The terror which Pelisson boasts that these proceedings spread through the land was probably owing not only to the evidence they afforded of an organized system of persecution, but also to their introduction of a much more effective method of prosecution than had heretofore been known. The “heretic,” so called, was the perfected teacher who disdained to deny his faith, and his burning was accepted by all as a matter of course, as also was that of the “credens,” or believer, who was defiantly contumacious and persisted in admitting and adhering to his creed. Hitherto, however, the believer who professed orthodoxy seems generally to have escaped, in the imperfection of the judicial means of proving his guilt. The friars, trained in the subtleties of disputation and learned in both civil and canon law, were specially fitted for the detection of this particularly dangerous secret misbelief, and their persistence in worrying their victims to the death was well calculated to spread alarm, not only among the guilty, but among the innocent.
How reasonable were the fears inspired by the speedy informality of the justice accorded to the heretic is well illustrated by a case occurring in 1234. When the canonization of St. Dominic was announced in Toulouse it was celebrated in a solemn mass performed by Bishop Raymond in the Dominican convent. St. Dominic, however, desired to mark the occasion with some more edifying manifestation of his peculiar functions, and caused word to be brought to the bishop, as the latter was leaving the church for the refectory to partake of a meal, that a woman had just been hereticated in a house hard by, in the Rue de l’Olmet sec. The bishop, with the prior and some others, hurried thither. It was the house of Peitavin Borsier, the general messenger of the heretics of Toulouse, whose mother-in-law lay dying of fever. So sudden was the entrance of the intruders that the woman’s friends could only tell her “the bishop is coming,” and she, who expected a visit from the heretic bishop, was easily led on by Raymond to make a full declaration of her heresy and to pledge herself to be steadfast in it. Then, revealing himself, he ordered her to recant, and, on her refusal, he summoned the viguier, condemned her as a heretic, and had the satisfaction of seeing the dying creature carried off on her bed and burned at the place of execution. Borsier and his colleague, Bernard Aldric of Drémil, were captured, and betrayed many of their friends; and then Raymond and the friars returned to their neglected dinner, giving thanks to God and to St. Dominic for so signal a manifestation in favor of the faith.[14]
The ferocious exultation with which these extra-judicial horrors were perpetrated is well reflected in a poem of the period by Isarn, the Dominican Prior of Villemier. He represents himself as disputing with Sicard de Figueras, a Catharan bishop, and each of his theological arguments is clinched with a threat—
“E’’ s’aquest no vols creyre vec te ’l foc aizinat
Que art tos companhos,
Aras vuelh que m’’respondas en un mot o en dos,
Si cauziras et foc o remanras ab nos.”
“If you will not believe this, look at that raging fire which is consuming your comrades. Now I wish you to reply to me in one word or two, for you will burn in the fire or join us.” Or again, “If you do not confess at once, the flames are already lighted; your name is proclaimed throughout the city with the blast of trumpets, and the people are gathering to see you burn.” In this terrible poem, Isarn only turned into verse what he felt in his own heart, and what he saw passing under his eyes almost daily.[15]
As the holy work assumed shape and its prospects of results grew more encouraging, the zeal of the hunters of men increased, while the fear and hatred of the hunted became more threatening. On both sides passion was fanned into flame. Already, in 1233, two Dominicans, sent to Cordes to seek out heretics, had been slain by the terrified citizens. At Albi the people, excited by the burning of the two heretics already referred to, rose, June 14, 1234, when Arnaud Catala ordered the episcopal bailli to dig up the bones of a heretic woman named Beissera whom he had condemned. The bailli sent back word that he dared not do it. Arnaud left the episcopal synod in which he was sitting, coolly went to the cemetery, himself gave the first strokes of the mattock, and then, ordering the officials to proceed with the work, returned to the synod. The officials quickly rushed after him, saying that they had been ejected from the burial-ground by the mob. Arnaud returned and found it occupied by a crowd of howling sons of Belial, who quickly closed in on him, striking him in the face and pummelling him on all sides, with shouts of “Kill him! he has no right to live!” Some endeavored to drag him into the shops hard by to slay him; others wished to throw him into the river Tarn, but he was rescued and taken back to the synod, followed by a mass of men fiercely shouting for his death. The whole city, indeed, seemed to be of one mind, and many of the principal burghers were leaders of the tumult. It is satisfactory to learn that, although Arnaud mercifully withdrew the excommunication which he launched at the rebellious city, his successor, Frère Ferrer, wrought the judgment of God upon the guilty, imprisoning many of them and burning others.[16]
In Narbonne disturbances arose even more serious, although special inquisitors had not yet been sent there. In March, 1234, the Dominican prior, François Ferrer, undertook a volunteer inquisition and threw in prison a citizen named Raymond d’Argens. Fifteen years previous the artisans of the suburb had organized a confederation for mutual support called the Amistance, and this body arose as one man and forcibly rescued the prisoner. The archbishop, Pierre Amiel, and the viscount, Aimery of Narbonne, undertook to rearrest him, but found his house guarded by the Amistance, which rushed upon their followers with shouts of “Kill! kill!” and drove them away after a brief skirmish, in which the prior was badly handled. The archbishop had recourse to excommunication and interdict, but to little purpose, for the Amistance seized his domains and drove him from the city. Both sides sought allies. Gregory IX. appealed to King Jayme of Aragon, while a