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

by Henry Charles Lea

These portentous edicts provided for the personnel of the Inquisition and the exercise of its powers, but to render it a permanent institution there were still lacking houses in which it could hold its tribunals, and prisons in which to keep its captives. The imperial resources were not adequate to this, and nothing was to be expected from the piety of princes and prelates. Somebody must be despoiled for its benefit—somebody too defenceless to resist, yet possessed of property sufficient to be tempting. These conditions were exactly filled by the orthodox Beghards and Beguines, who, since their temporary persecution after the publication of the Clementines, had continued to prosper and to enjoy the donations of the pious. They were accordingly marked as the victims, and, a week after the issue of the edicts just described, another was published in which these poor creatures are described as cultivating a sacrilegious poverty, which they assert to be the most perfect form of life, and their communities, if left undisturbed, will become seminaries of error. Moreover, the Inquisition has no house, domicile, or strong tower for the detention of the accused and for the perpetual incarceration of those who abjure, whereby many heretics remain unpunished and the seed of evil is scattered. Therefore the houses of the Beghards are given to the Inquisition to be converted into prisons; those of the Beguines are ordered to be sold and the proceeds divided into thirds, one part being assigned to repairing roads and the walls of the towns, another to be given to inquisitors, to be expended on pious uses, among which is included the maintenance of prisoners. But three days’’ notice is given to the victims prior to expulsion from their homes.[436]

If the Inquisition could have been permanently established in Germany this unscrupulous measure would have accomplished the object. What between the imperial favor and Kerlinger’s energy it at last had a fair start. The last edict alludes to two additional inquisitors whom Kerlinger was authorized to appoint and to his successful labors, by which the heretic Brethren of the Free Spirit had been completely destroyed in the provinces of Magdeburg and Bremen, and in Thuringia, Hesse, Saxony, and elsewhere. Probably this is exaggerated, but we learn from other sources that Kerlinger was zealously active and that his labors were rewarded with success. In Magdeburg and Erfurt he burned a number of heretics and forced the rest to outward conformity or to flight. We hear of him at Nordhausen in 1369, where he captured forty Beghards; of these seven were obdurate and were burned, and the rest abjured and accepted penance. This is probably a fair example of his work, and we may believe Gregory XI. when, in 1372, he says that the Inquisition had destroyed heresy and heretics in the central provinces and driven them to the outlying districts of Brabant, Holland, Stettin, Breslau, and Silesia, where they are gathered in such multitudes that they hope to be able to maintain themselves; wherefore he earnestly calls upon the prelates and nobles to bring the good work to an end by efficiently supporting the Holy Office in its final labors. Apparently Kerlinger had not been anxious to divide his authority by exercising his power to appoint two additional colleagues, and Gregory now intervened to relieve him of this duty and place the German Inquisition on a permanent footing by assimilating its organization to that of the institution elsewhere. He increased the number of Inquisitors to five and placed their appointment and removal in the hands of the Dominican master and provincial, or either of them. Kerlinger and Louis, however, were to remain as two of the five, and no power, whether imperial or episcopal, should have authority to interfere with the free exercise of their functions.[437]

A further extension of the power of the Inquisition granted by Charles IV. was of no great importance at the time, but has the highest interest to us as the first indication of what was to come. A leading feature of the Beghard propaganda was the circulation among the laity of written tracts and devotional works. Composed in the vernacular, they reached a class which was not wholly illiterate and yet was unable to profit by the orthodox works of which Latin was the customary vehicle. For the suppression of this effective method of missionary work the Inquisition was intrusted with a censorship of literature, to which further reference will be made hereafter. Less interesting to us, but probably more important at the time, was the permission granted to the inquisitors to appoint notaries. It will be remembered how jealously these appointments were guarded, and this concession was evidently looked upon as a special favor. The inquisitors apparently had been trammelled by the lack of notaries, and they were now authorized to appoint one in each diocese, and to replace him when removed by death or disability.[438]

