A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages Volume II Part 11

The spiritual condition of the Slavs at this period is indicated by an occurrence in 1331 nearer home. The Venetian inquisitor, Fra Francesco Chioggia, in visiting his district, found in the province of Aquileia innumerable Slavs who worshipped a tree and fountain. Apparently they were impervious to his exhortations, and he had no means at the moment to enforce obedience. He was obliged to preach against them, in Friuli, a crusade with Holy Land indulgences. He thus raised an armed force with which he cut down the tree and choked up the fountain; unfortunately, we have no record of the fate of the nature-worshippers.[337]

Benedict XII. was as earnest as his predecessor. Yet even Dalmatia was still full of heresy, for in 1335 be felt obliged to write to the Archbishop of Zara and the Bishops of Trau and Zegna, ordering them to use every means for the extermination of heretics, and to give efficient support to the inquisitors. The Dalmatian prelates, it is true, prevailed upon the magistrates of Spalatro and Trau to enact laws against heresy, but these were not enforced. A century had pa.s.sed since the Inquisition was founded, and yet the duties of persecution had not even then been learned on the sh.o.r.es of the Adriatic. The work seemed further than ever from accomplishment. The Cathari continued to multiply under the avowed protection of Stephen and his magnates. A gleam of light appeared, however, when, in 1337, the Croatian Count Nelipic, a bitter enemy of Stephen, offered his services to Benedict, who joyfully accepted them, and summoned all the Croatian barons to range themselves under his banner in aid of the pious labors of Fabiano and his colleagues. War ensued between Bosnia and Croatia, of the details of which we know little, except that it brought no advantage to the faith, until it threatened to spread.[338]

Stephen's position, in fact, was becoming precarious. To the east was Stephen Dusan the Great, who styled himself Emperor of Servia, Greece, and Bulgaria, and who had shown himself unfriendly since the union of Herzegovina with Bosnia. To the north was Charles Robert, who was preparing to take part in the war. It is true that the Venetians, desirous to keep Hungary away from their Adriatic possessions, were ready to form an alliance with Stephen, but the odds against him were too great. He probably intimated a readiness to submit, for when, in 1339, Benedict sent the Franciscan General Gherardo as legate to Hungary, Charles Robert convoyed him to the Bosnian frontier, where Stephen received him with all honor, and said that he was not averse to extirpating the Cathari, but feared that in case of persecution they would call in Stephen Dusan. If liberally supported by the pope and King of Hungary he would run the risk. In 1340 Benedict promised him the help of all Catholics, and he allowed himself to be converted, an example followed by many of the magnates. It was quite time, for Catholicism had virtually disappeared from Bosnia, where the churches were mostly abandoned and torn down. Gherardo hastened to follow up his advantage by sending missionaries and inquisitors into Bosnia. That there was no place there, however, for the methods of the Inquisition, and that persuasion, not force, was required, is seen by the legends which recount how one of these inquisitors, Fray Juan de Aragon, made numerous converts, after a long and bitter disputation in an heretical a.s.sembly, by standing unhurt on a blazing pyre; and how one of his disciples, John, repeated the experience, remaining in the flames while one might chant the Miserere. These miracles, we are told, were very effective, and the stories show that nothing else could have been so.

Stephen remained true to his promises, and the Catholic Church commenced to revive. A bull of Clement VI., in 1344, recites that, deceived by the falsehoods of the Franciscan General Gherardo, he had ordered the Bosnian t.i.thes paid over to the friars on the pretext of rebuilding the churches, but on the representation of Laurence, Bishop of Bosnia, that they belonged to him and that he had no other source of support, he is in future to receive them. At the instance of Clement, in 1345, Stephen consented to allow the return of Valentine, Bishop of Makarska, who for twenty years had been an exile from his see, and the next year a third bishopric, that of Duvno, was erected. The Catharan magnates were restless, however, and when Dusan the Great, in 1350, invaded Bosnia many of them joined him, but their prospects became worse when peace followed in 1351, and when, in 1353, shortly before his death, Stephen married his only child to Louis of Hungary, a zealous Catholic who had succeeded his father, Charles Robert, in 1342.[339]

Stephen Kostromanic was succeeded by his young nephew, Stephen Tvrtko, under the regency of his mother, Helena. Under such circ.u.mstances, dissatisfied and insubordinate Catharan magnates had ample opportunity to produce confusion. Of this full advantage was taken by Louis of Hungary as soon as the death of Dusan the Great, in 1355, relieved him from that formidable antagonist. The Dominicans hastened, in 1356, to obtain from Innocent VI. a confirmation of the letters of John XXII., of 1327, authorizing them to preach a crusade against the heretics with Holy Land indulgences. Louis seized Herzegovina as a dower for his wife Elisabeth, reduced Stephen Tvrtko to the position of a va.s.sal, and forced him to swear to extirpate the Cathari. Not content with this he proceeded to stir up rebellion among the magnates, producing great confusion, during which the Cathari regained their position. Then, in 1360, Innocent VI. conferred on Peter, Bishop of Bosnia, full powers as papal inquisitor, and also ordered a new crusade, which served as a pretext to Louis for a fresh invasion. Nothing was accomplished by this; but in 1365 the Cathari, irritated at Tvrtko's efforts to suppress them, drove him and his mother from Bosnia. Louis furnished him with troops, and asked Urban V. to send two thousand Franciscans to convert the heretics. After a desperate struggle Tvrtko regained the throne. His brother, Stephen Vuk, who had aided the rebels, fled to Ragusa and embraced Catholicism, after which, in 1368, he appealed for aid to Urban V., representing that his heretic brother had disinherited him on account of his persecuting heretics. Urban accordingly urged Louis to protect the orthodox Vuk, and to force Tvrtko to abandon his errors, but nothing came of it. Whether Tvrtko was Catharan or Catholic does not clearly appear. Probably he was indifferent to all but his personal interests, and was ready to follow whatever policy promised to serve his ambition, and his success shows that he must have had the support of his subjects, who were nearly all Cathari. Although, in 1368, Urban V.

