Mediæval Heresy & the Inquisition

by Arthur Stanley Turberville

In spite of its obtaining only partial ascendancy in certain states, the Inquisition achieved its purpose in Italy with marked success. Catharism lasted longer there than in Languedoc, being found in Piedmont in the late years of the fourteenth century; but it was harried energetically, and early in the next century it was to all intents and purposes extinct. Waldensianism lasted longer, having a much greater hold over the country. In 1352 we find that the Waldensian Church in Turin is flourishing and its numbers so great that no attempt is made at concealment. Gregory XI made special efforts to suppress the sect in Piedmont, but without complete success. The next century saw another strenuous effort made by Yolande, the regent of Savoy, who with the co-operation of the inquisitor of Dauphiné undertook a campaign for the extermination of the Waldenses, all her officials being by the Duchess’s orders placed at the disposal of the inquisitors. For a time the persecuted in Savoy were under the aegis of Louis XI’s protection; but on his death persecution was carried on assiduously. In 1488 an attempt was made to put down the Waldenses by force of arms, but the 18,000 men to whom the task was entrusted met with a crushing defeat. The respite thus secured did not, however, last long, and in 1510 we find the Inquisition strengthened by the loan of troops by the secular power and using every means in its power against the heretics. In the Alpine valleys the sect was never stamped out by the Inquisition and remained in existence there until the terrible Vaudois massacres of 1655. But as a result of the persistent persecution, emigration on a considerable scale was continually taking place, the majority of those who took flight finding a refuge in Calabria and Apulia, where the arm of the tribunal scarcely ever extended.

The great Schism was disastrous in weakening the respect felt in Italy not only for the papacy, but the Church as a whole, and the Inquisition inevitably suffered in consequence.

The fame of the Inquisition in the Spanish peninsula has been so great that it has almost wholly eclipsed its fame anywhere else in Europe, and its history has been in every way peculiar. It acquired an altogether unique position there; enjoyed an extraordinary prestige and unexampled success. It earned an undying notoriety. It became, as nowhere else in Europe, a national institution, closely identified with the monarchy, but also popular, a possession of which the people were proud. It was a terror to the foreigner; it made the name of Spaniard feared all over the world. It had played a great part in welding the Peninsula together, in driving out alien elements, producing national homogeneity. It played, then, a large part in Spanish history, and obtained a very marked influence on the national mind and character. But the Inquisition which is so famous or infamous in Spain was the creation of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was a quite distinctive institution, much more monarchical than papal, and it was not directly the offspring of the tribunals that had existed in the Peninsula in the Middle Ages.

The most remarkable fact concerning the Spanish Inquisition is that this country in which the Inquisition most abundantly flourished, the country which won for itself easy pre-eminence for its close fidelity to the Church, its zealous and implacable intolerance of any sort of dissent, was originally equally pre-eminent for its tolerance. The ardour of persecution in Spain was not due to something ingrained in the national character; it was to a very large extent the offspring of the methods pursued by the Holy Office; and the deep implanting of the Holy Office was due to deliberate policy on the part of the Spanish monarchy from the days of Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella.[348] In the Middle Ages the civilization of Spain was very largely Saracen. From such sources south of the Pyrenees came that distinctive culture of Languedoc, out of which heresy had so luxuriantly sprung. From a non-Christian people came the philosophy, the mediæval, astronomical, botanical knowledge, the art and fancy and the industrial skill and trading enterprise of the country. Moreover Jew and Christian met and did business together. So long as such intermingling of different races, religions, civilizations continued the soil was not favourable to the success of such an institution as the Holy Office. Heterogeneity is productive of tolerance. The Inquisition’s day could only come with the determination to drive out the other elements and to make the Peninsula European in race, Christian in religion and ideas. The success of that policy had to wait for the union of the two crowns of Aragon and Castile. Prior to that, the Inquisition obtained success in Aragon only, being unknown in Castile and Leon, while in Portugal, though there were inquisitors in the country from 1576 onwards, they appear to have been singularly inactive.