As regards the seizure of the Beguinages, it was ruthlessly carried out by Kerlinger. Those of Mühlhausen had been very flourishing, and on February 16, 1370, four of them were delivered by him to the magistrates to be converted to public uses—probably the city’s share of the plunder. It would seem, however, that obstacles were thrown in his way. The jealousy of the bishops was not likely to look with favor upon this permanent establishment of the Inquisition in their dioceses, with prisons and landed property that would render it independent. Mosheim judiciously suggests that as these houses were benevolent gifts for pious uses the bishops could assert them to be under their jurisdiction and not subject to an imperial edict; nobles and citizens, moreover, had been trained to regard their inoffensive inmates with favor, and were not eager to share in the spoils. Whatever may have been their motives, Kerlinger could not have found the way open to the general confiscation that he desired. In 1371 he was obliged to petition Gregory XI., reciting the existence of heretics called Beghards and Beguines, and the imperial edict confiscating their conventicles, the confirmation of which he desired. There was nothing to lead Gregory to suppose that there was in this anything but the well-understood confiscation of heretical property, and he willingly gave the desired confirmation.[439]

Thus, after a desultory struggle lasting for nearly a century and a half, the Inquisition finally established itself in Germany as an organized body. For a while, at least, the office of inquisitor was kept regularly filled as vacancies occurred. When Kerlinger died, in 1373, his successor in the Provincialate of Saxony, Hermann Hetstede, is qualified as being an inquisitor, and the same title is given to Henry Albert, who followed Hetstede in 1376. The Holy Office seems to have been almost exclusively in Dominican hands, and we rarely hear of its functions as performed by Franciscans. The good work proceeded apace. In 1372 Kerlinger had a heretic of higher rank than usual to deal with in the person of Albert, Bishop of Halberstadt, who publicly taught fatalistic doctrines—possibly some form of predestination such as Wickliff was commencing to formulate. This resulted in a great decrease in pious works, for it struck at the root of the invocation of saints, masses for the dead, and liberality to the clergy, and the consequences threatened to be so serious that Gregory XI. ordered Kerlinger, together with Hervord, Provost of Erfurt, and an Augustinian named Rodolph, to force the bishop to an abjuration, and in case of disobedience to transmit him to the papal court for judgment. In the same year Gregory recounts with much satisfaction the success of the inquisitors in driving the Beghards out of central and northern Germany; he stimulated the emperor to support their labors with fresh zeal, and sent encyclicals to the princes, prelates, and magistrates, commanding them to use every effort to render the work complete, by exterminating the heretics in the regions where they had taken refuge. Early in the next year he commissioned the Dominican, John of Boland, an imperial chaplain, as inquisitor in the dioceses of Trèves, Cologne, and Liège, the Beghards and Beguines being the objects specially indicated; and Charles hastened to invest him with all the powers specified in his letters of 1369, ordering the Dukes of Luxembourg, Limburg, Brabant, and Juliers, the Princes of Mons and Cleves, and the Counts of La Marck, Kirchberg, and Spanheim to serve as conservators and guardians of the edict.[440]

Although the Brethren of the Free Spirit were the chief objects of all this inquisitorial activity, the Flagellants were not neglected. In 1361 a demonstration of these enthusiasts in far-off Naples awakened the solicitude of Innocent VI. In 1369 we hear of an outbreak of women coming from Hungary, which was summarily suppressed in Saxony. In 1372 Flagellants reappeared in various parts of Germany, asserting the peculiar efficacy of their penance as replacing the sacraments of the Church, so that Gregory XI. felt it necessary to direct the inquisitors to exterminate them. In 1373 and 1374 this irrepressible tendency took a new shape, known as the Dancing Mania, which broke out at the consecration of a church in Aix-la-Chapelle. Bands of both sexes, mostly consisting of poor and simple folk, poured into Flanders from the Rhinelands, dancing and singing as though possessed by the Furies. Under intense spiritual excitement the performer would leap and dance until he fell to earth with convulsions, when his comrades would revive him by jumping upon him, or a cloth which he wore, tied around the belly, would be tightly twisted with a stick. This was generally looked upon as a kind of demoniacal possession until a multitude of these dancers assembled at Herestal and consulted together as to the best plan for slaying all the priests, canons, and clergy of Liège, when the madness was recognized as no longer harmless. Still it spread over a large portion of Germany and lasted for several years. Though not in itself a heresy, it led in some places to heretical opinions on the sacraments, for it was popularly explained by attributing it to defective baptism, caused by the universal practice among priests of keeping concubines.[441]

