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

by Henry Charles Lea

Thus John, ere yet his pontificate was a year old, had succeeded in creating a new heresy—that which held it unlawful for Franciscans to wear flowing gowns or to have granaries and cellars. In the multiform development of human perversity there has been perhaps none more deplorably ludicrous than this, that man should burn his fellows on such a question, or that men should be found dauntless enough to brave the flames for such a principle, and to feel that they were martyrs in a high and holy cause. John probably, from the constitution of his mind and his training, could not understand that men could be so enamoured of holy poverty as to sacrifice themselves to it, and he could only regard them as obstinate rebels, to be coerced into submission or to pay the penalty. He had taken his stand in support of Michele da Cesena’s authority, and resistance, whether active or passive, only hardened him.

The bull Quorumdam had created no little stir. A defence of it, written by an inquisitor of Carcassonne and Toulouse, probably Jean de Beaune, shows that its novel positions had excited grave doubts in the minds of learned men, who were not convinced of its orthodoxy, though not prepared to risk open dissent. There is also an allusion to a priest who persisted in maintaining the errors which it condemned and who was handed over to the secular arm, but who recanted ere the fagots were lighted and was received to penance. To silence discussion, John assembled a commission of thirteen prelates and doctors, including Michele da Cesena, who after due consideration solemnly condemned as heretical the propositions that the pope had no authority to issue the bull, and that obedience was not due to prelates who commanded the laying aside of short and narrow vestments and the storing up of corn and wine. All this was rapidly creating a schism, and the bull Sancta Romana, December 30, 1317, and Gloriosam ecclesiam, January 23, 1318, were directed against those who under the names of Fraticelli, Beguines, Bizochi, and Fratres de paupere vita, in Sicily, Italy, and the south of France, were organizing an independent Order under the pretence of observing strictly the Rule of Francis, receiving multitudes into their sect, building or receiving houses in gift, begging in public, and electing superiors. All such are declared excommunicate ipso facto, and all prelates are commanded to see that the sect is speedily extirpated.[77]

Among the people, the cooler heads argued that if the Franciscan vow rendered all possession sinful it was not a vow of holiness, for in things in which use was consumption, such as bread and cheese, use passed into possession. He who took such a vow, therefore, by the mere fact of living broke that vow, and could not be in a state of grace. The supreme holiness of poverty, however, had been so assiduously preached for a hundred years that a large portion of the population sympathized with the persecuted Spirituals; many laymen, married and unmarried, joined them as Tertiaries, and even priests embraced their doctrines. There speedily grew up a sect, by no means confined to Franciscans, to replace the fast-vanishing Cathari as an object for the energies of the Inquisition. It is the old story over again, of persecuted saints with the familiars ever at their heels, but always finding refuge and hiding-place at the hands of friendly sympathizers. Pierre Trencavel, a priest of Béziers, may be taken as an example. His name recurs frequently in the examinations before the Inquisition as that of one of the principal leaders of the sect. Caught at last, he was thrown into the prison of Carcassonne, but managed to escape, when he was condemned in an auto de fé as a convicted heretic. Then a purse was raised among the faithful to send him to the East. After an absence of some years he returned and was as active as ever, wandering in disguise throughout the south of France and assiduously guarded by the devotees. What was his end does not appear, but he probably perished at length at the stake as a relapsed heretic, for in 1327 we find him and his daughter Andrée in the pitiless hands of Michel of Marseilles. Jean du Prat, then Inquisitor of Carcassonne, wanted them, in order to extort from them the names of their disciples and of those who had sheltered them. Apparently Michel refused to surrender them, and a peremptory order from John XXII. was requisite to obtain their transfer. In 1325 Bernard Castillon of Montpellier confesses to harboring a number of Beguines in his house, and then to buying a dwelling for them in which he visited them. Another culprit acknowledges to receiving many fugitives in his house at Montpellier. There was ample sympathy for them and ample occasion for it.[78]

