History of the Rise of the Huguenots, Vol. 1

by Henry Martyn Baird

It was a lamentable but notorious fact that, as a consequence of the unnatural divorce of religion and morality, the clergy, both secular and regular, by their excesses had incurred the contempt of the laity. If the Franciscan monks enjoyed an unenviable pre-eminence in this respect, so as to have come to constitute one of the stock characters in the "Heptameron" and similar works, scarcely less constant than the prodigals or parasites of the New Comedy, the other orders were but little behind them. And so Louise de Savoie made this significant entry in her diary: "In the year 1522, in December, my son and I, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, began to understand the hypocrites, white, black, gray, smoky, and of all colors; from whom may God, by his clemency and infinite goodness, be pleased to preserve and defend us. For, if Jesus Christ be not a liar, there is no more dangerous generation in all human kind."[119] Bishops and cardinals won little more respect than the monks; for was it not the most prominent of the wearers of the purple who, as Chancellor of France, introduced venality into the most sacred offices of state,[120] while by his quarrelsome and unscrupulous diplomacy he richly merited the bon mot of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, that he was more inclined to make four wars than, one peace?[121]

Abortive efforts at reform.

It does not enter into the province of this history to discuss in detail the causes of the deplorable vices that characterized the priesthood on the eve of the great religious movement of the sixteenth century; nor can we pause to make that analysis of the doctrinal errors then prevalent, which belongs rather to the office of the historian of the Reformation. It will be sufficient, therefore, if we glance hastily at some of the partial and abortive efforts directed toward the reform of doctrine and manners of which mediæval France was the theatre.

The Cathari and Albigenses.

Foremost among the popular opponents of the papacy were the Cathari and Albigenses. The accounts of the origin of the sect or sects bearing these names are vague and unsatisfactory, and the reports of their creed and worship are inconsistent or incredible. The ruin that overwhelmed them spared no friendly narrative of their history, and scarcely one authoritative exposition of the belief for the profession of which their adherents encountered death with heroic fortitude. Defeat not only compelled the remnants of the Albigenses to succumb to Simon de Montfort and his fellow crusaders, but reduced them to the indignity of having the record of their faith and self-devotion transmitted to posterity only in the hostile chronicles of Roman ecclesiastics. But even partisan animosity has not robbed the world of the edifying spectacle of a large number of men and women, of a quiet and peaceable disposition, persistently and fearlessly protesting, through a long series of years, against the worship of saints and images, resisting the innovations of a corrupt church, and adhering with constancy to a simple ritual unencumbered with superstitious observances. Careful investigation establishes the fact that the Holy Scriptures were read and accepted as the supreme authority as well in doctrine as in practice, and that the precepts there inculcated were adorned by lives so pure and exemplary as to evoke an involuntary expression of admiration from bitter opponents.

There is little doubt that strange doctrinal errors found a foothold in parts, at least, of the extensive territory in southern France occupied by the Albigenses. Oriental Dualism or Manichæism not improbably disfigured the creed of portions of the sect; while the belief of others scarcely differed from that of the less numerous Waldenses of Provence or their brethren in the valleys of Piedmont. But, whatever may be the truth on this much contested point,[122] the remarkable spread of the Albigenses during the latter part of the twelfth century must be regarded as strongly marking the revolt of the French mind, especially in the more impetuous south, against the priestly absolutism that crushed all freedom of religious thought, and equally against a church tolerating the most flagrant abuses. Nor can the historian who desires to trace the more remote consequences of important moral movements fail to notice the singular fact that the soil watered by Albigensian blood at the beginning of the thirteenth century was precisely that in which the seed sown by the reformers, three hundred years later, sprang up most rapidly and bore the most abundant harvest. After so long a period of suspended activity, the spirit of opposition once more asserted its vital energy—soon, it is true, to meet fresh difficulties, but only such difficulties as would tend to develop and strengthen it.

The crime of vauderie.

With the suppression of the Albigenses all open popular protest against the errors of the church ceases until the advent of the Reformation. The latent tendency did, indeed, manifest its continued existence in those obscure practices known as vauderie, which, distorted by the imagination of reckless informers and interested judges, and converted into the most monstrous crimes against religion and morality, occasioned the death of countless innocent victims.[123] But it was chiefly among the learned, and particularly in the bosom of the University of Paris, that the pressing need of a thorough purification of the church found expression. Not that the remedies advocated were so definite and radical, or based upon so full a recognition of the distinctive character of Christianity, as to merit the name of reformatory projects. Yet, standing somewhat in advance of their contemporaries, a few theologians raised their voices in decided condemnation of those evils which needed only to be held up to public notice to incur the universal reprobation of mankind.

Nicholas de Clemangis.

John Gerson.