A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages Volume II Part 3

The prospect of relief was darkened by the election, October 21, of Benedict XI., himself a Dominican and necessarily pre-disposed in favor of the Inquisition. Special exertions evidently were required unless all that had been gained was to be lost, and, at the best, litigation in the Roman court was a costly business. Pequigny had appealed to the pope, and, October 29, he wrote from Paris to the cities of Languedoc asking for their aid in the persecution which he had brought upon himself in their cause. Bernard Delicieux promptly busied himself to obtain the required a.s.sistance. By his exertions the three cities of Carca.s.sonne, Albi, and Cordes entered into an alliance and pledged themselves to furnish the sum of three thousand livres, one half by Carca.s.sonne and the rest by the other two, and to continue in the same proportions as long as the affair should last. After Pequigny's death they renewed their obligation to his oldest son Renaud; but as the matter was much protracted, they grew tired, and Bernard, who had raised some of the money on his own responsibility, was left with heavy obligations, of which he vainly sought rest.i.tution at the hands of the ungrateful cities.[93]

The quarrel was thus for a time transferred to Rome. Pequigny went to Italy with envoys from the king and from Carca.s.sonne and Albi to plead his cause, and was opposed by Guillaume de Morieres, the Inquisitor of Toulouse, sent thither to manage the case against him. Benedict was not slow in showing on which side his sympathies lay. At Perugia, while the pope was conducting the solemnities of Pentecost, May 17, 1304, Pequigny ventured to enter the church. Benedict saw him, and, pointing to him, said to his marshal, P. de Brayda, "Turn out that Patarin!" an order which the marshal zealously obeyed. The significance of the incident was not small, and after the death of both Benedict and Pequigny, Geoffroi d'Ablis caused a notarial instrument recounting it to be drawn up and duly authenticated as one of the doc.u.ments of the process. The climate of Italy was very unhealthy for Transmontanes. Morieres died at Perugia, and Pequigny followed him at Abruzzo, September 29, 1304, the anniversary of his excommunication. Having remained for a year under the ban for impeding the Inquisition, he was legally a heretic, and his burial in consecrated ground is only to be explained by the death of Benedict a short time before. Geoffroi d'Ablis demanded that his bones be exhumed and burned, while Pequigny's sons carried on the appeal for the rehabilitation of his memory. The matter dragged on till Clement V.

referred it to a commission of three cardinals. These gave a patient hearing to both sides, who argued the matter exhaustively, and submitted all the necessary doc.u.ments and papers. At last, July 23, 1308, they rendered their decision to the effect that the sentence of excommunication had been unjust and iniquitous, and that its revocation should be published in all places where it had been announced. Geoffroi fruitlessly endeavored to appeal from this, which was the most complete justification possible of all that had been said and done against the Inquisition, emphasized by Clement's cutting refusal to listen to his statements--"It is false: the land never wished to rebel, but was in evil case in consequence of the doings of the Inquisition," while a cardinal told him that for fifty years the people had been goaded to resistance by the excesses of his predecessors, and that when a corrective was applied they only added evil to evil.[94]

Benedict XI. had given other proofs of partisanship. It is true that in answer to the complaints of the oppressed people he appointed a commission of cardinals to investigate the matter, but there is no trace of their labors, which were probably cut short by his death, July 7, 1304. No commissioners of his selection would have been likely to report adversely to the Inquisition, for he manifested his prejudgment by ordering the Minister of Aquitaine, under pain of forfeiture of office and future disability, to arrest Frere Bernard without warning and send him under sufficient guard to the papal court, as a fautor of heretics and presumably a heretic. The leading citizens of Albi, including G. de Pesenches the viguier and Gaillard etienne the royal judge, who had sought to aid Pequigny, were also involved in the papal condemnation.

The Minister of Aquitaine intrusted to Frere Jean Rigaud the execution of the arrest, which he duly performed, June, 1304, in the convent of Carca.s.sonne, adding an excommunication when Bernard, encouraged by the active sympathy of the people, delayed in obeying the papal summons. He never went, and it is a curious ill.u.s.tration of Franciscan tendencies to see that the minister absolved him from the excommunication, and that the provincial chapter of his Order at Albi decided that he had done all that was requisite, though perhaps Benedict's death in July had relieved them from fears as to the immediate consequences of their contumacy.[95]

Meanwhile Philippe le Bel had at last fulfilled his promise to visit in person his southern provinces and rectify on the spot the wrongs of which his subjects had so long complained. He was expecting a favorable termination to his negotiation with Benedict for the removal of the excommunications launched by Boniface VIII. against himself and his subjects and chief agents, a result which he obtained May 13, 1304, with exception of the censure inflicted on Guillaume de Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna. When, therefore, he reached Toulouse on Christmas Day, 1303, he was not disposed to excite unnecessarily Benedict's prejudices. From Albi and Carca.s.sonne mult.i.tudes flocked to him with cries for redress and protection, and Pequigny spoke eloquently in their behalf. The inquisitors were represented by Guillem Pierre, the Dominican provincial, while Bernard Delicieux was foremost in the debate. It was on this occasion that he made his celebrated a.s.sertion that St. Peter and St. Paul would be convicted of heresy if tried with inquisitorial methods, and when the scandalized Bishop of Auxerre tartly reproved him, he stoutly maintained the truth of what he had said. Friar Nicholas, the king's Dominican confessor, was suspected of exercising undue influence in favor of the Inquisition, and Bernard endeavored to discredit him by accusing him of betraying to the Flemings all the secrets of the royal council. Geoffroi d'Ablis, the Inquisitor of Carca.s.sonne, moreover, was ingratiating himself with Philippe at the moment by skilful negotiations to bring about a reconciliation with Rome.[96]

Philippe patiently heard both sides, and recorded his conclusions in an edict of January 13, 1304, which was in the nature of a compromise. It recited that the king had come to Languedoc for the purpose of pacifying the country excited by the action of the Inquisition, and had had prolonged consultation on the subject with all who were ent.i.tled to express an opinion. The result thus reached was that the prisoners of the Inquisition should be visited by royal deputies in company with inquisitors; the prisons were to be safe, but not punitive. In the case of prisoners not yet sentenced the trials were to be carried to conclusion under the conjoined supervision of the bishops and inquisitors, and this co-operation was to be observed in the future, except at Albi, where the bishop, being suspected, was to be replaced by Arnaud Novelli, the Cistercian Abbot of Fontfroide. The royal officials were strictly ordered to aid in every way the inquisitors and episcopal ordinaries when called upon, and to protect from injury and violence the Dominicans, their churches and houses.[97]

