A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume II

by Henry Charles Lea

The Sacred College, monopolized by electioneering intrigues, paid no heed to the imploring prayer of the Albigensian clergy, but when the year’s turmoil was ended by the triumph of the French party in the election of Clement V. the hopes raised by the death of his predecessor might reasonably seem destined to fruition. Bertrand de Goth, Cardinal-Archbishop of Bordeaux, was a Gascon by birth, and, though an English subject, was doubtless more familiar than the Italians with the miseries and needs of Languedoc. His transfer of the papacy to French soil was also of good augury. Hardly had the news of his election reached Albi, when Frère Bernard was busy in organizing a mission to represent to him in the name of the city the necessity of relief, and when he visited Toulouse the wives of the prisoners, still languishing in confinement, were taken thither to make their woes emphatically known. Hardly had he been consecrated at Lyons when these complaints poured in and were substantiated by two Dominicans, Bertrand Blanc and François Aimeric, who were as emphatic as the representatives of Albi in their denunciations of inquisitorial methods and abuses. Geoffroi d’Ablis hurried thither from Carcassonne to defend himself in such haste that he left no one to take his place, and was obliged to send from Lyons, September 29, 1305, a commission to Jean de Faugoux and Gerald de Blumac to act in his stead. In this paper his fiery fanaticism breathes forth in his denunciations of the horrid beasts, the cruel beasts, who are ravaging the vineyard of the Lord, and who are to be tracked to their dens and extirpated with unsparing rigor.[101]

His efforts to justify the Inquisition were unavailing, more especially, perhaps, because the people of Albi bribed Cardinal Raymond de Goth, the pope’s nephew, with two thousand livres Tournois, the Cardinal of Santa Croce with as much, and the Cardinal Pier Colonna with five hundred. March 13, 1306, Clement commissioned two cardinals, Pierre of San Vitale (afterwards of Palestrina) and Berenger of SS. Nereo and Achille (afterwards of Frascati), who were about to pass through Languedoc on a mission, to investigate and make such temporary changes as they should find necessary. The people of Carcassonne, Albi, and Cordes had offered to prove that good Catholics were forced to confess heresy through the stress of torture and the horrors of the prisons, and further that the records of the Inquisition were altered and falsified. Until the investigation was completed, the inquisitors were not to consign to strict prison or to inflict torture on any one except in conjunction with the diocesan, and in the place of the Bishop of Albi the Abbot of Fontfroide was subrogated.

On April 16, 1306, the cardinals held a public session at Carcassonne in presence of all the notables of the place. The consuls of Carcassonne and the delegates of Albi preferred their complaints and were supported by the two Dominicans, Blanc and Aimeric, who had appeared before the pope. On the other hand, Geoffroi d’Ablis and the deputy of the Bishop of Albi defended themselves and complained of the popular riots and the ill-treatment to which they had been exposed. After hearing both sides the cardinals adjourned further proceedings until January 25, at Bordeaux, where Carcassonne, Albi, and Cordes were each to send four procurators to conduct the matter. As this office was a most dangerous one, the cardinals gave security to them against the Inquisition during the performance of their duty. This was no idle precaution, and Aimeric Castel, one of the representatives of Carcassonne, found himself in such danger that in September, 1308, he was obliged to procure from Clement a special bull forbidding the inquisitors to assail him until the termination of the affair. Even greater danger impended over any witnesses called upon to prove the falsification of records, as they were bound to silence under oaths which exposed them to the stake as relapsed heretics in case they revealed their evidence, and the cardinals were asked to absolve them from these oaths.[102]

If there were any further formal proceedings in this matter, which thus assumed the shape of a litigation between the people and the Inquisition, they have not reached us. Yet the cardinals, before continuing their journey, took some steps which showed that they were convinced of the truth of the accusations. They visited the prison of Carcassonne, and caused the prisoners, forty in number, of whom three were women, to be brought before them. Some of these were sick, others worn with age, and all tearfully complaining of the horrors of their lot, the insufficiency of food and bedding, and the cruelty of their keepers. The cardinals were moved to dismiss all the jailers and attendants except the chief, and to put the prison under the control of the Bishop of Carcassonne. It is significant that the oath imposed on the new officials bound them never to speak to a prisoner except in the presence of an associate, and not to steal any of the food destined for those under their charge. One of the cardinals visited the prison of the Bishop of Albi, where he found the jailers well spoken of, but was shocked with the condition of the prisoners. Many of them were in chains and all in narrow, dark cells, where some of them had been confined for five years or more without being yet condemned. He ordered all chains removed, that light should be introduced in the cells, and that new and less inhuman ones should be built within a month. As regards general amelioration in inquisitorial proceedings, the only regulation which they issued was a confirmation of Philippe’s expedient, requiring the co-operation of the diocesan with the inquisitor, and this was withdrawn by Clement, August 12, 1308, in an apologetic bull declaring that the cardinals had exceeded his intentions.[103]

