Persecution of the Paulicians—Albigenses—Their sufferings in Languedoc—In England, Spain, France—Counts Raymond and Roger—Massacre of their People—Dominic, founder of the Inquisition.
Persecution of the Paulicians—Albigenses—Their sufferings in Languedoc—In England, Spain, France—Counts Raymond and Roger—Massacre of their People—Dominic, founder of the Inquisition.
Intoleranceseems essential to the office of a priest; as no sooner was this character assumed by Christian pastors, than they commenced persecution against those who disputed their claims. Hence originated the Inquisition. Its operations have ever been directed against all who differed from the ruling prelates, even when making their appeal to the Holy Scriptures. And such there were from the time of the apostles. Among the earliest of those who were put to death by professing Christians were the Paulicians.
These people are thought to have been so called from Paul, a preacher, of the Armenian church, in the seventh century; but some consider Constantine of Samosata their founder, aboutA.D.660. He received from a pious deacon, who had escaped from captivity among the Mohammedans, a copy of the New Testament. This he esteemed as a precious gift; and, finding the instruction of the Scriptures different from the prevailing superstitions, he formed a system of theology for himself from the sacred oracles. Constantine devoted himself to the work of the ministry, assuming the name of Sylvanus, a companion of the apostle Paul. His colleagues in preaching were called Timothy, Titus, and Tychicus; and six of their churches were named after those to whom Paul had addressed his Epistles. They rejected human traditions in religion, the worship of the Virgin Mary, of images, and of the cross. They abolished the lofty titles of the priesthood, and instituted pastors, with perfect equality, and without robes to distinguish them from the people. In Asia Minor they increased greatly, and the Greek emperors persecuted them grievously. An officer named Simeon was sent, as an inquisitor, to seek Sylvanus, and he was apprehended, with some of his followers, at Colonia. As the price of liberty, they were requiredto stone their pastor!One only among them, Justus, was found sufficiently base; and he murdered thus his faithful teacher, who fell a martyr for Christ, after having laboured for twenty-seven years, diffusing the doctrine of the Gospel. Justus aggravated his guilt by betraying his brethren; while Simeon, observing the grace of God in the joyful sufferers, embraced the Gospel, forsook the world, preached the faith, and died also a martyr for Jesus.
From the Paulicians arose, as it is believed, a branch of the celebrated Christian confessors, the Valdenses, or Waldenses. Dr. Haweis, therefore, says of them, “At the close of the seventh centurywe see the first traces of a small but precious body, afterwards named Valdenses, which some suppose a branch of the Paulicians. Retiring from the insolence and oppressions of the Romish clergy, and disgusted with their vices, they sought a hiding-place in the secluded valleys of the Pais de Vaud, embosomed by the Alps, and removed from the observation of their persecutors, where they might enjoy purer worship and communion with God.”
These Paulicians increased, and scriptural knowledge was eagerly sought by several persons, who became eminent preachers in the southern parts of France, in Savoy, in Piedmont, and in the contiguous districts of Germany. Their followers were called after their teachers, or by various contemptuous appellations, taken from their peculiar customs or principles. Some werePetrobrusians, from Peter de Bruys, who, after twenty years’ labour, became a martyr for Christ;Henricians, from Henry, a disciple and colleague of Peter;Albigenses, from the city of Albi, where they were condemned in a council;Cathari, or Puritans, from their seeking the purity of Christian doctrine; andWaldenses, from Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, in France. This great man procured translations of several parts of the Scriptures, and commenced his ministry, having relinquished his trade, aboutA.D.1180, especially in France and Lombardy. The converts of these zealous men became very numerous; and they soon attracted the notice of the papal court in this century.
Egbert, a German abbot, says of them, “Theyare increased to great multitudes throughout all countries. In Germany, we call themCathari; in Flanders, they call themPipples; in France,Tisserands(weavers), because many of them are of that occupation.”
Among these people many churches were formed, with intelligent and devout pastors of their own choosing. TheCathari, especially in Piedmont, formed separate societies, which were screened, in a great measure, from the popish prelates, by the retired seclusion of their habitations in the valleys, from which they were calledValdenses.
These people were regarded with jealousy by the prelates, and their enemies commonly accused them of grievous errors; but it is well known that they were slandered, and that, while they rejected the claims and idolatries of the Romish priesthood, they generally held the essentials of the Gospel, as they derived their principles from the Scriptures. Egbert, the abbot, says of them, “They are armed with all those passages of Holy Scripture, which, in any degree, seem to favour their views: with these they know how to defend themselves, and to oppose the Catholic truth, though they mistake entirely the true sense of Scripture, which cannot be discovered without great judgment.”
Evervinus, an abbot in Cologne, in a letter to Bernard, the most famous priest of the church of Rome of his time, calledSt. Bernard, says,A.D.1140, “There have been lately some heretics discovered among us, near Cologne, though some of them have, with satisfaction, returned again to thechurch. One of their bishops and his companions openly opposed us in the assembly of the clergy and laity, in the presence of the archbishop of Cologne and of many of the nobility, defending their heresy by the words of Christ and his apostles. Finding that they made no impression, they desired that a day might be appointed for them, on which they might bring their teachers to a conference, promising to return to the church, provided they found their masters unable to answer the arguments of their opponents, but that otherwise they would rather die than depart from their judgment. Upon this declaration, having been admonished to repent for three days, they were seized by the people in the excess of zeal, andburnt to death; and what is very amazing, they came to the stake, and bore the pain, not only with patience, but even with joy! Were I with you, father, I should be glad to ask you, how these members of Satan could persist in their heresy with such courage and constancy as is scarcely to be found in the most religious believers in Christianity.”
