5. The method of proceeding in the
courts of the Inquisition was at first simple,
and not materially different from that in
the ordinary courts.1 But gradually the
Dominicans, guided by experience, ren-
dered it far more complex, and so shaped
their proceedings that the mode of trying
heretical causes (if the phrase is allowable)
was wholly different from that practised in
secular courts. For these simple monks,
being wholly ignorant of judicial proceed
ings, and acquainted with no other tribunal
than that which in the Romish church is
called the penitentiary tribunal, regulated
these new courts of the Inquisition as far
as possible according to the plan of those was in their hands then the process began, and it was
religious proceedings. And hence arose days or perhaps months, which the accused dragged
that strange system of jurisprudence, bear-out in a loathsome dungeon, the keeper of the prison
ing in many respects the most striking a hearing. When he appeared before his judges, they
features of injustice and wrong. Who- inquired, just as if they knew nothing about him, who
ever duly considers this history of their formed what offence he had committed, he was admo-
origin will be able to account for many nished to confess his faults himself. If he confessed
things which are unsuitable, absurd, and nothing, time was given him for reflection and he was
contrary to justice, in the mode of pro- he still confessed nothing, he must swear to answer
ceeding against offenders in the courts of truly to all the questions put to him.
the Inquisition.2

others to read, books prohibited by the Inquisition; if
orders; if he attended even for once the preaching of
he said mass or heard confessions without being in
heretics; if he did not appear before the Inquisition as
soon as he was cited; if he showed any kindness to a
heretic or aided him in making his escape. Abettors
of heresy were those who harboured heretics or did not
give them up, those who spoke to arrested heretics
without permission, or even trafficked with heretics.
When the Inquisition discovered a transgressor of their
laws, either by common report or by their spies or by
them, and if he did not appear he was forthwith con-
an informer, he was cited three times to appear before
demned. It was safest to appear on the first citation,
because the longer a man delayed the more guilty he
would be; and the Inquisition had their spies and a
thousand concealed ways for getting an absconding
heretic info their power. When a supposed heretic was
once in the hands of the Inquisition, no one dared to
inquire after him or write to him or intercede for
him. When everything belonging to the person seized

cipal work.

Limborch is to be commended for his diligence and his fidelity. But he was very indifferently acquainted with the ecclesiastical history of the middle ages; nor did he derive his materials from the original sources but from second-hand writers, and he therefore fell into not a few mistakes. At least, what he tells us respecting the origin of the Inquisition is not true. Nor are the accounts of others much better. In particular, not one of the positions stated above is true. Many of the Dominicans who to this day preside in the courts of the Inquisition and highly extol its sanctity, yet deny that St. Dominic invented the Inquisition or that he was the first Inquisitor, nay, that he was an inquisitor at all; and they also deny that the tribunal of the Inquisition was instituted during the lifetime of St. Dominic. Nor are they rash in making these assertions. Yet the dispute whether St. Dominic was an Inquisitor or not is a contest about a term rather than about a fact; for it turns wholly on the different acceptations of the term Inquisitor. At first an Inquisitor was a person sent forth under the authority of the Roman pontiff to subdue and extirpate heretics, but without any judicial powers. But the term afterwards changed its meaning, and was used to denote a judge appointed by the Roman pontiff to try the causes of heretics and of those suspected of heresy, to pronounce sentence upon them, and to deliver over the pertinacious to the civil magistrates. In this latter sense Dominic most certainly was not an Inquisitor; nor, were there any such judges appointed by the pontiffs before the time of Gregory IX. But that Dominic was an Inquisitor in the former sense of the term admits of no doubt.

protracted in the most tedious manner.

