A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages Volume II Part 2

The fate of Languedoc was now irrevocably sealed. Hitherto there had been hopes that perhaps Raymond's inconstancy might lead him to retrace the steps of the last few years. Moreover, his subjects had shared in the desire, manifested in his repeated marriage projects, that he should have an heir to inherit the lands not pledged in succession to his daughter. He was but in his fifty-first year, and the expectation was not unreasonable that his line might be perpetuated and the southern nationality be preserved. All this was now seen to be a delusion, and the most sanguine Catharan could look forward to nothing but a life of concealment ending in prison or fire. Yet the heretic Church stubbornly held its own, though with greatly diminished numbers. Many of its members fled to Lombardy, where, even after the death of Frederic II., the civic troubles and the policy of local despots, such as Ezzelin da Romano, afforded some shelter from the Inquisition. Yet many remained and pursued their wandering missions among the faithful, perpetually tracked by inquisitorial spies, but rarely betrayed. These humble and forgotten men, hopelessly braving hardship, toil, and peril in what they deemed the cause of G.o.d, were true martyrs, and their steadfast heroism shows how little relation the truth of a religion bears to the self-devotion of its followers. Rainerio Saccone, the converted Catharan, who had the best means of ascertaining the facts, computes, about this time, that there were in Lombardy one hundred and fifty "perfected" refugees from France, while the churches of Toulouse, Carca.s.sonne, and Albi, including that of Agen, then nearly destroyed, numbered two hundred more. These figures would indicate that a very considerable congregation of believers still existed in spite of the systematic and ruthless proscription of the past twenty years. Their earnestness was kept alive, not only by the occasional and dearly-prized visits of the travelling ministers, but by the frequent intercourse which was maintained with Lombardy. Until the disappearance of the sect on this side of the Alps, there is, in the confessions of penitents, perpetual allusion to these pilgrimages back and forth, which kept up the relations between the refugees and those left at home. Thus, in 1254, Guillem Fournier, in an interrogatory before the Inquisition of Toulouse, relates that he started for Italy with five companions, including two women. His first resting-place was at Coni, where he met many heretics; then at Pavia, where he was hereticated by Raymond Mercier, former deacon of Toulouse. At Cremona he lived for a year with Vivien, the much-loved Bishop of Toulouse, with whom he found a number of n.o.ble refugees. At Pisa he stayed for eight months; at Piacenza he again met Vivien, and he finally returned to Languedoc with messages from the refugees to their friends at home. In 1300, at Albi, etienne Mascot confesses that he had been sent to Lombardy by Master Raymond Calverie to bring back Raymond Andre, or some other perfected heretic.

At Genoa he met Bertrand Fabri, who had been sent on the same errand by Guillem Golfier. They proceeded together and met other old acquaintances, now refugees, who conducted them to a spot where, in a wood, were several houses of refuge for heretics. The lord of the place gave them a Lombard, Guglielmo Pagani, who returned with them. In 1309 Guillem Falquet confessed at Toulouse to having been four times to Como, and even to Sicily, organizing the Church. He was caught while visiting a sick believer, and condemned to imprisonment in chains, but managed to escape in 1313. At the same time was sentenced Raymond de Verdun, who had likewise been four times to Lombardy.[55]

The proscribed heretics, thus nursing their faith in secret, gave the inquisitors ample occupation. As their ranks were thinned by persecution and flight, and as their skill in concealment increased with experience, there could no longer be the immense harvests of penitents reaped by Pierre Gella and Bernard de Caux, but there were enough to reward the energies of the friars and to tax the adroitness of their spies. The organization of the Inquisition, moreover, was gradually perfected. In 1254 the Council of Albi carefully revised the regulations concerning it. Fixed tribunals were established, and the limitations of the inquisitorial districts were strictly defined. For Provence and the territories east of the Rhone, Ma.r.s.eilles was the headquarters, eventually confided to the Franciscans. The rest of the infected regions were left to the Dominicans, with tribunals at Toulouse, Carca.s.sonne, and Narbonne; and, from such fragmentary doc.u.ments as have reached us, at this time the Inquisition at Carca.s.sonne rivalled that of Toulouse in energy and effectiveness. For a while safety was sought by heretics in northern France, but the increasing vigor of the Inquisition established there drove the unfortunate refugees back, and in 1255 a bull of Alexander IV. authorized the Provincial of Paris and his inquisitors to pursue the fugitives in the territories of the Count of Toulouse. At the same time the special functions of the inquisitors were jealously guarded against all encroachments. We have seen how, in its early days, it was subjected to the control of papal legates, but now that it was firmly established and thoroughly organized it was held independent; and when the legate Zoen, Bishop of Avignon, in 1257, endeavored, in virtue of his legatine authority, which fourteen years before had been so absolute, to perform inquisitorial work, he was rudely reminded by Alexander IV. that he could do so if he pleased in his own diocese, but that outside of it he must not interfere with the Inquisition. To this period is also to be ascribed the complete subjection of all secular officials to the behests of the inquisitors. The piety of St. Louis and the greed of Alphonse of Poitiers and Charles of Anjou rivalled each other in placing all the powers of the State at the disposal of the Holy Office, and in providing for its expenses. It was virtually supreme in the land, and, as we have seen, it was a law unto itself.[56]

The last shadow of open resistance was dissipated in the year 1255.

After the fall of Montsegur the proscribed and disinherited knights, the _faidits_, and the heretics had sought to establish among the mountains some stronghold where they could feel safe for a moment.

Driven from one retreat after another, they finally took possession of the castle of Queribus, in the Pyrenees of Fenouilledes. In the early spring of 1255 this last refuge was besieged by Pierre d'Auteuil, the royal Seneschal of Carca.s.sonne. The defence was stubborn. May 5 the seneschal appealed to the bishops sitting in council at Beziers to give him a.s.sistance, as they had done so energetically at Montsegur. The reply of the prelates was commendably cautious. They were not bound, they said, to render military service to the king, and when they had joined his armies it had been by command of a legate or of their primate, the Archbishop of Narbonne. Nevertheless, as common report described Queribus as a receptacle of heretics, thieves, and robbers, and its reduction was a good work for the faith and for peace, they would each one, without derogating from his rights, furnish such a.s.sistance as seemed to him fitting. It may be a.s.sumed from this that the seneschal had to do the work unaided; in fact, he complained to the king that the prelates rather impeded than a.s.sisted him, but by August the place was in his hands, and nothing remained for the outlaws but the forest and the caverns. In that savage region the dense undergrowth afforded many a hiding-place, and an attempt was made to cut away the briers and thorns which served as shelter for ruined n.o.ble and hunted Catharan. The work was undertaken by a certain Bernard, who thence acquired the name of Espina.s.ser or thorn-cutter. Popular hatred has preserved his remembrance, and expresses its sentiment in a myth which gibbets him in the moon.[57]

With the land at its feet, the Inquisition, in the plenitude of its power, had no hesitation in attacking the loftiest n.o.bles, for all men were on a level in the eyes of the Most High, and the Holy Office was the avenger of G.o.d. The most powerful va.s.sal of the houses of Toulouse and Aragon was the Count of Foix, whose extensive territories on both sides of the Pyrenees rendered him almost independent in his mountain fastnesses. Count Roger Bernard II., known as the Great, had been one of the bravest and most obstinate defenders of the land, and, after the pacification of 1229, Raymond had been obliged to threaten him with war to force him to submit. His memory was proudly treasured in the land as "_Rogier Bernat lo pros et sens dengun reproche_." His family was deeply tinctured with heresy. His wife and one of his sisters were Waldenses, another sister was a Catharan, and the monk of Vaux-Cernay describes him as an enemy of G.o.d and a cruel persecutor of the Church.