congratulated Louis of Hungary on the success of his arms, aided by the friars, in bringing into the fold many thousand heretics and schismatics, Louis himself, in 1372, reported that Christianity was established in but few places; in some the two faiths were commingled, but for the most part all the inhabitants were Cathari. It was in vain that Gregory XI. endeavored to found Franciscan houses as missionary centres; the Bosnians would not be weaned from their creed. Had Tvrtko followed a policy of persecution he could not have accomplished the conquests which, for a brief period, shed l.u.s.tre on the Bosnian name. He extended his sway over a large part of Servia and over Croatia and Dalmatia, and when, in 1376, he a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of king, there was no one to dispute it. After his death, in 1391, the magnates a.s.serted virtual independence under a succession of royal puppets--Stephen Dabisa, his young son, under the regency of his widow, Helena, and then Stephen Ostoja. The most powerful man in Bosnia was the Vojvode Hrvoje Vukcic, who ruled the north, and next to him was his kinsman Sandalj Hranic who dominated the south. Both of these men were Cathari, and so was the king, Stephen, Ostoja, and all his family. Catholicism almost disappeared, and Catharism was the religion of the State. It was organized under a Djed (grandfather), or chief, with twelve Ucitelji, or teachers, of whom the first was the Gost, or visitor, the deputy and successor of the Djed, and the second was known as the Starac, or elder.[340]

These were state officials, and we see them occasionally acting in an official capacity. Thus, when, in 1404, the Vojvode Paul Klesic, who had been exiled, was recalled, it was the Djed Radomjer who sent Catharan envoys to Ragusa to bring him home, and who wrote to the Doge of Ragusa on the subject. Klesic was a Catharan, and his residence in Ragusa, as well as that of many similar Catharan exiles, shows that persecution had grown obsolete even on the coast of the Adriatic. In spite of his Catharism, Hrvoje Vukcic was made by Ladislas of Naples, Duke of Spalatro and lord of some of the Dalmatian islands, thus making Catharism dominant along the sh.o.r.e. In the troubles which ended in the deposition of Stephen Ostoja and the election of Stephen Tvrtko II. a "Congregation of the Bosnian Lords" was held in 1404, in which, among those present, are enumerated the Djed and several of his Ucitelji, but no mention is made of any Catholic bishop. Toleration seemed to have established itself. The Great Schism gave the Holy See abundant preoccupation, and missionary efforts are no longer heard of, until the Emperor Sigismund, as King of Hungary, bethought himself of re-establishing his claim over Bosnia. Two armies sent in 1405 were unsuccessful, but in 1407 Gregory XII. aided him with a bull summoning Christendom to a crusade against the Turks, the apostate Allans, and the Manichaeans. Under these auspices, in 1408, he led a force of sixty thousand Hungarians and Poles into Bosnia, defeated and captured Tvrtko II., and recovered Croatia and Dalmatia, but the Bosnians were obstinate, and replaced Ostoja on the throne. Another expedition, in 1410-1411, drove Ostoja to the south, and Sigismund, for a while, retained possession of Bosnia, but when, in 1415, he released Tvrtko II.

and sent him to Bosnia as king, a civil war immediately ensued. Tvrtko at first was successful, supported with a large Hungarian army, but Ostoja called the Turks to his a.s.sistance, and in a decisive battle the Hungarians were defeated. The Turks penetrated to Cillei in the Steyermark, devastating and plundering everywhere, and on their return carried with them thousands of Christian captives.[341]

This shows the new factor which had injected itself into the already tangled problem. In 1389 the fatal day of the Amselfeld had thrown open the whole Balkan peninsula to the Turks, who since then had been steadily winning their way. In 1392 we hear of their first incursion in southern Bosnia, after which they had constantly taken a greater part in the affairs of the Banate. The condition of the country was that of savage and perpetual civil war. There was no royal power capable of enforcing order, and the magnates were engaged in tearing each other to pieces. Devoid of all sentiment of nationality, no one had any scruple in calling in the aid of the infidel, in paying allegiance to him, or in subsidizing him to prevent his joining the opposite party. It was the same with Catholic, Catharan, and Greek. No sense of the ever-approaching danger served to make them abandon their internecine quarrels, and if a temporary petty advantage was to be gained there was no hesitation in aiding the Turk to a farther advance. The only wonder is that the progress of the Moslem conquest was so slow; there can be little doubt that it could have been arrested by united effort, and it may be questioned whether the rule of Islam was not, after all, an improvement on the state of virtual anarchy which it replaced. To the peasantry it offered itself rather as a deliverance. When, in 1461, Stephen Tomasevic ascended the throne, in his appeal for aid to Pius II.

he describes the Turks as treating the peasants kindly, promising them freedom, and thus winning them over, and he adds that the magnates cannot defend their castles when thus abandoned by the peasants.[342]

As regards the Cathari, the Turkish advance produced two contrary effects. On the one hand there was the danger that persecution would drive them to seek protection from the enemy. On the other hand there was absolute need of a.s.sistance from Christendom, which could only be obtained by submission to Rome, and obedience to her demands for their extermination. Both of these influences worked to the destruction of Bosnia, for when toleration was practised aid was withheld, and when at last persecution was established as a policy the Cathari welcomed the invader, and contributed to the subjugation of the kingdom.

