§ 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.
IV. Attempts at Reformation.
§ 118. Attempted Reforms in Church Polity.
The struggle between imperialism and hierarchism, which is present through the whole course of the Middle Ages, rose to a height in the times of Louis the Bavarian, A.D. 1314-1347 (§ [110, 3], [4]), and is of special interest here because of the literary war waged against one another by the rival supporters of the emperor and the pope. It concerns itself first of all only with the questions in debate between the imperial and the sacerdotal parties; but soon on the imperialist side there appeared a reforming tendency, which could not be given effect to without carrying the discussion into a multitude of other departments where reformation was also needed. Of quite another kind was the “reformation of head and members” desired by the great councils of the 15th century. The contention here was based, not so much upon any superiority claimed by the emperor over the pope and by the State over the church, but rather upon the subordination of the pope to the supreme authority of the universal church represented by the œcumenical councils. Yet both agreed in this, that with like energy they attacked the corruption of the papacy, in the one case in the interest of the State, in the other in the interest of the church.
§ 118.1. The Literary War between Imperialists and Curialists in the 14th Century.—The literary controversy over the debatable land between church and State was conducted with special vigour in the earlier part of our period, on account of the conflict between Boniface VIII. and Philip the Fair of France (§ [110, 1]). The ablest vindicators of the independence of the State were the advocate Peter Dubois and the Dominican theologian John of Paris. Among their scholars were the men who twenty years later sought refuge from the wrath of Pope John XXII. at the court of Louis the Bavarian at Munich. Of these the most important was the Italian Marsilius of Padua. As teacher of theology, philosophy, and medicine at Paris, in A.D. 1324, when the dispute between emperor and pope had reached its height, he composed jointly with his colleague John of Jandun in Champagne a Defensor pacis, a civil and ecclesiastical memoir, which, with an insight and clearness very remarkable for that age, developed the evangelical mean of the superiority of the State over the church, and of the empire over the papacy, historically, exegetically, and dogmatically; and for this end established theories of Scripture and tradition, of the tasks and place of the church in the State, of excommunication and persecution of heretics, of liberty of faith and conscience, etc., which even transcend the principles laid down on these points by the Reformation of the 16th century. Both authors accompanied Louis to Italy in A.D. 1326, and there John of Jandun died in A.D. 1328. Marsilius continued with the emperor as his physician, counsellor, and literary defender, and died at Munich between A.D. 1341-1343. In A.D. 1327 John XXII. condemned the Defensor pacis, and Clement VI. pronounced its author the worst heretic of all ages. The book, often reprinted during the 16th century, was first printed at Basel in A.D. 1522.
§ 118.2. Alongside of Marsilius there also stood a goodly array of schismatical Franciscans, with their general, Michael of Cesena, at their head (§ [112, 2]), who were like himself refugees at the court of Munich. They persistently contested the heresies of John XXII. in regard to the vision of God (§ [110, 3]) and his lax theory of poverty. Their polemic also extended to the whole papal system, and the corruption of church and clergy connected therewith. The most celebrated of them in respect of scientific attainments was William Occam (§ [113, 3]). His earlier treatises dealt with the pope’s heresies, and only after the Diet of Rhense (§ [110, 4]) did he take up the burning questions about church and State. In the comprehensive Dialogus he rejects the infallibility of the pope as decidedly as his temporal sovereignty, and denies the Divine institution of the primacy. Also a German prelate, Leopold of Bebenburg, Canon of Würzburg, and from A.D. 1353 Bishop of Bamberg, inspired by genuinely German patriotism, made his appearance in A.D. 1338 as a brave and prudent defender of imperial rights against the assumptions of the papacy.—The ablest of all Marsilius’ opponents was the Spanish Franciscan Alvarus Pelagius, who wrote in A.D. 1330 the treatise De planctu ecclesiæ, in which, while sadly complaining of the corruption of the church and clergy, he yet ascribes to the pope as the vicar of Christ unlimited authority over all earthly principalities and powers, and regards him as the fountain of all privileges and laws. A still more thoroughgoing deification of the papacy had appeared a few years earlier in the Summa de potestate ecclesiæ ad Johannem Papam by the Augustinian Augustinus Triumphus of Ancona. But neither he nor Pelagius, in view of the manifest contradictions of the pope’s doctrines of poverty (§ [112, 2]), dared go the length of maintaining papal infallibility. A German canon of Regensburg, Conrad of Megensburg, also took part in the controversy, seeking to vindicate and glorify the papacy.