Under this varying policy the fate of the people of Languedoc was hard. Nicholas d’Abbeville, the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, was a man of inflexible severity, arrogantly bent on pushing his prerogatives to the utmost. He had an assistant worthy of him in Foulques de Saint-Georges, the Prior of the Convent of Albi, which was under his jurisdiction. He had virtually another assistant in the bishop, Bernard de Castanet, who delighted to act as inquisitor, impelled alike by fanaticism and by greed, for, as we haveseen, the bishops of Albi, by a special transaction with St. Louis, enjoyed a half of the confiscations. Prior to his elevation in 1276 Bernard had been auditor of the papal camera, which shows him to have been an accomplished legist, and he was also a patron of art and literature, but he was ever in trouble with his people. Already, in 1277, he had succeeded in so exasperating them that his palace was swept by a howling mob, and he barely escaped with his life. In 1282 he commenced the erection of the cathedral of St. Cecilia, a gigantic building, half church, half fortress, which swallowed enormous sums, and stimulated his hatred of heresy by supplying a pious use for the estates of heretics.[74]
To such men the protection granted to his subjects by Philippe was most distasteful, and not without reason. Heretics naturally took advantage of the restrictions imposed on the Inquisition and redoubled their activity. It might seem, indeed, to them that the day of supremacy of the Church was past, and that the rising independence of the secular power might usher in an era of comparative toleration, in which their persecuted religion would at length find its oft-deferred opportunity of converting mankind—a dream in which they indulged to the last. More demonstrative, if not more earnest, was the feeling which the royal policy aroused in Carcassonne. The Ordonnances had not only crippled the Inquisition, but had shown the disfavor with which it was regarded by the king, and in 1295 some of the leading citizens, who had been compromised in the trials of 1285, found no difficulty in arousing the people to open resistance. For a while they controlled the city, and inflicted no little injury on the Dominicans, and on all who ventured to support them. Nicholas d’Abbeville was driven from the pulpit when preaching, pelted with stones and pursued with drawn swords, and the judges of the royal court on one occasion were glad to escape with their lives, while the friars were beaten and insulted when they appeared in public and were practically segregated as excommunicates. Bernard Gui, aneye-witness, naturally attributes this to the influence of heresy, but it is impossible for us now to conjecture how much may have been due to religious antagonism, and how much to the natural reaction among the orthodox against the intolerable oppression of the inquisitorial methods.[75]
For some years the Inquisition of Carcassonne was suspended. As soon as secular support was withdrawn public opinion was too strong, and it succumbed. This lasted until the truce between king and pope again placed the royal power at the disposal of the inquisitors. In their despair the citizens then sent envoys to Boniface VIII., with Aimeric Castel at their head, supported by a number of Franciscans. Boniface listened to their complaints and proposed to depute the Bishop of Vicenza as commissioner to examine and report, but the papal referendary, afterwards Cardinal of S. Sabina, required a bribe of ten thousand florins as a preliminary. It was promised him, but Aimeric, having secured the good offices of Pierre Flotte and the Duke of Burgundy, thought he could obtain his purpose for less, and refused to pay it. When Boniface heard of the refusal he angrily exclaimed, “We know in whom they trust, but by God all the kings in Christendom shall not save the people of Carcassonne from being burned, and specially the father of that Aimeric Castel!” The negotiation fell through, and Nicholas d’Abbeville had his triumph. A large portion of the citizens were wearied with the disturbances, and were impatient under the excommunication which rested on the community. The prosperity of the town was declining, and there were not wanting those who predicted its ruin. The hopelessness of further resistance was apparent, and matters being thus ripe for a settlement, a solemn assembly was held, April 27, 1299, when the civic magistrates met the inquisitor in the presence of the Bishops of Albi and Béziers, Bertrand de Clermont, Inquisitor of Toulouse, the royal officials, sundry abbots and other notables. Nicholas dictated his own terms for the absolution asked at his