In 1420 Stephen Tvrtko II. reappeared upon the scene, and the next year he was acknowledged. There followed a breathing-s.p.a.ce, for the Turkish general Isaac was defeated and killed during an incursion into Hungary, and Mahomet I., involved in strife with Mustapha, had no leisure to repair the disaster. This did not last long, however, for in 1424 the sons of Ostoja endeavored, with Turkish help, to win back their father's throne, the only result of which was a war ending with the surrender of a portion of Bosnian territory to Murad II. Again, in 1433, when Tvrtko was fighting with the Servian despot, George Brankovic, he was suddenly called to the south to withstand a Turkish inroad invited by Radivoj, one of the sons of Ostoja, and this was immediately followed by the rising of Sandalj Hranic, the powerful magnate of Herzegovina, who drove Tvrtko to seek refuge with Sigismund. His absence lasted three years, during which the wildest confusion reigned in Bosnia, the Turks being constantly called in to partic.i.p.ate with one side or the other.[343]

Meanwhile the rise of the Observantine Franciscans was restoring to the Church some of its old missionary fervor, and furnishing it with the necessary self-devoted agents. In spite of the preoccupations arising from the contest between Eugenius IV. and the Council of Basle, an effort was made to win back Bosnia to the faith. If anything could accomplish this there might be hope from the fierce and inexhaustible enthusiasm of the Observantine Friar, the Blessed Giacomo della Marca, who had already given evidence of ruthless efficiency as inquisitor of the Italian Fraticelli. In 1432 he was accordingly sent with full powers to reform the Franciscan Order in Slavonia, and to turn its whole energies to missionary work. Under this impulsion we are told that conversions were numerous from Bosnia to Wallachia, and Eugenius IV.

stimulated rivalry by also setting the Dominicans at work. In 1434 Giacomo was driven out, but was sent back the next year, and distinguished himself by redoubled ardor and success, attributed, according to his biographers, partly to his miraculous powers. Alarmed at his progress, the wicked queen sent four a.s.sa.s.sins to despatch him, when he extended his arms and bade them do whatever G.o.d would permit, whereupon they became rigid and suffered agonies until he prayed for their release. Indignant at this attempt, he bearded the king and queen in full court, and his boldness gained him so many converts that the king became alarmed for his throne. A sorcerer was accordingly employed to slay the intrepid inquisitor, but Giacomo promptly rendered the man speechless for life. Some heretics then sawed through the supports of a platform where he was preaching. It fell, but he escaped, and to this day, says the legend, the posterity of the perpetrators have all been born halt and lame. These proofs of divine favor led to numerous conversions, but he became involved in quarrels with the Catholic clergy, caused, we are told, by envy, and they excommunicated him, so that he was obliged to seek absolution from the pope. His triumphant career was cut short by a summons from the Emperor Sigismund to a.s.sist in the pacification of the Hussite troubles, and his field of action was transferred to regions farther north, where we shall meet him hereafter.

Even there, however, he did not forget his Bosnian enemies, for at Stuhlweissenburg, on meeting the legates of the Council of Basle, he at once asked them to exert their influence on Sigismund. Though King Stephen, he said, was an unbaptized heretic who would not allow his subjects to be baptized, a command from the emperor would be sufficient to compel him to yield. Giacomo, moreover, had left behind him worthy disciples from among the natives. One of these, the Blessed Angelo of Verbosa, shone also by miraculous gifts. On one occasion the heretics gave him poison to drink, but on making the sign of the cross above the cup it became innocuous, which brought him many converts.[344]

This legendary extravagance has some foundation in fact. A bull of Eugenius IV., in 1437, speaks of sixteen Franciscan churches and monasteries destroyed by the Turks within two years, and another grants to the friars who remained certain privileges in hearing confessions, which show that they had been active, and had been winning their way.

Giacomo's influence at Stuhlweissenburg is, moreover, indicated by his inducing Sigismund to compel Stephen Tvrtko to undergo baptism, and to issue from that place, in January, 1436, an edict taking the Franciscans under his protection, and permitting them to spread Catholicism throughout Bosnia. In reward for this Sigismund aided his return to his kingdom, which he found possessed partly by Servia, partly by the Turks, and wholly devastated. For what he could obtain of this ruined land he had to render allegiance to Murad II., and to pay him a yearly tribute of twenty-five thousand ducats. Wretched as was this simulacrum of royalty, it was incompatible with the favor which he had been compelled to show to Catholicism. Southern Bosnia by this time was independent under Stephen Vukcic, nephew and successor of Sandalj; as a Catharan, he was regarded throughout Bosnia as the defender of the national faith, and, in alliance with Murad II., he overthrew Stephen Tvrtko II.[345]

In 1444 another king was elected in the person of Stephen Thomas Ostojic, a younger natural son of Ostoja, who had carefully kept himself in obscurity with a low-born Catharan wife, to whom he had been married with the Catharan ceremony--a fact which subsequently served as an excuse for a divorce. Almost the first question which the new king had to decide was whether he would adhere to his religion or cast his fortunes with Catholicism. The Church had not relaxed its efforts to win over the fragments remaining of Bosnia, in spite of the fact that it was only aiding the designs of the Turks by adding to confusion and discord. In 1437 the vacancy left by Giacomo della Marca had been filled by the appointment of Fra Niccol of Trau, and since 1439 Tommaso, Bishop of Lesina, had been in Bosnia as papal legate, busily engaged in furthering the interests of Catholicism. He had failed in an effort to convert Stephen Vukcic, but the advent of a new king was an incentive to further exertions. Eugenius promptly appointed the Observantine Vicar of Bosnia, Fabiano of Bacs, and his successors perpetual inquisitors over the Slavonic lands, and instructed the Bishop of Lesina to promise Stephen Thomas the recognition of his election if he would embrace the true faith. The position was a difficult one. All his magnates, with the exception of Peter Vojsalic, were Catharans, and to offend them would be to invite Turkish intervention, while, so long as he held aloof from Christendom, he could expect no aid from the West. Doubtless promises that could not be fulfilled were made to him in plenty, for he concluded to cast his fortunes with Catholicism, but he abstained from receiving the crown offered to him by Eugenius for fear of offending his Catharan subjects. He permitted the erection of two new bishoprics, he was duly baptized, and he labored long and earnestly to induce his subjects to follow his example. Nearly all his magnates did so, but Stephen Vukcic was a conspicuous exception, and the common people were not so easily moved. Even the king himself did not dare to omit the customary "adoration" of the Perfects, for which he was duly excommunicated by the inquisitor, but the pope recognized the difficulty of his position, and wisely gave him a dispensation for a.s.sociating with heretics.[346]

