bohemian heresy. Zeal for the Eucharist had long been a marked peculiarity of religious devotion in Bohemia. The synod of 1390 promised an indulgence of forty days to all who bent the knee on the elevation of the host ; and the frequent partaking of the sacrament was repeatedly and strenuously urged by those who have been classed as the precursors of Huss. Mathias of Janow had even ventured to recommend that the cup should be restored to the lait}", but the question had never reappeared during the stormy years in which lluss and his friends had been battling for the AVicldiffite doctrines. According to -i^neas Sylvius, a certain Peter of Dresden, infected with Waldensian errors, had left Prague with the other Germans in 1409, but was driven from home on account of his heresy and took refuge again in Prague, where he supported himself as a teacher of children. He it was who sug- gested to Jacobel the return to the ancient practice of the Church ; the heretics, delighted to find a question in which they were clear- ly in the right, eagerly embraced it. The custom spread to the churches of St. Michael, St. Martin, the Bethlehem Chapel, and else- where, in spite of the opposition of King Wenceslas and Archbishop Conrad, who vainly threatened secular punishments and ecclesias- tical interdicts. IIuss was speedily communicated Avith. lie ap- proved of the custom, as indeed he could not well help doing, and his tract in its favor, when conveyed to the disciples, gave a fresh impetus to the movement. It was in vain that on June 15, 1415, the council condemned the use of the cup by the laity, pronounced heretics all priests so administering the sacrament, ordered them to be handed over to the secular arm, and commanded all prelates and inquisitors to prosecute as heretics those who denied the propriety of communion in one element. For more than a century the Utra- quists, or Calixtins, as they called themselves, were the ruling party in Bohemia. The consciousness of being in the wrong and of having to justify itself by all manner of trivial excuses rendered the council additionally eager to crush the insubordination of which Huss was the representative.* Mandata Synodalia ann. 1390 (Holier, Prager Coucilien, p. 40). — iEn. Sylvii 472 BOHEMIA. We have seen that Huss was arrested November 28, 1414. Michael de Causis, Stephen Palecz, and others of his enemies had Hist. Bolicin. cap. 35. — Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. ann. 1414 (Ludewig Rcliq. MSS. VI. 125, 128-9).— Von dcr llaidt III. 335 sqq. ; IV. 288-91, 334, 342.— Jo. Hus Monument. I. 42^4, 62, 72. The relentless obstinacy with which the Church of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries refused the use of the cup to the laity at the cost of Christian unity and unnumbered troubles is perhaps the most impressive example on record of the perversity of sacerdotalism in sacrificing essentials to non-essentials. Ko one denied that in the early Church communion in both elements was adminis- tered to all the faithful, as it continued to be without interruption in the Greek Church. The refusal of the cup to the laity was originally a Manichaean cus- tom, in imitation of the corresponding ancient Izeshne rite of the Mazdeans. Communion in one element thus became a mark of heresy, and was condemned as such by Leo the Great (Leon. PP. I. Serm. xlii. cap. 5), about the middle of the fifth century, and again towards its end by Gelasius I., whose decretal on the subject is embodied, without comment or contradiction, by Gratian in the Decretum (P. ii. Dist. ii. c. 12), showing that it was still good law in the twelfth century. When, however, in the tenth and eleventh centuries the belief in transub- stantiation became the accepted dogma of the Church, the supreme veneration felt for the consecrated elements naturally gave rise to the necessity of the ut- most care in handling them and to excessive dread as to any accidents which might occur to them; and the penitentials grew full of all manner of penalties inflicted on priests who, through carelessness, let fall a crumb of the body or a drop of the blood, for which, by forged decretals of the early popes, a false an- tiquity was claimed (Decreti in. ii. 27). Of course the liquid was much more subject to these accidents, and to decomposition, than the solid, and the minis- tering priests were sorely tried to avert such profanation and its consequences to themselves. At first they adopted the ready expedient of dipping the host in the wine-and-water, and thus administering both elements together, which was conducive both to safety and comfort. This innovation was condemned by the Church, but was suppressed with great dilficulty. Under Gregory VII. the author of the Micrologus devotes a chapter to its prohibition (Micrologi c. 19). In 1095 the great Council of Clermont forbade it, except in cases where it was demanded by prudence or necessity for the avoidance of accidents (Cone. Claro- raont. ann. 1095, c. 28) ; and some twenty years later Paschal II. laid down the rule that it was only admissible in the communion of infants and the sick who could not swallow the bread (Paschal PP. II. Epist. 535). In a Bohemian document dating about the close of the twelfth century the priest carrying the viaticum to the dying is directed to dip the wafer in the wine so as to avoid accidents and yet be able to administer both elements (Hofler, Prager Concilien, Einleitung, p. ix.). When this resource was denied, while the veneration of the sacrament as the flesh and blood of Christ continued to develop, the custom was gradually ARTICLES OF ACCUSATION. 473 presented formal articles of accusation against him. These, drawn up in the name of Michael, accused him of maintaining the rema- nence of the substance in the Eucharist after consecration, of as- introduced of restricting the laity to the solid element, in administering which there was less liability to accident, while the priest continued to partake in both. About 1270 Thomas Aquinas tells us that in some churches the bread only is given to the laity, as a matter of prudence, to avoid spilling, and his dialectics are equal to the task of proving that both body and blood are contained in the w^afer (Summa iii. Ixxx. 12). The convenience of the innovation led to its extension, but it was left to the individual churches, and no authoritative decree was is- sued withdrawing the cup from the laity until the Bohemian controversy led to the action of the Council of Constance. How universal the custom had become without authority of law is shown by the special privilege granted, about 1345, by Clement VI. to John, Duke of Normandy, son of Philip of Valois, to receive both elements (Martene Ampl. Coll. I. 1456-7). When the question was exhaust- ively debated before the Council of Basle, the orator of the council, John of Ra- gusa, freely admitted that the Hussite practice was in accordance with the tradi- tions of the Church, but argued that it could be changed if convenience or other reasons demanded it (Ilarduin. Concil. VIII. 1712, 1740) ; and the Cardinal of St. Peter told William, Baron of Kostka, the Bohemian chief, that the cup was re- fused to children and common people simply as a precaution, adding, " If you were to ask of me I would give it, but not to the careless " (Petri Zaticensis Liber Diurnus; Mon. Concil. Gen. Stec. XV. T. L p. 315). The final decision of the Council of Basle, in December, 1437, admits that there is no precept on the subject, but lay communion in one element is a laudable custom, the law of the Church, and not to be modified without authority (Cone. Basiliens. Sess. xxx. ; Harduin. VIII. 1234). How thoroughly indefensible the Church felt its position to be, yet how arbitrarily and despotically it was resolved to enforce that posi- tion, is most clearly shown by the inquisitor Capistrano, in 1452, when he heard that the cardinal legate, Nicholas of Cusa, was thinking of giving Rokyzana a hearing on the subject at Ratisbon. Capistrano expressed his mind freely to the legate : " If we excuse the heretics we condemn ourselves. ... I have always avoided a debate with the Bohemians under the ordinary rules, for they study to justify their heresy from the ancient Scriptures and observances, and they have a perfect knowledge of the texts, which certainly are numerous, in favor of communion in both elements." Capistrano then quotes to the legate tlie bulls of Nicholas V. sent to him, in which the Bohemians are denounced as schismat- ics, heretics, and disobedient to the Roman Churcli, pointedly adding that the disciple is not above the teacher, nor the servant superior to the master ; he had never read in the law that heretics were to be rewarded, but were to be sharply punished with confiscation and tlie bitterest penalties (Wadding. Annal. ann. 1452, No. 12). So it liad come to this, that those wlio admittedly followed the practices of the Church current until the tliirteenth century were to be con 474 BOHEMIA. serting the vitiation of the sacraments in the hands of sinful priests and denying the power of the keys under the same conditions, of holding that the Church should have no temporal possessions, of demiied and exteriuinated as heretics. Disobedience was lieresy, and Rome, for a century, endeavored to convulse Europe on this simple punctilio. An episode of this question was tlie communion of infants. This was the practice of the early Chuich (Cyprian, de Lapsis c. 35), and St. Innocent I. and St. Gelasius I. had both declared that as soon as infants were baptized the sacra- ment was necessary to secure them eternal life (Innocent PP. I. Epist. xxx. c. 5 ; Gelasii PP. I. Ep. vii.). The epistle of Paschal II., quoted above, shows that this was still customary in the twelfth century, but the same causes which led to the withdrawal of the cup from the laity induced the withholding of the sacrament from infants, who were liable at any moment unconsciously to commit sacrilege with the body and blood of Christ. In their enthusiasm for the Eucharist the Bohemians naturally recurred to infantile communion, and their obstinacy in this gave the fxthers of Basle infinite trouble. After the reconciliation of 1436 the question still remained disputed. The feeling about it is well defined by the Bishop of Coutances, legate of the Council of Basle in Prague, who was horror- stricken when, April 38, 1437, Rokyzana administered communion to a number of infants, and one of them ejected the wafer from its mouth, forcing Rokyzana quietly to replace it. This incident was evidently regarded as the most con- vincing argument, and the terms in which it is alluded to show how profound was the terror which it was expected to create (Jo. de Turonis Regestrum ; Mon- ument. Cone. Gen. Ssec. XV. T. I. p. 863). At the Council of Constance it was gravely argued that if a layman allowed the wine to moisten his beard he ought to be burned with his beard (Von der Hardt III. 369). Gerson was not quite so absurd, but he did not shrink from alleging such reasons as the expensiveness of wine and its liability to turn sour (ib. 771 sqq.). In 1391, when John Malkaw, in preaching against the concubinary priesthood, hotly declared that he would rather place reverently on the ground a consecrated wafer than violate his vow of chastity, Bockeler, the Strassburg inquisitor, in trying him, made this the ground of a charge of heresy with respect to the sacrament of the altar (Haupt, Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte, 1883, pp. 366-7). In older times the Church had felt no such exaggerated reverence for the ele- ments. In 646 Pope Theodore, when he excommunicated Pyrrhus, the refugee Patriarch of Constantinople, mingled consecrated wine from the cup with the ink with which he signed the sentence ; and in 869 the Council of Constantino- ple adopted the same device in condemning Photius, — Clir. Lupi Dissert, de Sexta Synodo c. v. (0pp. III. 35). As a matter of course the vilest stories were circulated to inspire the faithfiil with abhorrence for the Bohemian innovations. It was said that the wine was consecrated in bottles and barrels ; that the sectaries held conventicles in cellars, where they would partake of it to intoxication and then commit all manner of sexual abominations (Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. ; Ludewig VI. 129-30). THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS. 475 disregarding excommunication, of granting the cup to the laity, of defending tlie forty-fi\^e condemned articles of Wickliff, of excit- ing the people against the clergy, so that if he were allowed to re- turn to Prague there would be a persecution such as had not been seen since the days of Constantino, and of other errors and offences. This was more than sufficient to justify his trial, and the process was commenced without delay by the appointment, December 1, of commissioners to examine him. These commissioners were, in fact, inquisitors, and the council at large served as the assembly of experts in which, as it will be remembered, final assent was given to the judgment. One of the commissioners at least, Bernardo, Bishop of Citta di Castello, was already famihar with the matter, for, only the year before, as papal nuncio in Poland, he had assisted in driving away Jerome of Prague. In addition to the articles of Michael de Causis there was a kind of indictment against Huss presented to the commissioners by the procurators and promoters of the council, reciting the troubles at Prague, his excommunica- tion, and his teaching of WickhlRte heresies.* At first the proceedings were pushed with a vigor which seemed to promise a speedy termination of the case. As soon as Huss recovered from his first sickness there was submitted to him a series of forty-two errors extracted from his writings by Palecz. To these he replied seriatim in writing, explaining the false con- structions which he asserted had been placed on some passages, defending some, and limiting and conditioning others. As he was denied the use of books, even of the treatises which were the source of the charges, these answers manifest a wonderful reten- tiveness of memory and quickness and clearness of intellect. Sometimes he was visited in his prison by the commissioners and personally interrogated. A Carthusian, writing from Constance, May 19, relates that the day before he had been present at such an examination and had never seen so bold and audacious a scoun- drel or one who could so cautiously conceal the truth. On the * Palacky Docuraeuta, pp. 194-204, 506. — Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, p 253). The council itself recognized that its proceedings were inquisitorial. In the sentence of Jerome of Prague it uses the phrase " Hobc sanda sy nodus Constantien- sis in causa inquisitionis hcereticm pravitatis per eamdem sanctam synodem rnota.'" — -Von der Hardt IV. 766. 476 BOHEMIA. other hand, we have his own account of one of these interviews The commissioners were accompanied by Michael and Stephen to prompt them. Each article was read to him and he was asked if such was his belief ; he replied, explaining the sense in which he held it. Then he would be asked if he would defend it, and he would answer no, but that he would stand to the decision of the council. Nothing could well seem more submissive or more or- thodox, and under any other system of jurisprudence conviction might well appear impossible. Heresy, however, as we have seen, was a crime ; once committed, even through ignorance, a simple return to the Church was not enough ; belief in the errors must be admitted and then abjured, before the criminal could be con- sidered as penitent and entitled to the substitution of perpetual im- prisonment for the death-penalty. Huss was condemned on here- sies which he had not held rather than those which he had taught.* Thousands of miserable wretches had been convicted on a tithe of the evidence now brought against him. Stephen Palecz, a man of the highest repute, swore before the commissioners that since the birth of Christ there had been no more dangerous here- tics than Wickliff and Huss, and that all who customarily at- tended the sermons of the latter believed in the remanence of the substance of bread in the Eucharist. AVhat Palecz testified there were scores of others to substantiate and amplify. "Witnesses were there in abundance to prove that he believed in the rema- nence of the bread, that the sacraments were vitiated in the hands of sinful priests, that indulgences were of no avail, that the Church of Rome was the synagogue of Satan, that heres}'" was to be overcome by disputation and not by force, that a papal excom- munication was to be disregarded. Many of these errors he in- dignantly denied having entertained, but it was in vain. In vain he wrote out in prison, as early as March 5, 1415, his tract, "J9e Sacramento Corporis et Satiguijiis,''^ in which he declared that full transubstantiation took place ; that God worked the miracle irrespective of the merits of the celebrant ; that the body and blood of Christ were both in the bread and in the wine, and that he had taught this doctrine since 1401, before he was a priest. In • Palacky, pp. 204-24. — Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, p. 254). — Martene Thesaur. II. 1635.— Jo. Hus Epist. xlviii. (Monument. I. 72). IMPOSSIBILITY OF DEFENCE. 477 vain, shortly before his execution, his devotion burst forth in a hymn in which he exclaimed : " O quam sanctus panis iste, Tu es solus Jesu Christe, Caro, cibus, sacramentum, Quo non majus est inventum !" In vain during his public audience of June 8 he disputed earn- estly in favor of the same belief. The witnesses swore to the con- trary. He had no right to call rebutting testimony, and could only appeal to God and his conscience. He was proved a heretic who must confess and abjure or be burned.* His only possible line of defence, as has been shown above (Yol. I. p. 446) would have lain in disabling the witnesses for mor- tal enmity — for enmity such as would lead them to seek his life — and even this would not have been available against the errors which the commissioners had extracted, falsely, as he asserted, from his writings. As regards the witnesses, the commissioners made an unusual concession to him when, during his sickness in December, some fifteen of them were taken to his cell that he might see them sworn. Some of them, it is said, declared that they knew nothing; others were bitterly hostile to him. To this extent he knew some of the names, and others he was ac- quainted with because they were attached to depositions taken in advance at Prague for Michael de Causis, which by some means had fallen into the hands of Huss before he started for Constance. Some of these names, probably on this account, were attached to the article on the subject of remanence presented in the hearing of June 7, but in the final sentence no names are mentioned ; the witnesses to each article are designated simply by titles, such as a canon of Prague, a priest of Litomysl, a master of arts, a doctor of theology, etc., and when Huss asked the name of one of them it was refused. This was strictly in accordance with rule.f *Epist. xxxii. (Monument. I. 68). — Von der Ilardt IV. 430-8.— Jo. Has Monument. I. 39-41.— Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, pp. 276-8, 302, 318). Already in 1411 Huss energetically disclaimed to John XXIII. belief in re- manence and in the vitiation of sacraments (Palacky, p. 19. Cf. pp. 164-5, 170, 174-85). t Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, pp. 252-3).— Palacky, pp. 73, 174, 318, 560.— Von der Hardt IV. 308, 420-8. 478 B O n E M I A. Yet the hostility of those Avho testified against him was no- torious. At the place of execution he declared that he was con- victed of errors which he did not entertain, on the evidence of false witnesses. The Bohemians in Constance, in their memorial of May 31, 1415, to the council, declared that the testimony against him was given by those who were his mortal enemies. At one time he or his friends thought of disabling them on this ac- count, but when he asked the commissioners to permit him to em- ploy an advocate who could take the necessary exceptions to the evidence, although they at first assented they finally refused, say- ing that it was against the law for smy one to defend a suspected heretic. This, as we have seen, was strictly true, and if the main- tenance of the rule may seem harsh, we must remember on the other hand that the friends of Huss were allowed unexampled liberty in working in his behalf. Their repeated memorials to the council and their efforts with Sigismund made them guilty of the crime of fautorship, and if there had been any disposition to en- force the law they could have been reduced to instant silence and have been grievously punished.* It had not taken long to secure evidence more than ample for Huss's conviction, and if his burning had been the object desired it might have been speedily accomplished. We have seen, how- ever, how much the Inquisition preferred a penitent convert to acre- mated heretic, and in this case, perhaps more than in any other on record, confession and submission were supremely desirable. Huss, as a self-confessed heresiarch, would be deprived of all importance, and his disciples might be expected to follow his example: as a martyr, there was no predicting whether the result would be ter- ror or exasperation. The milder customary methods of the In- quisition were therefore brought to bear to break down his stub- born obstinacy by procrastination, solitude, and despair. Had his judges desired to be harsh they could have had recourse to tort- ure, which was the ordinary mode of dealing with similar cases. In this they would have been fuUy justified by law and custom. The less violent but equally efficient device of prolonged starva- tion could likewise have been employed, but was mercifully for- * Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, pp. 253, 323).— Von der Hardt IV. 188, 212, 289.— Epist. xlix. (Monument. I. 73 a). PROLONGED IMPRISONMENT. 479 borne. Yet the slower but not less wearing torture of indefinite imprisonment was not spared him. He was kept in the Domini- can convent until March 2-i. Although his petition to be al- lowed to see his friends was refused, they were permitted to furnish him with writing materials, and he employed his enforced leisure in composing a number of tracts which, written without the aid of books, show his extensive and accurate accpiaintance with Scripture and the Fathers. His sweet temper won the good- will of all who were brought in contact with him, and he grate- fully alludes to the kindness with which he was treated both by his guards and by the clerks of the papal chamber. The winning nature of the man, as well as the gold of his friends, probably ex- plains the correspondence which at this period he was able to maintain with them, though all communication with him was for- bidden. Letters were conveyed back and forth clandestinely, sometimes carried in food, in spite of the vigilance of his enemies. Michael de Causis hovered around the gate, saying, " By the grace of God we shall burn that heretic who has cost me so many flor- ins," and procuring that the wives of the guards, whom he sus- pected as letter-carriers, should be excluded. All this ceased when the quarrel between pope and council culminated. On March 20 John XXIII. secretly fled from Constance, when the guards placed over Huss delivered the keys to Sigismund and fol- lowed their master. The council then handed Huss over to the custody of the Bisho}) of Constance, who carried him in chains by night to the castle of Gottlieben, some miles from the city across the Rhine. His friends had requested tliat he should liave a more airy prison, and the request was more than granted, for he was now confined in a room at the top of a tall tower. Though his feet were fettered he was able to move about during the day, but at night his arm was chained to the wall. As escape Avas im- possible, the confinement was evidently intended to be punitive. Here he was completely isolated from all intercourse with his fel- low-beings and left to his own dreary introspection. Disease added to the harshness of his prison. From the foul Dominican cell to the windy turret-room of Gottlieben, he was exposed to every variety of unwholesome conditions. Stone, an affection hitherto unknown to hmi, tormented him greatly. Toothache and headache combined to increase his sufferings. On one occa- 480 BOHEMIA. sion a severe attack of fever, accompanied by excessive vomiting, so prostrated him that his guards carried him out of his cell think- ing him about to die. Yet throughout all his letters from prison the beautiful patience of the man shines forth. For the enemies who were pursuing him to the death there is only forgiveness ; for the trials with which God has seen fit to test his servant there is only submission. He overflows with gratitude for the steadfast af- fection of his friends, and sends touching requests of remembrance to them all ; he teaches charity and gently points out the way to moral and spiritual improvement. There is neither the pride of martyrdom nor the desire for retribution ; all is pious resignation and love and humility. Since Christ, no man has left behind him a more affecting example of the true Christian spirit than John Huss, while fearlessly awaiting the time when he should suffer for what he believed to be truth. He was one of the chosen few who exalt and glorify humanity. Yet he was but human, and the final victory was not won without the agony of self-con- quest; while at times he comforted himself with dreams that God would not suffer him to perish, but that like Daniel and Jonah and Susannah he would be rescued when all help seemed vain.* Hope seemed justified when the rupture occurred between the pope and the council. Ko sooner was Huss made aware of the flight of John XXIII. than he begged his friends to see Sigis- mund instantly and procure his liberation. The answer was his transfer to the tower of Gottlieben. When the pope was brought back a prisoner to the same castle of Gottlieben, and the council proceeded to try and condemn him as a simonist and dilapidator who was ruining the Church, while his personal vices and crimes, unfit for description, were a scandal to Christendom, such confir- mation of all that the Wickliffites had urged might well seem to justifiy the expectation that Huss would be released with honor. John XXIII., however, with the wisdom of the children of the world, essayed no defence ; he confessed aU. that was laid to his * Von der Hardt IV. 47.— Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, p. 255).— Palacky, p. 541. — Jo. Hus Monument. I. 7, 29-42. — Epistt. xi., xxvii., xxx., xxxi., xxxii., xxxvi., xlvii., li., lii., Ivi. (Monument. I. 60, 65-9, 72-5).— Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. (Ludewig Reliq. MSS. VI. 128-9). CONDEMNATION INEVITABLE. 481 charge, submitted to the council, and was eventually, after a few years of imprisonment, rewarded by Martin V. with the lofty post of Dean of the Sacred College. Huss, with the constancy of the children of light, refused to perjure himself by confession, and there could be no escape for him.* The council had been assembled to reform the Church, and was performing its duty in its own way, but nothing could be further from the thouglits of its most zealous members than the revolu- tionary reform of Wickliff and Huss, which would reduce the Church to apostolic poverty and deprive it of all temporal power. Besides the doctrinal errors, attested by abundant Avitnesses, there was ample material in Huss's writings to prove him a most dan- gerous enemy of the whole ecclesiastical system. He had written his tract '''' De Ahlatione Bonorum'''' in defence of one of the forty- five condemned Wickhfflte articles which asserted that the tem- poral lord could at will deprive of their temporalities ecclesiastics who were habitual delinquents. His tract " De Dec'imis " defended another of the articles, contending that no one in mortal sin could be a temporal lord, a prelate, or a bishop. John Gerson, one of the leading members of the council, had, as Chancellor of the Uni- versity of Paris, before coming to Constance, drawn up a series of twenty such dangerous errors, extracted from Huss's treatise " De Ecclesia^'' and had urged Archbishop Conrad of Prague to extir- pate the Wicldiffite heresy by calling in the secular arm. Huss, in his deductions from the WicklifRte doctrines of predestination, had overthrown the very foundations of the hierarchical system. Among the cardinals in the council, Ottone Colonna had fulminated the papal excommunication which Huss had disregarded ; Zabarel- la and Brancazio had been actively concerned in the proceedings against him l^efore the curia — all of these and many others were thoroughly familiar with his revolutionary doctrines. "What was to become of the theocracy founded by Hildebrand if such teach- ings were to pass unreproved, if their assertor was to be allowed to defend them and was only to be adjudged a heretic when over- come in scholastic disputation ? The whole structure of saccrdo- tahsm would be undermined and the whole bodv of canon law * Epist. Hi. (Monument. I. 75).— Theod. a Niem de Vit. Joann. XXIII. Libw III. c. 5.— Raynald. ann. 1419, No. 5. 11.-31 482 BOHEMIA. would be disregarded if so monstrous a proposition should be con- ceded. To the fathers of the council nothing could well seem more preposterous. Then Michael de Causis had intercepted a let- ter, written by Huss from prison, in which the ministers of the council were alluded to as the servants of Antichrist, and when this was brought to him by the commissioners he acknowledged its authenticity. Besides all this, he had remained under excom- munication for suspicion of heresy during long years, during which he had constantly performed divine service, and he had called the pope an Antichrist whose anathema was to be disre- garded. This of itself, as we have seen, constituted him a self- convicted heretic* It thus was idle to suppose that the council, because it had de- posed John XXIII., would set free so contumacious a heretic, whose very virtues only rendered him the more dangerous. The inquis- itorial process must go on to the end. Even during the bitterest and most doubtful portion of the contest, before the pope had been brought back to Constance, the successive steps of the trial received due attention. On April IT four new commissioners were appointed to replace the previous ones, whose commissions from the pope were held to have expired, and the new commission was expressly granted power to proceed to final sentence. The only doubt arising was whether the condemnation of Wickliff, with which the case of Huss was inextricably related, should be uttered in the name of the pope or in that of the council, and its publication. May 4, in the latter form, showed that the assembly had no hesitation as to its duty in stamping out the heres}^ of the master and of the disciple. The active measures also, which dur- ing this period were taken against Jerome of Prague, were an in- dication not to be mistaken of the purposes of the council. Yet how little the friends of Huss understood the real position of af- fairs, and how false hopes had been excited by the rupture wiih. the pope, is seen in their efforts at this juncture to press the trial to a conclusion. Under the procrastinating policy of the Inquisi- tion it is quite possible that Huss would have been left to his soli- tary musings for a time indefinitely longer, in hopes that his resolu- * Jo. Hus Monument. 1. 118,128. — Epist. xliii. (Ib.71 a). — Palacky Docuuienta, pp. 60, 185, 523-8.— Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, p. 301). URGENCY OF THE BOHEMIANS. 483 tion woald at last give way, but for the efforts o^: his friends, who hoped to secure his release. On May 13 they presented a me- morial complaining of his treatment, imprisoned in irons and per- ishing of hunger and thirst, without trial or conviction, in viola- tion of the safe-conduct and of the pledged faith of the empire. They also remonstrated against the stories which were circulated to prejudice the case, that in Bohemia the blood of Christ was carried around in bottjes, and that cobblers heard confession and celebrated mass. On May 16 the council replied to the effect that as far back as 11:11 Huss had had a hearing before the Holy See and had been excommunicated, and had since then not only proved himself a heretic, but a heresiarch, by remaining under ex- communication and preaching forbidden doctrines, even in Con- stance itself. As for the safe-conduct, we have seen how it was pretended to have been procured after the arrest. This elusive answer might have shown how the case was already prejudged by those who were to decide it ; yet again, on May 18, the Bohemi- ans presented a rejoinder urging promptitude. It was fuUy ex- pected in Constance that a session would be held on the 22d, at which Huss would be condemned ; but about this time attention was engrossed by the trial of John XXIII., who was at length deposed. May 29, and notified of his deposition on the 31st. Sigismund was now preparing for the voyage to Spain, which was expected to take place in June, and if anything was to be done with Huss before his departure further delay was inadmissible. Probably the Bohemians imagined that in some indefinable way he would yet save their leader. On May 31, therefore, they presented another memorial, reiterating their complaints about the safe-conduct and asking for a speedy public hearing. Sigismund entered during the discussion and strenuously urged the public audience, which was finally promised. IIuss's friends further urged that he should be brought from his prison and be allowed a few days to recover from his harsh incarceration, and a show was made of complying with the request. On the same day John of Clilum had the satisfaction of forwarding to Gottlieben an order for the transmission of Huss to Constance. The next day, June 1, a special deputation from the council followed and pre- sented to him the thirty articles which liad been ])roved against him. They reported that he submitted himself to the council, but 484 BOHEMIA. he maintained that he only agreed to do so on such points as he could be proved to have taught erroneously. At last he was brouirht to Constance in chains and confined in the Franciscan convent.* In the routine of the inquisitorial process there was no neces- sity for further parley with the accused. The articles of heresy were proved against him, and if he continued obstinately to deny them delivery to the secular arm was a matter of course. There had been no intention of permitting such an innovation on the regular procedure as a public audience, but Sigismund could see, if the council could not, that its denial Avould have a most unfor- tunate influence on public opinion in Bohemia, where, in the pre- vailing ignorance as to the inquisitorial rules, it would be claimed that the council was afraid to face their champion and was forced to condemn him unheard. It could, in reaUty, have no influence on the result, for the case was already virtually decided, but Huss's friends could not recognize this, and an attempt was made, without success, to speculate on their eagerness, by a demand for two thou- sand florins to defray the alleged expenses. The audiences which followed were tiius wholly irregular, and may be briefly dismissed as in no sense entitled to the importance which has commonly been ascribed to them.f On June 5 a congregation of the council was held in the Fran- ciscan convent. At first the intention was to carry out the ordi- nary inquisitorial procedure by considering, in the absence of Huss, the articles proved against him, but Peter Mladenowic hastened to John of Chlum and Wenceslas of Duba, who forthwith appealed to Sigismund. The latter at once sent the Palsgrave Louis and Frederic Burggrave of Nuremberg to the council, with orders that nothing should be done until Huss was present and his books were before them for verification. At length, therefore, he had the long-desired opportunity of meeting his adversaries, and de- fending himself in public debate. The books from which his errors had been extracted were laid before him — his treatise " De Eccle- * Von der Hardt IV. 100, 118, 136, 153, 189, 200, 212-13, 288-90, 296, 306.— Martene Thesaur. II. 1635.— Harduin. VIII. 280.— Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, pp. 256-72). t Epistt. xliii., xlvii. (Monument. I. 71, 72).— Von der Hardt IV. 291, 306-7. THE PUBLIC HEARINGS. 