complaint from the consuls of Narbonne to those of Nimes looks as though they were endeavoring to effect a confederation of the cities against the Inquisition, of whose arbitrary and illegal methods of procedure they give abundant details. A kind of truce was patched up in October, but the troubles recommenced when the prior, in obedience to an order from his provincial, undertook a fresh inquisition, and made a number of arrests. In December a suspension was obtained by the citizens appealing to the pope, the king, and the legate, but in 1235 the people rose against the Dominicans, drove them from the city, sacked their convent, and destroyed all the records of the proceedings against heresy. Archbishop Pierre had cunningly separated the city from the suburb, about equal in population, by confining the inquisition to the latter, and this bore fruit in his securing the armed support of the former. The suburb placed itself under the protection of Count Raymond, who, nothing loath to aggravate the trouble, came there and gave to the people as leaders Olivier de Termes and Guiraud de Niort, two notorious defenders of heretics. A bloody civil war broke out between the two sections, which lasted until April, 1237, when a truce for a year was agreed upon. In the following August the Count of Toulouse and the Seneschal of Carcassonne were called in as arbitrators, and in March, 1238, a peace was concluded. That the Church triumphed is shown by the conditions which imposed upon some of the participators in the troubles a year’s service in Palestine or against the Moors of Spain.[17]
In Toulouse, the centre both of heresy and persecution, in spite of mutterings and menaces, open opposition to the Inquisition was postponed longer than elsewhere. Although Count Raymond is constantly represented by the Church party as the chief opponent of the Holy Office, it was probably his influence that succeeded in staving off so long the inevitable rupture. Hard experience from childhood could scarce have rendered him a fervent Catholic, yet that experience had shown him that the favor and protection of the Church were indispensable if he would retain the remnant of territory and power that had been left to him. He could not as yet be at heart a persecutor of heresy, yet he could not afford to antagonize the Church. It was important for him to retain the love and good-will of his subjects and to prevent the desolation of his cities and lordships, but it was yet more important for him to escape the stigma of favoring heresy, and to avoid calling down upon his head a renewal of the storm in which he had been so nearly wrecked. Few princes have had a more difficult part to play, with dangers besetting him on every side, and if he earned the reputation of a trimmer without religious convictions, that reputation and his retention of his position till his death are perhaps the best proof of the fundamental wisdom which guided his necessarily tortuous course. Pierre Cardinal, the Troubadour, describes him as defending himself from the assaults of the worst of men, as fearing neither the Frenchman nor the ecclesiastic, and as humble only with the good.[18]
He was always at odds with his prelates. Intricate questions with regard to the temporalities were a constant source of quarrel, and he lived under a perpetual reduplication of excommunications, for he had been so long under the ban of the Church that no bishop hesitated for a moment in anathematizing him. Then, one of the conditions of the treaty of 1229 had been that within two years he should proceed to Palestine and wage war there with the infidel for five years. The two years had passed away without his performing the vow; the state of the country at no time seemed to render so prolonged an absence safe, and for years a leading object of his policy was to obtain a postponement of his crusade or immunity for the non-observance of his vow. Moreover, from the date of the peace of Paris until the end of his life he earnestly and vainly endeavored to obtain from Rome permission for the sepulture of his father’s body. These complications crippled him in multitudinous ways and exposed him to immense disadvantage in his fencing with the hierarchy.
As early as 1230 he was taxed by the legate with inobservance of the conditions of the peace, and was forced to promise amendment of his ways. In 1232 we see Gregory IX. imperiously ordering him to be energetic in the duty of persecution, and, possibly in obedience to this, during the same year, we find him personally accompanying Bishop Raymond of Toulouse in a nocturnal expedition among the mountains, which was rewarded with the capture of nineteen perfected heretics, male and female, including one of their most important leaders, Pagan, Seigneur de Bécède, whose castle we saw captured in 1227. All these expiated their errors at the stake. Yet not long afterwards the Bishop of Tournay, as papal legate, assembled the prelates of Languedoc and formally cited Raymond before King Louis to answer for his slackness in carrying out the provisions of the treaty. The result of this was the drawing up of severe enactments against heretics, which he was obliged to promulgate in February, 1234. In spite of this, and of a letter from Gregory to the bishops ordering them no longer to excommunicate him so freely as before, he was visited within a twelvemonth with two fresh excommunications, for purely temporal causes. Then came fresh urgency from the pope for the extirpation of heresy, with which Raymond doubtless made a show of compliance, as his heart was bent on obtaining from Rome a restoration of the Marquisate of Provence. In this he was strongly backed by King Louis, whose brother Alfonse was to be Raymond’s heir, and towards the close of the year he sought an interview with Gregory and succeeded in effecting it. His reconciliation with the papacy appeared to be complete. His military reputation stood high, and Gregory made use of his visit to confide to him the leadership of the papal troops in a campaign against the rebellious citizens of Rome, who had expelled the head of the Church from their city. Though he did not succeed in restoring the pope, they parted on the best of terms, and he returned to Toulouse as a favored son of the Church, ready on all points to obey her behests.[19]