Although many Catholic churches were built, the legate reported, on a visit to Rome, that the land was too full of heresy for other cure than the sword. The king's position was too insecure for him to venture on persecution, which would infallibly have led to a revolt. In a grant, in 1446, of certain towns to Count Paul Dragisic and his brothers, who were zealous Cathari, it is provided that, in case of their committing treason, the gift is not to be resumed without a previous investigation "by the Lord Djed and the Bosnian Church and good Bosnians." The Franciscans complained of his lukewarmness to Nicholas V., when he justified himself on the plea of necessity; he longed, he said, for the time when he could offer to his subjects the alternative of death or conversion, but as yet the heretics were too numerous and powerful and his position too precarious. Nicholas calmed the Franciscans, and they eagerly awaited the good time to come.[347]

The defeat, in 1448, of John Hunyady, in a three days' battle on the historic Amselfeld, led, in 1449, to a seven years' peace between him and Murad II., in which Bosnia was included. Peace with Servia followed, and, thus relieved from the fear of foreign aggression, Stephen Thomas was summoned to perform his promises. Before the papal representatives he was obliged to give a solemn pledge to John Hunyady that he would strike heresy with a crushing blow. Nicholas V., who had sent the Bishop of Lesina back as legate, ordered him to preach a crusade with Holy Land indulgences, and active efforts were made in the good work. Early in 1451 the Bishop of Lesina sent most encouraging reports of the result.

Many of the n.o.bles had sought conversion; the king in every way helped the Franciscans, and had founded several houses for them; wherever these houses existed the heretics melted away like wax before the fire, and if a sufficient supply of friars could be had heresy would be extirpated.

Not quite so rose-colored was the statement of a Dominican, Fra Giovanni of Ragusa, that in Bosnia and Servia there were very few monks and priests, so that the people were wholly untrained in the faith.

Unmindful of the danger of conjoining the two Orders, Nicholas sent him thither with some of his brethren on missionary work, and at the same time despatched the Franciscan Eugenio Somma to Albania, Bulgaria, and Servia in the double capacity of nuncio and inquisitor.[348]

The good Bishop of Lesina had been over-sanguine. In the first pressure of persecution forty heads of the Catharan Church, with great numbers of the laity, sought refuge with Stephen Vukcic, who proceeded to attack the Catholics of Ragusa, while many others fled to Servia and to the Turks, and appealed to them for help. Those who remained prepared for resistance, and a b.l.o.o.d.y religious war broke out, of which George Brankovic of Servia took advantage to renew the war suspended in 1449.

This was more than Stephen Thomas could endure; he was forced to abandon persecution and to call for help. John Hunyady was enraged at his weakness, and ordered him to make peace with Servia. He appealed to Nicholas V., who remonstrated with Hunyady, when the latter retorted that Stephen Thomas was false to his promises, and, in place of exterminating the heretics, was protecting them, to the scandal of all Christendom.[349]

On the fall of Constantinople, in May, 1453, Stephen Thomas promptly sent envoys to Mahomet II. to tender his allegiance. In the ever-deepening menace of the Turks persecution could hardly be resumed with activity, but the popes occasionally gave him a portion of the moneys raised for the crusade, and the Cathari were humiliated and proscribed as far as could be ventured upon, and const.i.tuted a discontented and dangerous element of the population. In 1459 we find the king protesting to Pius II. that he persecuted the Cathari roundly, and asking for more bishops; and one of his latest acts was to send the Bishop of Nona to the pope with three Catharan magnates--George Kucinic, Stojsav Tvrtkovic, and Radovan Viencinic--that they might be converted.

It seems incredible that any one should covet a throne so precarious, and yet, in 1461, while Stephen Thomas was battling with the Croatian magnates, he was murdered by his son, Stephen Thomasevic, and his brother Radivoj. The crown which Stephen Thomasevic thus won by a parricide was a crown of thorns. To the north Matthias Corvinus of Hungary was estranged and unforgiving; to the west was Croatia, with which he was at war; in the south Stephen Vukcic was his enemy; while on the east lay Servia, now a Turkish pashalic, from which Mahomet II. only awaited the fitting moment to reduce Bosnia to a like condition. Thus surrounded by foes, the internal condition of the land was not rea.s.suring, for it was full of secret or open Cathari, who longed for help or revenge, no matter whence it might come.[350]

The new king recognized that his only hope lay in obtaining aid from Christendom, to earn which he labored energetically to strengthen the Catholic Church in his dominions, but, in the fatal perverseness of the time, this only precipitated his downfall. From Pius II. he obtained only barren instructions to the legate, Lorenzo, Abbot of Spalatro, to collect money and crusaders. From Matthias Corvinus he purchased an alliance by a heavy payment, by surrendering some castles, and by breaking off relations with the Turks and ceasing to pay them tribute.

In all this he estranged still further his heretic subjects and drew upon his head the vengeance of Mahomet II. Many Cathari, driven from Bosnia, had found refuge in Moslem territory; others, especially n.o.bles, forced to pretend conversion, maintained constant relations with the Turks, kept them advised of all that occurred, and were eager to aid them, in hopes of revenge. The news of the treaty with Matthias Corvinus was speedily conveyed to Mahomet, who, to test its truth, sent an envoy to demand the tribute. King Stephen took him to the treasury, showed him the money, and refused to deliver it, saying that he needed it for self-defence, or that it would support him in exile if driven from the kingdom, and he paid no heed to the envoy's warning that treasure withheld in defiance of pledges would bring him no luck.[351]

Defiance such as this left nothing to hope for from the Turk, but preoccupations in Wallachia kept Mahomet busy during 1462, and he postponed his revenge till the following year. It shows the blindness of Rome to the situation and the unflagging persistency of the determination to secure uniformity of faith, that during this respite Pius II. sent learned friars to Bosnia with instructions that the best mode of overcoming heresy was to promote study. The instructions were excellent, but sadly misplaced. Through the winter and spring of 1463 Mahomet was preparing the final blow by ma.s.sing one hundred and fifty thousand men at Adrianople. To throw Stephen Thomasevic off of his guard, his request for a fifteen years' truce was granted, and his envoys, returning with this welcome news, were followed, after an interval of four days, by the Turkish host. The land was found defenceless, and no resistance was offered till the invaders reached the royal castle of Bobovac, a stronghold capable of prolonged defence. Its commandant, however, was Count Radak, a Catharan who had been forced to conversion, and on the third day he surrendered on a promise of reward.