485 sia " and his tracts against Stephen Palecz and Stanislaus of Znaim — and he acknowledged them to be his. The articles were taken up in succession. He was required to answer to each a simple yea or nay, and when he desired to explain anything a scene of inde- scribable confusion arose. When he asked to be taught wherein he had erred he w^as told that he must first recant his heresies, which was strictly in accordance with the law. The day wore away in the discussion, and it had to be renewed on the Tth, and again on the 8th — Sigismund being present on these latter occa- sions. Huss defended himself gallantly, with wonderful quickness of thought and dialectical skill, but nothing could be more unlike the free debate which he had deluded himself into anticipating when he left Prague. Although the Cardinal of Ostia, who pre- sided, endeavored to show fairness, the assembly at times became a howling mob with shouts of " Burn him ! Burn him !" Interrup- tions were incessant, he was baited on all sides with questions, and frequently his replies were drowned in clamor. As a judicial act it was a mockery, but it served the purpose desired by Sigismund, and the Church had shown itself not afraid of public discussion with the heresiarch. At the end of the third day of this tumul- tuous wrangling Huss was exhausted almost to fainting. The night before toothache had deprived him of sleep, an attack of fever supervened, and six months of harsh imprisonment had left him little physical endurance. The proceedings terminated with the cardinals urging him to recant and promising him merciful treatment if he would throw himself upon the mercy of the coun- cil. He asked for another hearing, saying that he would submit if his arguments and authorities were insufficient. To this Car- dinal Peter d'Ailly replied that the unanimous decision of the doctors was that he must confess his error in publishing the articles ascribed to him, he must swear never in future to believe or teach them, and must recant them publicly. Huss begged the council for the love of God not to force him to wrong his conscience, for abjuration meant the renunciation of an error previously enter- tained, and many of those brought against him he had never held. Sigismund asked him why he could not renounce errors which he said had been ascribed to him through perjury, and Huss had to explain to him the technical meaning of abjuration. One member of the council even objected to the accused being admitted to re- 486 BOHEMIA. cantation, because he was not to be trusted, but this would have been wholly illegal. Even in the case of relapse the heretic al- ways had a right to confess and recant, and the council was not to be betrayed into so manifest a denial of justice. It was im- possible, in such a crowd of eager persecutors, to maintain the legal forms in all strictness, and there followed a number of volun- teer accusations by individuals, on which an irregular discussion could not be repressed. Finally, as Huss was withdrawn, John of Chlum succeeded in giving him a friendly grasp of the hand and a word of sympathy. To the forlorn and despised heretic that touch and voice were a solace which nerved him for the yet harder trials of the succeeding weeks.* His conscientious endurance was now to be tested to the utter- most. The wise general policy of the Inquisition, which preferred a confessed penitent to a mart}^', was specially applicable in this case, for though Sigismund and the council underestimated the Bohemian fervor and obstinacy, the dullest could see that Huss confessing to having taught heresy and humbly seeking reconcil- iation would dispirit his followers, while no one could guess the extent of tlie conflagration which might spread from his pyre. Accordingly efforts were redoubled to induce him to confess and recant. Sigismund had prepared the way by assuring him during the public audience that no mercy would be shown him and that persistent denial would bring him to the stake, while he was not notified that behind the bland promises of mercy for submission there lay a sentence, which, while expressing joy at his humbly seeking absolution, pronounced him to be pernicious, scandalous, and seditious, and condemned him to degradation from the priest- hood and to perpetual imprisonment. The council could do no otherwise, for this, as we have seen, was the punishment provided by the canons for repentant heretics, and yet in estimating the • Jo. Hus Monument. I. 25 h.—Yon der Hardt IV. 307, 311-29.— Epistt. w, XV., xxxvi. (Monument. I. 60-2, 69).— Palacky, pp. 275, 308-15. Tlie attempt to deny to Huss the inalienable privilege of recantation •wh'h based upon a mistranslated passage of his Bohemian address to his disciples, ir\ ■which he was made to assure them that if he was forced to abjure, it would onlv be with the lips and not with the heart (Palacky, pp. 274, 311). In such matters the council was at the mercy of Huss's Bohemian enemies. DIFFICULTY OF ABJURATION. 487 noble firmness of Huss we must bear in mind that no intimation of it seems to have been made to him.* The obstacle in the way of Huss's abjuration lay not so much in the heresies which he had taught, as in those which he had not tauglit. On legal testimony his judges had found him guilty of all, but the worst of them, such as the remanence of the substance and the vitiation of the sacraments in polluted hands, he denied energetically ever to have held or expressed. Many of the errors extracted from his works, moreover, he repudiated, asserting that the passages had been garbled and perverted. In the eye of the law this denial was mere contumacy which only aggravated his guilt. The first condition of reconciliation was confessing under oath that he was guilty of having held these errors and then ab- juring them. This was committing perjury to God in the most solemn fashion, and to a tender conscience like that of Huss it was worse than death. From this dilemma there was no escape. On the one hand lay the legal system, contrived with Satanic ingenuity and unalterable ; on the other lay the purity of character Avhich led Huss to reject without hesitation all the specious subterfuges suggested to beguile him.f For a month the struggle continued, and no human soul ever bore itself with loftier fortitude or sweeter or humbler charity. He asked for a confessor, and intimated that he would prefer Stephen Palecz, the enemy who had hounded him to the death. Palecz came and heard his confession, and then urged him to abjure, say- ing that he ought not to mind the humiliation. " The humiliation of condemnation and burning is greater," rephed Huss, " how then can I fear humiliation ? But advise mc : what would you do if you knew for certain that you did not hold the errors imputed to you? Would you abjure?" Palecz burst into tears and could only stammer, " It is difficult." He wept again freely when Huss begged his pardon for harsh words used in the heat of strife, and especially for calling him a falsifier. Another confessor was sent * Von der Ilardt IV. 432-33. t Huss was by no means the first to sufier from this technical necessity of con- fession in abjuring. In the case of the English Templars, William de la More, Preceptor of England, and Humbert Blanc, Preceptor of Afjuitaine, refused to al)jure because they would not confess to heresies which they had never enter- tained.— Wilkins, Concil. ir. 890, 893. 488 BOHEMIA. to him, who listened to him kindly and gave him absolution with- out insisting on preliminary abjuration, which was a most irregular concession — indeed, almost incredible. Many others were allowed to visit him in the hope of persuading him to confess and recant. One learned doctor urged his submission, saying, " If the council told me I had but one eye, I would confess it to be so, though I know I have two," but Huss was impervious to such example. An Englishman adduced the precedent of the English doctors who had, without exception, abjured the heresies of Wickliff when required to do so ; but when liuss offered to swear that he had never held or taught the heresies imputed to him, and that he would never hold or teach them, his baffled advisers withdrew.* The most formidable effort, however, was of an official charac- ter. At the final hearing of June 8, Cardinal Zabarella had prom- ised him that a recantation in a form strictly limited would be submitted to him, and the promise was fulfilled in a paper skilfully drawn up, so as to satisfy his scruples. It represented him as protesting anew that much had been imputed to him which be had never beheved, but that nevertheless he submitted himself in everything to the correction and orders of the council in abjuring, revoking, and retracting, and in accepting whatever merciful pen- ance the council miglit prescribe for his salvation. Carefully as this was phrased to elude the difficulty, Huss rejected it without hesitation. In some matters, he said, he would be denying the truth, in others he would be perjuring himself. It were better to die than to fall into the hands of the Lord in the effort to escape momentary suffering. Then one of the fathers of the council — supposed to be the Cardinal of Ostia, the highest in rajik of the Sacred CoUege — addressed him as his " dearest and most cherished brother," with the most honeyed persuasiveness, begging him not to confide too absolutely in his own judgment. In making the abjuration it will not be he that condemns truth, but the council ; as for perjury, if perjury there be, it will fall on the heads of those who exact it. Yet Huss was not to be enticed with such allure- ments; he could not quiet his conscience with casuistry such as this, and he deliberately chose death. In daily expectation of the dreadful sentence, he quietly put his simple affairs in order. Peter * Epiatt. XXX., xxxi., xxxii. (Monument. I, 67-8). — Von der Hardt IV. 342-5. OFFICIAL EFFORTS TO SAVE HUSS. 489 IVIladenowic, the notary, had rendered him zealous service and should be paid out of his sixty grossi. His little debts were to be settled, and his books, apparently his only other property, were to be distributed. Kind remembrances were sent to his numerous friends, and they were told if they had learned any good of him to hold fast to it ; if they had seen in him aught reprehensible to cast it aside. It was not that he was insensible, for he describes in moving terms the mental conflicts and agony which he endured in his hopeless prison, expecting each day to be led forth to an agonizing death, but the spirit rose superior to the flesh and remained victor in the struggle. Solicitous to retain the good opinion of his disciples, he managed to transmit to them, on June 18, a copy of the articles proved against him, together with a re- port of what his defence had been. Of those drawn fi'om his writings he retracted none, although many he declared to be false and garbled. Those alleged against him by witnesses he mostly asserted to be lies, and he pathetically concluded, " It only remains for me to abjure and revoke and undergo fearful penance or to burn. May the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost grant me the spirit of wisdom and fortitude to persevere to the end and to escape the snares of Satan !''* In hope of his weakening, the end was postponed until the approaching departure of Sigismund rendered further delay im- possible. Yet effort was not abandoned tiU the last. On July 1 a deputation of prelates endeavored to persuade him that he could reasonably recant, but he handed them a written confession call- ing God to witness that he had never taught many of the articles; as for the rest, if there were error in tliem he detested it, but he could not abjure any of them. Puzzled by his unexpected tenacity of purpose, and earnestly desirous of avoiding the catastrophe, a final and unprecedented concession w^as agreed upon. On July 5 Zabarella and Peter d'Ailly sent for him and offered to let him deny the heresies proved by witnesses if he would abjure those extracted from his books. This was, in fact, an abandonment of all inquisitorial precedent, but Huss had persistently declared that * Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, p. 309). — Epistt. xxvii., xxix., xxx., xxxviii. xxxix., xl., xli. (Monument. I. 63-66, 67, 70).— Von der Hardt IV. 329-30.— Palacky, pp. 225-34. 490 BOHEMIA. most of the latter were fraudulently drawn, so as to attribute to him errors which he had never held, and he was immovable. As a last resource, later in the same day, Sigismund sent his friends John of Chlum and Wenceslas of Duba, with four bishops, to ask him whether he would persevere or recant, l)ut his answer was as firm as ever. To the friendly adjuration of John of Chlum he replied with tears that he would willingly revoke anything in which he could be proved to have erred. The bishops pronounced him obstinate in error and left him.* Thus the extraordinary efforts of the council to save itself and him were vain, and nothing remained but the inevitable final act of the tragedy. The next day, July 6, saw the most gorgeous auto de fe on record. The cathedral of Constance was crowded with Sigismund and his nobles, the great officers of the empire with their insignia, the prelates in their splendid robes. While mass was sung, Iluss, as an excommunicate, was kept waiting at the door ; when brought in he was placed on an elevated bench by a table on which stood a coffer containing priestly vestments. After some preliminaries, including a sermon by the Bishop of Lodi, in which he assured Sigismund that the events of that day would confer on him immortal glory, the articles of which Huss was convicted were recited. In vain he protested that he believed in transubstantiation and in the validity of the sacrament in pol- luted hands. He was ordered to hold his tongue, and on his per- sisting the beadles were told to silence him, but in spite of this he continued to utter protests. The sentence was then read in the name of the council, condemning him both for his written errors and those which had been proved by witnesses. He was declared a pertinacious and incorrigible heretic who did not desire to return to the Church ; his books were ordered to be burned, and himself to be degraded from the priesthood and abandoned to the secular * Mladenowic Relatio (Palacky, pp. 316-17).— Von der Hard*^^ IV. 345-6, 386. — Palacky, p. 560. To appreciate properly the extent of the concessions offered to Huss it is necessary to bear in mind the elaborately careful formulas of abjuration which the inquisitors were accustomed to use, so as to allow no loophole for the avoid- ance of the penalties of relapse, and to force the penitent to betray his fellow- heretics. See Modus Procedendi (Martene Thesaur. V. 1800-1). — Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. p. 215. — Bern. Guidon. Practica pp. 92-3 (lid. Douais). THE CATASTROPHE. 491 court. Seven bishops arrayed him in priestly garb and warned him to recant while yet there was time. He turned to the crowd, and with broken voice declared that he could not confess the errors which he had never entertained, lest he should lie to God, when the bishops interrupted him, crying that they had waited long enough, for he was obstinate in his heresy. He was degraded in the usual manner, stripped of his sacerdotal vestments, his fingers scraped ; but when the tonsure was to be disposed of an absurd quarrel arose among the bishops as to whether the head should be shaved with a razor or the tonsure be destroyed with scissors. Scissors won the day, and a cross was cut in his hair. Then on his head was placed a conical paper cap, a cubit in height, adorned with painted devils and the inscription, " This is the here- siarch." In accordance with the universal custom no proceed- ings by the secular authorities were regarded as necessary. As soon as the ecclesiastical court had pronounced him a heretic and handed him over, the laws against heresy operated of themselves. Sigismund, it is true, might have delayed the execution for six days, but this would have been so unusual as to have excited most unfavorable comment. There had already been afforded ample opportunity for resipiscence, and the convict could always still recant up to the lighting of the fagots. Nothing could reason- ably be hoped from further postponement, and Sigismund's ap- proaching departure counselled promptitude. He therefore briefly ordered the Palsgrave Louis to take charge of the culprit and to do to him as to a heretic. Louis called to Hans Hazen, the im- perial vogt of Constance, " Vogt, take him as judged of both of us and burn him as a heretic." Then he was led forth, and the council calmly turned to other business, unconscious that it had performed the most momentous act of the century.* The place of execution was a meadow near the river, to which he was conducted by two thousand armed men, with Palsgrave Louis - IMiadenowic Rdatio (Palacky, pp. 318-21).— "Von der Hardt IV. 389-96, 432-40.— Harduin. Ylll. 408-10.— Richentals Chronik p. 80.— Richental says that Huss was delivered to the secular arm with the customary adjuration for mercy, but the text of the sentence as printed by Von der Ilardt contains no such clause. It may well have been omitted at Sigismund's request, as lie had already incurred sufficient obloquy, but the same omission is noticeable in the sentence of Jerome of Prague (Von der Hardt IV. 771). 492 BOHEMIA. at their head, and a vast crowd, including many nobles, prelates, and cardinals. The route followed was circuitous, in order that he might be carried past the episcopal palace, in front of which his books were burning, whereat he smiled. Pity from man there was none to look for, but he sought comfort on high, repeating to himself, " Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon me!" and when he came in sight of the stake he fell on his knees and prayed. He was asked if he wished to confess, and said that he would gladly do so if there were space. A wide circle was formed, andUlrich Schorand, who, according to custom, had been provi- dently empowered to take advantage of any final weakening, came forward, saying, " Dear sir and master, if you will recant your unbelief of heresy, for which you must suffer, I will willingly hear your confession ; but if you will not, you know right well, that, according to canon law, no one can administer the sacra- ment to a heretic." To this IIuss answered, " It is not necessary: I am no mortal sinner." His paper crown fell off and he smiled as his guards replaced it. He desired to take leave of his keepers, and when they were brought to him he thanked them for their kindness, saying that they tad been to him rather brothers than jailers. Then he commenced to address the crowd in German, telling them that he suffered for errors which he did not hold, sworn to by perjured witnesses ; but this could not be permitted, and he was cut short, "When bound to the stake and two cart- loads of fagots and straw were piled up around him the pals- grave and vogt for the last time adjured him to abjure. Even yet he could have saved himself, but he only repeated that he had been convicted by false witnesses of errors never entertained by him. They clapped their hands and then withdrew, and the exe- cutioners applied the fire. Twice Huss was heard to exclaim, "• Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon me !" then a wind springing up and blowing the flames and smoke into his face checked further utterance, but his head was seen to shake and his lips to move while one might twice or thrice recite a pa- ternoster. The tragedy was over ; the sorely-tried soul had escaped from its tormentors, and the bitterest enemies of the refonner could not refuse to him tlie praise that no philosopher of old had faced death with more composure than he had shown in his dread- ful extremity. No faltering of the voice had betrayed an internal SATISFACTION OF THE COUNCIL. 493 struggle. Palsgrave Louis, seeing Huss's mantle on the arm of one of the executioners, ordered it thrown into the flames lest it should be reverenced as a relic, and promised the man to compen- sate him. With the same view the body was carefully reduced to ashes and thrown into the Rhine, and even the earth around the stake was dug up and carted off ; yet the Bohemians long hovered around the spot and carried home fragments of the neigh- boring clay, which they reverenced as relics of their martj^r. The next day thanks were returned to God, in a solemn procession in which figured Sigismund and his queen, the princes and nobles, nineteen cardinals, two patriarchs, seventy-seven bishops, and all the clergy of the council. A few days later Sigismund, who had delayed his departure for Spain to see the matter concluded, left Constance, feeling that his work was done.* The long-continued teaching of the Church, that persistent her- es}' was the one crime for which there could be no pardon or ex- cuse, seemed to deprive even the wisest and purest of all power of reasoning where it was concerned. There was no hesitation in admitting that the pestilent heresy of the Hussites was caused by the simoniacal corruptions of the Roman curia, whereby many Christian souls were led to eternal perdition, and that it could not be eradicated until a thorough reformation was effected. Yet in place of drawing from this the necessary deduction, the feeling of the council is reflected by its historian in the blasphemous represen- tation of Christ as recording with satisfaction the hideous details of the execution, and as saying that the wicked soul of the heretic commenced in temporal flame the torment which it would suffer through eternity in hell. The trial, in fact, had been conducted in accordance with the universally received practice in such cases, the only exceptions being in favor of the accused. If the result was inevitable, it was the fault of the system and not of the judges, and their consciences might well feel satisfied.! * Richentals Chronik pp. 80-2. — Von der Hardt IV. 445-8. — Mladenowic Re- latio (Palacky, pp. 321-4). — ^n. Sj'lvii Hist. Bohcm. c. 36. — Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. (Ludewig VI. 135-6). — AndresB Ratispon. Chron. (Pez Thes. Anec- dot. IV. III. 627). t P. d'Ailly (Theod. a Niem) de Necess. Reform, c. 28, 29 (Von der Hardt I. VI. 30G-9).— Theod. Vrie Hist. Concil. Constant. Lib. vi. Dist. 11 ; Lib. vn. Dist. 3 (Ibid. I. 170-1, 181-2). It is simply a lack of familiarity with tlie ecclesiastical 494 BOHEMIA. Great was the disgust of tlie orthodox when they learned that this pious view of the matter was not entertained in Prague, and it required the most positive assurances of eye-witnesses to make them believe the incredible fact that, from king to peasant in Bo- hemia, there was j)ractical unanimity in the belief that he who had been condemned and executed as a heretic was a martyr; that the popular songs sung in the streets represented him as one who had shed his blood for Christ, and that he was inserted in the calendar of saints, with his feast on July 6, the day of his ex- ecution. The good fathers, however, were not long in finding, from indubitable evidence, that they had made a grave mistake as to the Bohemian temper, and that they had only succeeded in inflaming the disease which they had sought to eradicate. As soon as the defiance excited in Bohemia could be learned in Con- stance, the council made haste to write, July 26, to the authorities there, protesting that Huss and Jerome of Prague had been treated with all tenderness, that the persistent heresy of the former had forced his delivery to the secular court for judgment, and that all similar heretics would be treated in the same manner. The Bohe- mians were exhorted to justify, by similar persecution, the good opinion of their orthodoxy which the council had formed from the report of the Bishop of Litomysl, whose popular name of Iron John sufficiently indicates his inflexibility. This good opinion was not sustained when a protest was received from the barons of Bohemia and Moravia, hastily drawn up as soon as the news of the execution had reached them — a protest which the council promptly ordered to be burned. Its letter of July 26 led to the convocation of a national assembly, in which an address was framed and received the signatures of nearly five hundred barons, knights, and gentlemen. In this they asserted their behef in Huss's purity and orthodoxy ; that he had unjustly been put to death without confession or lawful conviction ; that Jerome they supposed had shared the same fate ; that the defamation of the kingdom for heresy was the work of liars, and that any one who jurisprudence of the Middle Ages that has led historians to regard the cases of Huss and Jerome as exceptional. Even so well informed an authority as Lech- ler does not hesitate to say " Hussens Verbrennung war, mit dem Massstab des damaligen Rechts gemesseu, ein warer Justizmord " (Herzog's Real-Encyklop. VI. 392). JEROME OF PRAGUE. 495 asserted it, saving Sigismund, lied in his throat, was the vilest of traitors and the worst of heretics, and as such, they would prose- cute him before the future pope. A more dangerous symptom of rebellion was a pledge signed by the magnates, agreeing that all ]>riests should be allowed to preach freely the truths of Scripture, that no bishop should be permitted to interfere with them unless they taught errors, and that no excommunications or interdicts from abroad should be received or observed.* This was firing at long range with no result but mutual exac- erbation, and it was probably the stimulus of Bohemian disaffec- tion which led the council about this time to act vigorously in the case of Jerome of Prague, whom the Bohemian nobles had erro- neously believed to have shared the fate of Huss. Jerome of Prague stands before us as one of those meteoric natures which would be dismissed by the student as half mythical, if the substantial facts which are on record did not fix the details of his career with an exactness leaving no room for doubt. Born at Prague, his early training was received at a time when men's minds were beginning to waver in the confusion of the Great Schism, and under the impulsion of the Wickliffite writings. About the year 1400 he was brought under the influence of Huss, and thereafter he continued to be the steadfast adherent and supporter of the great protestant against the corruptions of the Church. Already, at Paris, Cologne, Heidelberg, and Cracow — at all of which he had been decorated with the honors of the universities — he had disturbed the philosophic calm of the schools with his sub- tleties on the theory of universals ; at Paris, indeed, the disturb- ance had gone so far that John Gerson, the chancellor of the uni- versity, had driven him forth, perhaps retaining a grudge which explains his zeal in the prosecution of his old antagonist. His restless spirit left scarce a region of the known civilized world un visited. At Oxford, attracted by the reputation of WickUff, he * Loserth, Huss u. Wiclif p. 156.— Epistt. Ixi., Ixii., Ixiv. (Monument. I. 77-9, 81).— Yon der Hardt IV. 489-90, 494-7.— Palacky Documenta, pp. 580-4,593-4. — Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Ilussit. (Ludewig VI. 13G). The temper of the Bohemians had been excited, a few days before the burn- ing of Huss, by the news tliat in Olmiitz a student of Prague named John, de- scribed as a zealous follower of God, had been, within the short space of twelve hours, arrested, tortured, convicted, and burned. — Palacky Documenta, p. 561. 490 B O n E M 1 A. had copied with his own hand the Dialogus and the Trialogus, and had carried tliose outpourings of revolt to Prague, where they added fresh fuel to the rapidly rising fires of Bohemian insubordi- nation. On a second visit he had been seized as a heretic, and had escaped through the intervention of the University of Prague. In Palestine he had trodden in the footsteps of the Saviour and had bent in reverence at the Holy Sepulchre. In Lithuania he had souffht to convert the heathen. In Russia he had endeavored to win over the schismatic Greek. In Poland and Hungary he had scattered the doctrines of Wickliff and Huss. Driven out of Hun- gary, in 1410, he was arrested and thrown m prison in Vienna, by the papal inquisitor and episcopal official, for teaching Hussitism and infecting with it the university of that city. His trial was commenced and a day was set for its hearing, prior to which he was allowed his liberty on his oath not to leave the city, under pain of excommunication. Claiming that an extorted oath was of no force, he escaped, and from Olmiitz wrote a free-and-easy letter to the Bisliop of Passau, suggesting that the prosecutors and witnesses may be sent to Prague, where the trial can be fin- ished. The excommunication, indeed, foUoAved him to Prague, but in the tumultuous condition of Bohemia it gave him no trouble, though the University of Yienna wrote to the University of Prague that by remaining more than a year under the excommu- nication he had incurred the guilt of heresy, for which he ought to be condemned ; and meanw^hile the converts whom he had made in Vienna continued to give occupation to the Inquisition, and the university which interfered in their behalf incurred the suspicion of heresy. In the stirring events which followed, his restless and aggressive spirit would not allow him to be inactive, and the popular impression of his reckless audacity is shown in the story of his hanging the papal bulls of indulgence around the neck of a strumpet and carrying her to the place where they were to be burned. In 1413 he again visited Poland, where in a short time he succeeded in causing an unprecedented excitement, and was speedily sent back to Prague. His whole life had been spent in intellectual digladiation, from his youthful philosophic contests to the maturer struggles with the overwhelming forces of the hierarchy. A layman, not in holy orders and unfurnished with priestly gown and tonsure, he had preached to admiring crowds JEROME OF PRAGUE. 497 of Majjars, Poles, and Czechs ; nor was he wholly unskilled in the use of the arms of the flesh. On his trial he admitted that he had once been drawn into a quarrel with some monks in a monastery, when two of them attacked him with swords, and he defended himself successfully with a weapon hastily snatched from the hand of a bystander. His enemies, indeed, accused him of having, on another occasion, drawn a dagger on a Dominican friar, and of having been only prevented by force from stabbing him to the death. All of his contemporaries bear testimony to his wonderful powers. His commanding presence, his glittering eyes, his sable hair and flowing beard, his deep and impressive voice, his persuasive accents, enabled him to throw his influence over all with whom he came in contact ; while his miraculous stores of learning, his unmatched readiness, and the subtlety of his intellect, rendered him an enemy of the Church only one de- gree less dangerous than the steadfast and irreproachable Huss.* Jerome had watched from Prague the fate of his friend with daily increasing anxiety, and when the rupture between pope and council seemed to promise immunity for the opponents of hier- archical corruption he could not resist the temptation to aid in his rescue, and to assist in what appeared to be the approaching over- throw of the evils which he had so long combated. April 4, 1415, he came secretly to Constance, but speedily found how groundless were his hopes and how dangerous was the atmosphere of the place. Christann of Prachaticz, one of Huss's chief disciples, had recently ventured to visit Constance, had been arrested, and arti- cles of accusation had been presented against him, when on the intervention of the Bohemian ambassadors he had been liberated under oath to present himself when summoned — an oath which he had forfeited by promptly escaping to Bohemia. Jerome con- tented himself with posting a notice on the walls affirming the orthodoxy of Huss; he withdrew at once to Ueberlingen and asked for a safe-conduct. The response was ambiguous, but, like a moth hovering around the fatal candle-flame, he returned to Constance, where, April 7, he affixed another notice on the church • Von der Hardt IV. 634-01, 756.— Palacky Documenta, pp. 63, 336-7, 408-9, 417-20, 506, 572.— Loscrtli, Mittlieilungon dcs Vcreins fiir Gcsch. der Dcutschen in Bohmen, 1885, pp. 108-9. — Schrodl, Passavia Sacra, pp. 284-5. II.— 32 4;)6 BOHEMIA. doors addressed to Sigismund and the council. It stated that he had come of his own free will to answer all accusations of heresy, and if convicted he was ready to endure the penalty, but he asked a safe-conduct in coming and going, and if incarcerated or treated with violence during his stay the council would be committing in- justice of which he could not suspect so many learned and wise men. This senseless bravado is only to be explained by his er- ratic temperament, and it did not prevent him from taking pre- cautions as to his safety. He suddenly changed his mind, and on April 9, after obtaining from the Bohemians at Constance testi- monial letters, he escaped from the city, none too soon, for the officials were in search of his lodgings, which they discovered a few days after at the Gutjar, in St. Paul Street, where in his haste he had left behind him the significant memento of a sword. This time he no longer trifled with fate, but travelled rapidly tow- ards Bohemia. At Hirsau, however, his impetuous temper led him into a discussion in which he stigmatized the council as a synagogue of Satan. He was seized April 24, and the papers found upon him betrayed him. John of Bavaria threw him into the castle of Sulzbach, notified the council of his capture, and in obedience to its commands he was forthwith carried thither in chains.* Meanwhile the council had responded to his appeal by pub- lishing, April IS, a formal inquisitorial citation summoning him, as a suspected and defamed heretic, the suppression of whom was its chief duty, to appear for trial within fifteen days, in default of which he would be proceeded against in contumacy. A safe-con- duct was offered him, but it was expressly declared subject to the exigencies of the faith. Unaware of his capture, on May 2 a new citation was published and his trial as contumacious was ordered, and this was repeated on the 4th. On May 24 his captors brought him to the city loaded with chains, and took him to the Francis- can convent, where a tumultuous congregation of the council greeted his arrival. Here Gerson gratified his rancor against his old opponent, loudly berating him for having taught falsely at Paris, Heidelberg, and Cologne, and the rectors of the two latter * Von der Harclt IV. 103-5, 1345i«. — Palackj^ Documenta, p. 541-2. — Richen- tals Crouik, p. 78. — Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. ann. 1415 (Ludewig VI, 132). JEROME OF PRAGUE. 499 universities corroborated the accusations. His replies were sharp and ready, but were drowned in the roar of fresh charges, min- gled with shouts of " Burn him ! Burn him !" Thence he was car- ried to a dungeon in the Cemetery of St. Paul, where he was chained hand and foot to a bench too high for him to sit on, and for two days he was fed on bread and water, until his friends as- certained his place of imprisonment and made interest with the jailer to give him better food. He soon fell dangerously sick and asked for a confessor, after which he was less rigorously fet- tered, but he never left the prison except for audience and execu- tion.* Stephen Palecz, Michael de Causis, and the rest were ready with their accusations, nor could there be difficulty in accumulat- ing a mass of testimony sufficient to convict twenty such men as Jerome. His trial proceeded according to the regular inquisitorial process, the commissioners finding him much more learned and skilful than Huss ; but, brilliant as was his defence when under examination, his nervous temperament unfitted him to bear, like Huss, the long-protracted agony. Sometimes with dialectic sub- tlety he turned his examiners to ridicule, at others he vacillated between obduracy and submission. Finally he weakened under the strain, while the rebellious attitude of the Bohemians doubt- less led the council to increase the pressm'e. On September 11 he was brought before the assembly, where he read a long and elab- orate recantation. Huss's sweetness of temper, he said, had at- tracted him, and his earnest exposition of Scripture truths had led him to believe that such a man could not teach heresy. He could not believe that the thirty articles condemned by the council were really Huss's, until he had obtained a book in Huss's own hand- writing, and on comparing them article by article he found them to be so. He therefore spontaneously and of free Avill condemned them, some of them as heretical, others as erroneous, otliers as scandalous. He also condemned the forty-five articles of Wick- liil ; lie submitted himself wholly to the council, he condemned whatever it condemned, and he asked for fitting penance to be as- signed him. He did not even shrink from a deeper degradation. He wrote to Bohemia that Huss had been justly executed, that he * Von der Hardt IV. 119, 134, 139, 142, 148-9, 216-18. 500 BOHEMIA. had become convinced of his friend's errors and could not defend them.