Scarce had the Inquisition been fairly organized and had settled to its work, when its arbitrary proceedings awakened active opposition. As the heretic Beghards and Beguines were the principal objects of its activity, and the orthodox ones of its cupidity, the sufferings of the latter speedily awoke compassion which found expression in terms so decided that Gregory XI. could not refuse to listen. Accordingly, in April, 1374, he wrote to the Archbishops of Mainz, Trèves, and Cologne, reciting these complaints and ordering a report about the life and conversation of the persons concerned, who should be protected and cherished if innocent, and be punished if guilty. At least from Cologne and Worms, probably from the other prelates, came answers that the persecuted communities were composed of faithful Catholics. In Cologne the magistrates intervened and complained energetically to the pope that a Dominican inquisitor was vexing the poor folk, and they asked that his proceedings be stopped. The victims, they said, were people of little culture, who were interrogated with questions so difficult that the most skilful theologians could scarce answer them, while their edifying lives had led the clergy to protect them against the threats of the Inquisition. Proceedings were thus checked, but still the peculiar garments which the devotees had always worn furnished an excuse for continued persecution, and another appeal was made to Gregory, to which he responded in December, 1377, by ordering the prelates not to permit their molestation on this account so long as they were good Catholics and obedient to the ecclesiastical authorities. The German bishops were thus fully armed with papal authority to restrict the operations of the inquisitors, and those who, like Bishop Lambert of Strassburg, were themselves disposed to persecution, did not dare to proceed further. The regular communities of Beghards and Beguines were assured of toleration, and if the heretical Brethren of the Free Spirit managed to share in this immunity, it probably did not give the prelates much concern.[442]

All this was discouraging to the zeal of inquisitors whose institution had hardly yet taken root in the land, but worse was still to follow. In 1378 died both Gregory XI. and Charles IV. The election of Urban VI. gave rise to the Great Schism, and Wenceslas, the son and successor of Charles, was notoriously indifferent to the interest of religion as represented by the Church. Thus deprived of its two indispensable supporters, the Inquisition could not make head against episcopal jealousy. In 1381 there could have been no inquisitors in the extensive dioceses of Ratisbon, Bamberg, and Misnia, for we find the Archbishop of Prague as papal legate ordering the bishops to appoint them, and threatening to do so himself in case of disobedience. Still the Inquisition did not entirely pretermit its labors. In 1392 we hear of a papal inquisitor named Martin who travelled through Suabia to Würzburg, finding in the latter place a number of peasants and simple folk belonging to the sect of Flagellants and Beghards. They had not in them the stuff of martyrs, and accepted the penance imposed upon them of joining in a crusade then preaching against the Turks—the first time for nearly a century that we meet with this penalty. Then Martin went to Erfurt—always a heretical centre—where he came upon numerous heretics of the same kind. Some of these were obstinate and were duly burned, others accepted penance, and the rest sought safety in flight. The following year there was burned at Cologne, by the papal inquisitor, Albert, a leading Beghard known as Martin of Mainz, a former Benedictine monk and a disciple of the celebrated Nicholas of Basle; and in his trial there are allusions to others of the sect executed not long before at Heidelberg.[443]