The burning of the four martyrs of Marseilles was the signal for active inquisitorial work. Throughout all the infected region the Holy Office bent its energies to the suppression of the new heresy; and as previously there had been no necessity for concealing opinions, the suspects were readily laid hold of. There was thus an ample harvest, and the rigor of the inquisition set on foot is shown by the order issued in February, 1322, by John XXII., that all Tertiaries in the suspected districts should be summoned to appear and be closely examined. This caused general terror. In the archives of Florence there are preserved numerous letters to the papal curia, written in February, 1322, by the magistrates and prelates of the Tuscan cities, interceding for the Tertiaries, and begging that they shall not be confounded with the new sect of Beguines. This is doubtless a sample of what was occurring everywhere, and the all-pervading fear was justified by the daily increasing roll of martyrs. The test was simple. It was whether the accused believed that the pope had power to dispense with vows, especially those of poverty and chastity. As we have seen, it was a commonplace of the schools, which Aquinas proved beyond cavil, that he had no such power, and even as recently as 1311 the Conventuals, in arguing before Clement V., had admitted that no Franciscan could hold property or take a wife under command from the pope; but things had changed in the interval, and now those who adhered to the established doctrine had the alternative of recantation or the stake. Of course but a small portion of the culprits had the steadfastness to endure to the end against the persuasive methods which the Inquisition knew so well how to employ, and the number of the victims who perished shows that the sect must have been large. Our information is scanty and fragmentary, but we know that at Narbonne, where the bishops at first endeavored to protect the unfortunates, until frightened by the threats of the inquisitors, there were three burned in 1319, seventeen in Lent, 1321, and several in 1322. At Montpellier, persecution was already active in 1319. At Lunel there were seventeen burned; at Béziers, two at one time and seven at another; at Pézénas, several, with Jean Formayron at their head; in Gironde, a number in 1319; at Toulouse, four in 1322, and others at Cabestaing and Lodève. At Carcassonne there were burnings in 1319, 1320, and 1321, and Henri de Chamay was active there between 1325 and 1330. A portion of his trials are still extant, with very few cases of burning, but Mosheim had a list of one hundred and thirteen persons executed at Carcassonne as Spirituals from 1318 to about 1350. All these cases were under Dominican inquisitors, and the Franciscans were even more zealous, if we may believe Wadding’s boast that in 1323 there were one hundred and fourteen burned by Franciscan inquisitors alone. The Inquisition at Marseilles, in fact, which was in Franciscan hands, had the reputation of being excessively severe with the recalcitrant brethren of the Order. In a case occurring in 1329 Frère Guillem de Salvelle, the Guardian of Béziers, states that their treatment there was very harsh and the imprisonment of the most rigorous description. Doubtless Angelo da Clarino has justification for the assertion that the Conventuals improved their triumph over their antagonists like mad dogs and wolves, torturing, slaying, and ransoming without mercy. Trivial as may seem to us the cause of quarrel, we cannot but respect the simple earnestness which led so many zealots to seal their convictions with their blood. Many of them, we are told, courted martyrdom and eagerly sought the flames. Bernard Léon of Montréal was burned for persistently declaring that, as he had vowed poverty and chastity, he would not obey the pope if ordered to take a wife or accept a prebend.[79]

Ferocious persecution such as this of course only intensified the convictions of the sufferers and their antagonism to the Holy See. So far as regards the ostensible subject of controversy, we learn from Pierre Tort, when he was before the Inquisition of Toulouse in 1322, that it was allowable to lay in stores of corn and wine sufficient for eight or fifteen days, while of salt and oil there might be provision for half a year. As to vestments, Michele da Cesena had exercised the power conferred on him by the bull Quorumdam by issuing, in 1317, a precept requiring the gown to be made of coarse stuff, reaching down to cover only half the foot, while the cord was to be of hemp and not of flax. Although he seems to have left the burning question of the hood untouched, this regulation might have satisfied reasonable scruples, but it was a case of conscience which admitted of no compromise. The Spirituals declared that they were not bound to abandon the still shorter and more ungainly gowns which their tradition attributed to St. Francis, no matter what might be commanded by pope or general, and so large was the importance attributed to the question that in the popular belief the four martyrs of Marseilles were burned because they wore the mean and tightly-fitting garments which distinguished the Spirituals.[80]

