The medieval Inquisition: A study in religious persecution

by Charles T. Gorham

Religious Persecution.

To what extent the spirit of persecution is sanctioned by the New Testament is not very easy to determine. Giving all due weight to its gentler precepts, it is unhappily true that passages which reflect more than a tinge of the temper of intolerance are to be found with some frequency in the New Testament, and very many injunctions to extreme severity in the Old. It was inevitable that in rude ages the latter should exert a more potent influence on human conduct than the former, because they harmonized more completely with the existing tendencies of human nature.

Until Christianity became the State religion of the Roman Empire the persecuting spirit wrought comparatively little harm. When the Church was weak it perceived the blessings of toleration; when the Church grew powerful it held toleration to be sinful. Even Constantine’s severe edicts do not appear to have resulted in much actual persecution, the few cases which occurred in the fourth century being looked upon as horrifying novelties. After that, however, the systematic repression of heretical opinions became general, and was warmly advocated by even the holiest doctors of the Church. Chrysostom and Augustine taught that heresy must be suppressed, but did not recommend the infliction of death. Jerome heartily approved the heretic being made to suffer corporal death in order to secure the eternal welfare of his soul, and the harsh laws of Theodosius doubtless represented a public opinion which was ever becoming more rigid and dangerous. It is somewhat curious that outrages upon the heterodox were, until the twelfth century, committed more frequently by “orthodoxâ€� mobs than by the ecclesiastical authorities—a fact which does not indicate a very effective teaching influence on the part of the Church. When, at Cologne in 1145, some Cathari were burnt despite the opposition of the clergy, St. Bernard, though arguing that they should have been won over by reason, quoted, with some inconsistency, St. Paul’s dictum that the monarch was the instrument of God’s wrath upon him that doeth evil.

The duty of the Church remained uncertain till about the close of the twelfth century. The incalculable mischief caused by certain passages in a book believed to be Divine is exemplified by the decree of Lucius III in 1184, which ordered heretics to be delivered to the secular arm for punishment, and expressly quoted John xv, 6, as authority for the infliction of death by fire. It “commanded that all potentates should take an oath before their bishops to enforce the ecclesiastical laws against heresy fully and efficaciously. Any refusal or neglect was to be punished by excommunication, deprivation of rank, and incapacity to hold other station, while in the case of cities they were to be segregated and debarred from all commerce with other places. The Church thus undertook to coerce the sovereign to persecution. It would not listen to mercy, it would not hear of expediency. The monarch held his crown by the tenure of extirpating heresy, of seeing that the laws were sharp and were pitilessly enforced. Any hesitation was visited with excommunication, and if this proved inefficacious his dominions were thrown open to the first hardy adventurer, whom the Church would supply with an army for his overthrow.�[19]

Burning alive was first legalized in 1197, but it was the Albigensian Crusade which afforded the earliest opportunity on a great scale for the working out of the principle of religious persecution. This principle was gradually embodied first in the canon law and then in the secular law of Europe. The Inquisition codified and collated the various enactments into a logical system, which, having behind it the united authority of Church and State, became an irresistible engine of terrorism and tyranny.[20] The suppression of heresy was, indeed, the paramount duty of every Christian to the full extent of his power. No matter who was the guilty party—father, son, husband, wife, or sister—each must be denounced for concealing heresy; there could be no excuse. “It was an absolute rule that faith was not to be kept with heretics. As Innocent III emphatically phrased it, ‘According to the canons, faith is not to be kept with him who keeps not faith with God.’ No oath of secrecy, therefore, was binding in the matter of heresy, for if one is faithful to a heretic he is unfaithful to God.â€�[21]

With teaching of this sort drilled into an ignorant and obedient people, it is not surprising that the popular prejudice against religious innovations was strong enough to make life in general very unpleasant for any one who had a taste for independent thought. In our own day all Reformed Churches unite in disclaiming the idea of persecution, but the Church of Rome still accepts as its greatest authority St. Thomas Aquinas, whose language on the subject is clear. To him heresy was the greatest of all sins, and its repression was more than defensible—it was a duty. To corrupt the faith is a greater wickedness than to debase the coinage, and if coiners are executed much more should heretics be. In its great charity the Church pardons the repentant heretic once, or perhaps twice; but if he sins again he is not to be released from the penalty of death. This became the settled policy and the unalterable practice of the Church. Even the dead heretic was not allowed Christian burial, and, if he had been favoured with it by mistake, the body was dug up and burned, and the grave remained for ever an accursed spot. In times of ignorance this sort of thing paralyses people with terror, and renders them an easy prey to the most absurd and debasing superstitions. This universal dread of the unseen was ably and thoroughly exploited by the Church of Christ.