When he claimed this, Mahomet, reproaching him with his treason, had him promptly beheaded, and tradition still points out on the road to Sutiska the rock Radakovica, where the traitor met his end. The capitulation of Bobovac cast terror throughout the land. Resistance was no longer thought of, and the only alternatives were flight or submission. The king hurried towards the Croatian frontier, with Mahomet Pasha at his heels, and was compelled at Kljuc to surrender on promise of life and freedom, but, in spite of this, he was put to death, after being utilized to order all commandants of cities and castles to surrender them. Within eight days more than seventy towns fell into the hands of the Turks, and by the middle of June all Bosnia was in their possession.

Then Mahomet turned southward to overrun the territories of Stephen Vukcic, but the mountains of Herzegovina were bravely defended by the Cathari, and by the end of June the Turkish host took its way homeward, carrying with it one hundred thousand prisoners and thirty thousand youths to be converted into Janissaries.[352]

Thus abandoned by Christendom, except to hasten the end through perpetually inflaming religious strife, Bosnia was conquered without a struggle, while Herzegovina held out for twenty years longer. How easily the catastrophe might have been averted is seen in the fact that before the year 1463 was out Matthias Corvinus had reconquered a large portion of the territory so easily won, which was held until the Hungarian power was broken on the disastrous field of Mohacs in 1526. In the Turkish lands the Cathari for the most part embraced Mahometanism, and the sect which had so stubbornly endured the vicissitudes of more than a thousand years disappeared in obscurity. The Christians had the resource of flight, which they embraced, commencing an emigration which continued until the middle of the eighteenth century. This was rather to escape oppression than persecution, for the Turks permitted them the exercise of their religion. When the blessed Angelo of Verbosa, the disciple of Giacomo della Marca, persuaded his fellow-believers to leave the country, Mahomet sent for him and menacingly asked him his reasons. "To worship G.o.d elsewhere," he boldly replied, and so eloquently pleaded his cause that the Turk ordered the Christians to be unmolested, and gave Angelo permission to preach. Thenceforth the Franciscans were the refuge and support of the Christians up to modern times, though they had many cruelties to endure at the hands of the barbarous conquerors.[353]

CHAPTER VI.

GERMANY.

In 1209 Henry of Veringen, Bishop of Stra.s.sburg, accompanied Otho IV. on his coronation expedition to Rome. We have seen (p. 192) how some of the ecclesiastics in the emperor's train were scandalized by the almost open toleration of heretics in the papal city; possibly recriminations may have pa.s.sed between the German and the Italian prelates, and the former may have been recommended to look more sharply after the orthodoxy of their own dioceses. Be this as it may, Bishop Henry is said to have carried home with him some theologians eager to punish aberrations from the faith, and a little investigation showed to his horror that his land was full of misbelievers. A searching inquest was organized, and he soon had five hundred prisoners representing all cla.s.ses of society. He was a humane man, as the times went, and he sincerely sought their conversion, to which end he set on foot disputations, but his clergy were no match for the sectaries in knowledge of Scripture, and the faith gained little by the attempt. Recourse to stronger measures was evidently requisite, and he announced that all who were obstinate should be burned. This brought most of them to their senses; heretic books and writings were eagerly surrendered, and the converts abjured. About a hundred of them, however, under the persuasion of their leader, a priest of Stra.s.sburg named John, were obdurate, including twelve priests, twenty-three women, and a number of n.o.bles. So ignorant were the episcopal officials of the method of proceeding against heretics that they were utterly at a loss how to convict these recusants; some form of trial seems to have been thought necessary, and resort was had to the old expedient of the red-hot iron ordeal. The heretics protested against it as a manifest tempting of G.o.d, but their objections were unavailing; those who denied their heresy were subjected to it, and naturally but few escaped. One of them, named Reinhold, appealed to Innocent III. against this form of trial, and the pope promptly responded by forbidding its further use in such matters, although we are told by contemporaries that its efficacy was abundantly proved by miracles. One of the heretics who repented at the last moment was divinely cured of his burn and was discharged.

Returning home rejoicing, his wife upbraided him with his weakness, and under her reproof he relapsed. Immediately the burn reappeared, and a similar one was developed on the hand of the wife, inflicting such agony that neither could restrain their screams. Fearing to betray themselves, they rushed to the woods, where they yelled like wild beasts; this led to their speedy discovery, and before the ashes of their confederates were yet cold they both shared the same fate. More fortunate was one of a number of heretics convicted in this manner at Cambrai about the same time. On his way to the stake he listened to the exhortations of a priest and commenced to repent and confess. As he did so his hand began to heal, and when he received absolution there was no trace left of the burn. Then the priest called attention to him, p.r.o.nouncing him innocent, and on the evidence of his uninjured hand he was discharged. At Stra.s.sburg there were eighty obstinate ones, whose heresy was proved by the ordeal. They were all burned the same day in a ditch beyond the walls, and in the sixteenth century the hollow was still known to the citizens as the Ketzergrube. The property of the condemned was duly confiscated and was divided between the magistrates and those who had labored so successfully in vindicating the faith.[354]

It is not to be supposed that Stra.s.sburg was a solitary centre of heresy, and that this was the only case of contemporary persecution.

Fragmentary allusions to the detection and punishment of misbelief in other places during the next few years show that the population of the Rhinelands was deeply infected, and that when the ignorance and sloth of the clergy permitted detection, heretics were ruthlessly exterminated.

The event at Stra.s.sburg, however, happens to have been reported with a fulness of detail which invests it with peculiar importance as revealing the methods of the episcopal inquisition of the period, and the nature of existing religious dissidence.[355]

The Cathari appear to have virtually disappeared from Germany, where their foothold, at best, had been precarious. German soil seems to have been unpropitious to this essentially Southern growth. On the other hand, Waldenses were numerous, together with sectaries known as Ortlibenses or Ordibarii.

