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

by Henry Charles Lea

Suddenly, in 1507, the rumor spread that in Berne the Virgin had interposed to save her servants. In a convent of Observantine Dominicans she had repeatedly appeared to a holy friar and revealed to him her vexation at the guilt of the Franciscans in teaching the Immaculate Conception. After conception she had been three hours in original sin before sanctification; the teaching of St. Thomas was true and divinely inspired; Alexander Hales, Duns Scotus, and many other Franciscans were in purgatory for asserting the contrary. Julius II. would settle the question and would institute in honor of the truth a greater feast than that of December 8. To help towards this consummation the Virgin gave the friar a cross tinged with her son’s blood, three of the tears which he had shed over Jerusalem, the cloths in which he was wrapped in the flight to Egypt, and a vial of the blood which he had shed for man, together with a letter to Julius II. in which he was promised glory equal to that of St. Thomas Aquinas in return for what was expected of him, and this letter, duly authenticated by the seals of the Dominican priors of Berne, Basle, and Nürnberg, was sent to the pope. The reports of these divine appearances produced an immense sensation; countless multitudes assembled in the Dominican Church to look upon the friar thus favored, and he performed feats of fasting, prayer, and scourging, which increased the reputation for sanctity acquired by the visitations. After a trance he appeared with the stigmata of Christ; the church was arranged to enable him in his devotions to represent the various acts of the Passion, and an immense crowd looked on with awestruck admiration. Then an image of the Virgin wept, and it was explained that her grief arose from the disregard of her warnings of what would befall the city unless it ceased to receive a pension from France, unless it expelled the Franciscans, and unless it ceased to believe in the Immaculate Conception.

People flocked from all the region around, and the fame of the miraculous apparitions spread, when the magistrates of Berne were surprised by Letser, the favored recipient of the visitations, taking refuge with them, and begging protection from his superiors, who were torturing and endeavoring to poison him. An investigation developed the whole plot. Wigand Wirt, Master of the Observantine Dominicans, and professor of theology, had had, in 1501, a quarrel with a parish priest in Frankfort, in which they abused each other from their respective pulpits. In a sermon the priest thanked God that he did not belong to an Order which had slain the Emperor Henry VII. with a poisoned host, and which denied the Immaculate Conception. Wirt, who was present, shouted to him that he was a liar and a heretic. An uproar followed, in which the Order sustained Wirt and appealed to Julius II., who appointed a commission. The result was adverse to Wirt, who left Frankfort filled with wrath, and published a savage attack upon his adversaries, which the Archbishop of Mainz caused to be publicly burned, while all his suffragans prohibited its circulation. Greatly excited, the Dominicans, in a chapter held at Wimpffen, resolved to prove by miracle the falsity of the Immaculate Conception. Frankfort was at first selected as the theatre, but was abandoned through fear of the archbishop; then Nürnberg, but the number of learned men there was an obstacle, and Berne was finally chosen as a city populous and powerful, but simple and unlearned. The officials of the Dominican convent there, John Vetter the prior, Francis Ulchi the sub-prior, Stephen Bolshorst the lector, and Henry Steinecker the procurator, undertook to carry out the design, and selected as an instrument a tailor of Zurzach, John Letser, who had been recently admitted to the Order. To suit the taste of the age, it was proved on the trial that they had commenced by invoking the assistance of the devil and had signed compacts with him in their blood, but their own ingenuity was sufficient for what followed, though we are told that when they produced the stigmata on Letser they first rendered him insensible with a magic potion formed of blood from the navel of a new-born Jew and nineteen hairs from his eyelashes. The victim was carefully prepared by a series of apparitions, commencing with an ordinary ghost and ending with the Virgin. According to his own account he believed in the visions till one day entering Bolshorst’s room suddenly he found him in female attire like that of the Virgin, preparing for making an appearance. By threats and promises he had been prevailed upon to continue the imposture a while longer, till, fearing for his life, he escaped and told his tale.