CHAPTER III
THE FOUNDING, CONSTITUTION, AND PRACTICE OF THE INQUISITION

It is extremely doubtful whether Dominic actually founded the Inquisition, for as an organization it did not exist till ten years after his death. He was, however, an Inquisitor in all but the possession of full judicial powers. There was, in fact, no formal founding of the Holy Office; it simply grew by degrees out of the social and religious conditions of the early thirteenth century. Nor was it exclusively confided to the Dominican Order, but, as that was the most intolerant and the most zealous in heresy-hunting, its members were, from the outset, more closely associated with that occupation.[22] Commissions were frequently entrusted to the Franciscans also, but most of the early Inquisitors were Dominican monks. The jealousies and quarrels between the two Orders which their holy labours occasioned were so frequent as to be a source of scandals in the Church, which threatened to last for ever.

Under ecclesiastical tuition the people of Europe had, during the twelfth century, developed, in what passed for religion, a spirit of rancour that went beyond even the cruel legislation of the time. Heresy had previously been detected mainly by means of ordeals, but these were found to be somewhat unreliable in the matter of results. The Bishops, under the authority of the State, had usually controlled the proceedings, but they had now grown sluggish and lax, and their machinery had become rusty. Pope Alexander III, in 1179, “invited sovereigns to employ force of arms and protect Christian people from the violence [!] of the Cathari,� and “offered indulgences to those who should accomplish this work of piety.�[23] The decrees of Lucius III in 1184 might, had they been put into effective operation, have resulted in an episcopal instead of a Papal Inquisition. Not only were rulers bound by oath to assist the Church in rooting out heresy, but all prelates were compelled to visit towns and villages, to call the people together, and take evidence as to the existence of suspected heretics. The Bishops were, indeed, by virtue of their office, Inquisitors also,[24] but of so lukewarm a description that a sterner organization was deemed necessary.

Thus the ancient civil and canon law furnished the basis of the Inquisitorial procedure, and the first detectors of heresy were the laymen of each locality, with whom priests were afterwards associated. For various reasons the Bishops, as a body, proved unequal to their task; trained experts were needed, and the Church was impelled to action both by the force of public opinion and by the logic of its dogmas. The hands of the Church were strengthened by a secular legislation which recognized a gigantic evil, but failed to combat it with vigour and uniformity. Under the presidency of Pope Innocent III, the Lateran Council of 1215 framed a number of severe regulations, but did not succeed in getting them consistently enforced. From 1220 to 1239, therefore, Rome elaborated a series of enactments, based on the Lateran regulations, which amounted to a complete system of persecution. The chief of these enactments was Gregory IX’s Bull of 1231, under which suspected persons were required to prove their innocence or lose their civil rights. Very trivial circumstances, even such as a pale face, were enough to arouse suspicion. Heretics were to be outlawed, and, when condemned, to be burnt, all their property being in that case confiscated and their heirs disinherited. Their houses were to be destroyed, and never rebuilt. The evidence of a heretic was not to be received in a court of justice except against another heretic. All rulers and magistrates had to swear, not that they would do justice, but that they would exterminate all heretics. The lands of nobles who favoured the unorthodox were to be forfeited. Every thinker was in a permanently tight corner. Refusal to submit to ecclesiastical authority was the greatest of sins. The Papal zeal for reform took a peculiar shape when it established the Inquisition.

The whole Church hailed these savage laws with joy, and they soon became a terrible reality. The fact that secular Inquisitions were established in Sicily during the same year shows that public opinion was too strong for even a royal Freethinker like Frederick II to resist, though he was reproached with occasionally burning Catholics instead of heretics—not a very common miscarriage of justice. A commission issued in 1227 may be taken as giving the Inquisition a start. Its tone and its provisions are somewhat indefinite, but it led in a short time to the selection of suitable priests to undertake the duty of detecting and examining heretics, and this remained a permanent feature of the Inquisitorial system. The round holes were provided with round pegs.

At the time, however, there seems to have been little thought of a permanent system which should take the place of the Bishops’ jurisdiction. The basis of the persecuting body was more thoroughly settled at the Council of Narbonne in 1244, when the control of heresy was surrendered by the Bishops to the Inquisition, with the prudent proviso that the prelates reserved to themselves the pecuniary results. This transfer was not everywhere made complete, for even after that date many Inquisitors recognized the authority of episcopal tribunals, and in 1273 Gregory X also admitted their supremacy. Evidently the Holy Office was long regarded as a temporary expedient, and every Pope had renewed its charter.