hands, nor were they seemingly harsh. Those who were manifest heretics, or specially defamed, or convicted by legal proof must take their chance. The rest were to be penanced as the bishops and the Abbotof Fontfroide might advise, excluding confiscation and personal or humiliating penalties. All this was reasonable enough from an ecclesiastical point of view, but so deep-seated was the distrust, or so strong the heretical influence, that the people asked twenty-four hours for consideration, and on reassembling the next day refused the terms. Six months passed, their helplessness and isolation each day becoming more apparent, until, October 8, they reassembled, and the consuls asked for absolution in the name of the community. Nicholas was not severe. The penance imposed on the town was the building of a chapel in honor of St. Louis, which was accomplished in the year 1300 at the cost of ninety livres Tournois. The consuls, in the name of the community, secretly abjured heresy. Twelve of the most guilty citizens were reserved for special penances, viz., four of the old consuls, four councillors, two advocates, and two notaries. Of these the fate was doubtless deplorable. Chance has preserved to us the sentence passed on one of the authors of the troubles, Guillem Garric, by which we find that he rotted in the horrible dungeon of Carcassonne for twenty-two years before he was brought forward for judgment in 1321, when in consideration of his long confinement he was given the choice between the crusade and exile, and the crushed old man fell on his knees and gave thanks to Jesus Christ and to the inquisitors for the mercy vouchsafed him. Some years later intense excitement was created when Frère Bernard Délicieux obtained sight of the agreement, and discovered that the consuls had been represented in it as confessing that the whole community had given aid to manifest heretics, that they had abjured in the name of all, and thus that all citizens were incapacitated for office and were exposed to the penalties of relapse in case of further trouble. This excited the people to such a point that the inquisitor, Geoffroi d’Ablis, was obliged to issue a solemn declaration, August 10, 1303, disclaiming any intention of thus taking advantage of the settlement; and notwithstanding this, when King Philippe came to Carcassonne in 1305 the agreement was pronounced fraudulent, the seneschal Gui Caprier was dismissed for having affixed his seal to it, and confessed that he had been bribed to do so by Nicholas d’Abbeville with a thousand livres Tournois.[76]
Encouraged by the crippling and suspension of the Inquisition, the Catharan propaganda had been at work with renewed vigor. In 1299 the Council of Béziers sounded the alarm by announcing that perfected heretics had made their appearance in the land, and ordering close search made after them. At Albi, Bishop Bernard was, as usual, at variance with his flock, who were pleading against him in the royal court to preserve their jurisdiction. The occasion was opportune. He called to his assistance the inquisitors Nicholas d’Abbeville and Bertrand de Clermont, and towards the close of the year 1299 the town was startled by the arrest of twenty-five of the wealthiest and most respected citizens, whose regular attendance at mass and observance of all religious duties had rendered them above suspicion. The trials were pushed with unusual celerity, and, from the manner in which those who at first denied were speedily brought to confession and to revealing the names of their associates, there was doubtless good ground for the popular belief that torture was ruthlessly and unsparingly used; in fact, allusions to it in the final sentence of Guillem Calverie, one of the victims, leave no doubt on the subject. Abjuration saved them from the stake, but the sentence of perpetual imprisonment in chains was a doubtful mercy for those who were sentenced, while a number were kept interminably in jail awaiting judgment.[77]
The whole country was ripe for revolt. The revival of Philippe’s quarrel with Boniface soon gave assurance that help might be expected from the throne; but if this should fail there would be scant hesitation on the part of desperate men in looking for some other sovereign who would lend an ear to their complaints. The arrest and trial for treason of the Bishop of Pamiers, in 1301, shows us what was then the undercurrent of popular feeling in Languedoc, where the Frenchman was still a hated stranger, the king a foreign despot, and the people discontented and ready to shift their allegiance to either England or Aragon whenever they could see their advantage in it. The fragile tenure with whichthe land was still held by the Kings of Paris must be kept in view if we would understand Philippe’s shifting policy.[78]
