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

by Henry Charles Lea

Stern in temper and narrow in mind, his bigotry was ardent to the pitch of insanity. What were his conceptions of the duty of man to his Creator and how his conscience led him to abuse unlimited authority can best be judged by his course as spiritual director of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia. The daughter of Andreas of Hungary, born in 1207, married in 1221, at the age of thirteen, to Louis of Thuringia, one of the most powerful of German princes, a mother at fourteen, a widow at twenty, and dying of self-inflicted austerities in her twenty-fourth year, Elizabeth was the rarest type of womanly gentleness and self-abnegation, of all Christian virtues and spiritual aspirations. When but eighteen years of age she placed herself under Conrad’s direction, and he proceeded to discipline this heavenly spirit with a ferocity worthy of a demon. Such implicit obedience did he exact that on one occasion when he had sent for her to hear him preach, and she was unable to do so on account of an unexpected visit from her sister-in-law, the Margravine of Misnia, he angrily declared that he would leave her. She went to him the next day and entreated for pardon; on his continuing obdurate, she and her maidens, whom he blamed for the matter, cast themselves at his feet, when he caused them all to be stripped to their shifts and soundly scourged. It is no wonder that he inspired her with such terror that she was wont to say “If I so much dread a mortal man, how is God to be rightly dreaded?” After the death of Louis, whom she tenderly loved, and when his brother Henry despoiled her and drove her out, penniless, with her children, she submitted with patient resignation and earned her living by beggary; and when he was forced to compound for her dower-rights with money, she made haste to distribute it in charity. Under the influence of the diseased pietism inculcated by Conrad, she abandoned her children to God and devoted herself to succoring casual outcasts and lepers; and the depth of her humility was shown when scandal made busy with her fame in consequence of her relations with Conrad. On being warned of this and counselled to greater prudence, she brought forth the bloody scourge which she used, and said, “This is the love the holy man bears to me. I thank God, who has deigned to accept this final oblation from me. I have sacrificed everything—station, wealth, beauty—and have made myself a beggar, intending only to preserve the adornment of womanly modesty; if God chooses to take this also, I hold it to be a special grace.” It was this spirit, so self-abased and humble, that Conrad’s brutal fanaticism sought systematically to break, contradicting her of set purpose in all things, and demanding of her every possible sacrifice. Merely to add to her afflictions he drove away, one by one, the faithful serving-women who idolized her, finally expelling Guda, who had been her loved companion since infancy in Hungary; as they themselves said, “He did this with a good intention, because he feared our influence in recalling her past splendors, and he wished to deprive her of all human comfort that she might rely wholly on God.” When she disobeyed his orders he used to beat her and strike her, which she endured with pleasure, in memory of the blows inflicted on Christ. Once he sent for her to come to him at Oldenburg to determine whether he would put her into an extremely rigid convent there. The nuns asked him to let her visit them, and he gave her permission, expecting that she would decline in view of the excommunication hanging over all intruders on the sacred precincts. Supposing, however, that she had leave, she went, while her woman Irmengard stood outside, received the key, and opened the door. For this Conrad made them both lie down, and ordered his faithful comrade, Friar Gerhard, to beat them with a heavy rod, so that they bore the marks of the flogging for weeks. Well might, in the next century, the mysterious Friend of God in the Oberland, when speaking of St. Elizabeth, remark that she had abandoned herself, in place of to God, to a man far inferior to herself in natural aptitudes as well as in the gifts of divine grace.[366]

The significance of all this lies not only in the coarse violence of Conrad’s methods, which regarded torture, mental and physical, as the most efficient aid to salvation, but also in the arrogance of the nature which could, without a shadow of hesitation, assume the position of an avenging God punishing humanity for its weakness and sin. When a man of such a temper was inflamed with the most fiery fanaticism, was armed with irresponsible power, and believed himself to be engaged in a direct conflict with Satan, his mad enthusiasm could lead only to a catastrophe. For the evil which he wrought it would be unjust to hold him responsible. The crime lay with those who could coolly select such an instrument, work up his crazy zeal to the highest pitch, and then let him loose to wreak his blind wrath upon defenceless populations.

