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

by Henry Charles Lea

In Provence, even before the death of Clement V., there were ardent spirits, nursing the reveries of the Everlasting Gospel, who were not satisfied with the victory won at the Council of Vienne. When, in 1311, the Conventuals assailed the memory of Olivi, one of their accusations was that he had given rise to sects who claimed that his doctrine was revealed by Christ, that it was of equal authority with the gospel, that since Nicholas III. the papal supremacy had been transferred to them, and they consequently had elected a pope of their own. This Ubertino did not deny, but only argued that he knew nothing of it; that if it were true Olivi was not responsible, as it was wholly opposed to his teaching, of which not a word could be cited in support of such insanity. Yet, undoubtedly there were sectaries calling themselves disciples of Olivi among whom the revolutionary leaven was working, and they could recognize no virtue or authority in the carnal and worldly Church. In 1313 we hear of a Frère Raymond Jean, who, in a public sermon at Montréal, prophesied that they would suffer persecution for the faith, and when, after the sermon, he was asked what he meant, boldly replied in the presence of several persons, “The enemies of the faith are among ourselves. The Church which governs us is symbolled by the Great Whore of the Apocalypse, who persecutes the poor and the ministers of Christ. You see we do not dare to walk openly before our brethren.” He added that the only true pope was Celestin, who had been elected in Sicily, and his organization was the only true Church.[67]

Thus the Spirituals were by no means a united body. When once the trammels of authority had been shaken off, there was among them too much individuality and too ardent a fanaticism for them to reach precisely the same convictions, and they were fractioned into little groups and sects which neutralized what slender ability they might otherwise have had to give serious trouble to the powerful organization of the hierarchy. Yet, whether their doctrines were submissive like those of Angelo, or revolutionary like those of Raymond Jean, they were all guilty of the unpardonable crime of independence, of thinking for themselves where thought was forbidden, and of believing in a higher law than that of papal decretals. Their steadfastness was soon to be put to the test. In 1314 the general, Alessandro, died, and after an interval of twenty months Michele da Cesena was chosen as his successor. To the chapter of Naples which elected him the Spirituals of Narbonne sent a long memorial reciting the wrongs and afflictions which they had endured since the death of Clement had deprived them of papal protection. The nomination of Michele might seem to be a victory over the Conventuals. He was a distinguished theologian, of resolute and unbending temper, and resolved on enforcing the strict observance of the Rule. Within three months of his election he issued a general precept enjoining rigid obedience to it. The vestments to be worn were minutely prescribed, money was not to be accepted except in case of absolute necessity; no fruits of the earth were to be sold; no splendid buildings to be erected; meals were to be plain and frugal; the brethren were never to ride, nor even to wear shoes except under written permission of their convents when exigency required it. The Spirituals might hope that at last they had a general after their own heart, but they had unconsciously drifted away from obedience, and Michele was resolved that the Order should be a unit, and that all wanderers should be driven back into the fold.[68]