* This was not a strictly formal abjuration such as was custom- arily required of prisoners of the Inquisition, yet it might have sufficed. It was read before a private congregation of the coun- cil, and some more public humiUation was needed. At the next general session, therefore, September 23, Jerome was placed in the pulpit, where he repeated his recantation, with an explanation of an expression in it, adding a recantation of his theory of Uni- versals, and winding up by a solemn oath of abjuration in which he invoked an eternal anathema on aU who wandered from the faith and on himself if he should do so. He had been told that he w^ould not be allowed to return to Bohemia, but might select some Swabian monastery in which to reside, on condition that he should write home, over his hand and seal, that his teaching and that of Huss were false and not to be followed. This he promised to do, as, indeed, he had already done, but he was remanded to his prison, though his treatment was somewhat less harsh than before.f Had the council been wise, it would have treated him as len- iently as possible. A dishonored apostate, his power of evil was gone, and generosity would have been policy. The canons, how- ever^ prescribed harsh prison for converted heretics, whose con- version was always regarded as doubtful, and the assembled fa- thers were too bigoted to be wise. The zealots converted the apostate to a martyr, whose steadfast constancy redeemed his temporary weakness, and regained for him the forfeited influence over the imagination of his disciples. His remorse was not long in showing itself. Stephen Palecz, Michael de Causis, and his other enemies who were still hovering around his prison, soon got wind of his self-accusation. John * Richentals Cronik p. 79. — Theod.Vrie Hist. Concil. Constant. Lib. vr. Dist. 12.— Theod. a Niem de Vita Joann. PP. XXHI. Lib. in. c. 8.— Palacky Docu- menta, pp. 596-9. t Von der Hardt IV. 501-7.— Richentals Cronik p. 79.— In the final official articles drawn up against Jerome by the Promotor HoBreticm Pravitatis, his abso- lute refusal to write to Bohemia, after promising to do so, is made a special point of accusation. Yet his letter to that effect, of September 12, is still on rec- ord, and in his last defiant address to the council he speaks of having written it under fear of burning, and now desires to withdraw it (V. d. Hardt IV. 688, 761). JEROME OF PRAGUE. 501 Gerson, whose hostility seems to have been insatiable, readily made himself their mouthpiece, and in a learned dissertation on the essentials of revocations called the attention of the council, October 29, to the unsatisfactory character of that of Jerome. Some Carmelites, apparently arriving from Prague, furnished new accusations, and demands were made that he be required to an- swer additional articles. Some of the Cardinals, ZabareUa, Pierre d'Ailly, Giordano Orsini, Antonio da Aquileia, on the other hand, labored with the council to procure his liberation, but on being actively opposed by the Germans and Bohemians and accused of receiving bribes from the heretics and King Wenceslas, they aban- doned the hopeless defence. Accordingly^, February 24, 1416, a new commission was appointed to hold an inquisition on him. The whole ground was gone over again in examining him, from the Wickliffite heresies to his exciting rebellion in Prague and contumaciously enduring the excommunication incurred in Vienna. April 27 the commissioners made their report, and the Promotor IlmreticcB Pravitatis, or prosecutor for heresy, accompanied it with a long indictment enumerating his offences. Jerome, re- solved on death, had recovered his audacity ; he not only, in spite of his recantation, denied that he was a heretic, but complained of unjust imprisonment and claimed to be indemnified for ex- penses and damages. His marvellous dialectical dexterity had evidently nonplussed the slower intellects of his examiners, who had found themselves unable to cope with his subtlety, for the council was asked, in conclusion, to diminish the diet on which he was described as feasting gluttonously, and by judicious starvar tion, the proper torment of heretics, to bring him to submission. Moreover, authority was asked to use torture and to force him to answer definitely yes or no to all questions as to his belief. If then he continues contumaciously to deny what has been or may be proved against him, he is to be handed over to the secular arm, in accordance with the canon law, as a pertinacious and incorrigi- ble heretic. Thus with Jerome, as with IIuss, the invariable prin- ciple of inquisitorial procedure was applied, that the denial of heret- ical opinions was simply an evidence and an aggravation of guilt.* * Von (ler Hardt III. iv. 39 ; IV. 634-91.— Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Uussit (Ludewig VI. 137-8). 502 BOHEMIA. In this case, more than in that of Huss, the council seems to have taken upon itself the part of an inquisitorial tribunal, with its commissioners simply as examiners to take testimony, possibly because Jerome had refused to accept them as judges on account of enmity towards him. There is no evidence that it consented to the superfluous infamy of torturing, or even of starving its vic- tim. The commissioners were left to their own devices as to ex- tracting a confession, and May 9 they made another report of the whole case from beginning to end, for what object is not apparent, unless to demonstrate their helplessness. Having thus wearied them out, Jerome finally promised to answer categorically before the council. Perhaps it was curiosity to hear him, perhaps the precedent set in the case of Huss weighed with the fathers. The concession was made to him, and at a general session held May 23 he was brought in and the oath was offered to him. He re- fused to take it, saying that he would do so if he would be allowed to speak freely, but if he was only to say yes or no he would not. As the articles were read over he remained silent as to a portion, while to the rest he answered affirmatively or negatively, occa- sionally making a distinction, and answering with admirable readi- ness the clamors and interruptions which assailed him from all sides. The day wore away in this, and the completion of the hear- ing was adjourned till the 26th. Again the same scene occurred till the series of articles was exhausted, when the chief of the com- missioners, John, Patriarch of Constantinople, summed up, saying that Jerome was convicted of fourfold heresy ; but as he had re- peatedly asked to be heard he sliould be allowed to speak, in order to silence absurd reflections on the council ; moreover, if he was prepared to confess and repent, he still would be received to mercy, but if obdurate, justice must take its course.* Of the scene which followed we have a vivid account in a let- ter to Leonardo Aretino from Poggio BraccioUni, who attended the council as apostolic secretary. Poggio had already been pro- foundly impressed with the quickness and readiness of a man who for three hundred and forty days had lain in the filth and squalor of a noisome dungeon, but now he breaks forth in unquaUfied ad- miration — "He stood fearless, undaunted, not merely despising Von der Hardt IV. 690-1, 733-33, 748-56. JEROME OF PRAGUE. 5O3 death, but longing for it, like another Cato. O man worthy of eternal remembrance among men ! If he held beliefs contrary to the rules of the Church I do not praise him, but I admire his learn- ing, his knowledge of so many things, his eloquence, and the sub- tlety of his answers." In the midst of that turbulent and noisy crowd, his eloquence was so great that Poggio evidently thinks he would have been acquitted had he not courted death.* His address was a most skilful vindication, gliding with seem- ingly careless negligence over the dangerous spots in his career — for his whole life had been made the subject of indictment — and giving most plausible explanations of that which could not be sup- pressed, as though the Bohemian troubles had been solely due to political differences. As for his recantation, his judges had prom- ised him kindly treatment if he would throw himself on the mercy of the council. He was but a man, with a human dread of a dread- ful death by fire ; he had weakly yielded to persuasion, he had ab- jured, he had written to Bohemia as required, he had condemned the teaching of John Huss. Here he rose to the fuU height of his manly and self-devoted eloquence. Huss was a just and holy man, to whom he would cleave to the last ; no sin that he had ever committed so weighed upon his conscience as his cowardly abju- ration, which now he solemnly revoked. Wickliff had written with a profounder truth than any man before him, and dread of the stake alone could have induced hhn to condemn such a master, saving only the doctrine on the sacrament, of which he could not approve. Then he burst forth into a ringing invective on the vices of the clergy, and especially of the Roman curia, which had stimu- lated Wickliff and Huss to their efforts for reform. The good fathers of the council might be stunned for a moment by the fierce self-sacrifice of the man who thus deliberately threw away his life, but they soon recovered themselves, and quietly assigned the following Saturday for his definite sentence. Although, as a self- confessed relapsed, he was entitled to no further consideration, they proposed, with unusual mercy, to give him four days to re- consider and repent, but he had been addressing an audience far beyond the narrow walls of the Cathedral of Constance, and his words were seeds which sprouted forth in armed warriors.f On May 30 the final acts of the tragedy were Imrried through ; • Von dcr Hardt III. 64-9. + Ibiil. IV. 754-62. 504 BOHEMIA. the council assembled early, and by ten o'clock Jerome was at the stake. After the mass, the Bishop of Lodi preached a sermon. He had been selected to perform the same office at the condemna- tion of lluss, and the brutality of his triumph over the unfortu- nate prisoner on this occasion even exceeded his former effort. The charity and tenderness with which Jerome had been treated ought to have softened his heart, even had the recollection of his crimes failed to do so. A comparison was drawn between the favor shown him and the severity customary with suspected her- etics. "You were not tortured — I wish you had been, for it would have forced you to vomit forth all your errors ; such treat- ment would have opened your eyes, which guilt had closed." The nobles present were called upon to mark how Huss and Jerome, two base-born men, plebeians of the lowest rank and unknown origin, had dared to trouble the noble kingdom of Bohemia, and what evils had sprung from the presumption of those two peas- ants. Then Jerome in a few dignified sentences rephed, asserting his conscientiousness and deploring his condemnation of Wickhff and Huss. Cardinal Zabarella, he said, was winning him over when his judges were changed and he would not plead to new ones. His abjuration was read to him ; he acknowledged it ; he said it had been extorted by the dread of fire. Then the prose- cutor asked for a definite sentence in writing against him, and the head commissioner, John of Constantinople, read a long one con- demning him as a supporter of Wickhff and Huss, and ending with the declaration that he was a relapsed heretic and anathe- matized excommunicate. To this the council unanimously re- sponded '•'' Placet^'' There was no pretence of asking mercy for him. He was handed over to the secular power with a command that it should do its duty under the sentence rendered. Not be- ing in orders, there was no ceremony of degradation to be per- formed, but a tall paper crown with painted devils was brought. He tossed his cap among the prelates and put on the crown, say- ing, " Our Lord Jesus Christ, when about to die for me, wore a crown of thorns. In place of that, I gladly bear this for his sake," and with this he was hurried off to execution on the same spot where Huss had suffered.* * Von der Hardt III. 55-60; IV. 763-71.— Theod. Vrie Hist. Cone. Constant- Lib. VII. Dist. 4. EXECUTION OF JEROME. 505 The details of the execution were much the same, except that Jerome was stripped and a cloth tied around his loins. He sang the Creed and a litany, and when his voice could no longer be heard in the flames his lips were still seen to move as though praying to himself ; after his beard was burned off, a blister the size of an egg was seen to form itself, showing that he still was alive, and his agony was unusually prolonged, through his extraor- dinary strength and vitality. One eye-witness says that he shrieked awfully, but other unfriendly witnesses declare that he continued praying till his voice was checked by the fire, and Poggio, who was present, was much impressed with his cheerful courage to the last. When bound to the stake, the executioner offered to hght the fire from behind, where he could not see it, but he refused: " Come forward," he said, " and light the fire where I can see it. Had I feared this, I would not have been here." ^neas Sylvius likewise couples him with Huss for the unsurpassed constancy of his death. After it was over, his bedding, shoes, cap, and all his personal effects were brought from his dungeon and thrown upon the pile, that no relic of him might be left, and the ashes were cast into the Ehine.* It onl}'- remained to secure the submission of John of Chlum, the courageous defender of Huss. He had remained in Constance and was in the power of the council. "What means Avere adopted for his abasement do not appear, but, on July 1, he swore to main- tain the faith, admitted that Huss and Jerome had suffered justly, and desired letters of his declaration to be made, that he might send them to Bohemia. f * Von der Hardt III. 64-71 ; IV. 771-2.— Richentals Cronik p. 83.— Theod. Vrie Hist. Cone. Constant. Lib. viii. Dist. 3. — Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit (Ludewig VI. 141).— ^n. Sylvii Hist. Bohem. c. 36. t Chron. Glassberger ann. 1416. CHAPTER Vm. THE HUSSITES. The Council of Constance, after eighteen months of labor, had disposed of Huss and Jerome. The methods employed had been the only ones known to the Church, the only ones possible to the council. Two centuries earlier the corruptions of the Church were recognized as the cause and excuse of the revolt of the Al- bigenses and TValdeuses, but the revolt was ruthlessly put down without an effective effort to remove the cause. Now again un- checked corruption had produced another revolt and the same policy was followed — to leave untouched the profitable abuses and punish those who refused to tolerate them, and who rejected the principles out of which such abuses ine^dtably sprang. The coun- cil could do no otherwise ; the traditions of procedure established in the subjugation of the Albigenses and the succeeding heresies furnished the only precedent and machinery through which it could act. Again a religious revolt had been provoked, and again that revolt was nursed and intensified till its only recognized cure lay in the sword of the crusader. The prelates and doctors assembled in Constance could not hesitate for a moment as to their duty. Canon law and inquisi- torial practice had long established the principle that the only way to meet heresy — and opposition to the constituted authorities of the Church was heresy — was by force, as soon as argument was found ineffective. The disobedient son of the Church who would not submit was to be cast out, after due admonition, and castine: out meant that he should have in this world a whole- some foretaste of the wrath to come, in order to serve as an edifying example. Accordingly the council addressed itself, as a matter of course, to the task of widening the breach with Bo- hemia, of consolidating and intensifying the indignation caused by the execution of Huss and Jerome, and to stigmatizing as THE COUNCIL STIMULATES REBELLION. 507 heresy the belief which was now professed by the majority of Bohemians. The council had proposed to follow up the execution of Huss by an immediate application of inquisitorial methods to the whole Bohemian kingdom, but, at the instance of John, Bishop of Lito- mysl, it had commenced by the expedient of giving notice in its letter of July 26, 1415. This, as we have seen, only added to the exasperation of Bohemia, and on August 31 it issued to Bishop John letters commissioning him with inquisitorial powers to sup- press all heresy in Bohemia ; if he could not perform his office in safety elsewhere he was authorized to summon all suspect to his episcopal seat at Litomysl. "Wenceslas dutifully issued to him a safe-conduct, but the irate Bohemians were already ravaging his territories, and he consulted prudence in not venturing his person there. The canons evidently could not be enforced amid a people so exasperated ; so, on September 23, after listening to the recanta- tion of Jerome, the council tried a further expedient, by a decree appointing John, Patriarch of Constantinople, and John, Bishop of Senlis, as commissioners (or, rather, inquisitors) to try all Hussite heretics. They were empowered to summon all heretics or sus- pects to appear before them in the Roman curia by public edict, to be posted in the places frequented by such heretics, or in the neigh- boring territories if it were dangerous to attempt it at the resi- dences of the accused, and such edicts might be either general in character or special. This was strictly according to rule, and if the object had been to secure the legal condemnation in absentia of the mass of the Bohemian nation, it was well adapted for the purpose ; but as the nation was seething in revolt, and was vener- ating Huss and Jerome with as much ardor as was shown in Rome to St. Peter and St. Paul, its only effect was to strengthen the hands of the extremists. This was seen when, on December 30, 1415, an address was delivered to the council, signed by four hun- dred and fifty Bohemian nobles, reiterating their complaints of the execution of Huss, and withdrawing themselves from all obe- dience. This hardy challenge was accepted Februar}^ 20, 1416, by citing all the signers and other supporters of Huss and AVick- liff to appear before the council within fifty days and answer to the charge of heresy, in default of which they were to be pro- ceeded against as contumacious. As it was not safe to serve this 508 THE HUSSITES. citation on them personally, or, indeed, anywhere in Bohemia, it was ordered to be aiRxed on the church doors at Constance, Rat- isbon, Vienna, and Passau. This was followed up with all the legal forms ; the citations were affixed to the church doors, and record made in Constance May 5, in Passau May 3, in Vienna May 10, and in Eatisbon June 14, 21, and 24 On June 3 the offend- ers were declared to be in contumacy, and on September 4 the further prosecution of the matter was intrusted to John of Con- stantinople.* Here the affair seems to have dropped, for it had long been evident that the inquisitorial methods were of no avail when the accused constituted the great body of a nation. As early as March 27, 1416, the council had, without waiting to see the result of its judicial proceedings, resolved to appeal to force, if yet there was sufficient zeal for orthodoxy in Bohemia to render such appeal successful. The fanatic John of Litomysl was armed with lega- tine powers, and despatched with letters to the lords of Hazem- burg, John of Michaelsburg, and other barons known as opponents of the popular cause. The council recited in moving terms its patience and tenderness in dealing with Huss, who had perished merely through his own hardness of heart. In spite of this, his followers had addressed to the council libellous and defamatory letters, affording a spectacle at once horrible and ludicrous. Her- esy is constantly spreading and contaminating the land, priests and monks are despoiled, expelled, beaten, and slain. The barons are therefore summoned, in conjunction with the legate, to banish and exterminate all these persecutors, regardless of friendship and kinship. Bishop John's mission was a failure, in spite of letters written by Sigismund, March 21 and 30, in which he thanked the Catholic nobles for their devotion, and warned the Hussite mag- nates that, if they persisted, Christendom would be banded against them in a crusade. The University of Prague responded, May 23, with a public declaration, certifying to the unblemished orthodoxy and supereminent merits of Huss. His whole life spent among them had been without a flaw ; his learning and eloquence had • Palacky Documenta, pp. 566-7, 572-9, 602-3.— Von der Hardt IV. 528, 609-12, 724, 781-2, 823-40.— ^n. Sylvii. Hist. Bobem. c. 35.— Theod. a Niem Vit. Joann. PP. XXIII. Lib. iii. c. 13. PROGRESSIVE ANTAGONISM. 509 been equalled by his charity and humility ; he was in all things a man of surpassing sanctity, who sought to restore the Church to its primitive virtue and simplicity. Jerome, also, whom the uni- versity seems to have supposed already executed, was similarly lauded for his learning and strict Catholic orthodoxy, and was de- clared to have in death triumphed gloriously over his enemies. In this the university represented with moderation the prevaihng opinion in Bohemia. The more earnest disciples did not hesitate to declare that the Passion of Christ was the only martyrdom fit to be compared with that of IIuss.* There was evidently no middle term which could reconcile conflicting opinions so firmly entertained ; and, as the Cathohc nobles of Bohemia could not be stimulated to undertake a devas- tating civil war, the council naturally turned to Sigismund. In December, 1416, a doleful epistle was addressed to him, complain- ing that the execution of Huss and Jerome, in place of repressing heresy, had rendered it more violent than ever. As though men condemned to Satan by the Church were the chosen of God, the two heretics were venerated as saints and martyrs, their pictures shrined in the churches, and their names invoked in masses. The faithful clergy were driven out, and their lot rendered more mis- erable than that of Jews. The barons and nobles refuse obedience to the mandates of the council, and will not aUow them to be pub- lished. Communion in both elements is taught to be necessary to salvation, and is everywhere practised. Sigismund is therefore requested to do his duty, and reduce by force these rebellious her- etics. Sigismund replied that he had forwarded the document to Wenceslas, and that if the latter had not power to suppress the heretics he would assist him with all his force. Sigismund was in no position to undertake the task, but after waiting for nine months he saw an opportunity of attacking his brother, Avho had been utterly powerless to control the storm. In a circular letter of September 3, 1417, addressed to the faithful in Bohemia, he drew a moving picture of the excesses committed on the Bohemian clergy, compelled by Neronian tortures to abjure their faith. His * Epistt. Ixiii., Ixv. (Jo. IIiis MonuiiK-nt. T. 79-80, 82). — Palacky Documenta, pp. 611-14, G21.— Liulewig Rcl. jNISS. VI. 09.— Slephaui Cartus. Epist. ad Hns- sitas P. I. c. 5 (Pez Thesaur. Anecd. IV. ii. 521). 510 THE HUSSITES. brother was suspected of favoring the heretics, as no one could conceive that such wickedness could be committed under so pow- erful a king without his connivance, and the council had decided to proceed against him, but had consented to delay at the instance of Sigismund, who for three years had been strenuously endeavor- ing to avert the prosecution. He warns every one, in conclusion, not to aid the heresy, but to exert themselves for its suppression.* Shortly after this, November 11, 1417, the weary schism was closed by the election to the papacy of Martin V. Under the im- pulsion of a capable and resolute pontiff, who, as Cardinal Ottone Colonna, had, in 1411, condemned and excommunicated Huss, the reunited Church pressed eagerly forward to render the conflict inevitable. In February, 1418, the council pubhshed a series of twenty-four articles as its ultimatum. King Wenceslas must swear to suppress the heresy of Wickliff and Huss. Minute directions were given to restore the old order of things throughout Bohemia ; priests and Catholics who had been driven out were to be rein- stated and compensated ; image and relic worship to be resumed, and the rites of the Church observed. All infected with heresy were to abjure it, while their leading doctors, John Jessenitz, Ja- cobel of Mies, Simon of Rokyzana, and six others, were to betake themselves to Eome for trial. Communion in both elements was to be specially abjured, and all who held the doctrines of Wickliff and Huss, or regarded Huss and Jerome as holy men, were to be burned as relapsed heretics ; that is, without opportunity of recan- tation or hope of pardon. Finally, every one was required to lend assistance to the episcopal officials when called upon, under pain of punishment as f autors of heresy. It was simply the application of existing laws, as we have so many times already seen them brought to bear on offending communities. To enforce it, Sigis- mund promised to visit the rebellious region with four bishops and an inquisitor, and to burn all who Avould not recant.f This was speedily followed, February 22, 1418, by a bull of » Von der Hardt IV. 1077-83, 1410-13. — Palacky Documenta, pp. 652^. Doubtless there was much ill-treatment of such of the clergy as remained faith- ful to Rome. In 1417 Stephen of Olmiitz complains that they were driven from their benefices, beaten, and slain. — Steph. Cartus. Ej^ist. ad Hussit. P. i. c. 3 (Fez Thesaur. Anecd. IV. ii. 517). + Von der Hardt IV. 1514-18.— Palacky Documenta, pp. 676-77. BOHEMIA IN REBELLION. 611 Martin V., addressed to the prelates and inquisitors, not only of Bohemia and Moravia, but of the surrounding territories, Passau, Salzburg, Katisbon, Bamberg, Misnia, Silesia, and Poland. The pope expressed his grief and surprise that the heretics had not been brought to repentance by the miserable deaths of Huss and Jerome, but had been excited by the devil to yet greater sins. The prelates and inquisitors were ordered to track them out and deliver them to the secular arm ; and such as proved themselves remiss in the work were to be removed, and replaced with more energetic successors. Secular potentates were commanded to seize and hold in chains all heretics, and to punish them duly when convicted, and a long series of instructions was given as to trials, penalties, and confiscations, in strict accordance with the inquisi- torial practice which had so long been current. If this was in- tended to give countenance to Sigismund's promised expedition it proved useless, for the royal promise ended as Sigismund's were wont to do, and the next we hear of him is a letter of December, lilS, to Wenceslas, threatening that unlucky monarch with a cru- sade if he shall not suppress heresy.* The glimpse into the condition of Bohemia afforded by these documents is, perhaps, somewhat highly colored, yet on the whole not incorrect. The kingdom was almost wholly withdrawn from obedience to the Church, although the German miners in the mountains of Ivuttenberg Avere already slaying the native heretics. The Wickliffite doctrines adopted by Huss were triumphant, and the pressure of central authority being removed, men were natu- rally using the unaccustomed liberty to develop further and fur- ther the ruling hostility to the sacerdotal system. Utraquism, or communion in both elements, had been received with a frenzy of welcome which seems almost inexplicable ; it aroused universal enthusiasm, whicli was only stimulated by the interdict pronounced on it by Archbishop Conrad, November 1, 1415, and repeated Feb- ruary 1, 1416. When, in 1417, the University of Prague issued a solemn declaration in its favor and pronounced void any human ordinance modifying the command of Christ and the custom of the early Church, it speedily became the distinguishing mark which separated the Hussite from the Catholic. Other innovations had Von der Hardt IV. 1518-31.— Palacky pp. 684-6. 512 THE HUSSITES. already been introduced, and it was impossible that all should Hgree on the bounds to be set between conservatism and progress. As early as 1416 Christann of Prachatitz remonstrated with Wen- ceslas Coranda for denying purgatory and the utihty of prayers for the dead and the suffrages of saints, for refusing adoration to the Virgin, for casting out relics and images, for administering the Eucharist to newly-baptized infants, for discarding all rites and ceremonies, and reducing the Church to the simplicity of primitive times. Others taught that divine service could be cele- brated anywhere as well as in consecrated churches ; that baptism could be performed by laymen in ponds and running streams. Already there was forming the sect which, in carrying out the views of Wickliff, came to be known as Taborites. The more con- servative element, which adopted the name of Calixtins, or Utra- quists, satisfied with what had been acquired, endeavored to set bounds to the zeal which threatened to remove all the ancient landmarks. Parties were beginning to range themselves, and on January 25, 1417, probably not long before its declaration in favor of Utraquism, the University issued a letter reciting that there were frequent disputes as to the existence of purgatory and the use of benedictions and other church observances ; to put an end to these it pronounced obligatory on all to believe in purgatory and in the utility of suffrages, prayers, and alms for the dead, of images of Christ and the saints, of incensing, aspersions, bell-ring- ing, the kiss of peace, of benediction of the holy font, salt, water, wax, fire, palms, eggs, cheese, and other eatables. Any one teach- ing otherwise was not to be listened to until he should prove the truth of his doctrine to the satisfaction of the University. In Sep- tember, 1418, it was obliged to renew the declaration, with the addition of condemning the doctrines which pronounced against aU oaths, judicial executions, and sacraments administered by sin- ful priests, showing that Waldensian tenets were making rapid progress among the Taborites.* All this indicates the questions which were occupying men's minds and the differences which were establishing themselves. * Palacky Documenta, pp. 631-2, 633-8, 654-6, 679.— Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. (Ludewig VI. 138-9).— Jo. Hus Monument. II. 364.— ^gid. Carlerii Lib. de Legation. (Monument Concil. General. Saec. XV. T. I. pp. 385-6). RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES. 513 Opinions were too strongly held, and mutual toleration was too little understood for peaceful discussion, and excitement daily grew higher, leading to tumults and bloodshed. In the spirit of unrest which was abroad, men and women of the more advanced views from all parts of the kingdom began assembling on a moun- tain near Bechin, to which they gave the name of Tabor, where they received the sacrament in both kinds. These assemblages were larger on feast days, and on the day of Mary Magdalen, July 22, 1419, the multitude was computed at forty thousand. Numbers gave courage, and there was even talk of deposing King Wenceslas and replacing him with Nicholas Lord of Hussinetz, whose popularity had been increased by his banishment for advo- cating their cause with the monarch. From this they were dis- suaded by their chief spiritual leader, the priest Wenceslas Coranda, who pointed out that as the king was an indolent drunkard, per- mitting them to do what they liked, they would scarce benefit themselves by a change. The abandonment of this project, how- ever, did not assure peace. On July 30 there was a tumult in the Neustadt of Prague ; at command of the king, the authorities en- deavored to prevent the progress of a procession bearing the sac- rament ; the people rose, and under the lead of John Ziska, whose fiery zeal and cool audacity were rapidly bringing him to the front, they rushed into the town-hall and cast out of the wmdows such of the magistrates as they found there, who were promptly slain by the mob below. The agitation and alarm caused by this affair brought on King Wenceslas an attack of paralysis, of which he died August 15.* Feeble as had been the royal authority, it yet had served as a restraint upon the hostile sects eager to tear each other to pieces. With the death of the king the untamable passions burst forth. Two days afterwards the churches and convents were mobbed, the images and organs were broken, and those in which the cup had been refused to the laity were the objects of special vengeance. Priests and monks were taken prisoners, and within a few days the Dominican and Carthusian convents were burned. Queen Sophia endeavored, in vain, to maintain order with such of the * Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. (Ludewig VI. pp. 142-44).— ^En. Sylvii Hist. Bohetn. c. 36, 37. n.— 33 514 THE HUSSITES. barons as remained loyal ; civil war broke forth, until, on Kovem- ber 13, the queen concluded with the cities of Prague a truce to last until April 23, 1420, the queen promising to maintain the law of God and communion in both elements, while the citizens pledged themselves to refrain from image-breaking and the destruction of convents. Mutual exasperation, however, was too great to be restrained. Ziska came to Prague and destroyed churches and monasteries in the city and neighborhood ; Queen Sophia laid siege to Pilsen ; a neighborhood war broke out in which shocking cruelties were perpetrated on both sides ; German miners of Caur- zim and Kuttenberg threw into abandoned mines all the Calix- tins on whom they could lay their hands, and some Bavarians who were coming to the assistance of Kackzo of Ryzmberg tied to a tree and burned the priest Naakvasa, a zealous CaUxtin. Ziska was not behindhand in this, and in burning convents not infre- quently allowed the monks to share the fate of their buildings. In the desultory war which raged everywhere both sides cut off the hands and feet of prisoners.* Sigismund was now the lawful King of Bohemia, and he came to claim his inheritance. As a preliminary step he sent envoys to Prague offering to leave the use of the cup as it had been under Wenceslas, to call a general assembly of the nation, and after con- sultation to refer any questions to the Holy See. A meeting of the barons and clergy was held which agreed to accept the terms. On Christmas Day, 1419, he came to Briinn, and thither flocked the magnates and representatives of the cities to tender their alle- giance. The envoys of Prague, it is true, persisted in using the cup, and there was an interdict in consequence placed on Briinn during their stay, but when he ordered them to remove the chains from the streets of Prague, and destroy the fortifications which they had raised against the castle, there was no refusal, and on tneir return, January 3, 1420, his commands were obeyed. His natural faithlessness soon showed itself. He changed all the cas- tellans and officials who were favorable to the Hussites ; the Cath- olics who had fled or been expelled returned and commenced to triumph over their enemies ; and a royal edict was issued, in obe- * Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. (Ludewig VI. 145-52, 154-56).--Hist. Per- secut. Eccles. Bohem. pp. 37-8. — Camerarii Hist. Frat. Orthod. p. 49. THE TABORITES.— REBELLION. 515 dience to the decrees of Constance, commanding all those in au- thority to exterminate the Wickliffites and Hussites and those who used the sacramental cup. Still, the kingdom made no sign of organized opposition to him, except that the provident Ziska and his followers, seeing the wrath to come, diligently set to work to fortify Mount Tabor. Strong by nature, it soon was made vir- tually impregnable, and for a generation it remained the strong- hold of the extremists who became renowned throughout the world as Taborites. Mostly peasant-folk, they showed to the chivalry of Europe what could be done by freemen, animated by religious zeal and race hatred ; their rustic wagons made a rampart which the most vahant knights learned not to assail; armed sometimes only with iron-shod flails, the hardy zealots did not hesitate to throw themselves upon the best-appointed troops, and often bore them down with the sheer weight of the attack. Wild and undis- ciplined, they were often cruel, but their fanatic courage rendered them a terror to all Germany.