We have already seen how rapidly Waldensianism extended from Burgundy to Franche Comte and Lorraine, and how, in 1199, Innocent III., after vainly endeavoring to persuade the Waldenses of Metz to surrender their vernacular Scriptures, had sent thither the Abbot of Citeaux and two other abbots to repress their zeal. The abbots duly performed their mission, preached to the misguided zealots, and burned all such copies of the forbidden books as they could lay their hands on, though it is fair to presume, from the silence of the chronicler, that no human victims expiated at the stake their unlawful studies. The consequence of this misplaced lenity was the emboldenment of the heretics. Some years later when Bishop Bertrand was preaching in the cathedral he saw two whom he recognized, and pointed them out, saying, "I see among you missionaries of the Devil; there they are, who in my presence at Montpellier were condemned for heresy and cast out." The unabashed Waldenses, with a companion, replied to him with insults, and, leaving the church, gathered a crowd, to whom they preached their doctrines. The bishop was powerless to silence them, for, when he attempted to use force, he found them protected by some of the most influential citizens of the town, and they were able to disseminate their pestiferous opinions in safety. Here, as in many other places, quarrels between the people and the bishop paralyzed the arm of the Church, and the Waldenses for many years continued to infect the city.[356]

It cannot, therefore, surprise us that nearly all the heretics burned at Stra.s.sburg in 1212 belonged to this sect. From their writings and confessions a list of three hundred errors was compiled, afterwards condensed into seventeen, and these were read before them to the people while they were on their way to the place of execution. Priest John, their leader, admitted the correctness of all save one alleging promiscuous s.e.xual intercourse, which he indignantly denied. Those which he admitted show how rapidly their doctrines were developing to their logical conclusions, and how impa.s.sable was the gulf which already separated them from the Church. All the holy orders were rejected, and this already led to the abolition of sacerdotal celibacy; disbelief in purgatory was definitely adopted, with its consequences as to prayers and ma.s.ses for the dead, and there had already been invented, before St.

Francis and his followers, the dogma that Christ and his disciples held no property.[357]

The Ortlibenses or Ordibarii, who were also represented among the victims of Stra.s.sburg, demand a somewhat more detailed consideration than their immediate importance would seem to justify, because, although comparatively few in numbers, they present the earliest indication of a peculiar tendency in German free thought which we shall find reproduce itself in many forms, and const.i.tute, with almost unconquerable stubbornness, the princ.i.p.al enemy with which the Inquisition had to deal.

Early in the century Maitre David de Dinant, a schoolman of Paris, whose subtlety of argumentation rendered him a favorite with Innocent III., had indulged in dangerous speculations derived from the Aristotelian philosophy, as transmitted through the Arab commentators, adulterated with neo-Platonic elements, which trans.m.u.ted the theism of the Greek into a kind of mystic pantheism. These speculations were carried still further by his fellow-schoolman, Amauri de Bene, a favorite of the heir-apparent, Prince Louis. His views were condemned by the university in 1204; he appealed to the Holy See, but was compelled to abjure in 1207, when he is said to have died of mortification. He had disciples, however, who propagated his doctrines in secret. They were mostly men of education and intelligence, theologians of the university and priests, except a certain goldsmith named Guillaume, who was esteemed as the prophet of the little sect. It was impossible that bold speculations of this nature should remain stationary, and the theoretical premises of David and Amauri were carried to unexpected conclusions in the effort to reduce them into a system for proselytism among the people. Amauri had taught that G.o.d was the essence of all creatures, and, as light could not be seen of itself, but only in the air, so G.o.d was invisible except in his creatures. The inevitable deduction from this was that after death all beings would return to G.o.d, and in him be unified in eternal rest. This swept away the doctrines of future retribution, purgatory, and h.e.l.l, and, as the Amaurians did not fail to point out, the innumerable observances through which the Church controlled the consciences and the wealth of men through its power over the keys and the treasury of salvation. As this was destructive to the ecclesiastical system, so was the doctrine equally subversive of morality, which taught that such was the virtue of love and charity that whatever was done in their behalf could be no sin, and, further, that any one filled with the Holy Ghost was impeccable, no matter what crime he might commit, because that Spirit, which is G.o.d, cannot sin, nor can man, who is nothing of himself, so long as the Spirit of G.o.d is in him.[358]

There was in these utterances an irresistible attraction to minds p.r.o.ne to mystic exaltation. Even the orthodox Caesarius of Heisterbach argues that much is permitted to the saints which is forbidden to sinners; where is the Spirit of G.o.d, there is liberty--have charity, and do what thou pleasest.[359] When the fatal word had once been spoken, it could not be hushed to silence, and, in spite of the most persistent and unsparing efforts of repression, these dangerous heights of superhuman spirituality continued to be the goal of men dissatisfied with the limitations of frail humanity, down to the time of Molinos and the Illuminati, and the influence of the doctrine is to be traced in the reveries of Madame Guyon and the Quietists.

Yet the Amaurian heresy was speedily crushed in its place of origin. In his proselyting zeal, Guillaume the goldsmith, in 1210, approached a certain Maitre Raoul de Nemours, who feigned readiness of conviction, and reported the matter to Pierre, Bishop of Paris, and Maitre Robert de Curzon, the papal supervisor of preaching in France. By their advice he pretended conversion and accompanied the Amaurians on a missionary tour which lasted for three months and extended as far as Langres. We learn something of the habits of the sectaries when we are told that to keep up the deception he would pretend to be wrapped in ecstasy, with face upturned to heaven, and on recovering himself would relate the visions which had been vouchsafed to him, though he successfully evaded the requests that he should preach the new doctrines in public. When fully informed as to all details, he communicated with the authorities, and arrests were made. A council of bishops was convened in Paris which found no difficulty in condemning all concerned; those who were in orders were degraded, and they were all handed over to the secular authorities. There were as yet no laws defining the punishment of heresy, so their fate was postponed until the return of the king, who was then absent. The result was that four of the leaders were imprisoned for life and ten were burned, who met their fate with unshrinking calmness. The simple folk of both s.e.xes who had been seduced into following them were mercifully spared. A few executions took place elsewhere, such as that of one of the heresiarchs, Maitre G.o.din, who was tried and burned at Amiens; the remains of Amauri were exhumed and exposed to the dogs, after which his bones were scattered in the fields; the writings of the enthusiasts were forbidden to be read; the study of natural science in the university was suspended for three years, and the works of Aristotle, which had given rise to the heresy, were publicly burned.[360]