The prosecutions of Albi caused general terror, for the victims were universally thought to be good Catholics, selected for spoliation on account of their wealth. The conviction was widespread that such inquisitors as Jean de Faugoux, Guillem de Mulceone, Jean de Saint-Seine, Jean Galande, Nicholas d’Abbeville, and Foulques de Saint-Georges had long had no scruple in obtaining, by threats and torture, such testimony as they might desire against any one whom they might wish to ruin, and that their records were falsified, and filled with fictitious entries for that purpose. Some years before, Frère Jean Martin, a Dominican, had invoked the interposition of Pierre de Montbrun, Archbishop of Narbonne (died 1286), to put a stop to this iniquity. Some investigation was made, and the truth of the charges was established. The dead were found to be the special prey of these vultures, who had prepared their frauds in advance. Even the fierce orthodoxy of the Maréchaux de la Foi could not save Gui de Levis of Mirepoix from this posthumous attack; and, when Gautier de Montbrun, Bishop of Carcassonne, died, they produced from their records proof that he had adored heretics and had been hereticated on his death-bed. In this latter case, fortunately, the archbishop happened to know that one of the witnesses, Jourdain Ferrolh, had been absent at the time when, by his alleged testimony, he had seen the act of adoration. Frère Jean Martin urged the archbishop to destroy all the records and cause the Dominicans to be deprived of their functions, and the prelate made some attempt at Rome to effect this, contenting himself meanwhile with issuing some regulations and sequestrating some of the books. It was probably during this flurry that the Inquisitors of Carcassonne and Toulouse, Nicholas d’Abbeville and Pierre de Mulceone, hearing that they were likely to be convicted of fraud, retired with their records to the safe retreat of Prouille and busied themselves in making a transcript, with the compromising entries omitted, which they ingeniously bound in the covers stripped from the old volumes.[79]
About this time occurred a case which confirms the popular belief in inquisitorial iniquity, and which had results of vastly greater importance than its promoters anticipated. When the disappointed Boniface VIII. swore that he would cause the burning of Aimeric Castel’s father, he uttered no idle threat. Nicholas d’Abbeville, a fitting instrument, was at hand, and to him he privately gave the necessary verbal instructions. Castel Fabri, the father, had been a citizen of Carcassonne distinguished for piety and benevolence no less than for wealth. A friend of the Franciscan Order, after duly receiving the sacraments, he had died, in 1278, in the hands of its friars, six of whom kept watch in the sick-room until his death, and he had been buried in the Franciscan cemetery. We have seen in the case of the Count of Foix how easily all these precautions could be brushed aside, and Nicholas found no difficulty in discovering or making the evidence he required.[80]Suddenly, in 1300, the people of Carcassonne were startled by a notice, read in all the parish churches, summoning those wishing to defend the memory of Castel Fabri to appear before the Inquisition on a day named, as the deceased was proved to have been hereticated on his death-bed. The moment was well chosen, as Aimeric Castel, the son, was absent. The Franciscans, for whom the accused had doubtless provided liberally in his will, felt themselves called upon to assume his defence. Hastily consulting, they determined to send their lector, Bernard de Liegossi, or Délicieux, to the General Chapter then assembling at Marseilles, for instructions, as, in the chronic antagonism between the Mendicants, the matter seemed to be regarded as an assault on the Order. The wife of Aimeric Castel provided for the expenses of the journey, and Bernard returned with instructions from the provincial to defend the memory of the deceased, while Eléazar deClermont, the syndic of the convent, was deputed by the Guardian of Narbonne to co-operate with him. Meanwhile Nicholas had proceeded to condemnation, and when, July 4, 1300, Bernard and Eléazar presented themselves to offer the testimony of the friars who had watched the dying man, Nicholas received them standing, refused to listen to them, and on their urging their evidence left the room in the most contemptuous manner. In the afternoon they returned to ask for a certificate of their offer and its refusal, but found the door of the Inquisition closed, and could not effect an entrance.