The existence of the evils complained of was thus admitted, but the Church shrank from applying a remedy, and, after the struggle of years, relief was as illusory as ever. Even with regard to the crying and inexcusable abuse of the detention of prisoners in these fearful dungeons for long years without conviction or sentence, Clement found himself powerless to effect reform in the most flagrant cases. The inquisitors had in their archives a bull of Innocent IV. authorizing them to defer indefinitely passing sentence when they deemed that delay was in the interest of the faith, and of this they took full advantage. Of the captives seized by the Bishop of Albi in 1299, many were still unsentenced when the Cardinal of San Vitale examined his prisons. This visit passed away without result. Five years afterwards, in 1310, Clement wrote to the Bishop of Albi and Geoffroi d’Ablis that the citizens of Albi, whom he names, had repeatedly appealed to him, after more than eight years of imprisonment, to have their trials completed either to condemnation or absolution. He therefore orders the trials proceeded with at once and the results submitted for confirmation to the Cardinals of Palestrina and Frascati, his former commissioners. Bertrand de Bordes, Bishop of Albi, and Geoffroi d’Ablis contemptuously disregarded this command, because some of the prisoners named in it had died before its date, whence they argued that the papal letter had been surreptitiously obtained. When this contumacy reached the ears of Clement, some year or two later, he wrote to Geraud, then Bishop of Albi, and Geoffroi, peremptorily reiterating his commands and ordering them to try both living and dead. In spite of this, Geoffroi maintained his sullen contumacy. We have no means of knowing the fate of most of these unfortunates, who probably rotted to death in their dungeons without their trials being concluded; but of some of them we have traces, as related in a former chapter. After Clement and his cardinals had passed away, and no further interference was to be dreaded, in 1319 two surviving ones, Guillem Salavert and Isarn Colli, were brought out for further examination, when the former confirmed his confession and the latter retracted it as extorted under torture. Six months later, Guillem Calverie of Cordes, who had been imprisoned in 1301, was abandoned to the secular arm for retracting his confession (probably before Clement’s cardinals), and Guillem Salavert was allowed to escape with wearing crosses, in consideration of his nineteen years’’ imprisonment without conviction. Even as late as 1328 attested copies made by order of the royal judge of Carcassonne, of inventories of personal property of Raymond Calverie and Jean Baudier, two of the prisoners of 1299-1300, show that their cases were still the subject of litigation. Even more remarkable as a manifestation of contumacy is the case of Guillem Garric, held in prison for complicity in the attempt to destroy the records at Carcassonne in 1284. Royal letters of 1312 recite that his merits and piety had caused Clement V. to grant him full pardon, wherefore the king restores to him and his descendants his confiscated castle of Monteirat. Yet the Inquisition did not relax its grip, but waited until 1321, when he was brought forth from prison, and in consideration of his contrition Bernard Gui mercifully sentenced the old man to perpetual banishment from France within thirty days.[104]

Another endeavor was made by Clement to repress the abuses of the Inquisition by transferring from its jurisdiction to that of the bishops the Jews of the provinces of Toulouse and Narbonne on account of the undue molestation to which they were continually subjected. This transfer even included cases then pending, but after Clement’s death a bull was produced in which he annulled the previous one and restored the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.[105]

The outcome of all this struggle and investigation is to be found in the measures of reform adopted in 1312 by the Council of Vienne at Clement’s instance. The five books of canon law known as the “Clementines,” which were enacted by the council, were retained for revision by Clement, who was on the point of publishing them when he died, April 20, 1314. They were held in suspense during the long interregnum which followed, and were not authoritatively given to the world until October 25, 1317, by John XXII. The canons relating to the Inquisition have been alluded to above, and it will be remembered that they only restricted the power of the inquisitor by requiring episcopal concurrence in the use of torture, or of harsh confinement equivalent to torture, and in the custody of prisons. There was a brutum fulmen of excommunication denounced against those who should abuse their power for purposes of hate, affection, or extortion, and the importance of the whole lies far less in the remedies it proposes than in its emphatic testimony of the existence of cruelty and corruption in every detail of inquisitorial practice. Bernard Gui vainly raised his voice in an earnest and elaborate protest against the publication of the new rules, and after their promulgation he did not hesitate openly to tell his brethren that they required to be modified or rather wholly suspended by the Holy See, but his expostulations were totally uncalled for. The closest examination of inquisitorial methods before and after the publication of the Clementines fails to reveal any influence exercised by them for good or for evil. No trace of any practical effort for their enforcement is to be found, and inquisitors went on, as was their wont, in the arbitrary fashion for which their office gave them such unlimited opportunity.[106]