At Albi the change had the wished-for effect. No more heretics were found and no further prosecutions were required. Yet the refusal of the king to entertain any project of reform other than his previous one of curbing the Inquisition with an illusory episcopal supervision was a grievous disappointment. Men naturally argued that if the Dominicans had done right they ought not to be insulted by the proposed episcopal co-operation; and if they had done wrong they ought to be replaced. If any change was called for, the projected one was insufficient. So many hopes had been built upon the royal presence in the land, that the result caused universal dismay, which was not relieved by Philippe's subsequent action. When he visited Carca.s.sonne he was urged to see the unfortunate captives whose persecution had been the prominent cause of the troubles, but he refused, and sent his brother Louis to look at them. Worse than all, the citizens had designed to propitiate him and demonstrate their loyalty by offering him some elaborate silver vessels.

These were yet in the hands of the gold-smiths of Montpellier when the royal party came to Carca.s.sonne, so they were sent after him to Beziers, where the presentation was made, a portion to him and the rest to the queen. She accepted the offering, but he not only rejected it, but, when he learned what the queen had done, forced her to return the present.

This threw the consuls of Carca.s.sonne into despair. Offerings of this kind from munic.i.p.alities to the sovereign were so customary and their gracious acceptance so much a matter of course, that refusal in this instance seemed to argue some most unfavorable intentions on the part of the king, which was not unlikely, seeing that Elias Patrice, the leading citizen of Carca.s.sonne, had plainly told him when there that if he did not render them speedy justice against the Inquisition they would be forced to seek another lord, and when Philippe ordered him from his presence the citizens obeyed Patrice's command to remove the decorations from the streets. Imagining that he had been won over by the Dominicans and that his protection would be withdrawn, the prospect of being abandoned to the mercy of the Inquisition seemed so terrible that they wildly declared that if they could not find another lord to protect them they would burn the town and with the inhabitants seek some place of refuge. In consultation with Frere Bernard it was hastily determined to offer their allegiance to Ferrand, son of the King of Majorca.

The younger branch of the House of Aragon, which drew its t.i.tle from the Balearic Isles, held the remnants of the old French possessions of the Catalans, including Montpellier and Perpignan. It had old claims to much of the land, and its rule might well be hailed by the people as much more welcome than the foreign domination to which they had been unwillingly subjected. Had the whole region agreed to transfer its allegiance, its reduction might have cost Philippe a doubtful struggle, embarra.s.sed as he was with the chronic disaffection of the Flemings.

When, however, the project was broached to the men of Albi, they refused peremptorily to embark in it, and there can be no stronger proof of the desperation of the Carca.s.sais than their resolution to persist in it single-handed. Ferrand and his father were at Montpellier entertaining the French court, which they accompanied to Nimes. He eagerly listened to the overtures, and asked Frere Bernard to come to him at Perpignan.

Bernard went thither with a letter of credence from the consuls, which he prudently destroyed on the road. The King of Majorca, when he heard of the offer, chastened his son's ambition by boxing his ears and pulling him around by the hair, and he ingratiated himself with his powerful neighbor by communicating the plot to Philippe.[98]

Although there could have been no real danger from so crazy a project, the relation of the southern provinces to the crown were too strained for the king not to exact a vengeance which should prove a warning. A court was a.s.sembled at Carca.s.sonne which sat through the summer of 1305 and made free use of torture in its investigations. Albi, which had taken no part in the plot, escaped an investigation by a bribe of one thousand livres to the seneschal, Jean d'Alnet, but the damage inflicted on the Franciscan convent shows that the Dominicans were keen to make reprisals for what they had suffered. The town of Limoux had been concerned in the affair; it was fined and disfranchised, and forty of its citizens were hanged. As for Carca.s.sonne, all of its eight consuls, with Elias Patrice at their head, and seven other citizens were hanged in their official robes, the city was deprived of self-government and subjected to the enormous fine of sixty thousand livres, a sentence from which it vainly appealed to the Parlement. As Bernard Gui observes with savage exultation, those who had croaked like ravens against the Dominicans were exposed to the ravens. Aimeric Castel, who had sought in this way to obtain redress for the wrong done to his father's memory and estate, escaped by flight, but was captured and long lay a prisoner, finally making his peace with a heavy ransom, and a harvest of fines was gathered into the royal exchequer from all who could be accused of privity. As for Frere Bernard, he received early intelligence from Frere Durand, the queen's confessor, of the discovery of the plot, when he boldly headed a delegation of citizens of Albi who went to Paris to protest their innocence. There Durand informed them that Albi was not implicated, when they returned, leaving Bernard. At the request of the king, Clement V. had him arrested and carried to Lyons, whence he was taken by the papal court to Bordeaux; and when it went to Poitiers he was confined in the convent of St. Junian of Limoges. In May, 1307, at the instance of Clement, Philippe issued letters of amnesty to all concerned, and remitted to Carca.s.sonne the portion of its fine not yet paid, and in Lent, 1308, Bernard was allowed to come to Poitiers. On the king's arrival there he boldly complained to him of his arrest and of the punishment which had involved the innocent with the guilty. As he still had no license to leave the papal court, he accompanied it to Avignon, and was at length discharged with the royal a.s.sent--the heavy bribes paid to three cardinals by his friends of Albi having perhaps something to do with his immunity. He returned to Toulouse, and we hear of no further activity on his part. His narrow escape probably sobered his restless enthusiasm, and as the reform of the Inquisition seemed to have been taken resolutely in hand by Clement V. he might well persuade himself that there was no further call for self-sacrifice.[99]

The death of Benedict XI., in July, 1304, had given fresh hopes to the sufferers from the Inquisition. There was an interregnum of nearly a year before the election of his successor, Clement V., June 5, 1305.