A fortnight before the issuing of this precept the long interregnum of the papacy had been closed by the election of John XXII. There have been few popes who have so completely embodied the ruling tendencies of their time, and few who have exerted so large an influence on the Church, for good or for evil. Sprung from the most humble origin, his abilities and force of character had carried him from one preferment to another, until he reached the chair of St. Peter. He was short in stature but robust in health, choleric and easily moved to wrath, while his enmity once excited was durable, and his rejoicing when his foes came to an evil end savored little of the Christian pastor. Persistent and inflexible, a purpose once undertaken was pursued to the end regardless of opposition from friend or enemy. He was especially proud of his theologic attainments, ardent in disputation, and impatient of opposition. After the fashion of the time he was pious, for he celebrated mass almost every day, and almost every night he arose to recite the Office or to study. Among his good works is enumerated a poetical description of the Passion of Christ, concluding with a prayer, and he gratified his vanity as an author by proclaiming many indulgences as a reward to all who would read it through. His chief characteristics, however, were ambition and avarice. To gratify the former he waged endless wars with the Visconti of Milan, in which, as we are assured by a contemporary, the blood shed would have incarnadined the waters of Lake Constance, and the bodies of the slain would have bridged it from shore to shore. As for the latter, his quenchless greed displayed an exhaustless fertility of resource in converting the treasures of salvation into current coin. He it was who first reduced to a system the “Taxes of the Penitentiary,” which offered absolution at fixed prices for every possible form of human wickedness, from five grossi for homicide or incest, to thirty-three grossi for ordination below the canonical age. Before he had been two years in the papacy he arrogated to himself the presentation to all the collegiate benefices in Christendom, under the convenient pretext of repressing simony, and then from their sale we are told that he accumulated an immense treasure. Another still more remunerative device was the practice of not filling a vacant episcopate from the ranks, but establishing a system of promotion from a poorer see to a richer one, and thence to archbishoprics, so that each vacancy gave him the opportunity of making numerous changes and levying tribute on each. Besides these regular sources of unhallowed gains he was fertile in special expedients, as when, in 1326, needing money for his Lombard wars, he applied to Charles le Bel for authority to levy a subsidy on the churches of France, Germany being for the time cut off by his quarrel with Louis of Bavaria. Charles at first refused, but finally agreed to divide the spoils, and granted the power in consideration of a papal grant to him of a tithe for two years—as a contemporary remarks, “et ainsi sainete yglise, quant l’un le tont, l’autre l’escorche.” John proceeded to extort a large sum; from some he got a full tithe, from others a half, from others again as much as he could extract, while all who held benefices under papal authority had to pay a full year’s revenue. His excuse for this insatiable acquisitiveness was that he designed the money for a crusade, but as he lived to be a nonagenary without executing that design, the contemporary Villani is perhaps justified in the cautious remark—“Possibly he had such intention.” Though for the most part parsimonious, he spent immense sums in advancing the fortunes of his nephew—or son—the Cardinal-legate Poyet, who was endeavoring to found a principality in the north of Italy. He lavished money in making Avignon a permanent residence for the papacy, though it was reserved for Benedict XII. to purchase and enlarge the enormous palace-fortress of the popes. Yet after his death, when an inventory of his effects came to be made, there was found in his treasury eighteen millions of gold florins, and jewels and vestments estimated at seven millions more. Even in mercantile Florence, the sum was so incomprehensible that Villani, whose brother was one of the appraisers, feels obliged to explain that each million is a thousand thousands. When we reflect upon the comparative poverty of the period and the scarcity of the precious metals, we can estimate how great an amount of suffering was represented by such an accumulation, wrung as it was, in its ultimate source, from the wretched peasantry, who gleaned at the best an insufficient subsistence from imperfect agriculture. We can, perhaps, moreover, imagine how, in its passage to the papal treasury, it represented so much of simony, so much of justice sold or denied to the wretched litigants in the curia, so much of purgatory remitted, and of pardons for sins to the innumerable applicants for a share of the Church’s treasury of salvation.[69]

The permanent evil which he wrought by his shameless traffic in benefices, and the reputation which he left behind him, are visible in the bitter complaints which were made at the Council of Siena, a century later, by the deputies of the Gallican nation. They refer to his pontificate as that in which the Holy See reserved all benefices to itself, when graces, expectatives, etc., were publicly sold to the highest bidder, without regard to qualification, so that in France many benefices were utterly ruined by reason of the insupportable burdens laid upon them. It is no wonder, therefore, that when St. Birgitta of Sweden was applied to, in the latter half of the fourteenth century, by some Franciscans to learn whether John’s decretals on the subject of the poverty of Christ were correct, and she was vouchsafed two visions of the Virgin to satisfy their scruples, the Virgin reported that his decretals were free from error, but discreetly announced that she was not at liberty to say whether his soul was in heaven or in hell. Such was the man to whom the cruel irony of fate committed the settlement of the delicate scruples which vexed the souls of the Spirituals.[70]