The next step was to take an appeal to the Holy See and ask for “Apostoli,” but this was no easy matter. So general was the terror inspired by Nicholas that the doctor of decretals, Jean de Penne, to whom they applied to draw the paper, refused unless his name should be kept inviolably secret, and nineteen years afterwards Bernard when on trial refused to reveal it until compelled to do so. To obtain a notary to authenticate the appeal was still harder. All those in Carcassonne absolutely refused, and it was found necessary to bring one from a distance, so that it was not until July 16 that the document was ready for service. How seriously, indeed, all parties regarded what should have been a very simple business is shown by the winding-up of the appeal, which places, until the case is decided, not only the body of Castel Fabri, but the appellants and the whole Franciscan convent, under the protection of the Holy See. When they went to serve the instrument on Nicholas the doors, as before, were found closed and entrance could not be effected. It was therefore read in the street and left tacked on the door, to be taken down and treasured and brought forward in evidence against Bernard in 1319. We have no further records of the case, but that the appeal was ineffectual is visible in the fact that in 1322-3 the accounts of Arnaud Assalit show that the royal treasury was still receiving an income from the confiscated estates of Castel Fabri; while in 1329 the still unsatisfied vengeance of the Inquisition ordered the bones of his wife Rixende to be exhumed.[81]
The case of Castel Fabri might have passed unnoticed, like thousands of others, had it not chanced to bring into collision with the Inquisition the lector of the convent of Carcassonne. Bernard Délicieux was no ordinary man, in fact a contemporary assures us that in the whole Franciscan Order there were few who were his equals. Entering the Order about 1284, his position of lector or teacher shows the esteem felt for his learning, for the Mendicants were ever careful in selecting those to whom they confided such functions; and, moreover, we find him in relations with the leading minds of the age, such as Raymond Lully and Arnaldo de Vilanova. His eloquence made him much in request as preacher; his persuasiveness enabled him to control those with whom he came in contact, while his enthusiastic ardor prompted him to make any sacrifices necessary to a cause which had once enlisted his sympathies. He was no latitudinarian or time-server, for when the split came in his own Order he embraced, to his ruin, the side of the Spiritual Franciscans, with the same disregard of self as he had manifested in his dealings with the Inquisition. He was no admirer of toleration, for he devoutly wished the extermination of heresy, but experience and observation had convinced him that in Dominican hands the Inquisition was merely an instrument of oppression and extortion, and he imagined that by transferring it to the Franciscans its usefulness would be preserved while its evils would be removed. Boniface VIII., as we have seen, about this time replaced the Franciscan inquisitors of Padua and Vicenza with Dominicans for the purpose of repressing similar evils, and in the jealousy and antagonism between the two orders the converse operation might seem worth attempting in Languedoc. In the hope of alleviating the sufferings of the people, Bernard devoted himself to the cause for years, incurring obloquy, persecution, and ingratitude. Those whom he sought to serve allowed him to sell his books in their service, and to cripple himself with debt, while the enmities which he excited hounded him relentlessly to the death. Yet in the struggle he had the sympathies of his own Order which everywhere throughout Languedoc manifested itselfthe enemy of the Dominican Inquisition. Already, in 1291, Franciscans in Carcassonne had endeavored to intervene in cases of heresy, and had been sharply reproved by Philippe le Bel at the instance of the Inquisitor Guillaume de Saint-Seine. In 1298 they had supported the appeal of the men of Carcassonne to Boniface VIII., and throughout the whole of Bernard’s agitation the Franciscan convents are seen to be rallying-points of the opposition. It is there that Bernard preaches his fiery sermons; it is there that meetings are held to plan resistance. During the troubles in Carcassonne Foulques de Saint-Georges went with twenty-five men to the Franciscan convent to cite the opponents of the Inquisition. The friars would not admit them, but tolled the bell and an angry crowd assembled, while those inside the convent assailed them with stones and quarrels, and they were glad to escape with their lives.[82]
Vainly the inquisitors complained to the Franciscan prelates of Bernard as an impeder of the Holy Office. The form of a trial would be gone through, and the offender would be furnished with letters attesting his innocence. The Dominicans asserted that Franciscan zeal was solely caused by jealousy; the Franciscans retorted that their friends were the special objects of inquisitorial persecution. King Philippe’s confessor was a Dominican, Queen Joanna’s a Franciscan, and the two courtly friars took part, for and against the Inquisition, with a zeal which rendered them important factors in the struggle. The undying hostility between the two Orders always led them to opposite sides in every question of dogma or practice, and this was one which afforded the amplest scope to bitterness.[83]
