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

by Henry Charles Lea

The official report of the trial has been preserved in all its immense prolixity, and there are few documents of that age more instructive as to what was then regarded as justice. Some of Bernard’s old accomplices, such as Arnaud Garsia, Guillem Fransa, Pierre Probi, and others, who had already been seized by the Inquisition, were brought forward to be tried with him and were used as witnesses to save their own lives by swearing his away. The old man, worn with two years of imprisonment and constant examination, was subjected for two months to the sharpest cross-questioning on occurrences dating from twelve to eighteen years previous, the subjects of the multiform charges being ingeniously intermingled in the most confusing manner. Under pretext of seeking the salvation of his soul he was solemnly and repeatedly admonished that he was legally a heretic for remaining for more than a year under the ipso facto excommunication incurred by impeding the Inquisition, and that nothing could save him from the stake but absolute submission and full confession. Twice he was tortured, the first time, October 3, on the charge of treason, and the second, November 20, on that of necromancy; and though the torture was ordered to be “moderate,” the notaries who assisted at it are careful to report that the shrieks of the victim attested its sufficiency. In neither case was anything extracted from him, but the efficacy of the combined pressure thus brought to bear on a man weakened by age and suffering is shown by the manner in which he was brought day by day to contradict and criminate himself, until at last he threw himself on the mercy of the court, and humbly begged for absolution.[110]

In the sentence, rendered December 8, he was acquitted of attempting the life of Benedict XI., while on the other charges his guilt was aggravated by no less than seventy perjuries committed under examination. After abjuration, he was duly absolved and condemned to degradation from holy orders and imprisonment for life, in chains and on bread and water, in the inquisitorial prison of Carcassonne. Considering the amnesty proclaimed in 1307 by Philippe le Bel, and the discharge of Frère Bernard in 1308, it seems strange that now the representatives of Philippe le Long at once protested against the sentence as too mild, and appealed to the pope. The judges themselves did not think so, for in delivering the prisoner to Jean de Beaune they humanely ordered that in view of his age and debility, and especially the weakness of his hands (doubtless crippled in the torture-chamber), the penance of chains and bread and water should be omitted. Jean de Beaune may be pardoned if he felt a fierce exultation when the ancient enemy of his office was thus placed in his hands to expiate the offence which had so harassed his predecessors; and that exultation was perhaps increased when, February 26, 1320, the relentless pope, possibly to gratify the king, countermanded the pitying order of the bishops, and required the sentence to be executed in all its terrible rigor. Under these hardships the frail body which had been animated by so dauntless a spirit soon gave way, and in a few months merciful death released the only man who had dared to carry on a systematic warfare with the Inquisition.[111]