Conrad had long been a man of mark, and his qualities were well known to those who made use of him. His burning eloquence was adapted to move the passions of the people, and as early as 1214 he had been honored with a commission to preach in Germany the crusade which was one of the objects for which the great Council of Lateran was assembled. From this time on his activity was unabated, and there is probably truth in the assertion that he took part in the occasional persecutions of heresy which are reported, though no details have reached us. His mission as preacher brought him into direct relations with Rome, and his success in inducing thousands to take the cross gave him high repute with the curia, doubtless enhanced by the disinterestedness which asked for no reward. He gradually came to be employed as a representative in matters of importance, and his unwearied energy rendered him increasingly useful. In 1220 he was intrusted with the duty of compelling, by the censures of the Church, the Emperor Frederic to fulfil his long-delayed vow of leading an expedition to the Holy Land, and he was further made chief of the business of preaching in its behalf, by being empowered to commission assistants throughout Germany. In these letters he is addressed as “Scholasticus” or head of the church schools in Mainz, showing that he then held that dignity. In 1227 still greater evidence was given of the confidence reposed in him. In March of that year Gregory XI. had mounted the papal throne with full resolve to crush the rising powers of heresy, and, if possible, to deprive it of its excuse for existence in the corruptions of the church establishment. We have seen how, on June 20, 1227, he tried the experiment in Florence of creating a kind of inquisition, with a Dominican to exercise its functions. In Germany there seems to have been no one but Conrad on whom to rely. June 12, eight days before the commission issued to Giovanni di Salerno, Gregory wrote to Conrad commending highly the diligence with which he was tracking and pursuing heretics—a diligence of which, unfortunately, all details are lost to us. In order that his labors might be more efficacious, Conrad was directed and empowered to nominate whomsoever he might see fit as his assistants, and with them to inquire energetically after all who were infected with heresy, so that the extirpation of the tares from the fields of the Lord might proceed with due authority. Though the Inquisition was scarce as yet even a prospective conception, this was in effect an informal commission as inquisitor-general for Germany, and it is probably no injustice to Gregory to suggest that one of the motives prompting it was the desire to substitute papal authority for the episcopal jurisdiction under which the local and spasmodic persecutions had hitherto been carried on.[367]

Eight days later, on June 20, another commission was sent to Conrad, which increased enormously his power and influence. The German Church was as corrupt and depraved as its neighbors, and all efforts to purify it had thus far proved failures. In 1225 the Cardinal-legate Cinthio had assembled a great national council at Mainz, which had solemnly adopted an elaborate series of searching canons of reformation, that proved as bootless as all similar efforts before or since. Something more was wanted, and the sternly implacable virtue of Conrad seemed to point him out as the fitting instrument for burning out the incurable cancer which was consuming the vitals of the German Church. Gregory, whose residence beyond the Alps as legate had rendered him familiar with its condition, describes its priesthood as abandoned to lasciviousness, gluttony, and all manner of filthy living, like cattle putrescing in their own dung; as committing habitually wickedness which laymen would abhor, corrupting the people by their evil example, and causing the name of the Lord to be blasphemed. To remedy these deplorable evils, he now commissioned Conrad as reformer, with full powers to enforce the regulations of the cardinal-legate, and the monasteries were especially designated as objects for his regenerating hand.[368]

Armed with almost illimitable powers, Conrad was now the foremost German ecclesiastic of the time, and we may well understand the admiration of Theodoric of Thuringia, who declares that he shone like a star throughout all Germany. Yet at this time his ill-balanced impulsiveness was concentrating his energies on the torturing of St. Elizabeth. There is no trace of his exercising his inquisitorial functions, and the only record of his activity as a reformer is his reorganizing the nunnery of Nordhausen by the simple expedient of expelling the nuns, who all led ungodly lives. Yet his services as a persecutor never were more needed. The excommunication of the Emperor Frederic, on September 29 of the same year, for temporarily abandoning his crusade, had set Church and State fairly by the ears, and had inspired the heretics with fresh hopes. Everywhere their missionary activity redoubled, and the land was said to be full of them. In each diocese they had a bishop to whom they gave the name of the regular incumbent, and they pretended to have a pope whom they called Gregory, so that, under examination, they could swear that they held the faith of the bishop and of Pope Gregory. In 1229 the Waldenses were again discovered in Strassburg, and for several years persecution continued there, resulting in burning many obstinate heretics and penancing those who yielded.[369]

Local measures such as these were manifestly insufficient, and thus far all efforts at a comprehensive system of persecution had failed. In 1231 Gregory was busily occupied in organizing some more efficient method, and Germany was not forgotten. The Roman statutes of Annibaldo and the papal edicts of that year, to which frequent allusion has been made above, were sent to the Teutonic prelates, June 20, with letters blaming them for their lukewarmness and lenity, and ordering them to put vigorously into force the new edicts. Yet already there had been sufficient persecution to occasion the necessity of settling the novel questions arising from the confiscations, and the Diet of Worms, on June 2 of the same year, had decided that the allodial lands and the movables should go to the heirs, the fiefs to the lord, and in case of serfs the personalty to the master, thus excluding the Church and the persecutors from any share. Under Gregory’s earnest impulsion the sluggishness of the bishops was somewhat stimulated. The Archbishop of Trèves made a perquisition through his city, and found three schools of heretics in full activity. He called a synod for the trial of those who were captured, and had the satisfaction of burning three men, and a woman named Leuchardis, who had borne the reputation of exceeding holiness, but who was found, upon examination, to belong to the dreaded sect of Luciferans, deploring the fall of Satan as unjustly banished from heaven.[370]

