Ferdinand the Catholic, in founding the New Spanish Inquisition, obtained for his grand inquisitor the power of nominating deputies in all the dependencies of Castile and Aragon. About 1487 Fray Antonio de la Peña was sent to Sicily in that capacity, who speedily organized the Holy Office on its new basis throughout the island; and in 1492 an edict of banishment was issued against the Jews, who, as of old, were the chief objects of persecution. On the mainland there was more trouble. When, in 1503, Ferdinand acquired the kingdom of Naples, the Great Captain, Gonsalvo of Cordova, finding the people excited with the fear that the Spanish Inquisition might be introduced, made a solemn compact that no inquisitors should be sent thither. The old rules were kept in force; no one was allowed to be arrested without a special royal warrant, and no inquisitor could exercise any functions without the confirmation of his commission by the royal representative. Notwithstanding this, in 1504, Diego Deza, the Spanish inquisitor-general, sent to Naples an inquisitor and a receiver of confiscated property, with royal letters ordering them to have free exercise of their authority, but Gonsalvo, who knew by how slender a tenure the new dynasty held the allegiance of the people, seems not to have admitted them. Under the excuse that the Jews and New Christians expelled from Spain found refuge in Naples, the attempt was again made in 1510, and Andres Palacio was sent there as inquisitor, but the populace rose in arms and made demonstrations so threatening that even Ferdinand’s fanaticism was forced to give way. The movements of the French in the north of Italy were disquieting, the loyalty of the Neapolitans was not to be relied upon, and the inquisitor was withdrawn with a promise that no further effort would be made to force upon the people the dreaded tribunal. Even Julius II. recognized the necessity of this and assented to the understanding. The Calabrian and Apulian Waldenses thus had a respite until the progress of the Reformation in Italy aroused the Church to renewed efforts and to a complete reorganization of its machinery of persecution.[323]
CHAPTER V.
THE SLAVIC CATHARI.
WHEN Innocent III. found himself confronted with the alarming progress of the Catharan heresy, his vigilant activity did not confine itself to Italy and Languedoc. The home of the belief lay to the east of the Adriatic among the Slavic races. Thence came the missionaries who never ceased to stimulate the zeal of their converts, and every motive of piety and of policy led him to combat the error at its source. Thus the field of battle stretched from the Balkans to the Pyrenees along a front of over a thousand miles, and the result might have been doubtful but for the concentration of moral and material forces resulting from the centralized theocracy founded by Hildebrand.
The contest in the regions south of Hungary is instructive as an illustration of the unconquerable persistence of Rome in conducting for centuries an apparently resultless struggle, undeterred by defeat, taking advantage of every opening for a renewal of the strife, and using for its ends the ambition of monarchs and the self-sacrificing devotion of zealots. A condensed review of the rapid vicissitudes of such a contest is therefore not out of place, although the scene of action lay too far from the centres of European life to have decisive influence upon the development of European thought and belief, except as it served as a refuge for the persecuted and a centre of orthodoxy to which neophytes could be sent.