In Aragon[349] persecution was originally organized by the state, both Alfonso II and Pedro II promulgating severe legislation against heresy, though a sort of Inquisition, consisting partly of clergy, partly of laity, was established by a statute issued at Tarragona in 1233. The real beginnings of the Inquisition in Aragon are, however, to be traced from the intervention of the redoubtable Raymond of Peñaforte, a year or two after this. He was instrumental in introducing members of his own order to deal with heresy; and in 1238 Gregory IX entrusted the prosecution of heretics to the Mendicant orders in Aragon. In 1242 a very important Council held at Tarragona formulated rules of procedure for the guidance of inquisitors.[350] The Aragonese Inquisition did not, however, show great activity until the opening of the fourteenth century. Its activity then produced popular protest, and in 1325 the Cortes, with the royal assent, prohibited inquisitorial methods of torture. It is doubtful if this was intended to apply to ecclesiastical as well as lay courts. If it was, it had no lasting results, as can be seen from Eymeric’s ‘Directorium.’[351]

This very remarkable inquisitor assumed office in Aragon about 1360. With the most genuine and most exalted conceptions of the dignity and importance of his position, he put forward the utmost claims for the Holy Office; yet from the internal evidence of his treatise itself, it does not seem to have flourished in Aragon in his day. He makes loud complaints of its poverty. But the fact that so little came into its exchequer from confiscations and that so ardent and active an inquisitor should apparently have accomplished so little seems mainly to prove that heresy was not a serious menace in Aragon at this time.

In the next century the history of the Aragonese Inquisition is neither interesting nor important, and the end of that period brings us to the era of Torquemada and the organization of a great Inquisition for the united kingdoms of Spain.

In Eastern Europe[352] the Inquisition never succeeded in obtaining much of a foothold. The main stronghold of Catharism was in lands east of the Adriatic, but here the papacy possessed but scant authority. A practically abortive attempt was made to deal with the heretics in 1202; but in the twenties the Mendicants in their untiring zeal, using Hungary as their base and with the armed support of Calomar, Duke of Croatia and Dalmatia, waged successful warfare against the Bosnian Cathari until the retirement of the crusaders in 1239. Their withdrawal meant that no effectual result was achieved, and Catharism remained powerful not only in Bosnia, but Dalmatia, Bulgaria, and Roumania. The bishops of Bosnia found themselves compelled to leave the country. In 1298 an attempt made by Boniface VIII, to establish an Inquisition in the lands south of Hungary from the Danube to Macedonia, came to nothing. But in 1320 an inquisitor named Fabiano, with the assistance of the king of Hungary, made some progress against the heretics, and a further effort was made in 1336 by Dominicans with the co-operation of the Hungarian king. Though in 1378 Urban V congratulated Louis of Hungary and the friars on having restored two thousand heretics to the fold, four years later that monarch himself complains that practically all his subjects are Cathari, good Catholics being very sparse in numbers.

In 1407 Sigismund made an attempt to establish himself in Bosnia, his cause obtaining papal recognition as a crusade against Turks and Manichæans; but his attempt ended in failure. In 1432 an Observative Franciscan, Giacomo della Marca, already well known as a stalwart persecutor of heretics in Italy, embarked upon a missionary enterprise in Slavonia, and is said by his eloquence to have made numerous converts; but his success was short-lived, as he was recalled by Sigismund to help in the religious troubles of Bohemia. After the days of Sigismund there was little chance of success for missionary or inquisitor beyond the Adriatic. The flow of the Ottoman advance swept over the Balkans, and the Cathari were converted not to Catholicism but to the faith of Islam.

The Inquisition did not make its appearance in Bohemia until late, the first inquisitors being appointed in 1318, when they were also appointed for Poland, Cracow and Breslau. There is hardly any record of what they did. In 1335 Benedict XII made fresh efforts, and between 1350 and 1380 there was considerable activity against heretics, but it was the activity of the ordinary episcopal courts, not of a papal inquisition. There was a large diffusion of Waldensianism in the country; apparently early in the century there had been a certain number of Luciferans. With the Church in Bohemia in a low state of efficiency and the rise of the anti-sacerdotal movement which led to Husitism, the task of repression was a difficult one, and there was no Inquisition. One of the causes of the indignation of the Czechs at the treatment of Hus at Constance was the fact that Bohemia had had virtually no experience of the Inquisition and was ignorant of its methods and procedure.