The doctrine of impeccability was likely to give loosened rein to human pa.s.sion in those whose spiritual exaltation did not lift them above the weakness of the flesh, and there may be truth in the accusations current against the Amaurians, that the disciples of both s.e.xes abandoned themselves to scandalous license, under the pretext of yielding to the demands of Christian love. Yet the popular designation of Papelards bestowed on the sectaries show that they at least preserved an exterior of sanct.i.ty and devotion, and that they prudently abstained from putting into practice their theories of the uselessness of the sacraments and of all external cult.

The heresy was thus crushed in its birthplace, where we hear no more of it except that there were teachers of it in Dauphine, where they were confounded with the Waldenses, and that in 1225 Honorius III. ordered the destruction of the Periphyseos of Erigena, which was thought to have given rise to Amauri's speculations. The seed, however, was widely scattered, to bear fruit in foreign soil. The University of Paris drew together eager searchers after knowledge from every country in Europe, and it could not be difficult for the Amaurians to find among those from abroad converts who would prove useful missionaries. In 1215, Robert de Curzon includes the works of a certain Maurice the Spaniard in his condemnation of those of David and Amauri. Another disciple is said to have been Ortlieb of Stra.s.sburg, the teacher of the sectaries known by his name whose fate we have seen at Stra.s.sburg. That the heresy was known not to be extinguished is shown by the fact that in 1215 the great Council of Lateran still deemed it necessary to utter a formal condemnation of the doctrines of Amauri, which it stigmatized as crazy rather than heretical.[361]

We know little of the faith originally professed by the Brethren of the Free Spirit, as the followers of Ortlieb called themselves. The princ.i.p.al account we have of their doctrines in the thirteenth century concerns itself much more with the results in denying the efficacy of sacerdotal observances than with the principles which led to those results; but there are indications of pantheism in the a.s.sertion of the eternity of the uncreated universe, in the promise of eternal life to all, while denying the resurrection of the flesh, and in the mystic representation of the Trinity by three members of the sect. No immorality is attributed to them; nay, the severest continence was prescribed by them, even in marriage; the only generation of children permitted was spiritual, through conversion, while homicide, lying, and oaths were strictly forbidden. It is quite probable that in Alsace the prevalence of Waldensianism and the sympathies born of common proscription may have considerably modified the opinions of the disciples of Ortlieb. They were by no means exterminated in the persecutions of 1212, and we hear of further pursuit against them in 1216, extending as far as Thurgau, in Switzerland. About the middle of the century they are described as prevailing in Suabia, especially in the neighborhood of Nordlingen and Oettingen, and Albertus Magnus thought them of sufficient importance to draw up an elaborate list of their errors.[362]

It was not long before another consequence, especially shocking to the faithful, was drawn from the fruitful premises of pantheism. If G.o.d was the essence of all creatures, Satan himself could not be excepted; if all were to be eventually reunited in G.o.d, Satan and his angels could not be condemned to eternal perdition. So infinite were the conclusions which flowed from the bold a.s.sumptions of the Amaurians, that those who accepted their views inevitably diverged in the applications, as they attributed greater or less importance to one series of propositions or another. There were some who took special interest in this theory as to Satan, and as their utterances were peculiarly exasperating to the orthodox, they were designated as a separate sect under the name of Luciferans. Of these we hear much but see little. Their doctrines were exaggerated into devil-worship, and they were included in the list of heretics to be periodically anathematized with a zeal which attributed to them vastly greater importance than their scanty numbers deserved.

Probably this was because they were peculiarly well adapted to serve as a stimulus for a healthy popular abhorrence of heresy. The most extravagant and repulsive stories were circulated as to their hideous rites, which gradually took shape under the current superst.i.tions as to witchcraft, which they aided to formulate and render concrete. At the period under consideration they formed the basis of the wildest and most ferocious epidemic of persecution that the world had yet seen.

The first indication we have of this tendency occurs in the case of Henry Minneke, Provost of the Cistercian nunnery of Neuwerke in Goslar, which is further of interest as showing how utterly, at the close of the first quarter of the thirteenth century, Germany was dest.i.tute of any inquisitorial machinery, and how ignorant were her prelates as yet of inquisitorial procedure. In 1222 Minneke was accused before his bishop, the fanatic Conrad von Reisenberg of Hildesheim, of certain heretical opinions. An a.s.sembly of prelates was held at Goslar, which took testimony of his nuns, and found him guilty. He was simply ordered to teach his doctrines no longer. When he disobeyed he was summoned before Bishop Conrad, who examined him for three days and sentenced him to return to his Premonstratensian monastery, and ordered the nuns to elect another provost. To this, again, he paid no attention, probably considering that his immunities as a monk exempted him from episcopal jurisdiction, and the bishop seems to have had no resource but to implore the intervention of Honorius III. When the pope ordered the sentence executed, the nuns interjected an appeal back to him and to the emperor. Both appeals were rejected; Minneke was declared a diseased member of the Church, fit only to be cut off, and the nuns were told that they should rejoice in being liberated from his influence. Still he remained firm, and the bishop was obliged to consult the Cardinal-legate, Cinthio of Porto, before he ventured to throw the indomitable heretic into prison. From his jail, Minneke himself appealed to the pope, a.s.serting that he had been condemned unheard, praying for an examination, and offering to submit to incarceration for life if he should refuse to recant any erroneous opinions of which he might be convicted. Honorius thereupon, in May, 1224, ordered Bishop Conrad to bring his prisoner before the legate and an a.s.sembly of prelates for a final hearing and judgment. About October I, at Bardewick, Cinthio met an a.s.sembly of the bishops of North Germany, where it was decided that Minneke was convicted of having encouraged the nuns to regard him as greater than any other born of woman; he had on many points relaxed the severe Cistercian discipline; in his sermons he had declared that the Holy Ghost was the Father of the Son, and had so exalted the state of virginity as to represent marriage as a sin; in a vision he had seen Satan praying to be forgiven, and he had a.s.serted that in heaven there was a woman greater than the Virgin, whose name was Wisdom. Still another synod, held at Hildesheim, October 22, was requisite to conclude the matter. Minneke was brought before it, was convicted of his errors, and degraded from the priesthood, but even yet Bishop Conrad was so little sure of his authority that the sentence was published under the seal of the legate. The culprit was handed over to the secular authorities, and was duly burned in 1225. The prominence accorded to this a.s.sertion, that Satan desired forgiveness, is shown by his being stigmatized as a Manichaean and a Luciferan.[363]

