During the first centuries of our era, when the Christians had formed a forbidden sect, they claimed toleration on the ground that religious belief is voluntary and not something which can be enforced by law. This view changed after Christianity triumphed in the Roman Empire and enjoyed the support, instead of the opposition, of the government. The Church, backed by the State, no longer advocated freedom of conscience, but began to persecute people who held heretical beliefs.
MEDIEVAL ATTITUDE TOWARD HERESY
It is difficult for those who live in an age of religious toleration to understand the horror which heresy inspired in the Middle Ages. A heretic was a traitor to the Church, for he denied the doctrines believed to be essential to salvation. It seemed a Christian duty to compel the heretic to recant, lest he imperil his eternal welfare. If he persisted in his impious course, then the earth ought to be rid of one who was a source of danger to the faithful and an enemy of the Almighty.
PUNISHMENT OF HERESY
Although executions for heresy had occurred as early as the fourth century, [8] for a long time milder penalties were usually inflicted. The heretic might be exiled, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property and his rights as a citizen. The death penalty was seldom invoked by the Church before the thirteenth century. Since ecclesiastical law forbade the Church to shed blood, the State stepped in to seize the heretic and put him to death, most often by fire. We must remember that in medieval times cruel punishments were imposed for even slight offenses, and hence men saw nothing wrong in inflicting the worst of punishments for what was believed to be the worst of crimes.
THE ALBIGENSES
In spite of all measures of repression heretics were not uncommon during the later Middle Ages. Some heretical movements spread over entire communities. The most important was that of the Albigenses, so called from the town of Albi in southern France, where many of them lived. Their doctrines are not well known, but they seem to have believed in the existence of two gods—one good (whose son was Christ), the other evil (whose son was Satan). The Albigenses even set up a rival church, with its priests, bishops, and councils.
CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES, 1209-1229 A.D.
The failure of attempts to convert the Albigenses by peaceful means led the pope, Innocent III, [9] to preach a crusade against them. Those who entered upon it were promised the usual privileges of crusaders. [10] A series of bloody wars now followed, in the course of which thousands of men, women, and children perished. But the Albigensian sect did not entirely disappear for more than a century, and then only after numberless trials and executions for heresy.