Yet, when he yielded in 1229, although he does not seem to have energetically fulfilled his oath to persecute heresy in his domains, for in 1233 we hear of his holding a personal conference at Aix with the heretic bishop Bertrand Martin, he was in other respects a loyal subject and faithful son of the Church. In 1237 he counselled his son, then Vizconde de Castelbo in Aragon, to allow the Inquisition in his lands, which resulted in the condemnation of many heretics, although Ponce, Bishop of Urgel, his personal enemy, had refused to relieve him of excommunication as a fautor of heresy until 1240, when he submitted to the conditions imposed, abjured heresy, and was reconciled. At his death, in 1241, he left liberal bequests to the Church, and especially to his ancestral Cistercian Abbey of Bolbonne, in which he died in monkish habit, after duly receiving the sacraments. His son, Roger IV., gave the _coup de grace_ to the rising of 1242, by placing himself under the immediate sovereignty of the crown, and defeating Raymond after the victories of St. Louis had driven back the English and Gascons. He had some troubles with the Inquisition, but a bull of Innocent IV., in 1248, eulogizes his devotion to the Holy See, and rewards him with the power to release from the saffron crosses six penitents of his choice; and in 1261 he issued an edict commanding the enforcement of the rule that no office within his domains should be held by any one condemned to wear crosses, any one suspected of heresy, or the son of any one similarly defamed.[58]

All this would seem to give ample guarantee of the orthodoxy and loyalty of the House of Foix, but the Inquisition could not condone its ancient patriotism and tolerance. Besides, if Roger Bernard the Great could be convicted of heresy, the confiscation of the broad inheritance would effect a great political object and afford ample spoils for all concerned. Twenty-two years after his death, therefore, in 1263, proceedings were commenced against his memory. A faithful servitor of the old count still survived, Raymond Bernard de Flascan, bailli of Mazeres, who had attended his lord day and night during his last sickness. If he could be brought to swear that he had seen heretication performed on the death-bed, the desirable object would be attained.

Frere Pons, the Inquisitor of Carca.s.sonne, came to Mazeres, found the old man an unsatisfactory witness, and threw him into a dungeon.

Suffering under a severe strangury, he was starved and tormented with all the cruel ingenuity of the Inquisition, and interrogated at intervals, without his resolution giving way. This was continued for thirty-two days, when Pons resolved to carry him back to Carca.s.sonne, where possibly the appliances for bringing refractory witnesses to terms were more efficacious. Before the journey, which he expected to be his last, the faithful bailli was given a day's respite at the Abbey of Bolbonne, which he utilized by executing a notarial instrument, November 26, 1263, attested by two abbots and a number of monks, in which he recited the trials already endured, solemnly declared that he had never seen the old count do anything contrary to the faith of Rome, but that he had died as a good Catholic, and that if, under the severe torture to which he expected to be subjected, human weakness should lead him to a.s.sert anything else, he would be a liar and a traitor, and no credence should be given to his words. It would be difficult to conceive of a more d.a.m.ning revelation of inquisitorial methods; yet fifty years later, when those methods had been perfected, all concerned in the preparation of the instrument, whether as notary or witnesses, would have been prosecuted as impeders of the Inquisition, to be severely punished as fautors of heresy.[59]

What became of the poor wretch does not appear. Doubtless he perished in the terrible Mura of Carca.s.sonne under the combination of disease, torture, and starvation. His judicial murder, however, was gratuitous, for the old count's memory remained uncondemned. Yet Roger Bernard III., despite the papal favor and the proofs he had given of adhesion to the new order of things, was a perpetual target for inquisitorial malice. When lying in mortal illness at Mazeres, in December, 1264, he received from etienne de Gatine, then Inquisitor of Narbonne, an imperious order, with threats of prosecution in case of failure, to capture and deliver up his bailli of Foix, Pierre Andre, who was suspect of heresy and had fled on being cited to appear. The count dared only in reply to express surprise that no notice had been given him that his bailli was wanted, adding that he had issued orders for his arrest, and would have personally joined in the pursuit had not sickness rendered him incapable. At the same time he requested "Apostoli," and appealed to the pope, to whom he retailed his grievances. The inquisitors, he said, had never ceased persecuting him; at the head of armed forces they were in the habit of devastating his lands under pretext of searching for heretics, and they would bring in their train and under their protection his special enemies, until his territories were nearly ruined and his jurisdiction set at naught. He, therefore, placed himself and his dominions under the protection of the Holy See. He probably escaped further personal troubles, for he died two months later, in February, 1265, like his father, in the Cistercian habit, and in the Abbey of Bolbonne; but in 1292 his memory was a.s.sailed before Bertrand de Clermont, Inquisitor of Carca.s.sonne. The effort was fruitless, for in 1297 Bertrand gave to his son, Roger Bernard IV., a declaration that the accusation had been disproved, and that neither he nor his father should suffer in person or property in consequence of it.[60]

When such were the persecutions to which the greatest were exposed it is easy to understand the tyranny exercised over the whole land by the irresponsible power of the inquisitors. No one was so loftily placed as to be beyond their reach, no one so humble as to escape their spies.

When once they had cause of enmity with a man there was no further peace for him. The only appeal from them was to the pope, and not only was Rome distant, but the avenue to it lay, as we have seen, in their own hands. Human wickedness and folly have erected, in the world's history, more violent despotisms, but never one more cruel, more benumbing, or more all-pervading.

