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.
Northern France.
In the year 1233 a relentless Dominican bigot named Friar Robert was appointed Inquisitor for Western Burgundy. This crazy fanatic raged through the north of France, burning large numbers of people. So notorious became his excesses that after some years his commission was withdrawn, and he spent the rest of his days in prison. Persecution was not greatly checked, for the intensity of the general feeling against heresy was such that even the saintly Louis IX declared that the only argument to use with a heretic was to thrust him through with a sword up to the hilt. In the hands of the Dominicans persecution went on vigorously all over France, then a much smaller country than now, and the zeal of the orthodox was frequently stimulated by Papal Bulls urging greater vigour. Milman relates a terrible occurrence in 1239, but does not state that it took place by order of the Inquisition. In the presence of the Archbishop of Rheims, seventeen bishops, and 100,000 persons, no fewer than 183 Manichæans were burnt outside the city of Rheims, and all of them perished without fear.[26] The right of asylum in churches was withdrawn from heretics in 1281 by Pope Martin IV.
Not until 1310, however, did the first formal burning alive by the Inquisition take place in France. The Manichean holocaust, formal enough in a practical sense, appears to have been an irregularity. On May 30 of that year a woman who had advocated free love and other heresies died at the stake with such devotion that the spectators were moved to tears. The sect to which she belonged, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, furnished a good many victims in the course of the next few years, when the Inquisition reached the height of its power. But with the growth and consolidation of the authority of the Crown the Inquisition was absorbed by the secular courts till it became little more than a department of the State. Its comparative impotence was made more perceptible by the removal of the Holy See from Rome to Avignon, and by the Great Schism (1378-1447) which shook the Papacy to its foundations. The wars with the English, which were then so frequent and prolonged, also made conditions unfavourable to the Inquisition by causing the withdrawal of the royal stipend; and the University of Paris to a large extent took its place as an investigator of heresy cases. When the wars were over an attempt was made by Pope Nicholas V in 1451 to revive and increase the activity of persecution, but with no permanent success. So far had the Holy Office become out of touch with the spirit of the times that the roving commissions which were frequently granted to special Inquisitors also failed to re-establish the authority of the institution. The people of Lyons in 1458 were even bold enough to throw their Inquisitor into prison, and it was only with difficulty that he was released. A few years later Jean Laillier, a priest in Paris, spoke his mind freely about the clergy, and the Inquisition did not feel strong enough to burn him. Two other priests, who at mass threw the Host on the floor and trampled on it, committed an unpardonable crime, and duly suffered at the stake.
In the south of France the Waldensians remained powerful in the fourteenth century, even after the terrible persecutions through which they had gone. The most obnoxious of their tenets appears to have been the not unreasonable proposition that the sacraments were valueless when administered by sinful priests. To stamp out this peculiar heresy vigorous efforts were made by Pope Gregory XI in 1375, and a little later great hauls of heretics were made, and many burnings resulted. Men and women were torn from their homes to rot in the overcrowded prisons, yet still the remorseless pontiff reproached the Inquisitors with their slackness, and spurred them to greater energy. One ecclesiastic, St. Vincent Ferrer, hit upon a daring novelty, and tried the effect of kindness; but, although he made many converts, who were content to lose some of their property to save the rest, the Church was dubious about such experiments, and went on methodically with its burnings. In 1393 Inquisitor Borel of Grenoble is credited with having brought to the stake 150 persons in one day. This exceptional achievement was followed by a prolonged lull, and in 1478 Louis XI issued an ordinance limiting the powers of Inquisitors and clearly establishing the supremacy of the State. Five years later the king’s death gave the Church another opportunity, which was quickly utilized. Innocent VIII determined to suppress the Waldensian heresy once for all. He ordered a crusade against the heretics, and after stubborn resistance they submitted. In one valley many of them took refuge in a remote cave, but were discovered and suffocated by the smoke of fires built at its mouth. Relief was once more gained when Louis XII came to the throne of France, and the Waldenses secured a certain liberty of worship until, in the times of the Reformation, they became absorbed in the Calvinist body. So hated by the Roman Church was the grim faith of Calvin that in 1538 a Grand Inquisitor was burnt for embracing it.[27] A few years later Pius V ordered the Catholics to slay every Huguenot who fell into their hands.