The medieval Inquisition: A study in religious persecution

by Charles T. Gorham

Clerical Celibacy.

The great question whether priests should or should not be permitted to marry caused the deepest agitation in the Church for many hundreds of years. As early as the fourth and fifth centuries the Church decided it in the negative, but this and many later prohibitions were nullified by the liberty which it allowed in practice. The early Church had so great a horror of the matrimonial state that some theologians seriously doubted whether the salvation of married persons came within the possibilities of the Divine scheme.

During the eleventh century the Church succeeded, after long and violent struggles, in enforcing upon its priesthood at least a nominal celibacy, but it did not succeed in improving the ecclesiastical morals. As the celibate party were the more fanatical, and usually applied to priests’ wives the term “concubines,â€� it was not easy to distinguish lawful or quasi-lawful unions from illicit connections. Anyhow, when priests found they could not marry, they generally had no hesitation in taking to themselves concubines, or sometimes a succession of paramours—a custom so commonly recognized that a layman confessing an illicit amour was forbidden to name his erring partner because it would give the priest an opportunity to exploit her frailty. Thus illicit connections on the part of priests were winked at, while marriage was forbidden—an excellent example of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. This eccentric notion of morality led to horrible abuses. Pope Alexander II declined, in 1064, to deprive of communion a priest who had committed adultery with the wife of his father, and a little later reduced the penance imposed on another priest found guilty of incestuous relations with his own mother. The institution of matrimony afforded to the priesthood perpetual opportunities for exacting money. The remotest degree of blood relationship was found to be perilous, but ingenuity and cash overcame the difficulty. Bishops did not scruple to receive a tribute known as the “cullagium,â€� which enabled a “celibateâ€� priest to solace his holy duties with wife or concubine. The difficulty remained acute until the fifteenth century, human nature having proved as rebellious as ever. It was only in 1414 that it was finally settled by the Council of Constance, the rigid moralists who formed that conclave being accompanied by an army of prostitutes. The attempt to enforce clerical celibacy, or, rather, the rule which required its observance, was a chief contributing cause of the scandalous state of ecclesiastical morals in the Middle Ages, as, indeed, is expressly stated by Alain Chartier, a French chronicler of the early fifteenth century.

In those Anglo-Saxon times, in which romancers have discovered a wealth of simple virtue, clerical chastity had many chinks in its armour. A Saxon chronicler of the eleventh century attributes the ruin of the kingdom to the vices of the clergy having drawn upon it the wrath of God. It was a common practice for priests to put away their wives, and live in open adultery with other women. A century later no improvement was perceptible, many of the clergy having two wives, and changing them at pleasure. An instance is recorded of the Abbess of Avesbury, whose recklessness in having three children procured her a life-pension, but was surpassed by the laxity of her nuns, who were dismissed from their “abode of love.â€� Giraldus Cambrensis relates that nearly all parish priests in England and Wales had companions who were indifferently regarded as wives or concubines. In Ireland matters were equally bad, the chief blame being naturally visited on the less guilty women. The condition of Scotland may be imagined from a single instance in the sixteenth century. A certain Prior—afterwards Bishop of Moray—once had a pleasant conversation with his gentlemen regarding the number of their mistresses, and chuckled in glee over the fact that, though the youngest man present, he had outdone them all. He rejoiced in twelve mistresses, of whom seven were the wives of other men. His achievement paled before that of Cardinal Pier-Leone, who used to make his visitations as Papal Legate accompanied by a concubine and by his children—who were also his sister’s.