Thecoup-de-mainexecuted on the so-called heretics of Albi, in December, 1299, and the early months of 1300, had excited consternation too general for the matter to be passed over. King Philippe’s quarrel with Boniface was breaking out afresh, and he might not be averse to making his subjects feel that they had aprotector in the throne. With the advice of his council an investigation was ordered, and confided to the Bishops of Béziers and Maguelonne, but the inquisitors arrogantly and persistently refused to allow the secrets of their office to be invaded. This was not calculated to remove popular disquiet, and in 1301 Philippe sent to Languedoc two officials armed with supreme powers, under the name of Reformers. As the royal authority extended and established itself, special deputies for the investigation and correction of abuses were frequently despatched to the provinces. In the present case those who came to Languedoc perhaps had for their chief business the arrest of the Bishop of Pamiers, accused of treasonable practices, but the colorable pretext for their mission was the correction of inquisitorial abuses. One of them, Jean de Pequigny, Vidame of Amiens, was a man of high character for probity and sagacity; the other was Richard Nepveu, Archdeacon of Lisieux, of whom we hear little in the following years, except that he quietly slipped into the vacant episcopate of Béziers. He must have done his duty to some extent, however, for Bernard Gui tells us that he died in 1309 of leprosy, as a judgment of God for his hostility to the Inquisition.[84]
The Reformers established themselves at Toulouse, where Foulques de Saint-Georges had been inquisitor since Michaelmas, 1300, and speedily gathered much damaging testimony against him, for he was accused not only of unduly torturing persons for purposes of extortion, but of gratifying his lusts by arresting women whose virtue he failed otherwise to overcome. Thither flocked representatives of Albi, with the wives and children of the prisoners, beseeching and imploring the representatives of theking for justice, and promising revelations if they would issue letters of safety to those who would give information—for the terror inspired by the Inquisition was such that no one dared to testify concerning it unless he was assured of protection against its vengeance. The Bishop of Albi came also to justify himself, and on his return to his episcopal seat he was welcomed with a manifestation of the feeling entertained for him by his flock, whom the coming of the Reformers encouraged in the expression or their sentiments. When his approach was announced a crowd of men and women rushed forth from the gates to meet him with shouts of “Death, death, death to the traitor!” It may perhaps be doubted whether, as reported, he bore the threats and insults with patience akin to that of Christ, ordering his followers to keep their weapons down; certain it is that he was roughly handled, and had difficulty in safely reaching his palace. A conspiracy was formed to burn the palace, in order, during the confusion, to liberate the prisoners, but the hearts of the conspirators failed them and the project was abandoned. Even more menacing was the action of a number of the chief citizens, who bound themselves by a notarial instrument to prosecute him and Nicholas d’Abbeville in the king’s court. As a consequence, the bishop’s temporalities were sequestrated, and eventually the enormous fine of twenty thousand livres stripped him of a portion of his ill-gotten gains for the benefit of the king, who was bitterly reproached by Bernard Délicieux for thus preferring money to justice. Bernard de Castanet retained his uneasy seat until 1308, when, seeing under Clement V. no prospect of better times, he procured a transfer to the quieter see of Puy. One of the earliest signs of the revulsion under John XXII. was his advancement, in December, 1316, to the Cardinalate of Porto, which he held for only eight months, his death occurring in August, 1317.[85]
The Reformers, meanwhile, had sent for Bernard Délicieux, who was then quietly performing his duties as lector in the convent of Narbonne. He must already have made himself conspicuousin the affair of Castel Fabri, and was evidently regarded as a desirable ally in the impending struggle. According to his own story he advised Pequigny to let the Inquisition alone, as experience had shown that effort was useless; but on being called again to Toulouse on some business connected with the Priory of la Daurade, and having to visit Paris in connection with the will of Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, it was arranged, at Pequigny’s suggestion, that he should accompany a deputation which the citizens of Albi were sending to the king to invoke his active intervention. The court was at Senlis, whither they repaired, and there came also Pequigny to justify himself, and Frère Foulques with several Dominicans, eager to establish the innocence of the Inquisition.[86]