John had been actively engaged in the proceedings of the Council of Vienne, and was thoroughly familiar with all the details of the question. When, therefore, the general, Michele, shortly after his accession, applied to him to restore unity in the distracted Order, his imperious temper led him to take speedy and vigorous action. King Frederic of Trinacria was ordered to seize the refugees in his dominions, and deliver them to their superiors to be disciplined. Bertrand de la Tour, the Provincial of Aquitaine, was instructed to reduce to obedience the rebels of the convents of Béziers, Narbonne, and Carcassonne. Bertrand at first tried persuasion. The outward sign of the Spirituals was the habit. They wore smaller hoods, and gowns shorter, narrower, and coarser than the Conventuals; and, holding this to be in accordance with the precedent set by Francis, it was as much an article of faith with them as the absence of granaries and wine-cellars and the refusal to handle money. When he urged them to abandon these vestments they therefore replied that this was one of the matters in which they could not render obedience. Then he assumed a tone of authority under the papal rescript, and they rejoined by an appeal to the pope better informed, signed by forty-five friars of Narbonne, and fifteen of Béziers. On receipt of the appeal, John peremptorily ordered, April 27, 1317, all the appellants to present themselves before him within ten days, under pain of excommunication. They set forth, seventy-four in number, with Bernard Délicieux at their head, and on reaching Avignon did not venture to lodge in the Franciscan convent, but bivouacked for the night on the public place in front of the papal doors.[71]

They were regarded as much more dangerous rebels than the Italian Spirituals. The latter had already had a hearing in which Ubertino da Casale confuted the charges brought against them, and he, Goffrido da Cornone, and Philippe de Caux, while expressing sympathy and readiness to defend Olivi and his disciples, had plainly let it be seen that they regarded themselves as not personally concerned with them. John drew the same distinction; and though Angelo da Clarino was for a while imprisoned on the strength of an old condemnation by Boniface VIII., he was soon released and permitted to adopt the Celestin habit and Rule. Ubertino was told that if he would return for a few days to the Franciscan convent proper provision would be made for his future. To this he significantly replied, “After staying with the friars for a single day I will not require any provision in this world from you or any one else,” and he was permitted to transfer himself to the Benedictine Order, as were likewise several others of his comrades. He had but a temporary respite, however, and we shall see hereafter that in 1325 he was obliged to take refuge with Louis of Bavaria.[72]

The Olivists were not to escape so easily. The day after their arrival they were admitted to audience. Bernard Délicieux argued their case so ably that he could only be answered by accusing him of having impeded the Inquisition, and John ordered his arrest. Then François Sanche took up the argument, and was accused of having vilified the Order publicly, when John delivered him to the Conventuals, who promptly imprisoned him in a cell next to the latrines. Then Guillaume de Saint-Amand assumed the defence, but the friars accused him of dilapidation and of deserting the Convent of Narbonne, and John ordered his arrest. Then Geoffroi attempted it, but John interrupted him, saying, “We wonder greatly that you demand the strict observance of the Rule, and yet you wear five gowns.” Geoffroi replied, “Holy Father, you are deceived, for, saving your reverence, it is not true that I wear five gowns,” John answered hotly, “Then we lie,” and ordered Geoffroi to be seized until it could be determined how many gowns he wore. The terrified brethren, seeing that their case was prejudged, fell on their knees, crying, “Holy Father, justice, justice!” and the pope ordered them all to go to the Franciscan convent, to be guarded till he should determine what to do with them. Bernard, Guillaume, and Geoffroi, and some of their comrades were subjected to harsh imprisonment in chains by order of the pope. Bernard’s fate we have already seen. As to the others, an inquisition was held on them, when all but twenty-five submitted, and were rigorously penanced by the triumphant Conventuals.[73]