About this period, after a long interval, we again become cognizant of the existence of Waldenses. The Beghards had succeeded in concentrating upon themselves the attention of the papal and episcopal inquisitions, and the followers of Peter Waldo had remained unnoticed, doubtless owing their safety to outward conformity, though by absenting themselves from their parishes about the Easter tide they sometimes managed to escape taking communion for five or six years in succession. Thus laboring quietly and peacefully, preaching by night in cellars, mills, stables, and other retired places, they gained numerous converts among the peasants and artisans, who saw in the sanctity of their lives, as sadly admitted by the so-called Peter of Pilichdorf, the strongest contrast with the scandalous license of the clergy.[444] Thus they multiplied in secret until all Germany was full of them, including the closely-related sect of Winkelers. About 1390 they were discovered in Mainz, where for a hundred years they had lurked undisturbed. The Archbishop, Conrad II., kept the matter in his own hands. In 1392 he issued a commission, as episcopal inquisitors, to Frederic, Bishop of Toul, Nicholas of Saulheim, the Dean of St. Stephen, and John Wasmod, of Homburg, a priest of the cathedral, to whom the papal inquisitor could adjoin himself if he so chose. These inquisitors were armed with full authority to arrest, try, torture, sentence, and abandon to the secular arm all heretics, and were instructed to proceed in accordance with the practice of the Inquisition. They zealously discharged their duty. A number of Waldenses were already in the episcopal prison, and they made diligent perquisition after the rest. By free use of torture they obtained the necessary avowals and evidence. Those who were obstinate were handed over to the secular arm, and an auto de fé celebrated at Bingen in 1392, where six-and-thirty wretches were burned, proved that the papal Inquisition itself could not have been more effective. A little tract on the examination of Waldenses, evidently written on this occasion, shows that the inquisitorial process was fairly well understood, and that the episcopal officials had not much to learn from their rivals.[445] and Saxony are represented. The author of the tract which passes under the name of Peter of Pilichdorf, who took an energetic part both with the pen and in action in suppressing this suddenly discovered heresy, informs us, in 1395, that the Netherlands, Westphalia, Prussia, and Poland were not infected with it, while Thuringia, Misnia, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, and Hungary numbered their heretics by thousands. Curiously enough, in this list he omits Pomerania, where, along the Baltic regions, the Waldenses were thickly scattered from Stettin to Königsberg. The heresy had been deeply rooted there for at least a century, and the local priesthood seem to have borne no ill-will to the harmless sectaries, who conformed outwardly to the orthodox observances. Even when in confession intimations of the heresy escaped, as sometimes happened, they were wisely and mercifully overlooked. Yet there is evidence of previous persecution in the confession of Sophia Myndekin, of Fleit, who said that she had been fifty years in the sect, that her husband had been burned at Angermünde, and that she had only escaped on account of pregnancy, while all their little property was confiscated. They were poor folk, mostly peasants and laborers, and though there are occasional allusions in the trials to men of gentle blood, the tenets of the sect excluded all who owed feudal military service, war and bloodshed being strictly forbidden. They were visited yearly by their ministers, some of whom were mechanics, and others learned men skilled in Holy Writ, probably from Bohemia, who preached, heard confessions, and granted absolution, the utmost secrecy being observed in these ministrations. Moreover, collections were made and remitted to the headquarters of the sect, showing that they formed part of the great Waldensian organization.[446]

They had long been unmolested when one of their ministers, known as Brother Klaus, who had visited them in 1391 and had heard many confessions, apparently became frightened at the movement against them. He apostatized, and seems to have betrayed the names of his penitents. The Church made haste to secure the fruits of his repentance. Brother Peter, Provincial of the Celestinian Order, was appointed papal inquisitor, and early in 1393 he came to Stettin armed with full powers from the Archbishop of Prague and the Bishops of Lebus and Camin to represent them. He issued citations, both general ones from the pulpits of the infected region, and special summonses to individuals. This naturally caused great excitement, and some of the suspects fled; in Klein-Wurbiser, indeed, there was a faint demonstration made against the inquisitorial apparitors, but there was no resistance, and the great majority submitted to the inevitable. Friar Peter, as customary, was lenient with those who spontaneously confessed and abjured; all took the oaths, including that of persecuting heresy and heretics, with only an occasional manifestation of hesitancy. Torture seems to have been unnecessary; there was no exhibition of obstinacy, and no burnings. They were condemned to wear crosses and perform other penance, and when, as was usually the case, their parents had died in the sect, they were required to indicate the place of burial, presumably for exhumation. From January, 1393, until February, 1394, Friar Peter was engaged in this work. One of his registers, comprising four hundred and forty-three cases, was in the hands of Flacius Illyricus, fragments of which have recently been discovered and described by Herr Wattenbach.[447]