The South of France.
The Inquisition had uphill work before it in the South of France. There was plenty of heresy, but also plenty of popular sympathy with it. The Church’s repressive powers were not fully organized, the clergy were unpopular, the Bishops looked with a jealous eye on the Inquisition, and the Papal commands to assist the Inquisitors were frequently disobeyed. The Dominican priesthood, however, was burning with zeal, and succeeded in so far inflaming the popular feeling as to be able to commit serious acts of persecution without episcopal protest. The notorious Inquisition of Toulouse was set up in 1233, and, although for some years the Bishops maintained their superior jurisdiction, the Inquisitors seized every opportunity to disregard it and act independently. A revolting case occurred in 1234, when a dying woman confessed her heresy to the Bishop of Toulouse under the impression that he was a heretic Bishop. She was carried off on her bed and burnt, and the Bishop was able to go back to an interrupted dinner and return thanks to God for his achievement.
The popular sentiment vented itself many times in risings and tumults, especially at Albi and Toulouse, but with only temporary effect, though in 1234 a civil war broke out in Narbonne which lasted for three years. Count Raymond of Toulouse (the seventh of his name) was, like his predecessor, placed in a very difficult position between a persecuting Church and an angry people. His indifference to religion exposed him to the accusation of heresy, and, life being unbearable with the Church at constant enmity, he was compelled to persecute his own people, and his natural slackness in that unpleasant task kept him plentifully supplied with trouble. Bigotry was at that time less tinctured with financial greed than it afterwards became; the persecutors were mostly good men, whose sincerity brings into stronger relief the appalling results of their actions.
By about 1237 the Inquisition had established a definite supremacy over the Bishops, and reduced the terror-stricken people to obedience—a result to which the conversion of Raymond Gros, one of the heretical leaders, strikingly contributed. By the execution, two years later, of 180 Cathari at Montwimer, the heretical sect received a blow from which it never recovered. Count Raymond, however, actually succeeded in getting the Inquisition suspended in his dominions for three years, during which time his people were at least able to breathe; but by 1241 the Inquisitors, knowing the negligence of the Bishops and emphasizing to Rome the growing power of heresy, were able to resume active persecution. In that year occurred the death of Pope Gregory IX, one of the principal founders of the Inquisition, and for two years the Papal throne was virtually vacant. But the Inquisition had sufficient authority to proceed with vigour, and that it did so is shown by the large number of sentences and the speed with which the criminal list was got through. At the small town of Montauban, in one week of May, 1242, no fewer than 252 persons were sentenced for heresy—a plain indication that the infection was general. The punishments were mostly penances, but some of them involved real hardship. Three pilgrimages—one of 500 miles—for eating at the same table with heretics was a severe return for a friendly action, and showed the need of carefully choosing one’s company. These harsh penalties became so frequent that some localities were almost depopulated.
The massacre of a whole tribunal of Inquisitors and their Familiars in 1242, at a castle in the neighbourhood of Toulouse, was followed by war, in which Count Raymond was defeated; and his reconciliation with the Church marked the triumph of the Inquisition. A determined band of heretics threw themselves into the strong castle of Mont Ségur, and held out till 1244, when the place was captured by treachery and 205 men and women were cast into the flames. The energetic labours of the Inquisitors extended over half Languedoc, and some thousands of heresy cases were dealt with in the space of two years. Count Raymond, who had, in the latter part of his life, become a vigorous persecutor, died in 1249, and the Inquisition, relieved of its doubtful ally, had a halcyon time for the next twenty years. A more troublous period followed, for with the diminution of the power of great nobles, such as the Counts of Toulouse and Foix, that of the Crown became consolidated, and men began to turn to it for relief from the insufferable tyranny of the Inquisition. Opposition to its secret and arbitrary influence arose, not from heretics only, but also from good Catholics, who perceived that the land was being ruined, and whose humanity was outraged by the constant use of torture. With its superior concentration of purpose, the Inquisition fully held its own until, in 1291, Philippe le Bel, the King of France, ordered his officials to disobey the commands of the Inquisitors, except in the case of confessed heresy. Under threat of excommunication Philippe came to an understanding with the Pope which lasted for two years, when the quarrel broke out afresh, and the Carcassonne Inquisition had to suspend operations for three months.
A case occurred in 1300 which illustrates the power of the Inquisition. The Pope, Boniface VIII, had sworn to burn all the inhabitants of Carcassonne, because one of its citizens had declined to bribe a Papal Cardinal when proffering complaints. Gastel Fabre, the man’s father, who had died in 1278, was declared a heretic (the documents are believed to be forgeries); an ineffectual appeal was made, but the man’s estates were confiscated, and so long after as 1329 the bones of his wife were exhumed by the vengeful Inquisition. The sharp quarrels which arose early in the century between the Franciscans and the Dominicans led to the powers of the Inquisition being in some respects curtailed, and thus brought about a slackening of persecution, which proved to be only temporary. A more decided check was experienced in 1308, when Pope Clement V and his Cardinals gave a judgment against the Holy Office, which was considered responsible for the evil condition of the South of France.
Certain reforms were outlined by the Council of Vienne in 1312, particularly in regard to the use of torture, the improvement of the loathsome dungeons of the Inquisition, and the conduct of its officials; but the restrictions imposed were evaded with the customary ingenuity, and soon became a dead letter. With the accession of John XXII to the Papal chair matters became easier for the Inquisition. In 1319 the esteemed Franciscan, Bernard Delicieux, the only man who had dared to offer consistent opposition to the Holy Office, was tried on numerous charges, tortured in spite of his advanced age, and condemned to degradation from Holy orders and life-long imprisonment in chains, with a diet of bread and water, in the prison at Carcassonne. Under these severities his death in a few months relieved the Inquisition of a formidable enemy.
The reaction went on rapidly. The cities which had struggled against the Inquisition were reduced to subjection and public repentance in 1319, and the persecutors were at length free to reap the fruits of their victory. The Catharist leaders were sent to the stake, and the heresy became practically extinct. Its fate was not entirely unmerited, but the agency that brought it about must be wholly condemned. It had propagated a queer medley of doctrines, the anti-social effect of which was not fully perceived by their advocates, though the Church understood from the first how its privileges would fare if liberty of thought were allowed to the people.
In that beautiful, sunny land of Languedoc a civilization of splendid promise, reaching out far in advance of the age into civic activities, industry, art, and science, had been developed by an energetic and patriotic people. Unfortunately for them, their civilization was not of the ecclesiastical type, and the Church felt that it had a legitimate grievance. The Inquisition left Languedoc in ruins; it found a garden, and made it a wilderness. It descended upon happy homes, and left them in desolation and mourning. External unity of faith was achieved, but with it the moral debasement of the Church. By the unscrupulous, systematic, and long-continued abuse of power it gained a triumph for the evil effects of which no repentance can atone.
The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.
The only good result of the Inquisition’s activities was one which it never intended. In its greed for money it forgot an equally greedy and much more deserving rival. The Crown, seeing how profitable persecution had become, at length exercised the right, when it possessed the power, to take the proceeds, and seized for more useful purposes the confiscations of heretic property. The estates of a ruined nobility were taken over by the king’s officers, and the Holy Office unwittingly aided the consolidation of a secular power which in the end reduced it to a nullity.