Horrors like these were, it may be hoped, exceptional, but there is a vast mass of evidence proving that society as a whole, and the clerical element in particular, was morally in a condition that can scarcely be matched in history. A French writer of the nineteenth century, Abbé Helsen, alludes to the “ordinary customâ€� that when a priest’s servant “becomes pregnant and cannot be saved by a prudent absence he dismisses her, and takes another, perhaps younger and more attractive.â€�[9] In many convents the nuns abandoned themselves “to the most hideous licentiousness—those who were good-looking prostituting themselves for hire; those who were not so fortunate hiring men to gratify their passions, while the older ones acted as procuresses.â€�[10] In Spain, according to Pelayo, a fourteenth-century writer, the illegitimate children of priests were almost as numerous as those of the laity. Of Avignon, Petrarch says that “chastity was a reproach and licentiousness a virtue.â€� The aged priests were fouler in their wickedness than the younger, while with the Pontiff the vilest crimes were pastimes. And Petrarch claims to tell only part of the truth. Of all European countries the same story is told. Details concerning the French clergy of the eighth century are “unfit for publicationâ€� in the twentieth. In nunneries infanticide was common, and priests had to be forbidden to have mothers, aunts, or sisters living in their houses. The Archdeacon of Salzburg in 1175 lamented bitterly his complete failure to reform the clergy or prevent the ordination of priests who continued to live in adultery with the wives of other men; while four centuries later the German prelates were vigorously assailed for allowing such foulness as still existed in the Church. They excused themselves by pointing to the example set by the Pope. A specially culpable Spanish priest was charged in 1535 with blasphemy, theft, cheating, seduction, brothel-haunting, and other offences. He did not go unpunished. He was fined two ducats, the costs of his trial, and thirty days’ seclusion! A protest was made by the Senate of Rome in 1538 against the reforming efforts of Pius V on the ground that the compulsory celibacy of priests would make it impossible for the citizens to preserve the virtue of their wives and daughters. Peter Cantor and others in the twelfth century deplored the moral superiority of the laity; the same thing had been said in England as far back as the times of St. Dunstan; and the Beggars’ Petition of 1535 showed that the anomaly still existed more than four hundred years later.

It has been hinted that the Church made earnest efforts to reform its own members. But this is true only so far as its reputable heads were concerned. Marriage at its best had a taint of sin; its violation was a trifle; but the fulfilment of religious vows and observances was an obligation to which everything else must yield. To St. Peter Damiani marriage was a “frivolous and unmeaning ceremony�; an irregular celebration of Mass was a “horrible crime.� Sexual licence was a necessary evil, of much less importance than an infraction of ecclesiastical laws. Virtue indeed was dangerous when women were occasionally burnt because they refused to become the victims of priestly lust.[11] So late as 1801 it was argued in a tract published at Warsaw that marriage is incestuous and schismatic, and therefore worse than simple licentiousness.[12] Six centuries earlier the German Church had been described by Pope Gregory as “abandoned to lasciviousness, gluttony, and all manner of filthy living,� the clergy “committing habitually wickedness which laymen would abhor.�[13]

But the Church did its utmost to stamp out the evil! It did nothing of the kind. Its attempts to reform its servants were occasional, mischievously lenient, and sometimes insincere. Priests, being human beings, were not naturally worse than other human beings. But they formed part of a system which heaped upon them every kind of privilege and exposed them to every variety of temptation. A Bishop of Lausanne who in the thirteenth century tried his hand at reform had to flee for his life; another Bishop in Rome was murdered. In fifteenth-century Germany the Bishop of Paderborn strove desperately for seven years to purify the monasteries. After various attempts had been made to poison him, he was compelled to give up a task which the example of the Vicar of Christ made hopeless. Similar efforts made by St. Charles Borromeo in Milan ended in his failure and narrow escape from martyrdom. In England Cardinal Wolsey’s attempt to enforce a reforming Bull from Rome was frustrated by the notoriety of his own vices. The clergy in the public estimation were given over to a reprobate mind; not only were they immoral, but they squeezed from the people the money which the Pope exacted from them. In 1529 a bill was passed in the House of Lords for the reformation of the clergy, who showed their appreciation of it by a determined opposition.