* Nothing, probably, could have averted an eventual explosion ; but, for the moment, it seemed that Sigismund was about to enter on peaceable possession of his kingdom, and any subsequent rebel- lion would have been attempted under great disadvantages. Sud- denly, however, an act of inconsiderate and gratuitous fanaticism set all Bohemia aflame. Some trouble in Silesia had called Sigis- mund to Breslau, where he was joined by a papal legate armed by Martin Y. with power to proclaim a crusade with Holy Land indulgences. John Krasa, a merchant of Prague, who chanced to be there, talked over boldly about the innocence of Huss ; he was arrested, persisted in his faith, and was condemned by the legate and prelates who were with Sigismund to be dragged by the heels at a horse's tail to the place of execution and burned. "While lying in prison he was joined by Nicholas of Bethlehem, a student of Prague, who had been sent by the city to Sigismund to offer to receive him if he would not interfere with the use of the cup to the lait3^ In place of listening to him he was tried as a heretic and tlirown into prison to await the result. Krasa encouraged him to endure to the last, and both were brought forth on March * ^gid. Carlerii Lib. do Legation. (Mon. Concil. General. Saec. XV. T. L p. 387).— Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. (Ludewig VL 152-4, 157-8, 168, 173). 516 THE HUSSITES. 15, 1420, to undergo the punishment. As the feet of Nicholas were about to be attached to the horse, his courage gave way and he recanted. Krasa was undaunted ; the legate followed him, as he was dragged to the place of execution, exhorting him to repent, but in vain ; he was attached half -dead to the stake and duly burned. Two days later, March 17, the legate proclaimed the crusade. The die was cast ; the Church so willed it, and a new Albigensian war was inevitable.* There was wavering no longer in Bohemia. The events at Breslau united all, with the exception of a few barons and such Germans as were left, in resistance against Sigismund. The preach- ers thundered against him as the Red Dragon of the Apocalypse. By April 3 the citizens of Utraquist Prague had bound themselves by a solemn oath with the Taborites to defend themselves against him to the last, and were busy in preparations to sustain a siege. Sigismund's forces were wholly inadequate for the conquest of a virtually united kingdom. After an advance to Kuttenberg he was forced to withdraw and await the assembling of the crusade, which took long to organize, and did not burst in its fury over Bo- hemia until the following year, 1421. It was on a scale to crush all resistance. In its mass of one hundred and fifty thousand men all Europe was represented, from Russia to Spain and from Sicily to England. The reunited Church aroused all Christendom to stamp out the revolt, and the treasures of salvation were poured lavishly forth to exterminate those who dared to maintain the inno- cence of Huss and Jerome, and to take the Eucharist as all Chris- tians had done until within two hundred years. The war was waged with desperation. Five times during 1421 the crusaders in- vaded Bohemia, and five times they were beaten back disastrously. The gain to the faith was scarce perceptible, for Sigismund stripped the churches of all their precious ornaments, declaring that he was * Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. (Ludewig VI. 159). — Raynald. ann. 1420, No. 13. — Hist. Persecut. Eccles. Bohem. pp. 39^0. — ^gid. Carlerii Lib. de Le- gation, loc. cit. There was warning also to the democratic party among the Bohemians in the vengeance taken by Sigismund on citizens of Breslau who had been concerned in an uprising similar to tliat of Prague. On March 7 he caused twenty-three of them to be beheaded. — Bezold, Konig Sigmund und die Reichskriege gegen die Husiten, Miinchen, 1873, p. 37. INTERNAL RELIGIOUS DISCORD. 517 not impelled by laxik of reverence, but by a prudent desire to pre- vent their falling into the hands of the Hussites, Both sides per- petrated cruelties happily unknown save in the ferocity of religious wars. During the siege of Prague all Bohemians captured were burned as heretics whether they used the cup or not ; and on July 19 the besieged demanded of the magistrates sixteen German pris- oners, whom they took outside of the walls and burned in hogs- heads in full sight of the invading army. We can estimate the mercilessness of the strife when it was reckoned among the good deeds of George, Bishop of Passau, who accompanied Albert of Austria, that by his intercession he saved the lives of many Bohe- mian captives.* It is not our province to follow in detail this bloody struggle, in which for ten years the Hussites successfully defied all the forces that Martin and Sigismund could raise against them. When the crusaders came they presented a united front, but within the line of common defence they were torn with dissensions, bitter in proportion to their exaltation of religious feehng. The right of private judgment when once estabhshed, by admitting the doc- trines of Wickliff and Huss, was not easily restrained, nor could it be expected that those who were persecuted would learn from persecution the lesson of tolerance. In the wild tumult, intellec- tual, moral, and social, which convulsed Bohemia, no doctrines were too extravagant to lack believers. In 1418 it is related that forty Pikardi with their wives and children came to Prague, where they were hospitably received and cared for by Queen Sophia and other persons of rank. They had no priest, but one of their number used to read to them out of certain little books, and they took communion in one element. They vanish from view without leaving a trace of their influence, and were doubtless Beghards driven from their homes and seek- ing a refuge beyond the reach of orthodoxy. Yet their name remained, and was long used in Bohemia as a term of the bit- terest contempt for those who denied transubstantiation. Subse- quently, however, there was a more portentous demonstration of * Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. (Ludewig VI. 161-3, 167-70, 181). — An- drese Ratispon. Cliron. (Eccard. Corp. Hist. I. 3147).— Schrodl, Passavia Sacra, p. 289.— Naucleri Chron. p. 933 (Ed. 1544).— Hist. Persecut. Eccles. Boliem. pp. 43-44, 518 TOE HUSSITES. the Brethren of the Free Spirit, A stranger, said to come from Flanders, whose name, " Pichardus," shows evidently that he was a Beghard, disseminated the doctrine of the Brethren, and among other things that nakedness was essential to purity, which we have seen was one of the extravagances of the sect. The prac- tice was one which in a more settled state of society could not have been ventured on, but in Bohemia he found little difficulty in obtaining quite a large following of both sexes, with whom he settled on an island in the river Luznic, and dignified them with the name of Adamites. Perhaps they might have flourished un- disturbed had not fanaticism, or possibly retaliation for aggres- sion, led them to make a foray on the mainland and slay some two hundred peasants, whom they styled children of the devil. Ziska's attention being thus drawn to them, he captured the isl- and and exterminated them. Fifty of them, men and women, were burned at Klokot, and those who escaped were hunted down and gradually shared the same fate, which they met with un- daunted cheerfulness, laughing and singing as they went to the stake.* In the sudden removal of ecclesiastical repression of free thought it was inevitable that unbalanced minds should riot in extravagant speculation. Among the zealots who subsequently developed into the sect of the Taborites there was at first a strong tendency to apocalyptic prophecy suited to the times. First, there was to be a period of unsparing vengeance, during which safety could be found only in five specified cities of refuge, after which would follow the second advent of Christ, and the reign of peace and love among the elect, and earth would become a paradise. At first, the destruction of the wicked was to be the work of God, but as passions became fiercer it was held to be the duty of the righteous to cut them off without sparing. These Chili- asts or Millenarians had for their leader Martin Huska, surnamed Loquis, on account of his eloquence, and numbered among them Coranda and other prominent Taborite priests, Waldensian in- fluence is visible in some features of their faith, and they rendered themselves peculiarly obnoxious by the denial of transubstantia- * Palacky, Beziehungen, pp. 20-1.— ^n. Sylvii Hist. Bohem. c. 41. — Du- bravii Hist. Bohem. Lib, 27. CHILIASTS. — CALIXTINS. 519 tion. For this they were exposed to pitiless persecution wherever their adversaries could exercise it. One of their leading mem- bers, a cobbler of Prague, named Wenceslas, was burned in a hogshead, July 23, 1421, for refusing to rise at the elevation of the host, and soon afterwards three priests sliared the same fate because they refused to light candles before the sacrament. Mar- tin Loquis himself was arrested in February of the same year, but was released at the intercession of the Taborites, and set out with a companion to seek Procopius in Moravia. At Chrudim, however, the travellers were arrested, and were burned at Hra- disch after two months of torture vainly inflicted to wean them from their errors and force them to reveal the names of their as- sociates. As a distinct sect the Chiliasts speedily disappear from view, but their members remained a portion of the Taborites, the development of whose opinions they profoundly influenced. In the delegation sent to Basle, in 1433, Peter of Zatce, who repre- sented the Orphans, had been a Chihast.* Thus these minor sects vanished as parties organized them- selves in a permanent form, and the Bohemian reformers are found divided into two camps — the moderates, known as Calix- tins or Utraquists, from their chief characteristic, the administra- tion of the cup to the laity, and the extremists, or Taborites. The Calixtins virtually regarded the teachings of Huss and Jacobel of Mies, as a finahty. When, after the death of Wen- ceslas, the necessity of some definite declaration of principles was felt, the University of Prague, on August 1, 1420, adopted, with but one dissenting voice, four articles which became for more than a century the distinguishing platform of their sect. As con- cisely enunciated by the University they appeared simple enough : I. Free preaching of the Word of God ; II. Communion in both elements for the laity ; III. The clergy to be deprived of all do- minion over temporal possessions, and to be reduced to the evan- gelical hfe of Christ and the apostles ; lY. AU offences against divine law to be punished without exception of person or condi- * Laur. Byzyn. Diar. Bell. Hussit. (Ludewig VI. 202-7). — Palacky, Bezie- hungen, p. 31. — J. Goll, Quellen u. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Bohm- ischen Briider, Prag, 1882, II. 10-11, 57-60.— Hist. Persecut. Eccles. Bohem. pp 46-8. — Palacky, Preef. ia Mon. Cone. Gen. Saec. XV. p. xx. 520 THE HUSSITES. tion. These four articles were speedily accepted by the strongly Calixtin community of Prague, and were proclaimed to the world in various forms which added to their completeness and rendered their purport definite. Any one was declared a heretic who did not accept the Apostles', Athanasian, and Nicene creeds, the seven sacraments of the Church, and the existence of purgatory. Offences against the law of God were declared to be worthy of death, both of the offender and those who connived at them, and were defined to be, among the people, fornication, banqueting, theft, homicide, perjury, lying, arts superfluous, deceitful, and superstitious, avarice, usury, etc. : among the clergy, simoniacal exactions, such as fees for administering the sacraments, for preach- ing, burying, bell-ringing, consecration of churches and altars, as well as the sale of preferment ; also concubinage and fornication, quarrels, vexing and spoiling the people with frivolous citations, greedy exactions of tribute, etc.* Upon this basis the Cahxtin Church proceeded to organize itself in a council held at Prague in 1421. Four leading doctors, John of Przibram, Procopius of Pilsen, Jacobel of Mies, and John of Neuberg, were made supreme governors of the clergy through- out the kingdom, with absolute power of punishment. 'No one was to teach any new doctrine without first submitting it to them or to a provincial synod. Transubstantiation was emphatically aflBrmed as well as the seven sacraments. The daily use of the Eucharist was recommended to all, including infants and the sick. The canon of the mass was simplified and restored to primitive usage. Auricular confession was prescribed, as well as the use of the chrism and of holy water in baptism. Clerks were to be distinguished by tonsure, vestments, and conduct. Every priest was to possess a cop}'- of the Scriptures, or at least of the New Testament, and stringent regulations were adopted for the pres- ervation of priestly morahty, including the prohibition of their protection by any layman after conviction.f Thus the Calixtin Church kept as close as possible to the old * iEgid. Carlerii Lib. de Legation. (Mon. Cone. Gen. Ssec. XV. T. I. p. 389). — Epistt. Ixvi. Ixvii. (Jo. Hus Monument. L 82-4). — Laur. Byzyn. Diar. (Lude- wig VI. 175-81). t Conciliab. Pragens. ann. 1421 (Hartzheim V. 199-201). Cf. Johann. de Przibram Profess. Cath. Fidei (Cochlsei Hist. Hussit. pp. 501 sqq.). CALIXTINS. 521 lines. It accepted all Catholic dogmas, even the power of the keys in sacramental penance, and only was a protest and revolt against the abuses which had grown out of the worldly aspira- tions of the clergy. It was a Puritan reform, and it founded a Puritan society. When, after the reconciliation effected at Basle, on the basis of the four articles, Sigismund, in 1436, held his court in Prague, the Bohemians speedily complained that the city was becoming a Sodom with dicing, tavern-haunting, and public women. It must have sounded strange to them to be coolly told by a Chris- tian prelate, the Bishop of Coutances, who was the legate of the council empowered to enforce the settlement, that it would be well if public sins could be eradicated, but that strumpets must be tolerated to prevent greater evils.* The Cahxtins thus sought to keep themselves strictly within the pale of orthodoxy, and deemed themselves greatly injured and insulted by the appellation of heretic. After the reconciliation of 1436 one of their most constant causes of complaint was that they were still stigmatized as heretics, and that the Council of Basle would not issue letters proclaiming to Christendom that they were regarded as faithful sons of the Church. In 1464, after successive popes had repeatedly refused to ratify the pacification of Basle and had excommunicated as hardened heretics George Podiebrad and all who acknowledged him as king, when George sent an em- bassy to Louis XL of France, Kostka of Postubitz, the envoy, and his attendants were more than once surprised and annoyed to find that the people of the towns through which they passed Avere dis- posed to regard them as heretics. The position of the Bohemian Calixtins was an anomalous one which has no parallel in the his- tory of mediseval Christendom.f • Jo. de Turonis Regestrum (Mon. Cone. Gen. Sseo. XV. T. I. p. 833, 858). Yet these Puritans were represented to Europe in the papal bulls for the crusades as not only subverting all political and social order, hut as condemn- ing marriage and abandoning tlieniselves to all manner of license and bestiality. — Martini PP. V. Bull. Permisit Deus, 25 Oct. 1427 (Fascic. Rer. Expetendarum et Fugiend, II. 613). t Jo. de Turonis Regestrum (Mon. Cone. Gen. Sac. XV. T. I. pp. 843, 858, 865). — Wratislaw, Diary of an Embassy from George of Bohemia, London, 1871. 522 THE HUSSITES. In the intellectual and spiritual excitement which stirred Bo- hemia to the depths, it was impossible that all earnest souls should thus pause on the threshold. The old Waldensian heretics, who had hailed the progress of Wickliffite and Hussite doctrines, would naturally seek to prevent the arrested development of the Calix- tins from prevailing, and, as we have seen, there were plenty of zealots who were ready to throw aside all the theology of sacer- dotalism. Under the energetic leadership of Ziska, Coranda, Nicholas of Pilgram, and other resolute men, the progressive ele- ments were rapidly moulded into a powerful party, which after sloughing off impracticable enthusiasts presented itself with a definite creed and purpose, and became known as the Taborites. Of late years there has been an active controversy as to whether the Waldenses were the teachers or the disciples of the Taborites. Without denying that the fearless vigor of the latter lent added strength to the development of the former, I cannot but think that the secret Waldensianism of Bohemia had much to do both with the revolt of Huss and with the carrjing-out of that revolt to its logical consequences. Certain it is that there were close and friendly relations between Waldensian and Taborite, while the very name of the former was regarded by all other Bohemians as a term of reproach — in fact there was so much in common between Wick- liffite and Waldensian doctrine that this could scarce be otherwise. I have aheady alluded to the contributions made to the Hussites in 1432 by the Waldensian churches of Dauphine, and to the virtual coalescence of Hussitism and Waldensianism throughout Germany. ^^Tien Procopius the Great, in 1433, was taking leave of the Council of Basle, he had the hardihood to inject into his address a good word for the Waldenses, saying that he had heard them well spoken of for chastity, modesty, and similar virtues. Persecution in 1430 so thinned them out that they had neither bishop nor priests; Nicholas of Pilgram, the Taborite bishop, had enjoyed consecration in the Roman Church, and thus had the right to transmit the apostolic succession, and he, in 1433, in Prague consecrated for the Waldenses as bishops two of their number, Frederic the German, and John the Italian. When, in 1451, iEneas Sylvius passed a night in Mount Tabor, and wrote a pic- turesque description of what he observed, he states that while all heresies had a refuge there, the Waldenses were held in TABORITES. 523 chief honor as the vicars of Christ and enemies of the Holy See.* When the CaHxtins, in 1421, defined their position, the Tabor- ites did the same. Various special Waldensian errors were attract- ing attention and obtaining currency among the people — the denial of purgatory, the vitiation of the sacrament in sinful hands, the absolute rejection of the death-punishment and of the oath — show- ing the influences at work. The position assumed by the Taborites was so strikingly similar to the beliefs ascribed in 1395 to the Waldenses in Austria by the Celestinian inquisitor, Peter, that it is impossible not to recognize the connection between them. While the Taborites accepted the four articles of the Calixtins they reduced the Church to a state of the utmost apostolic sim- plicity. Tradition was wholly thrown aside ; all images were to be burned; there was no outward sign of distinction between lay- man and priest, the latter wearing beards, rejecting the tonsure, and using ordinary garments; all priests, moreover, were bishops, and could perform the rite of consecration ; they baptized in run- ning water, without the chrism, celebrated mass anywhere, recit- ing the simple words of consecration and the Paternoster in a loud voice and in the vernacular, administering the body in frag- ments of bread and the blood in any vessel which might be handy ; all consecrations of sacred vessels, oil, and water was forbidden ; purgatory, which Huss had accepted, was denied, and to manifest their contempt for the suffrages of the saints they ate more than usual on fast-days and saints'-days ; auricular confession was de- rided — for venial sins confession to God sufficed, for mortal ones, public confession before the brethren, when the priest would assign a penalty commensurate with the offence. At the same time the rude and uncultured vigor of the Taborites led them to regard all human learning as a snare. Those who studied the liberal arts were regarded as heathen and as sinning against the Gospel, and all wTitings of the doctors, save what were expressly contained in the Bible, were to be destroyed. f * Mn. Sylvii Hist. Bohem. c. 35 ; Ejusd. Epist. 130 (0pp. Ed. 1571, p. 678).— Pet. Zatecens. Lib. Diurnus (Monument. Cone. Gen. Sacc. XV. T. I. p. 352). — Con- di. Bituricens. ann. 1432 (Harduin. VIII. 1459). — Goll, Quellen u. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Bohmischen Brixder, I. 106. t Goll, Quellen u. Untersuchungen, II. 40-1. — Prcger, Beitrage zur Geschichte 524 THE HUSSITES. What were their views with respect to the Lord's Supper can- not be stated with precision. Laurence of Brezowa, a Calixtin bitterly hostile to them, says that they consecrated the elements in a loud voice and in the vulgar tongue, that the people might be assured that they were receiving the real body and the real blood, which infers belief in transubstantiation. In 1431 Procopius the Great and other leaders of the Taborites issued a proclamation defining their position, in which they asserted their disbelief in purgatory, in the intercessory power of the Virgin and saints, in masses for the dead, in absolution through indulgences, etc., but said nothing against transubstantiation. When, in 1436, the leg- ates of the Council of Basle complained of the non-observance of the Compactata, one of their grievances was that Bohemia still sheltered Wickliifites who beheved in the remanence of the sub- stance of the bread, but they said nothing about the existence of any worse form of belief. On the other hand, the Taborite Bishop, Nicholas of Pilgram, strongly asserted that Christ was only pres- ent spiritually, that no veneration was due to the consecrated elements, and that there was less idolatry in those who of old adored moles and bats and snakes than in Christians who wor- shipped the host, for those things at least had life. During the negotiations, in January, 1433, the legates of the council presented a series of twenty-eight articles, attributed to the Bohemians, and asked for definite answers, yea or nay. One of these was a denial of transubstantiation, and the Bohemians could never be induced to make the desired reply. Peter Chelcicky reproached the Ta- borites with conceahng their belief on the subject, but it is probable that there was no absolute accord among them. The Chihast leaven doubtless spread the denial of transubstantiation ; others probably adopted the Wickliffite doctrine of remanence ; others again may have preserved the orthodox faith, and all resented the appellation of Pikards, with which the Bohemians designated those who disbelieved in the absolute conversion of the elements. Certain it is that the question did not come up with any prominence der Waldesier, pp. 68-71.— Laur. Byzyn. Diar. (Ludewig VI. 183-4, 194-202).— Johann. de Przibram Profess. Fidei (Cochlsei Hist. Huss. p. 507).— Huss, Senno de Exequiis (Monument. II. 50). See also ^neas Sylvius's statement of the identity between the Waldensian and Hussite teachings (Hist. Bohem. c. 35). GROWTH OF HUSSITISM. 526 in the negotiations with the Council of Basle ; and in the descrip- tion which ^neas Sylvius gives, in 1451, of the Taborites of Mount Tabor he simply says that some of them are so foolish that they hold the doctrine of Berenger, that the body of Christ is only fig- uratively in the sacrament.* It was impossible that harmony could be preserved between Taborite and Calixtin when there was so marked a divergence of religious conviction. They quarrelled and held conferences and persecuted each other, but they presented a united front to the levies of crusaders which Europe repeatedly sent against them, and Sigismund's hope of reconquering the throne of his fathers grew more and more remote. The death of Ziska, in 1424, made httle difference, save that his immediate followers organized them- selves into a separate party under the name of Orphans, but con- tinued in all things to co-operate with the Taborites. He was succeeded in the leadership by the warrior-priest Procopius Rasa, or the Great, whose militar}^ skill continued to hold banded Europe at bay. Hussitism, moreover, was spreading into the neighboring lands, especially to the south and east, requiring, as we shall see hereafter, the strenuous efforts of the Inquisition to eradicate it from Hungary and the Danubian provinces. In Poland its mis- sionary efforts called forth an edict from King Ladislas Y., April 6, 1424, ordering aU his subjects to join in exterminating heretics ; every Pole who returned from a sojourn in Bohemia was subjected to examination by the inquisitors or episcopal officials, and all who should not return by June 1 were declared heretics, their estates confiscated, and their children subjected to the customary disabil- * Laur. Byzyn. (loc. cit. p. 195).— Martene Ampl. Coll. VIII. 19-27, 249-51, 596-99.— Jo. de Turonis Regest. (Mon. Cone. Gen. Soec. XV. T. I. p. 842, 846).— Jo. de Ragusio Tractatus (Ibid. T. I. pp. 272-4, 278, 285).— GoU, Quellen, II. 17- 18, 61-4.— ^n. Sylvii Epist. 130 (Ed. 1571, p. 661). Even Rokyzana, in 1436, was with great difficulty forced to express his dis- belief in the remanence of the substance of the bread. — Jo. de Turonis Regest. (loc. cit. pp. 426-7). Yet nothing can exceed the strength of his affirmation of the existence of the body and blood, in his Tractatus de Septem Sacramentis (Cochlsei Hist. Hussit. pp. 473-4). In view of the exaggerated superstitious adoration of the Eucharist by the Calixtins, the assertion of Cardinal Giuliano, in 1431, that the Hussites were wont to manifest their contempt for it by tramp- ling it in the blood of the slain, is a good illustration of the stories invented to fltimulate popular abhorrence (Cochlsei op. cit. p. 240). 526 THE HUSSITES. ities.* The Church was completely baffled. It had triumphed over a similar revolt in Languedoc, and had shown the world, in charac- ters of blood and fire, how it utilized its triumphs. It now had a different problem to solve. Force having failed, it was obliged to discover some formula of reconciliation which should not too near- ly peril its claim to infallibility. To do it justice, it did not yield without compulsion. Tired of standing on the defensive against assaults whose repetition seemed endless, Procopius, in 1427, adopted the policy of aggression. He would win peace by making the coterminous states feel the miser- ies of war, and in a series of relentlessly destructive raids, con- tinued till 1432, he carried desolation into all the surrounding provinces. Thus in a foray of 1429, which cut a swath through Franconia, Saxony, and the Yogtland, over a hundred castles and fortified towns were captured, and an immense booty was carried back to Bohemia. Misnia, Lusatia, Silesia, Bavaria, Austria, and Hungary in turn felt the weight of the Hussite sword, while the prompt retirement of the invaders in every case showed that re- taliation and not conquest was their object. It was no wonder that a general cry for peace went up among those who bore the brunt of the effort to reassert the papal supremacy. f Meanwhile the Church was perplexed with another yet more vexatious question. Christendom never ceased to clamor for the reform of which it had been cheated at Constance. Skilful pro- crastination had wearied the reforming fathers, and they had con- sented, in 1418, to the dissolution of the council, hoping that the promises made in the election of Martin V. would be fulfilled. They took the precaution, however, to provide for an endless series of councils, which might be expected to resume and com- plete their unfinished work, and the plan which they laid out shows how deep-seated was the distrust entertained of the papacy. Another general council was ordered to be held in five years, then * Herburt. de Fulstin Statut. Regni Poloniae, Samoscii, 1597, p. 191. t Balbin. Epit. Rer. Hung. pp. 475-6.— Sommersberg Silesiac. Rer, Scriptt. L 75. — A popular rhyme of the period described : " Meissen und Sachsen verderbt, Oesterreich verhergt, Schliesien und Laussnitz zerscherbt, Mahren verzerht, Bayern aussgenehrt, Boheimb umbgekehrt." (Balbin. p. 478.) POSITION OF THE CHURCH. 527 one in seven years thereafter, and finally a perpetual succession at intervals of ten years, with careful provisions to nullify the ex- pected evasions of the popes.* As far as relates to Germany, Martin endeavored to perform the two duties for which he had been elected — the suppression of heresy and the reformation of the Church — by sending, in 1422, Cardinal Branda thither as legate. To accomplish the former ob- ject the legate was directed to preach another crusade, that of 1421 having ended so disastrousl3^ As regards the latter feature of his mission, the papal commission and the decree issued in con- formity with it by Branda describe the vices of the German clergy in terms quite as severe as those employed by Huss and his fol- lowers, and furnish a complete justification of the Bohemian re- volt. The only wonder is that pope or kaiser could expect the populations to rest satisfied with the ministrations of men who assumed to be gifted with supernatural power and to speak in the name of the Redeemer, while steeped to the lips in every form of greed, uncleanness, and lust. The constitution which Branda issued to cure these evils only prescribed a repetition of remedies which had vainly been applied for centuries. It simply attacked the symptoms and not the cause of the disease, and it consequently remained inoperative. f Five years had elapsed since the ending of the Council of Con- stance. Nothing had been accomplished to suppress heresy or reform the Church, and when in due time the Council of Siena assembled, in 1423, it remained to be seen whether the unfinished work of Constance could be completed. Under the presidency of four papal legates it was held that the attendance of prelates and princes was too small to permit the work of reformation to be undertaken, but it was sufficient to justify the council in confirm- ing the promises made by Martin of forgiveness of sins for all wlio should assist in exterminating the heretics. All Christian princes were summoned to lend their aid in the good work without delay if they wished to escape divine vengeance and the penalties pro- vided by law. All commerce of every kind with the heretics was forbidden, especially in victuals, cloth, arms, gunpowder, and lead ; every one trading with them, or any prince permitting communi- * C. Constant. Deer. Frequens (Von der Hardt IV. 1435). t Ludewig Reliq. MSS. XI. 385, 409. 628 THE HUSSITES. cation with them over his lands was pronounced subject to the punishments decreed against heresy. Bohemia was to be isolated and starved into submission by a material blockade enforced by spiritual censures.* As for reformation, it was found that all efforts seriously to consider it were skilfully blocked by the legates. This is not sur- prising, as the Church was to be reformed in its head as well as in its members, and the head was recognized as the chief source of infection. A project presented by the Galilean deputies de- scribed in indignant bitterness the abuses of the curia — the sale of preferments and dignities to the highest bidder, irrespective of fitness, with the consequent destruction of benefices and plunder of the people ; the papal dispensations which enabled the most incongruous pluralities to be held by individuals, and the other devices whereby Kome was enriched at the cost of religion ; the centralizing of all jurisdiction in Rome to the spoliation of the in- digent who dwelt at a distance ; the papal decrees which set aside the salutary regulations of general councils — showing how nuga- tory had been the reformatory regulations w^herewith Martin, when elected, had parried the attacks of the Council of Constance. The disappointment of the Council of Siena at the bafiiing of its efforts was leading to a tension of feeling that grew dangerous. A French friar, Guillaume Joselme, preached a sermon in which he demonstrated that the pope was the servant and not the mas- ter of the Church. The legates denounced him as a heretic, and ordered the magistrates of Siena to arrest him, but they, unlike Sigismund, replied that they had given a safe-conduct to all the members of the council, and could not go behind it. Finally, find- ing that under the control of the papacy no reformatory action was possible, the attempt was made to shorten to two or three years the seven years' interval that was to elapse before the next council. All the several nations had agreed to it when its enact- ment was prevented by the legates suddenly dissolving the coun- cil, March 8, 1424, in spite of a protest intimating very plainly that they had prevented all reformatory legislation. The seven years' interval was preserved, and the next council was indicated for Basle, in 1431. The reformers consoled themselves by pointing * Concil. Senens. ann. 1433 (Harduin. VIII. 1015). THE COUNCIL OP BASLE CONVOKED. 529 out that, of the four papal representatives concerned in thus stran- gling the council, three died within a year, of terrible deaths, man- ifestly the divine vengeance on their wickedness. Martin made a show of supplementing this lack of performance by appointing a commission of three cardinals to carry on the work of reform, and requested all complaints and suggestions to be sent to them — a measure which was as profitless in result as it was intended to be. Equally illusory was a constitution issued shortly after, restraining the ostentation and extravagance of the cardinals, and prohibiting them from assuming the " protection " of any prince or potentate, or asking favors except for the poor or for their own retainers and kindred, thus reducing the importance of the Sacred College as a factor of the Holy See and exalting his own.* The time fixed for the assembling of the Council of Basle, March, 1431, was rapidly drawing nigh without any action on the part of Martin looking to its convocation. He who owed his election to a general council was notorious for abhorring the very name of council. At length, on November 8, 1430, there ap- peared on the doors of the papal palace, and in the most conspicu- ous places in Rome, an anonymous notice, purporting to be issued by two Christian kings, reciting the necessity of holding a council in obedience to the decrees of Constance, and appending some con- clusions of a threatening character, to the effect that if the pope and cardinals impede it, or even evade promoting it, they are to be held as fautors of heresy ; that if the pope does not open the council himself or by his deputies, those who may be present Avill be compelled by divine law to withdraw obedience from him, and Christendom will be bound to obey them, and that they wiU be forced to proceed summarily to his deposition and that of the car- dinals as fautors of heresy. It was evident that Christendom was determined to have the council, with the pope or without him, and Martin, after holding out tiU the last moment, was compelled to yield. He had appointed, January 11, 1431, Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini as legate to preach another crusade with plenary indul- * Jo. de Ragusio Init. et Prosec. Cone. Basil. (Mon. Cone. Gen. Ssec. XV. T. I. pp. 28-30, 32-35, 53-61, 64).— Concil. Senens. (Harduiu. VIIL 1025-6).— Act. Cone. Basil. (Harduin. VIII. 1108-10).— Raynald. ann. 1425, No. 3, 4. John of Ragusa was the delegate of the University of Paris to Siena, and subsequently played an active part at Basle. II.— 34 530 THE HUSSITES. gences against the Hussites, and to him he issued, February 1, a commission to open and preside at the council. One of those most earnest in bringing this about was the Cardinal of Siena. Had he been able to forecast the future he would have tem.pered his zeal. Within three weeks Martin was dead, and on March 3 the Cardinal of Siena was elected his successor, taking the name of Eugenius IV.* Cardinal Giuliano went on his double mission and preached the fifth crusade against the Hussites. The Bohemian forays had stim- ulated Germany to an earnest effort to crush the troublesome rebels, and he found himself at the head of an army variously estimated at from eighty thousand to one hundred and thirty thousand men. The Bohemians apphed to the Emperor Sigismund for a safe-con- duct to Basle, offering to submit the questions at issue to debate on the basis of Scripture. This was refused, and they were told that they must agree to stand to the decisions of the council without hmitation. They preferred the arbitrament of arms, and issued a protest to the Christian world in which, with coarse good sense, they defined their position, attacked the temporal power of the papacy, and ridiculed the indulgences issued for their subjugation. This document was received by the council on August 10, very nearly on the day on which, at Taas, the crusaders fled without striking a blow, on hearing the battle-hymn of the dreaded Hussite troops. As a military leader Cardinal Giuliano was evidently a fail- ure, and it only remained for him to try peaceful measures. The German princes, alarmed and exhausted, showed evident signs of determination to come to terms with their unconquerable neigh- bors. It was a hard necessity, but there was no alternative, and on October 15 the council resolved to invite the Bohemians to a * Jo. de Ragusio Init. etc. (Mon. Con. Gen. Saec. XV. T. I. pp. 66-7). — Cochlsei Hist. Hussit. pp. 237-9. The repulsion of the papacy for general councils was not unnatural. On June 3, 1435, the Council of Basle, with virtual unanimity, abrogated the an- nates and decreed that in future no charges should be made for sealing colla- tions and confirmations of sees and benefices, except the scrivener's moderate fees. The Bishops of Otranto and Padua protested in the name of the pope, and finding this unheeded arose and left the council, followed by a few others, while the rest gave themselves up to rejoicing and thanking Grod.