§ 116.3. Lollards, Flagellants, and Dancers.—During a plague at Antwerp in A.D. 1300 the Lollards made their appearance, nursing the sick and burying the dead. They spread rapidly over the Netherlands and the bordering German provinces. Like the Beghards however, and for the same reasons, they soon fell under suspicion of heresy, and were subjected to the persecution of the Inquisition, until Gregory XI., in A.D. 1347, again granted them toleration.But the name Lollard still continued to be associated with heresy or hypocrisy (§ [119, 1]).[346] The Flagellant fraternities, which had sprung up in the 12th century (§ [106, 4]), greatly increased during this period, and reached their height during the 14th century. Their influence was greatest during the visitation of the Black Death, A.D. 1348-1350, which cost Europe many millions of lives. Issuing from Hungary, rushing forth with the force of an avalanche, and massing in great numbers on the upper Rhine, they spread over all Germany, Belgium and Holland, Switzerland, England, and Sweden. Entrance into France was refused them at the bidding of the Avignon pope Clement VI. In long rows of penitents, with uncovered head, screaming forth their penitential songs, and with tears streaming down their cheeks, they rushed about lashing their bare backs. They also from city to city and from village to village read aloud a letter of warning, said to have been written by Christ, and brought to the Patriarch of Jerusalem by an angel. This paroxysm lasted for three years. In Lombardy, in A.D. 1399, when famine, pestilence, the Turkish war, and expectation of the end of the world inclined men to such extravagances, the Flagellants made their appearance again, dressed in white robes, and so called Bianchi, Albati. Princes, scholars, and popes, universities and councils sought to check this silly fanaticism, but were not able to suppress it. Many Flagellants were also heretical in their views, spoke of the hierarchy as antichrist, withdrew from the worship of the church, declared the bloody baptism of the scourge the only true sacrament, and died at the stake of the Inquisition.—The Dancers, Chorisantes, were a sect closely related to the Flagellants, but their fanaticism seemed more of a pathological than of a religious order. Half naked and crowned with leaves they rushed along the streets and into houses, dancing in a wild, tumultuous manner. They made a great noise in the Rhine Provinces in A.D. 1374 and in A.D. 1418. They were regarded as demoniacs and cured by calling upon St. Vitus.
§ 116.4. The Friends of God.—During the 14th century many detachments of mystic sects spread through all Southern Germany, and even from the Netherlands to Hungary and Italy. A powerful religious awakening, with an undertone of contemplative mysticism, was now experienced in the castles of the knights, in the shops of artisans, and in the stalls of traders, as well as in the Beguine houses, the monasteries, and nunneries of the Dominicans and other monkish orders. A great free association was then called forth under the name of “Friends of God” (John xv. 15), whose members maintained personal and epistolary correspondence with one another. The headquarters of this movement were Cologne, Strassburg, and Basel. Its preachers and supporters were mostly Dominicans. They drew their intellectual and spiritual nourishment from the writings of the German mystics. They repudiated all sectarian intentions, carefully observed the rites and ceremonies and attended on the worship of the church, and accepted all its dogmas. But all the greater on this account was their sorrow over the deep decay of religious and moral life, and their lamentations over the corruption of the clergy and hierarchy. Fantastic visionary conceptions, however, derived from the domain of mysticism, were by no means rare among them.