Technically they were right, for, as we have seen above, it had hitherto been generally admitted that the pope could not dispense for vows; and when Olivi developed this to the further position that he could not order anything contrary to an evangelical vow, it was not reckoned among his errors condemned by the Council of Vienne. While all this, however, had been admitted as a theoretical postulate, when it came to be set up against the commands of such a pope as John XXII. it was rebellious heresy, to be crushed with the sternest measures. At the same time it was impossible that the sufferers could recognize the authority which was condemning them to the stake. Men who willingly offered themselves to be burned because they asserted that the pope had no power to dispense from the observance of vows; who declared that if there were but one woman in the world, and if she had taken a vow of chastity, the pope could give her no valid dispensation, even if it were to prevent the human race from coming to an end; who asserted that John XXII. had sinned against the gospel of Christ when he had attempted to permit the Franciscans to have granaries and cellars; who held that although the pope might have power over other Orders he had none over that of St. Francis, because his Rule was divine revelation, and not a word in it could be altered or erased—such men could only defend themselves against the pope by denying the source of his authority. All the latent Joachitic notions which had been dormant were vivified and became the leading principles of the sect. John XXII., when he issued the bull Quorumdam, became the mystical Antichrist, the forerunner of the true Antichrist. The Roman Church was the carnal Church; the Spirituals would form the new Church, which would fight with Antichrist, and, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, would usher in the new age when man would be ruled by love and poverty be universal. Some of them placed this in 1325, others in 1330, others again in fourteen years from 1321. Thus the scheme of the Everlasting Gospel was formally adopted and brought to realization. There were two churches—one the carnal Church of Rome, the Whore of Babylon, the Synagogue of Satan, drunk with the blood of the saints, over which John XXII. pretended to preside, although he had forfeited his station and become a heretic of heretics when he consented to the death of the martyrs of Marseilles. The other was the true Church, the Church of the Holy Ghost, which would speedily triumph through the arms of Frederic of Trinacria. St. Francis would be resurrected in the flesh, and then would commence the third age and the seventh and last state of mankind. Meanwhile, the sacraments were already obsolete and no longer requisite for salvation. It is to this period of frenzied exaltation that we may doubtless attribute the interpolations of Olivi’s writings.[81]

This new Church had some sort of organization. In the trial of Naprous Boneta at Carcassonne, in 1325, there is an allusion to a Frère Guillem Giraud, who had been ordained by God as pope in place of John XXII., whose sin had been as great as Adam’s, and who had thus been deposed by the divine will. There were not lacking saints and martyrs, besides Francis and Olivi. Fragments of the bodies and bones of those who perished at the stake were treasured up as relics, and even pieces of the stakes at which they suffered. These were set before altars in their houses, or carried about the person as amulets. In this cult, the four martyrs of Marseilles were pre-eminently honored; their suffrages with God were as potent as those of St. Laurence or St. Vincent, and in them Christ had been spiritually crucified on the four arms of the cross. One poor wretch, who was burned at Toulouse in 1322, had inserted in his litany the names of seventy Spirituals who had suffered; he invoked them among the other saints, attaching equal importance to their intervention; and this was doubtless a customary and recognized form of devotion. Yet this cult was simpler than that of the orthodox Church, for it was held that the saints needed no oblations, and if a man had vowed a candle to one of them or to the Virgin, or a pilgrimage to Compostella, it would be better to give to the poor the money that it would cost.[82]

The Church composed of these enthusiastic fanatics broke off all relations with the Italian Spirituals, whose more regulated zeal seemed lukewarmness and backsliding. The prisoners who were tried by Bernard Gui in 1322 at Toulouse described the Franciscan Order as divided into three fragments—the Conventuals, who insisted on having granaries and cellars, the Fraticelli under Henry da Ceva in Sicily, and the Spirituals, or Beguines, then under persecution. The two former groups they said did not observe the Rule and would be destroyed, while their own sect would endure to the end of the world. Even the saintly and long-suffering Angelo da Clarino was denounced as an apostate, and there were hot-headed zealots who declared that he would prove to be the mystical Antichrist. Others were disposed to assign this doubtful honor, or even the position of the greater Antichrist, to Felipe of Majorca, brother of that Ferrand whom we have seen offered the sovereignty of Carcassonne. Felipe’s thirst for asceticism had led him to abandon his brother’s court and become a Tertiary of St. Francis. Angelo alludes to him repeatedly, with great admiration, as worthy to rank with the ancient perfected saints. In the stormy discussions soon after John’s accession he had intervened in favor of the Spirituals, petitioning that they be allowed to form a separate Order. After taking the full vows, he renewed this supplication in 1328, but it was refused in full consistory, after which we hear of him wandering over Europe and living on beggary. In 1341, with the support of Robert of Naples, he made a third application, which Benedict XII. rejected for the reason that he was a supporter and defender of the Beguines, whom he had justified after their condemnation by publicly asserting many enormous heretical lies about the Holy See. Such were the men whose self-devotion seemed to these fiery bigots so tepid as to render them objects of detestation.[83]