St. Bernard himself was a violent persecutor, yet he says of them, “If you ask them of their faith, nothing can be more Christian; if you observe their conversation, nothing can be more blameless; and what they speak they prove by deeds.” Claudius, archbishop of Turin, writes, “Their heresy excepted, they generally live a purer life than other Christians.” Cassini, a Franciscan friar, says, “ThatALL THE ERRORSof these Waldenses consisted in this, that they denied the church of Rometo be theHOLY MOTHER-CHURCH, AND WOULD NOT OBEY HER TRADITIONS!” Thuanus, a Catholic historian, says they are charged with holding, “That the church of Rome, because it renounced the true faith of Christ,was the whore of Babylon, and the barren tree which Christ himself cursed and commanded to be plucked up; that, consequently,no obedience was to be paid to the Pope, or to the bishops who maintain her errors; that a monastic life was the sink and dungeon of the church; that the orders of the priesthood were marks of the great beast mentioned in the Revelation; that the fire of purgatory, the solemn mass, the consecration days of churches, the worship of saints, and propitiation for the dead, were devices of Satan.”
Exemplary as were their morals, and scriptural as were their principles, thus testified by their enemies, cruel persecution was carried on against these dissenters; and the inquisitors, sent by the Pope to search for and to destroy them, brought multitudes to suffer as martyrs for Christ. Some, we have seen, fell victims at Cologne, while others escaped from the power of their enemies. They found, however, the intolerance of popery where-ever they went. This will be illustrated by one fact in English history of that period. Thirty of these persecuted Germans sought an asylum in England, and settled as a church near Oxford,A.D.1159, but they were apprehended by order of the clergy. Their pastor, Gerard, was a man of learning; and he professed that they believed thedoctrines of the apostles, though they disbelieved in purgatory, prayers for the dead, and the invocation of saints. But they were condemned in an ecclesiastical council, and delivered to the magistrates to be punished. The king, Henry II., at the instigation of the ruling clergy, ordered them to be branded on the forehead with a red-hot iron; to be whipped through the streets of Oxford; and, having their clothes cut short at their girdles, to be turned into the open country. None being allowed to afford them shelter, they perished with cold and hunger!
Dr. Milner, in his valuable “Church History,” in recording this fact concerning these earliest dissenters from popery, who were put to death in England, makes this natural reflection:—“What darkness must at that time have filled this island! A wise and sagacious king, a renowned university, the whole body of the clergy and laity, all united in expelling Christ from their coasts! Driven, most probably, from home by the rage of persecution, they had brought the light and power of the Gospel with them into England. Brief as is the account of them, it is evident they were the martyrs of Christ.”
Papal vengeance was threatened against all whom the prelates regarded as heretics; and,A.D.1163, in the synod of Tours, it was commanded to all bishops and priests in Languedoc, whose capital was Thoulouse, “to take care, and to forbid, under pain of excommunication, every person from presuming to give reception, or the least assistance tothe followers of this heresy,which first began in the country of Thoulouse, whenever they shall be discovered. As many of them as can be found, let them be imprisoned by the Catholic princes, and punished with the forfeiture of all their substance.”
In like manner, Pope Alexander III.,A.D.1179, issued an edict, which expresses his mind thus:—“Because in Gascony, Albi, in the parts of Thoulouse, and other regions,the accursed perverseness of the heretics, Cathari, or Patrenas, or Publicans, or distinguished by sundry names, has so prevailed: We thereforeSUBJECT TO A CURSE, both themselves and their defenders and harbourers; and,under a curse, we prohibit all persons from admitting them into their houses, or receiving them upon their lands, or cherishing them, or exercising any trade with them. But if any die in their sin,let them not receive Christian burial, under pretence of any privilege granted by us, or any other pretext whatever!”
Some of the Waldenses having escaped to Arragon, in Spain, King Ildefonsus,A.D.1194, issued an edict, by which he banished them from his kingdom, and all his dominions, as enemies of the cross of Christ, profaners of the Christian religion, and public enemies, adding, “If any, from this day, shall presume to receive into their houses the aforesaid Waldenses, or other heretics, or to hear their abominable preachings, or to give them food, let him know that he shall incur the indignation of Almighty God and ours, and without appeal be punished as though guilty of high treason. However, we give these wicked wretches liberty till the day after All Saints (though it may seem contrary to justice and reason), by which they must be gone from our dominions; but afterwards they shall be plundered, whipped, and beaten, and treated with all manner of disgrace and severity.”
Pope Innocent III., aboutA.D.1198, having just ascended the pontifical throne, deputed two monks of Citeaux, Guido and Regnier, to proceed to Narbonne, as inquisitors, to search after and punish heretics; and in the following year, Peter of Castelnau was added to that mission, with increased authority. They promised indulgences to all who afforded them aid against the heretics; and they succeeded in this office, but rendered themselves hated for their bigotry and cruelty, wherever they carried on their antichristian work. They were assisted greatly by the services of a body of preaching friars, under their leader, Dominic. Francis, another zealous monk, with a numerous company of disciples, was deputed by the Pope to contend against the heretics in Italy; and these two leaders became the founders, aboutA.D.1200, of the famous, but opposed orders of friars, called, after them,DominicansandFranciscans.
Castelnau projected the extension of his mission into the territories of Thoulouse,A.D.1207; but the prince refused his sanction to this invasion, for such a purpose, and the haughty priest excommunicated Raymond. This audacious act received the express sanction of the Pope, but it led to contests; and one of the friends of Raymond, provoked bythe insulting denunciations of the agent of the pontiff, struck him with his poniard, and killed him.
