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

by Henry Charles Lea

A few Waldenses appear in the prosecutions of Henri de Chamay of Carcassonne in 1328 and 1329, and, from the occasional notices which have reached us in the succeeding years, we may conclude that persecution, more or less fitful, never wholly ceased; while, in spite of this, the heresy kept constantly growing. After the disappearance of Catharism, indeed, it was the only refuge for ordinary humanity when dissatisfied with Rome. The Begghards were mystics whose speculations were attractive only to a certain order of minds. The Spirituals and Fraticelli were Franciscan ascetics. The Waldenses sought only to restore Christianity to its simplicity; their doctrines could be understood by the poor and illiterate, groaning under the burdens of sacerdotalism, and they found constantly wider acceptance among the people, in spite of all the efforts put forth by the waning power of the Inquisition. Benedict XII., in 1335, summoned Humbert II., Dauphin of Viennois, and Adhémar of Poitou to assist the inquisitors. Humbert obeyed, and from 1336 to 1346 there were expeditions sent against them which drove them from their homes and captured some of them. Of these a portion abjured and the rest were burned; their possessions were confiscated and the bones of the dead exhumed. The secular and ecclesiastical officials of Embrun joined in these efforts, but they had no permanent result. In Languedoc Frère Jean Dumoulin, Inquisitor of Toulouse, in 1344 attacked them vigorously, but only succeeded in scattering them throughout Béarn, Foix, and Aragon. In 1348 Clement VI. again urged Humbert, who responded with strict orders to his officers to aid the ecclesiastical authorities with what force might be necessary, and this time we hear of twelve Waldenses brought to Embrun, and burned on the square in front of the cathedral. When Dauphiné became a possession of the crown the royal officials were equally ready to assist. Letters of October 20, 1351, from the governor, order the authorities of Briançon to give the inquisitor armed support in his operations against the heretics of the Briançonnais, but this seems to have been ineffective; and the next year Clement VI. appealed to the Dauphin Charles, and to Louis and Joanna of Naples, to aid Frère Pierre Dumont, the Inquisitor of Provence, and summoned prelates and magistrates to co-operate in the good work. The only recorded result of this was the penancing of seven Waldenses by Dumont in 1353. More successful were the Christian labors of Guillaume de Bordes, Archbishop of Embrun from 1352 to 1363, surnamed the Apostle of the Waldenses, who tried the unusual expedient of kindness and persuasion. He personally visited the mountain valleys, and had the satisfaction of winning over a number of the heretics. With his death his methods were abandoned, and Urban V., from 1363 to 1365, was earnest in calling upon the civil power and in stimulating the zeal of the Provençal inquisitors, Frères Hugues Cardilion and Jean Richard. The celebrated inquisitor François Borel now appears upon the scene. Armed expeditions were sent into the mountains which had considerable success. Many of the heretics were obstinate and were burned, while others saved their lives by abjuration. Their pitiful little properties were confiscated; one had a cow, another two cows and clothes of white cloth. In the purse of another, more wealthy, were found two florins—a booty which scarce proved profitable, for the wood to burn him and a comrade cost sixty-two sols and six deniers. One woman named Juven who was burned possessed a vineyard. The vintage was gathered and the must stored in her cabin, when the wrathful neighbors fired it at night and destroyed the product.[169]

All this was of no avail. When Gregory XI. ascended the pontifical throne, in 1370, his attention was early directed to the deplorable condition of the Church in Provence, Dauphiné, and the Lyonnais. The whole region was full of Waldenses, and many nobles were now beginning to embrace the heresy. The prelates were powerless or negligent, and the Inquisition ineffective. He set to work vigorously, appointing inquisitors and stimulating their zeal, but the whole system by this time was so discredited that his labors were ineffectual. The royal officials, so far from aiding the inquisitors, had no scruple in impeding them. Unsafe places were assigned to them in which to conduct their operations; they were forced to permit secular judges to act as assessors with them; their proceedings were submitted for revision to the secular courts, and even their prisoners were set at liberty without consulting them. The secular officials refused to take oaths to purge the land of heresy, and openly protected heretics, especially nobles, when prosecutions were commenced against them.[170]

Gregory duly complained of this to Charles le Sage in 1373, but to little purpose at first. The evil continued unabated, and in 1375 he returned to the charge still more vigorously. No stone was left unturned. Not only was the king requested to send a special deputy to the infected district, but the pope wrote directly to the royal lieutenant, Charles de Banville, reproaching him for his protection of heretics, and threatening him if he did not mend his ways. Certain nobles who had become conspicuous as favorers of heresy were significantly reminded of the fate of Raymond of Toulouse; the prelates were scolded and stimulated; Amedeo of Savoy was summoned to assist, and the Tarantaise was added to the district of Provence that nothing might interfere with the projected campaign. As the spread of heresy was attributable to the lack of preachers, and to the neglect of prelates and clergy in instructing their flocks, the inquisitor was empowered to call in the services of Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians, to spread over the land and teach the people the truths of religion. These multiplied efforts at length began to tell. Charles issued orders to enforce the laws against heresy, and when Gregory sent a special Apostolic Internuncio, Antonio, Bishop of Massa, to direct operations, persecution began in earnest. Frère François Borel, the Inquisitor of Provence, had long been struggling against the indifference of the prelates and the hostility of the secular power. Now that he was sure of efficient seconding be was like a hound slipped from the leash. His forays against the miserable populations of Freyssinières, l’Argentière, and Val-Pute (or Val-Louise) have conferred on him a sinister reputation, unredeemed by the efficient aid which he contributed to regaining the liberties of his native town of Gap.[171]