— jEgid. Carlerii Lib. de Legation, (op. cit. I. 568). THE SITUATION IN GERMANY. 531 conference and to give them a safe-conduct, although the letters were not forwarded until November 26.* Meanwhile the inevitable quarrels between pope and council had broken out with bitterness. But three weeks after the invitation to the Bohemians had been despatched, on December 18, Euge- nius took the extreme step of dissolving the council and calling another to be held in eighteen months at Bologna, where he would preside in person. At this action Germany was aghast. Sigis- mund remonstrated energetically, and the council, assured of his support, refused to obey. Cardinal Giuliano was won over and made himself its mouthpiece. He had had an opportunity of ob- serving the condition of men's minds north of the Alps, and he knew to what a storm the bark of St. Peter would be exposed. It may safely be said that since the papacy became dommant over the Church few popes have received from a subordinate so vigorous a reproof as that in which Giuliano gave his reasons for disobedi- ence, and it contains so vivid a picture of the times that a brief abstract of it cannot well be spared. Clerical wickedness, he says, in Germany is such that the lait}^ are irritated to the last degree against the Church, wherefore it is greatly to be feared that if there is no reformation they will execute their pubhc threats of rising, Uke the Hussites, against the clergy. This turpitude has given great audacity to the Bohemians and lends color to their heresy, and if the clergy cannot be reformed the suppression of this heresy would lead only to the breaking-out of another. The Bohemians have been invited to the council ; they have rephed and are expected to come. If the council is dissolved, what will the heretics say? Will not the Church confess herself defeated when she dares not await those whom she has invited? WiU not the hand of God be seen in it ? A host of warriors has fled before them, and now the Church universal flies ! Behold, they cannot be overcome either by arms or arguments! Alas for the wretched clergy wherever they be! Will they not be deemed incorrigible and determined to live in their filth? So many councils have been held in our days from which no reforma- tion has come ! From this one the nations have expected some * Martene Ampl. Coll. VIII. 15-18.— Chron. Concil. Zantfliet (Ibid. V. 425-7).— Jo. de Ragusio Tractatus (Mon. Cone. Gen. Ssec. XV. T. I. pp. 135, 138). 632 THE HUSSITES. fruit. If it be thus dissolved, we shall be said to laugh at God and man, and when there is no hope of our correction the laity will justly assail us, like the Hussites. Already there are reports of it, already they begin to spit forth the venom which is to de- stroy us. They will think to oifer a welcome sacrifice to God when they slay or despoil us, who will then be odious both to God and man, and whereas now there is Uttle respect for us, there will then be none. The council was some restraint upon them, but when they lose all hope they will persecute us publicly, and the whole blame will be thrown upon the Roman curia, which breaks up the assembly convened to effect reform. Latterly the city of Magdeburg has expelled her archbishop and clergy ; the citizens march with wagons like the Bohemians, and are said to have sent for a Hussite captain, and they have, moreover, a league with many other communities of those parts. The people of Passau have driven out their bishop and are besieging one of his castles. Both cities are near to Bohemia, and if, as is to be feared, they unite they will have a following of many other towns. At Bam- berg there is fierce discord between the citizens on the one side and the bishop and chapter on the other, which is especially danger- ous by reason of the neighborhood of the heretics. If the council is dissolved these quarrels will increase, and many other com- munities will be drawn in.* Making due allowance for inevitable rhetorical exaggeration this picture is a true one. Hussite ideas were rapidly spreading through Germany, and finding a congenial soil in the aversion born of incurable clerical corruption. About this time Felix Hemmerlin complains of the countless souls seduced to heresy by the emissaries who, every year, come from Bohemia to Berne and Soleure. JS'umerous executions of heretics are recorded at this period in Flanders, where persecution had been for centuries almost unknown, and we may be sure that Hussite missionaries were busily carrying on an equally successful propaganda elsewhere. If the hopes which were built on the council were destroyed, the • Harduin VHI. 1575-8.— Raynald. ann. 1431, No. 26.— Epist. Card. Juliani (JSn. Sylv. 0pp. Ed. 1571, pp. 66-9). The letter of Cardinal Giuliano and ^neas Sylvius's Commentaries on the Council of Basle were subsequently put in the Index Expurgatorius (Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen Biicher, I. 40). NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE HUSSITES. 533 Church might well expect a general revolt. Sustained by the united support of Cismontane Christendom, the council resolutely went its way. Sigismund urged it to stand firm, and in Novem- ber, 1432, he issued an imperial declaration that he Avould sustain it against all assailants. Eugenius held out until February, 1433, when he assented to its continuance, but in July he again dis- solved it, and in September repeated the command. Then the council commenced active proceedings to arraign and try him, and in December he revoked these bulls. In the subsequent quarrel the council decreed his suspension in January, 1439, and his deposi- tion in June, while the election of Amedeo of Savoy as Felix Y. was confirmed in November of the same year.* Into the details of the interminable negotiations which fol- lowed between the council and the Hussites it is not worth while to enter. The latter carried their point, and, in a conference held at Eger, May 18, 1432, it was agreed that the questions should be debated on the basis of the Scriptures and the writings of the early fathers. The four articles which were the common ground of Calixtins and Taborites were put forward as their demands, and to these they steadily adhered through all the dreary discussions in Basle, Prague, Briinn, Stuhlweissenberg, to the final conference of Iglau in July, 1436. The discussions were ofttimes hot and angry, and the good fathers of Basle were sometimes scandalized at the freedom of speech of the Bohemian delegates. When John of Ragusa alluded to the Hussites as heretics, John Rokyzana, one of the Calixtin delegates, indignantly denied it, and demanded that if any one accused them of heresy he should offer the talio and prove it. Procopius, who represented the Taborites, joined in and declared that he would not have come to Basle had he known that he would be thus insulted. Time and skill were re- quired to pacify the Bohemians, and John of Ragusa and the Archbishop of Lyons were forced to apologize formally. On an- other occasion the Inquisitor Henry of Coblentz, a Dominican doctor, complained that Ulric of Znaim, a deputy of the Orphans, had said that monks were introduced by the devil. Ulric denied it, and Procopius intervened, saying that he had remarked to the • Hemmerlin Lollardor. Descriptio.— Duverger, La Vauderie dans les fitats de Philippe le Bon, Arras, 1885, p. 24.— Harduin. VIII. 1141, 1172-83, 1263, 1280, 1582, 1606.— Martene Ampl. Coll. VIII. 80-2. 534 THE HUSSITES. legate that if the bishops came from the apostles, and priests from the seventy-two disciples, the others could have had no other source but the devil. This sally raised a general laugh, which was in- creased when Rokyzana called to the inquisitor, " Doctor, make Dom Procopius provincial of your order." These trifles have their significance when compared with the shor.ts of " Burn him ! Burn him !" which assailed Huss at Constance. In fact the Hussites were urged to incorporate themselves with the council, but they were too shrewd to fall into the snare.* By unbending firmness the Bohemians carried their point, and secured the recognition of the four articles, which became cele- brated in history as the Compactata — the Magna Charta of the Bohemian Church until swept away by the counter-Reformation. This was agreed to in Prague, November 26, 1433, and confirmed by mutual clasp of hands between the legates of the council and the deputies of the three Bohemian sects, but matters were by no means settled. The four articles were brief and simple declara- tions which admitted of unlimited diversity of construction. The dialecticians of the council had no difficulty in explaining them away, until they practically amounted to nothing ; the Hussites, on the other side, with equal facility, expanded them to cover all that they could possibly wish to claim. Hardly was the handclasping over when it was found that the Bohemians asserted that the per- mission of communion in both elements meant that they were to continue to administer it to infants, and to force it proscriptively on every one — positions to which the council could by no means assent. This will serve as an illustration of the innumerable ques- tions which kept the negotiators busy during yet thirty dreary months. So far, indeed, was the matter as yet from being settled, that, in April, 1434, the council levied a half -tithe on Christendom for a crusade against the Hussites, which enabled it to stimulate with liberal payments the zeal of the Bohemian Catholic nobles.f * Martene Ampl. Coll. VIII. 131-33.— Pet. Zatecens. Lib. Diurn. (Mon. Cone. Gen. S«c. XV. T. I. p. 304-5, 324, 328-31, 348).— Naucleri Chron. ann. 1434. tuEgid. Carlerii Lib. de Legation (Ibid. T. I. pp. 447-71,495-7).— Martene Ampl. Coll.VIIL 305-40,356-415, 698-704.- Haitzheim V. 768-9.— Kukuljevic, Jura Regni Croatiae, Zagrabiae, 1862, I. 192.— Batthyani Legg. Eccles. Hung. III. 419. The question of infantile communion affords an illustration of the skilful casuistry of the orthodox. After the reconciliation, when Sigismund was ruling I OVERTHROW OF THE TABORITES. 535 It is not likely that any results would have been reached but for events which at first seemed to threaten the continuance of the negotiations. The Taborites could only have consented to treat on the basis, so inadequate to them, of the four articles, in the con- fidence that the practical application would cover a vastly wider sphere. After the preliminary agreement of November 26, the construction assumed by the legates of the council made them draw back. The affair was reaching a conclusion, and it was necessary to have a definite understanding of that to which they were binding themselves. After the departure of the legates from Prague, in January, 1434, hot discussions arose between them and the Calixtins as to the continuance of the negotiations. There were political as well as religious differences between them. The Taborites were mostly peasants and poor folk ; they wanted no nobles or gentlemen in their ranks, and seem to have had repub- lican tendencies, as they desired to add to the four articles two others, providing for the independence of Bohemia and for the re- tention of all confiscated property. Both parties became exasper- ated, and flew to arms for a contest decisive as to their respective mastery. The Taborites had for some time been besieging Pilsen, a city which held out for Sigismund. Learning that their friends in the Neustadt of Prague had been slaughtered without distinc- tion of age or sex, to the number, it is said, of twenty-two thou- sand, they raised the siege. May 9, to take vengeance on the city, but after a demonstration before it, they withdrew towards Mora- via. Meanwhile the Calixtins had formed an alliance with the Catholic barons, who had been liberally subsidized by the council, and followed them with a formidable force. The shock came at Lipan, on Sunday, May 30. All day and night the battle raged, and until the third hour of Monday morning. When it was over, Procopius, Lupus, and thirteen thousand of the bravest Taborites lay dead upon the field, and the murderous nature of the strife is seen in the fact that but seven hundred prisoners were taken, though we may question the claim of the victors that the battle cost them but two hundred men, and we may hope that there is in Prague, infantile communion was forbidden by the legate of the council, on the ground that the Compactata only guaranteed the privilege to those who had been accustomed to it, and that infants born since then were therefore not en- titled to it.— Jo. de Turonis Regest. (Mon. C. Gen. Saec. XV. T. I. p. 865). 536 THE HUSSITES. exaggeration in the boast that they burned several thousand of those whom they subsequently captured. The power of the Tabor- ites was utterly broken. It is true that they continued to hold Mount Tabor until finally crushed by George Podiebrad, in 1452 ; and that in the December following the battle their unconquera- ble spirit was again contemplating an appeal to arms, but after Lipan they were only a troublesome element of insubordination, and not a factor in the pohtical situation. The congratulatory letters sent by some of the victors to Sigismund, and the effusive joy with which he communicated the news to the council, show that the victory was one for the Catholics.* Even after the virtual elimination of the Taborites there were ample subjects of dispute, and at one time the prospect seemed so unpromismg that prehminary arrangements were set on foot, in August, 1434, for organizing a new crusade on the proceeds of the half -tithe levied shortly before. One source of endless trouble sprang from the personal ambition of Rokyzana. Learned, able, a hardy disputant, and a skilled man of affairs, he had determined to be Archbishop of Prague, and this object he pursued with un- alterable constancy. He bore a leading part in the negotiations, and made himself as conspicuous as possible, shifting his ground with dexterity, interposing objections and smoothing them as the interest of the moment might dictate. At first he endeavored to have a clause inserted that the people and the clergy should be empowered to elect an archbishop, who should be acknowledged and confirmed by the emperor and the pope. This being rejected, he procured of Sigismund a secret agreement that the election » Martene Ampl. Coll. VHI. 710-19.— Harduin. VHI. 1604, 1650-2.— ^gid. Carlerii Liber de Legationibus (Mon. Cone. Gen. Saec. XV. T. I. pp. 522, 529-39, 544).— Raynald. ann. 1435, No. 22-3.— Naucleri Chron. ann. 1434. The democratic insubordination characteristic of the Taborites is seen in an incident occurring in September, 1433. Procopius sent a detachment to invade Bavaria, and appointed as leader a captain named Pardus. The men mutinied before setting out, and, on Procopius interposing, one of them felled him to the ground -with a blow on the head with a stool. The man who struck him was elected leader, and under his guidance the Taborites lost two thousand of their best veterans.— .lEgid. Carlerii 1. c. pp. 466-7. The reduction to serfdom of the Bohemian peasantry, in 1487, may be re- garded as the final result of the overthrow of the Taborites. ROKYZANA'S AMBITION. 537 should be held, and that the emperor would do all in his power to secure the confirmation by the pope, without cost for pallium, confirmation, or notarial fees. Although this, when discovered, was protested against by the legates of the council and refused by the council itself, he proceeded, in 1435, to obtain an election by the national assembly of Bohemia, to the great disgust of the orthodox, who reasonably dreaded this example of a return of the primitive methods of selecting prelates. Again Sigismund secretly accepted this, while the legates declared it to be invalid, and that, as an infraction of the Compactata, it must be annulled. On this question the whole negotiation was nearly wrecked, and it was only settled by Sigismund and his son-in-law and heir, Albert of Austria, promising to issue letters recognizing Rokyzana as arch- bishop, and to compel obedience to him as such. After this it re- quired but a fortnight more of quarrelling to bring the matter to a termination, and signatures to the Compactata were duly ex- changed July 5, 1436, amid general rejoicings. Sigismund, restored to the throne of his fathers, made a show of complying with his promise, by writing to the council a letter asking Rokyzana's con- firmation, at the same time explaining to the legates that he con- sidered the council ought to refuse, but that he did not wish to break with his new subjects too suddenly. Of course the confir- mation never came, and although Rokyzana called God to witness that he did not wish the archbishopric, the policy of his long life was devoted to obtaining it. With all convenient speed Sigismund forgot the pledge to enforce obedience to him. His position became so dangerous that he secretly fled from Prague, June 16, 1437, and remained in exile until after the deaths of Sigismund and Albert, when he returned in 1440, and speedily became the most powerful man in Bohemia. This position he retained until his death, in 1471, administering the archbishopric, constantly seeking confir- mation at the hands of successive popes, and subordinating the policy of the kingdom, internal and external, so far as he dared, to that object — not the least anomalous feature of the anomalous Calixtin Church.* * Marten e Ampl. Coll. VIII. 354-6. — ^gid. Carlerii Lib. de Legationibus (Mon. Cone. Gen. Saec. XV. T. I. pp. 368-9, 516-17, 519, 595, 597, 600, 632-4, 662-4, 674-6, 678, 684-6, 688).— Tb. Ebendorfcri Diar. (lb. pp. 767-9, 776-0, 78^-3).— Jo. de Turonis Regest. (lb. 834-5, 837-8, 848, 868). 538 THE HUSSITES. A peace in which all parties distrusted each other and placed radically different interpretations on its conditions was not likely to heal dissensions so profound. The very day after the solemn ratification of the Compactata an ominous disturbance showed how superficial was the reconciliation. In the presence of an im- mense crowd, at the high altar of the church of Iglau, where the final conferences were held, the Bishop of Coutances, chief of the legation of the council, celebrated mass and returned thanks to God. After this the letters of agreement were read in Bohemian, and Rokyzana commented upon them in the same language, much to the discomfort of the legates. He had been celebrating mass at a side altar, and when the reading was finished he called out, " If any one wishes communion in both elements let him come to this altar and it wiU be given to him." The legates rushed over to him and twice forbade him, but he quietly disregarded them and administered the sacrament to eight or ten persons. The in- cident excited intense feeling on both sides. The Bohemians de- manded that a church be assigned to them in Iglau where during their stay they could receive the sacrament in both kinds ; the legates refused the request, although urged by the emperor, and finally, after threats of departure, the Bohemians were forced to content themselves with celebrating, as they had previously done, in private houses.* When Sigismund was fairly seated on the throne, there f oUowed an endless series of bickerings, as the rites and ceremonies and usages of the Roman Church were restored, supplanting the sim- pler worship which had prevailed for twenty years. Consecra- tions, confirmations, images, relics, holy water, benedictions, were one by one introduced — even the hated religious orders were sur- reptitiously smuggled in. The canonical hours and chants were renewed in the churches, and every effort was made to accustom the people to a resurrection of the old order of things. On Cor- pus Christi day, May 30, 143Y, a gorgeous procession swept through the streets of Prague bearing the host on high ; the legate, the Archbishop of Kalocsa, and the Bishop of Segnia headed it, and were dutifuUy followed by the emperor and empress, the nobles • Th. Ebendorferi Diar. (loc. cit. 82).— Jo. de Turonis Regest. (lb. 821-22).— Naucleri Chron. ann. 1436. REACTION IN BOHEMIA. 539 and a mass of citizens. As a mute protest, Rokyzana met the splen- did array, attended only by three priests, and bearing both host and cup. To the stern puritans who had so long struggled against the Scarlet Woman the imposing ceremony must have seemed a bitter mockery, for the Empress Barbara, who occupied a conspicu- ous position in the ranks, was a woman notorious for shameless licentiousness, and, moreover, was an avowed atheist, who disbe- lieved in the immortahty of the soul.* Within three weeks of this celebration, Rokyzana was a fugi- tive, seeking the protection of George Podiebrad at Hradecz, not without reason, if ^neas Sylvius is correct in saying that Sigis- mund was about to arrest him and punish him condignly. Then the process of reaction went on apace. Had Sigismund lived, he might have overcome all resistance, and reduced the land to obedi- ence to Rome. His power was constantly growing. In March the surrender of the Taborite stronghold of Konigingratz filled the Hussites with consternation. JSTot long after siege was laid to Zion, the fastness of John Rohacz, a powerful baron who had refused submission. He was finally captured in it, brought to Prague, and hanged in the presence of the emperor with sixty of his followers and a priest. Tradition relates that on that very day Sigismund was attacked with an ulcer which grew constant- ly worse and ended his days in December. Almost simultaneous with this was the decision by the Council of Basle on the question of communion in both elements, in which it skilfully evaded the inconsistency of the prohibition of the cup, and pronounced it to be the law of the Church, not to be modified without authority. As Albert of Austria, the son-in-law and successor of Sigismund, was a zealous Catholic prince, the council was emboldened in Janu- ary, 1438, to issue an edict reciting and ordering the strict enforce- ment of the implacable bull of February 22, 1418, by Martin Y., directed against the errors of Wickliff, Uuss, and Jerome. This evidence of what they were to expect as the outcome of the Com- pactata gave the Taborrtes and the disaffected parties in Bohemia new energy. After a fruitless appeal to the council an alliance was made with Poland, whose boy-king, Casimir, was elected as a * Jo. de Turonis Regest. (loc. cit. pp. 863, 865). — ^n. Sylvii EBst. Bohem. c. 69. — Naucleri Chron. ann. 1437. 540 THE HUSSITES. competitor. Thus strengthened they offered effective resistance to Albert, who up to his sudden death, October 27, 1439, was un- able to occupy the whole of his kingdom. Four months later, Ladislas, his posthumous son, was born, and a long minority, with its accompanying turbulence, enabled the Calixtins again to get the upper hand, over both the Taborites and the Catholics. In 1441 a council held at Kuttenberg organized the national Church on a Calixtin basis. Several conferences were held with the Ta- borites, and the points at issue were referred to the national diet held in January, 1444. Its emphatic decision in favor of the Cahx- tin doctrine broke up the Taborite organization. The cities stiU held by them surrendered one by one, and the members were scat- tered, for the most part joining the Calixtins. As a separate sect they may be said to have disappeared when, in 1452, George Podiebrad captured Mount Tabor and dispersed their remains.* After the death of Albert what central authority there was in Bohemia was lodged in the hands of two governors, Ptacek rep- resenting the Calixtins, and Mainhard of Rosenberg, the victor of Lipan, the Catholics. In October, 1443, we hear of the Em- peror Frederic III. as about starting for Bohemia where he ex- pected to receive the regency, but his hopes were frustrated. Ptacek died in 1445, when the choice for his succession fell upon George Podiebrad, a powerful baron, who, though only twenty- four, had acquired a high reputation for military abihty and sa- gacity. He was largely under the influence of Rokyzana, to whom doubtless his election was due. After a long interval, Rome again appeared upon the scene. Nicholas V., who ascended the papal throne in 1447, sent, in 1448, John, Cardinal of Sant' Angelo, to Prague as legate. The Bohemians earnestly urged him to ratify the Compactata and confirm Rokyzana as archbishop. He prom- ised an answer, but finding the situation embarrassing, he secretly left Prague with Mainhard of Rosenberg. Popular indignation * Mn. Sylvii Epist. Ixxi. (0pp. inedd. ap. Atti della Accademia dei Lincei, 1883, p. 465).— Jo. de Turonis Regest. (Mod. Cone. Gen. Saec. XV. T. I. pp. 855, 857).— Camerarii Hist. Frat. Orthod. pp. 57-8.— Naucleri Chron. ann. 1436, 1438. — Concil. Basiliens. Sess. XXX. (Harduin. VIH. 1244). — Petitiones Bohemorum (Fascic. Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend. I. 319, Ed. 1690).— Martene Ampl. Coll. VIII. 942-3.— ^n. Sylvii Epist. 101 (Ed. 1571, p. 591).— Chron. Cornel. Zantfliet (Mar- tene Ampl. Coll. V. 445). — De Schweinitz, Hist, of Unitas Fratrum, pp. 91-2, 94. THE SITUATION IN BOHEMIA. 541 enabled George by a coup cTetat, in which there was considerable bloodshed, to render himself master of Prague and to cast Main- hard into prison, where he died soon after. George thus became the undisputed master of Bohemia. When Ladislas, in 1452, was recognized as king, George secured the regency, and when the young monarch died towards the close of 1457, at the early age of eighteen, George's coronation as king soon followed. Under him, until just before his death in 1471, Rokyzana's influence was al- most unbounded.* The situation of Bohemia, as a member of the Latin Church, was unprecedented. After the first break between Eugenius lY. and the Council of Basle the name of the pope disappears in the negotiations for the restoration of unity. These were carried on by both sides as though the concihar authority was supreme, and the papal assent or confirmation was a matter of no moment, al- though a papal legate was present in January, 1436, at the con- ference at Stuhlweissenberg, where the matter was virtually set- tled. As the council drew to its weary end, powerless and dis- credited, the triumphant Eugenius was not disposed to recognize the validity of its acts or to ratify them gratuitously. The Bo- hemians alleged that he had confirmed the Compactata, but no positive evidence was forthcoming. To purchase the submission of Germany, in 1447, he had ratified a portion of the acts of the council, but the Compactata could not be included in his carefully guarded decrees. On the accession of Nicholas Y., in 1447, the Bohemians sent to him a deputation offering him their allegiance, but we have seen how wary was the legate whom he despatched in return to Prague. It is true that to obtain the abdication of Felix Y., Nicholas issued a bull, June 28, 1449, approving all the acts of the council which might strictly be held to confirm the Compactata, but the character of the bull shows that it had in view rather the material interests involved in benefices and prefer- ment. Whatever doubt the Bohemians may have had as to the papal intentions towards them was speedily dissipated.f • ^n. Sylvii Hist. Bohem. c. 58.— Ejusd. Epist. xix. (0pp. inedd. p. 397).— Raynald. ann. 1448, No. 3-5. f ^gid. Carlerii. Lib. de Legation. (Monument. Cone. Gen. Saec. XV. T. I. pp. 691, 694).— Cochlaei Hist. Hussit. Lib. xii. auu. 1462.— Wadding, anu. 1452, 542 '^HE HUSSITES. Rome, in fact, had never proposed to recognize the compromise made by the council. While the latter was busy in endeavoring to win back the Hussites, Eugenius 1 V. was laboring for their exter- mination by the usual methods, in such regions as he could reach. The relations between Bohemia and Hungary had long been close, and Hussitism had spread widely throughout the latter kingdom as well as in the Slavic territories to the south. As early as 1413 we hear complaints of Wickliffite doctrines carried into Croatia by students returning from the University of Prague. As Sigis- mund was King of Hungary, the Compactata were supposed to cover the Hungarian Hussites, and were published in Hungarian as well as in Bohemian, German, and Latin. We have seen, how- ever, how false he was to his Bohemian subjects, and those of Hungary he cheerfully abandoned to Rome. Six weeks after the signature of the Compactata at Iglau, on August 22, 1436, Euge- nius commissioned the indefatigable persecutor, Era Giacomo della Marca, as Inquisitor of Hungary and Austria. He was already on the ground, for in January of that year we catch a glimpse of him as present in the conference at Stuhlweissenberg. Era Giacomo lost no time. Before the close of the year he had traversed Hun- gary from end to end, with merciless severity. The Archbishop of Gran, the Chapter of Kalocsa, the Bishop of Waradein, were loud in his praises. Their dioceses, they said, had been infected with heretics so numerous that a rising was anticipated which would have exceeded in horror the Bohemian wars, but this holy man had exterminated them. The numbers whom he put to death are not enumerated, but they must have been considerable from the expressions employed, and from the terror inspired, for his as- sociates declared that in this expedition he had received the sub- mission of fifty-five thousand converts. As the Bishop of Wara- dein rapturously declared, had the Apostle Paul accompanied him No. 1-4.— Raynald. ann. 1446, No. 3, 4 ; ann. 1447, No. 5-7.— Harduin. VIII. 1307-9. The papal view of the permission to use the cup, as set forth by Pius II. (^neas Sylvius) in 1464, was that it was only conceded to those accustomed to it until the Council of Basle should decide the question. Had this been ob- served those who used it would in time have died out, and it was an infraction of the agreement to give it to children and new communicants, through whom the custom was perpetuated. — -^n. Sylvii Epist. Ixxi. (0pp. inedd. pp. 465). PERSECUTION IN HUNGARY. 543 he could not have effected more. Earnestly tlie Bishops of Csa- nad and Transylvania appealed to him to visit their dioceses, which abounded in heretics ; and as the latter prelate speaks of the Huss- ites having penetrated to his bishopric from Moldavia, it shows how widely the heresy had been diffused through southeastern Europe.* Suddenly, in 1437, Fra Giacomo's career was interrupted. He had crushed the Fraticelh of Italy, the wild Cathari of Bosnia, and the fiercer Hussites of Hungary, but when he attacked the orthodox concubinary priests of Fiinfkirchen, and strove to force them to abandon the illicit partners who w^ere universally kept, they proved too strong for even his iron will and seasoned nerves, backed though he was by the power of pope and kaiser and the awful authority of the Inquisition. They raised such a storm at this attempted invasion of their accustomed privileges that he w^as obliged to abandon his work and fly for his Hfe. He appealed to Eugenius, and Eugenius to Sigismund. The latter wrote to Henry, the Bishop of Fiinfkirchen, peremptorily ordering him to recaU Giacomo and give him every aid, and also to Giacomo, assuring him of support. Thus assailed. Bishop Henry gave instructions that Giacomo should be supplied with aU necessaries, but the at- tempt to enforce chastity on the priesthood seems to have been abandoned. The customary penalty in Hungary for such offences was five marks, and the synods of Gran in 1450 and 1480 complain that the archdeacons not only keep these fines for themselves, but encourage the criminals in order to derive profit from them j in fact, they issued in Hungary, as in many other places, licenses to sin, which may, perhaps, explain the indignation caused by Gia- como's interference and its lack of success.f He appears to have meddled no longer with the private lives of the orthodox clergy, but to have devoted his energies to the easier work of exterminating heretics. Early in 143Y we hear of him south of the Danube, where the Bishop of Sreim praised his effective work ; by putting to death all who could not be converted, he had saved the diocese from a rising of the Hussites, in which * Loserth, Mittheilungen des Vereiiis fiir Gesch. der Deutschen in Bolimen, 1885, pp. 103-4, 107.— Wadding, ann. 143G, No. 1-11.— iEgid. Carlerii. Lib. de Legation. (Mon. Cone. Gen. Ssec. XV. T. I. p. 691). t Wadding, ann. 1437, No. 6-12.— Synodd. Strigonens. ann. 1450, 1480 (Bat- thyani Legg. Eccles. Hung. III. 481, 557). 544 THE HUSSITES. all the clergy would have been slain. Eugenius rewarded him by describing him as " a vigorous and most ruthless extirpator of heresy," and granting him the power of appointing subordinate inquisitors, thus rendering him an inquisitor-general in all the wide region confided to him. It was probably a result of the quarrel over the priestly concubines that led, in 1438, Simon of Bacska, Archdeacon of Fiinfkirchen, to excommunicate him ; but that official was speedily forced to withdraw the anathema by the Emperor Albert and the Archbishop of Gran, For a while his la- bors were interrupted by a call to attend the Council of Ferrara, held in 1438 by Eugenius IV., to offset the hostile assemblage at Basle, but he speedily returned to Hungary. It was doubtless owing to his efforts that in Poland the barons and cities entered into a solemn league and covenant to suppress heresy, April 25, 1438 — just before Poland intervened in Bohemia to protect the Hussites from the Emperor Albert. In 1439 Giacomo's zeal re- ceived a check on the more immediate fields of his labors. In Sreim he delivered to the secular arm, as convicted heretics, a priest and three associates ; their friends assembled in force, broke open the prison and carried off the culprits, and, what is difficult to understand, unless the heresy was merely concubinage, the Arch- bishop of Kalocsa, when appealed to, protected the criminals. Giacomo had recourse to the Emperor Albert, who wrote sharply to the archbishop in June ; and this proving ineffectual, again in August. What was the result of the affair is not known, but Al- bert, as we have seen, died in October, to the great detriment of religion; and in 1440 Giacomo left Hungary on account of ill- health. He seems not to have been immediately replaced, and, in the absence of organized persecution, the tares speedily began to multiply again among the wheat. In January, 1444, Eugenius IV., deploring the spread of Hussitism throughout the Danubian regions, appointed the Observantine Vicar Fabiano of Bacs as in- quisitor for the whole Slavonian vicariate, which included Hun- gary, with power to appoint inquisitors under him. These were authorized to act in complete independence of the local prelates ; Holy Land indulgences were promised to all who would aid them, and excommunication, removable only by pope or inquisitor, against all withholding assistance. In July, 1446, Eugenius again alludes to the flourishing condition of Hussitism in Hungary and ROME DISREGARDS THE COMPACTATA. 545 Moldavia, in spite of the labors of the friars, and he recurs to the question which baffled Giacomo della Marca. Many parish priests, he says, in these regions not only keep concubines publicly, but teach that there is no sin in intercourse between unmarried per- sons ; the question has been asked him whether this is heresy, jus- ticiable by the Inquisition ; this he answers in the affirmative, and authorizes Fabiano and his deputies to treat it as such. Appar- ently it was not the practice itself, but the justification of it, which was so heinous.* If Kome was thus active in repressing Hussitism, and thus re- gardless of the Compactata while crippled by the quarrel with the fathers of Basle, it may readily be imagined that, after the abdi- cation of Felix y. and the restoration of unquestioned supremacy, Nicholas Y. was not disposed to respect the bargain made by the council or to regard the Cahxtins in any light but that of here- tics. It was in vain that the Bohemians proffered obedience if only the Compactata were confirmed, with a tacit condition that Kokyzana's claims to the archbishopric should be recognized. Ostensibly the sole difficulty in the way of reunion lay in the use of the cup by the laity and the communion of infants ; save this there was by this time but little to distinguish the Calixtins from the rest of the Latin churches, although occasionally the question, of the sequestrated church lands emerged into view. The papacy had taken its position, however, and it would have plunged all Christendom into war, as, in fact, it more than once attempted, rather than admit that the Council of Basle had been justified in purchasing peace by conceding communion in both elements. Be- hind this, however, was the question of Ilokyzana's confirmation. ^Eneas Sylvius informs us that in 1451 he convinced George Po- diebrad of the impossibility of effecting this, and secured a prom- ise that the attempt should bo abandoned, he pledging himself that if George would present the names of several suitable persons the pope would select one, and peace would then be established. This treated the Compactata as of minor importance, and was • Wadding, ann. 1437, No. 13-21 ; ann. 1438, No. 12-16 ; ann. 1439, No. 41-6 ; ann. 1440, No. 7 ; ann. 1444, No. 44 ; ann. 1446, No. 10.