Innocent, incensed to fury by the murder of Castelnau, seized the occasion to prosecute the designs of his cruel bigotry, and summoned the counts, barons, and knights of the four provinces of the southern parts of France, to invade the territories of Count Raymond, authorising them to seize the property of the heretics. As the same indulgences were promised to those engaging in this war, as had been assured to the crusaders against the Saracens in the Holy Land, an army offifty thousandcross-bearers was soon assembled, and placed for service, during the period of forty days, under the direction of Arnald Almeric, abbot of Citeaux. The Pope gave directions regarding this crusade:—“We counsel you, with the apostle Paul, to employ guile with regard to the count; for in this case it ought to be called prudence. We must attack separately, those who are separated from unity. Leave, for a time, the count of Thoulouse, employing towards him a wise dissimulation, that the other heretics may the more easily be defeated, and that afterwards we may crush him, when he shall be left alone.”
Raymond and his nephew, Roger, count of Beziers, waited upon Arnald, to avert the impending storm; but to no purpose. Raymond submitted to the terrible power, and joined the army that was marching against his own subjects and those of his nephew; but he first performed the dreadful penance appointed for him on account of themurder of Castelnau. He was made to swear upon the host, as the body of Christ, and upon the relics of the saints, that he wouldobey the Pope, and the holy Roman church, and pursue the Albigenses,with fire and sword, till they were extirpated. Having taken this oath, he was orderedto strip himself naked, from head to foot, with only a linen cloth around his waist; the legate threw a priest’s stole round his neck, and leading him by it into the church, nine times round the pretended martyr’s grave, he inflicted the discipline of the church upon the naked shoulders of the humbled prince. He then granted him absolution, on his taking another oath, inviolably to maintain all the rights, privileges, immunities, and liberties of the church and the clergy!
Count Roger offered terms of reconciliation; but the legate rejected his proposals, and intimated that no mercy would be shown to him. The city of Beziers was taken; and the inhabitants, who had crowded into the churches, were barbarously massacred; so thatseven thousandcorpses were said to have been found in the church of St. Magdalen. Some were desirous of sparing the Catholics who might be among the heretics, and they applied to the legate for that purpose; but, in a rage, he replied, “Kill them all; the Lord knoweth them that are His!”
Beziers contained a population of aboutfifteen thousand; and Arnald, in his report to the Pope, acknowledged that so many were massacred! But as multitudes, especially women and children, fromthe surrounding country, had sought a refuge there, in hope of security against the invading army, and none were spared, historians of fidelity reckon thatsixty thousandwere then murdered by the agents of the Pope, and the city was then burnt to ashes!
Count Roger had escaped to Carcassonne, which was next besieged, as he had shut himself up with the inhabitants in that city; but he offered to capitulate. Dissimulation was practised, as enjoined by the Pope; so that the prince, with three hundred knights, were admitted to confer with Arnald, who, with the leaders of the army, had given a solemn oath for their safety; but having them now in his power, he perfidiously arrested them, delivering them over to the general of the army, Simon de Montfort. The citizens, however, made their escape, during the night, and fled to other provinces; but a few of them being captured,four hundredof the captives were burned alive, andfiftymore were hanged, by Simon de Montfort, under the direction of Arnald, as legate of the Pope. The noble Count Roger was thrown into prison, and soon died by violence, as acknowledged by the Pope.
It would be impossible to detail the sufferings of the poor Albigenses, under Simon de Montfort. With an army of cross-bearers,A.D.1210, he took several strong castles, and hanged the inhabitants and refugees on gibbets. He selected more than a hundred of the people of Brom,tore out their eyes, and cut off their noses, and sent them, under theguidance of a one-eyed man, to Cabaret, to terrify the inhabitants by their example. In the following year, he stormed La Vaur, and destroyed the inhabitants by fire and sword. He hanged Almeric, the governor, lord of Montreal, and then massacredeightyof the chief citizens. His sister, Girarda, the lady of the castle, by order of the count, was thrown into a pit, and covered with stones. He afterwards collected all the heretics in the castle, and burned them, with rejoicing. He took possession of the castle of Cassero, which surrendered; but “the pilgrims, seizing nearlysixty heretics, burned them with infinite joy,” as testified by the Catholic historian, Petrus Pallensis. At Castris de Termis they put Raymond, the governor, into prison, where he died shortly; and, in one large fire, they burned his wife, his sister, and his daughter, with some other noble ladies, whom they could not prevail upon to return to the profession of the church of Rome. Thus they were sacrificed to papal bigotry, as faithful martyrs for Christ! What adds to the revolting character of these murders was, as usual, the bishops and priests present in the army, in their pontifical habits, who expressed their satisfaction in witnessing the carnage, by singingVeni Creator!
Historians scarcely know how to speak of these enormities. Sismondi states, that “hundreds of villages had seen all their inhabitants massacred with a blind fury, and without the crusaders giving themselves the trouble to examine whether they contained a single heretic. We cannot tell whatcredit to give to the numbers assigned for the armies of the cross, nor whether we may believe that, in the course of a single year, five hundred thousand men were poured into Languedoc.” But this we certainly know, that armies, much superior in numbers, and much inferior in discipline, to those which were employed in other wars, had arrived for seven or eight successive years; that they entered this country without pay, and without magazines; that they provided for all their necessities with the sword; that they considered it as their right to live at the expense of the country; and that all the harvests of the peasants, all the provisions and merchandise of the citizens, were on every occasion seized with a rapacious hand, and divided among the crusaders. No calculation can ascertain, with any degree of precision, the dissipation of wealth, or the destruction of human life, which were the consequences of the crusade against the Albigenses. “There was scarcely a peasant who did not reckon in his family some unhappy one cut off by the sword of Montfort’s soldiers. More than three quarters of the knights and landed proprietors had been spoiled of their castles and fiefs, to gratify some of the French soldiers—some of Simon de Montfort’s creatures. Thus spoiled, they were namedFaidits, and had the favour granted them of remaining in the country, provided they were neither heretics nor excommunicated, nor suspected of having given an asylum to those who were so; but they were never to be permitted to enter a walled city, nor to enjoy the honour of mounting awar-horse. Every species of injustice, all kinds of affronts, persecutions of every name, had been heaped on the heads of the unhappy Languedocians, under the general name of Albigenses.”