During this period a pet.i.tion to the College of Cardinals was presented by seventeen of the religious bodies of the Albigeois, including the canons of the cathedral of Albi, those of the church of St. Salvi, the convent of Gaillac, etc., imploring in the most pressing terms the Sacred College to intervene and avert the fearful dangers threatening the community. The land, they declare, is Catholic, the people are faithful, cherishing the religion of Rome in their hearts, and professing it with their lips. Yet so fierce are the dissensions between them and the inquisitors, that they are aroused to wrath and are eager to put to the sword those whom they have learned to regard as enemies.

Doubtless the inquisitors had taken advantage of the revulsion consequent upon the fruitless treason of Carca.s.sonne and of the altered att.i.tude of the king. Philippe thenceforth interfered no further, save to urge his representatives to renewed vigilance in enforcing the laws against heretics and the disabilities inflicted upon their descendants.

It was not only the treason of Carca.s.sonne which indisposed him to interfere; from 1307 onward he needed the indispensable aid of the Inquisition to carry out his designs against the Templars, and he could afford neither to antagonize it nor to limit its powers.[100]

The Sacred College, monopolized by electioneering intrigues, paid no heed to the imploring prayer of the Albigensian clergy, but when the year's turmoil was ended by the triumph of the French party in the election of Clement V. the hopes raised by the death of his predecessor might reasonably seem destined to fruition. Bertrand de Goth, Cardinal-Archbishop of Bordeaux, was a Gascon by birth, and, though an English subject, was doubtless more familiar than the Italians with the miseries and needs of Languedoc. His transfer of the papacy to French soil was also of good augury. Hardly had the news of his election reached Albi, when Frere Bernard was busy in organizing a mission to represent to him in the name of the city the necessity of relief, and when he visited Toulouse the wives of the prisoners, still languishing in confinement, were taken thither to make their woes emphatically known. Hardly had he been consecrated at Lyons when these complaints poured in and were substantiated by two Dominicans, Bertrand Blanc and Francois Aimeric, who were as emphatic as the representatives of Albi in their denunciations of inquisitorial methods and abuses. Geoffroi d'Ablis hurried thither from Carca.s.sonne to defend himself in such haste that he left no one to take his place, and was obliged to send from Lyons, September 29, 1305, a commission to Jean de Faugoux and Gerald de Blumac to act in his stead. In this paper his fiery fanaticism breathes forth in his denunciations of the horrid beasts, the cruel beasts, who are ravaging the vineyard of the Lord, and who are to be tracked to their dens and extirpated with unsparing rigor.[101]

His efforts to justify the Inquisition were unavailing, more especially, perhaps, because the people of Albi bribed Cardinal Raymond de Goth, the pope's nephew, with two thousand livres Tournois, the Cardinal of Santa Croce with as much, and the Cardinal Pier Colonna with five hundred.

March 13, 1306, Clement commissioned two cardinals, Pierre of San Vitale (afterwards of Palestrina) and Berenger of SS. Nereo and Achille (afterwards of Frascati), who were about to pa.s.s through Languedoc on a mission, to investigate and make such temporary changes as they should find necessary. The people of Carca.s.sonne, Albi, and Cordes had offered to prove that good Catholics were forced to confess heresy through the stress of torture and the horrors of the prisons, and further that the records of the Inquisition were altered and falsified. Until the investigation was completed, the inquisitors were not to consign to strict prison or to inflict torture on any one except in conjunction with the diocesan, and in the place of the Bishop of Albi the Abbot of Fontfroide was subrogated.

On April 16, 1306, the cardinals held a public session at Carca.s.sonne in presence of all the notables of the place. The consuls of Carca.s.sonne and the delegates of Albi preferred their complaints and were supported by the two Dominicans, Blanc and Aimeric, who had appeared before the pope. On the other hand, Geoffroi d'Ablis and the deputy of the Bishop of Albi defended themselves and complained of the popular riots and the ill-treatment to which they had been exposed. After hearing both sides the cardinals adjourned further proceedings until January 25, at Bordeaux, where Carca.s.sonne, Albi, and Cordes were each to send four procurators to conduct the matter. As this office was a most dangerous one, the cardinals gave security to them against the Inquisition during the performance of their duty. This was no idle precaution, and Aimeric Castel, one of the representatives of Carca.s.sonne, found himself in such danger that in September, 1308, he was obliged to procure from Clement a special bull forbidding the inquisitors to a.s.sail him until the termination of the affair. Even greater danger impended over any witnesses called upon to prove the falsification of records, as they were bound to silence under oaths which exposed them to the stake as relapsed heretics in case they revealed their evidence, and the cardinals were asked to absolve them from these oaths.[102]

If there were any further formal proceedings in this matter, which thus a.s.sumed the shape of a litigation between the people and the Inquisition, they have not reached us. Yet the cardinals, before continuing their journey, took some steps which showed that they were convinced of the truth of the accusations. They visited the prison of Carca.s.sonne, and caused the prisoners, forty in number, of whom three were women, to be brought before them. Some of these were sick, others worn with age, and all tearfully complaining of the horrors of their lot, the insufficiency of food and bedding, and the cruelty of their keepers. The cardinals were moved to dismiss all the jailers and attendants except the chief, and to put the prison under the control of the Bishop of Carca.s.sonne. It is significant that the oath imposed on the new officials bound them never to speak to a prisoner except in the presence of an a.s.sociate, and not to steal any of the food destined for those under their charge. One of the cardinals visited the prison of the Bishop of Albi, where he found the jailers well spoken of, but was shocked with the condition of the prisoners. Many of them were in chains and all in narrow, dark cells, where some of them had been confined for five years or more without being yet condemned. He ordered all chains removed, that light should be introduced in the cells, and that new and less inhuman ones should be built within a month. As regards general amelioration in inquisitorial proceedings, the only regulation which they issued was a confirmation of Philippe's expedient, requiring the co-operation of the diocesan with the inquisitor, and this was withdrawn by Clement, August 12, 1308, in an apologetic bull declaring that the cardinals had exceeded his intentions.[103]

The existence of the evils complained of was thus admitted, but the Church shrank from applying a remedy, and, after the struggle of years, relief was as illusory as ever. Even with regard to the crying and inexcusable abuse of the detention of prisoners in these fearful dungeons for long years without conviction or sentence, Clement found himself powerless to effect reform in the most flagrant cases. The inquisitors had in their archives a bull of Innocent IV. authorizing them to defer indefinitely pa.s.sing sentence when they deemed that delay was in the interest of the faith, and of this they took full advantage.