The heights of exaltation reached in their religious delirium are illustrated by the career of Naprous Boneta, who was reverenced in the sect as an inspired prophetess. As early as 1315 she had fallen into the hands of the Inquisition at Montpellier, and had been thrown into prison, to be subsequently released. She and her sister Alissette were warmly interested in the persecuted Spirituals and gave refuge to many fugitives in their house. As persecution grew hotter, her exaltation increased. In 1320 she commenced to have visions and ecstasies, in which she was carried to heaven and had interviews with Christ. Finally, on Holy Thursday, 1321, Christ communicated to her the Divine Spirit as completely as it had been given to the Virgin, saying, “The Blessed Virgin Mary was the giver of the Son of God: thou shalt be the giver of the Holy Ghost.” Thus the promises of the Everlasting Gospel were on the point of fulfilment, and the Third Age was about to dawn. Elijah, she said, was St. Francis, and Enoch was Olivi; the power granted to Christ lasted until God gave the Holy Spirit to Olivi, and invested him with as much glory as had been granted to the humanity of Christ. The papacy has ceased to exist, the sacraments of the altar and of confession are superseded, but that of matrimony remains. That of penitence, indeed, still exists, but it is purely internal, for heartfelt contrition works forgiveness of sins without sacerdotal intercession or the imposition of penance. One remark, which she casually made when before her judges, is noteworthy as manifesting the boundless love and charity of these poor souls. The Spirituals and lepers, she said, who had been burned were like the innocents massacred by Herod—it was Satan who procured the burning of the Spirituals and lepers. This alludes to the hideous cruelties which, as we have seen, were perpetrated on the lepers in 1321 and 1322, when the whole of France went mad with terror over a rumored poisoning of the wells by these outcasts, and when, it seems, the Spirituals were wise enough and humane enough to sympathize with them and condemn their murder. Naprous, at length, was brought before Henri de Chamay, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, in 1325. Sincere in the belief of her divine mission, she spontaneously and fearlessly related her history and stated her faith, and in her replies to her examiners she was remarkably quick and intelligent. When her confession was read over to her she confirmed it, and to all exhortations to retract she quietly answered that she would live and die in it as the truth. She was accordingly handed over to the secular arm and sealed her convictions with her blood.[84]

Extravagances of belief such as this were not accompanied with extravagance of conduct. Even Bernard Gui has no fault to find with the heretics’ mode of life, except that the school of Satan imitated the school of Christ, as laymen imitate like monkeys the pastors of the Church. They all vowed poverty and led a life of self-denial, some of them laboring with their hands and others begging by the wayside. In the towns and villages they had little dwellings which they called Houses of Poverty, and where they dwelt together. On Sundays and feast-days their friends would assemble and all would listen to readings from the precepts and articles of faith, the lives of the saints, and their own religious books in the vulgar tongue—mostly the writings of Olivi, which they regarded as revelations from God, and the “Transitus Sancti Patris” which was a legendary account of his death. The only external signs by which Bernard says they were to be recognized were that on meeting one another, or entering a house, they would say, “Blessed be Jesus Christ,” or “Blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” When praying in church or elsewhere they sat with hooded heads and faces turned to the wall, not standing or kneeling, or striking their hands, as was customary with the orthodox. At dinner, after asking a blessing, one of them would kneel and recite Gloria in excelsis, and after supper, Salve Regina, This was all inoffensive enough, but they had one peculiarity to which Bernard as an inquisitor took strong exceptions. When on trial they were ready enough to confess their own faith, but nothing would induce them to betray their associates. In their simplicity they held that this would be a violation of Christian charity to which they could not lawfully be compelled, and the inquisitor wasted infinite pains in the endeavor to show that it is charity to one’s neighbor, and not an injury, to give him a chance of conversion.[85]