So truly horrible was this bloody work, that a native of Thoulouse, apoetand aCatholic, who witnessed this crusade against the Albigenses, afterwards delivered the following denunciation against Antichrist:—“I know I shall be censured if I write against Rome, that sink of all evil; but I cannot hold my peace. It is no wonder that the world lies in wickedness. It is you, treacherous Rome, who have sown confusion and war. By the baits of thy delusive pardons, thou deliverest up the French nobility to persecution, and dost establish thy throne in the bottomless pit. Heaven will remember thy pilgrimage to Avignon, and the murders thou committest there. In what book hast thou read that it was thy duty to exterminate Christians? Like an enraged beast, thou devourest both great and small. Rome, your head and whole body is arraigned for having committed that horrible murder at Beziers. Under the appearance of a lamb, with an air of modesty and simplicity, you are inwardly a wily serpent and a ravenous wolf. Rome, I comfort myself in the assurance that thy power will decay, and thou wilt soon be no more. If thy dominion is not destroyed, the world will be overthrown!”
Dominic witnessed many of these sad outrages and dreadful slaughters; and he proceeded, as the chief inquisitor, to search out the number andquality of the alleged heretics, to excite the princes and prelates to extirpate them, and so to fulfil his commission from the Pope. His success he fully reported to Rome; and formed a plan of a regular Court of Inquisition. In this he was aided by a nobleman, with whom he had resided at Thoulouse; for having been seduced by that zealous monk to the Catholic faith, he devoted his mansion and his other property to the service of that father. Dominic submitted his scheme to the papal legate, Arnald, by whom it was highly approved; and that abbot appointed him inquisitor-general in Gallia Narbonensis, aboutA.D.1208; and he was confirmed in that office, in the fourth Lateran Council,A.D.1215, at which Dominic was present, and greatly honoured by the Pope on account of his exploits against the Albigenses.
Dominic was a native of Spain, of the noble family of Gusman. His mother dreamed, before his birth, that she was delivered of a whelp carrying a lighted torch in his mouth; that he alarmed the world by his barking, and set it on fire by his torch. These were interpreted of his preaching, by which he terrified the people, and of his dreadful Inquisition. His promotion was the consequence of his fiery zeal and activity; and his priestly domination will appear from a few passages in his imposition of penance on a reclaimed heretic, as follow:—
“Brother Dominic, the least of preachers, to all Christ’s faithful people, to whom these presents shall come, greeting in the Lord:—
“By the authority of the Cistertian abbot, whohath appointed us to this office, we have reconciled the bearer of these presents, P. Rogerius, converted by God’s blessing from the heretical sect, charging and requiring him, by the oath which he hath taken, that three Sundays, or three festival days, he be led by a priest, naked from his shoulders down to his drawers, from the coming into the town unto the church doors, being whipped all the way!” Most rigorous rules for the whole of his life, and total separation from his wife, were also imposed on him, on pain of excommunication!
Dominic founded sixty monasteries, in different provinces, forming the centres of so many courts of inquisition; and he died,A.D.1221, esteemed as an extraordinary character; so that he was canonised,A.D.1234, by Pope Gregory IX. The Dominicans were calledJacobinsin France, andBlack Friarsin England.
Inquisition in France—Pontifical decrees—Used by Princes—Arragon, Castile, Navarre and Portugal—Various countries—Sicily, Rome, Venice—Apostolics—Knights Templars—Beghards—Beguins—Lombardy—Milan.
Inquisition in France—Pontifical decrees—Used by Princes—Arragon, Castile, Navarre and Portugal—Various countries—Sicily, Rome, Venice—Apostolics—Knights Templars—Beghards—Beguins—Lombardy—Milan.
Papalpolicy, by courts of inquisition, continued to prevail in many countries where they had been established. Raymond the younger recovered thedominions of his father, and banished the inquisitors from Thoulouse. But his chief city was besieged and taken by Amalric, son of Simon de Montfort. In the presence of two cardinals, therefore, he was led up before the high altar in the church, covered with only a linen garment, and there absolved; but it was on the hard condition of resigning the greater part of his dominions. The Inquisition was then restored, and laws still more severe than before were passed against heretics.
Louis, the French king, to oblige and gratify the Pope, made laws against the heretics, constituting every bishop in France a kind of inquisitor, with power to punish those whom he judged enemies of the Pope. Provincial councils were held at Thoulouse,A.D.1229, and,A.D.1230, at Rome, where several persons were burnt alive the following year; and at Narbonne,A.D.1235, in which the prelates made severe laws against the heretics. These laws were collected by order of Pope Gregory IX.; and, with other decretals of Pope Boniface VIII., they formed the laws for the “Court of Holy Inquisition.”
Frederick II., emperor of Germany, issued severe edicts, ordaining that those who should be adjudged as heretics by the prelates of the church, should be put to death without mercy; and that his imperial protection should be enjoyed by the Predicant friars.