According to Dean Milman, clerical depravity was general in the thirteenth century throughout all the principal European countries. A remarkable number of ecclesiastics were accused at the visitation of the Archbishop of Rouen in 1248 and 1249, but the tenderness of the Church was satisfied with light punishments, or no punishment at all, for serious crimes, while the imaginary sins of the heretic were visited with the most painful of all forms of death. Nor did the Archbishop’s rigour extend to the worst offences of the lower clergy. Milman refers to the case of the Bishop of Liège, who at a public banquet boasted that in less than two years he had had fourteen children.[14] It is related that when it was decreed that priests should dismiss their concubines Pope Innocent ordered the command to be withdrawn, as there was no sin in doing what was done by all priests.[15] In the thirteenth century the Council of Ratisbon lamented the scarcity of priests who led good lives, and so late as 1832 the Archbishop of Malines found it necessary to make a similar complaint.[16]

Not only were the Church’s thunders ineffective because the higher clergy could escape them, but the reasons for them failed, even in the Middle Ages, to command universal assent. Sin was condemned rather because it violated an ordinance than because it broke a Divine law, or because it injured society. Some canons of 1476 protested against crimes, not because of their wickedness, but because they might deprive the clergy of the privilege of exemption from the Bishops’ jurisdiction. A scuffle between three priests over a harlot that took place in a house of ill-fame was reprehended, not because of its disgraceful nature, but because it occurred on Ash Wednesday. The solicitation by priests of female penitents was a serious matter for the holy men if committed during the actual confession, otherwise it was a trifle. It was more convenient to punish the women. As late as 1707 the Sorbonne decided that if a woman insisted on denouncing a guilty priest she committed a mortal sin. Usually the Church contended that the personal character of the priest had nothing to do with the sanctity of his office—a doctrine of which unscrupulous men took full advantage. Thus was evolved a standard of morality which bore no relation to moral truth, and readily lent itself to perversion.

For many hundreds of years the Church was an open sore, which made thought a crime, purity an eccentricity, and progress a dream. From this festering mass heresy was born, crucified, and rose again.

CHAPTER II
A CRUSADE AGAINST CHRISTIANS

Heresy in the Middle Ages differed in some respects from the heresy of the earlier years of Christianity. It was less confined to scholars and theologians; it originated among the people, who—poor, oppressed, and helpless—turned in vain to the Church for assistance. And, instead of being concerned with subtle points of theology, it was inspired mainly by the iniquities of the ecclesiastical order. Simple men felt, by a wholesome instinct, that an immoral life was inconsistent with the function of leading them in the way of righteousness, and some of these simple men began to inquire whether everything taught by the priesthood was really true. This was one of the reasons why the lives of heretics were generally purer than the lives of their oppressors. The mighty of this world persecuted the heretic; the secular courts were severe, the ecclesiastical tribunals were severer still; the main stream of public opinion ran strongly against all innovation in religion. It is not, therefore, to be supposed that the heretic became a voluntary outcast from a love of danger, or for the sake of enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season. The highest authorities in the Church admitted that heresy was caused, though not justified, by the scandalous lives of her ministers. When slaying heretics the Church should have remembered that the chief culprit was herself.

Sharp controversies as to the efficacy of the Mass arose about the middle of the eleventh century, and on this subject the Church showed some vacillation. Its official doctrine was that the virtue of the sacrament did not depend upon that of the ministrant. The contrary was, however, asserted by Pope Nicholas II, and the Synod of Rome adopted a canon forbidding any one to be present at a mass celebrated by a priest known to be of loose morals. Gregory VII’s revival of this canon produced great confusion, for virtuous priests were rare exceptions. Against the official views the heretics consistently protested, but hundreds of years elapsed before the professions and the conduct of the clergy were brought into something like agreement.