Of the captives seized by the Bishop of Albi in 1299, many were still unsentenced when the Cardinal of San Vitale examined his prisons. This visit pa.s.sed away without result. Five years afterwards, in 1310, Clement wrote to the Bishop of Albi and Geoffroi d'Ablis that the citizens of Albi, whom he names, had repeatedly appealed to him, after more than eight years of imprisonment, to have their trials completed either to condemnation or absolution. He therefore orders the trials proceeded with at once and the results submitted for confirmation to the Cardinals of Palestrina and Frascati, his former commissioners. Bertrand de Bordes, Bishop of Albi, and Geoffroi d'Ablis contemptuously disregarded this command, because some of the prisoners named in it had died before its date, whence they argued that the papal letter had been surrept.i.tiously obtained. When this contumacy reached the ears of Clement, some year or two later, he wrote to Geraud, then Bishop of Albi, and Geoffroi, peremptorily reiterating his commands and ordering them to try both living and dead. In spite of this, Geoffroi maintained his sullen contumacy. We have no means of knowing the fate of most of these unfortunates, who probably rotted to death in their dungeons without their trials being concluded; but of some of them we have traces, as related in a former chapter. After Clement and his cardinals had pa.s.sed away, and no further interference was to be dreaded, in 1319 two surviving ones, Guillem Salavert and Isarn Colli, were brought out for further examination, when the former confirmed his confession and the latter retracted it as extorted under torture. Six months later, Guillem Calverie of Cordes, who had been imprisoned in 1301, was abandoned to the secular arm for retracting his confession (probably before Clement's cardinals), and Guillem Salavert was allowed to escape with wearing crosses, in consideration of his nineteen years'

imprisonment without conviction. Even as late as 1328 attested copies made by order of the royal judge of Carca.s.sonne, of inventories of personal property of Raymond Calverie and Jean Baudier, two of the prisoners of 1299-1300, show that their cases were still the subject of litigation. Even more remarkable as a manifestation of contumacy is the case of Guillem Garric, held in prison for complicity in the attempt to destroy the records at Carca.s.sonne in 1284. Royal letters of 1312 recite that his merits and piety had caused Clement V. to grant him full pardon, wherefore the king restores to him and his descendants his confiscated castle of Monteirat. Yet the Inquisition did not relax its grip, but waited until 1321, when he was brought forth from prison, and in consideration of his contrition Bernard Gui mercifully sentenced the old man to perpetual banishment from France within thirty days.[104]

Another endeavor was made by Clement to repress the abuses of the Inquisition by transferring from its jurisdiction to that of the bishops the Jews of the provinces of Toulouse and Narbonne on account of the undue molestation to which they were continually subjected. This transfer even included cases then pending, but after Clement's death a bull was produced in which he annulled the previous one and restored the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.[105]

The outcome of all this struggle and investigation is to be found in the measures of reform adopted in 1312 by the Council of Vienne at Clement's instance. The five books of canon law known as the "Clementines,"

which were enacted by the council, were retained for revision by Clement, who was on the point of publishing them when he died, April 20, 1314. They were held in suspense during the long interregnum which followed, and were not authoritatively given to the world until October 25, 1317, by John XXII. The canons relating to the Inquisition have been alluded to above, and it will be remembered that they only restricted the power of the inquisitor by requiring episcopal concurrence in the use of torture, or of harsh confinement equivalent to torture, and in the custody of prisons. There was a _brutum fulmen_ of excommunication denounced against those who should abuse their power for purposes of hate, affection, or extortion, and the importance of the whole lies far less in the remedies it proposes than in its emphatic testimony of the existence of cruelty and corruption in every detail of inquisitorial practice. Bernard Gui vainly raised his voice in an earnest and elaborate protest against the publication of the new rules, and after their promulgation he did not hesitate openly to tell his brethren that they required to be modified or rather wholly suspended by the Holy See, but his expostulations were totally uncalled for. The closest examination of inquisitorial methods before and after the publication of the Clementines fails to reveal any influence exercised by them for good or for evil. No trace of any practical effort for their enforcement is to be found, and inquisitors went on, as was their wont, in the arbitrary fashion for which their office gave them such unlimited opportunity.[106]

One case may indeed be cited to show a special relaxation of the procedure against heretics. Philippe's hatred of Boniface VIII. was undying, and could not be quenched even by the miserable end of his enemy. Yet the one thing which he failed to wring from his tool in the papal chair was the condemnation of the memory of Boniface as a heretic.

After repeated efforts he compelled Clement to take testimony on the subject, and a cloud of witnesses were produced who swore with minute detail to the unbelief of the late pope in the immortality of the soul, and in all the doctrines of the incarnation and the atonement, and to his worship of demons, to his cynical and unnatural lasciviousness, and to the common fame which existed in the community as to his evil beliefs and habits. The witnesses were reputable churchmen for the most part, and their evidence was precise. A t.i.the of such testimony would have sufficed to burn the bones and disinherit the heirs of a score of ordinary culprits, but for once the recognized rules of procedure were set aside. Philippe was forced to desist from the pursuit, though Clement in his final bull of April 27, 1311, declared that the king and his witnesses had been actuated solely by zeal for the Church, and the affair fell through. The pretensions put forth by Boniface in his offensive decretals were formally withdrawn, and Guillaume de Nogaret obtained his long-withheld absolution.[107]