Louis, to ingratiate himself with Pope Alexander, as Innocent IV. had appointed the provincialof the Predicant friars inquisitor to extirpate heretics in Thoulouse, requested that pontiff to constitute the prior of the Predicant order at Paris inquisitor over the whole kingdom. The proposal was too pleasing to be refused by him; and he nominated him, therefore, to that office, with ample power. Besides, as many, who had excited the fury of the inquisitors, fled to the churches for the benefit of ecclesiastical immunity, the Pope abolished that privilege. With this he republished seven terrible laws, empowering magistrates to aid the inquisitors in punishing heretics, as ordained by the Emperor Frederick. These pontifical decrees, authorising inquisitors in their proceedings generally, exhibit the will of the Pope regarding those who rejected his religion for the doctrine of Christ in the Scriptures:—
“We being willing to prevent the danger of so many souls, entreat, admonish, and beseech your wisdom, and strictly command you, by these apostolical writings, as you have any regard for the Divine judgment, that you appoint some of the brethren committed to your care, men learned in the law of the Lord, and such as you know to be fit for this purpose, to be preachers generally to the clergy and people; and, in order the more effectually to execute their office, let them take into their assistance some discreet persons, and carefully inquire out heretics. And if they find out any, either really culpable, or such who are defamed, let them proceed against them according to our statutes. And that they may more freely andeffectually execute the office committed to them, we, confiding in the mercy of God Almighty, and the authority of the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, remit, for three years, the penance enjoined them, to all who shall attend their preaching for twenty days. And as for those who shall be happy to die in the prosecution of this affair, we grant a plenary pardon of all their sins, for which they are contrite in their hearts, and which they confess with their mouths.”
This dreadful tribunal was found, by the sovereign princes, to be a convenient engine for revenging supposed or real injuries received by them; since it was necessary, for their purpose, only to bring against their victims the charge of heresy. By this means, a great number of individuals, known to be devoted Catholics, were prosecuted to death by the Emperor Frederick. Yet both he and Louis, as it suited their interests, made vigorous opposition to the proceedings of the Inquisition; for which, however, they paid dearly, as they were threatened and humbled by the haughty Antichrist. Hence arose a series of ruinous contests between the intolerant pontiff and the mightiest sovereign princes.
Spain, at this period, comprehended the four Christian kingdoms of Arragon, under James I.; Castile, under Ferdinand III.; Navarre, under Sancho VIII.; and Portugal, under Sancho II. Arragon was found,A.D.1232, to contain some of the Waldenses; and the Pope commanded King James to proceed in the work of extirpating themas heretics. A synod was held against them,A.D.1240, at Tarracon, when the archbishop, with his suffragans, and Peter Cadente, were appointed inquisitors for the province.
Castile and Leon also received this court,A.D.1290, as it had been established in Arragon. And during the thirteenth century the Inquisition was set up in various other countries, where the Pope possessed influence, especially in Austria, Hungary, Poland, Dalmatia, Ragusia, Bosnia, Croatia, Istria, and several provinces of Germany. It was extended, also, to Syria and Palestine, for the purpose of proceeding against Jews as well as heretics. The policy of the inquisitors, however, differed in different places; but the Austrian Inquisition appears to have been, conducted with extreme cruelty; as Catholic historians testify, that many thousands of those deemed heretics were apprehended, and being condemned, were burnt, by the order of the sacred judges, in the city of Crema.
Sicily received the Inquisition aboutA.D.1224. It was at first opposed, both in the town of St. Mark, and at Palermo; but the Emperor Frederick is said to have ordained, as a regulation of the profits arising from its proceedings, that “one-third part of the confiscated goods should be appropriated to the common treasury, another third be reserved for the Pope, and the remainder to be shared by the inquisitors; that the spiritual husbandmen should not be defrauded of their reward.” This privilege seemed to satisfy the ruling powers; it was renewed,A.D.1452, by King Alphonsus, andconfirmed,A.D.1477, by Ferdinand and Elizabeth; and various other privileges were accorded to the inquisitors by the Emperor Charles V.
Rome had become the court of appeal for the bishops from an early period. This was a most politic arrangement of the Pope. But, to prevent inconvenience to himself, Urban IV. created Ursarius inquisitor-general,A.D.1265. This office was continued, with some intermissions, until the Reformation under Luther. The doctrines of that great man were disseminated so extensively in Italy, as well as Germany, that the Romish court became alarmed. Pope Clement VII., therefore, ordered that the utmost rigour should be used against all who professed the doctrines of the reformer; and, as their number appeared to increase, exhibiting the utmost boldness, patience, and zeal, Paul III.,A.D.1543, constituted the “Holy Office” with more extended powers, appointing six cardinals as “inquisitors-general.” To these cardinals were added a “commissary-general,” always to be a Dominican; an “assessor-general,” and the “master of the sacred palace.” This court was carried on with magnificence and ceremony suited to the grandees who composed it; and on certain occasions the Pope presided in person. By its dreadful operations the doctrines of the reformers were suppressed, and its professors exterminated from Italy.
Venice received the Inquisition aboutA.D.1249, while the contests were being carried on between the Pope and the Emperor. Many persons of different opinions, and, perhaps, under severaldenominations, fled to Venice, to live in the greater security and quiet of that famous city; but the magistrates, being excited to prevent their city from being polluted by foreign doctrines, chose certain grave persons, zealous for the Catholic faith, to inquire after heretics. Full power was given to the patriarch of Grado, and other Venetian bishops, to judge of those opinions; and it was decreed that whosoever was pronounced an heretic by any bishop should be condemned to the fire. In this process, secular judges made inquisition against heretics, and the duke and senators pronounced the fatal sentence.
Father Paul states, “Notwithstanding the instant requests of Pope Innocent, Alexander, Urban, Clement, and seven other Popes, their successors, the most renowned commonwealth could never be persuaded to receive the office of thefriar inquisitors, instituted by the Pope. The secular sufficed it, instituted by itself, and brought forth good fruit for God’s service.”