Letser was sent to the Bishop of Lausanne, who heard his story and authorized the magistrates of Berne to act. The four Dominicans were confined separately in chains, and envoys were sent to Rome, where, only after the greatest difficulty, they obtained audience of the pope. A papal commission was sent, but with insufficient powers, and prolonged delays were experienced in procuring another, but finally it came, having at its head Achilles afterwards Cardinal of San Sesto, one of the most learned jurists of the age. Torture was freely used on both Letser and the accused, and full confessions were obtained. These were so damaging that the commissioners desired to keep them secret even from the magistrates, and when the latter were dissatisfied it was determined that they should be shown to a select committee of eight under pledge of secrecy, and that, to satisfy the people, only certain articles sufficient to justify burning should be publicly read. These were four, viz., renouncing God, painting and reddening the host, falsely representing the weeping Virgin, and counterfeiting the stigmata. The four culprits were abandoned to the secular arm, and eight days afterwards, as Nicholas Glassberger piously hopes, they were sent to heaven through fire, for they were burned in a meadow beyond the Arar, their ashes being thrown into the river to prevent their being reverenced as relics—not without reason, for the Order promptly pronounced them to be martyrs. It is worthy of note that in the published sentence the Immaculate Conception was kept wholly out of sight. In the existing tension between the Mendicant Orders the papal representatives evidently deemed it wise to keep this question in the background. Paulus Langius tells us that the story made an immense sensation, and that the “maculistæ” endeavored in vain to suppress it, and circulated all manner of distorted and false accounts of it. Julius II., so far from obeying the visions of Letser, confirmed in 1511 the religious order of the Immaculate Conception founded at Toledo in 1484 by the zeal of Beatriz de Silva.[653]

Wigand Wirt did not wholly escape, though he does not seem to have been directly implicated in the fraud. The Observantine Franciscans prosecuted him before the Holy See for his savage tract against his adversaries. The case was heard by two successive commissions of cardinals, until, October 25, 1512, Wirt abandoned the defence and was sentenced to make the most humiliating of retractions. In public he revoked, abolished, repudiated, and extirpated his book as scandalous, insulting, defamatory, useless, and prejudicial; he confessed that in it he had injured theological doctrine and wounded the fraternal charity of many, including the venerable Franciscans, and the honor and fame of Conrad Henselin, Thomas Wolff, Sebastian Brandt, and Jacob of Schlettstadt (Wimpheling); and he declared his belief that those who upheld the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception did not err. Moreover, under penalty of perpetual imprisonment, he promised, within four months after November 1, to repeat his recantation publicly in Heidelberg, after giving three days’ notice to the Franciscan convent there; he begged pardon of all whom he had injured, and he obligated himself to undergo perpetual imprisonment if he should in any way, directly or indirectly, repeat the offence. The Dominican general who took part in the sentence, commanded all priors and prelates of the Order to confine him for life, wherever he might be found, in case of non-fulfilment of his pledges. In due course, on Ash-Wednesday, February 24, 1513, in the church of the Holy Spirit of Heidelberg, when the concourse of the faithful was greatest, Wirt appeared and repeated the humiliating retraction. So bitter was the trial that he could not repress an ejaculation that it was hard to endure. The Franciscans had a notary present who recorded officially the whole proceeding, which was forthwith printed and spread abroad so as to publish far and wide the degradation of the unlucky disputant.[654]