One case may indeed be cited to show a special relaxation of the procedure against heretics. Philippe’s hatred of Boniface VIII. was undying, and could not be quenched even by the miserable end of his enemy. Yet the one thing which he failed to wring from his tool in the papal chair was the condemnation of the memory of Boniface as a heretic. After repeated efforts he compelled Clement to take testimony on the subject, and a cloud of witnesses were produced who swore with minute detail to the unbelief of the late pope in the immortality of the soul, and in all the doctrines of the incarnation and the atonement, and to his worship of demons, to his cynical and unnatural lasciviousness, and to the common fame which existed in the community as to his evil beliefs and habits. The witnesses were reputable churchmen for the most part, and their evidence was precise. A tithe of such testimony would have sufficed to burn the bones and disinherit the heirs of a score of ordinary culprits, but for once the recognized rules of procedure were set aside. Philippe was forced to desist from the pursuit, though Clement in his final bull of April 27, 1311, declared that the king and his witnesses had been actuated solely by zeal for the Church, and the affair fell through. The pretensions put forth by Boniface in his offensive decretals were formally withdrawn, and Guillaume de Nogaret obtained his long-withheld absolution.[107]

Clement died at Carpentras April 20, 1314, carrying with him the shame and guilt of the ruin of the Templars, and was followed in about seven months (November 29) by his tempter and accomplice, Philippe le Bel. The cardinals on whom devolved the choice of a successor to St. Peter were torn with dissensions. The Italians demanded that the election should be held in the Eternal City. The French, or Gascons, as they were called, insisted on the observance of the rule that the selection should be made on the spot where the last pontiff had expired, knowing that in Italy they would be exposed to the same insults and annoyances as were inflicted in France on their Italian brethren. Shut up in the episcopal palace of Carpentras, the conclave awaited in vain the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, even though those outside tried the gentle expedient of cutting off the food of the members and pillaging their houses. The situation grew so insupportable that, as a last desperate resort, on July 23, 1314, the Gascon faction, under the lead of Clement’s nephews, set fire to the palace and threatened the Italians with death, so that the latter were glad to escape with their lives by breaking a passage through the rear wall. Two years passed away without the election of a visible head of the Church, and the faithful might well fear that they had seen the last of the popes. The French court, however, had found itself so well abetted by a French pope that its policy required the chair of St. Peter to be filled, and in 1316 Louis Hutin sent his brother, Philippe le Long, then Count of Poitiers, to Lyons with orders to get the cardinals together. To accomplish this Philippe was obliged to swear that he would neither do them violence nor imprison them, and they, having thus secured their independence, were no more disposed to accord than before. For six months the business thus lagged without prospect of result, when Philippe received the news of the sudden death of his brother, and that the widowed queen claimed to be pregnant. The prospect of a vacant throne, or at least of a regency, awaiting him in Paris rendered further dallying in Lyons insupportable, nor could he well depart without bringing his errand to a successful issue. Hastily counselling with his lawyers, it was discovered that his oath was unlawful and therefore not to be observed. Consequently he invited the reverend fathers to a colloquy in the Dominican convent, and when they were thus safely hived he sternly told them that they should not depart till they had chosen a pope. His guards blocked every entrance, and he hastened off to Paris, leaving them to deliberate in captivity. Thus entrapped they made a merit of necessity, though forty days were still required before they proclaimed Jacques d’Ozo, Cardinal of Porto, as the Vicar of Christ—the Italians having been won over by his oath that he would never mount a horse or mule except to go to Rome. This oath he kept during his whole pontificate of eighteen years, for he slipped down the Rhone to Avignon by boat, ascended on foot to the palace, and never left it except to visit the cathedral which adjoined it. Such a process of selection was not likely to result in the evolution of a saint, and John XXII. was its natural exponent. His distinguished learning and vigorous abilities had elevated him from the humblest origin, while his boundless ambition and imperious temper provoked endless quarrels from which his daring spirit never shrank.[108]

With his election the troubles of the Inquisition of Languedoc were over. Though he published the Clementines, he soon let it be seen that the inquisitors had nothing to fear from him, and they made haste to pay off the accumulated scores of vengeance. The first victim was Bernard Délicieux. During the pontificate of Clement and the interregnum he had lived in peace, and might well imagine that his enthusiasm for the people of Languedoc had been forgotten. His earnest nature had led him to join the section of his order known as the Spirituals, and he had been prominent in the movements by which, during the vacancy of the Holy See, they had gained possession of the convents of Béziers and Narbonne. One of the first cares of John XXII. was to heal this schism in the Order, and he promptly summoned before him the friars of Béziers and Narbonne. Bernard had not hesitated in signing an appeal to the pope, and he now boldly came before him at the head of his brethren. When he undertook to argue their cause he was accused of having impeded the Inquisition and was promptly arrested. Besides the charge of impeding the Inquisition, others of encompassing by magic arts the death of Benedict XI., and of treason in the affair of Carcassonne, were brought against him. A papal commission was formed to investigate these matters, and for more than two years he was held in close prison while the examination went slowly on. At length it was ready for trial, and September 3, 1319, a court was convened at Castelnaudari consisting of the Archbishop of Toulouse and the Bishops of Pamiers and St. Papoul, when the archbishop excused himself and left the matter in the hands of his associates, who transferred the court to Carcassonne, September 12. The importance attached to the trial is shown by the fact that at it the Inquisition was represented by the inquisitor Jean de Beaune, and the king by his Seneschal of Carcassonne and Toulouse and his “Reformers,” Raoul, Bishop of Laon, and Jean, Count of Forez.[109]