Nicholas IV., a minor friar, being exalted to the pontifical throne, got the Inquisition to be received by a public decree at Venice,A.D.1289. Still, this court was established on different principles from those which govern it in other countries; for while the judgment concerning the doctrine for which a person may be pronounced an heretic, is determined by ecclesiastics, the judgment of the fact, or who maintains that doctrine, and the pronouncing of the sentence, are held to belong to the secular judges in Venice. So that they determine what booksshall be prohibited, as well as who are heretics, and their court is far milder, and less under the influence of the Pope, than the other inquisitions in Italy.
Among the heretics accused by the inquisitors, there were some forming a sect calledapostolics, from their professing to imitate the zeal of the apostles of Christ. They attracted the notice of Pope Honorius,A.D.1290. Sagarelli, their leader, was condemned by the Inquisition and burned. Dulcinus, another of their teachers, withdrew, with about six thousand adherents, to the valleys of the Alps; but Pope Clement V. sent inquisitors to seek them with an army of crusaders, by which many were driven among the mountains, and perished with cold and hunger. Some of them were captured, including Dulcinus and his wife, who were sacrificed at the stake, as victims to the cruelty of their antichristian persecutors.
Clement V., jealous of the Knights Templars, who possessed large property in France, gladly listened to the accusations against them by the king. Their grand-master, De Molai, and many others, therefore, were arrested,A.D.1307. The order was abolished in the council held at Vienne,A.D.1311, and nearly sixty of the prisoners were condemned and burnt. Several others were brought to the stake in Paris, where they protested their innocence; but their property was shared by Pope Clement and Philip, king of France.
Others of the reputed heretics wereBeghards, so called from their ardour in prayer;Beguins, pious females of that society; and Lollards, so namedfrom their singing psalms in social worship. These were hunted in several provinces, and punished in the usual manner by the officers of the Inquisition as enemies of the Pope. Some of the Beguins were patronised by persons of distinction; and a famous controversy arose respecting their opinions regarding the possession of property. Four of their leading men were burnt at Marseilles,A.D.1318; and they were condemned as heretics and arch-heretics by the Pope,A.D.1329.
Lombardy received the Inquisition beforeA.D.1233, when Pope Gregory IX. appointed, as chief-inquisitor, Pietro da Verona, a Dominican. He was the first that put heretics to death at Milan. In the course of his ministry he burnt many, but he was assassinated,A.D.1252; and another fell a sacrifice to his own cruelty, Pagano da Lecco,A.D.1277.
AboutA.D.1320, the Pope excommunicated Matthew Galeacius, viscount of Milan, his sons, and followers. The city was deprived of its charter, and all its municipal privileges; the citizens, who might favour the viscount, were given up to be seized by the faithful as slaves, in full right, and their property was granted to any who might lay hold of it. All who should supply the city with provisions were in like manner denounced; and this state of things continued during three years, in which the viscount set at nought the papal censures. With a view to humble him, the Pope, John XXII., prosecuted the viscount for heresy; and, after several citations, pronounced the definitesentence against him. The Pope also commanded Aycard, the archbishop of Milan, and the inquisitors in Lombardy, to proceed against him and his adherents; and the bishop of Padua and two abbots published these sentences.
Raymond Cardonus was ordered to collect an army to invade his dominions. Several cities were taken, and the viscount routed; when the senate of Milan sent a deputation of twelve of their elders to implore peace and absolution. Matthew resigned his principality to his son Galeacius, and himself repairing to the cathedral, protested, with a solemn oath, against the Pope’s legate as having treated him unjustly. He left the city, and made the same oath next day in the church of Monza, where he died of fever, through grief. His sons buried him, but his body was sought for to be burned, by order of the cardinal-legate and the inquisitors.
Wycliffe’s ministry—The Lollards—Sawtree—Other Martyrs—Wycliffe’s bones burnt—His writings—Martyrdom of Huss and Jerome—Persecution of the Hussites—The Waldenses.
Wycliffe’s ministry—The Lollards—Sawtree—Other Martyrs—Wycliffe’s bones burnt—His writings—Martyrdom of Huss and Jerome—Persecution of the Hussites—The Waldenses.
Divineprophecy dooms a perpetual overthrow to popery; and it declares also that this is to beaccomplished by the light of the Gospel of Christ. Instruments and agents, therefore, are needed for this important work; and these began to increase in thefourteenthcentury. But the Inquisition was fearfully employed in various forms to destroy them.
Among the most distinguished opponents of the papacy, we must number John Wycliffe, justly called “The Morning Star of the Reformation!” He was bornA.D.1324; and being enlightened by the Holy Scriptures, his ministry, under the Spirit of God, and his numerous writings, especially his translation of the Bible, contributed very much to prepare the way for the Protestant Reformation. This great man was impelled, not only by love to the truth of Christ, but by an extensive knowledge of the enormous evils manifestly arising from the Romish priestcraft. The papal exactions in England were grievous, estimated at five times the amount of the royal revenue; and the parliament determined, therefore,A.D.1374, to seek redress by a remonstrance, sent by delegates, who should present it to the Pope. Wycliffe was one of them; and during two years, near the seat of “his holiness,” he had an opportunity of observing the intrigues and iniquities of the court of Rome.