In the South of France heresy, mainly of a Manichean or dualistic type, took firm hold, probably because the great progress which had there been made in civilization favoured independence of thought and a certain indifference to the claims of sacerdotalism. St. Bernard (1060-1153) may, like some other writers, have exaggerated the evil condition of the Church, but it must have been under a cloud when he could write thus of the Toulouse district: “The churches are without people, the people without priests, the priests without the reverence due to them, and Christians without Christ.... Men die in their sins, and their souls are hurried to the dread tribunal neither reconciled by penance nor fortified by the Holy Communion. The little ones of Christ are debarred from life, since baptism is denied them. The voice of a single heretic silences all those Apostolic and prophetic voices which have united in calling all the nations into the Church of Christ.â€�[17] Heretics appeared, founded sects, flourished for a time, and were ultimately silenced. Henry of Lausanne, Arnold of Brescia, and the far more influential Peter Waldo of Lyons, from whom the famous sect of Waldenses took its rise, asserted that the power of absolution belonged alone to good men, that the ministrations of sinful priests were invalid, that the sacrament of penance was not the prerogative of the clergy. They rejected indulgences and transubstantiation, forbade all oaths and all means of self-defence, and held that every lie was a mortal sin. These principles would have reduced the Church to poverty and purity, both equally unwelcome. Most of the heretical sects held such strict views of sexual relationships that there is probably very little foundation for the charges of immorality which were freely brought against them. In an extremely loose age they doubtless fell something short of the moral ideal, but they were at least considerably nearer to it than their persecutors. In the following terms an Inquisitor testifies to their good conduct: “Heretics are recognizable by their customs and speech, for they are modest and well-regulated. They take no pride in their garments, which are neither costly nor vile. They do not engage in trade, so as to avoid lies and oaths and frauds, but live by their labour as mechanics—their teachers are cobblers. They do not accumulate wealth, but are content with necessaries. They are just, and temperate in meat and drink. They do not frequent taverns, or dances, or other vanities. They restrain themselves from anger. They are always at work; they teach and learn, and consequently pray but little.â€�[18] This remarkable purity of life brought upon these poor people the full fury of persecution. Virtue was an indication of heresy, and one priest whose exhortations had weaned women from vain adornments ran a serious risk of being burnt as a heretic.

The system of dualism known as Manichæism, a peculiar mixture of Oriental and Christian elements, became popular through the influence of the Cathari (“the pure�), who, even according to the testimony of their enemy St. Bernard, lived a good and harmless life. The Church, however, recognized no religion as true but its own, and the rapid growth of Catharism stirred it to action of the most rigorous kind. All over Europe the heretics were becoming numerous and influential, but it was in the South of France, especially in the territories of the Counts of Toulouse, that the smouldering embers burst into flame.

In 1178 Pope Alexander III proclaimed the first crusade against Christians, which resulted in failure. Early in the thirteenth century matters came to a climax. In an address to the Lateran Council Innocent III had plainly asserted that “the corruption of the people has its chief source in the clergy�; but, fearless as he was, he hesitated to attempt the cleansing of the Augean stable, and adopted the simpler method of trying to rid Christendom of the heretics who troubled its serenity. Despite their active missionary labours, they lived with their orthodox neighbours in a tolerant and friendly spirit, of which the Church bitterly disapproved as being fatal to its exclusive claims. Papal emissaries succeeded in getting the civil authorities, and afterwards the Count of Toulouse, to promise the expulsion of heretics; but the promises remained usually a dead letter, and the strength of the heretics was shown by the fact that the tables were turned on the Bishop of Carcassonne, who was expelled from the city for reprimanding his heretical flock. A threatened crusade and vigorous mission work having also failed, Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, one of the most powerful princes in Europe, was excommunicated. He made peace, and the curse was lifted; but he failed to see the importance of the Papal point of view, and obeyed it as little as possible. Unfortunately, the murder, in January, 1208, of the Papal Legate, Peter of Castlenau, by a gentleman of Raymond’s court, gave the Pope a pretext for sterner action. Raymond was accused of being party to the crime (he was probably innocent), and was excommunicated with greater solemnity than before. He submitted, and, after being soundly flogged, was absolved.

This murder formed one of the principal reasons for the great crusade which the Church was determined to go on with, though the Count’s submission had deprived it of the official excuse. The passions of the bigoted and the mercenary were successfully appealed to, and the most appalling campaign in history was begun under the furious stimulation of the Papal Legates. It was proposed to the inhabitants of Bezier that if the chief heretics were expelled or given up the town would be spared. To the special honour of the Catholic inhabitants, who lived in entire peace with their heretical fellow townsmen, the two parties made common cause and refused the terms, whereupon the town was stormed in July, 1209, and about 20,000 of the people massacred. In August Carcassonne, a fortress of immense strength, was surrendered to the crusading army commanded by the elder Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. By the end of the autumn 500 towns and castles had been wrested from the grasp of the heretics; and, considering their task almost completed, several of the leaders withdrew, and the army was reduced to a small force obliged to maintain itself by partizan fighting.