Still the results did not correspond to Gregory’s desires. In October of the same year (1231) he sought to spur Conrad on to a discharge of his duty by praising in the most exalted terms his activity and success in exterminating heretics, and by exhorting him, with the same wealth of exaggeration, to redoubled energy. The need of earnest work was more pressing than ever. The Archbishops of Trèves and Mainz had reported that an apostle of heresy had been sowing tares through all the land, so that not only the cities, but the towns and hamlets, were infected. Many heresiarchs, moreover, each in his own appointed district, were laboring to overthrow the Church. Conrad was therefore given full discretionary powers; he was not even required to hear the cases, but only to pronounce judgment, which was to be final and without appeal—justice to those suspect of heresy being, apparently, of no moment. He was authorized to command the aid of the secular arm, to excommunicate protectors of heresy, and to lay interdict on whole districts. The recent decrees of the Holy See were referred to as his guide, and heretics who would abjure were to have the benefit of absolution, care being taken that they should have no further opportunity of mischief—a delicate expression for condemning them to lifelong incarceration. When Conrad received these extensive powers he was so dangerously ill that his life was despaired of, and before he had fairly recovered St. Elizabeth died, November 29, 1231. Harsh as was his nature, her loss affected him severely, and for a considerable time his energies were concentrated on fruitless efforts for her canonization. In intervals of leisure, however, he exercised his powers on such heretics as were unlucky enough to be within easy reach. In Marburg itself many suspects were seized, including knights, priests, and persons of condition, of whom some recanted and the rest were burned. On one excursion to Erfurt, moreover, in 1232, he took the opportunity to burn four more victims.[371]

Results so far below what might reasonably have been expected could not but be disappointing in the extreme to Gregory. One expedient remained—to try whether among the Dominicans there might not be found men able and willing to devote themselves fearlessly and exclusively to the holy work. Between the end of 1231 and that of 1232, therefore, commissions were sent to various Dominican establishments empowering their officials to undertake the work. The treaty of Ceperano, in 1230, had restored peace between the empire and the papacy, and Frederic’s aid was successfully invoked to give the imperial sanction to the new experiment. From Ravenna, in March, 1232, he issued a constitution addressed to all the prelates and potentates of the empire, ordering their efficient co-operation in the extirpation of heresy, and taking under the special imperial protection all the Mendicants deputed by the pope for that purpose. The secular authorities were commanded to arrest all who should be designated to them by the inquisitors, to hold them safely until condemnation, and to put to a dreadful death those convicted of heresy or fautorship, or to imprison for life such as should recant and abjure. Relapse was punishable with the death-penalty, and descendants to the second generation were declared incapable of holding fiefs or public office.[372]

Here were laws provided and ministers for their enforcement, and the business of vindicating the faith might at last be expected to prosper. If Conrad was remiss, others would be found enthusiastically ready for the work. So it proved. Suddenly there appeared on the scene a Dominican named Conrad Tors, said to be a convert from heresy, who, without special commission, commenced to clear the land of error. He carried with him a layman named John, one-eyed and one-handed, of thoroughly disreputable character, who boasted that he could recognize a heretic at sight. Apparently with little more evidence than this, Conrad Tors raided from town to town, condemning his victims wholesale, and those whom he delivered to the magistrates they were compelled by popular excitement to burn. Soon, however, a revulsion of feeling took place, and then the Dominican shrewdly enlisted the support of the nobles by directing his attacks against the more wealthy, and holding out the prospect of extensive confiscations to be divided. When remonstrated with he is said to have replied, “I would burn a hundred innocent if there was one guilty among them.” Stimulated by this shining example, many Dominicans and Franciscans joined him, and became his eager assistants in the work.[373]

Whether, as reported, Conrad Tors, to strengthen himself, sought out Conrad of Marburg and persuaded him to take part in the good work, or whether the latter, scenting the battle from afar, was aroused from his torpor and rushed eagerly to the fray, cannot positively be determined. This much is certain, that at length he came forward, and not only lent the weight of his great name to the proceedings, but urged them to a crueller and wider development with all his vehemence of character and implacable severity.