Wycliffe became the more determined in his opposition to the friars, who, as agents of the Pope and the Inquisition, were enemies to the welfare of the country. Their false doctrines, avarice, and wickedness were exposed by the reformer, with the light of Divine truth; and he possessed the bestopportunities of doing good service to the cause of Christ, as professor of divinity in the university of Oxford. But his boldness in the Gospel provoked the papal court; and the Pope addressed letters to the heads of the colleges, requiring them, by inquisitors and punishment, to suppress his doctrine, and to deliver him in custody to the archbishop of Canterbury or the bishop of London. He then appealed to those prelates, requiring them to apprehend the daring reformer, and to keep him in irons till they should receive his further orders from Rome. The king also was required by the Pope to aid those prelates in proceeding against Wycliffe. He was cited before the prelates, at the palace of the archbishop of Canterbury; but he was secure under the protection of John of Gaunt, the great duke of Lancaster.
Divine Providence favoured this zealous servant of Christ, so that he escaped the prison, and died in peace,A.D.1384. Multitudes were enlightened by his controversial and evangelical writings, and by his translation of the Scriptures. Many from the Continent sought his instruction and copies of his works; by which he contributed to produce a revolution in religion, not only in England, but in several other kingdoms in Europe.
Wycliffe’s enemies were indefatigable during his life; and after his death they persecuted his disciples. Oxford was regarded as infected with his heresies; and those who followed his scriptural doctrines were distinguished as “Lollards.” The heads of the university were, therefore, required,on pain of excommunication, to inquire, every month, whether any scholar held doctrines contrary to the decisions of the church. “Twelve inquisitors of heresy—for this dreadful name,” as Dr. Southey remarks, “had been introduced among us—were appointed at Oxford, to search out heresy and heretical books.”
King Richard II. being deposed, was succeeded,A.D.1392, by Henry II., a dupe of the prelates; and under him they procured the sanguinary statute,ex officio, which authorised the bishops, as inquisitors, to proceed against all persons suspected of heresy. This was the first law in England for the burning of men on account of religion.
William Sawtree, parish priest of St. Osith’s, London, was the first that was condemned to the stake in England,A.D.1400; and the forms of degradation and execution were carefully observed, that it might be an exact precedent for future occasions. These forms, Dr. Southey states, “were probably derived from the practice of the accursed Inquisition in Languedoc; and they were well devised for prolonging the impression on the spectators.” After the ceremonies of degradation, “the cap of a layman was placed upon his head, and Archbishop Arundel then delivered him, as a lay person, to the secular court of the high constable and marshal of England there present; beseeching the court to receive favourably the said William Sawtree, unto them thus recommitted. For with this hypocritical recommendation to mercy the Romish church always delivered over its victims tobe burnt alive! Sawtree accordingly suffered martyrdom at the stake in Smithfield, leaving a name slandered by the Romanists, but held in deserved respect for the sake of the Gospel by British Christians.”
Wycliffe’s disciples continued to be sought after by the inquisitors, and many suffered at the stake for Christ. But volumes are required to detail their sufferings and triumphs.
Archbishop Arundel procured “a law for ever,”A.D.1410, “that whosoever they were that should read the Scriptures in the mother tongue,” which was then denounced as “Wycliffe’s learning,” should “forfeit lands, cattle, body, life, and goods, from their heirs for ever, and so be condemned for heretics to God, enemies to the crown, and most arrant traitors to the land.”
Bale says, “Anon after, that Act was proclaimed throughout the realm, and then the bishops, the priests, and the monks, had a world somewhat to their minds. For then were many taken in divers quarters, and suffered most cruel deaths. And many fled out of the land into Germany, Bohemia, France, Spain, Portugal, and into Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, working there many marvels against the false kingdom, too long to write. In the Christmas following was Sir Roger Acton, knight, Master John Browne, and Sir John Beverly, a learned preacher, and divers others, imprisoned for quarrelling with certain priests. In January following,A.D.1413, was the before-named Sir Roger Acton, Master John Browne, Sir John Beverly,andthirty-sixmore, of whom the more part were gentlemen of birth, convicted of heresy by the bishops, and condemned of treason by the temporality, and, according to the Act, were first hanged and then burned in the Giles-field. In the same year, also, one John Claydon, a skinner, and one Richard Turning, a baker, were both hanged and burned in Smithfield by that Act, besides what was done in all other quarters of England; which was no small number, if it were thoroughly known.” Fox calls Sir Roger Acton “this worthy, noble, virtuous knight,” in giving an account of the dreadful persecutions of these faithful martyrs of Christ.
Wycliffe’s ashes were not allowed to rest in quiet: for,A.D.1415, by the council of Constance, forty-four conclusions, drawn from his writings, were declared to be heretical, and their author condemned as an obstinate heretic. Inquisitors sought his bones, which were ordered to be dug up and cast upon a dunghill; but the sentence was not executed tillA.D.1428, when Pope Martin V. sent order to Fleming, bishop of Lincoln, once a professed favourer of the reformed doctrine. The inquisitors obeyed the order of the bishop—the bones were burnt, and the ashes were cast into the adjoining rivulet, Swift. From Lutterworth, as Dr. Fuller beautifully remarks, “this brook conveyed his ashes into the Avon; Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow seas; they into the ocean. And thus the ashes of Wycliffe are emblems of his doctrine, which is now dispersed all over the world!”
