The Albigensian Heresy

by Henry James Warner

§ 4. SECULAR ELEMENTS

Secular causes also account for the growing unpopularity of the Church. On the one hand the seigneurs resented the increasing wealth and land encroachments of Bishops and Abbots. "In the eleventh century the fear of the approaching final judgment and the belief in the speedy dissolution of the world spread throughout all Europe. Some bestowed the whole of their possessions on the Church."[17] But when the donors recovered from their alarm, they regretted their sacrifice, and their descendants would be provoked every day at the sight of others in enjoyment of their ancestral lands. Moreover, the break-up of Charlemagne's vast kingdom threw great power into the hands of the Dukes and Counts. In their own domains they were practically autocrats. The only check upon their sovereignty came from the Church, whose Bishops and Abbots were often able to protect themselves by their own routiers or by ecclesiastical penalties, such as excommunication. But the lords countered this by thrusting their own nominees, often their own relations, into the most powerful and lucrative offices of the Church, or by keeping them vacant and appropriating their revenues. A semblance of legality was thrown over this practice by the fact that "the Bishoprics being secular fiefs, their occupants were bound to the performance of feudal service," and the investiture into the temporalities of the office belonged to the sovereign. Thus the freedom of the Church in the election and appointment of her officers was curtailed.

§ 5. COMMERCE

On the other hand, the increase of commercial prosperity broke down the feudal system. The merchants took advantage of the poverty of the Counts through constant wars by obtaining in exchange for loans certain privileges which, by charter, settled into the inalienable rights of the ville franche. They built for themselves fortified houses in the towns, and from them laughed to scorn the threats of the seigneurs. Their enterprise was constantly bringing money into the country: the non-productive Church was constantly sending it out. Trade with foreign countries created in commercial and industrial circles a sense of independence, and their enlarged outlook gave birth to a religious tolerance favourable to doctrines other than, or in addition to, those of Catholicism. Thus Peter Waldo, the merchant of Lyons, was moved to devote his wealth to disseminate the Word of God as freely as he disposed of his merchandise. These goods had to be made, and the actual manufacturers, especially the weavers, shared in the general prosperity and imbibed this freedom of thought. Erasmus' great wish, that the weaver might warble the Scriptures at his loom,[18] was anticipated by three centuries by the Albigenses, and especially by the Waldenses. So widely did heresy spread among these textile workers that heretic and tesserand became synonymous. At Cordes a nominal factory was set up, but in reality a theological school for instruction in Catharism.[19]

§ 6. LITERATURE

Although it suited the purpose of the Church to regard them as "unlearned and ignorant men," it was from the people that the Provençal literature emanated. The bourgeoisie encouraged poetry and art. The industrial classes turned in contempt from the stupid and impossible stories of saints to a personal study of the Scriptures and their patristic explanations. The Poor Men of Lyons were poor in spirit, not in pocket. Business ability and training enabled them to organize their movement on lines that were both flexible and compact, and their wealth supported their officers. Clerks could copy out their pamphlets, and their colporteurs or travellers could distribute them. At the beginning of the thirteenth century the Marquis of Montferrand, in Auvergne, just before his death, burnt a great quantity of books, especially those of Albigensian propaganda, which he had been collecting for forty years. (Stephen de Belleville, 85.) The Provençal, Arnauld, was a most prolific writer, and sold or gave to the Catholics little books deriding the saints of the Church. Moneta de Cremona, in his great work against the Albigenses, declares that he drew his information of their doctrines from their own writings, and quotes largely from a teacher called Tetricus, a dialectician and interpreter of the Bible. Tetricus was probably that William who was Canon of Nevers, returned to Toulouse in 1201, under the name of Theodoric, and was held in great esteem by the Albigenses for his knowledge.[20]

