Notwithstanding the extent to which heresy was propagated by printed books, it was a long time before the Inquisition was recognized as the most convenient instrument for their supervision and suppression. The first Papal deliverance on the subject was a Bull by Gregory XI in 1376, instructing the Inquisition to examine and condemn suspected writings, but what were the results is not known. An Archbishop who burnt some writings of John Wycliffe at Prague was found to have exceeded his powers, and it was not till the beginning of the sixteenth century that a regular censorship was organized, and then in Germany only. However, the Inquisition was willing to undertake additional responsibilities, and at length made a rule that any one possessing books of doubtful orthodoxy must within eight days deliver them to the Bishop or Inquisitor of his district, on pain of being under vehement suspicion of heresy. That the Church was more anxious to preserve its privileges than to promote religion may be inferred from the fact that translations into the vernacular of any parts of the Bible were prohibited. As it was found before long that books containing heretical doctrines were being circulated, it was deemed expedient to forbid anything being printed without previous examination by the Holy Office and the Papal and episcopal authorities. The religious world, however, became so disorganized by the Reformation that these precautions were of little avail, and it was not until the Church had regained much of its power in the counter Reformation that a really strict censorship could be established.
The Greek Church.
Although one Pope, Boniface VIII, issued a Bull decreeing that every human being, including the members of the Greek Church, was bound to obey the Roman Pontiff, a prudent and tolerant attitude was usually maintained towards that unsound but powerful rival. Stray members of the Greek communion who happened to be found in Western Europe were at times persecuted as heretics, and in 1351 all Greeks were ordered once a year to confess and take the sacrament according to the Latin usage. Any person who after this decree violated it was a relapsed heretic, and entitled to no mercy. But to coerce effectively a great religious organization, every member of which was in the eyes of Rome a heretic, proved too arduous a task for orthodoxy, and the Inquisition failed to utilize the glorious opportunities for persecution afforded by Eastern Europe, with its variety of races and religious ideas. The Church was therefore prudent enough to follow a line of policy as mild and tolerant as it was novel.
Indulgences and Simony.
The scandal to the cause of true religion which accompanied the sale of Indulgences was so notorious all over Europe that it is surprising to find that this abuse—deeply prejudicial to the Church and to public morals—was not considered to deserve vigorous repression. It is true that the practice was sometimes officially denounced, as when Pope Alexander IV gave the Inquisitors power to deal with the evil. But Lea asserts that, so far as he can discover, only one man was tried by the Inquisition for this prevalent offence. He admitted that he had been in the habit of telling monstrous falsehoods and filling the superstitious people with absurdities, but it is doubtful whether he was punished—if at all, it was by nothing more than a light penance. The remarkable lenity of the Church towards this traffic was, of course, due to the fact that it furnished a very substantial source of profit; but if the Popes had expended on the internal reform of the Church a hundredth part of the energy which they devoted to the suppression of minor differences of opinion the Reformation might conceivably have been averted. It was the Reformation that made imperative that moral renewal which prolonged the influence of the Church and still constitutes one of the chief elements of its strength.
It is a striking proof of human selfishness and of the extent to which it blinds mankind to its own failings that the Inquisition was never instructed to put down simony (which, as heresy, came within its jurisdiction), and that it never volunteered to do so—a fact which shows very clearly that, in the view of the Christian Church, morals were of trifling importance compared with belief. One or two of the Popes worked with genuine zeal and immense energy to extirpate the evil, but without avail. The practice being highly profitable financially to the Church, its disastrous moral effects were ignored, the laudable desires of some Pontiffs being thwarted by others less scrupulous. Every clerical office, from the highest to the lowest, was virtually sold by auction. Pope John XXII even drew up a scale on which absolutions for simony could be granted at the lowest market rates. The prevalence of this offence was perhaps the chief of all the causes which contributed to the degradation of the Christian Church. In this connection it may be interesting to reproduce here a clever and daring satire which was popular in the thirteenth century:—
Here beginneth the Gospel according to the silver marks. In those days the Pope said to the Romans: When the Son of Man shall come to the throne of our majesty, first say to him: Friend, why comest thou? And if he continue to knock, giving you nothing, ye shall cast him into outer darkness. And it came to pass that a certain poor clerk came to the court of the lord pope, and cried out saying: Have mercy on me, ye gate-keepers of the pope, for the hand of poverty hath touched me. I am poor and hungry; I pray you to help my misery. Then were they wroth and said: Friend, thy poverty perish with thee; get thee behind me, Satan, for thou knowest not the odour of money. Verily, verily, I say unto thee that thou shalt not enter into the joy of thy Lord until thou hast given thy last farthing.
Then the poor man went away, and sold his cloak and his coat and all that he had, and gave it to the cardinals and gate-keepers and chamberlains. But they said: What is this among so many? And they cast him beyond the gates, and he wept bitterly and could find naught to comfort him. Then came to the court a rich clerk, fat and broad and heavy, who in his wrath had slain a man. First he gave to the gate-keeper, then to the chamberlain, then to the cardinals; and they thought they were about to receive more. But the lord pope, hearing that the cardinals and servants had many gifts from the clerk, fell sick unto death. Then unto him the rich man sent an electuary of gold and silver, and straightway he was cured. Then the lord pope called unto him the cardinals and servants, and said unto them: Brethren, take heed that no one seduce you with empty words. I set you an example; even as I take so shall ye take.[43]
Avaricious men were enabled by an incredibly bad system to make religion a public danger. Priests who led women astray on the plea that intercourse with holy men was not sinful, a depraved laity, religion severed from morals—these made up a state of society in which apprehensions existed that the wickedness of the clergy would provoke the people to rise against them, or perhaps even bring on the world the final visitation of Divine wrath. Good men asked why God did not intervene to save his Church from ruin. No intervention came.