For the next twenty years there is little worthy of special note in the operations of the Inquisition of Languedoc. It pursued its work continuously with occasional outbursts of energy. etienne de Gatine, and Pons de Poyet, who presided over its tribunals for many years, were no sluggards, and the period from 1373 to 1375 rewarded their industry with an abundant harvest. Though heretics naturally grew scarcer with the unintermitting pursuit of so many years, there was still the exhaustless catalogue of the dead, whose exhumation furnished an impressive spectacle for the mob, while their confiscations were welcome to the pious princes, and contributed largely to the change of ownership of land which was a political consummation so desirable. Yet heresy with incredible stubbornness maintained itself, though its concealment grew ever more difficult, and Italy grew less safe as a refuge and less prolific as a source of inspiration.[61]

In 1271 Alphonse and Jeanne, who had accompanied St. Louis in his unlucky crusade to Tunis, died without issue, during the homeward journey. The line of Raymond was thus extinct, and the land pa.s.sed irrevocably to the crown. Philippe le Hardi took possession even of the territories which Jeanne had endeavored, as was her right, to alienate by will, and though he surrendered the Agenois to Henry III., he succeeded in retaining Querci. No opposition was made to the change of masters. When, October 8, 1271, Guillaume de Cobardon, royal Seneschal of Carca.s.sonne, issued his orders regulating the new _regime_, one of the first things thought of was the confiscations. All castles and villages which had been forfeited for heresy were taken into the king's hand, without prejudice to the right of those to whom they might belong, thus throwing the burden of proof upon all claimants, and cutting out a.s.signs under alienations. In 1272 Philippe paid a visit to his new territories; it was designed to be peaceful, but some violences committed by Roger Bernard IV. of Foix caused him to come at the head of an army, with which he easily overcame the resistance of the count, occupied his lands, and threw him into a dungeon. Released in 1273, the count in 1276 rendered such a.s.sistance in the invasion of Navarre that Philippe took him into favor and restored his castles, on his renouncing all allegiance to Aragon. Thus the last show of independence in the South was broken down, and the monarchy was securely planted on its ruins.[62]

This consolidation of the south of France under the kings of Paris was not without compensating advantages. The monarch was rapidly acquiring a centralized power, which was very different from the overlordship of a feudal suzerain. The study of the Roman law was beginning to bear fruit in the State as well as in the Church, and the imperial theories of absolutism as inherent in kingship were gradually altering all the old relations. The king's court was expanding into the Parlement, and was training a school of subtle and resolute civil lawyers who lost no opportunity of extending the royal jurisdiction, and of legislating for the whole land in the guise of rendering judgments. In the appeals which came ever more thickly crowding into the Parlement from every quarter, the mailed baron found himself hopelessly entangled in the legal intricacies which were robbing him of his seignorial rights almost without his knowledge; and the Ordonnances, or general laws, which emanated from the throne, were constantly encroaching on old privileges, weakening local jurisdictions, and giving to the whole country a body of jurisprudence in which the crown combined both the legislative and the executive functions. If it thus was enabled to oppress, it was likewise stronger to defend, while the immense extension of the royal domains since the beginning of the century gave it the physical ability to enforce its growing prerogatives.

It was impossible that this metamorphosis in the national inst.i.tutions could be effected without greatly modifying the relations between Church and State. Thus even the saintliness of Louis IX. did not prevent him from defending himself and his subjects from ecclesiastical domination in a spirit very different from that which any French monarch had ventured to exhibit since the days of Charlemagne. The change became still more manifest under his grandson, Philippe le Bel. Though but seventeen years of age when he succeeded to the throne in 1286, his rare ability and vigorous temper soon led him to a.s.sert the royal power in incisive fashion. He recognized, within the boundaries of his kingdom, no superior, secular or spiritual. Had he entertained any scruples of conscience, his legal counsellors could easily remove them. To such men as Pierre Flotte and Guillaume de Nogaret the true position of the Church was that of subjection to the State, as it had been under the successors of Constantine, and in their eyes Boniface VIII. was to their master scarce more than Pope Vigilius had been to Justinian. Few among the revenges of time are more satisfying than the catastrophe of Anagni, in 1303, when Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna laid hands on the vicegerent of G.o.d, and Boniface pa.s.sionately replied to Nogaret's reproaches, "I can patiently endure to be condemned and deposed by a Patarin"--for Nogaret was born at St. Felix de Caraman, and his ancestors were said to have been burned as Cathari. If this be true he must have been more than human if he did not feel special gratification when, at command of his master, he appeared before Clement V. with a formal accusation of heresy against Boniface, and demanded that the dead pope's bones be dug up and burned. The citizens of Toulouse recognized him as an avenger of their wrongs when they placed his bust in the gallery of their ill.u.s.trious men in the Hotel-de-ville.[63]

It was to the royal power, thus rising to supremacy, that the people instinctively turned for relief from the inquisitorial tyranny which was becoming insupportable. The authority lodged in the hands of the inquisitor was so arbitrary and irresponsible that even with the purest intentions it could not but be unpopular, while to the unworthy it afforded unlimited opportunity for oppression and the gratification of the basest pa.s.sions. Dangerous as was any manifestation of discontent, the people of Albi and Carca.s.sonne, reduced to despair by the cruelty of the inquisitors, Jean Galande and Jean Vigoureux, mustered courage, and in 1280 presented their complaints to Philippe le Hardi. It was difficult to sustain their charges with specific proofs, and after a brief investigation their reiterated requests for relief were dismissed as frivolous. In the agitation against the Inquisition thus commenced, it must be borne in mind that heretics had little to do. By this time they were completely cowed and were quite satisfied if they could enjoy their faith in secret. The opposition arose from good Catholics, the magistrates of cities and substantial burghers, who saw the prosperity of the land withering under the deadly grasp of the Holy Office, and who felt that no man was safe whose wealth might arouse cupidity or whose independence might provoke revenge. The introduction of the use of torture impressed the popular imagination with special horror, and it was widely believed that confessions were habitually extorted by insufferable torment from rich men whose faith was unblemished. The cruel provisions which brought confiscation on the descendants of heretics, moreover, were peculiarly hard to endure, for ruin impended over every one against whom the inquisitor might see fit to produce from his records evidence of ancestral heresy. It was against these records that the next attempt was directed. Foiled in their appeal to the throne, the consuls of Carca.s.sonne and some of its prominent ecclesiastics, in 1283 or 1284, formed a conspiracy to destroy the books of the Inquisition containing the confessions and depositions. How far this was organized it would be difficult now to say. The statements of the witnesses conflict so hopelessly on material points, even as to dates, that there is little dependence to be placed on them. They were evidently extracted under torture, and if they are credible the consuls of the city and the archdeacon, Sanche Morlana, the episcopal Ordinary, Guillem Brunet, other episcopal officials and many of the secular clergy were not only implicated in the plot, but were heretics in full affiliation with the Cathari. Whether true or false they show that there was the sharpest antagonism between the Inquisition and the local Church. The whole has an air of unreality which renders one doubtful about accepting any portion, but there must have been some foundation for the story. According to the evidence Bernard Garric, who had been a perfected heretic and a _filius major_, but had been converted and was now a familiar of the Inquisition, was selected as the instrument. He was approached, and after some bargaining he agreed to deliver the books for two hundred livres Tournois, for the payment of which the consuls went security. How the attempt failed and how it was discovered does not appear, but probably Bernard at the first overtures confided the plot to his superiors and led on the conspirators to their ruin.[64]