The vast regions east of the Adriatic scarce paid more than a nominal spiritual allegiance to Rome. A savage and turbulent population, conquered by Hungary towards the end of the eleventh century, and always endeavoring to throw off the yoke, was Christian in little more than name. Such Christianity as it boasted, moreover, was not Latin. The national ritual was Slavic, in spite of its prohibition by Gregory VII., and the Roman observance was detested, from its foreign origin, as the badge of subjugation. The few Latin prelates and priests and monks were encamped amid a hostile population to whom they were strangers in language and manners, and the dissoluteness of their lives gave them no opportunity of acquiring a moral influence that might disarm national and race antipathies. Under such circumstances there was nothing to hinder the spread of Catharism, and when the devastating wars of the Hungarians came to be dignified as crusades for the extermination of heresy, heresy might well claim to be identified with patriotism. From the Danube to Macedonia, and from the Adriatic to the Euxine, the Catharan Church was well organized, divided into dioceses with their bishops, and actively engaged in mission work. Its most flourishing province was Bosnia, where, at the end of the twelfth century, it counted some ten thousand devoted partisans. Culin, the Ban who held it under the suzerainty of Hungary, was a Catharan, and so were his wife and the rest of his family. Even Catholic prelates were suspected, not without cause, of leaning secretly to the heretic belief.[324]
The earliest interference with heresy occurs at the end of the twelfth century, when the Archbishop of Spalatro, doubtless under impulsion from Innocent, drove out a number of Cathari from Trieste and Spalatro. They found ready refuge in Bosnia, where Culin welcomed them. Vulcan, King of Dalmatia, who had designs upon Bosnia, in 1199 represented to Innocent the deplorable prevalence of heresy there, and suggested that Emeric, King of Hungary, should be urged to expel the heretics. Innocent thereupon wrote to Emeric, sending him the severe papal decretal against the Patarins of Viterbo as a guide for his action, and ordering him to cleanse his territories of heresy and to confiscate all heretical property. Culin seems to have taken the initiative by attacking Hungary, but at the same time he tried to make his peace with Rome by asserting that the alleged heretics were good Catholics. He sent some of them, with two of his prelates, to Innocent for examination, and asked for legates to investigate the matter on the spot. In 1202 the pope accordingly ordered his chaplain, Giovanni da Casemario, and the Archbishop of Spalatro, to proceed to Bosnia, where, if they found any heretics, including the Ban himself, they were to be prosecuted according to the rigor of the canons. Giovanni successfully accomplished this mission in 1203. He reported to Innocent a pledge given by the Cathari to adopt the Latin faith, while, to insure the maintenance of religion, he recommended the erection of three or four additional bishoprics in the territory of the Ban, which were ten days’’ journey in extent and which yet had but one see, of which the incumbent was dead. At the same time King Emeric wrote that Giovanni had brought to him the leaders of the heretics, and he had found them converted to orthodoxy. Culin’s son had likewise presented himself, and had entered into bonds of one thousand marks, to be forfeited in case he should hereafter protect heretics within his dominions. The triumph of the Church seemed assured, especially when, in the same year, Calo Johannes, the Emperor of the Bulgarians, applied to Innocent to have cardinals sent to crown him, and professed himself in all things obedient to the Holy See.[325]
All such hopes proved fallacious. With the development of the Albigensian troubles the attention of Innocent was directed from the Slavs. The conversions made under pressure were but temporary. The metropolitan of the province, Arringer, Archbishop of Ragusa, filled the vacant see of Bosnia with a Catharan, and, dying himself soon after, his episcopal city became a nest of heretics. The few Catholic priests scattered through the region abandoned their posts, and Catholicism grew virtually almost extinct. In 1221 it is said that in the whole of Bosnia there was not a single orthodox preacher to be heard. Equally disheartening was the course of affairs among the Bulgarians. After Calo Johannes had been crowned by a legate from Rome, his quarrels with the Latin Emperors of Constantinople led to a breach, and in the wide territories under his dominion the Cathari had full liberty of conscience.[326]