In May, 1252, Innocent IV issued his famous Bull Ad Extirpanda, which was a complete exposition of the laws against heresy, and set up the machinery for its detection. In addition to all the known regulations, it laid down further provisions binding all rulers to outlaw heretics and empowering any one to seize suspected persons and take possession of their goods (being thereby entitled to a share of the proceeds). This vigilance was rewarded by exemption from public services and by freedom of personal action. Every one, including all State officials, was bound to give assistance; men of good repute had to be sworn to reveal anything they knew, or suspected, of any person in their district. The State was responsible for the seizure of heretics; it was commanded to execute judgment against them and to torture those who would not confess and betray their accomplices. Lists of suspected persons were to be made out and read in public three times a year, and copies given to the Bishops, the Dominicans, and the Franciscans.

The provisions of this Bull were strictly enforced, and it is significant of the state of public opinion that it aroused no effective resistance. By a later Bull of 1265, Pope Urban IV confirmed its instructions, and made the Inquisition supreme in all countries. It became a maxim of law that all statutes which interfered with the Inquisition were void and their authors punishable. The Holy Office had a free hand, and was not liable to excommunication in the discharge of its sacred duties, or to suspicion by even a Papal Legate. Nicholas IV gave a finishing touch by making the Inquisitors’ commissions perpetual. Bishops were not liable to be judged by Inquisitors, but nevertheless had to obey them, and, though at times they tried cases of heresy in their own courts, they were compelled to allow an Inquisitor to take part in the sentence.

Popular feeling, it is true, occasionally revolted against this tyranny; but, as any one who in any way opposed the Inquisition was thereby excommunicated, the resistance was easily and remorselessly crushed. The tenacious memory and sleepless vigilance of the Inquisition hunted out persons who years before had said a kind word to a heretic, or sent a copper to a sick person under suspicion. Public confidence was destroyed by the general dread that a careless word might ruin a man; that stories might, unknown to him, be circulated about him and come to the Inquisitors’ ears; that an enemy might secretly and safely gratify an old grudge, until at last poor wretches would inform against others rather than be themselves betrayed.

It was a rule of the Inquisition that all testimony should be taken down in the presence of two impartial persons unconnected with the institution, but sworn to absolute secrecy. This precautionary act of justice was soon disregarded, and the bulky documents of the Inquisition were generally held to be unworthy of trust. In some of the revolts against its tyranny the populace were careful to destroy the records, for it was well known that the Inquisitors had an unpleasant habit of discovering among them facts damaging to those whom they desired to injure.

As if the Inquisitors themselves were not dangerous enough, they were allowed to employ a swarm of hangers-on known as Familiars (by a pleasing fiction they became part of the family), who were permitted to carry the arms denied to ordinary civilians, and who enjoyed immunities and powers which they abused with the utmost freedom. For the most part they were a rabble of unruly ruffians, who squeezed money out of people under the threat of accusing them of heresy or of impeding the Inquisition in its beneficent duties. Any restriction in the number of these rascals was resented as unlawful; but the State did sometimes, as at Venice in 1450, succeed in reducing their numbers. They were wholly unnecessary, as the Holy Office could command the services of the State, as well as the assistance of the clergy and of the civil population.

As a precaution against miscarriages of justice, there was held at irregular intervals an assembly which finally determined the fate of accused persons. At these gatherings learned Bishops were supposed to be present in order to give the Inquisitors the benefit of their advice, but they were so little zealous for popular rights that it became a practice for an Inquisitor to represent one or more Bishops. It was doubtful whether the Inquisition ought to obey the finding of the court, and the occasion became a mere form, from which the episcopal co-operation was frequently absent. Sometimes a number of sentenced persons remained in gaol, and were added to from time to time, so that the auto de fe could be made more impressive. At one of these ceremonies held in Toulouse in 1310, out of 108 persons sentenced 18 were burnt alive. In the previous year one unfortunate had hit upon the expedient of voluntary starvation. The Inquisition had a more effective retort than forcible feeding; its preparations were hurried on, and the solitary victim was burnt, a similar case occurring four years later. Very seldom did any one escape by flight from the clutches of the Holy Office. Its agents were everywhere, its jurisdiction had no limits, a complete network of private information existed, and flight was a sure presumption of guilt. A boy of fifteen, sentenced after two years’ imprisonment to wear the crosses which indicated his punishment, at length threw them off, and worked as a boatman on the Garonne. He was discovered, cited to appear, and in default was excommunicated and condemned as a heretic in an auto of 1319. Two years later he was arrested, escaped, was recaptured, and finally sentenced to imprisonment on a diet of bread and water. His original crime was that he, a mere boy, had “adored� a heretic at the command of his father.