The progress of reaction had been rapid. In 1315 Louis Hutin had issued an edict in which were embodied most of the provisions of the laws of Frederic II. This piece of legislation, perfectly superfluous in view of the eighty years’’ career of the Inquisition in his dominions, is only of interest as showing the influence already obtained by the Dominicans during the papal interregnum. With the election of John XXII., notwithstanding his publication of the Clementines, all fear of interference disappeared, and the populations were surrendered again to the unchecked authority of the inquisitors. There was a significant notice to this effect in the withdrawal by the new pope, March 30, 1318, of the security given by Clement’s cardinals to Aimeric Castel and the other citizens of Carcassonne, Albi, and Cordes, who were deputed to carry on the case of those cities against the inquisitors, and the latter were directed to prosecute them diligently. The Inquisition recognized that its hour of triumph had come, and took in hand the survivors of those who had been conspicuous in the disturbances of fifteen years before. The unconvicted prisoners of 1299 and 1300, whom it had held in defiance of the reiterated orders of Clement—at least those who had not rotted to death in its dungeons—were brought forth and disposed of. A still more emphatic assertion of its renewed mastery was the subjection and “reconciliation” of the rebellious towns. Of what took place at Carcassonne we have no record, but it probably was the same as the ceremonies performed at Albi. There, March 11, 1319, the consuls and councillors and a great crowd of citizens were assembled in the cathedral cemetery, before Bishop Bernard and the inquisitor Jean de Beaune. There, with uplifted hands, they all professed repentance in the most humiliating terms, and swore to accept whatever penance might be imposed upon them, and thereafter to obey implicitly the bishop and inquisitor. Then those present, together with the dead who had shown signs of penitence, were relieved from excommunication, the rest of the population being required to apply for absolution within a month. The announcement of the penances followed. The town was to make good all expenses and losses accruing to the episcopate and Inquisition by reason of the troubles; it was to build and complete within two years a chapel to the cathedral, and a portal to the Dominican church; to give fifty livres to the Carmelites to be expended on their church, and, finally, to construct marble tombs for Nicholas d’Abbeville, and Foulques de Saint-Georges at Lyons and Carcassonne, where those inquisitors had died in poverty and exile by reason of the rebellion of the inhabitants. Ten pilgrimages, moreover, were designated for the survivors of those who in 1301 had bound themselves to prosecute Bishop Bertrand and Nicholas d’Abbeville in the royal court, as well as for those who had served as consuls and councillors from 1302 to 1304. Jean de Beaune seems to have considered it a special grace when, in December, 1320, he postponed the performance of their pilgrimages during the year from Easter, 1321, to 1322. The town of Cordes, June 29, 1321, was “reconciled” with a similar humiliating ceremony and pledges of future obedience. Thus the Inquisition celebrated its triumph in the long struggle. It had won the victory, and its opponents could only save themselves by unconditional surrender.[112]

Whether the citizens of Albi whose arrest in 1299 gave rise to so many troubles were really heretics or not cannot now be determined. Their confessions were precise and detailed, but, as their defenders alleged, the Inquisition had ample means of extorting what it pleased from its victims, and the long delay in convicting them would seem to argue that the tribunal had good reason for not wishing its sentences to see the light while there was chance of their being subjected to scrutiny under Clement V. The inquisitors urged in justification a single case, that of Lambert de Foyssenx, who complained to Clement’s cardinals that he had been unjustly accused, but who subsequently asserted his heresy defiantly, refused to recant, and was burned in 1309. This is the only instance of the kind, for the wretched survivors who were led to abjure and recant in 1319 were broken by prison and torture, and their evidence is worthless.[113]

Yet Bernard Gui was undoubtedly correct when he asserted that the troubles and limitations imposed on the Inquisition under Philippe le Bel led to the recrudescence of a heresy which had been nearly extinguished. In the debate before the king at Toulouse, in 1304, Guillem Pierre, the Dominican provincial, asserted that there were then in Languedoc no heretics except some forty or fifty in Albi, Carcassonne, and Cordes, and for a few leagues around them. This was doubtless an exaggeration, but with improved prospects of immunity perfected missionaries were invited from Lombardy and Sicily, and the number of believers rapidly increased. Bernard Gui boasts that from 1301 to 1315 there were more than a thousand detected by the Inquisition, who confessed and were publicly punished.[114]

The registers of Geoffroi d’Ablis at Carcassonne in 1308-9 show great activity rewarded by abundant results, and one of the witnesses in the trial of Bernard Délicieux tells us that, when the Inquisition was able to resume its labors there, many heretics and believers were promptly discovered.[115] About the same period commence the sentences of the Inquisition of Toulouse published by Limborch. In 1306 Bernard Gui had been appointed inquisitor at Toulouse. His numerous works attest his wide range of learning and incessant mental activity, while his practical skill in affairs was animated with a profound conviction of the wickedness of heresy and of the duty of his Order to enforce, at every cost, submission to Rome. Two missions as papal legate, one to Italy and the other to France, and two bishoprics, those of Tuy and Lodève, attest the value set on his services by John XXII. With his appointment at Toulouse he promptly commenced the long campaign which resulted in the virtual extirpation of Catharism in Languedoc. Yet, though stern and unsparing when the occasion seemed to demand it, his record bears no trace of useless cruelty or abusive extortion.[116]