— Ilcrburt dc Fulstin Sta- tuta Regni PolonuB, Samoscii, 1597, p. 193. — Raynald. ann. 1446, No. 10. — Theiner Monument. Slavor. Meridian. I. 394. II.-35 546 THE HUSSITES. doubtless wholly unauthorized. Neither George nor Eokyzana gave up their hopes ; the effort was renewed agaiii and again, now with the pope, now with the Emperor Frederic III., and now with the German Diet, but all to no purpose. Occasionally when there was an object to be gained hopes would be held out, only to be withdrawn. The papal emissaries represented Eokyzana to Rome as the most wicked and perfidious of heresiarchs, whose rec- ognition would be the destruction of what remained of Catholi- cism in Bohemia, and there never was the shghtest idea of con- firming him.* When the overthrow of Mainhard of Rosenberg and the con- centration of power in the hands of George Podiebrad showed that no further hopes were to be built on the Catholic party in Bohemia, Nicholas Y. fell back upon the old methods and resolved to try what could be done by a missionary inquisitor. He had at hand an instrument admirably fitted for the work. Giovanni da Capistrano, vicar-general of the Observantine Franciscans, had commenced his career as an inquisitor in 1417 ; he was now in his sixty-sixth year, vigorous and implacable as ever. Small and in- significant in appearance, shrivelled by austerities until he seemed * ^n. Sylvii. Epistt. 130, 246-7, 259, 404 (Ed. 1571, pp. 667, 782-3, 788, 947).— Waddiug. ann. 1455, No. 2 ; ann. 1456, No. 11-12. In George Podiebrad's letter of 1468 to his son-in-law Matthius Corvinus, complaining of his treatment by the Holy See, he says, " In truth there were formerly in Bohemia many errors concerning the sacrament, and also concerning the ornaments and vestments in administering the rite, and the veneration of saints, but by divine grace these have been so reduced that there is scarcely any difference now existing with the Roman Church. By comparing what was customary thirty or forty years ago with the present, it will be seen that little remains to do in comparison with what has been accomplished." — D'Achery Spicileg. III. 834. A notable part of this retrogression occurred in 1454, when edicts were is- sued in the name of Ladislas, with the consent of Rokyzana, ordering that the epistles and gospels, in the canon of the mass, should be recited in Latin and not in the vulgar tongue ; that confession should be a prerequisite to commun- ion; that children should not receive communion without due preparation; that the blood of the Eucharist should not be carried beyond the churches for fear of accidents; that no one should administer it without letters authenti- cating his priesthood ; that no marriage should be celebrated without banns published in full church. — Chrou. Cornel. Zautliiet. ann. 1454 (Martene Ampl. CoU. V. 486-7). GIOVANNI DA CAPISTRANO. 547 to consist only of skin and bone and nerves, he rarely tasted meat and allowed himself but four hours of sleep out of the twenty- four, the remainder being all too few for his restless and indefat- igable activity. His saintly and self-denying life had gained him enviable powers as a thaumaturge, and his reputation as a preacher drew crowds to listen to his eloquence. In 1451 he was busy in exterminating the Fraticelli, but he suspended his bloody work at the call of Nicholas to undertake the conversion of the Hussites. Nothing was omitted that could contribute to the dramatic effect of his mission. Before assuming it he sought the divine assent by consulting the Virgin at Assisi, when the heavenly Ught diffused around him was a sign that his apostolate was confirmed ; he ac- cepted the enlarged powers which extended his inquisitorial com- mission to the Bohemian territories, and set forth. Everywhere on his road multitudes assembled to see and listen to the man of God, and everywhere his miraculous powers manifested the au- thenticity of his mission. At Brescia he addressed an assembly computed at one hundred and twenty thousand souls, and, though walls and trees were broken down by the masses of men gathered thickly upon them, not a human being was injured. At the cross- ing of the Elver Sile, near Treviso, the party, with true Observan- tine austerity, had no money to pay ferriage, and the surly ferry- man refused free transportation ; but Capistrano quietly took the habit of San Bernardino, which he carried with him, laid it upon the waters, and they shrank away till all had passed dry-shod, when they resumed their former volume. Thus heralded, his way through Venice and Vienna was a triumphal progress ; crowds of sixty thousand or one hundred thousand to hear him preach were common ; men came from a distance of five hundred miles to listen to him ; at Vienna three hundred thousand were reckoned pres- ent ; the sick were brought before him in thousands, and the mi- raculous cures which he wrought were computed by liundrcds. The ecclesiastical machinery was evidently well-devised and ef- fectively worked, and the desired impression was produced.* In vain the emperor asked permission for liini to visit Prague. Podiebrad and Rokyzana refused it peremptorily, ami Capistrano's zeal for martyrdom was not sufficient to prompt him to disregard ♦ Wadding, ann. 1451, No. 1-16 ; ann. 1452, No. 84. 548 THE HUSSITES. their wishes. Furnished with imperial letters to the Catholic no- bles and to their leader, Ulric Mainhard of Eosenberg, he turned in Jul}'- to the safer region of Moravia, where presumably the in- fluence of Podiebrad and Rokyzana was not so strong. Here his career indicates how little foundation there was for the persistent Catholic complaints of the proscriptive intolerance of the Calixtins. Though on Bohemian territory, Catholic and Hussite seem to have been dwelling together in mutual harmony ; the Bishop of Olmiitz was a Catholic, and no hindrance seems to have been experienced by Capistrano in his labors for the conversion of the so-called her- etics. Beginning at Briinn, August 1, 1451, there is a register con- taining names and dates of more than eleven thousand conversions made by him up to May, 1452. Yet at the same time he was re- stricted to persuasion, and was not allowed to use inquisitorial methods. As his converts were voluntary, he smoothed the path of the repentant heretic, reconciling him to the Church with only the infliction of a salutary penance, and allowing him to retain all his possessions and dignities. "Where the heretic was hardened, he was powerless, except through such miraculous power as he could wield. The situation was an anomalous one — unexampled, in fact, in the Middle Ages — of heretic and Catholic dwelling to- gether in peace, the heretic in the ascendant, yet not only toler- ating the Catholic, but allowing a man like Capistrano to wander through the land denouncing heretics and making conversions un- molested. To Capistrano the position was irritating in the ex- treme, insomuch as he was limited to the arts of persuasion, and was unable to enforce his arguments with the dungeon and the stake. This peculiar state of things is well illustrated by an ad- venture related of him at Breslau. Though Silesia had a Catholic bishop, it belonged to Bohemia, and mutual tolerance was estab- lished. In the summer of 1453 Capistrano came there and labored to convert the Hussites, but these sons of Belial, to ridicule his miraculous powers, placed a young man in a bier, carried him to where the inquisitor was preaching, and asked the latter to resus- citate the dead. Capistrano sternly replied, " Let him have his portion with the dead in eternity!" and went his way. Then the heretics said to the crowd, " We have holier men among us ;" and one of them went to the coffin, calling to its inmate, " Peter, arise !" and then whispering, " It is time to get up ;" but there CAPISTRANO AND THE CALIXTINS. 549 was no response, and the unfortunate youth was found to be really dead. Yet at this very time Capistrano had no difficulty in exercising his inquisitorial office pitilessly when the victims were unfortunate Jews. A country priest was said to have sold them eight consecrated hosts for use in their infernal rites. Ca- pistrano seized those implicated, tortured them to confession, and burned them, while a woman who was imphcated was torn with red-hot pincers. An old Jewess embraced Christianity, and soon afterwards was slain. The Jews were accused of the murder, and also of that of a Christian boy. Capistrano made another on- slaught on them, and this time burned no less than forty-one. It is easy to gather from this incident what would have been the fate of the Hussites had he been able to ^\Teak his will on them. Those of Moldavia and Poland, whither he despatched three of his associate inquisitors under Ladislas the Hungarian, probably felt the full rigor of the canons.* During all this the Calixtin leaders had not been wholly in- different. At the commencement of Capistrano's mission Roky- zana wrote to him in a friendly tone, remonstrating with him for condemning as a heresy the communion in both elements, which the Council of Basle had permitted to the Bohemians. Some correspondence ensued, in which Capistrano took high ground as to the use of the cup and the papal supremacy ; there were nego- tiations for a conference, and at one time hopes were entertained of an accommodation. Capistrano, however, skilfully eluded a disputation on various pretexts, but really, as Ave learn from his confidential letter to the cardinal-legate, Nicholas of Cusa, because he knew that the Calixtins had on their side the weight of au- thority and tradition. Both parties gradually lost their temper and published against each other letters filled with scurrility. Having thus rendered amicable negotiations impossible, Capis- trano could safely, in 1452, ask Podiel)rad for a safe-conduct to Prague, and on its refusal summon him to render the aid and service due to him as apostolic commissioner and inquisitor.f When the German princes assembled in the Diet of 1452, the * Wadding, ann. 1451, No. 17-20; ann. 1453, No. 18,26; ann. 1453, No. 2-8. t Waddinn:. ann. 1451, No. 24-36; ann. 1452, No. 1, 12.— Sonimcrsbcrg Si- lesiac. Rer. Scriptt. I. 84-5.— Cocliloei Hist. Hussit. Lib. x. aun. 1451. 550 THE HUSSITES. Bohemians addressed them, complaining that although they were Uving in peace and obedience to the Holy See, the provisions of the Compactata, which declared that no one should be stigmatized as a heretic for partaking in both elements, were violated by a friar named Capistrano, who, under the guise of an apostolic com- missioner and inquisitor, was traversing their territories proclaim- ing that all Utraquists were heretics. The agreement which had cost so much blood was thus plainly infringed, and, notwith- standing their desire for peace, a persistence in this would revive all the old troubles. This was significant of strife, and Capis- trano, on his side, was eagerly engaged in stimulating it. He wrote to the pope that certain propositions of accommodation entertained by the cardinal-legate were disgraceful, and spoke hopefully of negotiations which he was carrying on with the Ger- man princes for a new crusade against the Hussites. Nicholas of Cusa was effectually snubbed for daring to talk of conferences and terms of accommodation. He promptly threw himself on the other side and contributed his share towards provoking a fresh conflict, by issuing, in June, 1452, an encyclical to the Bohemians, in which he plainly told them that those who were not with the Church must be against it ; that the Compactata must be thrown aside, as they had not effected the union for which they were designed, and that nothing save pure and simple obedience to the Holy See could be entertained. To render the irritation complete needed only the exquisite insolence with which he assured them that the Church was too pious a mother to concede to her children what she knew to be injurious.* Capistrano's busy mischief -making was bearing its fruits. The breach between Rome and Bohemia was constantly widening, and if the zeal of the German princes could be brought to correspond to the ardor of the missionary of strife, the horrors of the old Hussite wars might be hopefully looked for again. During the remainder of the year 1452 we find him travelling through Ger- many, probably with this charitable object, though at Leipsic he paused long enough for his eloquence to win for his rigid Order sixty professors and students.f His efforts to raise a crusade * Wadding, ann. 1452, No. 2-4, 13-14. — Cochlsei Hist. Hussit. Lib. xi. ann. 1452. t Chrou. Glassberger ann. 1452. CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 551 against Bohemia, however, were frustrated by the capture of Constantinople in May, 1453. The immense impression which this produced throughout Christendom, the universal alarm at the progress of the Turk, and the necessity of defending Europe against his approach, speedily threw into the shade all minor questions. A new crusade was imperatively wanted, but it could not be wasted upon Bohemia and the Utraquists. During the summer of 1453, as we have seen, Capistrano was tranquilly employing his enforced leisure in burning Jews at Breslau. Thence he went to Poland, where we find him at Cra- cow throwing into prison a physician, Master Paul, whom he sus- pected of being an emissary of Rokyzana. He applied again to Podiebrad for a safe-conduct to Prague, which was curtly refused on the ground that when it had been previously offered it had not been accepted, and that Ladislas did not want the peace of his kingdom disturbed. He left Cracow May 15, 1454, for Bres- lau and Olmiitz, whence he still hoped to accomplish something within the charmed circle of Bohemia, into which he had not been allowed to penetrate. Rokyzana at this time was inspired with hopes that the terror of the Turk and the need for Christian unity would enable him to realize his dream of the archbishopric. He made the large concessions alluded to above on many of the points of dissidence, and used every effort with the emperor to procure through him the papal confirmation. A letter from Ladis- las, of June 13, to the Bishop of Olmiitz, asking him to restrain Capistrano from using such violent terms in denouncing Bohe- mians, as he was doing more harm than good, was evidently a move in the same game. Yet even the paramount interests of Christendom could not win for Rokyzana the coveted confirma- tion, although those interests soon diverted Capistrano's fiery energies from the heretic to the infidel.* A brief and clear-cut letter of J^neas Sylvius to Capistrano, dated July 26, 1454, tells him to give up the dream of getting to Prague and go to Frankfort, where he will be useful. An assem- bly of princes had been held in Ratisbon, where a crusade had » Wadding, ann. 1453, No. 9-10; ann. 1354, No. 13-13, 17-19.— Chron. Cor- nel. Zantfliet (Martene Ampl. Coll. V. 48G-7).— ^n. Sylvii Epist. 404 (Ed. 1571, p. 947). 552 THE HUSSITES. been agreed upon, and Philip of Burgundy had consented to lead it. Final arrangements were to be made in Frankfort in October, and there ^neas Sylvius wanted the aid of Capistrano's tireless ardor. Their correspondence at this juncture shows the terror which existed lest Europe should be overrun ; the confusion and uncertainty which prevailed, and the selfish differences which threatened to neutralize effort. At Frankfort their worst fears were realized. The zeal of the princes had cooled, and they de- clared the purpose of the pope and emperor was to steal their money and not to fight. They demanded that the business should be conducted by a general council which should at the same time repress the Holy See — in fact, both parties were selfishly endeav- oring to turn the agony of Europe to account ; the pope to raise money, and the princes to recover their independence. All that ^neas and Capistrano could obtain was a promise that at the Pentecost of 1455 they would meet the emperor and determine what could be done. In February and March, 1455, they began to assemble at ISTeuburg, near Vienna, where Podiebrad again used every effort to procure Rokyzana's confirmation. As for the crusade, the energies of Christendom seemed paralyzed by the petty jealousies and ambitions of its rulers. At last, under the unflagging eloquence of JEneas and Capistrano, things appeared to be taking shape, when the news was received of the death of Nicholas V. on March 22. Everything fell to pieces, and the princes departed, postponing action until the next 3'^ear. It was a forcible example of the utility of the papacy, which supplied a common head to the discordant forces of the time.* Capistrano's impetuous energies were now fairly enUsted in the strife with the Turk, and the Hussites had a respite. In fact, the situation was too alarming to permit of their persecution, and it is a remarkable instance of the unbending rigidity of Rome, that even in this perilous juncture the overtures and concessions of Podiebrad and Rokyzana availed them nothing. Calixtus III. was elected April 8, with a speed which showed how dangerous a papal interregnum was considered. He at once * Wadding, ann. 1254, No. 7-12; ann. 1255, No. 2-7.— iEn. Sylv. Epist. 405 (p. 947). — Ejusd. Epistt. xxxix.-xliii., xlvi., Iviii., Ix. (0pp. inedd. pp. 415-24, 426-9, 440-1, 448). VICTORY OF BELGRADE. 553 sent legates to preach the crusade throughout Europe, and com- menced to build war-ships on the Tiber. The Hungarians, who were justly excited at the impending invasion of Mahomet II. begged Capistrano to come to them and use his eloquence. Ca- lixtus gave him permission, confirmed all the powers conferred on him by Nicholas, and he undertook the task which was to complete his life's work. Yet even these new duties, which wrought his fiery soul to a higher tension than ever, did not wholly distract his attention from the hated Hussites. The junc- ture seemed favorable for a reconciliation, which every motive of pohcy dictated. Besides, ^neas Sylvius had just been promoted to the cardinalate, and that crafty diplomat had succeeded in making the Bohemians look upon him as their friend. They not only hoped to obtain the confirmation of the Compactata, but the cardinal's hat for Rokyzana. Hearing of this, Capistrano wrote, March 24, 1456, from Buda to Calixtus dissuadmg him in the most vigorous terms. The Hussites are the worst of mankind, fearing neither God nor man ; the heart can scarce conceive the errors which they believe, or the abominations which they prac- tise in secret. The Compactata are their sole bulwark ; if these are confirmed, the Hussites, who abound secretly, not only in Bo- hemia but in Hungary, Transylvania, Moldavia, and the neigh- boring regions, will rise and declare themselves. The warning was sufficient and the overtures were rejected.* Suddenly the news came that the dreaded Mahomet II, was advancing, and had laid siege to Belgrade. Ladislas, who was King of Hungary as well as of Bohemia, was at Buda-Pesth, and with his uncle, the Count of Cillei, on pretext of a hunting-excur- sion, basely fled to Austria. John Hunyad}^, Count of Transylva- nia, who had been regent of the kingdom, organized the Hunga- rian forces, with some German crusaders who had come to his assistance, while Capistrano marched with him as papal commander of the crusade. Glorious in the annals of Ilungar}^ is the victory of Belgrade. With a flotilla of boats on the Danube, Hunyad}'-, on July 14, 1456, cut his way into the town through the beleaguer- inof forces. Furious were the attack and the defence until the 22d, when a fierce assault by the Turks was repulsed, and the be- • Wadding, ann. 1455, No. 8-13; ami. 145G, No. 9-13. 554 THE HUSSITES. sieged followed the retreating enemy, burned one of their camps, spiking some of their cannon and carrying the rest back into the town, wliere they did good service during tlie rest of that memo- rable day, Mahomet gathered together his forces for a last des- perate attempt, which was a failure, and during the night he fled, leaving twenty -four thousand men upon the held, and three hun- dred cannon. His army was utterly dispersed, and this disaster, aided by the heroic resistance of Scanderbeg in Albania, arrested the Turkish invasion and gave Europe a breathing-spell. It cost, however, the lives of the two heroes to whom it was due. The stench of the dead bodies sickened the army of the victors, and John Hunyady fell a victim, August 11, to the epidemic, which prevented the following up of the advantage. Capistrano had thrown himself into the work with all his self-forgetful enthusi- asm. His eloquence had wrought the Christians up to the highest pitch of religious exaltation ; the crusaders would obey no one but him, and his labors were incessant. He passed days without time for food, and nights without rest ; for seventeen days, it is said, before the victory, he slept but seven hours in all. He was in his seventy-lirst year, with a frame weakened by habitual austerities, and when the strain was past exhausted nature paid the penalty. A slow fever set in, August 6, under which he wasted away, and died, October 23. He was perhaps the most perfect type which the age produced of the ideal son of the Church ; a purely artifi- cial creation, in which the weakness of humanity disappeared with some of its virtues, and the whole nature, with its rare powers, was concentrated in unselfish devotion to a mistaken purpose. Such men are the tools of the worldly and unscrupulous who know how to use them, and for forty years Capistrano had been thus employed to bring misery on his fellow-beings, unconscious of the e\dl which he wrought. Yet, as ^neas Sylvius shrewdly points out, there was one weak spot left in his nature. In the letters in which he and Hunyady described the victory of Belgrade nei- ther chief gave credit to the other. As -^neas says, " Capistrano had despised the pomps of the world, he had fled from its delights, he had trampled down avarice, he had overcome lust, but he could not contemn glory." * » Wadding, ann. 1456, No. 16-67, 83-4.— ^n. Sylv. Hist. Boliem. cap. Ixv. Six several attempts were made, at various times, to canonize Capistrano, USELESS INQUISITORS. 555 No one could be found worthy to replace Capistrano but his friendly rival, Giacomo della Marca, who was accordingly de- spatched, in 1457, to the scene of his labors of twenty years pre vious, armed with the same powers, as inquisitor and crusader. The danger from the Turk was still too pressing for him to waste thought on the former function, and he devoted himself to stimu- lating and organizing the war against the IVEoslem until his health gave way, and he returned to Italy, where, as we have seen, he not long afterwards had to defend himself from a charge of heresy brought by his zealous Dominican brethren. He was replaced by his disciples, Giovanni da Tagliacozza and Michele da Tussicino, who were followed in 1461 by Fra Gabriele da Verona ; but though Franciscans still continued for a generation to labor for the con- version of the Calixtins, they had little success in the absence of power to employ the customary inquisitorial methods, of which more hereafter.* In fact, the prospects of reducing Bohemia to obedience were steadily diminishing. In the wildest uproar of the Hussite wars but the fates were against it. The earlier eflForts were neutralized b^' the oppo- sition of the legate, Nicholas of Cusa, and the jealousy of the rival orders of Do- minicans and Conventual Franciscans. Repeated requests came from Germany, but they remained unheeded. In 1463 urgent letters were written by Frederic III., the Margrave of Brandenburg, and innumerable bishops and magistrates of cities from Cracow to Ratisbon; these were intrusted to a Franciscan friar to take to Rome, but he died on the road, and confided them to a knight of Assisi. The latter brought them to his home, and then departed for Germany, where he died. The trunk containing them was i)iously preseiTcd by his descendants until, towards the middle of the seventeenth century. "Wadding clianced to see it, and took the letters to Rome, in the hopes of their still accomplishing their object. At the inquest held by Leo X. a classified record of the miracles wrought by the thaumaturge shows, of dead brought to life, more than thirty; of deaf made to hear, three hundred and seventy; of blind restored to sight, one hundred and twenty-three; of cripples and gouty persons cured, nine hundred and twenty, and miscellaneous cases innumerable. This resulted in his admission to the infe- rior order of the Blessed, to be worshipped by the Franciscans of the diocese of Capistrano. In 1623 Gregory XV. enlarged his cult to the whole Franciscan Order; and in 1690 Alexander VIII. enrolled him in the calendar of saints.— Wadding, ann. 1456, No. 114-23; aun. 1463, No. 29-78.— Weizfficker, ap. Her- zog's Real Encyklop. s. v. • Wadding, ann. 1457, No. 5, 10 ; ann. 1461, No. 1-2 ; ann. 1465, No. 6 ; ann. 1467, No. 5. 556 THE HUSSITES. there were powerful barons and cities who steadily held out for the pope and kaiser, and under the interregnum there had at first been a dual government, shared equally by Catholic and Cahxtin. Under the firm hand of George Podiebrad the orthodox commu- nities submitted one by one, and in spiritual matters Eokyzana was supreme. It is true that there was now little to distinguish the churches in doctrine or practice save the use of the cup ; but independence served as a protection against the greed of the Ko- man curia, and there was small encouragement for a surrender of this independence in the clamor which was now going up from Germany. The Basilian regulations, confirmed by Eugenius, had for a time served as a safeguard to some extent, but now these were coolly treated as obsolete, and complaints were loud that aU the old abuses were flourishing as vigorously as ever. Elections were set aside, or heavy sums were extorted for their confirma- tion, while the country was drained of money by the exaction of tenths and the sale of indulgences. Secure in their isolation, the Bohemians might well submit to some inconvenience to be spared the costly blessing of apostolic paternal care. The only hope of Eome lay in the approaching majority of the Catholic youth La- dislas ; but when, on the eve of his marriage with the daughter of Charles VII. of France, he suddenly died, towards the close of 1457, not without suspicions of foul play, and George Podiel^rad soon afterwards was elected and crowned, it might weU seem that, short of Divine interposition, the peaceful return of Bohemia was not to be looked for.* Yet at first it looked as though an accommodation might be reached. Ladislas, shortly before his death, had proposed to send an embassy to Eome for the purpose of efi'ecting a reconciliation, and Calixtus III. had asked of Podiebrad to gratify his vehement desire of seeing Eokyzana, whose high reputation was well known in Eome. Podiebrad, moreover, caused himself to be crowned according to the Eoman rite ; having no bishop of his own, he • ^n. Sylvii Epist. 162, 324, 334-5, 337-40, 356, 869, 387 (Ed. 1571, pp. 714, 815, 821-22, 825, 831, 837, 840).— Ejusd. Hist. Bolaem. c. 71-2. Pius n. did not hesitate to publish tn Christendom a positive assertion that George poisoned Ladislas, and said that, though the facts were obscure, the Viennese phj'sicians in attendance attributed his death to poison. — ^u. Sylv, Epist. Ixxi. COpp- iuedd. p. 467). ^NEAS SYLVIUS AS POPE. 557 borrowed from his son-in-law, Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, those of Kaab and Bacs, to perform his consecration ; in his coro- nation oath he swore obedience to Calixtus and his successors, to restore the Cathohc religion, and to persecute heretics ; he wrote to Cahxtus as a faithful son of the Church, and obtained from him letters recognizing him as King of Bohemia ; he sent envoys to Kome, who held out promises that Kokyzana would follow, and settle on a lasting basis the submission of Bohemia. All this was mere skirmishing for position ; but when, a few months later, Ca- lixtus died, and was succeeded by ^neas Sylvius, who took the name of Pius II,, men might hope that some reasonable accommo- dation could be reached. Since he had gone to Basle in the suite of Cardinal Capranica, and had become the mouth-piece of the anti- papal party, influenced, as he himself says, by cupidity rather than by truth, and inspired by the hostility to the Church usually felt by the laity, the new pope had been occupied almost exclusively with German and Bohemian affairs, which he knew better than any living man ; he had taken part in the negotiations resulting in the Compactata ; he was shrewd, clear-headed, and troubled with few scruples, and, sharing fully in the papal anxiety to unite Christendom against the Turks, he might be expected to recognize the vital importance of reconciliation with Bohemia. George made haste to send an embassy to renew his protestations of obe- dience, and to ask for the confirmation of the Compactata. Pius, who took no shame in issuino: a solemn bull condemnino; and dis- avowing aU his early opinions uttered during his service \vith the council, was prepared to break with his own traditions rather than with those of his predecessors. He gave a dubious response; George could win his recognition as king by extirpating heresy, and he promised to send legates. They came, but the poj^e, al- though he addressed George as king and as his dearest son when soliciting his co-operation in the crusade, shortly afterwards took a step which, with his knowledge of Bohemia, he knew could not but provoke a rupture. Wenceslas, Dean of Prague, was a Catholic, and a bitter enemy of Kokyzana, and this man Pius apjiointcd as administrator of the archbishopric, thus ousting lioky/.ana. All at once was in uproar. Wenceslas endeavored to assort liinisolf, but the power remained in Rokyzana's hands, (icorge threw into prison Fantinus, who had been his procurator in the curia, and 558 THE HUSSITES. who had been sent with a commission as papal orator, and de- tained him there for three months. Frederic III., whom George, by a stroke of happy audacity, had recently liberated from a siege by his rebellious subjects in the castle of Vienna, interposed, and delayed the explosion of the papal wrath; but to his earnest re- quest that George should be acknowledged as king Pius returned an absolute refusal. George was a heretic, incapable of the crown, and his subjects' oaths of allegiance were void ; only by returning to the Church could he hope to be fitted for the royal dignity. In June, 1464, Pius, in full consistory, published a bull reciting all the griefs of the Church against Bohemia, pronouncing the Compactata void, as never having been confirmed by the Holy See, and summoning George before him to stand trial for heresy within three terms of sixty days each. In two months Pius was dead, but his successor, Paul II., carried forward the proceedings with the old inquisitorial weapons. Three cardinals were ap- pointed in 1465 to try George as a relapsed heretic, and summoned him in August, as a private person, to appear before them within six months for judgment. Without waiting for the expiration of the term, early in December, Paul issued a bull absolving aU George's subjects from their allegiance, alleging as a reason for haste that the sentence would grow more difficult by delay. The papal wrath increased with the obstinacy of the assumed heretic. In 1468 another summons was issued to him to appear before the cardinals for judgment ; and in February, 1469, his name was placed as that son of perdition, the Hussite George Podiebrad, together with those of Eokyzana and Gregory of Heimburg, in the curse of the Coena Domini, to be anathematized tlirice a year, in the solemnities of the mass, in all cathedrals, both in Latin and in the vernacular.* All this was not a mere hrutum fulmen. It was not difficult • ^n. Sjlvii Hist. Bohem. c. 69.— Ejusd. Epist. Ixxi. (0pp. inedd. pp. 4G1- 70).— Ejusd. Tractatus (lb. pp. 566, 581).— Rayuald. anu. 1457, No. 69; ann. 1458, No. 20-8; ann. 1459, No. 18-23; anu. 1463, No. 96-102.— Cochlsei Hist. Lib. xii.— Dubrav. Hist. Bohem. Lib. 30.— Wadding, ann, 1462, No. 87.— Pii PP. n. Bull. In minoribus. — Sommersberg Silesiac. Rer. Scriptt. H. 1025-6, 1031. — Wadding, ann. 1456, No. 12; ann. 1469, No. 4, 6. — Ludewig Reliq. MSS. VL 61. — Martene Ampl. Coll. L 1598-9. — D'Achery Spicileg. HI. 830-4. — Ripoll m. 466. ANOMALOUS POSITION OP BOHEMIA. 559 to excite rebellion among turbulent subjects and attacks from am- bitious neighbors. With all his vigor and capacity George found the maintenance of his position by no means easy. When, in 1468, the German princes had agreed upon a five years' truce in order to concentrate their energies against the Moslem, Paul II. threw the empire into confusion by sending the Bishop of Ferrara to preach a crusade with plenary indulgences against Bohemia, adding the si)ecial favor that all who joined in the preaching should have the privilege of choosing a confessor, and receiving from him plenary absolution and indulgence. The kingdom was bestowed upon Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, who took the cross, and with an army of crusaders occupied Moravia. A long war ensued, during which George died, in 1471, released from ex- communication on his death-bed, and Ladislas II., son of Casimir of Poland, was elected as his successor. In 1475 the rivals came to terms ; both -were recognized as kings of Bohemia, while Mat- thias was to have for life Moravia, Silesia, and the greater part of Lusatia, and the survivor was to enjoy the whole kingdom. On the death of Matthias, in 1490, Ladislas recovered the three prov- inces, and shortly afterwards added Hungary to his dominions.* Ladislas was a good Catholic, and Sixtus IV., who had aided in his election, hoped that the opportunity had at last arrived to break down the stubbornness of the Calixtins. The king made the attempt, but bloody tumults in Prague, which nearly cost him his life, showed that, slight as was the difference between Cath- olic and Utraquist, the old fanaticism for the cup survived. At length, in 1485, at the Diet of Kuttenberg, mutual toleration was agreed upon, and Ladislas, who was of easy disposition, ran no further risks. Thus the anomalous position of Bohemia, as a member of Latin Christendom, became more remarkable than ever. The great majority of the people were Calixtins and there- fore heretics, but the Church had to abandon the attempt to co- erce them to salvation. Missionary inquisitors were commissioned from time to time, but practically their efforts were limited to persuasion and controversy. Even Pius II., in 14G3, felt obliged to caution Zeger, the Observantine Vicar-general, that his breth- * Raynald. ann. 1468, No. 1-14.— Chron. Glassbcrger nnn. 1468.— 'Dubrav. Hist. Bohem. Libb. XXX. -XXXI.— Cocblaei Hist. Hussit. Lib. xii. ann. 1471. 560 THE HUSSITES. ren, in dealing with heretics, should restrain their zeal from the customary curses and insults, and should try the effect of gentle- ness and argument. That these missionaries were mostly Fran- ciscans perhaps explains why the toleration accorded to Catholics could not be enforced against the popular prejudices of which the Order was the object. Even George Podiebrad, in 1460, had per- mitted the Franciscans to return to Prague, but their zeal was not to be restrained, and they were expelled in 1468. Under Ladislas they came again, in 1482, but in the disturbances of the following year they were glad to escape, their house was levelled to the ground, and was not rebuilt until 1629. From time to time other communities were founded at Hradecz, Glatz, and Neisse, but they were short-lived, and were speedily destroyed by the fanaticism of the people. As the invention of printing facilitated controversy, polemical zeal multipMed treatises to prove the iniquity of the Utra- quist heresy, but the Utraquists were not to be converted. They maintained the Compactata as the charter of their religious inde- pendence. When, in 1526, King Louis fell in the disastrous day of Mohacz, and the House of Austria, in the person of Ferdinand I., obtained the Bohemian throne, good CathoHc though Ferdinand was, he was obliged to pledge himself to preserve the Compac- tata.