§ 116.5. Pantheistic Libertine Societies.—A demoniacally inspired counterpart to the fraternity of the “Friends of God” is found in the sect of the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit. This sect, derived for the most part from the artisan class, may be regarded as carrying out to a consistent development the views of Amalrich of Bena (§ [108, 4]). We meet with these in the beginning of the 14th century wandering about, missionarising and agitating in all parts of Southern Germany as well as in Switzerland, while they were particularly numerous in the Rhine Provinces, where Cologne and Strassburg were their main resorts. Often associating with strolling Beghards (§ [98, 12]) they are frequently confounded with these. They were communistic libertine pantheists. Every pious man is a Christ, in whom God becomes man. Whatever is done in love is pure. The perfect are free from the law, and cannot sin. The church with her sacraments and institutions is a thorough cheat; purgatory, heaven, and hell are mere figments, the marriage bond contrary to nature, all property is common good, and theft of it allowable. Their secret services ended with immoral orgies. The Inquisition exterminated the sect by sword and stake.—The Adamites in Austria in A.D. 1312 and the Turlupines in the Isle of France showed similar tendencies. In the beginning of the 15th century they reappeared as Homines intelligentiæ at Brussels. In A.D. 1421 the Hussite leader Ziska rooted out the Bohemian Adamites or Picards, who went naked after the pattern of paradise, and had a community of wives. Picard is just a modification of the heretical designation Beghard. They gained a footing in several villages, and built an establishment on a small island in a tributary of the Moldau, from which they made excursions into the surrounding districts, until Ziska put an end to them by conquering the island in A.D. 1421.
§ 117. Church Discipline.
The reckless and shameless sale of indulgences often made the exercise of church discipline impossible, and the discreditable conduct of the mendicant monks destroyed all respect for the confessional. The scandalous misuse of the ban and interdict had shorn these of much of their terror. Frightful curses were pronounced at Rome every Maundy Thursday against heretics by the solemn reading of the bull In Cœna Domini. The Inquisition was still abundantly occupied with persecuting and burning numerous heretics, and at the end of our period Innocent VIII. carried to the utmost extreme the persecution and burning of witches.
§ 117.1. Indulgences.—The scholastic theory of indulgences (§ [106, 2]) was authoritatively proclaimed by Clement VI. in A.D. 1343. The reforming councils of the 15th century wished only to prevent them being misused, for the purpose of filling the papal treasury. Sixtus IV., in A.D. 1477, declared that it was allowable to take money for indulgences for the dead, and that their souls might be freed from purgatory. The pert question, why the pope would not rather free all souls at once by the exercise of his sovereign power, was answered by the assertion that the church, in accordance with Divine righteousness, could dispense its grace only discrete et cum moderamine. The institution of the jubilee gave a great impulse to the sale of indulgences. In A.D. 1300 Boniface VIII., at the bidding of an old man, proclaimed a complete indulgence for one hundred years to all Christians who would do penance for fifteen days in the churches of the apostles at Rome, and by this means gathered from day to day 200,000 pilgrims within the walls of the Holy City. Later popes made a jubilee every fiftieth year, then every thirty-third, and finally every twenty-fifth. Instead of appearing personally at Rome, it was enough to pay the cost of such a journey. The nepotism and extravagance of the popes had left an empty exchequer, which this sale of indulgences was intended to fill. The war with the Turks and the building of St. Peter’s gave occasion to repeated indulgence crusades. Traffickers in indulgences in the most barefaced way cried up the quality of their wares; the conditions of repentance and purpose of reformation were scarcely so much as named. Indulgences were even granted beforehand for sins that were contemplated.