This case has a further interest for us, inasmuch as one of the partic.i.p.ators in the final judgment was a man who filled all Germany with his fame, and who was the most perfect embodiment of the pure fanaticism of his time--Conrad of Marburg. Though a secular priest and holding himself aloof from both Mendicant Orders,[364] Conrad steeped himself in the severest poverty and gained his bread by beggary. Though he could have aspired to any dignity in the Church, which reverenced him as its greatest apostle, and though for years all the benefices of Thuringia were placed by the Landgrave Louis at his absolute disposal, he never accepted a single preferment. Devoted solely to the work of the Lord, his fiery soul and unrelaxing energies were directed with absolute singleness of purpose to advancing the kingdom of heaven upon earth, according to the light which was in him.[365]

Stern in temper and narrow in mind, his bigotry was ardent to the pitch of insanity. What were his conceptions of the duty of man to his Creator and how his conscience led him to abuse unlimited authority can best be judged by his course as spiritual director of St. Elizabeth of Thuringia. The daughter of Andreas of Hungary, born in 1207, married in 1221, at the age of thirteen, to Louis of Thuringia, one of the most powerful of German princes, a mother at fourteen, a widow at twenty, and dying of self-inflicted austerities in her twenty-fourth year, Elizabeth was the rarest type of womanly gentleness and self-abnegation, of all Christian virtues and spiritual aspirations. When but eighteen years of age she placed herself under Conrad's direction, and he proceeded to discipline this heavenly spirit with a ferocity worthy of a demon. Such implicit obedience did he exact that on one occasion when he had sent for her to hear him preach, and she was unable to do so on account of an unexpected visit from her sister-in-law, the Margravine of Misnia, he angrily declared that he would leave her. She went to him the next day and entreated for pardon; on his continuing obdurate, she and her maidens, whom he blamed for the matter, cast themselves at his feet, when he caused them all to be stripped to their shifts and soundly scourged. It is no wonder that he inspired her with such terror that she was wont to say "If I so much dread a mortal man, how is G.o.d to be rightly dreaded?" After the death of Louis, whom she tenderly loved, and when his brother Henry despoiled her and drove her out, penniless, with her children, she submitted with patient resignation and earned her living by beggary; and when he was forced to compound for her dower-rights with money, she made haste to distribute it in charity.

Under the influence of the diseased pietism inculcated by Conrad, she abandoned her children to G.o.d and devoted herself to succoring casual outcasts and lepers; and the depth of her humility was shown when scandal made busy with her fame in consequence of her relations with Conrad. On being warned of this and counselled to greater prudence, she brought forth the b.l.o.o.d.y scourge which she used, and said, "This is the love the holy man bears to me. I thank G.o.d, who has deigned to accept this final oblation from me. I have sacrificed everything--station, wealth, beauty--and have made myself a beggar, intending only to preserve the adornment of womanly modesty; if G.o.d chooses to take this also, I hold it to be a special grace." It was this spirit, so self-abased and humble, that Conrad's brutal fanaticism sought systematically to break, contradicting her of set purpose in all things, and demanding of her every possible sacrifice. Merely to add to her afflictions he drove away, one by one, the faithful serving-women who idolized her, finally expelling Guda, who had been her loved companion since infancy in Hungary; as they themselves said, "He did this with a good intention, because he feared our influence in recalling her past splendors, and he wished to deprive her of all human comfort that she might rely wholly on G.o.d." When she disobeyed his orders he used to beat her and strike her, which she endured with pleasure, in memory of the blows inflicted on Christ. Once he sent for her to come to him at Oldenburg to determine whether he would put her into an extremely rigid convent there. The nuns asked him to let her visit them, and he gave her permission, expecting that she would decline in view of the excommunication hanging over all intruders on the sacred precincts.

Supposing, however, that she had leave, she went, while her woman Irmengard stood outside, received the key, and opened the door. For this Conrad made them both lie down, and ordered his faithful comrade, Friar Gerhard, to beat them with a heavy rod, so that they bore the marks of the flogging for weeks. Well might, in the next century, the mysterious Friend of G.o.d in the Oberland, when speaking of St. Elizabeth, remark that she had abandoned herself, in place of to G.o.d, to a man far inferior to herself in natural apt.i.tudes as well as in the gifts of divine grace.[366]

The significance of all this lies not only in the coa.r.s.e violence of Conrad's methods, which regarded torture, mental and physical, as the most efficient aid to salvation, but also in the arrogance of the nature which could, without a shadow of hesitation, a.s.sume the position of an avenging G.o.d punishing humanity for its weakness and sin. When a man of such a temper was inflamed with the most fiery fanaticism, was armed with irresponsible power, and believed himself to be engaged in a direct conflict with Satan, his mad enthusiasm could lead only to a catastrophe. For the evil which he wrought it would be unjust to hold him responsible. The crime lay with those who could coolly select such an instrument, work up his crazy zeal to the highest pitch, and then let him loose to wreak his blind wrath upon defenceless populations.