The whole community was now at the mercy of the Inquisition, and it was not disposed to be lenient in its triumph. While the trials were yet going on, the citizens made a fresh appeal to Pierre Chalus, the royal chancellor, who was pa.s.sing through Toulouse on a mission from the court of Paris to that of Aragon. This was easily disposed of, for on September 13, 1285, the inquisitors triumphantly brought before him Bernard Garric to repeat the confession made a week previous. He had thoroughly learned his lesson, and the only conclusion which the royal representative could reach was that Carca.s.sonne was a hopeless nest of heretics, deserving the severest measures of repression. As a last resort recourse was had to Honorius IV., but the only result was a brief from him to the inquisitors expressing his grief that the people of Carca.s.sonne should be impeding the Inquisition with all their strength, and ordering the punishment of the recalcitrants irrespective of their station, order, or condition, an expression which shows that the opposition had not arisen from heretics.[65]

In reply to these complaints the inquisitors could urge with some truth that heresy, though hidden, was still busy. Although heretic seigneurs and n.o.bles had been by this time well-nigh destroyed and their lands had pa.s.sed to others, there was still infection among the bourgeoisie of the cities and the peasantry. It is one of the noteworthy features of Catharism, moreover, that at no time during its existence were lacking earnest and devoted ministers, who took their lives in their hands and wandered around in secret among the faithful, administering spiritual comfort and instruction, making converts where they could, exhorting the young and hereticating the old. In toil and hardship and peril they pursued their work, gliding by night from one place of concealment to another, and their self-devotion was rivalled by that of their disciples. Few more touching narratives can be conceived than those which could be constructed from the artless confessions extorted from the peasant-folk who fell into the hands of the inquisitors--the humble alms which they gave, pieces of bread, fish, sc.r.a.ps of cloth, or small coins, the hiding-places which they constructed in their cabins, the guidance given by night through places of danger, and, more than all, the steadfast fidelity which refused to betray their pastors when the inquisitor suddenly appeared and offered the alternative of free pardon or the dungeon and confiscation. The self-devotion of the minister was well matched with the quiet heroism of the believer. To this fidelity and the complete network of secret organization which extended over the land may be attributed the marvellously long exemption which many of these ministers enjoyed in their proselyting missions. Two of the most prominent of them at this period, Raymond Delboc and Raymond G.o.dayl, or Didier, had already, in 1276, been condemned by the Inquisition of Carca.s.sonne as perfected heretics and fugitives, but they kept at their work until the explosion of 1300, incessantly active, with the inquisitors always in pursuit but unable to overtake them. Guillem Pages is another whose name constantly recurs in the confessions of heretications during an almost equally long period. The inquisitors might well urge that their utmost efforts were needed, but their methods were such that even the best intentions would not have saved the innocent from suffering with the guilty.[66]

The secretly guilty were quite sufficiently influential, and the innocent sufficiently apprehensive, to keep up the agitation which had been commenced, and at last it began to bear fruit. A new inquisitor of Carca.s.sonne, Nicholas d'Abbeville, was quite as cruel and arbitrary as his predecessors, and when the people prepared an appeal to the king he promptly threw into jail the notary who drew up the paper. In their desperation they disregarded this warning; a deputation was sent to the court, and this time they were listened to. May 13, 1291, Philippe addressed a letter to his Seneschal of Carca.s.sonne reciting the injuries inflicted by the Inquisition on the innocent through the newly-invented system of torture, by means of which the living and the dead were fraudulently convicted and the whole land scandalized and rendered desolate. The royal officials were therefore ordered no longer to obey the commands of the inquisitors in making arrests, unless the accused be a confessed heretic or persons worthy of faith vouch for his being publicly defamed for heresy. A month later he reiterated these orders even more precisely, and announced his intention of sending deputies to Languedoc armed with full authority to make permanent provision in the matter. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of these manifestoes as marking a new era in the relations between the temporal and spiritual authorities. For far less than this all the chivalry and sc.u.m of Europe had been promised salvation if they would drive Raymond of Toulouse from his inheritance.[67]

It was probably to break in some degree the force of this unheard-of interference with inquisitorial supremacy that in September, 1292, Guillem de Saint-Seine, Inquisitor of Carca.s.sonne, ordered all the parish priests in his district for three weeks on Sundays and feast-days to denounce as excommunicate all who should impede the business of the Inquisition and all notaries who should wickedly draw up revocations of confessions for heretics. This could not effect much, nor was anything accomplished by a Parlement held April 14, 1293, at Montpellier, by the royal chamberlain, Alphonse de Ronceyrac, of all the royal officials and inquisitors of Toulouse and Carca.s.sonne to reform the abuses of all jurisdictions.[68]

Shortly after this, in September, 1293, Philippe went a step further and threw his aegis over the unfortunate Jew. Although Jews as a cla.s.s were not liable to persecution by the Inquisition, still, if after being once converted they reverted to Judaism, or if they proselyted among Christians to obtain converts, or if they were themselves converts from Christianity, they were heretics in the eyes of the Church, they fell under inquisitorial jurisdiction, and were liable to be abandoned to the secular arm. All these cla.s.ses were a source of endless trouble to the Church, especially the "neophytes" or converted Jews, for feigned conversions were frequent, either for worldly advantage or to escape the incessant persecution visited upon the unlucky children of Israel.[69]

The bull _Turbato corde_, ordering the inquisitors to be active and vigilant in prosecuting all who were guilty of these offences, issued in 1268 by Clement IV., was reissued by successive popes with a pertinacity showing the importance attached to it, and when we see Frere Bertrand de la Roche, in 1274, officially described as inquisitor in Provence against heretics and wicked Christians who embrace Judaism, and Frere Guillaume d'Auxerre, in 1285, qualified as "Inquisitor of Heretics and Apostate Jews in France," it is evident that these cases formed a large portion of inquisitorial business. As the Jews were peculiarly defenceless, this jurisdiction gave wide opportunity for abuse and extortion which was doubtless turned fully to account. Philippe owed them protection, for in 1291 he had deprived them of their own judges and ordered them to plead in the royal courts, and now he proceeded to protect them in the most emphatic manner. To Simon Brisetete, Seneschal of Carca.s.sonne, he sent a copy of the bull _Turbato corde_, with instructions that while this was to be implicitly obeyed, no Jew was to be arrested for any cause not specified therein, and, if there was any doubt, the matter was to be referred to the royal council. He further enclosed an Ordonnance directing that no Jew in France was to be arrested on the requisition of any person or friar of any Order, no matter what his office might be, without notifying the seneschal or bailli, who was to decide whether the case was sufficiently clear to be acted upon without reference to the royal council. Simon Brisetete thereupon ordered all officials to defend the Jews, not to allow any exactions to be imposed on them whereby their ability to pay their taxes might be impaired, and not to arrest them at the mandate of any one without informing him of the cause. It would not have been easy to limit more skilfully the inquisitorial power to oppress a despised cla.s.s.[70]

Philippe had thus intervened in the most decided manner, and the oppressed populations of Languedoc might reasonably hope for permanent relief, but his subsequent policy belied their hopes. It vacillated in a manner which is only partially explicable by the shifting political exigencies of the times so far as we can penetrate them. In this same year, 1293, the Seneschal of Carca.s.sonne is found instructing Aimeric, the Viscount of Narbonne, to execute royal letters ordering aid to be rendered to the inquisitors there. This may have been a mere local matter, and Philippe, for a while at least, adhered to his position.

