If the faithful had imagined that the Treaty of 1229 had ended the contest with heresy they were quickly undeceived. The blood-money for the capture of heretics, promised by Count Raymond, was indeed paid when earned, for the Inquisition undertook to see that this was done, but the earning of it was dangerous. Nobles and burghers alike protected and defended the proscribed class, and those who hunted them were slain without mercy when occasion offered. The heretics continued as numerous as ever, and we have already seen the fruitless efforts put forth by the Cardinal Legate Romano and the Council of Toulouse. Even the university which Raymond bound himself to establish in Toulouse for the propagation of the faith, though it subsequently performed its work, was at first a failure. Learned theologians were brought from Paris to fill its chairs, but their scholastic subtleties were laughed at by the mocking Southrons as absurd novelties, and the heretics were bold enough to contend with them in debate. After a few years Raymond neglected to continue the stipends, and for a time the university was suspended.[5]
The most encouraging feature of the situation, one, indeed, full of promise, was the steady progress of the Dominican Order. It had outgrown the modest Church of St. Romano, bestowed upon it by Bishop Foulques; and in 1230 the piety of a prominent burgher of Toulouse, Pons de Capdenier, provided for it more commodious quarters in an extensive garden, situated partly in the city and partly in the suburbs. The inmates of the convent, some forty in number, were always ready to furnish champions of the Cross, whose ardent zeal shrank from neither toil nor peril; and when, in 1232, the fanatic Bishop Foulques died and was succeeded by the yet more fiery fanatic, the Dominican Provincial Raymond du Fauga, the Order was fully prepared to enter upon the exterminating war with heresy which was to last for a hundred years.[6]
The eager zeal of the friars did not wait to be armed with the organized authorization of inquisitorial powers. Their leading duty was to combat heresy, and their assaults on it were unintermitting. In 1231 a friar, in a sermon, declared that Toulouse was full of heretics, who held their assemblies there and disseminated their errors without hindrance. Already the magistrates seem to have looked askance on these pious efforts, for this assertion was made the occasion of a decided attempt at repression. The consuls of the city met and summoned before them, in the capitole, or town-hall, the prior, Pierre d’Alais. There they roundly scolded and threatened him, declaring that it was false to assert the existence of heresy in the town, and forbidding such utterances for the future. Trivial as was the occurrence, it has interest as the commencement of the ill-will between the authorities of Toulouse and the Inquisition, and as illustrating the sense of municipal pride and independence still cherished in the cities of the South. It required but a few years’’ struggle to trammel the civic liberties which had held their own against feudalism, but which could not stand against the subtler despotism of the Church.[7]
Even thus early Dominican ardor refused to be thus restrained. Master Roland of Cremona, noted as the first Dominican licentiate of the University of Paris, who had been brought to Toulouse to teach theology in the infant University, was scandalized when he heard of the insolent language of the consuls, and exclaimed that it was only a fresh incentive to preach against heresy more bitterly than ever. He set the example in this, and was eagerly followed by many of the brethren. He soon, too, had an opportunity of proving the falsity of the consuls’’ disclaimer. It transpired that Jean Pierre Donat, a canon of the ancient Church of Saint Sernin, who had recently died and been buried in the cloister, had been secretly hereticated on his death-bed. Without authority, and apparently without legal investigation, Master Roland assembled some friars and clerks, exhumed the body from the cloister, dragged it through the streets, and publicly burned it. Soon afterwards he heard of the death of a prominent Waldensian minister named Galvan. After stirring up popular passion in a sermon, he marched at the head of a motley mob to the house where the heretic had died and levelled it to the ground; then proceeding to the Cemetery of Villeneuve, where the body was interred, he dug it up and dragged it through the city, accompanied by an immense procession, to the public place of execution beyond the walls, where it was solemnly burned.[8]
All this was volunteer persecution. The episcopal court was as yet the only tribunal having power to act in such matters, and it, as we have seen, could only authorize the secular arm to do its duty in the final execution. Yet the episcopal court seems to have been in no way invoked in these proceedings, and no protest is recorded as having been uttered against such irregular enforcements of the law by the mob. There was, in fact, no organization for the steady repression of heresy. Bishop Raymond appears to have satisfied himself with an occasional raid against heretics outside of the city, and to have allowed those within it virtual immunity under the protection of the consuls, though he had, in virtue of his office, all the powers requisite for the purpose, and the machinery for their effective use could have readily been developed. No permanent results were to be expected from fitful bursts of zeal, and the suppression of heresy might well seem to be as far off as ever.
