Early European History

by Hutton Webster

229. HERESIES AND HERETICS

PERSECUTION OF HERETICS

During the first centuries of our era, when the Christians had formed a forbidden sect, they claimed toleration on the ground that religious belief is voluntary and not something which can be enforced by law. This view changed after Christianity triumphed in the Roman Empire and enjoyed the support, instead of the opposition, of the government. The Church, backed by the State, no longer advocated freedom of conscience, but began to persecute people who held heretical beliefs.

MEDIEVAL ATTITUDE TOWARD HERESY

It is difficult for those who live in an age of religious toleration to understand the horror which heresy inspired in the Middle Ages. A heretic was a traitor to the Church, for he denied the doctrines believed to be essential to salvation. It seemed a Christian duty to compel the heretic to recant, lest he imperil his eternal welfare. If he persisted in his impious course, then the earth ought to be rid of one who was a source of danger to the faithful and an enemy of the Almighty.

PUNISHMENT OF HERESY

Although executions for heresy had occurred as early as the fourth century, [8] for a long time milder penalties were usually inflicted. The heretic might be exiled, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property and his rights as a citizen. The death penalty was seldom invoked by the Church before the thirteenth century. Since ecclesiastical law forbade the Church to shed blood, the State stepped in to seize the heretic and put him to death, most often by fire. We must remember that in medieval times cruel punishments were imposed for even slight offenses, and hence men saw nothing wrong in inflicting the worst of punishments for what was believed to be the worst of crimes.

THE ALBIGENSES

In spite of all measures of repression heretics were not uncommon during the later Middle Ages. Some heretical movements spread over entire communities. The most important was that of the Albigenses, so called from the town of Albi in southern France, where many of them lived. Their doctrines are not well known, but they seem to have believed in the existence of two gods—one good (whose son was Christ), the other evil (whose son was Satan). The Albigenses even set up a rival church, with its priests, bishops, and councils.

CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES, 1209-1229 A.D.

The failure of attempts to convert the Albigenses by peaceful means led the pope, Innocent III, [9] to preach a crusade against them. Those who entered upon it were promised the usual privileges of crusaders. [10] A series of bloody wars now followed, in the course of which thousands of men, women, and children perished. But the Albigensian sect did not entirely disappear for more than a century, and then only after numberless trials and executions for heresy.

THE WALDENSES

The followers of Peter Waldo, who lived in the twelfth century, made no effort to set up a new religion in Europe. They objected, however, to certain practices of the Church, such as masses for the dead and the adoration of saints. They also condemned the luxury of the clergy and urged that Christians should live like the Apostles, charitable and poor. To the Waldenses the Bible was a sufficient guide to the religious life, and so they translated parts of the scriptures and allowed everyone to preach, without distinction of age, or rank, or sex. The Waldenses spread through many European countries, but being poor and lowly men they did not exert much influence as reformers. The sect survived severe persecution and now forms a branch of the Protestant Church in Italy.

JOHN WYCLIFFE, 1320-1384 A.D.

Beliefs very similar to those of the Waldenses were entertained by John Wycliffe, (or Wyclif) master of an Oxford college and a popular preacher. He, too, appealed from the authority of the Church to the authority of the Bible. With the assistance of two friends Wycliffe produced the first English translation of the Scriptures. Manuscript copies of the work had a large circulation, until the government suppressed it. Wycliffe was not molested in life, but the Council of Constance denounced his teaching and ordered that his bones should be dug up, burned, and cast into a stream.

[Illustration: JOHN WYCLIFFE
After an old print.]

THE LOLLARDS

Wycliffe had organized bands of "poor priests" to spread the simple truths of the Bible through all England. They went out, staff in hand and clad in long, russet gowns, and preached to the common people in the English language, wherever an audience could be found. The Lollards, as Wycliffe's followers were known, not only attacked many beliefs and practices of the Church, but also demanded social reforms. For instance, they declared that all wars were sinful and were but plundering and murdering the poor to win glory for kings. The Lollards had to endure much persecution for heresy. Nevertheless their work lived on and sowed in England and Scotland the seeds of the Reformation.

JOHN HUSS, 1373(?)-1415 A.D.

The doctrines of Wycliffe found favor with Anne of Bohemia, wife of King Richard II, [11] and through her they reached that country. Here they attracted the attention of John Huss, (or Hus) a distinguished scholar in the university of Prague. Wycliffe's writings confirmed Huss in his criticism of many doctrines of the Church. He attacked the clergy in sermons and pamphlets and also objected to the supremacy of the pope. The sentence of excommunication pronounced against him did not shake his reforming zeal. Finally Huss was cited to appear before the Council of Constance, then in session. Relying on the safe conduct given him by the German emperor, Huss appeared before the council, only to be declared guilty of teaching "many things evil, scandalous, seditious, and dangerously heretical." The emperor then violated the safe conduct—no promise made to a heretic was considered binding—and allowed Huss to be burnt outside the walls of Constance. Thus perished the man who, more than all others, is regarded as the forerunner of Luther and the Reformation.

THE HUSSITE WARS

The flames which burned Huss set all Bohemia afire. The Bohemians, a Slavic people, regarded him as a national hero and made his martyrdom an excuse for rebelling against the Holy Roman Empire. The Hussite wars, which followed, thus formed a political rather than a religious struggle. The Bohemians did not gain freedom, and their country still remains a Hapsburg possession. But the sense of nationalism is not extinct there, and Bohemia may some day become an independent state.