Wycliffe’s writings were copied and circulatedamong studious inquirers after the Gospel in several nations; and, as the sister of Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, had become the queen of Richard II., learned Bohemians frequented England. One of these, Jerome of Prague, on his return from study at Oxford,A.D.1400, carried with him some of Wycliffe’s books, which became the means of enlightening John Huss, a famous divine of Prague university. He laboured to promote a reformation, opposing the false miracles, and impostures, and evil lives of the priests. But the archbishop being incensed against him, accused him before the Inquisition, from which he appealed by proctors to Cardinal Colonna, who declared him contumacious, and excommunicated him. He then appealed to the Pope, who confirmed the sentence, and excommunicated his followers. But he continued his labours in teaching and writing, until he was summoned before the council of Constance. The Emperor Sigismund pledged his honour for his protection, and John, Count of Chlum, interposed on his behalf; but that holy synod violated the solemn engagement of the emperor, seizing his person, and requiring him to plead guilty of heresy in thirty propositions extracted from his writings. With this requisition of the inquisitors Huss could not comply; yet he protested his readiness to yield to the testimony of Holy Scripture. Being then presented before the council, in the presence of the emperor, the princes of the empire, and an immense assemblage of prelates, he was condemned to the stake, and his writings to be burned.
Dignified priests endeavoured in vain to induce him to recant. The bishops stripped him of his priestly robes, and put on his head a mitre of paper, on which devils were painted, with the inscription, “Ringleader of Heretics.” They then delivered him to the unworthy emperor, and he to the duke of Bavaria. His books were burnt at the church gate, and he was led to the stake at the suburbs of the city. He manifested the true spirit of a martyr for Christ. Multitudes attended his execution, and were astonished at his piety, saying, “What this man has done before, we know not; but we hear him now offer up most excellent prayers to God.”
Huss wished to address the people; but the elector palatine prevented him, ordering that he should immediately be burnt. The martyr then cried with a loud voice, “Lord Jesus, I humbly suffer this cruel death for thy sake; I pray thee forgive all my enemies.” Thus suffered Dr. John Huss, as a faithful martyr of Jesus,A.D.1415; leaving a most instructive example to the church of God, and the fame, as Luther testifies, of being “a most rational expounder of Scripture.”
Jerome also was sacrificed to papal bigotry. For, having translated the works of Wycliffe into his native language, and professed himself a reformer of Christian doctrine and worship in connexion with Dr. Huss, when he heard of his friend’s danger at Constance, he repaired thither in hope of rendering him some assistance. Jerome found that the inquisitors had caused him also to be citedbefore the council, and that his own destruction had been determined. He returned, therefore, to Bohemia, after writing to the emperor in favour of his friend; but he was arrested, and imprisoned for nearly a year. By the tortures and entreaties of the inquisitors he was induced to sign a recantation. His conscience, however, would not allow him to suffer this to stand; and he was brought again before the inquisitors. He defended the principles of his martyred friend, and made a solemn appeal to his persecutors:—“How unjust is it, that ye will not hear me! Ye confined me three hundred and forty days in several prisons, where I have been cramped with irons, almost poisoned with filth and stench, and pinched with the want of all necessaries. During this time, ye always gave to my enemies a hearing, but refused to hear me so much as a single hour. I came to Constance to defend John Huss, because I advised him to go thither, and had promised to come to his assistance, in case he should be oppressed. Nor am I ashamed to make here a public confession of my own cowardice. I confess, and tremble while I think of it, that, through fear of punishment by fire, I basely consented against my conscience to the condemnation of Wycliffe and Huss. I appeal to the Sovereign Judge of all the earth, in whose presence ye must shortly answer me!”
Jerome’s judges were implacable, and he was murdered at the stake, singing a hymn in the flames, while he yielded up his spirit to his Divine Redeemer,A.D.1416.
Many of the nobles of Bohemia regarded the murder of these two excellent men as an outrage against their nation, and they meditated revenge. This passion was inflamed by the policy of Pope Martin, who promoted the organisation of the Inquisition in their country, and excited the Catholics in Moravia to unite in the destruction of the Hussites. King Wenceslaus inclined to support the Pope, but through terror of being opposed in the bloody work, he died,A.D.1419, when the crown of Bohemia falling to the emperor, Sigismund sent an army on a crusade against the heretics. Multitudes fell victims to their cruel bigotry, and perished in the mines of Kuttenburgh, and by drowning, as well as at the stake. It is said there were thrown into one mine 1,701 persons; into another, 1,038; and into a third, 1,334,A.D.1420.
The chief magistrate of Litomerici, a cruel bigot, to gratify the inquisitors, causedtwenty-fourof the principal citizens to be arrested and accused of heresy. One of these was the husband of his own daughter. They were imprisoned in a lofty tower; and, when perishing with hunger and cold, they were brought out and sentenced to immediate death by drowning in the river Albis. The magistrate himself had to pronounce the sentence upon them, which he performed, regardless of the tears and entreaties of his daughter; and the whole were conveyed in carts, bound hand and foot, to the river, into which they were plunged, while officers were employed, armed with iron forks and poles, to watch that none might escape, and to stab thosewho should make the attempt. The young lady, being unable to move her cruel father to pity, plunged into the river, in hope of aiding her husband to escape—but she failed; and the next day the bodies of both were found in the water, her arms clasped around the body of her husband! Other instances of murderous cruelty, equally shocking, are recorded of the bloody operations of the Inquisition.
Many of the Hussites now withdrew to a high mountain, which they fortified; and there they held their religious meetings, administering the Lord’s supper, not only in bread, but with wine, which had been forbidden by the Catholics. Their fortification they calledTabor, and the people were hence calledTaborites. They chose leaders, and defeated the troops of the emperor in eleven engagements; so that they gained the use of the cup in the Lord’s supper, by the consent of the council of Basil,A.D.1431.
Part of the Hussites sought more than the cup; they insisted on having a reformation according to the Scriptures. They were still persecuted by the Catholics, and obliged to conceal themselves in thickets and caves, kindling fire only at night, when they read the Scriptures and united in the social worship of God. Stephen, their last bishop, having been burnt alive for his profession of Christ, the Bohemian brethren united with the Waldenses,A.D.1480.