The battle was fought out before the king. Bernard urged the suspension of the inquisitors during an investigation, or that the Dominicans should be permanently declared ineligible while awaiting final action by the Holy See. Supported by Frère Guillaume, the king’s Dominican confessor, Foulques preferred charges against Pequigny, but could furnish no proofs. Pequigny retorted with accusations against Foulques, and a commission, consisting of the Archbishop of Narbonne and the Constable of France, was appointed to hear both sides. After due deliberation, it reported in favor of Pequigny, and the king took the unheard-of step of removing the inquisitor. He at first requested this of the Dominican Provincial of Paris, who possessed the power to do so, but that official called together a chapter, which contented itself with appointing an adjunct, and ordering Foulques to retain office till the middle of the following Lent, in order to complete the trials which he had already commenced. This gave Philippe great offence, which he expressed in the most outspoken terms in letters to his chaplain and to the Bishop of Toulouse, whom he bitterly reproached for advising acceptance of the terms. He did not content himself with words, for simultaneously, December 8, 1301, he wrote to the bishop, the Inquisitor of Toulouse, and the seneschals of Toulouse and Albi, stating that the imploring cries of his subjects, including prelates and ecclesiastics, counts, barons, and other distinguished men, convinced him that Foulques was guilty of the charges preferred against him, including crimesabhorrent to the human mind. He afflicted the people with numerous exactions and oppressions; he was accustomed to commence proceedings with torture inconceivable and incredible, and thus compel confession from those whom he suspected, and when this failed he suborned witnesses to testify falsely. His detestable excesses had created such general terror that a rising of the people was to be apprehended unless some speedy remedy was had. Some further unavailing opposition was made to Foulques’s removal, but not much was gained by the appointment of his successor, Guillaume de Morières, who had previously succeeded him in the Priory of Albi. Foulques was gratified with the important Priory of Avignon, and when he subsequently died in poverty at Lyons he was regarded by his Order almost in the light of a martyr.[87]
Philippe had not contented himself with getting rid of Foulques, but had endeavored to introduce reforms which are interesting not only as a manifestation of the royal supremacy which he assumed, but also as the model of all subsequent endeavors to curb the abuses of the Inquisition. It was natural that this should take the shape of reviving the episcopal power which had become so completely suppressed. Firstly, the prison which the crown had built on its own land in Toulouse for the use of the Inquisition was to be placed under the charge of some one selected by both bishop and inquisitor, and in case of their disagreement by the royal seneschal. The inquisitor was deprived of the power of arbitrary arrest. He was obliged to consult the bishop, and when they could not agree the question was to be decided by a majority vote in an assemblage consisting of certain officials of the cathedral and of the Franciscan and Dominican convents. Arrests were only to be made by the seneschal, after these preliminaries had been observed, except in case of foreign heretics who might escape. The question of bail was to be settled in the same way as that of arrest. In no case was either bishop or inquisitor entitled to obedience when acting individually, for, as the king declared,“We cannot endure that the life and death of our subjects shall be abandoned to the discretion of a single individual, who, even if not actuated by cupidity, may be insufficiently informed.” Inadequate as these reforms eventually proved, they had an excellent temporary effect. For a time the Inquisition was paralyzed, and arrests which had been taking place every week were suddenly brought to an end, for during 1302 these provisions were embodied in a general Ordonnance, and the legislation of 1293 protecting the Jews was repeated. At the same time Philippe was careful to manifest due solicitude for the suppression of heresy, for he published anew the severe edict of St. Louis; and on the appointment of Guillaume de Morières to the Inquisition of Toulouse he wrote to the seneschal instructing him to place the royal prisons at the inquisitor’s disposal, to pay him the customary stipend, and to aid him in every way until further orders.[88]
While the new regulations may have promised relief elsewhere, they gave little comfort at Albi, the inquisitorial proceedings of whose bishop had given rise to the whole disturbance. Its citizens were still languishing in the prison of the Inquisition of Carcassonne, and a numerous deputation of both sexes was sent to the king, accompanied by two Franciscans, Jean Hector and Bertrand de Villedelle. Again Bernard Délicieux was present, having this time been opportunely chosen to represent the Order on a summons from Philippe for consultation on the subject of his quarrel with Pope Boniface. They all followed the king to Pierrefonds and then to Compiègne. He gave them fair words, promised a speedy visit to Languedoc, when he would settle matters, and consoled them with a donation of one thousand livres, which he could well afford to do, for the confiscated estates of the prisoners were in his hands, and were never released.[89]