Towards the end of 1295 there was issued an Ordonnance of the royal court, applicable to the whole kingdom, forbidding the arrest of any one on the demand of a friar of any Order, no matter what his position might be, unless the seneschal or bailli of the jurisdiction was satisfied that the arrest should be made, and the person asking it showed a commission from the pope. This was sent to all the royal officials with strict injunctions to obey it, although, if the accused were likely to fly, he might be detained, but not surrendered until the decision of the court could be had. Moreover, if any persons were then in durance contrary to the provisions of the Ordonnance, they were to be set at liberty. Even this did not effect its object sufficiently, and a few months later, in 1296, Philippe complained to his Seneschal of Carca.s.sonne of the numbers who were arrested by the royal officers, and confined in the royal prisons on insufficient grounds, causing scandal and the heavy infliction of infamy on the innocent. To prevent this arrests were forbidden except in cases of such violent presumption of heresy that they could not be postponed, and the officials were instructed, when called upon by the inquisitors, to make such excuses as they could. These orders were obeyed, for when, about this time, Foulques de Saint-Georges, Vice-inquisitor of Carca.s.sonne, ordered the arrest of sundry suspects by Adam de Marolles, the deputy seneschal, the latter referred the matter to his princ.i.p.al, Henri de Elisia, who, after consultation with Robert d'Artois, lieutenant of the king in Languedoc and Gascony, refused the demand.[71]

No previous sovereign had ventured thus to trammel the Inquisition.

These regulations, in fact, rendered it virtually powerless, for it had no organization of its own; even its prisons were the king's and might be withdrawn at any time, and it depended wholly upon the secular arm for physical force. In some places, as at Albi, it might rely upon episcopal a.s.sistance, but elsewhere it could do nothing of itself.

Philippe had, moreover, been careful not to excite the ill-will of his bishops, for his Ordonnances and instructions alluded simply to the friars, thus excluding the Inquisition from royal aid without specifically naming it. His quarrel with Boniface VIII. was now beginning. Between January, 1296, and February, 1297, appeared the celebrated bulls _Clericis laicos_, _Ineffabilis amoris_, _Excitat nos_, and _Exiit a te_, whose arrogant encroachments on the secular power aroused him to resistance, and this doubtless gave a sharper zest to his desire to diminish in his dominions the authority of so purely papal an inst.i.tution as the Inquisition. So shrewd a prince could readily see its effectiveness as an instrument of papal aggression, for the Church could make what definition it pleased of heresy; and Boniface did not hesitate to give him fair warning, when, in October, 1297, he ordered the Inquisitor of Carca.s.sonne to proceed against certain officials of Beziers who had rendered themselves in the papal eyes suspect of heresy because they remained under excommunication, incurred for imposing taxes on the clergy, boasting that food had not lost its savor to them nor sleep its sweetness, and who, moreover, dared with polluted lips to revile the Holy See itself. Under such an extension of jurisdiction Philippe himself might not be safe, and it is no wonder that tentative efforts made in 1296 and 1297 to find some method of reconciling the recent royal Ordonnances with the time-honored absolutism of the Inquisition proved failures.[72]

Meanwhile, the exigencies of Italian politics caused Boniface suddenly to retrace his steps. His quarrel with the Cardinals Giacomo and Pietro Colonna rendered it advisable to propitiate Philippe. In May, 1297, he a.s.sented to a t.i.the conceded to the king by his bishops, and in the bull _Noveritis_ (July, 1297) he exempted France from the operation of the _Clericis laicos_, while in _Licet per speciales_ (July, 1298) he withdrew his arrogant pretension imperatively to prolong the armistice between France and England. A truce was thus patched up with Philippe, who hastened to manifest his good-will to the Holy See by abandoning his subjects again to the inquisitors. In the Liber s.e.xtus of the Decretals, published by Boniface March 3, 1298, the pope included, with customary imperiousness, a canon commanding the absolute obedience of all secular officials to the orders of inquisitors under penalty of excommunication, which if endured for a year carried with it condemnation for heresy.

This was his answer to the French monarch's insubordinate legislation, and Philippe at the moment was not inclined to contest the matter. In September he meekly enclosed the canon to his officials with instructions to obey it in every point, arresting and imprisoning all whom inquisitors or bishops might designate, and punishing all whom they might condemn. A letter of Frere Arnaud Jean, Inquisitor of Pamiers, dated March 2, of the same year, a.s.suring the Jews that they need dread no novel measures of severity, would seem to indicate that the royal protection had been previously withdrawn from them. The good understanding between king and pope lasted until 1300, when the quarrel broke out afresh with greater acrimony than ever. In December of that year the provisions of _Clericis laicos_ were renewed by the bull _Nuper ex rationalibus_, followed by the short one, of which the authenticity is disputed, _Scire te volumus_, a.s.serting Philippe's subjection in temporal affairs and calling forth his celebrated rejoinder, _Sciat tua maxima fatuitas_. The strife continued with increasing violence till the seizure of Boniface at Anagni, September 8, 1303, and his death in the following month.[73]

Under this varying policy the fate of the people of Languedoc was hard.