Urgent as was evidently the need of some organized body devoted exclusively to persecution, the appointment of the first inquisitors, in 1233, seems not to have been regarded as possessing any special significance. It was merely an experiment, from which no great results were anticipated. Frère Guillem Pelisson, who shared in the labors and perils of the nascent Inquisition, and who enthusiastically chronicled them, evidently does not consider it as an innovation worthy of particular attention. It was so natural an evolution from the interaction of the forces and materials of the period, and its future importance was so little suspected, that he passes over its founding as an incident of less moment than the succession to the Priory of Toulouse. “Frère Pons de Saint Gilles,” he says, “was made Prior of Toulouse, who bore himself manfully and effectively for the faith against the heretics, together with Frère Pierre Cella of Toulouse and Frère Guillem Arnaud of Montpellier, whom the lord pope made inquisitors against the heretics in the dioceses of Toulouse and Cahors. Also, the Legate Archbishop of Vienne made Frère Arnaud Catala, who was then of the Convent of Toulouse, inquisitor against the heretics.” Thus colorless is the only contemporary account of the establishment of the Holy Office.[9]
How little the functions of these new officials were at first understood is manifested by an occurrence, which is also highly suggestive of the tension of public feeling. In a quarrel between two citizens, one of them, Bernard Peitevin, called the other, Bernard de Solier, a heretic. This was a dangerous reputation to have, and the offended man summoned his antagonist before the consuls. The heretical party, we are told, had obtained the upper hand in Toulouse, and the magistrates were all either sympathizers with or believers in heresy. Bernard Peitevin was condemned to exile for a term of years, to pay a fine both to the complainant and to the city, and to swear publicly in the town-hall that he had lied, and that de Solier was a good Catholic. The sentence was a trifle vindictive, and Peitevin sought counsel of the Dominicans, who recommended him to appeal to the bishop. Episcopal jurisdiction in such a matter was perhaps doubtful, but Raymond du Fauga entertained the appeal. A few years later, if any cognizance had been taken of the case it would have been by the Inquisition, but now the inquisitors, Pierre Cella and Guillem Arnaud, appeared as advocates of the appellant in the bishop’s court, and so clearly proved de Solier’s heresy that the miserable wretch fled to Lombardy.[10]
Similar indefiniteness of procedure is visible in the next attempt. The inquisitors, Pierre and Guillem, began to make an inquest through the city, and cited numerous suspects, all of whom found defenders among the chief citizens. The hearings took place before them, but seem as yet to have been in public. One of the accused, named Jean Teisseire, asserted himself to be a good Catholic because he had no scruples in maintaining marital relations with his wife, in eating flesh, and in lying and swearing, and he warned the crowd that they were liable to the same charge, and that it would be wiser for them to make common cause than to abandon him. When he was condemned, and the viguier, the official representative of the count, was about to conduct him to the stake, so threatening a clamor arose that the prisoner was hurried to the bishop’s prison, still proclaiming his orthodoxy. Intense excitement pervaded the city, and menaces were freely uttered to destroy the Dominican convent and to stone all the friars, who were accused of persecuting the innocent. While in prison Teisseire pretended to fall mortally sick, and asked for the sacraments; but when the bailli of Lavaur brought to Toulouse some perfected heretics and delivered them to the bishop, Teisseire allowed himself to be hereticated by them in prison, and grew so ardent in the faith under their exhortations that when they were taken out for examination he accompanied them, declaring that he would share their fate. The bishop assembled the magistrates and many citizens, in whose presence he examined the prisoners. They were all condemned, including Teisseire, who obstinately refused to recant, and no further opposition was offered when they were all duly burned.[11]
Here we see the inquisitorial jurisdiction completely subordinate to that of the bishop, but when the inquisitors soon afterwards left Toulouse to hold inquests elsewhere they acted with full independence. At Cahors we hear nothing of the Bishop of Querci taking part in the proceedings under which they condemned a number of the dead, exhuming and burning their bodies, and inspiring such fear that a prominent believer, Raymond de Broleas, fled to Rome. At Moissac they condemned Jean du Gard, who fled to Montségur, and they cited a certain Folquet, who, in terror, entered the convent of Belleperche as a Cistercian monk, and, finding that this was of no avail, finally fled to Lombardy. Meanwhile Frère Arnaud Catala and our chronicler, Guillem Pelisson, descended upon Albi, where they penanced a dozen citizens by ordering them to Palestine, and in conjunction with another inquisitor, Guillem de Lombers, burned two heretics, Pierre de Puechperdut and Pierre Bomassipio.[12]
The absence of the inquisitors from Toulouse made no difference in the good work, for their duties were assumed by their prior, Pons de Saint-Gilles. Under what authority he acted is not stated, but we find him, in conjunction with another friar, trying and condemning a certain Arnaud Sancier, who was burned, in spite of his protests to the last that he was a good Catholic, causing great agitation in the city, but no tumultuous uprising.[13]