§ 117.2. The Inquisition, since A.D. 1232 under the direction of the Dominicans (§ [109, 2]), spread through all European countries during the 14th century. While the papal court resided at Avignon the Inquisition was at its height in France, where Waldensians and Albigensians, Beghards and Lollards, Fraticelli and Fanatical Spiritualists, were brought in crowds to the stake and subjected to the most cruel tortures. Bernard Delicieux, a Franciscan, raised his voice, A.D. 1300-1320, against the inhuman cruelty of the inquisitors, and with noble independence and heroic bravery appealed to king and pope against the merciless sacrifice of so many victims. He was shut up for life in a dark dungeon, and fed on bread and water.—In Germany, where, from the murder of Conrad of Marburg in A.D. 1233 (§ [109, 3]), for almost a century and a half we find no trace of a regularly constituted Inquisition, it made its appearance again in A.D. 1368. During that year Urban V. issued a bull, by which he required that the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of Germany should support with their counsel and influence the two inquisitors who were searching out the heretical Beghards and Beguines (§ [116, 5]), and place their prisons at the disposal of the Holy Office, which had still no prison of its own. His successor, Gregory XI., in A.D. 1372 increased the number of inquisitors in Germany to five, one in each of the archdioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Salzburg, Magdeburg, and Bremen; while his successor, Boniface IX., in A.D. 1399 added a sixth for North Germany. But these papal bulls would probably, owing to the disinclination of the Germans to the Inquisition, like the attempts of Gregory IX., never have been put in force, had not Charles IV. (§ [110, 4], [5]) taken up the matter with an ardent zeal that even went beyond the intentions of Urban and Gregory. During his second journey to Rome, in A.D. 1369, he issued from Lucca four imperial decrees, and in A.D. 1378 from Treves a fifth, by which he granted to the Inquisition throughout Germany all the rights, powers, and privileges which it had anywhere, and required that all civil and ecclesiastical authorities, under pain of severest penalties and confiscation of all their goods, should support the Inquisition in its search for heretics and in its discovery and burning of all religious writings in the vulgar tongue composed and circulated by laymen or semi-laymen.—The Spanish Inquisition was re-established under Ferdinand and Isabella in A.D. 1480, and thoroughly organized by the grand-inquisitor Torquemada, A.D. 1483-1499. One of the first inquisitors appointed by him in A.D. 1484 was an Augustinian, Pedro Arbires, who amid the most unrelenting cruelties performed the duties of his office with such zeal, that in sixteen months many hundreds had perished at the stake; but his fanatical career was ended by his murder at the altar in A.D. 1485. Not only the two who did the deed, but also all their relatives and friends, to the number of two hundred, suspected of complicity in a plot, were burned, while the “martyr” himself was beatified by Alexander VII. in A.D. 1661, and canonized by Pius IX. in A.D. 1867. This terrible tribunal further undertook the persecution of the hated Moors and Jews who had been baptized under compulsion (§ [95, 2], [3]), which through numerous confiscations greatly enriched the national exchequer of Spain. This institution reached its highest point under the grand-inquisitor the Cardinal Francis Ximenes, A.D. 1507-1517, under whom 2,536 persons were burnt alive and 1,368 in effigy. The auto da fès, which ended at the stake, were conducted with a horrible pomp. Even those who were acquitted of the charge of heresy were compelled for a long time to wear the san benito, an armless robe with a red cross marked on it before and behind.According to Llorente, who had been general secretary of the Inquisition at Madrid, the Spanish inquisition, down to its suppression by Joseph Buonaparte in A.D. 1808, had executed in person 31,912, burned in effigy 17,659, and subjected to severe punishments 291,456.[347]
§ 117.3. The Bull “In Cœna Domini.”—It was customary to repeat from time to time the more important decrees of excommunication, to show that they were still valid. In this way the famous bull In Cœna Domini was gradually constructed. The earliest sketch of it was given by Urban V., who died in A.D. 1370, and it was published in its final form by Urban VIII. in A.D. 1627. It contains a summary of all the rights of the Roman hierarchy, with anathemas against all opposing claims, not only on the part of secular princes and laymen, but also of antipapal councils, and concludes with a solemn excommunication of all heretics, to which Paul V. in A.D. 1610 added Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Calvinists, together with all their sympathisers. Pius V., in A.D. 1567, in a new redaction insisted that it should be read yearly in the Catholic churches of all lands, but could not get this carried out, especially in France and Germany. In A.D. 1770 Clement XIV. forbade its being read.