Nicholas d'Abbeville, the Inquisitor of Carca.s.sonne, was a man of inflexible severity, arrogantly bent on pushing his prerogatives to the utmost. He had an a.s.sistant worthy of him in Foulques de Saint-Georges, the Prior of the Convent of Albi, which was under his jurisdiction. He had virtually another a.s.sistant in the bishop, Bernard de Castanet, who delighted to act as inquisitor, impelled alike by fanaticism and by greed, for, as we have seen, the bishops of Albi, by a special transaction with St. Louis, enjoyed a half of the confiscations. Prior to his elevation in 1276 Bernard had been auditor of the papal camera, which shows him to have been an accomplished legist, and he was also a patron of art and literature, but he was ever in trouble with his people. Already, in 1277, he had succeeded in so exasperating them that his palace was swept by a howling mob, and he barely escaped with his life. In 1282 he commenced the erection of the cathedral of St. Cecilia, a gigantic building, half church, half fortress, which swallowed enormous sums, and stimulated his hatred of heresy by supplying a pious use for the estates of heretics.[74]

To such men the protection granted to his subjects by Philippe was most distasteful, and not without reason. Heretics naturally took advantage of the restrictions imposed on the Inquisition and redoubled their activity. It might seem, indeed, to them that the day of supremacy of the Church was past, and that the rising independence of the secular power might usher in an era of comparative toleration, in which their persecuted religion would at length find its oft-deferred opportunity of converting mankind--a dream in which they indulged to the last. More demonstrative, if not more earnest, was the feeling which the royal policy aroused in Carca.s.sonne. The Ordonnances had not only crippled the Inquisition, but had shown the disfavor with which it was regarded by the king, and in 1295 some of the leading citizens, who had been compromised in the trials of 1285, found no difficulty in arousing the people to open resistance. For a while they controlled the city, and inflicted no little injury on the Dominicans, and on all who ventured to support them. Nicholas d'Abbeville was driven from the pulpit when preaching, pelted with stones and pursued with drawn swords, and the judges of the royal court on one occasion were glad to escape with their lives, while the friars were beaten and insulted when they appeared in public and were practically segregated as excommunicates. Bernard Gui, an eye-witness, naturally attributes this to the influence of heresy, but it is impossible for us now to conjecture how much may have been due to religious antagonism, and how much to the natural reaction among the orthodox against the intolerable oppression of the inquisitorial methods.[75]

For some years the Inquisition of Carca.s.sonne was suspended. As soon as secular support was withdrawn public opinion was too strong, and it succ.u.mbed. This lasted until the truce between king and pope again placed the royal power at the disposal of the inquisitors. In their despair the citizens then sent envoys to Boniface VIII., with Aimeric Castel at their head, supported by a number of Franciscans. Boniface listened to their complaints and proposed to depute the Bishop of Vicenza as commissioner to examine and report, but the papal referendary, afterwards Cardinal of S. Sabina, required a bribe of ten thousand florins as a preliminary. It was promised him, but Aimeric, having secured the good offices of Pierre Flotte and the Duke of Burgundy, thought he could obtain his purpose for less, and refused to pay it. When Boniface heard of the refusal he angrily exclaimed, "We know in whom they trust, but by G.o.d all the kings in Christendom shall not save the people of Carca.s.sonne from being burned, and specially the father of that Aimeric Castel!" The negotiation fell through, and Nicholas d'Abbeville had his triumph. A large portion of the citizens were wearied with the disturbances, and were impatient under the excommunication which rested on the community. The prosperity of the town was declining, and there were not wanting those who predicted its ruin. The hopelessness of further resistance was apparent, and matters being thus ripe for a settlement, a solemn a.s.sembly was held, April 27, 1299, when the civic magistrates met the inquisitor in the presence of the Bishops of Albi and Beziers, Bertrand de Clermont, Inquisitor of Toulouse, the royal officials, sundry abbots and other notables.

Nicholas dictated his own terms for the absolution asked at his hands, nor were they seemingly harsh. Those who were manifest heretics, or specially defamed, or convicted by legal proof must take their chance.

The rest were to be penanced as the bishops and the Abbot of Fontfroide might advise, excluding confiscation and personal or humiliating penalties. All this was reasonable enough from an ecclesiastical point of view, but so deep-seated was the distrust, or so strong the heretical influence, that the people asked twenty-four hours for consideration, and on rea.s.sembling the next day refused the terms. Six months pa.s.sed, their helplessness and isolation each day becoming more apparent, until, October 8, they rea.s.sembled, and the consuls asked for absolution in the name of the community. Nicholas was not severe. The penance imposed on the town was the building of a chapel in honor of St. Louis, which was accomplished in the year 1300 at the cost of ninety livres Tournois. The consuls, in the name of the community, secretly abjured heresy. Twelve of the most guilty citizens were reserved for special penances, viz., four of the old consuls, four councillors, two advocates, and two notaries. Of these the fate was doubtless deplorable. Chance has preserved to us the sentence pa.s.sed on one of the authors of the troubles, Guillem Garric, by which we find that he rotted in the horrible dungeon of Carca.s.sonne for twenty-two years before he was brought forward for judgment in 1321, when in consideration of his long confinement he was given the choice between the crusade and exile, and the crushed old man fell on his knees and gave thanks to Jesus Christ and to the inquisitors for the mercy vouchsafed him. Some years later intense excitement was created when Frere Bernard Delicieux obtained sight of the agreement, and discovered that the consuls had been represented in it as confessing that the whole community had given aid to manifest heretics, that they had abjured in the name of all, and thus that all citizens were incapacitated for office and were exposed to the penalties of relapse in case of further trouble. This excited the people to such a point that the inquisitor, Geoffroi d'Ablis, was obliged to issue a solemn declaration, August 10, 1303, disclaiming any intention of thus taking advantage of the settlement; and notwithstanding this, when King Philippe came to Carca.s.sonne in 1305 the agreement was p.r.o.nounced fraudulent, the seneschal Gui Caprier was dismissed for having affixed his seal to it, and confessed that he had been bribed to do so by Nicholas d'Abbeville with a thousand livres Tournois.[76]

Encouraged by the crippling and suspension of the Inquisition, the Catharan propaganda had been at work with renewed vigor. In 1299 the Council of Beziers sounded the alarm by announcing that perfected heretics had made their appearance in the land, and ordering close search made after them. At Albi, Bishop Bernard was, as usual, at variance with his flock, who were pleading against him in the royal court to preserve their jurisdiction. The occasion was opportune. He called to his a.s.sistance the inquisitors Nicholas d'Abbeville and Bertrand de Clermont, and towards the close of the year 1299 the town was startled by the arrest of twenty-five of the wealthiest and most respected citizens, whose regular attendance at ma.s.s and observance of all religious duties had rendered them above suspicion. The trials were pushed with unusual celerity, and, from the manner in which those who at first denied were speedily brought to confession and to revealing the names of their a.s.sociates, there was doubtless good ground for the popular belief that torture was ruthlessly and unsparingly used; in fact, allusions to it in the final sentence of Guillem Calverie, one of the victims, leave no doubt on the subject. Abjuration saved them from the stake, but the sentence of perpetual imprisonment in chains was a doubtful mercy for those who were sentenced, while a number were kept interminably in jail awaiting judgment.[77]