* It is not to be imagined that the teachings of "WickUlff and Huss were wholly forgotten in Utraquist degeneracy. Their real inheritors were the Taborites, and although these, in their disorder- ly enthusiasm, vainly contended against the spirit of the age and disappeared from sight under the strong hand of Podiebrad, the seed which they had nurtured was not wholly lost. The profound re- ligious convictions which animated these poor and simple folk are visible through the satire with which yEneas Sylvius requited their hospitality in 1451, on the eve of their suppression. Travelling with some nobles, on a mission from Frederic III., he was be- • Wadding, ann. 1460, No. 55 ; ann. 1463, No. 87 ; ann. 1471, No. 5; ann. 1475, No. 28, 37-9 ; ann. 1489, No. 21 ; ann. 1491, No. 8, 78. — Chron. Glassberger ann. 1463, 1466, 1479, 1483. — Dubrav. Hist. Bohem. Lib. xxxi. — De Schweinitz, Hist, of Unitas Fratrum, p. 168. — Camerarii Hist. Frat. Ortbod. pp. 72-3. — Georgisch Regest. Chron. Diploni. TTI. 158. THE TABORITES. — TIIEIII DISPERSION. 561 nighted near Mount Tabor, and thought it safer to trust himself with the enemies of his faith than to pass the hours of darkness in the open villages. In return for the simple kindliness of his reception the polished scholar and courtier describes them with the liveliest ridicule, and with brutal sneers at their poverty. They were mostly peasants, and as they came forth to greet him in the cold and rain, many were almost naked, having nothing but a shirt or a sheepskin to protect them ; one had no saddle, another no reins, another no spurs ; this one had lost an eye, that one an arm. Ziska was their patron saint, whose j)ortrait was painted on the city gates. Though they ridiculed the consecration of churches, they were very earnest in listening to the word of God, and if any one was too busy or too lazy to go to the wooden house where they assembled for preaching he was compelled by stripes. Though they paid no tithes, they filled their priests' houses with corn, beer, wood, vegetables, meat, and all the necessaries of hfe. Firm as they were in defence of their religious independence, they were not intolerant, and wide diversity of opinion was allowed among them.* When such men as these were driven forth and scattered among the people they were much more likely to make converts than to be converted, and though lost to sight they were assuredly not false to their convictions. The reactionary course of Eoky- zana and Podiebrad during the succeeding years could hardly fail to provoke discontent among the more earnest even of the Calix- tins and to furnish fresh disciples and teachers. Materials existed for a sect representing the doctrines which, a generation earlier, had set Bohemia aflame ; and although when that sect timidly appeared it prudently and sedulously disavowed all affiliation with the hated and dreaded Taborites, there can be no doubt that it was, to a great extent, composed of the same elements. These new sectaries first present themselves in an organized form in 1-157. Earnest, humble Christians, who sought to carry out the doctrines of Jesus, they differed from the Taborites in a yet closer approach to Waldensianism, due probably to the influ- ence of Peter Chelcicky, who, witliout belonging to them, was yet to some extent their teacher. Like the AV^aldenses, they rejected • iEn. Sylvii Epist. 130 (Ed. 1571 pp. G61-2). II.— 36 562 THE HUSSITES. the oath and the sword — nothing would justify the taking of hu- man Hfe, and consequently they w^ere non-resistants. Since the time of Constantine and Silvester the Iloinan Church had gone astray in the pursuit of wealth and worldly power. The sacra- ments were worthless in polluted hands. Priests might hear con- fessions and impose penances, but they could not absolve ; they could only announce the forgiveness of God. Purgatory was a myth invented by cunning priests. As for the mystery of the Eucharist, they prudently adopted the formula of Peter Chelcicky, which eluded the difficulty by affirming that the believer receives the body and blood of Christ, without pretending to explain or daring to discuss the matter. They ridiculed the superstition of the Calixtins, which exaggerated in the absurdest fashion the sanc- tity of the Eucharist, which carried the sacrament through the streets for adoration, and which held that he whose eye chanced to fall on it was safe from evil happening for that day ; and they sometimes incurred martyrdom by publicly reproving the fanatic zeal which regarded the Eucharist as the holiest of idols. On this basis was founded the brotherhood of love and charity, of patient endurance and meekness, which represented more nearly the Christian ideal than anything the world had seen for thirteen centuries. With extreme simplicity of life there was no exagger- ation of asceticism. Heaven was not to be stormed by mortifica- tion of the flesh, but was to be won by the sedulous discharge of the duties imposed on man by his Creator, in humble obedience to the divine will, and in pious rehance on Christ. Such was the "Unitas Fratrum" — the Bohemian or Moravian Brotherhood — and that a society thus defenceless and unresisting should endure the savage vicissitudes of that transitional period, and maintain itself through four hundred years to the present tune, shows that force is not necessarily the last word in human affairs, and that average human nature is capable of a higher moral development than it has been permitted to reach under prevailing influences, secular and spiritual.* • Goll, Quellen u. Untersuchimgen, 1. 10, 32-33, 92, 99 ; II. 72, 87-88, 94.— De Schweinitz, Hist, of Unitas Fratrum, pp. 111-12, 159, 204-5. — Von Zezschwitz, Real-Encyklnp. II. 652-3.— Hist. Persecutionum pp. 58-60, 90.— Palacky, Die Be- aiehuugen der Waldenser, pp. 32-33. — Camerarii Hist. Frat. Orthod. pp. 59-66.— THE BOHEMIAN BRETHREN. 5G3 At first they seem to have enjoyed the favor of Rokyzana, whose doctrines they claimed to follow, and whose nephew Greg- ory was one of their earliest leaders, along with Michael, priest of Zamberg. Rokyzana's fluctuating policy, as the archbishopric seemed to approach or recede, soon led him to hold aloof, and when they drew apart from the Calixtins and organized them- selves as a separate body he had no objection to see them perse- cuted. In vain they declared that they were neither Waldenses nor Taborites — the one was a word of bitter reproach, the other a terror. "When, about 1461, Gregory, with a few companions, ventured secretly to Prague, they were betrayed as conspu'ing Taborites and put to the torture. It shows their state of reUg- ious exaltation that Gregory swooned on the rack and had a bea- tific vision. It may be put to the credit of Rokyzana that when he saw his nephew insensible from the torture he burst into tears, exclaiming, " O my Gregory, I would I were Avhere thou art !" and that he soon afterwards obtained from Podiebrad pennission for them to settle at Liticz. Here they prospered amid alternate peace and persecution, their numbers rapidly increasing.* In retaining all the sacraments they retained belief in the ne- cessity of apostohcal succession for that of ordination ; but as the sacraments were vitiated in unworthy hands, they became op- pressed with misgivings as to the efficacy of the sacerdotal char- acter of their priests, derived as it was through the Church of Rome. Some of them proposed sending to the legendary Chris- tians of India, but they met with two men who had been in the East, and the accounts they received of the Oriental churches sat- isfied them that the succession there had been lost. Then they bethought them of the Greeks, but they met some Greeks in For the Calixtin views on the Eucharist see the treatises of Rokyzana and of John of Przibram in Cochlaei Hist. Ilussit. pp. 474, 508 ; also the latter's articles against Peter Payne (lb. 230). When the Brethren undertook to explain their views on the Eucharist they become somewhat difficult to understand. The bread and wine became the body and blood, and they would have believed it had the bread been stone, but still the substance remained, and Christ was not present. — Fascic. Rer. Expetend. et Fugieud. I. 165, 170, 174, 183, 185. • Camerarii Hist. Frat. Orthod. pp. 84-9. — Hist. Persecut. p. 05. —Von Zez- schwitz, 1. c. p. 653-4. 564 THE HUSSITES. Prague, and many Bohemians had been in the Levant and Danu- bian provinces, from whom they learned that fees were required for ordination, thus rendering it void through simony ; moreover, they heard of three Bohemians who had been ordained without inquiry as to their morals, which satisfied them that no true ordi- nation was to be obtained there. Finally they turned to the Wal- denses, of whom there was a community on the Austrian border. These claimed to descend from the primitive Church ; that their ancestors had separated from Rome when the papacy was secular- ized under Silvester by the donation of Constantine, and that they had preserved the apostolic succession untainted. It remained for the brethren to see whether it was the will of God that they should organize themselves by means of these "Waldenses. At Lhotka, in 1467, an assembly of about sixty chosen deputies was held. After fasting and earnest prayer, recourse was had to the lot, to decide whether they should separate themselves from the Roman priesthood. The result was affirmative. Then they se- lected nine men, from among whom three or two or one should be drawn, or none, if God so willed it. Twelve cards were taken, on three of which was written " is," and on nine " is not." These were mingled together, and a youth was directed to distribute nine of them among the men selected. All three with " is " proved to have been distributed, and the assembly devoutly thanked God for showing them the path to follow. Michael of Zamberg was sent to the Waldensian Bishop Stephen, who investigated his faith and life, and thanked God, with tears, that it had been vouchsafed him before he died to see such pious men. After episcopal conse- cration Michael returned ; careful inquiry was made as to the an- tecedents of one of the three elect, named Matthias, and he was duly consecrated as bishop by Michael, who thereupon laid down both his Waldensian episcopate and Catholic priesthood, and was again ordained anew by Matthias.* * Wie sich die Menscben u. s. w. (Goll, II. 99-100). — Das Buch der Prager Ma- gister (lb. 104-5). Tbe Calixtins had the same trouble about the apostolic succession. A letter frona the Church of Constantinople, in 1451, warmly urging union, and oflFering to supply spiritual pastors, shows tliat overtures had been made to the Greek Church to remove the difficulty; but apparently the Bohemians were not prepared to cut loose definitely from Catholicism (Flac. Illyr. Catal, Test. Veritatis. Lib. xix. i THE BOHEMIAN BRETHREN. 565 Thus all connection with Kome was sundered, and intimate re- lations were established with the Waldenses. Mutual sympathy and the identity of their faith drew the two sects together, al- though the austere virtue of the Brethren reproached the older heretics with concealing their faith by attending Catholic mass, with accumulating wealth, and with neglecting the poor. The Waldenses took the reproof kindly, promised amendment, and in a short time the two sects united and formed one body. Although the official name remained the " Unity of the Brethren," gradually the despised term of Waldenses came to be recognized, and was freely used by the body to designate themselves, in their confes- sions of faith and apologetic tracts. I have already alluded to the mission which was sent in 1498 to the Brethren of Italy and France, and to the increased spirit of vigor and independence which the old Alpine communities drew from the resolute stead- fastness of their new associates.* Gregory had moulded the Church of the Brethren on the strictest basis. Members on entering were not, it is true, obliged to contribute their property to the common fund, but this was frequently done. The closest watch was kept on the conduct of each, and any dereliction was visited with expulsion, not to be re- voked without evidence of change of heart. No one was allowed to take an oath, even in court, to hold an office, to keep an inn, to follow any trade except in the necessaries of life. Any noble de- siring to join was required to lay aside his rank and resign what- ever offices he might hold. In 1479 tAvo barons and several knights applied for admission, when the rules were strictly en- forced, and some submitted while others withdrew. This rigor at last caused violent dissensions, and in 1490 the Synod of Brandeis relaxed the rules. The puritan party recalcitrated and were strong enough to cause a revocation of this action in a subsequent synod. p. 1834-5, Ed. 1608). The trouble was renewed after the death of Rokyzana. At length, in 1482, Agostino Luciano, an Italian bishop, came to Prague in search of a purer religion, and was joyfully received. He served them until 1493, when he died. Then Filippo, Bishop of Sidon,came, but after three years he was re- called by the pope. In 1499 a mission was sent to Armenia, where some of them were ordained. — Hist. Persecutinnum pp. 95-6. * Goll, op. cit. II. 101.— De Schweinitz, op. cit. p. 156, 200-1.— fidouard Mon- tet, Hist. Litt. des Vaudois, pp. 152, 156. 566 THE HUSSITES. Much ill-feeling was generated, until, in 1495, at the Synod of Reichenau, there was mutual forgiveness and a moderation of the rules. Yet two of the puritan leaders, Jacob of Wodnan and Amos of Stekna, refused to accept the compromise, and founded the sect known as Amosites, or the Little Party, which maintained a separate existence for forty-six years.* During this period the Brethren had been subjected to repeated and severe persecution. Sometimes driven for refuge to the moun- tain and forest, whence they earned the name of Jamnici, or cave- dwellers, they counted their roll of martyrs who had testified in the dungeon or at the stake to the strength of their convictions. Yet the httle band steadily grew. In the year 1500 it was deemed necessary to increase the number of bishops to four. In Bohemia and Moravia they counted between three hundred and four hun- dred churches with nearly two hundred thousand members. There were few villages and scarce any towns in which they were not to be found, and they had poAverf ul protectors among the nobihty, who, by the enslavement of the peasants in 1487, had become practically independent and able to shelter them during periods of persecution. The Bretliren were active in education and in the use of the press. Every parish had its school, and there were higher institutions of learning, especially at Jungbunzlau and Li- tomysl. Of the six Bohemian printing-offices they possessed three, while the Catholics had but one and the Cahxtins two. Of the sixty books issued in Bohemia between 1500 and 1510, fifty were printed by the Brethren.f From this period until the death of Ladislas, in 1516, they were subjected to intermittent but severe persecution, especially in Bo- hemia. Ladislas, in his wiU, left instructions for their extermina- tion " for the sake of his soul's salvation and of the true faith ;" but the minority of his son Louis, only ten years old, the breaking- out of disturbances, and the feuds between Catholic and CaUxtin brought them peace. The exiled pastors returned, the churches were reopened, and public service was resumed. With the rise of Lutheranism and the negotiations between the Bohemians and * De ScUweinitz, op. cit. pp. 123-7, 172-5, 180-1. t Hist. Persecut. Eccles. Bohem. pp. 63-66, 73-4.— Ripoll IH. 577.— Camerarii Hist. Frat. Ortliod. pp. 104-22.— De Schweiuitz, op. cit. 170, 235-6.— Von Zez- Bchwitz, Real-Encyklop. II. 656-7, 660. THE BOHEMIAN BRETHREN. 567 the German Protestants their history passes beyond our present horizon, except to allude to the fidelity with which they endure ! the shocks of the counter-Reformation, and succeeded in transmit- ting to our own time the lessons which they had learned from Peter Waldo and John Wickliff. They In-ouglit ac.-oss the At- lantic the union of fearless zeal with the gentler Christian virtues, and in the annals of Pennsylvania the name of Moravian came to represent all that serves as the firmest and surest foundation of social organization. Parkman has well indicated the contrast be- tween the civilizing influence of the kindly Moravian missionaries and the manner in which their Jesuit rivals were content to sub- stitute the cross as a fetich in place of the medicine-bag. The same well-directed enthusiasm endures to the present day. Small as is the Moravian Church, it maintained in 1885 no less than three hundred and nineteen missionaries scattered among the remote places of the earth, with over eighty-one thousand native converts as church members; and the more rugged and inhospitable the fields of labor the more earnest the zeal of the good Brethren. But for them the savage coasts of Greenland would be almost destitute of Christian teaching, and in their truly apostolic work we may recognize that the blood of the martyrs of Constance was not shed in vain.* * Parkman's Montcalm, H. 144-5. — I owe to the kindness of Bishop De Schwei- nitz the statistics of the Moravian Missions. APPENDIX. Excommunication of the Magistrates of Toulouse, July 24, 1237. (Doat, XXI. fol. 146.) Manifestum sit omnibus tam presentibus quam futuris quod nos frater Ste- phanus de ordine fratruin Minorum et frater Guillielmus A. de ordine fratrum Pre- dicatorum inquisitores instituti ad faciendam inquisitionem contra hereticos, fautores, receptatores et deflfensores hereticorum Tholose et in tota diocesi Tho- losana; cum per diligentem inquisitionem a nobis factam constiterit nobis R. Centulli et Sicardum de Tholosa et R. Rogerii et Alamannum de Roaxio et R. Embruni et Ondradam uxorem Arnaldi Petrarii infectos esse heretica pravitate, per sententiam difRnitivam cos esse hereticos condemnaverimus, Petrum de Tho- losa vicarium Tholose et capitularios Tholose diligenter et legitime tam per nos quam per alios admonuimus ut dictos hereticos caperent et de dictis hereticis facerent quod est de hereticis faciendum ; cumi gitur vicarius et capitularii, ue- glectis et contemptis omnibus supradictis admonitionibus a nobis factis, nou solum non ceperunt eos nee de terra eos fugaverunt, vel eorum bona occupaverunt ut tenentur, sed etiam in periculum animarum suarum et in prejudicium fidei,paci3 et ecclesie R. Rogerii et Alamannum de Roaxio predictos hereticos condemnatos tolerant et sustinent in stratis publicis circa Tholosam et aliis locis eorum juris- dictioni subditis, capere viros religiosos et clericos ac eorum bonis propriis spo- liare et ad redemptionem compellere, et vulnerare et mjuriis eos afficere, necnon et viros Catholicos cum clericis commorantes occidere mutilare ct alia mala ec- clesiis et ecclesiasticis viris inferre, maxime cum nos dicti in(iuisitores publice excommunicaverimus omncm hominem tam virum quam mulierem tauquam fau- torem et deffensorem hereticorum qui eis consilium vel auxilium aliquod eis oc- culte vel manifeste prestaret, et vicarius et capitularii supradicti contra prohibi- tionem nostram temere supradictos hereticos in supradictis malitiis fovent niMjui- ter et sustentant; et cum insuper ipsi sacramento et constitiitionibus ecclesie teneantur hereticos ubicjue capere et totam terram eorum jurisdictioni subjectam a pravitate heretica extirpare, non attendentes quod scriptura dicit, non est grandis diflferentia utrum letum admittas vel differas quoniam mortem languen- tibus probatur infligere qui banc, cum possit, non excludit ct alil)i dicutur canone, quod error cui non resistitur probatur, et negligere cum possit arguere perversos 570 APPENDIX. nihil aliud est quam fovere, nee caret scrupulo societatis occulte qui manifesto facinori distulit ol)viare, maxime cum vicarius et capitularii supradicti alia vice tanquam fautores ct deffensores hereticorum fuerint excommunicati, predictos vicarium et capitularios, habito diligent! consilio et tractatu, assidentibus nobis venerabili patre R. Dei gratia episcopo Tholosano et B. abbate Mansi sub Ver- duno, et P. preposito Sancti Stephani, et P. priore ecclesie beate Marie deaurate, tanquam fautores et sustentatores hereticorum auctoritate qua fungimur excom- municationis vinculo innodamus. Lata fuit hec sententia publice in ecclesia sancti Stephani Tholose, coram multis viris religiosis et capellanis parochialium ecclesiarum Tholose et aliis viris ecclesiasticis, IX Kal. Augusti anno Domini MCCXXXVII. II. Argument op Bernard Delicieux before Philippe le Bel, Toulouse, 1304. (Bib. Nat. MSS., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 138.) Dixit etiam se dixisse tunc ipse frater Bernardus quod Deus fecerat magnam gratiam patrise in adrentu ipsius domini regis, eo quod dictus frater Guilhelmus Petri, ordiuis praedicatorum, tunc prior proviucialis, prsesentibus inquisitoribus Tolosse et Carcassonse et multis aliis fratribus ejusdem ordinis, dixit et confessus est loquens in personam inquisitorum praedictorum, in prsesentia ipsius regis et plurium quam quingentarum personarum in aula superiori ipsius domini regis existentium, quod in tota lingua occitana non erant hseretici nisi tantummodo in burgo Carcassonae, Albiae vel Corduse, vel in circuitu per unam leucam vel duas, et quod illi non erant quadraginta, et si erant quadraginta non erant quinqua- ginta, et quod hoc dictus frater Guilhelmus dixit bis in praesentia praedictorum ; et ideo intulit tunc ipse frater Bernardus, ut dixit, quod patria quae hactenua fuerat diffamata testimonio ipsorum inquisitorum ab infamia praedicta in adventu ipsius domini regis fuerat relevata, et sperabat frater Bernardus, ut dixit tunc se dixisse, quod ex quo tunc secundum verba eorum tota patria erat sana, excepta sex leucis et quinquaginta personis, quod leucae illae et personae ac tres villae prae- dictse adhuc invenientur immuues a labe haeresis praedicta. Dixit etiam tunc se dixisse, quod si hodie viverent beati Petrus et Paulus, et contra eos impin- geretur quod haereticos adorassent, si procederetur contra eos super hujusmodi adoratione, sicut per aliquos inquisitores istarum partium aliquando contra mul- tos fuit processum nee pateret eis via deffensionis. Si enim de fide interrogaren- tur, responderent sicut magistri et doctores, ubi autem diceretur eis quod haereti- cos adorassent, et quaererent quos haBreticos, et dicerentur eis sola nomina dicto- rum haereticorum (quae quidem nomina et cognomina multis conveniunt) et ipsi beati Petrus et Paulus dicerent " Istos nunquam novimus. Dicatis nobis ubi sunt vel unde venerunt et quo iverunt, cujus linguae, staturae aut conditionis erant" et nihil eis diceretur per quod uotitia dictorum haereticorum, qui dicuntur adorati haberi posset : si etiam quaererent quo tempore facta fuerit hsec adoratio, APPENDIX. 571 et non diceretur dies, mensis nee annus: si etinm qufrrerent noraina testium et non darentur eis, non est qui possit exprimere, ut dixit tunc se dixiase ipse frater Bemardus quod hi apostoli qui tam sancti sunt, a tali macula coram hominibus se possent deffendere, maxims cum si quis vellet eos deflfendere statim impingere- tur quod erat fautor hfereticorum, sicut ipse frater Bemardus in se ipso et dicto vicedomino prohavit. III. Supplication of the Church of Albi to the College of Cab- DINALS (1304-5). (Archives de rHotel-de-ville d'Albi.— Doat, XXXIV. fol. 42.) Illustrissimge Dominationis Patribus venerabilibus Dominis Cardinalibus sacrosanctse Romanae ecclesise sacroque coetui eorumdem, Capitulum et Canonici ecclesiae Albienais et Capitulum et Canonici ecclesise Sti. Salvii de Albia, Abbas- que et monachi monasterii de Galliaco Albiensis diocesis, et alii rcligiosi quorum sigilla inferius sunt appensa, suarum sublimitatum imperiis subjectionem debitam et devotam. Juste pater supplicatur a filiis dum cernunt fluctus tumescere et undis insiliantibus ventis et flantibus ex adverse naufragium imminere formidant, prsesertim dum necessarium exigente qualitate causarum salus non pateat aut auxilium aliunde. Verum nostra j^atria quantis sit exposita pra^cipitiis et ruinis propter qusestiones et dissensiones quibus ad invicem se collidunt patria et in- quisitores hagreticae pravitatis novit ille qui nihil ignorat, et adeo excrevit tur- batio ut idem populus ad iracundian concitatus non videatur aliud anhelare nisi ut discriminibus se committens dcducat in ore gladii, nedum quos sibi pntat ad- versarios sed et alios, ac ad talia se convertat qure non potcrunt aliquatenus reparari. Vestrae igitur Paternitatis pedibus provoluti humilitcr supplicanus ut circa prgemissa sic salutifere et celeriter succurratis quod, i^rseclusa via periculis et ruinis, patria restituatur paci debitag et quieti. Constet enim vobis quod dic- tus populus et patria est catholica et fidelis, quantum nos humana fragilitas nosso sinit, et populus civitatis Albige et patriae fidem catholicam corde credens oro profitetur eamdem ut sic pcrveuiat ad salutem et bonis operibus astruit et con- firmat. . . . Paternitatem vestram conservet altissimus ecclesiae suae sanctag per tempera longiora. (Signed with seventeen seals.) ly. Bull of Clement V. in Favor of the Inquisition. (Doat, XXXIV. fol. 112.) Clemens episcopus servus servorum Dei ad porpetuam rei memorinm. Dudum venerabili fratri Petro episcopo Prcncstino, tunc tituli Sancti Vitalis, et dilecto filio nostro Berengario titulo sanctorum Nerei et Achillei prosbyteris cardina- libus, per nostros sub certa forma littcras duximus conimittendum ut ipsi circa negotium inquisitionis hcretice pravitatis in partibus Carcassonensi, Albicnsi ct 572 APPENDIX. Cordue super certis articulis seu dependentibus ab eisdem diligenter inquireretur et nonnulla etiam ordinarent; qui auctoritate litterarum hujusmodi quadam cura dictum officium ordinasse noscuntur. Quia vero nostre intentionis non extitit nee existit ut occasions dicte commissionis seu alicujus mandati nostri super hiia Cardinalibus ipsis facti, Inquisitoribus pravitatis piedicte inquirendi vel con- junctim vel divisira cum episcopo seu episcopis ordinariis, aut sine ipsis, prout eis licet secundum canonicas sauctiones facultas aliquatenus restringatur; Noa ordinationem per quam dicti Cardinales facultatem inquirendi per se divisim in- quisitoribus ipsis restrinxisse dicuntur utpote intention! nostre et juri contrariam, juribus carere decernimus et nuUatenus observandara, ordinatione ipsorum Car- dinalium circa ceteros alios articulos in omnibus et per omnia in suo robore du- ratura. Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat banc paginam nostre constitutionia infringere, vel ei ausu temerario coutraire. Si quis autem hec attemptare pre- sumpserit, indignationem omnipot. Dei et beatorum Petri et Pauli apostolorum ejus se noverit incursurum. Datum Pictavis, secundo Idus Augusti, Pontificatus nostri anno tertio. (12 Aug. 1308.) V. Brief of Clement V. Concerning the Prisoners of Albi.* (Doat, XXXIV. fol. 89.) Venerabili fratri Geraldo episcopo Albiensi et dilectis filiis inquisitoribus heretice pravitatis in partibus Albiensibus. Dudum venerabili fratri nostro Ber- trando tunc ejiiscopo Albiensi et inquisitoribus dictis nostros direximus litteras in hec verba : * Haurdau (Bernard D^licieux, p. 194) prints the bull of 1210 (Doat, XXXII. fol. 60), contained in the above, but lias apparently overlooked the subsequent and far more sig- nificant one. The earlier bull also appears in T. V. p. 40, of the Regestum Clementis PP. V. just issued in Rome. In the same publication, received too late for reference to be made in the proper place (see above, p. 78), there are several letters throwing light on the troubles of Bernard de Castanet, Bishop of Albi. In 1307 two of his cathedral canons, Sicard Aleman and Ber- n;ird Astruc, accused him before the pope of numerous crimes. Berenger, Cardinal of SS. Nereo and Acliille, to whom the matter was referred, after examining the articles of accusation, suspended him from all his functions during an investigation. " Executors" were ordered to proceed to Albi to take testimony, giving three months to the prosecu- tion, then two to the defence, and finally two more to the prosecution in rebuttal. A vicar-general was appointed, July 31, to take charge of the see, and three procurators to collect its revenues. One of the " executors " was Arnaud Novelli, Abbot of Fontfroide, whom we have seen (p. 87) replacing, by order of Philipe le Bel, the bishop in his inquisi- torial capacity. Arnaud was soon afterwards appointed vice-chancellor of the curia ; this, with other impediments, delayed the investigation, and on November 20 two additional months were granted to the prosecution. Nothing apparently came of the trial except that it probably quickened Bernard's desire to abandon his thorny seat. There is a papal brief of October 31, 1308, addressed to Bertrand de Bordes as Bishop of Albi, in which Ber- nard is alluded to as late of Albi and now of Puy (Ibid. T. II. pp. 52, 165 ; T. III. pp. 3, 255). APPENDIX. 573 Clemens episcopus, servus servorum Dei venerabili fratri Bertrando episcopo Albiensi et dilectis filiis inquisitoribus heretice pravitatis in partibus Albie, salu- tem et apostolicam benedictionem. Significarunt nobis Isarnu3 Colli, P. Fransa Jo. de Porta, Joannes Pays, Petrus de Raissaco, B. Casas, G. Salavert, Q. de Lan- das, Isarnus de Cardalhaco, G. Borrelli, cives Albienses, quod ipsi olim de man- date venerabilis fratris B. Aniciensis, tunc Albiensis, episcopi et inquisitoris sen inquisitorum qui erant tunc in partibus illis, occasioue crimiuis hereseos, fuerint carceri mancipati, et jam per octo annos et amplius, tam Albie quam Carcassone, diu carceris angustias sustulerunt, sicut adhuc sustinent, quamvis nulk super hoc facta fuerit condempnatio de eisdem ; cum autem ex parte dictorum civiura plu- ries fuerimus cum instantia requisiti, ut ad condempnationcra vel absolutionem eorumdem, prout jus exigit faceremus procedi: Nos volentes quod circa illos vestri officii debitum exequamini, sicut decet, discretioni vestre per Apostolica scripta mandamus, quatenus apud Albiam tu frater episcope per te vel per alium seu alios idoneos, vos vero inquisitor vel inquisitores prefati, personaliter predictos cives ubicumque detineantur, adduci ad vestram presentiam sub fid a custodia facientes, in eodem negotio quibuscumque processibus factis seu incho- atis per venerabiles fratres Leonardum Albanensem, nunc Prenestinum tunc tituli S. Vitalis et Berengarium Tusculanum episcopum, tunc tituli sanctorum Nerei et Achillei, et dilectos filios nostros Johannem tituli sanctorum Marcellini et Petri presbyteros ac Richardum sancti Eustachii diaconum Cardinales, seu per dilectum filium Arnaldum abbatem Fontisfrigidi Cisterciensis ordinis, Narbo- nensis diocesis, nunc Sancte Romane Ecclesie Vicecancellarium seu alios quos- cumque, commissionum vigore per nos vel per felicis recordationis Benedictum papam undecimum predecessorem nostrum super facto heresis dictos cives tan- gente factarum, ab subrogatioue prefati abbatis et predicti Albiensis episcopi facta, nequaquam obstantibus, in eodem negotio solum Deum habentes pre ocu- lis, ad inquirendum contra illos contra quos inquisitum non est, et contra illos etiam contra quos inquisitum extitit, sed non plene, diligenter ac plenarie secun- dum formam que consuevit in talibus observari, contra illos vero contra quos plenarie inquisitum est, et contra predictos alios cum plene fuorit inquisitum, ad sententiam ratione previa procedatis, et alias contra illos vestri officii debitum exequamini, prout fuerit rationis, communicato tamen processu prius et inqui- sitione predictis prefatis Prenestino et Tusculano episcopis, eoruin consiliis in- hereutes ; per hoc tamen quoad alios ordinationi facte dudum de mandate nostro, tam Carcassone quam Albie per dictos Prenest. et Tuscul. episcopos tunc, ut predicitur, presbyteros Cardin. ex commissione seu commissionibus tam per nos quam per predecessorem nostrum factis predictis quibuscumque aliis Cardinal- ibus, et processibus habitis per eosdem super facto hominum illorum de Albia et de diocesi Albiensi, contra quos per dictum Bernardura Anicieusem tunc Albi- ensem episcopum, et inquisitorem seu inquisitores predictos, condempnationis sententia lata fuit, nullatenus volumus prejudicium gcnerari. Datum Avenione, sexto Idus Februarii pontificatus nostro anno V. (8 Feb. 1310). Verum sicut accepimus presentatis prefato episcopo et inquisitoril)Us litteris supradictis, et quibusdara diceutibus quod dicte littere fueraut a nobis Bubrep- 574 APPENDIX. ticie impetrate, pro eo videlicet quod aliqui ex dictis civibus ante tempus date litterarum ipsarum decesserant, reliqui vero ipso tempore in carcere permanebant, et sic predicta non potuerunt iiitiraasse, ct in prefato negotio hue usque procedere neglexeraut. Nos itaque nolentes quod propter hoc justitia retardetur, discre- tioni vestre per apostolica mandamus, quatenus premissis non obstantibus, nee obstante etiam quod aliqui de predictis querelantibus non sint cives Albie, licet sint de diocesi Albie, nee si aliquem de predictis mori contingat, vel ante deces- siaset quam inquirere inchoaveritis vel inchoavissetis, vel post eoruradem mor- tem, in aliquo non obstante, tarn de mortuis quam de vivis inquirere, et in eodem negotio procedere minime postponatis, juxta predictarum nostrarum tenorem litterarum. Quod si forsan vos filii inquisitores, his nolueritis, aut non potueritia, aut non curaveritis interesse, tu frater episcope, solus per te vel per alium seu alios in negotio eodem procedas, juxta litterarum contiuentiam earumdem. VL "Withdrawal of Security from Citizens of Albi. (Archives de I'lnquisition de Carcassonne. — Doat, XXXII. fol. 138.) Joannes episcopus servus servorum Dei dilectis filiis inquisitoribus hsereticae pravitatis in partibus Carcassonae constitutis salutem et apostolicam benedic- tionem. Ut commissum vobis negotium Catholicae fidei autore Domino pros- peretur in vestris manibus libenter apostolicse soUicitudinis partes apponimus et quaeque obstantia submovemus. Olim quidem felicis recordationis Clement! papse quinto prsedecessori nostro pro parte quorumdam hominum de partibus Carcassonae suggest© quod inquisitores pravitatis hsereticae illarum partium qui tunc erant et pro tempore fuerant multa illis gravamina et injurias irrogarunt, iniquos contra eos et alios illarum partium processus contra justitiam facientes, idem praedecessor liujusmodi suggestionibus aurem accommodans, bonae memo- riae Petro episcopo Proenestinensi tunc tituli Sancti Vitalis et venerabili fratri nostro Berengario episcopo Tusculanensi, tunc tituli SS. Nerei et Achillei pres- biteris cardinalibus qui partium illarum notitiam habebant et per partes illas transitum facere tunc habebant, suis dedit litteris in mandatis ut de praemissis suggestionibus et aliis incidentibus se plenius informarent, et nihilominus in- terim personis prosequentibus negotium memoratum de securitate idonea, pen- dente dicto negotio, auctoritate apostolica providerent nee permitterent eos per eosdem inquisitores aliquatenus molestari; prsefati quoque cardinales hujusmodi commissionis praetextu Aymerico de Castro burgensi Carcassonae et quibusdam aliis tunc negotium prosequentibus supradictum securitatem hujusmodi, pendente dicto negotio, apostolica auctoritate praestantes, illos sub sua protectione et sedis apostolicse receperunt ; quam receptionem idem praedecessor noster ratam habens et gratam mandavit illam inviolabiliter observari, eisdem inquisitoribus distric- tius inhibendo ne contra praefatum Aymericum et alios oflBcii eorum praetextu procederent quoquomodo, donee prajfatum negotium esset per sedem apostolicam terminatum et a sede ipsa aliud reciperent in mandatis. Quia vero praefati Aymer- APPENDIX. 