The heresy made its only appearance in England in 1166. Henry II, the very man whom we have seen so angry against Becket as to threaten to turn Mohammedan, seems to have felt free to take a line of his own. He had them stripped to the waist, flogged, branded on the forehead, and turned adrift, strictly forbidding everyone to give them any aid and comfort whatsoever. This was effective enough in its way, as they must have soon died from hunger and exposure, but the point is that there seems to have been no recognized procedure to be followed.
This want had been partly met, in the last two decades of the century, by three laws.
In 1184, at the Diet of Verona, the “Holy Roman” Emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, and the short-lived Pope Lucius III, had conferred on heresy. Although in disagreement about many important matters, they seem to have agreed perfectly about the treatment of heretics. They published a joint decree. The Pope on his side directed that the bishops, who had always had jurisdiction in matters of heresy, should make, or cause to be made, an inquiry, or “inquisition,” into the possible existence of heresy in every parish where the presence of heretics was even suspected. Even those whose manner of living differed from that of the ordinary Catholic were to be questioned as to their faith. The accused were to be tried in the episcopal court and such as should be convicted (if they refused to “repent” and acknowledge their errors) were to be handed over to the secular authorities “in order that they may receive the punishment they deserve (animadversio debita).” This last formula was vague, perhaps intentionally so. All secular magistrates were to take an oath before the bishop that they would enforce the laws against heresy, and those who refused to act after having been duly called upon to do so were to be excommunicated. Furthermore, all Catholics were forbidden to do business with any city which might sustain a pro-heretical magistrate in failure to act.
The Emperor, on his side, was not behindhand. He decreed that any magistrate excommunicated for refusal or neglect to proceed against heretics should lose his office and be debarred from accepting another. All those convicted, or to be convicted, of heresy were put under the imperial ban, which meant banishment, confiscation of goods, destruction of their houses, public infamy, debarment from office, &c. There is no explicit mention of the death penalty. “Animadversio” had meant death in ancient times, and the twelfth-century lawyer was apt to be both a great pedant and a great imperialist. Nevertheless, the formula had become vaguer.
The other two enactments are those of secular princes, acting alone.
Count Raymond V of Toulouse, he whom we have seen appealing to his suzerain Louis VII of France against heresy, at some time during his long reign of forty-six years (from 1148 to 1194) decreed not only banishment but also death by fire for heretics. Probably this was done in connection with Henry of Clairvaux’s mission which condemned Mauran, or with the short “Crusade” of 1181. What action, if any, was taken under it we do not know. In 1209 we shall find the municipality of Toulouse writing to Pope Innocent III to the effect that “many” heretics had been burnt under it. But we must remember that the letter was written when the city was threatened by Montfort and his Crusaders, and its magistrates were correspondingly anxious to make a case.
The third of the three laws against heretics was enacted by King Pedro II of Aragon, who later got himself killed in his attempt to protect the protector of heretics, Raymond VI of Toulouse! In 1197 Pedro banished the Waldenses and other heretics from his lands as public enemies to himself and his realm, and announced that if any of them were found when the months of grace had expired, their goods were to be confiscated and themselves burned. Of course, this was only a threat, and in all human probability no one stayed to risk the stake. The significant thing is that the threat is made against the Waldenses as the heretics par excellence.
But, although it was a gain to have the legal machinery for punishing heretics, still the gain did not amount to much if there was no organized force capable of putting the machinery in motion. Except for the banishment of Mauran and the little Crusade which took Lavaur in 1181, no real action against the heretics of Languedoc had been taken. In 1195 a papal legate held a council at Montpellier and condemned heresy in the strongest terms, but his thunders died away without an echo. No progress whatsoever had been made against heresy in Languedoc when, in 1198, Innocent III became Pope.
Why did Rome wait so long before moving in the Albigensian matter? The Curia must surely have known, for decades past, that things were steadily going from bad to worse in Languedoc. It has been suggested that all the moral forces and diplomatic skill that the Papacy could muster had been needed to make head against the redoubtable emperors, Barbarossa and his son, Henry VI. But this, at most, can be only half the answer. In the first place, the Curia had been and was entirely competent to carry on several major controversies at the same time, with the sure touch of a skilful juggler keeping three or four balls going at once. In the second place, even in the last fifty years, crowded as they had been, still there had been intervals of peace between Papacy and Empire. One such interval had been seven years long, and still the Papacy had made no move in Languedoc. Probably the answer is that none of the popes, not even Alexander III, and still less his short-lived successors, had possessed the tremendous energy and courage of the newly-elected Pope.