To proffer the sacred host.
Worse invectives even, no less forcible than those of later reformers, he hurled against Rome. "In the flames and torments of hell is thy place!... Thou hast the appearance of an innocent lamb, but inwardly thou art a raging wolf, a crowned snake, begotten by a viper, the friend of the devil!" Even the good-natured German minnesinger, Walter von der Vogelweide, found bitter words against Rome: "They point our way to God and go to hell themselves." Bernard of Clairvaux, the supporter of the Church, sharply criticised the abuses of pope and clergy in his book, De Consideratione: "The property of the poor is sown before the door of the rich, the gold glitters in the gutter, the people come hurrying up from all sides; but not to the neediest is it given, but to the strongest and to him who is first on the spot." He accused the pope of extravagance and luxury: "Was Peter clothed in robes of silk, covered with gold and precious stones? Was he carried in a litter surrounded by soldiers and vassals?" And he uttered a word which to this day is a historical truth: "In all thy splendour thou art the successor of Constantine rather than the successor of Peter."
Dissatisfaction with the life of the clergy and the tyranny of Rome was the more external reason which, although it vexed even those who were indifferent to religion, did not question the sacred tradition; the other reason was more a matter of principle; it was rooted in the desire for a religious revival and openly attacked perverted truths. The dreaded, hated, and cruelly persecuted heretics were fearless men, sturdily fighting for their convictions. The fundamental ideal of these reformers was the suppression of the outward pomp of the Church and the return to the simplicity of the gospels. Their fates varied. The gentle St. Francis of Assisi was canonised; the illumined Eckhart, on the other hand, was tortured; most of them, like the ardent Arnold of Brescia, were burnt at the stake. This conduct of the hierarchy towards the truly religious men is easily explained. The Church was faced by a problem; on the one hand, the genuine and profound piety of these men was unmistakable, but on the other, the contrast of their teaching with Church tradition was too obvious, and by many of them too strongly emphasised to be silently ignored.
The Provençal heretic, Peter of Bruis, seems to have been the first reformer who preached against iconolatry and even objected to the images of the Crucified. He ordered churches to be razed to the ground because he acknowledged only the invisible community of the saints. He was burnt at St. Giles' by an infuriated mob. More powerful, and far more numerous than his followers, the Peterbrusians, were the Cathari and the Waldenses (founded by Peter Valdez a.d. 1177) who soon spread to Northern Italy and amalgamated with the sect of the Lombards. The Cathari advocated a simple and ascetic life, in accordance with the teaching of primitive Christianity, refrained from all ecclesiastical ceremonies and despised the sacraments, particularly baptism. More radical than later reformers, they rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation, and saw in the eucharist only a symbol of the union of God and the soul. This made their name synonymous with heresy. But by far the most famous of heretical sects was the sect of the Waldenses or Albigenses. It numbered amongst its adherents—if not publicly, at any rate secretly—many of the great Provençal lords, and there can be no doubt that this community was permeated by the spirit of a renewed Christianity, the Christianity of St. Francis and the German mystics. The Albigenses believed that not Christ, but His semblance only, had been crucified; they rejected the God of the Old Testament and their doctrine of the two creators,—the devil who created the objective world, and the true God who created the spiritual world—is reminiscent of the loftiest Parseeism and the profoundest gnosticism. They regarded man as placed between good and evil; the choice lay in his own hand. An extraordinary poem by Peire Cardinal—not by any means a heretic—breathes this spirit. He confronts God not with the customary humility, but as one power confronts the other. "I will write a new poem, and on the day of the Last Judgment I will read it to Him who has created me from nothing. If He should condemn me to everlasting damnation, I will say to Him: Lord, have mercy on me, for I have always striven against the wicked world," (the troubadour here alludes to his many polemic poems) "and save me from the torments of hell. The heavenly host will marvel at my speech. And I shall say to God that He sins against His creatures if he delivers them into the hands of the devil. Rather let Him drive away the devils, for then He will win more souls and all the world will be blessed.... I will not despair of Thee and therefore Thou must forgive my sins and save my soul and my heart. If I had not been born I should not have sinned. It would be a great wrong and a sin if Thou didst condemn me to burn in hell everlastingly, for truly I may accuse Thee of having sent me a thousand evils for one blessing."
Most terrible was the punishment inflicted upon Provence by Innocent III. That highly intellectual pope realised that he was faced by a revival of the true religious instinct from which the authority of the Church had far more to fear than from all sultans and emirs put together. The system of absolute, immutable values was threatened with destruction. In the year 1208 the Spanish nobleman Dominicus Guzman founded the order of the Dominicans and the Inquisition, which invaded Provence together with the papal army supported by France for political reasons. Half a million men were butchered in order to crush the spirit understood by a few hundreds at most; one stake was kindled by the other; in the memory of man no greater sacrifice to tradition and dogma had ever been made. Simon de Montfort, the head of the expedition, sent the following laconic report to the pope: "We spared neither sex nor age nor name, but slew all with the edge of the sword."
The troubadours bewailed the desolate country, the beauty that was no more. Montanhagol, although greatly intimidated by the Inquisition, wrote a long poem on the subject, and the otherwise unknown Bernard Sicard de Marvajols laments:
Oh! Toulouse and Provence,
And thou, land of Agence,
Carcassonne and Beziers!
As once I beheld you—as I behold you to-day!