The Albigensian Heresy

by Henry James Warner

These "Manichees" may have fled from the theological school at Orleans where heresy had been detected and punished only the year before, although neither Glaber Radulf[25] nor Agono, of the monastery of St. Peter's, Chartres,[26] both contemporaries, denominates them Manichees. The proceedings of the Council of Orleans, though beyond our area, is of interest to us, because of the eminence and influence of its theological school, and also because the Queen, Constance, was daughter of Raymond of Toulouse, she having married Robert after he had been compelled to divorce his first wife, Bertha. The heresy, by whatever name it reached or left Orleans, probably affected Southern France, for it is stated that the heresy was brought into Gaul by an Italian woman "by whom many in many parts were corrupted." The "depravity" of the heretics was spread secretly, and was only disclosed to the King by a nobleman of Normandy, named Arefast, who became acquainted with the existence of the heresy through a young ecclesiastic, Heribert. At the Council (A.D. 1022) which the King summoned, and which consisted of many Bishops, Abbots and laymen,[27] the three ringleaders, Stephen, the Queen's Confessor, Heribert, who had filled the post of ambassador to the King of France, and Lisois, all famous for their learning, holiness and generosity, declared that everything in the Old and New Testaments about the Blessed Trinity, although authority supported it by signs and wonders and ancient witnesses, was nonsense; that heaven and earth never had an author, and are eternal; that Jesus Christ was not born of the Virgin Mary, did not suffer for men, was not placed in the sepulchre, and did not rise again from the dead; that there is no washing away of sins in Baptism; that there is no sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ at the consecration by a priest; intercessions of saints, martyrs and confessors are valueless. Arefast, the informer, said he asked wherein then he could rest his hope of salvation; he was invited to submit to their imposition of hands, then he would be pure from all sin, and be filled with the Holy Spirit Who would teach him the depths and true meaning (profunditatem et veram dignitatem) of all the Scriptures without any reserve. He would see visions of Angels who would always help him, and God his Friend (comes) would never let him want for anything.[28] They were like the Epicureans, and did not believe that flagitious pleasures would be punished, or that piety and righteousness—the wealth of Christians—would receive everlasting reward. Arefast also brings against them the odious charges of extinguished lights and promiscuous intercourse; the children thus begotten were solemnly burnt the day after their birth, their ashes preserved and given to the dying as a Viaticum. Threatened with death by fire, they boasted that they would escape from the flames. Sentenced to death, the King feared lest they should be killed in the Church and commanded Queen Constance to stand on guard at the door. But the Queen herself got out of hand, for as the condemned heretics came forth she gouged out (eruit) with a staff the eye of Stephen, her late confessor. As soon as they felt the fire, they cried out that they had been deceived by the Devil, and that the God and Lord of the universe, Whom they had blasphemed, was punishing them with torture temporal and eternal. Some of the bystanders were deeply moved and endeavoured to rescue them, but in vain. The number who perished varies between fourteen and ten. "A like fate met others who held a like faith," says Glaber, "and thus the Catholic faith was vindicated and everywhere shone more brightly."

The Council's investigations also brought to light the fact that a Canon of Orleans, and Precentor, called Theodotus (Dieudonné), had three years before died in heresy, although he pretended to live and die in the communion of the Church. On this deception being discovered, his body was exhumed by order of Bishop Odalric and thrown away. It will be noted that the Council does not call them Manichees or any other name. In fact, with the exception of Ademar, no one for nearly a century identifies the heretics with Manicheism. They are not labelled at the Council of Charroux in A.D. 1028 (or 1031). At the Council of Rheims in A.D. 1049 they are vaguely spoken of as "new heretics who have arisen in France." The Council of Toulouse in A.D. 1056 condemned in its thirteenth Canon certain heretics, but does not specify their errors. In A.D. 1110 in the Diocese of Albi, Bishop Sicard and Godfrey of Muret, Abbot of Castres, attempted to seize some heretics already excommunicated, but were prevented by nobles and people; but they are only colourlessly described as:

Astricti Satanae qui sunt anathemate diro,

Noluntque absolvi restituique Deo.[29]

§ 4. COUNCIL OF TOULOUSE

Another Council held at Toulouse in A.D. 1119, presided over by the Pope, Callistus III, is more precise, but does not denominate them. By its third Canon it enacted: "Moreover, those who, pretending to a sort of religion, condemn the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, the Baptism of children, the priesthood and other ecclesiastical orders and the compacts of lawful marriage, we expel from the Church of God as heretics and condemn them, and enjoin upon the secular powers (exteras potestates) to restrain them. In the bonds of this same sentence we include their defenders until they recant."

§ 5. PETER DE BRUIS

A new heresiarch now comes upon the scene in the person of Peter de Bruis, of whom nothing previous is known, except that according to Alfonso à Castro he was a Gaul of Narbonne. We first hear of him from Maurice de Montboissier, better known as Petrus Venerabilis, Abbot of Cluny, who addressed an open letter "to the lords, fathers and masters of the Church of God, the Archbishops of Arles and Embrun" and certain Bishops. As the Abbot died in A.D. 1126(7), and the heresiarch laboured for twenty years in promulgating his teaching, he was contemporary with the Council of Toulouse of A.D. 1119,[30] and its condemnation may have been directed in part against his followers, who were called Petrobrusians. The letter of the Abbot has a preface which is not his, but which was written after his death. This preface sums up the tenets of the Petrobrusians under five heads:

(1) They deny that little children under years of discretion (intelligibilem aetatem) can be saved by the baptism of Christ, and another's faith cannot benefit those who cannot use their own ... for the Lord said, "Whosoever believed and was baptized was saved."