The twenty-five recalcitrants were handed over to the Inquisition of Marseilles, under whose jurisdiction they were arrested. The inquisitor was Frère Michel le Moine, one of those who had been degraded and imprisoned by Clement V. on account of their zeal in persecuting the Spirituals. Now he was able to glut his revenge. He had ample warrant for whatever he might please to do, for John had not waited to hear the Spirituals before condemning them. As early as February 17, he had ordered the inquisitors of Languedoc to denounce as heretics all who styled themselves Fraticelli or Fratres de paupere vita. Then, April 13, he had issued the constitution Quorumdam, in which he had definitely settled the two points which had become the burning questions of the dispute—the character of vestments to be worn, and the legality of laying up stores of provisions in granaries, and cellars of wine and oil. These questions he referred to the general of the Order with absolute power to determine them. Under Michele’s instructions, the ministers and guardians were to determine for each convent what amount of provisions it required, what portion might be stored up, and to what extent the friars were to beg for it. Such decisions were to be implicitly followed without thinking or asserting that they derogated from the Rule. The bull wound up with the significant words, “Great is poverty, but greater is blamelessness, and perfect obedience is the greatest good.” There was a hard common-sense about this which may seem to us even commonplace, but it decided the case against the Spirituals, and gave them the naked alternative of submission or rebellion.[74]

This bull was the basis of the inquisitorial process against the twenty-five recalcitrants. The case was perfectly clear under it, and in fact all the proceedings of the Spirituals after its issue had been flagrantly contumacious—their refusal to change their vestments, and their appeal to the pope better informed. Before handing them over to the Inquisition they had been brought before Michele da Cesena, and their statements to him when read before the consistory had been pronounced heretical and the authors subject to the penalty of heresy. Efforts of course had been made to secure their submission, but in vain, and it was not until November 6, 1317, that letters were issued by John and by Michele da Cesena to the Inquisitor Michel, directing him to proceed with the trial. Of the details of the process we have no knowledge, but it is not likely that the accused were spared any of the rigors customary in such cases, when the desire was to break the spirit and induce compliance. This is shown, moreover, in the fact that the proceedings were protracted for exactly six months, the sentence being rendered on May 7, 1318, and by the further fact that most of the culprits were brought to repentance and abjuration. Only four of them had the physical and mental endurance to persevere to the last—Jean Barrani, Déodat Michel, Guillem Sainton, and Pons Rocha—and these were handed over the same day to the secular authorities of Marseilles and duly burned. A fifth, Bernard Aspa, who had said in prison that he repented, but who refused to recant and abjure, was mercifully condemned to prison for life, though under all inquisitorial rules he should have shared the fate of his accomplices. The rest were forced to abjure publicly and to accept the penances imposed by the inquisitor, with the warning that if they failed to publish their abjuration wherever they had preached their errors they would be burned as relapsed.[75]

Although in the sentence the heresy of the victims is said to have been drawn from the poisoned doctrine of Olivi, and though the inquisitor issued letters prohibiting any one from possessing or reading his books, there is no allusion to any Joachite error. It was simply a question of disobedience to the bull Quorumdam. They affirmed that this was contrary to the Gospel of Christ, which forbade them to wear garments of other fashion than that which they had adopted, or to lay up stores of corn and wine. To this the pope had no authority to compel them; they would not obey him, and this they declared they would maintain until the Day of Judgment. Frivolous as the questions at issue undoubtedly were, it was on the one hand a case of conscience from which reason had long since been banished by the bitterness of controversy, and on the other the necessity of authority compelling obedience. If private judgment were allowed to set aside the commands of a papal decretal, the moral power of the papacy was gone, and with it all temporal supremacy. Yet, underlying all this was the old Joachitic leaven which taught that the Church of Rome had no spiritual authority, and thus that its decrees were not binding on the elect. When Bernard Délicieux was sent, in 1319, from Avignon to Castelnaudari for trial, on the road he talked freely with his escort and made no secret of his admiration for Joachim, even going so far as to say that he had erased from his copy of the Decretum the Lateran canon condemning Joachim’s Trinitarian error, and that if he were pope he would abrogate it. The influence of the Everlasting Gospel is seen in the fact that of those who recanted at Marseilles and were imprisoned, a number fled to the Infidel, leaving behind them a paper in which they defiantly professed their faith, and prophesied that they would return triumphantly after the death of John XXII.[76]