§ 7. MORAL AND SPIRITUAL ELEMENTS

But of all the causes of the unpopularity of the Church the unworthy lives of the clergy was the most potent, the evidence for which comes less from the accusations of the heretics than from the confessions of the Church itself. To allow immodest songs, composed by the people, to be sung in Church is sufficiently significant of the low standard of the clerical mind; but instances are given of the clergy themselves composing these songs. Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, found there a service-book compiled by an assistant Bishop (chorepiscopus) so indecent that he could not read it without a blush. The decrees of Councils throw a strong light upon the luxurious and worldly lives of Bishops and Clergy—their costly clothes, painted saddles and gold-mounted reins, joining in games of chance, their habit of swearing, and allowing others to swear at them without reproof, welcoming to their tables strolling players, hearing Mattins in bed, being frivolous when saying the Offices, excommunicating persons wrongfully, simony, tolerating clerical concubinage, dispensing with banns, celebrating secret marriages, quashing wills. These are not the slanders of heretics, but the testimony of the Church in formal assembly. The Pope, Innocent III, is equally scandalized. Writing of the Archbishop of Narbonne and its clergy, he exclaims: "Blind! dumb dogs that cannot bark! Simoniacs who sell justice, absolve the rich and condemn the poor! They do not keep even the laws of the Church. They accumulate benefices and entrust the priesthood and ecclesiastical dignities to unworthy priests and illiterate children. Hence the insolence of the heretics; hence the contempt of nobles and people for God and His Church. In this region prelates are the laughing stock of the laity. And the cause of all the evil is the Archbishop of Narbonne. He knows no other god than money. His heart is a bank. During the ten years he has been in office he has never once visited his Province, not even his own Diocese. He took five hundred golden pennies for consecrating the Bishop of Maguelonne, and when we asked him to raise subsidies for the Christians in the East he refused. When a Church falls vacant, he refrains from nominating an incumbent, and appropriates the income. For the same reason he has reduced by half the number of canons (eighteen) and kept the archdeaconries vacant. In his Diocese monks and canons regular have renounced their Order and married wives; they have become money-lenders, lawyers, jugglers and doctors." Even Papal Legates, sent to combat heresy, conformed to the same luxurious mode of life, and called down upon themselves the severe reproofs of Bishop Diego and Prior Dominic. Gaucelin Faidit wrote a play, called "The Heresy of the Priests," in which he flung back upon the Clergy the charges which they brought against the Cathari. It was acted with much applause before Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, the friend of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse (A.D. 1193-1202). Nor, indeed, could it be expected that those who shewed themselves so indifferent to the sacredness of their calling would do other than encourage violations of their prerogatives by the powers of this world. The Counts, therefore, according to Godfrey's Chronicle, handed over Churches to stupid persons or to their own relations, and that simoniacally. Such people shew themselves to be hirelings, shearing the sheep and not attending to their infirmities, and—what is worse—encouraging in sin those whom they ought to correct. The Bishops went about their dioceses exacting illegal taxes and exchanging procurations for indulgences.

In contrast to all this was the life and character of the Catharists—for we may dismiss as incapable of proof the charges of extinguished lights, promiscuous intercourse, etc., which were but a réchauffé of the charges made against the early Christians. Catharism, which means Puritanism, was a constant and conspicuous protest to an age and people characterized by a joie de vivre. The asceticism of the "Perfect" in particular went beyond that of the severest monasticism, for they eschewed meat always, and not merely at certain times of the year, as well as all food produced by generation. Their relationship of the sexes was ultra-strict. Their word was their bond, and their religion forbade them to mar it with an oath. They possessed no money, and were supported by the community. Their simplicity and modesty in dress, their frugality, their industry, their honesty, kindled the respect, even the reverence, of the masses.[21] No hardships or dangers daunted their missionary ardour. When the Church attacked the heretics by means other than by fire and sword, she failed until the Dominicans copied their methods and the Franciscans their manners.

[13] Οἱ ἐν Βιέννῃ καὶ Λουγδούνῳ τῆς Γαλλίας παροικοῦντες δοῦλοι Χριστοῦ, τοῖς κατὰ τὴν Ἀσίαν καὶ Φρυγίαν τὴν αὐτὴν τῆς ἀπολυτρώσεως ἡμῖν πίστιν καὶ ἐλπίδα ἔχουσιν ἀδελφοῖς. (Euseb., H.E., v. 1.)