All this, of course, gave little satisfaction; nor were the people placated by the removal of Nicholas d’Abbeville, for he was succeeded in the Inquisition of Carcassonne by Geoffroi d’Ablis,who was as energetic and unsparing as his predecessor, and who brought royal letters, dated January 1, 1303, ordering all officials to render him the customary obedience. Popular excitement grew more and more threatening, and as Albi had no local inquisitors of its own, being within the jurisdiction of the tribunal of Carcassonne, the discontent vented itself on the Dominicans, who were regarded as the representatives of the hated tribunal. On the first Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1302, when the friars went as usual to preach in the churches they were violently ejected and assailed with cries of “Death to the traitors!” and deemed themselves at length fortunate in being able to regain their convent. This state of things continued for several years, during which they scarce dared to show themselves in the streets, and were never secure from insult. All alms and burial-fees were withdrawn, and the people refused even to attend mass in their church. The names of Dominic and Peter Martyr were erased from the crucifix at the principal gate of the town, and were replaced with those of Pequigny and Nepveu, and of two citizens who were leaders in the disturbances—Arnaud Garsia and Pierre Probi of Castres.[90]
The prisoners of Albi were still as far as ever from liberation, and Bernard Délicieux urged Pequigny to come to Carcassonne and consider their case on the spot. In the summer of 1303 he did so, and was met by a large number of the people of Albi, men and women, praying him to liberate them. While he was investigating the subject he came upon the instrument of pacification between Nicholas d’Abbeville and the consuls of Carcassonne in 1299. This was communicated to the people by Frère Bernard in a fiery sermon, and a knowledge of its conditions aroused them almost to frenzy. Riots ensued in which the houses of some of the old consuls and of those who were regarded as friends of the Inquisition were destroyed; the Dominican church was assailed, its windows broken, the statues in its porch overthrown, and the friars maltreated. To violate the prisons of the Inquisition was so serious a matter that Pequigny seems to have wished the backing of an enraged populace before he would venture on the step: andwhen he resolved upon it he anticipated resistance so confidently that with his privity Bernard assembled fourscore men, with skilled mechanics, in the Franciscan convent, ready to break open the jails in case of necessity. Their services were not needed. Geoffroi d’Ablis yielded, and in August, 1303, Pequigny removed the prisoners of Albi. He did not discharge them, however, but merely transferred them to the royal prisons, and refused to carry them to the king as Bernard advised. Possibly their treatment for a while may have been gentler, but they derived no permanent advantage from the movement. The grasp of the Inquisition was unrelaxing. It obtained possession of them again, and we shall see that it held them to the last.[91]
Meanwhile advantage was taken of the access obtained to them to procure from them statements of the tortures which they had endured, and lists were made of the names of those whom they had been forced to accuse as heretics. These were circulated throughout the land and excited general alarm, the Franciscans being especially active in giving them publicity. On the other hand, the inquisitor Geoffroi d’Ablis was equal to the emergency. He cited Pequigny to appear and stand trial for impeding the Inquisition, and on his refusal excommunicated him, September 29; and as soon as word could be carried to Paris he was published as excommunicate by the Dominicans there. This audacious act brought all parties to a sense of the nature of the conflict which had sprung up between Church and State. The consuls and people of Albi addressed to the queen an earnest petition beseeching her to prevail upon the king not to abandon them by withdrawing the Reformers, who had already done so much good and on whom depended their last hope. A fruitless effort also was made to prevent the publication of the excommunication. At Castres, October 13, Jean Ricoles, stipendiary priest of the Church of St. Mary, published it from the pulpit, as he was bound to do, and was promptly arrested by the deputy of the royal viguier of Albi and carried to the Franciscan convent, where he was threatenedand maltreated, and the friars used every effort to persuade him to withdraw it. This in itself was a grave violation of clerical immunity, and it was soon recognized that such proceedings were worse than useless. Pequigny’s authority was paralyzed until the excommunication should be removed, and this could only be done by the man who had uttered it, or by the pope himself.[92]
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 Délicieux promptly busied himself to obtain the required assistance. By his exertions the three cities of Carcassonne, Albi, and Cordes entered into an alliance and pledged themselves to furnish the sum of three thousand livres, one half by Carcassonne 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 restitution 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 Carcassonne and Albi to plead his cause, and was opposed by Guillaume de Morières, the Inquisitor of Toulouse, sent thither to manage the case against him. Benedict was not slow in showing onwhich 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 documents of the process. The climate of Italy was very unhealthy for Transmontanes. Morières 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 documents 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 heappointed 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 Frère 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 Étienne the royal judge, who had sought to aid Pequigny, were also involved in the papal condemnation. The Minister of Aquitaine intrusted to Frère