Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance

by P. L. Jacob

Fig. 330.—Martyrdom of SS. Savin and Cyprian, their flesh being torn out with iron hooks.—Fresco in the Church of St. Savin, Vienne (Eleventh Century).—After the Drawings of M. Gérard-Séguin.

In the twelfth century Pope Lucius III., with a view of checking the progress of the Manicheans, who reappeared under the names of Catharists, Patarenes, the Poor of Lyons, &c., ordered “through the council of bishops, at the demand of the emperor (of Germany) and the lords of his court, that every bishop should visit the districts of his diocese which were suspected of containing heretics once or twice a year.” They were to be denounced by every one, so that the bishop might summon them before him, make them renounce their heresies, or inflict upon them the punishment awarded by canonical law. Thus we see that religious error was regarded as a breach of public order, and that the princes looked upon the heretics as rebels or conspirators. This was in keeping with the ideas of the Middle Ages, when the whole social system reposed upon the Catholic faith. We must in fairness admit that, if the Inquisition of Rome was the earliest, and the only one which outlasted the Middle Ages, it was also the most moderate, for it alone never ordered capital punishment.

The Inquisition was introduced into France through a heresy of Eastern origin, which endeavoured to associate the pagan ideas of Armenian Manicheism with the ceremonies of Christianity. Originally centred at Toulouse and Albi (whence the name Albigenses), the new heretics, numbering about one thousand and fifty, gradually made their way into Perigord and the neighbouring provinces. Towards 1160 another sect, the Waldenses, founded by Peter de Valdo or de Vaux, arose at Lyons, and gave great trouble to the papacy. The Albigenses were inferior in morality even to the Waldenses, and professed still more dangerous opinions. Immediate followers of Manes the Persian, they had adopted his doctrine of the double nature of man, of fatalism, of the origin of good and evil, &c.—a monstrous doctrine, the direct consequence of which was a life of unbridled license. In spite of the pious efforts of King Robert (1022) and the sentence of condemnation pronounced at the Council of Toulouse (1118), the Manichean heresy of the Albigenses continued to spread throughout the southern provinces of France, and obtained fresh adherents every day even amongst the clergy and the nobility. Innocent III., elected sovereign pontiff in 1198, took alarm at the danger to the Christian religion, and determined to reduce these daring sectaries to obedience, openly protected as they then were by the Counts of Toulouse, Foix, and Béarn, and by the Viscount of Béziers. But, before resorting to physical force, he at first tried persuasion.

Fig. 331.—St. Dominic handing to an envoy of the Albigenses a book containing the profession of faith in the Christian truths; to the right, this book having been cast into the fire, is leaping out of the flames, whilst the heretic’s book is being consumed.—Predella of the “Couronnement de la Vierge” by Fra Angelico, in the Louvre (Fifteenth Century).