Clement died at Carpentras April 20, 1314, carrying with him the shame and guilt of the ruin of the Templars, and was followed in about seven months (November 29) by his tempter and accomplice, Philippe le Bel. The cardinals on whom devolved the choice of a successor to St. Peter were torn with dissensions. The Italians demanded that the election should be held in the Eternal City. The French, or Gascons, as they were called, insisted on the observance of the rule that the selection should be made on the spot where the last pontiff had expired, knowing that in Italy they would be exposed to the same insults and annoyances as were inflicted in France on their Italian brethren. Shut up in the episcopal palace of Carpentras, the conclave awaited in vain the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, even though those outside tried the gentle expedient of cutting off the food of the members and pillaging their houses. The situation grew so insupportable that, as a last desperate resort, on July 23, 1314, the Gascon faction, under the lead of Clement's nephews, set fire to the palace and threatened the Italians with death, so that the latter were glad to escape with their lives by breaking a pa.s.sage through the rear wall. Two years pa.s.sed away without the election of a visible head of the Church, and the faithful might well fear that they had seen the last of the popes. The French court, however, had found itself so well abetted by a French pope that its policy required the chair of St. Peter to be filled, and in 1316 Louis Hutin sent his brother, Philippe le Long, then Count of Poitiers, to Lyons with orders to get the cardinals together. To accomplish this Philippe was obliged to swear that he would neither do them violence nor imprison them, and they, having thus secured their independence, were no more disposed to accord than before. For six months the business thus lagged without prospect of result, when Philippe received the news of the sudden death of his brother, and that the widowed queen claimed to be pregnant. The prospect of a vacant throne, or at least of a regency, awaiting him in Paris rendered further dallying in Lyons insupportable, nor could he well depart without bringing his errand to a successful issue. Hastily counselling with his lawyers, it was discovered that his oath was unlawful and therefore not to be observed. Consequently he invited the reverend fathers to a colloquy in the Dominican convent, and when they were thus safely hived he sternly told them that they should not depart till they had chosen a pope. His guards blocked every entrance, and he hastened off to Paris, leaving them to deliberate in captivity. Thus entrapped they made a merit of necessity, though forty days were still required before they proclaimed Jacques d'Ozo, Cardinal of Porto, as the Vicar of Christ--the Italians having been won over by his oath that he would never mount a horse or mule except to go to Rome. This oath he kept during his whole pontificate of eighteen years, for he slipped down the Rhone to Avignon by boat, ascended on foot to the palace, and never left it except to visit the cathedral which adjoined it. Such a process of selection was not likely to result in the evolution of a saint, and John XXII. was its natural exponent. His distinguished learning and vigorous abilities had elevated him from the humblest origin, while his boundless ambition and imperious temper provoked endless quarrels from which his daring spirit never shrank.[108]

With his election the troubles of the Inquisition of Languedoc were over. Though he published the Clementines, he soon let it be seen that the inquisitors had nothing to fear from him, and they made haste to pay off the acc.u.mulated scores of vengeance. The first victim was Bernard Delicieux. During the pontificate of Clement and the interregnum he had lived in peace, and might well imagine that his enthusiasm for the people of Languedoc had been forgotten. His earnest nature had led him to join the section of his order known as the Spirituals, and he had been prominent in the movements by which, during the vacancy of the Holy See, they had gained possession of the convents of Beziers and Narbonne. One of the first cares of John XXII. was to heal this schism in the Order, and he promptly summoned before him the friars of Beziers and Narbonne. Bernard had not hesitated in signing an appeal to the pope, and he now boldly came before him at the head of his brethren.

When he undertook to argue their cause he was accused of having impeded the Inquisition and was promptly arrested. Besides the charge of impeding the Inquisition, others of encompa.s.sing by magic arts the death of Benedict XI., and of treason in the affair of Carca.s.sonne, were brought against him. A papal commission was formed to investigate these matters, and for more than two years he was held in close prison while the examination went slowly on. At length it was ready for trial, and September 3, 1319, a court was convened at Castelnaudari consisting of the Archbishop of Toulouse and the Bishops of Pamiers and St. Papoul, when the archbishop excused himself and left the matter in the hands of his a.s.sociates, who transferred the court to Carca.s.sonne, September 12.

The importance attached to the trial is shown by the fact that at it the Inquisition was represented by the inquisitor Jean de Beaune, and the king by his Seneschal of Carca.s.sonne and Toulouse and his "Reformers,"

Raoul, Bishop of Laon, and Jean, Count of Forez.[109]

The official report of the trial has been preserved in all its immense prolixity, and there are few doc.u.ments of that age more instructive as to what was then regarded as justice. Some of Bernard's old accomplices, such as Arnaud Garsia, Guillem Fransa, Pierre Probi, and others, who had already been seized by the Inquisition, were brought forward to be tried with him and were used as witnesses to save their own lives by swearing his away. The old man, worn with two years of imprisonment and constant examination, was subjected for two months to the sharpest cross-questioning on occurrences dating from twelve to eighteen years previous, the subjects of the multiform charges being ingeniously intermingled in the most confusing manner. Under pretext of seeking the salvation of his soul he was solemnly and repeatedly admonished that he was legally a heretic for remaining for more than a year under the _ipso facto_ excommunication incurred by impeding the Inquisition, and that nothing could save him from the stake but absolute submission and full confession. Twice he was tortured, the first time, October 3, on the charge of treason, and the second, November 20, on that of necromancy; and though the torture was ordered to be "moderate," the notaries who a.s.sisted at it are careful to report that the shrieks of the victim attested its sufficiency. In neither case was anything extracted from him, but the efficacy of the combined pressure thus brought to bear on a man weakened by age and suffering is shown by the manner in which he was brought day by day to contradict and criminate himself, until at last he threw himself on the mercy of the court, and humbly begged for absolution.[110]

In the sentence, rendered December 8, he was acquitted of attempting the life of Benedict XI., while on the other charges his guilt was aggravated by no less than seventy perjuries committed under examination. After abjuration, he was duly absolved and condemned to degradation from holy orders and imprisonment for life, in chains and on bread and water, in the inquisitorial prison of Carca.s.sonne. Considering the amnesty proclaimed in 1307 by Philippe le Bel, and the discharge of Frere Bernard in 1308, it seems strange that now the representatives of Philippe le Long at once protested against the sentence as too mild, and appealed to the pope. The judges themselves did not think so, for in delivering the prisoner to Jean de Beaune they humanely ordered that in view of his age and debility, and especially the weakness of his hands (doubtless crippled in the torture-chamber), the penance of chains and bread and water should be omitted. Jean de Beaune may be pardoned if he felt a fierce exultation when the ancient enemy of his office was thus placed in his hands to expiate the offence which had so hara.s.sed his predecessors; and that exultation was perhaps increased when, February 26, 1320, the relentless pope, possibly to gratify the king, countermanded the pitying order of the bishops, and required the sentence to be executed in all its terrible rigor. Under these hardships the frail body which had been animated by so dauntless a spirit soon gave way, and in a few months merciful death released the only man who had dared to carry on a systematic warfare with the Inquisition.[111]