The whole country was ripe for revolt. The revival of Philippe's quarrel with Boniface soon gave a.s.surance that help might be expected from the throne; but if this should fail there would be scant hesitation on the part of desperate men in looking for some other sovereign who would lend an ear to their complaints. The arrest and trial for treason of the Bishop of Pamiers, in 1301, shows us what was then the undercurrent of popular feeling in Languedoc, where the Frenchman was still a hated stranger, the king a foreign despot, and the people discontented and ready to shift their allegiance to either England or Aragon whenever they could see their advantage in it. The fragile tenure with which the land was still held by the Kings of Paris must be kept in view if we would understand Philippe's shifting policy.[78]

The prosecutions of Albi caused general terror, for the victims were universally thought to be good Catholics, selected for spoliation on account of their wealth. The conviction was widespread that such inquisitors as Jean de Faugoux, Guillem de Mulceone, Jean de Saint-Seine, Jean Galande, Nicholas d'Abbeville, and Foulques de Saint-Georges had long had no scruple in obtaining, by threats and torture, such testimony as they might desire against any one whom they might wish to ruin, and that their records were falsified, and filled with fict.i.tious entries for that purpose. Some years before, Frere Jean Martin, a Dominican, had invoked the interposition of Pierre de Montbrun, Archbishop of Narbonne (died 1286), to put a stop to this iniquity. Some investigation was made, and the truth of the charges was established. The dead were found to be the special prey of these vultures, who had prepared their frauds in advance. Even the fierce orthodoxy of the Marechaux de la Foi could not save Gui de Levis of Mirepoix from this posthumous attack; and, when Gautier de Montbrun, Bishop of Carca.s.sonne, died, they produced from their records proof that he had adored heretics and had been hereticated on his death-bed. In this latter case, fortunately, the archbishop happened to know that one of the witnesses, Jourdain Ferrolh, had been absent at the time when, by his alleged testimony, he had seen the act of adoration. Frere Jean Martin urged the archbishop to destroy all the records and cause the Dominicans to be deprived of their functions, and the prelate made some attempt at Rome to effect this, contenting himself meanwhile with issuing some regulations and sequestrating some of the books. It was probably during this flurry that the Inquisitors of Carca.s.sonne and Toulouse, Nicholas d'Abbeville and Pierre de Mulceone, hearing that they were likely to be convicted of fraud, retired with their records to the safe retreat of Prouille and busied themselves in making a transcript, with the compromising entries omitted, which they ingeniously bound in the covers stripped from the old volumes.[79]

About this time occurred a case which confirms the popular belief in inquisitorial iniquity, and which had results of vastly greater importance than its promoters antic.i.p.ated. When the disappointed Boniface VIII. swore that he would cause the burning of Aimeric Castel's father, he uttered no idle threat. Nicholas d'Abbeville, a fitting instrument, was at hand, and to him he privately gave the necessary verbal instructions. Castel Fabri, the father, had been a citizen of Carca.s.sonne distinguished for piety and benevolence no less than for wealth. A friend of the Franciscan Order, after duly receiving the sacraments, he had died, in 1278, in the hands of its friars, six of whom kept watch in the sick-room until his death, and he had been buried in the Franciscan cemetery. We have seen in the case of the Count of Foix how easily all these precautions could be brushed aside, and Nicholas found no difficulty in discovering or making the evidence he required.[80] Suddenly, in 1300, the people of Carca.s.sonne were startled by a notice, read in all the parish churches, summoning those wishing to defend the memory of Castel Fabri to appear before the Inquisition on a day named, as the deceased was proved to have been hereticated on his death-bed. The moment was well chosen, as Aimeric Castel, the son, was absent. The Franciscans, for whom the accused had doubtless provided liberally in his will, felt themselves called upon to a.s.sume his defence. Hastily consulting, they determined to send their lector, Bernard de Liegossi, or Delicieux, to the General Chapter then a.s.sembling at Ma.r.s.eilles, for instructions, as, in the chronic antagonism between the Mendicants, the matter seemed to be regarded as an a.s.sault on the Order. The wife of Aimeric Castel provided for the expenses of the journey, and Bernard returned with instructions from the provincial to defend the memory of the deceased, while Eleazar de Clermont, the syndic of the convent, was deputed by the Guardian of Narbonne to co-operate with him. Meanwhile Nicholas had proceeded to condemnation, and when, July 4, 1300, Bernard and Eleazar presented themselves to offer the testimony of the friars who had watched the dying man, Nicholas received them standing, refused to listen to them, and on their urging their evidence left the room in the most contemptuous manner. In the afternoon they returned to ask for a certificate of their offer and its refusal, but found the door of the Inquisition closed, and could not effect an entrance.

The next step was to take an appeal to the Holy See and ask for "Apostoli," but this was no easy matter. So general was the terror inspired by Nicholas that the doctor of decretals, Jean de Penne, to whom they applied to draw the paper, refused unless his name should be kept inviolably secret, and nineteen years afterwards Bernard when on trial refused to reveal it until compelled to do so. To obtain a notary to authenticate the appeal was still harder. All those in Carca.s.sonne absolutely refused, and it was found necessary to bring one from a distance, so that it was not until July 16 that the doc.u.ment was ready for service. How seriously, indeed, all parties regarded what should have been a very simple business is shown by the winding-up of the appeal, which places, until the case is decided, not only the body of Castel Fabri, but the appellants and the whole Franciscan convent, under the protection of the Holy See. When they went to serve the instrument on Nicholas the doors, as before, were found closed and entrance could not be effected. It was therefore read in the street and left tacked on the door, to be taken down and treasured and brought forward in evidence against Bernard in 1319. We have no further records of the case, but that the appeal was ineffectual is visible in the fact that in 1322-3 the accounts of Arnaud a.s.salit show that the royal treasury was still receiving an income from the confiscated estates of Castel Fabri; while in 1329 the still unsatisfied vengeance of the Inquisition ordered the bones of his wife Rixende to be exhumed.[81]

The case of Castel Fabri might have pa.s.sed unnoticed, like thousands of others, had it not chanced to bring into collision with the Inquisition the lector of the convent of Carca.s.sonne. Bernard Delicieux was no ordinary man, in fact a contemporary a.s.sures us that in the whole Franciscan Order there were few who were his equals. Entering the Order about 1284, his position of lector or teacher shows the esteem felt for his learning, for the Mendicants were ever careful in selecting those to whom they confided such functions; and, moreover, we find him in relations with the leading minds of the age, such as Raymond Lully and Arnaldo de Vilanova. His eloquence made him much in request as preacher; his persuasiveness enabled him to control those with whom he came in contact, while his enthusiastic ardor prompted him to make any sacrifices necessary to a cause which had once enlisted his sympathies.