Two monks, Guy and Raynier, of the Cistercian order, accordingly repaired to the south of France to seek out these heretics. They were the first commissioners of the Holy See to whom might properly belong the title of inquisitors. The failure of their mission decided Innocent III. to give full powers to Peter de Castelnau, Archdeacon of Magliano, and to another Cistercian monk named Ralph. These two monks, accompanied by Amalric, Abbot of Citeaux, preached against the heresy of the Albigenses at Toulouse, Narbonne, Viviers, Carcassonne, and Montpellier, but the heretics only displayed greater perseverance. Peter de Castelnau and Brother Ralph, disheartened at this result, enlisted in their difficult mission twelve brothers of their own order and two distinguished Spanish prelates—Diego de Azeles, Bishop of Osma, and the sub-prior of his cathedral, Dominic Guzman, who, having witnessed the progress of heresy in Languedoc, went to Italy to obtain the Holy Father’s permission to preach against it. Dominic had given proof of a gentleness, zeal, and piety worthy of the apostles, and the renown of his exemplary life was counted upon to give authority to his preaching (Fig. 331). Yet he was no less unsuccessful than the preceding commissioners sent by the pope. Insulted and mocked by an ignorant and brutal populace, he could not help exclaiming, “O Lord, let thy hand smite them, that thy punishment at least may open their eyes!” The legate Peter de Castelnau, in despair at the failure of his efforts to restore quietude and faith to men’s minds, determined to address himself directly to the Count of Toulouse, Raymond VI., and to formally demand of him to lend his aid to the papal legates, or else to proclaim openly that he sided with the heretics. After an interview during which bitter language was exchanged, two of the esquires of the Count of Toulouse believed that they would be complying with their master’s secret wishes by assassinating the courageous legate upon the banks of the Rhône (1208). Innocent III., when the news of this murder reached him, at once determined to set on foot a new crusade against the Albigenses. He appointed Milon in the room of Peter de Castelnau, and declared that he took under his immediate protection all the faithful who should take up arms for the defence of the Church. The Count of Toulouse did public penance, and his nephew Raymond Viscount of Béziers was handed over to the papal legates. The town of Béziers, taken by assault (July 22nd, 1209), was a scene of terrible carnage, for the crusaders gave no quarter—twenty thousand inhabitants were massacred without distinction of age or sex, and seven thousand were burnt in a church in which they had taken refuge.

Simon de Montfort, who was at the head of the expedition, accepted the effects of the Viscount of Béziers, and continued the war against the heretics. In 1213, before the walls of Muret, he defeated Peter II., King of Arragon, an ally of the Albigenses, who was besieging the town, and he afterwards stripped the Count of Toulouse of his domains, against the wish of Innocent III., who would have preferred that the count’s hereditary rights, and still more those of his son, should have been respected.

Simon was supported by Louis, son of Philip Augustus, who lost no time in fulfilling the vow which he had made to take up arms against the Manicheans of Languedoc, and, as the battle of Bouvines (1214) had led to a five years’ truce between the Kings of France and England, he joined the Catholic forces in the following year. In 1218 Toulouse rose in revolt, and Simon de Montfort was mortally wounded by a stone during the siege. His son Amaury put himself forward as heir to his father’s domains, and endeavoured to establish his claims to the countships of Béziers and Toulouse, but he eventually abandoned them in favour of the French monarch. Very rigorous measures were taken to put down the heretics. An order issued by the bishop of Toulouse decreed that “the inhabitants of the districts infected with heresy shall pay one mark in silver for every Waldensian found within their boundaries; the house in which he is captured, those in which he has preached, shall be razed to the ground, and the property belonging to the owner of these houses confiscated. The goods of the pervert shall also be confiscated, as well as those appertaining to any person neglecting to wear or to display the two coloured crosses which should be sewn on to the breast of the penitent’s garment.” The Holy See, on its part, was not remaining inactive during this time, as in 1215 the fourth Lateran Council had excommunicated the Manicheans, the Waldenses, and the Albigenses. The third canon of that council declared that “the heretics who are condemned shall be handed over to the secular arm, in order that they may receive their merited punishment; the clerks shall be previously unfrocked.”

Just before this council terminated its sittings, Dominic, presented to Pope Innocent III., obtained, as a recompense for the services which he had rendered to the Church militant, leave to found the order of Preaching-Brothers, who from him took the name, by which they are more generally known, of Dominicans.

Their pious founder battled against heresy with purely spiritual weapons, and it is perhaps scarcely necessary to mention that he it was who, with a view to obtaining the conversion of heretics, introduced the custom of reciting the rosary. On his return to Toulouse, which eventually became the centre of the Inquisition, he delegated to eight provincials of his order, in France, Provence, Lombardy, Romagna, Germany, Hungary, England, and Spain the special mission of preaching against heresy. And, lastly, in 1229 Raymond VII., who had succeeded to his paternal inheritance after doing public penance, was reconciled to the Church and reinstated in his countship of Toulouse. His only daughter married one of the king’s brothers, thus insuring the transmission of his lands to the French crown.