The immediate success which rewarded these efforts was so overwhelming as to bring new cause for solicitude. The Bishop of Massa’s mission commenced early in May, 1375, and already, by June 17, Gregory is concerned about the housing and support of the crowds of wretches who had been captured. In spite of numerous burnings of those who proved obstinate, the prisons of the land were insufficient for the detention of the captives, and Gregory at once ordered new and strong ones to be built in Embrun, Avignon, and Vienne. To solve the financial complications which immediately arose, the bishops, whose negligence was accountable for the growth of heresy, were summoned within three months to furnish four thousand gold florins to build the prisons, and eight hundred florins per annum for five years for the support of the prisoners. This they were allowed to take from the legacies for pious uses, and the restitutions of wrongly-acquired funds, with a threat, if they should demur, that they should be deprived of these sources of income and be excommunicated besides. The bishops, however, were no more amenable to such arguments than those of Languedoc had been in 1245, and, after the three months had passed, Gregory answers, October 5, the anxious inquiry of the Bishop of Massa as to how he shall feed his prisoners, by telling him that it is the business of every bishop to support those of his diocese, and that any one who refuses to do so is to be coerced with excommunication and the secular arm. This was a mere brutum fulmen, and in 1376 he endeavored to secure a share in the confiscations, but King Charles refused to divide them, though in 1378 he at last agreed to give the inquisitors a yearly stipend for their own support, similar to that paid to their brethren at Toulouse.[172]

All other devices being exhausted, Gregory at last had recourse to the unfailing resource of the curia—an indulgence. There is something so appallingly grotesque in tearing honest, industrious folk from their homes by the thousand, in thrusting them into dungeons to rot and starve, and then evading the cost of feeding them by presenting them to the faithful as objects of charity, that the proclamation which Gregory issued August 15, 1370, is perhaps the most shameless monument of a shameless age—

“To all the faithful in Christ: As the help of prisoners is counted among pious works, it befits the piety of the faithful to mercifully assist the incarcerated of all kinds who suffer from poverty. As we learn that our beloved son, the Inquisitor François Borelli, has imprisoned for safe-keeping or punishment many heretics and those defamed for heresy, who in consequence of their poverty cannot be sustained in prison unless the pious liberality of the faithful shall assist them as a work of charity; and as we wish that these prisoners shall not starve, but shall have time for repentance in the said prisons; now, in order that the faithful in Christ may through devotion lend a helping hand, we admonish, ask, and exhort you all, enjoining it on you in remission of your sins, that from the goods which God has given you, you bestow pious alms and grateful charity for the food of these prisoners, so that they may be sustained by your help, and you, through this and other good works inspired by God, may attain eternal blessedness!”[173]

Imagination refuses to picture the horrors of the economically constructed jails where these unfortunates were crowded to wear out their dreary lives, while their jailers vainly begged for the miserable pittance that should prolong their agonies. Yet so far was Gregory from being satisfied with victims in number far beyond his ability to keep, that, December 28, 1375, he bitterly scolded the officials of Dauphiné for the negligent manner in which they obeyed the king’s commands to aid the inquisitors—a complaint which he reiterated May 18, 1376. From some expressions in these letters it is permissible to assume that this whole inhuman business had shocked even the dull sensibilities of that age of violence. Yet in spite of all that had been accomplished the heretics remained obstinate, and in 1377 Gregory indignantly chronicles their increase, while reproaching the inquisitors with their slackness in performing the duties for which they had been appointed.[174]

What effect on the future of the Waldenses a continuance of Gregory’s remorseless energy would have wrought can only be matter of conjecture. He died March 27, 1378, and the Great Schism which speedily followed gave the heretics some relief, during which they continued to increase, although in 1380 Clement VII. renewed the commission of Borel, whose activity was unabated until 1393, and his victims were numbered by the hundred. A good many conversions rewarded his labors, and the converts were allowed to retain their property on payment of a certain sum of money, as shown by a list made out in 1385. In 1393 he is said to have burned a hundred and fifty at Grenoble in a single day. San Vicente Ferrer was a missionary of a different stamp, and his self-devoted labors for several years in the Waldensian valleys won over numerous converts. His memory is still cherished there, and the village of Puy-Saint-Vincent, with a chapel dedicated to him, shows that his kindly ministrations were not altogether lost.[175]

The Waldenses by this time were substantially the only heretics with whom the Church had to deal outside of Germany. The French version of the Schwabenspiegel, or South German municipal code, made for the Romande speaking provinces of the empire, is assignable to the closing years of the century, and it attests the predominance of Waldensianism in its chapter on heresy, by translating the Käezer (Catharus) of the original by vaudois. Even “Leschandus” (Childeric III.) is said to have been dethroned by Pope Zachary because he was a protector of vaudois. That at this period the Inquisition had become inoperative in those regions where it had once been so busy is proved by the episcopal tribunals being alone referred to as having cognizance of such cases—the heretic is to be accused to his bishop, who is to have him examined by experts.[176]

How completely the Waldenses dropped out of sight in the struggles of the Great Schism is seen in a bull of Alexander V., in 1409, to Frère Pons Feugeyron, whose enormous district extended from Marseilles to Lyons and from Beaucaire to the Val d’Aosta. This comprehended the whole district which François Borel and Vicente Ferrer found swarming with heretics. The inquisitor is urged to use his utmost endeavors against the schismatic followers of Benedict XIII. and Gregory XII., against the increasing numbers of sorcerers, against apostate Jews and the Talmud, but not a word is said about Waldenses. They seem to have been completely forgotten.[177]