At length the papal attention was again directed to this deplorable state of affairs. In 1221 Honorius III. sent his chaplain, Master Aconcio, as legate to Hungary, with orders to arouse the king and the prelates to a sense of their obligation to exterminate the heretics who were thus openly defiant. On his way the legate paused at Ragusa to superintend the election of an orthodox archbishop, after which he ordered all Dalmatia and Croatia to join in a crusade, but no one followed him, and he went alone to Bosnia, where he died the same year. Better results were promised by the ambition of Ugolin, Archbishop of Kalocsa, who desired to extend his province; he proposed to Andreas II. of Hungary that he would lead a crusade at his own cost, and king and pope promised him all the territories which he should clear of heretics, but Ugolin overrated his powers, and adopted the expedient of subsidizing with two hundred silver marks the ruler of Syrmia, Prince John, son of Margaret, widow of the Emperor Isaac Angelus. John took the money without performing his promise, though reminded of it by Honorius in 1227. Relieved from apprehension, the Bosnians deposed their Ban Stephen and replaced him with a Catharan, Ninoslav, one of the most notable personages in Bosnian history, who maintained himself from 1232 to 1250.[327]
The scale at length seemed to turn with the advent on the scene of the Mendicant Orders, full of the irrepressible enthusiasm, the disregard of toil and hardship, and the thirst for martyrdom of which we have already seen so many examples. Behind them now, moreover, was Gregory IX., the implacable and indefatigable persecutor of heresy, who urged them forward unceasingly. The Dominicans were first upon the ground. As early as 1221 the Order formed establishments in Hungary, developing its proselyting energy from that centre, and thus taking the heretics in flank. The Dominican legend relates that the Inquisition was founded in Hungary by Friar Jackzo (St. Hyacinth), an early member of the Order, who died in 1257, and that it could soon boast of two martyred inquisitors, Friar Nicholas, who was flayed alive, and Friar John, who was lapidated by the heretics. In 1233 we hear of the massacre of ninety Dominican missionaries among the Cumans, and it was perhaps somewhat earlier than this that thirty-two were drowned by the Bosnian heretics, whom they were seeking to convert; but Dominican ardor was only inflamed by such incidents. Preparations were made for systematic work. In 1232 Gregory ordered his legate in Hungary, Giacopo, Bishop of Palestrina, to convert the Bosnians. King Andreas gave the Banate to his son Coloman, Duke of Croatia and Dalmatia, and ordered him to assist. Results soon followed. The Catholic Bishop of Bosnia was himself infected with heresy, and excused himself on the ground that he had ignorantly supposed the Cathari to be orthodox. The Archbishop of Ragusa was cognizant of this, and had paid no attention to it, so Giacopo transferred Bosnia to Kalocsa—a transfer, however, which was for the present inoperative. More important was the conversion of Ninoslav, who abandoned the religion of his fathers in order to avert the attacks of Coloman, which were rapidly dismembering his territories. He was effusively welcomed by Gregory; he gave money to the Dominicans for the building of a cathedral; many of his magnates followed his example, and his kinsman, Uban Prijesda, handed his son to the Dominicans as a hostage for the sincerity of his conversion. Gregory was overjoyed at this apparent success. In 1233 he ordered the boy restored to his father; he took Bosnia under the special protection of the Holy See, and ordered Coloman to defend Ninoslav from the attacks of disaffected heretics; he deposed the heretic bishop, and instructed his legate to divide the territory into two or three sees, appointing proper incumbents. The latter measure was not carried out, however, and a German Dominican, John of Wildeshausen, was consecrated Bishop of all Bosnia.[328]
The Legate Giacopo returned to Hungary satisfied that the land was converted, but success proved fleeting. Either Ninoslav’s conversion was feigned or he was unable to control his heretic subjects, for in the next year, 1234, we find Gregory complaining that heresy was increasing and rendering Bosnia a desert of the faith, a nest of dragons and a home of ostriches. In conjunction with Andreas he ordered a crusade, and Coloman was instructed to attack the heretics. The Carthusian Prior of St. Bartholomew was sent thither to preach it with Holy Land indulgences, and by the end of 1234 Coloman laid Bosnia waste with fire and sword. Ninoslav threw himself heart and soul with the Cathari, and the struggle was bloody and prolonged. The Legate Giacopo induced Bela IV. to take an oath to extirpate all heretics from every land under his jurisdiction, and the Franciscans hastened to take a hand in the good work. They commenced with the city of Zara, but the Archbishop of Zara, instead of seconding their labors, impeded them, which earned for him the emphatic rebuke of Gregory. Indeed, from the account which Yvo of Narbonne gives about this time of the Cathari of the maritime districts, they could not have been much disturbed by these proceedings.[329]