In the spring de Montfort was reinforced and captured many more towns, the inhabitants being offered the choice of submission to Rome or the stake. Hundreds of obscure enthusiasts embraced the heroic alternative, often cheerfully leaping into the flames of their own accord. At Lavaur in May, 1211, as many as 400 heretics are said to have been burnt in one vast pyre, and the moral sensibilities of the age may be estimated from the statement that this dreadful spectacle caused great rejoicing among the Crusaders. The slackness of Count Raymond in persecuting his subjects was not pleasing to the Church, and he was summoned to purge himself from the suspicion of favouring heresy, and to submit unreservedly to the Pope’s demands. He presented himself in the Church of St. Gilles, Toulouse, with his guarantees in the confident hope of full reconciliation, and was then told that, having neglected to fulfil his promises to extirpate heresy, his submission could not be received. The facts that the promises had been forced from him, and that it was beyond his power to give them full effect, were not taken into account. Raymond’s bitter tears, instead of arousing pity, were regarded as further proof of his depravity, and renewed abasement led only to the infliction of harsher terms. His capital city, Toulouse, was besieged in 1211, but offered so vigorous a resistance that the Crusaders received a serious check, and a fresh excommunication was hurled at the unfortunate Raymond for “persecuting� the soldiers of the Cross. The military abilities of de Montfort, however, won so many successes as to arouse the alarm of Pedro, King of Aragon; and the Pope, remembering that Raymond had never been tried and condemned, began to suspect that there might, after all, be some injustice in depriving him of nearly the whole of his territory. His promise that the Count (who was an independent Prince) should receive a fair trial was broken, in consequence of innumerable letters written by Bishops enlarging on the benefits which had already resulted from the Crusade, and urging its vigorous prosecution. Pedro at length declared war against de Montfort, advanced to the support of Raymond and his friends, and laid siege to Muret, ten miles from Toulouse. Here a battle took place, with disastrous results to the better cause. Pedro’s army was utterly routed, with a loss of from 15,000 to 20,000 men, that of de Montfort’s forces being only twenty. If these figures are correct, this must have been one of the most remarkable victories on record. The Crusaders saw in their triumph a visible mark of God’s approval of their cause, the prosperity of which increased daily. Fresh hordes of Crusaders, greedy for plunder, swarmed into the fair provinces of the south; their conquest was completed in 1213; Raymond was deposed, and de Montfort made lord of the land, the territories in the Rhône district of South Eastern France being held by the Church for the benefit of the younger Raymond. The youth, then only eighteen years of age, went thither in 1216, and was received with acclamations. All the south of France rose in revolt, and while de Montfort was engaged in successfully subduing it he was suddenly recalled West by tidings that Toulouse was again in rebellion. He began the second siege with his usual vigour, but one summer day in 1218 was killed by a stone hurled from a mangonel worked, it is said, by women. His conquests went to pieces in the hands of his incapable son Amauri, who, six years after his father’s death, assigned all his rights to the King of France, and Raymond was confronted with another powerful enemy. With the Pope he made terms that amounted to complete submission. Even this did not seem to the Church sufficient compensation for his lack of zeal in the prosecution of heresy, and in 1226 another crusade on a great scale was organized, ostensibly for religious, but still more for political, reasons. King Louis VIII marched to the south with a large and splendid army, and laid siege to Avignon. Surprised by the strength of its resistance and ill provided with food, he was about to abandon the siege when the city surrendered. Louis’s march on Toulouse was broken off for reasons not fully known, and he retired from the campaign, dying of sickness in November, 1226, when on his way home.

In the following year the war went on with varying fortunes, and towards its close both sides were anxious to terminate a conflict which had lasted for nearly twenty years. Two years later Raymond agreed to hard and humiliating terms, which involved the loss of two-thirds of his great dominions, their reversion to the King of France, and an oath to persecute heresy to the utmost of his power—concessions wrung from him by the distracted condition of his realm and of his unfortunate people. The way was left open to the Church to reap the fruits of victory, and the Inquisition was set to work among the people who for so long had bidden it defiance.