Despite the fate of the martyrs of Berne the Dominicans still held out gallantly against the constantly increasing preponderance of their antagonists. I have before me a little tract, evidently printed by a Dominican about this time as a manual for disputants, in which the opinions of two hundred and sixteen doctors of the Church are collected in proof of the conception of the Virgin in original sin. It presents a formidable array of all the greatest names in the Church, including many popes; and the compiler doubtless felt peculiar pleasure in grouping together the most revered authorities of the Franciscan Order—St. Antony of Padua, Alexander Hales, St. Bonaventura, Richard Middleton, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Nicholas de Lyra, Jacopone da Todi, Alvaro Pelayo, Bartolomeo di Pisa, and others. In spite of this preponderance of authority the Dominicans had a hard struggle in the Council of Trent, but they possessed strength enough, after a keen discussion, to have the question left open, with a simple confirmation of the temporizing bull of Sixtus IV. Still the controversy went on, as heated as ever, causing tumults and scandals, which the Church deplored but could not cure. In 1570 Paul IV. endeavored to suppress them by suppressing public discussion. He renewed the bull of Sixtus IV., pointed out that the Council of Trent permitted every one to enjoy his own opinion, and he allowed learned men to debate it in universities and chapters until it should be decided by the Holy See. All public disputation or assertion on either side in sermons or addresses was, however, forbidden under pain of ipso facto deprivation and perpetual disability. This endeavor to preserve the peace of the Church was as futile as its predecessors. In 1616 Paul V. deplored that, in spite of the salutary provisions existing on the subject, quarrels and scandals continued and threatened to grow more dangerous. He therefore added to the existing penalties perpetual disability for preaching or teaching, and ordered the bishops and inquisitors everywhere to punish severely all contraventions of these regulations. Yet the scale continued to incline against the Dominicans. A twelvemonth later, in August, 1617, Paul, in a general congregation of the Roman Inquisition, issued another constitution, in which he extended these penalties to all who in public should assert the Virgin to have been conceived in original sin. He did not reprove the opinion, but left it as before, and ordered those who asserted publicly the Immaculate Conception to do so simply, without assailing the other side, and, as before, bishops and inquisitors were instructed to punish all infractions. In 1622 Gregory XV. went a step further in suppressing the perpetual discord by a further extension of the penalties to all who in private asserted the Virgin’s conception in sin; but at the same time he forbade the use of the word “immaculate” in the office of the Feast of the Conception. The Dominicans grew restive under this gagging, and in a couple of months procured a relaxation of the prohibition in so far as to allow them privately with each other to maintain and defend their opinion. These bulls brought considerable business to the Inquisition, for disputatious ardor could not be restrained. A contemporary manual informs us that in spite of the prohibition of discussion it still continued, and that offenders on both sides were sent to Rome for judgment by the supreme tribunal, care being taken, as far as possible, not to have Dominican witnesses when the offender was Franciscan, and vice versa. In spite of this the Dominican, Thomas Gage, who wandered through the Spanish colonies about 1630, speaks of holding public discussions on the subject in Guatemala, in which he maintained the Thomist doctrine against the Franciscan, Scotist, and Jesuit opinions.[655]

So minutely was the question reasoned out that it became heresy to assert that one would undergo death in defence of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. In 1571 Alonso de Castro, although a Franciscan, uses this as an illustration that it is heretical thus to declare adhesion to a point which is not an article of faith. In the heated controversy everywhere raging ardent polemics showed their zeal by offering to stake their existence upon it, and the question became a practical one for the Inquisition to deal with. A vow or oath to defend the doctrine was declared to be valid, but in 1619 the inquisitors of Portugal, with the assent of Paul V., condemned as heretical the opinion that one who should die in defence of the Immaculate Conception would be a martyr. As the Inquisition was largely in Dominican hands, it doubtless was used effectually to persecute the too zealous assertors of the doctrine, and to this probably is attributable the rule that in all such cases the denunciation should be sent to the supreme Inquisition in Rome and its decision be awaited, thus tying the hands of the local inquisitors. From Carena’s remarks, it is evident that these cases were not infrequent and that they gave much trouble.[656]

The Jesuits threw the immense weight of their influence in favor of the Immaculate Conception, and in time it became not uncommon among them, at least in certain places, to take the heretical vow to defend it with life and blood. In 1715 Muratori, under the cautious pseudonym of Lamindus Pritanius, published a book attacking this practice. This drew forth a reply, in 1729, from the Jesuit Francesco Burgi, which Muratori answered under the name of Antonius Lampridius. A lively controversy arose which lasted for a quarter of a century or more, and Muratori’s second book was in 1765 placed on the Spanish Index. Benedict XIV., in his great work De Beatificatione, says that the Church inclines to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, but has not yet made it an article of faith, and he even leaves the question undecided whether one who dies in its defence is to be reckoned as a martyr. Yet when, in 1840, Bishop Peter A. Baines, the Apostolic Vicar in England, spoke inconsiderately on the subject in a pastoral letter, he was sharply reproved and obliged to sign a pledge that on the first fitting occasion he would publicly declare his adhesion to whatever the Holy See might define on the subject. The decision was not long in coming. In 1849 Pius IX. consulted all the bishops as to the expediency of proclaiming the Immaculate Conception as a dogma of the Church. Those of Italy, Spain, and Portugal, about four hundred and ninety in number, were almost unanimously in its favor, while many in other lands hesitated and deprecated such action. The latter were not heeded; December 8, 1854, Pius issued a solemn definition declaring it to be an article of faith, and thus, after a gallant struggle, protracted through five centuries with unyielding tenacity, the Dominicans were finally defeated, and could only console themselves with ingenious glosses on Thomas Aquinas to prove that he had never really denied the doctrine.[657]