Jean Rigaud the execution of the arrest, which he duly performed, June, 1304, in the convent of Carcassonne, 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 illustration 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 Carcassonne multitudes flocked to him with cries for redress and protection, and Pequigny spoke eloquently in their behalf. The inquisitors were represented by Guillem Pierre, theDominican provincial, while Bernard Délicieux was foremost in the debate. It was on this occasion that he made his celebrated assertion 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 Carcassonne, 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 entitled 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 illusoryepiscopal 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 Carcassonne 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 Carcassonne, so they were sent after him to Béziers, 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 Carcassonne into despair. Offerings of this kind from municipalities 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 Carcassonne, 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 Frère 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 title 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, embarrassed 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 Carcassais than their resolution to persist in it single-handed. Ferrand and his father were at Montpellier entertaining the French court, which they accompanied to Nîmes. He eagerly listened to the overtures, and asked Frère 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 assembled at Carcassonne 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, andforty of its citizens were hanged. As for Carcassonne, 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 Frère Bernard, he received early intelligence from Frère 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 Carcassonne 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 assent—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 petition 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 Carcassonne and of the altered attitude 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 Carcassonne 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 alsoof good augury. Hardly had the news of his election reached Albi, when Frère 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 François Aimeric, who were as emphatic as the representatives of Albi in their denunciations of inquisitorial methods and abuses. Geoffroi d’Ablis hurried thither from Carcassonne 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 pass through Languedoc on a mission, to investigate and make such temporary changes as they should find necessary. The people of Carcassonne, 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 onany 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 Carcassonne in presence of all the notables of the place. The consuls of Carcassonne 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 Carcassonne, 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 Carcassonne, found himself in such danger that in September, 1308, he was obliged to procure from Clement a special bull forbidding the inquisitors to assail 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 assumed 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 Carcassonne, 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 Carcassonne. 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 associate, 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 passing 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 passed away without result. Five years afterwards, in 1310, Clement wrote to the Bishop of Albi and Geoffroi d’Ablis that the citizensof 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 surreptitiously 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 passed 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 Carcassonne, 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 Carcassonne 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 Guimercifully 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 abrutum fulmenof 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 andcorruption 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 tithe 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 forcedto 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 passage through the rear wall. Two years passed 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 thewidowed 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 accumulated scores of vengeance. The first victim was Bernard Délicieux. 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 prominentin the movements by which, during the vacancy of the Holy See, they had gained possession of the convents of Béziers 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 Béziers 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 encompassing by magic arts the death of Benedict XI., and of treason in the affair of Carcassonne, 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 associates, who transferred the court to Carcassonne, 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 Carcassonne 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 documents 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 ofseeking 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 theipso factoexcommunication 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 assisted 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]