The progress of reaction had been rapid. In 1315 Louis Hutin had issued an edict in which were embodied most of the provisions of the laws of Frederic II. This piece of legislation, perfectly superfluous in view of the eighty years' career of the Inquisition in his dominions, is only of interest as showing the influence already obtained by the Dominicans during the papal interregnum. With the election of John XXII., notwithstanding his publication of the Clementines, all fear of interference disappeared, and the populations were surrendered again to the unchecked authority of the inquisitors. There was a significant notice to this effect in the withdrawal by the new pope, March 30, 1318, of the security given by Clement's cardinals to Aimeric Castel and the other citizens of Carca.s.sonne, Albi, and Cordes, who were deputed to carry on the case of those cities against the inquisitors, and the latter were directed to prosecute them diligently. The Inquisition recognized that its hour of triumph had come, and took in hand the survivors of those who had been conspicuous in the disturbances of fifteen years before. The unconvicted prisoners of 1299 and 1300, whom it had held in defiance of the reiterated orders of Clement--at least those who had not rotted to death in its dungeons--were brought forth and disposed of. A still more emphatic a.s.sertion of its renewed mastery was the subjection and "reconciliation" of the rebellious towns. Of what took place at Carca.s.sonne we have no record, but it probably was the same as the ceremonies performed at Albi. There, March 11, 1319, the consuls and councillors and a great crowd of citizens were a.s.sembled in the cathedral cemetery, before Bishop Bernard and the inquisitor Jean de Beaune. There, with uplifted hands, they all professed repentance in the most humiliating terms, and swore to accept whatever penance might be imposed upon them, and thereafter to obey implicitly the bishop and inquisitor. Then those present, together with the dead who had shown signs of penitence, were relieved from excommunication, the rest of the population being required to apply for absolution within a month. The announcement of the penances followed. The town was to make good all expenses and losses accruing to the episcopate and Inquisition by reason of the troubles; it was to build and complete within two years a chapel to the cathedral, and a portal to the Dominican church; to give fifty livres to the Carmelites to be expended on their church, and, finally, to construct marble tombs for Nicholas d'Abbeville, and Foulques de Saint-Georges at Lyons and Carca.s.sonne, where those inquisitors had died in poverty and exile by reason of the rebellion of the inhabitants. Ten pilgrimages, moreover, were designated for the survivors of those who in 1301 had bound themselves to prosecute Bishop Bertrand and Nicholas d'Abbeville in the royal court, as well as for those who had served as consuls and councillors from 1302 to 1304. Jean de Beaune seems to have considered it a special grace when, in December, 1320, he postponed the performance of their pilgrimages during the year from Easter, 1321, to 1322. The town of Cordes, June 29, 1321, was "reconciled" with a similar humiliating ceremony and pledges of future obedience. Thus the Inquisition celebrated its triumph in the long struggle. It had won the victory, and its opponents could only save themselves by unconditional surrender.[112]

Whether the citizens of Albi whose arrest in 1299 gave rise to so many troubles were really heretics or not cannot now be determined. Their confessions were precise and detailed, but, as their defenders alleged, the Inquisition had ample means of extorting what it pleased from its victims, and the long delay in convicting them would seem to argue that the tribunal had good reason for not wishing its sentences to see the light while there was chance of their being subjected to scrutiny under Clement V. The inquisitors urged in justification a single case, that of Lambert de Foyssenx, who complained to Clement's cardinals that he had been unjustly accused, but who subsequently a.s.serted his heresy defiantly, refused to recant, and was burned in 1309. This is the only instance of the kind, for the wretched survivors who were led to abjure and recant in 1319 were broken by prison and torture, and their evidence is worthless.[113]

Yet Bernard Gui was undoubtedly correct when he a.s.serted that the troubles and limitations imposed on the Inquisition under Philippe le Bel led to the recrudescence of a heresy which had been nearly extinguished. In the debate before the king at Toulouse, in 1304, Guillem Pierre, the Dominican provincial, a.s.serted that there were then in Languedoc no heretics except some forty or fifty in Albi, Carca.s.sonne, and Cordes, and for a few leagues around them. This was doubtless an exaggeration, but with improved prospects of immunity perfected missionaries were invited from Lombardy and Sicily, and the number of believers rapidly increased. Bernard Gui boasts that from 1301 to 1315 there were more than a thousand detected by the Inquisition, who confessed and were publicly punished.[114]

The registers of Geoffroi d'Ablis at Carca.s.sonne in 1308-9 show great activity rewarded by abundant results, and one of the witnesses in the trial of Bernard Delicieux tells us that, when the Inquisition was able to resume its labors there, many heretics and believers were promptly discovered.[115] About the same period commence the sentences of the Inquisition of Toulouse published by Limborch. In 1306 Bernard Gui had been appointed inquisitor at Toulouse. His numerous works attest his wide range of learning and incessant mental activity, while his practical skill in affairs was animated with a profound conviction of the wickedness of heresy and of the duty of his Order to enforce, at every cost, submission to Rome. Two missions as papal legate, one to Italy and the other to France, and two bishoprics, those of Tuy and Lodeve, attest the value set on his services by John XXII. With his appointment at Toulouse he promptly commenced the long campaign which resulted in the virtual extirpation of Catharism in Languedoc. Yet, though stern and unsparing when the occasion seemed to demand it, his record bears no trace of useless cruelty or abusive extortion.[116]