575 icus et alii circa proposita et objccta per eos ulteriua coram praedecessore praefato ac etiam coram nobis negotium ipaum prosequi neglexerunt et quasi negligunt, prsefata protectione securi, nos nolentes sicut etiam non debemus propterea ve- strum officium impediri, securitatem ipsam penitus revocantes discretioni vestrae per apostolica scripta maudamus quutinus contra eumdem Ayraericum et alios in decreta vobis provincia, Deum et justitiara habendo prse oculis, procedentes, non obstantibus securitate prsedicta ct aliis securitatibus, protectionibus, confirma- tionibus, ordinationibus, et inhibitionibus quibuscumque dicti prajdecessoris aut aliorum quorumlibet, juxta foruiam vobis traditam ac canonicas sanctiones et de peritorum consilio officii vestri debitum curetis exequi diligenter. Datum Avenione, tertio Kalendas Aprilis, pontificatus nostri anno secundo (30 Mart. 1318). VII. Exequatur of an Inquisitor for Champagnb. (Archives de I'lnquisition de Carcassonne. — Doat, XXXII. fol. 127.) Philippus regis Francife primogenitus Dei gratia rex Navarrae, Campania et Briae comes palatinus dilectis et fidelibus suis universis baillivis, castellanis, vasallis, praepositis, communitatibus villarura et earura rectoribus, cseterisque communia offlcia gerentibus in nostris comitatibus Campanise et Briae, ad quos prseseutes litterfe pervenerint salutem et dilectionem. Tenore prajscntium bovis districte prsecipiendo mandamus, quatenus dilecto fratri Guillelmo AUi^siodo- rensi ordinis fratrum prsedicatorum pra;seiitium exhibitori domini Pap?e inquisi- tor! haereticorum ac perfidorum Judajorum in regno Franciae sine mora ct qualibet difficultate plenarie obediatis, sicut vobis in citando, capiendo, detinendo, ad eoa mittendo seu etiam ducendo et puniendo tam Christianos quam Judaeos, quos idem frater inquisitor invenerit culpabiles contra statuta ecclesiie et fidem Domini nostri Jesu Cbristi, ipsum nihilominus familiam et res ipsius custodicntcs et de- fendientes sicut nos et fiimiliam et res nostras. In cujus rei testimonium proesen- tibus litteris nostrum fecimus apponi sigillum. Actum et datum Parisius, die Dominica in crastino Sancti Matthiae apostoli, anno Domini MCC. octuagesimo quarto, mense Februarii (35 Feb. 1285). YIII. Sbntence of Marguerite la Porete. (Archives nationales de France. — J. 428, No. 15.) In Christi nomine amen. Anno cjusdem MCCC decimo, indictione octava, die dominica post Ascensionem Domini (31 Maii), pontificatus bcatissimi patris domini C. divina providentia Pape quinti anno quinto, in Oravia Parisius, facta ibidem congregatione soUempni, assisteutibus mihi rovcrciulo in Cliristo jiatrL" domino Parisicnsi episcopo, magistris Joliaunc de Frogerio official! Parisien«i, C. de Chenat, Jobanne de Domnomartino, Xavcrio de Charmoia, Stephano de 576 APPENDIX. Bercondicuria, fratribiis Martino dc Abbatisvilla baclialario in theologia, Nico- lao cle Avessiaco ordinis predicatoriun, Joluinne Marchandi preposito Parisieusi, G. de Cheques et pluribus aliis ad hoc specialiter evocatis, presentibus etiam pluribus processionibus ville Parisius et populi naultitudine copiosa, et me nota- rio publico infrascripto, religiosus vir et honestus frater G. de Parisius, ordinis predicatorum, inquisitor heretice pravitatis in regno Francie auctoritate apos- tolica deputatus in scriptis tulit sententias infrascriptas sub hac forma: In nomine Patris et Filii et Sjnritus Sancti amen. Quia nobis fratri Guillelmo de Parisius ordinis predicatorum inquisitori heretice pravitatis in regno Francie auctoritate apostolica deputato, constat et constitit evidentibus argumentis te, Margaritam de Hannonia dictam Peretc, super labe heretice pravitatis vehemen- ter esse suspectam, propter quod citari te fecimus ut compareas in judicio coram nobis, in quo existens personaliter a nobis ortata pluries canonice et legitime ut coram nobis juramentum prestares de plena pura et Integra veritate dicenda de te et aliis super hiis que ad nobis commissum inquisitionis officium pertinere noscun- tur, que facere contempsisti, licet a nobis fueris pluries super hoc et locis pluribus requisita, in hiis fuisti semper coutumax et rebellis, pro quibus contumaciis et re- bellionibus evidentibus et notoriis hoc exigentibus de multorum peritorum con- silio, in te sic rebellem et contumacem sententiam majoris excoramunicationis tulimus et in scriptis, quam, licet te notificata fuisset, post notificationem predictam fere per annum et dimidium in tue salutis disjjendium sustinuisti animo pertinaci, licet tibi pluries obtulerimus nos tibi absolutionis beneficium impensuros secun- dum formam ecclesie si hoc humiliter postulares, quod usque nunc petere contemp- sisti nee jurare nee respondere nobis super premissis hactenus voluisti, propter que secundum sanctiones canonicas pro convicta et confessa, et pro lapsa in heresim seu pro heretica te habemus et habere debemus : Porro dum tu Margarita in istis rebellionibus obstinata maneres, ducti conscientia volentes officii nobis commissi debitum exercere inquisitionem contra te et processum fecimus super predictis, prout exegit ordo vite, ex quibus inquisitione et processu nobis constitit evidenter quondam composuisse te librum pestiferum continentem heresim et errores, ob quam causam fuit dictus liber per bone niemorie Guidonem olim Cameracensem ejjiscopum* condemnatus et de mandato ipsius in Valencenis in tua combustus presentia publice et patenter; a quo episcopo tibi fuit sub pena excommunica- tionis expresse inhibitum ne de cetero talem librum componeres vel haberes aut eo vel simili utereris, addens et expresse ponens dominus episcopus in quadem littera suo sigillata sigillo, quod si de cetero libro utereris predicto vel si ea que coutinebantur in eo verbo vel scripto de cetero attemptares, te condempnabat tanquam hereticam et relinquebat justiciandam justicie seculari. Post vero dicta omnia dictum librum contra dictam prohibitionem pluries habuisti et pluries usa es, sicut et ejus patet recognitiouibus factis nedum coram inquisitore Lotha- ringie et coram reverendo patre et domino, domino Johanne tunc Cameracensi episcopo, nunc archiepiscopo Senonensi,t dictum eumdem librum, preter con- * Gui II., Bishop of Cambrai from 1296 to 1305. t Philippe de Marigny, Bishop of Cambrai in 1306, transferred to Sens in April, 1810, in time to burn the Templars who retracted their confessionB. APPENDIX, 577 derapnationem et combustionem predictas, sicut bonum et licitum coramuni- casti reverendo patri domino Johanni Cathalonensi episcopo et quibusdam pcr- sonis aliis, prout ex fidedignorum juratorum et super hiis coram nobis evidentibus testimoniis nobis hquet. Nos igiter super premissis omnibus deliberatione pre- habita diligenti communicatoque multorum peritorum in utroque jure consilio, Deum et sancta evangelia pre oculis habentes, de reverendi patris et domini Domini G. Dei gratia Parisiensis episcopi consilio et assensu, te Margaritam non solum sicut lapsara in heresim sed sicut relapsam finaliter condempnamus, et te relinquimus justicie seculari, rogantcs earn ut citra mortem et membro- rum mutilationem, tecum agat misericorditer quantum permictunt canonice sanc- tiones; dictum etiam librum tanquam hereticum et erroneum upote errores et heresim continentem, judicio magistrorum in theologia Parisius existentium et de eorumdem consilio finaliter condempnamus ac demum excommunicari volumus et comburi ; universis et singulis habentibus dictum librum precipientes districte et sub pena excommunicationis quod infra instans festum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli nobis vel priori fratrum predicatorum Parisius, nostro commissario, sine fraude reddere teneantur. Actum Parisius in Gravia, presente prcdicto patrc reverendo Parisiensi episcopo, clero et populo dicte civitatis ibidem sollempniter congregato, Dominica infra Ascensionem Domini, anno Domini MCCC decimo. Consultation of Canon Lawyers on the Case of Marguerite LA PORETE, HELD MaY 30, 1310, Universis presentes litteras inspecturis, Guillclmus dictus Frater archidiaconus Laudonie in ecclesia Sancti Andree in Scocia, Hugo de Bisuncio canonicus Pari- siensis, Johannes de ToUenz canonicus Sancti Quintiui in Veromandua, Henricus de Bitunia canonicus Furneusis et Petrus de Vallibus curatus Sancti Gcrmani Altissiodorensis de Parisius, et etiam regentes Parisius in decretis, salutcm in actore salutis. Noveritis virum venerabilem devotum et discretum fratrcm Guil- lelmum de Parisius ordinis predicatorum inquisitorem heretice pravitatis in regno Francie auctoritate sedis apostolice deputatum, inque processum qui sequi- tur nobis intimasse, consultationemque nobis fecisse inferius aunotatam. Pro- cessus equidem talis est : Tempore cjuo Margarita dicta Porete suspecta de hercsi fuit in rebellione et in inobedientia, nolens respondcre ncc jurare coram inquisi- tore de hiis que ad inquisitionis sibi commisse officium pertinent, ipse inquisitor contra cam nihilominus inquisivit et etiam depositione plurium testium invcnit quod dicta Margarita librum quemdam composuerat continentem hercscs ct er- rores qui de mandato reverendi patris domiui Guidonis condam Camcraccnsis episcopi publico et sollempniter tauiiuam talis fuit condcnipnatus et combustus et per litteram dicti episcopi fuit ordinatum quod si talia sicut ea que contine- bantur in libro de cetero attemptaret verbo vel scripto earn condempnnl)at et relinqucbat justiciandam justicie seculari. Invcnit etiam idem inquisitor quod ipsa recognovit in judicio scmcl coram inquisitore Lotiiaringie ct scmel coram reverendo patre Domino Philippo tunc Camcraccnsi episcopo, sc post condemp- nationem predictam librum dictum habuisse et alios: invcnit etiam idem in- II.— 37 578 APPENDIX. quisitor quod dicta Margarita dictum librum in suo consiinili cosdem continent tem errores post ipsius libri condempuationem reverendo patri Domino Jo. Dei gratia Cathalaunensi episcopo communicavit ac nedum dicto domino sed et pluribus aliia personis simplicibus, begardis et aliis tanquam bonum. Consul- tatio autem ex predictis resultans per prefatum inquisitorem ut pertactum est nobis facta talis est : Videlicet, utrum in talibus dicta beguina debeat relapsa judicari? Nos autem fidei catholice zelatores, veritatisque canonice professores qualescumque consultationi predicte respondentes, dicimus quod ipsa beguina, supposita veritate facti precedentis, judicanda est relapsa et merito relinquenda est curie seculari. In cujus rei testimonium sigilla nostra presentibus apposui- mus. Datum anno Domini MCCC decimo sabbato post festum beati Joannis ante portam latinam.* IX. Exequatur of an Inquisitor issued by Philippe le Bon of Burgundy. (MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds Moreau, 444 fol. 10.) Philippus universis et singulis seueschallis, baillivis, scultetis, officiariis et justiciariis nostris praesentibus et futuris, et locatenentibus eorumdem per ducatus et districtus nostras infra dyoceses Cameracensis et Leodiensis constitutes, ad quos prsesentes nostrse litterse pervenerint salutem et omne bonum. Cum religio- sus dilectusque noster frater (Henricus) Kaleyser sacrae theologise professor or- dinis fratrum prgedicatorum inquisitor hsereticse pravitatis per provincialem pro- vincise Theotonise in prsedictis Caraeracensi et Leodiensi dyocesibus auctoritate apostolica specialiter deputatus pro Dei servitio et cultu seu exaltatione sanctae fidei orthodoxse utque ipsum haeresis crimen a dictis partibus quibus presidemus si forsan alicubi vigeat seu inoleat valeat extirpare ad loca seu partes nostras ju- risdictioni subjectas et vobis commissas declinare quisquam habeat seu etiam pro- ficisci, nosque velut princeps catholicus qui de manu altissimi multa bona vari- osque honores recognoscimus recipisse in prsedictis et aliis qui divinum continuo obsequium complacere ut convenit plurimum cupiantes intendimus ymo et volu- mus favorabilem dare locum, ipsumque inquisitorem tanquam Dei specialem ministrum nostris prosequi gratiis et favoribus optamus ideo vobis et cuilibet vestrum qui super hoc fueritis requisiti seu fuerit requisitus, districte prsecipiendo * In the Register of Clement V., received since the text of this volume was in type, there is a brief addressed September 3, 1310, to the Inquisitor of Langres ordering him to proceed vigorously against the heretics of that diocese who have been reported by the bishop as multiplying so that, unless prompt measures are taken, grave injury to the faith is to be apprehended. The nature of the heresy is not described, but it was probably that of the Brethren of the Free Sph-it which Marguerite la Porete had been disseminating throughout that region. The incident has further interest as showing how completely the French episcopate had transferred to the Inquisition its jurisdiction over heresy, in spite of its renewed ac- tivity at the moment in the affair of the Templars. APPENDIX. 579 mandamns sub obtentu gratiae nostrge quatenns dictum fratrem Henricum in- quisitorem quotiescumque ad exercendum dictum officium ad dicta loca seu partes vobis commissas contigerit se transferre et supra praedictis sreculare bra- chium invocando vestrum auxilium postulare, eumdem inquisitorem favorabiliter admittatis, et eidem in et supra prsedictis saeculare brachium invocando vestrum auxilium impendatis, capiendo seu capi faciendo quoscumque ipse inquisitor de- bita informatione seu inquisitione praevia et juris ordine alias desuper observato de memorato facinore suspectos vel diflfamatos noverit et hsereticos quosque vo- bis duxerit nominandos, et captos etiam detinendo, et infra jurisdictionem ves- tram ad locum de quo dictus inquisitor vobis dixerit dcducendo, necnon poena debita plectendo eosdem sicut ipse decreverit et est fieri consnetum, si videlicet quando et quotiens ac prout ijise inquisitor vos duxerit requirendos. Ut autem inquisitor praefatus suum inquisitionis officium securius et liberius exercere valeat, nostro suflFultus prsesidio et favore, inquisitorem eumdem ipsiusque socium ac ejus notarium et familiam, res et bona eorum, sub nostris protectione, defeusione et salvagardia speciali atque securo conductu recepimus et recipimus per prse- sentes, mandantes vobis omnibus et singulis supradictis ut vestrum cuilibet qua- tenus nostras protectionem, defensionem et salvagardiam securumque conductum hujusmodi dicto inquisitori ejusque socio ac notario, familise, bonis et rebus eorum inviolabiliter observando, nuUam injuriam nuUumque dispendium, gravamen aut dampnum aliquod ipsis inferre in personis ac bonis a quocumque permittatis, quinnymo provideatis eisdem de securo transitu et salvo conductu si et prout per dictum inquisitorem inde fueritis requisite Datum in oppido nostro Bruxel- lensi mensis novembris die nona, anno Domini MCCCC tricesimo primo. X. Waldensianism in the Sentences of Pieree Cella. (Doat, XXI.) I select a few of the sentences of Pierre Cella in 1241-2, illustrat- ing the development of Waldensianism at that period, and the relations between it and Catharism. The sects were perfectly distinct, but frequently the people, in their antagonism to the established Church, looked favorably on both, and considered them equally as ^' bofii Jiomi- nes.'''' It will be borne in mind that, in the language of the Inquisition, " heretic " always means Catharan. The following cases are all from Gourdon and Montauban. Galterus Archambaut vidit hereticos pluries in diversis locia, audivit predi- cationes eorum, et comedit cum eis sepc, et adoravit eos scpe, et pacis osculum more hereticorum pluries recepit et interfuit hereticationil>us duabus, ot addnxit Valdenses ad hereticos in domum suam,ul)i disputavcrunt, ct condu.xit lien-tiros, et fuit depositarius eorum, multociens adoravit eos et comedit cum eia, et dedit 580 APPENDIX. eis de bonis suis, et aiulivit predicationes eorum tociens quod non recordatur, et credebat quod esaont boni liomines et quod esset salus cum eis, et si moreretur vellet niori in manibus eorum. — Stabit Constantinopoli per quinque annos, de cruce et via sicut alii, et tenebit pauperem quamdiu vixerit (fol. 19G-7J. B. Bonaldi vidit P. de Vallibus Valdcnsem, et audivit predicationem ejus, et. credidit aliquando quod non debet homo jurare, et in domo sua propria recepit Joset de Noguer hereticum, et disputavit cum eo, et ipse commendavit sectam Valdensem. — Idem quod proxima, excepta cruce (id est, Ibit ad Podium, Sanc- tum Egidium, Sanctum Jacobum, Sanctum Salvatorem de Asturia, Sanctum Mar- cialem, Sanctum Leonardum, Sanctum Dyonisium, Sanctum Thomam Cantuarien- sem) (fol. 201). Petrus de Verniolo habuit hereticos et Valdenses in fortia sua, et locutus est alteri eorum, consuluit Valdenses de infirmitate sua. — Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium et Sanctum Jacobum (fol. 202). Pana tociens recepit Valdenses quod non recolit, et fuit hospes Valdensium, et misit eis tociens panem, vinum, et alia comestibilia quod non nescit numerum, et fuit in domo sua facta disputatio inter Valdenses et credentes hereticis, et dili- gebat P. de Vallibus tanquam angelum Dei : — Sicut proxima, excepto paupere et cruce (i. e. Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium, Sanctum Salvatorem de Asturia, Sanctum Marcialem, Sanctum Leonardum, Sanctum Dyonisium, Sanctum Tho- mam Cantuariensem) (fol. 203). Petrona uxor Raimundi Joannis, adduxit P. de Vallibus Valdensem ad do- mum suam,et tenuit per octo dies, et dedit ad comedendum et bibendum, et audi- vit eum ibi, et tenuit per tres septimanas Geraldam Valdensem, et credebat quod esset bona mulier, et dedit el de bonis suis, et vidit hereticos et audivit predica- tionem eorum, et misit eis panem, vinum, et nuces.— Sicut Huga, excepta cruce (i. e. Ibit ad Podium, ad Sanctum Egidium, Sanctum Jacobum et Sanctum Salva- torem de Asturia, Sanctum Marcialem Lemovicensem, Sanctum Leonardum, Sanc- tum Dyonisium et Sanctum Thomam Cantuariensem), et tenebit pauperem per annum (fol. 204). G. de Pradels vidit hereticos, audivit predicationem eorum, dedit eis de bonis suis, et pluries vidit et in diversis locis hereticos, et credebat quod boni homines essent, pluries vidit Valdensem, et credidit quod bonus homo esset, et dedit ei ad comedendum semel, et audivit predicationem ejus.— Portabit crucem per biennium (fol. 208). G. Ricart pluries vidit hereticos et in diversis locis et sepe audivit predica- tionem eorum, et interfuit appareilhamento, recepit osculum pacis ab eis, comedit cum eis, recepit pluries eos in domum suam, dedit eis ad comedendum, recepit ab eis forcipes, dedit eis unam capam, unam camisiam, unam tunicam, unam quar APPENDIX. 581 tam frumenti, duxit Valdenses ad hereticos ad disputandura in die Pasche asso- ciavit hereticos, fuit depositarius eorum, et multociens audivit predicationem hereticorum, credebat quod essent boni homines, et, si moreretur, vellet mori in manibus eorum, tociens adoravit eos quod non recordatur.— Stabit Constanti- nopoli per tres annos, de cruce et via sicut alii, et tenebit pauperem quamdiu Tixerit (fol. 208). P. de Gaulenas vidit Valdenses et hereticos et locutus est cum eis in quadam navi, et cum audisset hereses quas dicebant, recessit ab eis. — Ibit ad Sanctum Ja- cobum (fol. 230). P. Baco vidit Valdenses multociens et dedit eis eleemosynas et audivit predi- cationem Vaklensium, et diligcbat eos, et credebat quod essent boni homines, et frequenter dabat eis de suo, et interfuit cene Valdensium, et comedit de pane benedicto, vino et piscibus hereticorum et accepit pacem ab eis ; item dedit Val- densibus ad comedeadum in domo sua; item interfuit disputationi hereticorum et Valdensium, et dedit eis duodecim denarios. — Idem quod proximus (i. e. Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium, Sanctum Jacobum et Sanctum Thomam) et am- plius ad Sanctum Dyonisium (fol. 231). P. R. Boca dixit quod vidit multociens Valdenses et in diversis locis, et etiam habuit eos in domo sua, et audivit ibi monitiones eorum ; item credebat quod essent boni homines ; item pluries venit ad hereticos et audivit predicationem eorum, et alibi vidit hereticos et accepit paccm ab ipsis hereticis; item tercio vidit hereticos et adoravit eos; item quarto vidit hereticos et audivit predica- tionem eorum et adoravit eos ; item recepit in portion suo hereticum, et duxit eum inde ad quemdam locum, et dedit cuidam hcretico unam capam ; item cre- didit a principio quod Valdenses erant boni homines, et idem credidit postea de hereticis. — Stabit Constantinopoli tribus anuis, de cruce et via sicut alii (fol. 232). P. Lanes senior dixit quod vidit Valdenses et dedit eis eleemosinam, et uxor sua dedit se Valdensibus in morte et fuit sepulta in ciniitcrio eorum, ipse tnmen abscns erat, ut dixit, et vidit alibi Valdenses. — Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium et Sanctum Jacobum (fol. 232). Johannes Tosct dixit quod multociens vidit liercticos et in diversis locis, et fuit presens quando quidam fecit se hereticum apud Kaljastcns, et tunc vidit multos hereticos ibi ; item audivit predicationem hereticorum et adoravit eos bis; item dedit sorori sue heretice pluries denarios; item associnvit hereticos; item associavit avunculum suum quando fecit se hereticum apud Villamur; item consuluit Valdensibus pro infirmitate sua, et credidit quod essent boni homines. — Stabit tribus annis Constantinoi^oli, de cruce et via sicut alii (fol. 232-33). Ramon Carbonel vidit multos Valdenses et in diversis locis, et induxit fra- trem suum ut solveret solidos ducentos Valdensibus legatos eis ; item, interfuit 582 APPENDIX. disputationi Valdensium et hereticorum ; item, iuterfuit cene Valdensium et comedit dc j^ane et piscibus benedictis ab eis, de vino bibit, et audivit predica- tionem eorum. — Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium, Sanctum Jacobum, Sanctum Dyonisium et Sanctum Thomam (fol. 234). » Jacobus Carbonel dixit quod frequenter venit ad scholas Valdensium et lege- bat cum eis ; item iuterfuit disputationi hereticorum et Valdensium et comedit de pane et pisce benedictis ab eis, de vino bibit, et tunc erat duodecim anno- rum vel circa, et credidit quod Valdenses erant boni homines usque ad tempus quo ecclesia condemnavit eos. — Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium, Sanctum Ja- cobum et Sanctum Dyonisium (fol. 234). Bartholomeus de Posaca dixit quod adduxit quemdam Valdensem ad uxorem suam infirmam, qui curam illius egit, et audivit predicationem Valdensium, et ex tunc dilexit eos, et venerunt pluries ad domum ejus, et faciebat eis eleemosi- nas dando eis panem et vinum et multociens et in diversis locis audivit predica- tionem eorum ; item interfuit cene Valdensium et comedit ut supra; item pluries (accepit) pacem ab eis.— Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium, Sanctum Jacobum et Sanctum Thomam (fol. 236). Guillelmus de Catus dixit quod cum frater suus et filia ejus infirmarentur ad- duxit Valdenses ad domum suam ut haberent curam eorum ; item, audivit expo- sitionem evangelii a quodam Valdensi ; item aliquando iverunt Valdenses ad restringendum dolium suum et tunc dedit eis ad comedendum; item aliquando volebat eis facere eleemosinas sed nolebant accipere ; item ali(]uaudo accepit pacem ab eis et audivit admonitiones eorum ; item credidit quod essent boni homines, et ea quae dicebant et faciebant placebant ei. — Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium, Sanctum Jacobum et Sanctum Dyonisium (fol. 236). P. Austorcs audivit multociens predicationem Valdensium dum predicarent publice in viis ; item quidam apportavit sibi de pane pisceque benedicto a Val- densibus et comedit; item credidit quod essent boni homines et quod homo posset salvari cum ipsis ; item dixit quod postquam audivit quod ecclesia con- damnaverat eos non dilexit eos.— Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium et Sanctum Jacobum (fol. 237-8). Domina de Coutas vidit Valdenses publice predicantes, et dabat eis eleemo- sinas, et venit ad domum in qua manebaut et audivit predicationem eorum, et multociens ivit ad eos pro quodam infirmo ; item in die Parasceves venit bis ad Valdenses et audivit predicationem eorum, et confessa fuit Valdensi cuidam pec- cata sua, et accepit penitentiam a Valdense; item credebat quod essent boni homines ; item vidit hereticos et comedit cum eis cerasa ; et dicebatur quod esset reconciliata ; item vidit alibi pluries hereticos ; item comedit de pane signato a Valdensibus. — Idem quod proxima excepta cruce (i. e. Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium, Sanctum Jacobum, Sanctum Thomam) (fol. 241). APPENDIX. 5g3 B. Remon vidit Valdenses, et audivit predicationem eorum et credebat quod essent boni homines; item, ivit ad hereticos volens tentare qui assent melioree, Valdenses vel heretici, et ibi audivit predicationem eorum ; item alibi locutus eat cum hereticis, et adoravit eos postquam fuerat confessus quedam de predictis fratri Guillelmo de Belvuis ; item adduxit sororem suam hereticaUun a Tholosa ustjue ad Montemalbanum, et conduxiteam et alias hereticas usque ad quemdam mausum ; item venit ad ipsas et jjortavit eis piscem et bibit cum eis ; item roga- vit quemdam quod reciperet illas hereticas in manso suo, quod et fecit, et pro- misit ei quinquaginta solidos ; item, alia vice comedit cum hereticis ; item fecit donum dictis hereticis et audivit predicationem eorum et comedit cum eis ; item, apportavit hereticis fructus; item, fecit tunicam et capam sorori sue lieretice; item, vidit hereticos et credebat quod essent boni homines et haberent bonam fidem, et comedit de pane signato ab eis ; item, disputavit cum quodam de fide hereti- corum et Valdensium, et approbavit fidem hereticorum. — Stabit Constantinopoli tribus annis, de cruce et via sicut alii (fol. 242). G. Macips vidit Valdenses qui habuerunt curam ejus in infirmitate sua, et pluries venerunt ad domura ipsius et audivit admonitiones eorum, et dedit eis pluries eleemosinas, et credebat quod essent boni homines; item, posuit fidejus- sorem quemdam hereticum pro co pro quindecim solidis; item, vidit hereticos et audivit admonitionem eorum ; item, vidit hereticos et audivit predicationem eorum, et promisit cuidam heretico servitium suum. — Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium, Sanctum Jacobum, Sanctum Salvatorem, Sanctum Dyonisium et Sanc- tum Thomam (fol. 246). Guillelmus Laurencii vidit hereticos predicantes, et interfuit disputationi he- reticorum et Valdensium, et fecit sibi fieri emplastrum a Valdensibus. — Ibit ad Podium, Egidium et Sanctum Jacobum (fol. 250). J. Austorcs vidit hereticos multociens et adoravit eos multociens, et audivit predicationem eorum multociens, et comedit de pane benedicto ab hereticis et de nucibus ; item vidit hereticos alibi ; item dixit quod multociens vidit et in diversis locis et temporibus, et quotiens videbat hereticos adorabat eos semel • item, vidit Valdenses et audivit predicationem eorum multociens, et dedit eis panem et vinum multociens, et credebat quod essent Ijoni homines. — Stubit Con- stantinopoli tribus annis, de cruce et via sicut alii (fol. 256). A. Capra dixit quod multociens duxit quemdam Valdensem ad domum suam pro infirmitate sue uxoris et dedit Valdensibus multociens panem et vinum et carnes ; item, dixit quod portavit panem et piscem Valdensilnis ad domuin suam ; item, dixit quod audivit predicationem Valdensium ; item, dixit se audivisse predicationem eorum in platea multociens; item, in die Pasche dedit ValdLnsi- bus carnes et comedit de cena Valdensium.— Ibit ad Podium, buuctum Egidium, Sanctum Jacobum et Sanctum Thomam (fol. 257> 584 APPENDIX. B. Clavelz vidit Valdenses et audivit predicationem eorum in plateis et inter- fuit cene Valdensium et cenavit cum eis in die Jovis cene, et audivit ibi predica- tionem eorum, et dedit eis multociens panem et vinum, et credebat quod essent boni homines. — Ibit ad Podium, Sanctum Egidium, Sanctum Jacobum et Sanc- tum Dyonisium (fol. 258). XI. Letters of Charles I. of Naples. 1. (Archivio di Napoli, Anno 1269, Reg. 3, Lettera A, fol. 64.) Scriptum est comitibus, marchionibus, baronibus, potestatis et consulibus civi- tatum et villarum comitatibus, ac omnibus aliis potestatem et jurisdictionem habentibus et aliis amicis et fidelibus suis ad quos presentes littere pervenerint salutem et omne boiuiui. Cum dilecti nobis in Christo fratres predicatores in terris carissimi doraini et nepotis nostri illustris regis Francie inquisitores here- tice pravitatis auctoritate apostolica deputati in Lombardia et ad alias partes ytalie sane intelleximus proficisci intendant seu mittere nuncios speciales ad ex- plorandos ibi hereticos et alios jiro heresi fugitivos qui de terris predictis aufuge- rent et se ad partes ytalie transtulerunt et pro ipsis hereticis et fugitivis ad loca unde aufugerint per se vel per eosdem nuncios reducendis, rogamus et requeri- mus quatenus eisdem fratribus vel predictis eorum nuntiis present! um portatoribns in exigendis predictis vestrum impendatis consilium auxilium et favorem ut per terras et potestates vestras ipsos salvo et secure cum rebus societatis et familia suis conducatis et conduci faciatis eundo redeundo et morando. Ad salvamen- tum et liberation em eorum efficaciter intendentes quocies sibi necesse fuerit et vos inde credederint requirendos. Datum apud urbem veterem penultimo madii primae indictionis. 2. (Anno 1269, Registro 4, Lettera B, fol. 47.) Scriptum est universis justitiariis secretis baiulis judicibus magistris juratis ceterisque officialibus atque iidelibus suis per regnum sicilie constitutis etc. Cum religiosus vir frater benvenutus ordinis Minorum inquisitor heretice pravitatis Regebatium et Jacobucium familiares suos latores presentium pro capiendis qui- busdam hereticis per diversas partes regni nostri morantibus quorum nomina inferius continentur mittat ad presens et petiverit nostrum sibi ad hoc favorem et auxilium exhiberi fidelitati tue precipiendo mandamus quatenus ad requisi- tionem dictorum nunciorum vel alterius eorumdem omnes hujusmodi hereticos cum bonis eorum omnibus tarn stabilibus quam mobilibus seseque moventibus capientes faciatis personas illorum in locis tutis cum summa diligentia custodiri. Bona vero ipsorum ad opus nostre curie fldeliter et soUiciter conservari. Atten- tius provisuri ne in hoc aliquem adhibeatis negligeutiam vel defectum sicut divi- nam et nostram iudignationem cupitis evitare et nihilominus de hiis que ceperi- APPENDIX. 585 tis faciatis fieri quatuor publica consimilia instrumenta, quorum uno penes vos reteuto alio penes eum qui bona ipsa custodierit dimisso, tercium ad cameram nostram et quartum ad magistros rationales magne nostre curie destinetis. Nom- ina vero hereticorum ipsorum sunt hec (sequuntur nomina 67). Datum in ob- aidione lucerie XII. Augusti decime secunde indictionis. 3. (Anno 1269, Reg. 6, Lettera D, fol. 185.) Earolus etc. Berardo de Rajona militi etc. Cum te ad justitiariatum aprutii et comitatus molisii pro inveniendis et capiendis patarenis hereticis ac recepta- toribus et fautoribus eorum specialiter duximus destinandum fidelitati tue dis- tricte precipiendo mandamus quatenus ad partes illas etc. personaliter conferens in inveniendis et capiendis ipsis omnem curam quam poteris et diligentiam et soUicitudinem studeas adhibere, ita quod possis exinde in conspectu nostre celsi- tudinis commendabili merito apparere. Nos enim scribimus omnibus officialibus nostris ceterisque in eisdem partibus constitutis ut super hiis celeriter exequendis dent tibi consilium et auxilium opportunum. Datum Neapoli XIII. Decembris XIII. indictionis. 4. (Anno 1270, Reg. 9, Lettera C, fol. 39.) Xiiij Martii Neapoli scriptum est Johannutio de Pando magistro portulano et procuratori curie in principatu et terra laboris etc. Quia ex insinuatione fra- tris Mathei de Castro Maris inquisitoris in regno Sicilie heretice pravitatis intel- leximus quod idem frater Matheus nuper invenerit in civitate beneventana tres patarenos, unum videlicet lombardum nomine Andream de Vivi Mercato, alium nomine Judicem Johannem de zeccano, et tertium Thomasium Russum nomine de Maula saracena quos judicavit relapsos et tradi fecit ignibus et comburi, quo- rum bona omnia sunt regie curie tanquam bona Patarenorum juste et rationabil- iter applicata, Devotioni tue etc. quatenus statim receptis presentibus de bonis omnibus tam stabilibus quam mobilibus et semoventibus ipsorum Paterenorum cum omni diligentia inquirere studeas, quibus inventis et captis debeas ea pro parte curie fideliter procurare, faciens redigi in quaterno uno transumptum inqui- sitiouis ipsius in quo quaterno contineantur etiam bona omnia que ceperis, quan- titatem et qualitatem ipsorum in quibuscumque consistant et ubi ac valorem annuum eorumdem : quem quateruum cum litteris tuis contineutibus processum tuum totum quem in premissis hujusmodi sub sigillo tuo etc. sine dilatione trans- mittas, in quo quaterno similiter redigi facias formam presentium litterarum. Datum Neapoli ut supra. 5. (Anno 1271, Reg. 10, Lettera B, fol. 96.) Pro fratre Trojano inquisitore heretice pravitatis. — Item scriptum est cabel- lotia seu credentiariis super ferro, pice, et sale Neapolis ut cum scriptum fiierit eis 586 APPENDIX. alias ut de pecunia curie etc. fratri Trojano inquisitori heretice pravitatia in jus- titiariatu provincie tcrre laboris et aprutii de proventibus ferri picis et salis Ne- apolis ad requisitiouem suam pro expensis suis, alterius socii fratis sui et unius notarii et trium aliarum personarum et equorum suorum pro mensibua martii aprilis madii junii julii et augusti presentis XIIII indictionis ad rationem de au- gustali uno per diem uncias auri XL VII ponderis generalis in principio videlicet dicti mensis martii deberent ecclesie exhibere etiam mandatum est sub peua dupli nt dictam pecuniam juxta continentiam predictarum litterarum eidem fratri Trojano vel nuncio etc. persolvant. Datum ut supra (apud Montem Flasconem XVin Martii, XIV indictionis). XII. Lbttbes of Charles II. op Naples Ordering the Prosecution OF A Relapsed Heretic. (MSS. Chioccarelli, T. VIII.) Scriptum est religioso viro Fratri Roberto de Sancto Valentino Inquisitori in Regno Siciliae post salutera. Olim religioso viro Fratri Benedicto prsedeces- sori tuo in eodem inquisitionis officio post salutem scripsisse dicimur in hsec verba. Veridica nuper accepiraus relatione quod te ex officio tuo contra haereti- cae pravitatis infectos inquirente Petrus de Bucclauico ipsius castri archipresbyter de pluribus articulis contra fidem Catholicam inventus est labefactus, cumque satis expediat in contemptse religionis vindictam ad reprimendum tarn damna- bile exemplum hsereticse pravitatis te satis insurgere viribus ad celerem puni- tionem tarn enormis criminis fidelitati tuae mandamus quatenus statim receptis presentibus sic omni specie corruptionis procul ejecta in prsemissis contra dictum archipresbyterum tam fideliter prosequaris processum quod inde Deo placens honori ordinis tui deservias et apud nos qui dicti negotii plenam habemus fidem et notitiam dignas tibi laudes valeas vindicare. Datum apud Monasterium Re- galis Vallis die 10 mensis Martii 4 Indict (1306). — Noviter autem facta nobis assertio continebat quod memoratus archipresbyter ad vomitum rediens in ejus- dem hsereticaj pravitatis laqueum est relapsum, quod si veritate fulcitur de tauta profecto obstinatione turbati devotionem tuam attenta exhortatione requirimua ut tam ex processu dicti praedecessoris tui contra dictum archipresbyterum ab olim habito quam habendo per te ut cupimus denuo contra cum meritis (?) sive indagine in prsedictis sic tuse disciplinae virga in dictum archipresbyterum pro- inde desaeviat aspere ut impunitate non gaudeat hostis fidei orthodoxse. Tuque propterea digna apud Deura et nos laude attolaris. Datum Neapoli apud Bar- tholomaeum de Capua militem Logothetam et Prothonotarium Regni Siciliae anno Domini 1307 (1308) die ultimo Augusti, 6 Indict. Regnorum nostrorum anno 24. APPENDIX. 587 XIII. Oath of the Doge of Venice in 1249. (Archivio di Venezia. Codice ex Brera No. 277.) Promissio Domini Marini Mauroceno. In nomine dei eterni amen. Anno ab incarnatione domini nostri Jesu Christi millesimo ducentesimo quadragesimo nono mense Junii die terciodecimo intrante indictione septima Rivoalto, In palatio ducatus Veneciarum feliciter amen. . . . Ad honorem dei et sacrosancte matris Ecclesie et robur et defcnsionem fidei ca- tholice studiosi erimus cum cousilio nostrorum consiliariorum vel maioris partis quod jirobi et discreti et catholici viri eligantur et constituantur super inquiren- dis hereticis in venecia. Et omues illos qui dati erunt pro hereticis per dominum Patriarchum Gradensem, Episcopum Castellauum vel per alios episcopos pro- vincie duchatus Veneciarum a Grado videlicet usque ad caput aggeris comburi faciemus de consilio nostrorum consiliariorum vel maioris partis ipsorum. . . . Ego Marinus Maurocenus Dei gratia Dux manu mea subscripsi. Capitulare super Patarenis et Usurariis (1256). (Dal Registro intitulato, Capitolari di piii Magistrati riformato nell' anno 1376. Miscellanea Codici, No. 133, p. 121.) Item juro quod amodo usque ad unum annum et per totum ipsum annum simul cum meis vel cum altero eorum studiosus ero bona fide sine fraude ad inquirendum et inveniendum patarenos hereticos et suspectos de heresi tam vene- tos quam forinsccos in civitate Rivoalti et si quem talem vel tales invenero secre- tum aput me habebo et quam cito potero bona fide sine fraude denunciabo domi- no Duci et consiliariis ejus vel aliis quibus per dominum ducem et suum con- silium fuerint hoc commissum. Hec autem omnia observabo bona fide sine fraude remoto odio vel amore prece vel precio, et servitium inde non tollam nee faciam toUi. Item attendam et observabo ea que continentur in capitulari ma- ioris consilii. — Si autem secundo in eodem crimine quis fuerit deprcensus penam predictam incurrat et bannizetur et expellatur de veneciis si forinsecus fuerit veuetus autem quociens inventus fuerit penam incurrat predictam excepto quod de veneciis non bannizetur nee expellatur. Post anno domini millesimo ducen- tesimo quinquagesimo quinto (1256) indictione XIIII. mense februarii fuit hoc additum in presente capitulare. End of Vol. II. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. lis 84 REC'D LD-URt LDURLjAt^f JUN 2 1987 rr^^tC^r) to-i :n-lff^ REC'D YRL JUL 2 A '00 315 II rii' 3 1158 00874 3345 UC SOUTHFR^J REGiQN'AL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 370 858 College C1711 <2. .5