An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

The heretics were of two sorts. One class merely abjured the practices and some of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church while they remained Christians and endeavored to imitate as nearly as possible the simple life of Christ and the apostles. On the other hand, there were popular leaders who taught that the Christian religion was false. They held that there were two principles in the universe, the good and the evil, which were forever fighting for the victory. They asserted that the Jehovah of the Old Testament was really the evil power, and that it was, therefore, the evil power whom the Catholic Church worshiped.

The Albigenses.

This latter heresy was a very old one, by which even St. Augustine had been fascinated in his early years. It was revived in Italy in the eleventh century and became very popular, especially in southern France, in the twelfth. Its adherents called themselves Cathari (the pure), but we shall call them Albigenses, a name derived from the town of Albi in southern France, where they were very numerous.[150]

The Waldensians.

Among those who continued to accept the Christian faith but refused to obey the clergy on account of their wickedness, the most important sect was that of the Waldensians. These were followers of Peter Waldo of Lyons, who gave up all their property and lived a life of apostolic poverty. They went about preaching the Gospel and expounding the Scriptures, which they translated into the language of the people. They made many converts, and before the end of the twelfth century there were great numbers of them scattered throughout western Europe.

The Church did not wish to condemn the efforts of good and simple men to imitate as exactly as possible the life of Christ and the apostles. Nevertheless these laymen, who claimed the right to preach and hear confession, and who asserted that prayer was quite as efficacious when uttered in bed or in a stable as in a church, seemed clearly to call in question the general belief in the Church as the exclusive agent of salvation, and seriously to threaten its influence among the people.

Beginning of the fight against heresy.

Before the end of the twelfth century the secular rulers began to take notice of heresy. Henry II of England, in 1166, ordered that no one should harbor heretics in England, and that any house in which they were received should be burned. The king of Aragon decreed (1194) that any one who listened to the preaching of the Waldensians, or even gave them food, should suffer the penalties for treason and should have his property confiscated by the state. These are the beginnings of a series of pitiless decrees which even the most enlightened kings of the thirteenth century issued against all who should be convicted of belonging either to the Albigenses or the Waldensians. The Church and the civil government agreed that heretics were dangerous to the welfare of both, and that they were criminals deserving the terrible death of burning alive.[151]

Heresy regarded as treason.

It is very difficult for us who live in a tolerant age to understand the universal and deep-rooted horror of heresy which prevailed not only in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but also down at least to the eighteenth. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the fact that heresy was considered treason against an institution which practically all, both the learned and the unlearned, agreed was not only essential to salvation but was necessary also to order and civilization. Frank criticism of the evil lives of the clergy, not excluding the pope himself, was common enough. But this did not constitute heresy. One might believe that the pope and half the bishops were bad men, and yet in no way question the necessity for the Church's existence or the truth of every one of its dogmas; just as nowadays we might call particular rulers and government officials fools or knaves, without being suspected of repudiating government altogether. The heretic was the anarchist of the Middle Ages. He did not simply denounce the immorality of the officers of the Church; he claimed that the Church was worse than useless. He sought to lead people to throw off their allegiance to it and to disregard its laws and commands. The Church and the civil government consequently proceeded against him as against an enemy of society and order. Heresy was, moreover, a contagious disease, and spread rapidly and unobserved, so that to the rulers of the times even the harshest measures appeared justifiable in order to prevent its dissemination.