Catharism by this time had been forced back to the humbler cla.s.s among whom it had found its first disciples. The n.o.bles and gentlemen who had so long upheld it had perished or been impoverished by the remorseless confiscations of three quarters of a century. The rich burghers of the cities--merchants and professional men--had learned the temptations held out by their wealth and the impossibility of avoiding detection. The fascinations of martyrdom have their limits, and the martyrs among them had been gradually but surely weeded out. Yet the old beliefs were still rooted among the simple folk of country hamlets and especially in the wild valleys among the foothills of the eastern Pyrenees. The active intercourse with Lombardy, and even with Sicily, was still kept up, and there were not wanting earnest ministers who braved every danger to administer to believers the consolations of their religion and to spread the faith in the fastnesses which were its last refuge. Chief among these was Pierre Autier, formerly a notary of Ax (Pamiers). His early life had not been pure, for we hear of his _druda_, or mistress, and his natural children, but with advancing years he embraced all the asceticism of the sect, to which he devoted his life. Driven to Lombardy in 1295, he returned in 1298 to remain on his native soil to the end, and to endure a war to the knife from the Inquisition. His property was confiscated and his family dispersed and ruined. The region to which he belonged lay at the foot of the Pyrenees, rugged, with few roads and many caves and hiding-places, whence escape across the frontier to Aragon was comparatively facile; it was full of his kindred who were devoted to him, and here for eleven years he maintained himself, lurking in disguise and wandering from place to place with the emissaries of the Holy Office ever on his track. He had been ordained to the ministry at Como, and speedily acquired authority in the sect of which he became one of the most zealous, indefatigable, and intrepid missionaries. Already, in 1300, he was so conspicuous that every effort was made for his apprehension. A certain Guillem Jean offered the Dominicans of Pamiers to betray him, but the treachery became known among the faithful, two of whom, Pierre d'Aere and Philippe de Larnat enticed Guillem to the bridge at Alliat by night, seized him, gagged him, carried him off to the mountains, and, after extorting a confession, cast him over a precipice.

Worthy lieutenants of Pierre Autier were his brother Guillem and his son Jacques, Amiel de Perles, Pierre Sanche, and Sanche Mercadier, whose names occur everywhere throughout the confessions as active missionaries. Jacques Autier on one occasion had the boldness to preach at midnight to a gathering of heretic women in the Church of Sainte-Croix in Toulouse, the spot being selected as one in which they could best hold their meeting undisturbed.[117]

The work of Geoffroi d'Ablis in Carca.s.sonne seems to be princ.i.p.ally directed to determining the protectors and refuges of Pierre Autier. At Toulouse Bernard Gui was energetically employed in the same direction.

The heretic was driven from place to place, but the wonderful fidelity of his disciples seemed to render all efforts vain, and finally Bernard was driven to the expedient of issuing, August 10, 1309, a special proclamation as an incitement for his capture.

"Friar Bernard Gui, Dominican, Inquisitor of Toulouse, to all worshippers of Christ, the reward and crown of eternal life. Gird yourselves, Sons of G.o.d; arise with me, Soldiers of Christ, against the enemies of his Cross, those corrupters of the truth and purity of Catholic faith, Pierre Autier, the heresiarch, and his coheretics and accomplices, Pierre Sanche and Sanche Mercadier.

Hiding in concealment and walking in darkness, I order them by the virtue of G.o.d, to be tracked and seized wherever they may be found, promising eternal reward from G.o.d, and also a fitting temporal payment to those who will capture and produce them. Watch, therefore, O pastors, lest the wolves s.n.a.t.c.h away the sheep of your flock! Act manfully, faithful zealots, lest the adversaries of the faith fly and escape!"

This stirring exhortation was probably superfluous, for the prey was captured before it could have been published throughout the land. The arrest of nearly all his family and friends, in 1308-9, had driven Pierre Autier from his accustomed haunts. About St. John's Day (June 24), 1309, he found refuge with Perrin Maurel of Belpech, near Castelnaudari, where he lay for five weeks or more. Thither came his daughter Guillelma, who remained with him a short time, and the two departed together. The next day he was captured. Perrin Maurel was likewise seized, and with customary fidelity stoutly denied everything until Pierre Autier, in prison, advised him in December to confess.[118]

This triumph was followed in October by the capture of Amiel de Perles, who forthwith placed himself in _endura_, refusing to eat or drink, and, as he was fast sinking, to prevent the stake from being robbed of its prey, a special _auto de fe_ was hurriedly arranged for his burning, October 23. While yet his strength lasted, however, Bernard Gui enjoyed the ghastly amus.e.m.e.nt of making the two heresiarchs in his presence perform the act of heretical "adoration."[119]

Pierre Autier was not burned until the great _auto de fe_ of April, 1310, when Geoffroi d'Ablis came from Carca.s.sonne to share in the triumph. The heresiarch had not sought to conceal his faith, but had boldly declared his obnoxious tenets and had p.r.o.nounced the Church of Rome the synagogue of Satan. That he was subjected to the extremity of torture, however, there can be no reasonable doubt--not to extract a confession, for this was superfluous, but to force him to betray his disciples and those who had given him refuge. His intimate acquaintance with all the heretics of the land was a source of information too important for Bernard Gui to shrink from any means of acquiring it; and the copious details thus obtained are alluded to in too many subsequent sentences for us to hesitate as to the methods by which the heresiarch was brought to place his friends and a.s.sociates at the mercy of his tormentors.[120]

This may be said to close the b.l.o.o.d.y drama of Catharism in Languedoc.

Armed with the revelations thus obtained, Bernard Gui and Geoffroi d'Ablis required but a few years more to convert or burn the remnant of Pierre Autier's disciples who could be caught, and to drive into exile those who eluded their spies. No new and self-devoted missionaries arose to take his place, and after 1315 the Patarin almost disappears from the records of the Inquisition in France. Some few scattering cases subsequently occur, but their offences are of old date and almost invariably revert to the missionary work of Pierre Autier and his a.s.sociates. One of the latest of these is recorded in an undated sentence, probably of 1327 or 1328, in which Jean Duprat, Inquisitor of Carca.s.sonne, condemns Guillelma Torniere. She had abjured and had been long confined in prison, where she was detected in making converts and praising Guillem Autier and Guillem Balibaste as good and saintly men.