He was no lat.i.tudinarian or time-server, for when the split came in his own Order he embraced, to his ruin, the side of the Spiritual Franciscans, with the same disregard of self as he had manifested in his dealings with the Inquisition. He was no admirer of toleration, for he devoutly wished the extermination of heresy, but experience and observation had convinced him that in Dominican hands the Inquisition was merely an instrument of oppression and extortion, and he imagined that by transferring it to the Franciscans its usefulness would be preserved while its evils would be removed. Boniface VIII., as we have seen, about this time replaced the Franciscan inquisitors of Padua and Vicenza with Dominicans for the purpose of repressing similar evils, and in the jealousy and antagonism between the two orders the converse operation might seem worth attempting in Languedoc. In the hope of alleviating the sufferings of the people, Bernard devoted himself to the cause for years, incurring obloquy, persecution, and ingrat.i.tude. Those whom he sought to serve allowed him to sell his books in their service, and to cripple himself with debt, while the enmities which he excited hounded him relentlessly to the death. Yet in the struggle he had the sympathies of his own Order which everywhere throughout Languedoc manifested itself the enemy of the Dominican Inquisition. Already, in 1291, Franciscans in Carca.s.sonne had endeavored to intervene in cases of heresy, and had been sharply reproved by Philippe le Bel at the instance of the Inquisitor Guillaume de Saint-Seine. In 1298 they had supported the appeal of the men of Carca.s.sonne to Boniface VIII., and throughout the whole of Bernard's agitation the Franciscan convents are seen to be rallying-points of the opposition. It is there that Bernard preaches his fiery sermons; it is there that meetings are held to plan resistance.

During the troubles in Carca.s.sonne Foulques de Saint-Georges went with twenty-five men to the Franciscan convent to cite the opponents of the Inquisition. The friars would not admit them, but tolled the bell and an angry crowd a.s.sembled, while those inside the convent a.s.sailed them with stones and quarrels, and they were glad to escape with their lives.[82]

Vainly the inquisitors complained to the Franciscan prelates of Bernard as an impeder of the Holy Office. The form of a trial would be gone through, and the offender would be furnished with letters attesting his innocence. The Dominicans a.s.serted that Franciscan zeal was solely caused by jealousy; the Franciscans retorted that their friends were the special objects of inquisitorial persecution. King Philippe's confessor was a Dominican, Queen Joanna's a Franciscan, and the two courtly friars took part, for and against the Inquisition, with a zeal which rendered them important factors in the struggle. The undying hostility between the two Orders always led them to opposite sides in every question of dogma or practice, and this was one which afforded the amplest scope to bitterness.[83]

The _coup-de-main_ executed on the so-called heretics of Albi, in December, 1299, and the early months of 1300, had excited consternation too general for the matter to be pa.s.sed over. King Philippe's quarrel with Boniface was breaking out afresh, and he might not be averse to making his subjects feel that they had a protector in the throne. With the advice of his council an investigation was ordered, and confided to the Bishops of Beziers and Maguelonne, but the inquisitors arrogantly and persistently refused to allow the secrets of their office to be invaded. This was not calculated to remove popular disquiet, and in 1301 Philippe sent to Languedoc two officials armed with supreme powers, under the name of Reformers. As the royal authority extended and established itself, special deputies for the investigation and correction of abuses were frequently despatched to the provinces. In the present case those who came to Languedoc perhaps had for their chief business the arrest of the Bishop of Pamiers, accused of treasonable practices, but the colorable pretext for their mission was the correction of inquisitorial abuses. One of them, Jean de Pequigny, Vidame of Amiens, was a man of high character for probity and sagacity; the other was Richard Nepveu, Archdeacon of Lisieux, of whom we hear little in the following years, except that he quietly slipped into the vacant episcopate of Beziers. He must have done his duty to some extent, however, for Bernard Gui tells us that he died in 1309 of leprosy, as a judgment of G.o.d for his hostility to the Inquisition.[84]

The Reformers established themselves at Toulouse, where Foulques de Saint-Georges had been inquisitor since Michaelmas, 1300, and speedily gathered much damaging testimony against him, for he was accused not only of unduly torturing persons for purposes of extortion, but of gratifying his l.u.s.ts by arresting women whose virtue he failed otherwise to overcome. Thither flocked representatives of Albi, with the wives and children of the prisoners, beseeching and imploring the representatives of the king for justice, and promising revelations if they would issue letters of safety to those who would give information--for the terror inspired by the Inquisition was such that no one dared to testify concerning it unless he was a.s.sured of protection against its vengeance.

The Bishop of Albi came also to justify himself, and on his return to his episcopal seat he was welcomed with a manifestation of the feeling entertained for him by his flock, whom the coming of the Reformers encouraged in the expression or their sentiments. When his approach was announced a crowd of men and women rushed forth from the gates to meet him with shouts of "Death, death, death to the traitor!" It may perhaps be doubted whether, as reported, he bore the threats and insults with patience akin to that of Christ, ordering his followers to keep their weapons down; certain it is that he was roughly handled, and had difficulty in safely reaching his palace. A conspiracy was formed to burn the palace, in order, during the confusion, to liberate the prisoners, but the hearts of the conspirators failed them and the project was abandoned. Even more menacing was the action of a number of the chief citizens, who bound themselves by a notarial instrument to prosecute him and Nicholas d'Abbeville in the king's court. As a consequence, the bishop's temporalities were sequestrated, and eventually the enormous fine of twenty thousand livres stripped him of a portion of his ill-gotten gains for the benefit of the king, who was bitterly reproached by Bernard Delicieux for thus preferring money to justice. Bernard de Castanet retained his uneasy seat until 1308, when, seeing under Clement V. no prospect of better times, he procured a transfer to the quieter see of Puy. One of the earliest signs of the revulsion under John XXII. was his advancement, in December, 1316, to the Cardinalate of Porto, which he held for only eight months, his death occurring in August, 1317.[85]

The Reformers, meanwhile, had sent for Bernard Delicieux, who was then quietly performing his duties as lector in the convent of Narbonne. He must already have made himself conspicuous in the affair of Castel Fabri, and was evidently regarded as a desirable ally in the impending struggle. According to his own story he advised Pequigny to let the Inquisition alone, as experience had shown that effort was useless; but on being called again to Toulouse on some business connected with the Priory of la Daurade, and having to visit Paris in connection with the will of Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, it was arranged, at Pequigny's suggestion, that he should accompany a deputation which the citizens of Albi were sending to the king to invoke his active intervention. The court was at Senlis, whither they repaired, and there came also Pequigny to justify himself, and Frere Foulques with several Dominicans, eager to establish the innocence of the Inquisition.[86]

The battle was fought out before the king. Bernard urged the suspension of the inquisitors during an investigation, or that the Dominicans should be permanently declared ineligible while awaiting final action by the Holy See. Supported by Frere Guillaume, the king's Dominican confessor, Foulques preferred charges against Pequigny, but could furnish no proofs. Pequigny retorted with accusations against Foulques, and a commission, consisting of the Arch