It is interesting thus to trace the evolution of dogma, even though the result cannot be regarded as a finality. In the insatiable desire to define every secret of the invisible world every decision is only a stepping-stone to a new discussion. The next point is to ascertain how the Immaculate Conception took place, and this has already been mooted. In 1876 a condemnation was pronounced on Joseph de Félicité (Vercruysse?) among whose errors was the assertion that Mary was conceived by the operation of the Holy Ghost, without the intervention of St. Joachim.[658] Yet who can say that in the centuries to come this dogma may not also win its place, and the Virgin thus be elevated to an equality with her Son?

One function of the Inquisition remains to be considered—the censorship of the press—although its full activity in this direction belongs to a period beyond our present limits. We have seen how Bernard Gui burned Talmuds by the wagon-load, and the special training of the inquisitors would seem to point them out as the most available conservators of the faith from the dangerous abuse of the pen. Yet it was long before any definite system was adopted. The universities were almost the only centres of intellectual activity, and they usually exercised a watchful care over the aberrations of their members. When some work of importance was to be condemned the authority of the Holy See was frequently invoked, as in the case of Erigena’s Periphyseos, the Everlasting Gospel, William of St. Amour’s assault upon the Mendicants, and Marsilio of Padua’s Defensor Pacis. On the other hand, as we have seen, in 1316 the episcopal vicar of Tarragona had no hesitation in assembling some monks and friars and condemning a number of Arnaldo de Vilanova’s writings, and about the same time the inquisitors of Bologna took similar action with respect to Cecco d’Ascoli’s commentary on the Sphæra of Sacrobosco. Yet no thought seems to have occurred of using the Inquisition for this purpose as a general agency with power of immediate decision, before Charles IV. endeavored to establish the Holy Office in Germany. The heresy of the Brethren of the Free Spirit was largely propagated by means of popular books of devotion; to check this and the forbidden use by the laity of translations of Scripture in the vernacular, the emperor, in 1369, empowered the inquisitors and their successors to seize and burn all such books, and to employ the customary inquisitorial censures to overcome resistance. All the subjects of the empire, secular and clerical, from the highest to the lowest, were ordered to lend their aid, under pain of the imperial displeasure. In 1376 Gregory XI. followed this with a bull in which he deplored the dissemination of heretical books in Germany, and directed the inquisitors to examine all suspected writings, condemning those found to contain errors, after which it became an offence punishable by the Inquisition to copy, possess, buy, or sell them. No trace remains of any results of these regulations, but they are interesting as the first organized literary censorship. About the same period Eymerich was engaged in condemning the works of Raymond Lully, of Raymond of Tarraga, and others, but he seems always to have referred the matter to the Holy See and to have acted only under special papal authority. When, as we have seen, Archbishop Zbinco burned Wickliff’s writings in Prague, a papal commission decided that his act was not justified, and their final condemnation was pronounced by the Council of Rome in 1413.[659]

With the gradual revival of letters books assumed more and more importance as a means of disseminating thought, and this increased rapidly after the invention of printing. It became a recognized rule with the Inquisition that he into whose hands an heretical book might fall and who did not burn it at once or deliver it within eight days to his bishop or inquisitor was held vehemently suspect of heresy. The translation of any part of Scripture into the vernacular was also forbidden. It was not, however, until 1501 that any organized censorship of the press seems to have been thought of, and even then Germany was the only land where the issue of dangerous and heretical books was considered to require it. All printers were ordered in future, under pain of excommunication and of fines applicable to the apostolic chamber, to present to the archbishop of the province or to his ordinary all books before publication, and only to issue those for which a license should be granted after examination, the prelates being commanded on their consciences to make no charge for such license. All existing books in stock, moreover, were to be subject to similar inspection, and of such as should be found to contain errors all copies accessible were to be delivered up for burning.[660]