Under interrogation she refused to take an oath, and was accordingly burned. In 1328, Henri de Chamay of Carca.s.sonne condemned to prison Guillem Amiel for Catharism, and in 1329 he sentenced two Cathari, Bartolome Pays and Raymond Garric of Albi, whose offences had been committed respectively thirty-five and forty years before. In the same year he ordered four houses and a farm to be demolished because their owners had been hereticated in them, but these acts had doubtless been performed long previous. Confiscations still continued for ancestral offences, but Catharism as an existing belief may be said at this period to be virtually extinct in Languedoc, where it had a hundred and fifty years before had a reasonable prospect of becoming the dominant religion.[121]

In the same year, 1329, occurred a case which is not without interest as showing how an earnest but unstable brain pondering over the crime and misery of the world, wove some of the cruder elements of Catharism and Averrhoism into a fantastic theory. Limoux Noir, of Saint-Paul in the diocese of Alet, had already been tried by his bishop in 1326, but had been able to evade the unskilled officials of the episcopal tribunal.

The Inquisition had surer methods and speedily brought him to confession. He had formed a philosophy of the Universe which superseded all religion. G.o.d had created the archangels, these the angels, and the latter the sun and moon. These heavenly bodies, as being unstable and corruptible, were females. Out of their urine the world was formed, and was necessarily corrupt, with all that sprang from it. Moses, Mahomet, and Christ were all sent by the sun and were teachers of equal authority. In the under world Christ and Mahomet are now disputing and seeking to gain followers. Baptism was of no more use than the circ.u.mcision of Israel or the blessing of Islam, for those who renounced evil in baptism grew up to be robbers and strumpets. The Eucharist was naught, for G.o.d would not let himself be handled by adulterers such as the priests. Matrimony was to be shunned, for from it sprang robbers and strumpets. Thus he explained away and rejected all the doctrines and practices of the Church. To see whether the Saviour's fast of forty days was possible, he had fasted in a cabin ten days and nights, at the end of which this system of philosophy had been revealed to him by G.o.d.

Again, in 1327, he had placed himself in _endura_, with the resolve to carry it to the end, but had been persuaded by his brother to take the Eucharist, to save his bones from being burned after his death. He was sixty years old, and his crazy doctrines had brought him a few disciples, but the sect was crushed at the outset. He declared to the inquisitor that he would rather be flayed alive than believe in transubstantiation, and he proved his resolute character by resisting all attempts to induce him to recant, so that there was no alternative but to abandon him to the secular arm, which was duly done and his belief perished with him.[122]

Thus the Inquisition triumphed, as force will generally do when it is sufficiently strong, skilfully applied, and systematically continued without interruption to the end. In the twelfth century the south of France had been the most civilized land of Europe. There commerce, industry, art, science, had been far in advance of the age. The cities had won virtual self-government, were proud of their wealth and strength, jealous of their liberties, and self-sacrificing in their patriotism. The n.o.bles, for the most part, were cultivated men, poets themselves or patrons of poetry, who had learned that their prosperity depended on the prosperity of their subjects, and that munic.i.p.al liberties were a safeguard, rather than a menace, to the wise ruler. The crusaders came, and their unfinished work was taken up and executed to the bitter end by the Inquisition. It left a ruined and impoverished country, with shattered industry and failing commerce. The native n.o.bles were broken by confiscation and replaced by strangers, who occupied the soil, introducing the harsh customs of Northern feudalism, or the despotic principles of the Roman law, in the extensive domains acquired by the crown. A people of rare natural gifts had been tortured, decimated, humiliated, despoiled, for a century and more. The precocious civilization which had promised to lead Europe in the path of culture was gone, and to Italy was transferred the honor of the Renaissance. In return for this was unity of faith and a Church which had been hardened and vitiated and secularized in the strife. Such was the work and such the outcome of the Inquisition in the field which afforded it the widest scope for its activity, and the fullest opportunity for developing its powers.

Yet in the very triumph of the Inquisition was the a.s.surance of its decline. Supported by the State, it had earned and repaid the royal favor by the endless stream of confiscations which it poured into the royal coffers. Perhaps nothing contributed more to the consolidation of the royal supremacy than the change of ownership which threw into new hands so large a portion of the lands of the South. In the territories of the great va.s.sals the right to the confiscations for heresy became recognized as an important portion of the _droits seigneurioux_. In the domains of the crown they were granted to favorites or sold at moderate prices to those who thus became interested in the new order of things.

The royal officials grasped everything on which they could lay their hands, whether on the excuse of treason or of heresy, with little regard to any rights; and although the integrity of Louis IX. caused an inquest to be held in 1262 which restored a vast amount of property illegally held, this was but a small fraction of the whole. To a.s.sist his Parlement in settling the innumerable cases which arose, he ordered, in 1260, the charters and letters of greatest importance to be sent to Paris. Those of each of the six senechaussees filled a coffer, and the six coffers were deposited in the treasury of the Sainte-Chapelle. In this process of absorption the case of the extensive Viscounty of Fenouilledes may be taken as an ill.u.s.tration of the zeal with which the Inquisition co-operated in securing the political results desired by the crown. Fenouilledes had been seized during the crusades and given to Nunez Sancho of Roussillon, from whom it pa.s.sed, through the King of Aragon, into the hands of St. Louis. In 1264 Beatrix, widow of Hugues, son of the former Viscount Pierre, applied to the Parlement for her rights and dower and those of her children. Immediately the inquisitor, Pons de Poyet, commenced a prosecution against the memory of Pierre, who had died more than twenty years previously in the bosom of the Church, and had been buried with the Templars of Mas Deu, after a.s.suming the religious habit and receiving the last sacraments. He was condemned for having held relations with heretics, his bones were dug up and burned, and the Parlement rejected the claim of the daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Pierre, the eldest of these, in 1300, made a claim for the ancestral estates, and Boniface VIII. espoused his quarrel with the object of giving trouble to Philippe le Bel; but, though the affair was pursued for some years, the inquisitorial sentence held good. It was not only the actual heretics and their descendants who were dispossessed.

The land had been so deeply tinctured with heresy that there were few indeed whose ancestors could not be shown, by the records of the Inquisition, to have incurred the fatal taint of a.s.sociating with them.[123]