Catharism by this time had been forced back to the humbler class among whom it had found its first disciples. The nobles and gentlemen who had so long upheld it had perished or been impoverished by the remorseless confiscations of three quarters of a century. The rich burghers of the cities—merchants and professional men—had learned the temptations held out by their wealth and the impossibility of avoiding detection. The fascinations of martyrdom have their limits, and the martyrs among them had been gradually but surely weeded out. Yet the old beliefs were still rooted among the simple folk of country hamlets and especially in the wild valleys among the foothills of the eastern Pyrenees. The active intercourse with Lombardy, and even with Sicily, was still kept up, and there were not wanting earnest ministers who braved every danger to administer to believers the consolations of their religion and to spread the faith in the fastnesses which were its last refuge. Chief among these was Pierre Autier, formerly a notary of Ax (Pamiers). His early life had not been pure, for we hear of his druda, or mistress, and his natural children, but with advancing years he embraced all the asceticism of the sect, to which he devoted his life. Driven to Lombardy in 1295, he returned in 1298 to remain on his native soil to the end, and to endure a war to the knife from the Inquisition. His property was confiscated and his family dispersed and ruined. The region to which he belonged lay at the foot of the Pyrenees, rugged, with few roads and many caves and hiding-places, whence escape across the frontier to Aragon was comparatively facile; it was full of his kindred who were devoted to him, and here for eleven years he maintained himself, lurking in disguise and wandering from place to place with the emissaries of the Holy Office ever on his track. He had been ordained to the ministry at Como, and speedily acquired authority in the sect of which he became one of the most zealous, indefatigable, and intrepid missionaries. Already, in 1300, he was so conspicuous that every effort was made for his apprehension. A certain Guillem Jean offered the Dominicans of Pamiers to betray him, but the treachery became known among the faithful, two of whom, Pierre d’Aère and Philippe de Larnat enticed Guillem to the bridge at Alliat by night, seized him, gagged him, carried him off to the mountains, and, after extorting a confession, cast him over a precipice. Worthy lieutenants of Pierre Autier were his brother Guillem and his son Jacques, Amiel de Perles, Pierre Sanche, and Sanche Mercadier, whose names occur everywhere throughout the confessions as active missionaries. Jacques Autier on one occasion had the boldness to preach at midnight to a gathering of heretic women in the Church of Sainte-Croix in Toulouse, the spot being selected as one in which they could best hold their meeting undisturbed.[117]

The work of Geoffroi d’Ablis in Carcassonne seems to be principally directed to determining the protectors and refuges of Pierre Autier. At Toulouse Bernard Gui was energetically employed in the same direction. The heretic was driven from place to place, but the wonderful fidelity of his disciples seemed to render all efforts vain, and finally Bernard was driven to the expedient of issuing, August 10, 1309, a special proclamation as an incitement for his capture.

“Friar Bernard Gui, Dominican, Inquisitor of Toulouse, to all worshippers of Christ, the reward and crown of eternal life. Gird yourselves, Sons of God; arise with me, Soldiers of Christ, against the enemies of his Cross, those corrupters of the truth and purity of Catholic faith, Pierre Autier, the heresiarch, and his coheretics and accomplices, Pierre Sanche and Sanche Mercadier. Hiding in concealment and walking in darkness, I order them by the virtue of God, to be tracked and seized wherever they may be found, promising eternal reward from God, and also a fitting temporal payment to those who will capture and produce them. Watch, therefore, O pastors, lest the wolves snatch away the sheep of your flock! Act manfully, faithful zealots, lest the adversaries of the faith fly and escape!”

This stirring exhortation was probably superfluous, for the prey was captured before it could have been published throughout the land. The arrest of nearly all his family and friends, in 1308-9, had driven Pierre Autier from his accustomed haunts. About St. John’s Day (June 24), 1309, he found refuge with Perrin Maurel of Belpech, near Castelnaudari, where he lay for five weeks or more. Thither came his daughter Guillelma, who remained with him a short time, and the two departed together. The next day he was captured. Perrin Maurel was likewise seized, and with customary fidelity stoutly denied everything until Pierre Autier, in prison, advised him in December to confess.[118]