[1] Vie de Saint Bernard, 1st edit., Paris, 1895, vol. ii, pp. 218-233.
Arnold of Brescia busied himself more with questions of discipline than with dogma; the only reforms he advocated were social reforms.[1] He taught that the clergy should not hold temporal possessions, and he endeavored to drive the papacy frown Rome. In this conflict, which involved the property of ecclesiastics and the temporal power of the Church, he was, although successful for a time, finally vanquished.[2] St. Bernard invoked the aid of the secular arm to rid France of him. Later on Pope Eugenius III excommunicated him. He was executed during the pontificate of Adrian IV, in 1155. He was arrested in the city of Rome after a riot which was quelled by the Emperor Frederic, now the ally of the Pope, and condemned to be strangled by the prefect of the city. His body was then burned, and his ashes thrown into the Tiber, "for fear," says a writer of the time, "the people would gather them up, and honor them as the ashes of a martyr."[3]
[1] For details concerning Arnold of Brescia, cf. Vacandard, Vie de Saint Bernard, vol. ii, pp. 235-258, 465-469.
[2] Otto Frising, Gesta Friderici, lib. ii. cap. xx. Cf. Historia Pontificalis, in the Mon. Germ. SS., vol. xx, p. 538.
[3] Boso, Vita Hadriani, in Watterich, Romanorum pontificum Vitæ, vol. ii. pp. 326, 330.
In 1148, the Council of Rheims judged the case of the famous Éon de l'Etoile (Eudo de Stella). This strange individual had acquired a reputation for sanctity while living a hermit's life. One day, struck by the words of the liturgy, Per Eum qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos, he conceived the idea that he was the Son of God. He made some converts among the lowest classes, who, not content with denying the faith, soon began to pillage the churches. Éon was arrested for causing these disturbances, and was brought before Pope Eugenius III, then presiding over the Council of Rheims. He was judged insane, and in all kindness was placed under the charge of Suger, the Abbot of St. Denis. He was confined to a monastery, where he died soon after.
Strangely enough, some of his disciples persisted in believing in him; "they preferred to die rather than renounce their belief," says an historian of the time. They were handed over to the secular arm and perished at the stake. In decreeing this penalty, the civil power was undoubtedly influenced by the example of Robert the Pious.
It is easy to determine the responsibility of the Church, i.e., her bishops and priests, in this series of executions (1020 to 1150). At Orleans, the populace and the king put the heretics to death; the historians of the time tell us plainly that the clergy merely declared the orthodox doctrine. It was the same at Goslar. At Asti, the Bishop's name appears with the names of the other nobles who had the Cathari executed, but it seems certain that he exercised no special authority in the case. At Milan, the civil magistrates themselves, against the Archbishop's protest, gave the heretics the choice between reverencing the cross, and the stake.
At Soissons, the populace, feeling certain that the clergy would not resort to extreme measures, profited by the Bishop's absence to burn the heretics they detested. At Liège, the Bishop managed to save a few heretics from the violence of the angry mob. At Cologne, the Archbishop was not so successful; the people rose in their anger and burned the heretics before they could be tried. Peter of Bruys and the Manichean at Cambrai were both put to death by the people. Arnold of Brescia, deserted by fortune, fell a victim to his political adversaries; the prefect of Rome was responsible for his execution.[1]
[1] The case of Arnold, however, is not so clear. The Annales Augustani minores (Mon. Germ. SS., vol. x, p. 8) declare that the Pope hanged the rebel. Another anonymous writer (cf. Tanon, Hist. des tribunaux de l'Inq. en France, p. 456, n. 2) says with more probability, that Adrian merely degraded him. According to Otto of Freisingen (Mon. Germ. SS., vol. xx, p. 404), Arnold principis examini reservatus est, ad ultimum a præfecto Urbis ligno adactus. Finally, Geroch de Reichersberg tells us (De investigatione Antichristi, lib. i, cap. xiii, ed. Scheibelberger, 1875, pp. 88-89) that Arnold was taken from the ecclesiastical prison and put to death by the servants of the Roman prefect. In any case, politics rather than religion was the cause of his death.