§ 117.4. Prosecution of Witches.—Down to the beginning of the 13th century many churchmen had spoken against the popular superstition regarding sorcery, witchcraft, and compacts with the devil, and a whole series of provincial councils had pronounced such belief to be heathenish, sinful, and heretical. Even in Gratian’s decretal (§ [99, 5]) there was a canon which required the clergy to teach the people that witchcraft was a delusion, and belief in it incompatible with the Christian faith. But upon the establishment of the Inquisition in the beginning of the 13th century witchcraft came more and more to occupy the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities. Heresy and sorcery were now regarded as correlates, like two agencies resting on and serviceable to the demoniacal powers, and were therefore treated in the same way as offences to be punished with torture and the stake. The Dominicans, as administrators of the Inquisition, were the most zealous defenders of the belief in witchcraft, whereas the Franciscans generally spoke of it simply as foolish, heathenish, and heretical. Thomas Aquinas included it in his theological system, and Eymerich in his Directorium Inquisitorium (§ [109, 2]). Yet witch prosecutions were only occasional incidents during the 14th and 15th centuries, especially in Germany, where clergy and people were adverse to them. But it was quite otherwise after Innocent VIII., on 3rd December, 1484, by his bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, complaining of previous laxity, called attention to the spread of witchcraft in the country, and appointed two inquisitors, Sprenger and Institor, to secure its extermination. These administered their office with such zeal and success, that in A.D. 1489 at Cologne they were able, as the result of their experiences, to publish under the title Malleus maleficarum a complete code for witch prosecutions. From the confessions wrung from their victims by torture and suggestive questions, they obtained a full, dogmatic system of compacts and intrigues with the devil, of Succubis and Incubis, of witch ointment, broomsticks, and ovenforks, of witches’ sabbaths, Walpurgis nights, and flights up chimneys. Soon this illusion spread like an epidemic, and thousands throughout Germany and all other Catholic countries, mostly old women, but also some young maidens, were subjected to the most horrible tortures, and after confession had been extorted, to death by fire. The Malleus accounted for the fact that women and very rarely men were found engaged in such proceedings, by this statement: Dicitur enim femina a feret minus, quia semper minorem habet et servat fidem, et hoc ex natura.—The Reformation of the 16th century made no change in these horrible proceedings, which rather rose to a height during the 17th century. Theologians of all confessions believed in the possibility and reality of compacts with the devil, and regarded this to be as essential to an orthodox creed as belief in the devil’s existence. The jurists and civil judges in Protestant and Catholic countries were no less narrow-minded and superstitious than the theologians. Among Catholics the most celebrated defenders of the witch prosecutions were Jean Bodin (§ [148, 3]), Peter Binsfeld, and the Jesuit Mart. Delrio (§ [149, 11]). Among Protestant vindicators of these prosecutions may be named the Heidelberg physician Thomas Erastus (§ [144, 1]), James I. of England, and the famous criminal lawyer Carpzov of Leipzig. Noble men however were not wanting on both sides who were shrewd and sensible enough to oppose such crude conceptions. In the 16th century we have the physician Weier, who wrote his De præstigiis dæmonorum in A.D. 1563, and in the 17th the Jesuits Tanner and Spee (§ [149, 11]; 156, 3), and the Dutch Protestant Bekker (§ 160, 5). The writings of the Halle jurist Thomasius in A.D. 1701, 1704, were the first to tell powerfully in favour of liberal views. In A.D. 1749 a nun of seventy years old was burnt at Würzburg as a witch. In A.D. 1754 a girl of thirteen and in A.D. 1756 one of fourteen years were put to death at Landshut as suspected of witchcraft. In German Switzerland a servant girl at Glarus in A.D. 1782 was the last victim. In bigoted Catholic countries the delusion lasted longer, but prosecutions were seldomer carried the length of judicial murder. In Mexico however, the Alcade Ignacio Castello of San Jacobo on 20th August, 1877, “with consent of the whole population,” burnt five witches alive. Altogether since the issue of the bull of Innocent there have been certainly no less than 300,000 women brought to the stake as witches.