After many

asked him as it were accidentally if he wished to have

he was and what he wanted. If he wished to be in

remanded to prison. If after a long time allowed him

If he would not If swear, he was condemned without further process. he swore to give answer he was questioned in regard to his whole life, without making known to him his offence. He was however promised a pardon if he would truly confess his offences, an artifice by which his judges often learned more than they know before against him. At last the charges against him were presented to him in writing, and counsel also was assigned him, who however only advised him to confess fully his faults. The accuser and informer against him were not made known to him, but the real charges against him were put into his hands. Ho was allowed time for his defence; but his accuser and the witnesses against him he could know only by conjecture. Sometimes he was so fortunate as to discover who they were, but rarely were they presented before him and confronted with him. If his answers did not satisfy the judges, or if the allegations against him were not adequately proved, resort was had to torture, a transaction which well nigh exceeded the sufferings endured by the frst Christians when persecuted by the pagans. The torture was by the rope, by water, and by fire. The rope was passed under the arms, which were tied behind the back of the accused. By this rope he was drawn up into the air with a pulley and there left to swing for a time, and then suddenly let fall to within half a foot of the ground, by the shock of which fall all his joints were dislocated. If he still confessed nothing, the torture by water was tried. After making him drink a great quantity of water he was laid upon a hollowed bench; across the middle of this bench a stick of timber passed which kept the body of the offender suspended, and caused him most intense pain in the back-bone. The most cruel torture was that by fire, in which his feet being smeared with grease, &c. were directed towards a hot fire, and the soles of them left to burn till he would confess. Each of these tortures was continued as long as in the judgment of the physician of the Inquisition the man was able to endure them. He might now confess what he would, but still the torture would be repeated, first to discover the ob2 A more definite account of the peculiar characte- ject and motives of the acknowledged offence, and then ristics of the tribunal of the Inquisition [as it existed to make him expose his accomplices. If when tortured in the subsequent centuries.-Mur.] will not here be he confessed nothing, many snares were laid to elicit out of place. The persons arraigned before this tribu- from him unconsciously his offence. The conclusion nal, besides those mentioned in the text, were the abet- was that the accused, when he seemed to have satisfied tors, encouragers, and protectors of heretics, the the judges, was condemned according to the measure blasphemers, and such as resisted the officers of the of his offence to death, or to perpetual imprisonment, Inquisition or interrupted them in the discharge of or to the galleys, or to be scourged; and he was delitheir duties. A person became suspected of heresy if he said anything that might offend others; if he misused the sacraments or other sacred things; if he treated the images with disrespect; if he possessed, read, or gave to

1 The documents published by the Benedictines in their Hist. Générale de Languedoc, tome iii. p. 371, &c. show what was the first and simple method of proceeding in the Inquisition.

vered over to the civil authorities, who were entreated
to spare his life as the church never thirsted for blood;
but yet they would experience persecution if they did
not carry the decisions of the court into execution.

of Toulouse, who at first fought against the heretics, became himself involved in the war in the year 1211.1 For Simon coveted his territories and engaged in the war, not so much to advance religion and put down heresy, as to promote his own interests and to enlarge his dominions. And he obtained his object; for after numerous battles, sieges, and a great many deeds of valour but of extreme cruelty, he received at the hands of Innocent III. in the Lateran council of 1215, not only the earldom of Toulouse but also the many

2

persecuting the heretics with fire and sword; and he

seen his Saviour. Another message arrived, that if he

a fanatic. He supposed he was doing God service while
was so zealous in performing the external duties of
religion, that he often neglected his official duties for
the sake of them. While besieging Toulouse, as he was
attending mass word was brought him that the enemy
had made a sally, and that his army was in imminent
danger. He replied that he could not come till he had
did not come his whole army would be thrown into
disorder; and he replied again that he would not leave
the altar till he had seen his Creator, even if he must
be slain there for it. When the mass was ended, he
went away to oppose the enemy but was killed by a
stone. See Peter of Walcerney, cap. lxxxvi.- Schl.
1 The papal legate accused Raymund for not treating
the murderers of Peter de Chateauneuf with due seve
tion with the church. He must promise to be subject

rity, and prescribed hard conditions for his reconcilia

other territories he had subdued, as his reward for so nobly supporting the cause of God and the church. He was slain however in the siege of Toulouse, A. D. 1218. And his antagonist, Raymund, died in the year 1222.

8. After the death of the two generals, this lamentable war was prosecuted vigorously and with various success by their sons, Raymund VII. earl of Toulouse, and Amalric of Montfort. When the former of these, Raymund, seemed to get the advantage of the other, the Roman pontiff, Honorius III. persuaded Lewis VIII. the king of France, by great promises and favours to march in person at the head of a powerful army against the enemies of the church. He dying soon after, his successor, Lewis IX. called Saint Lewis, vigorously prosecuted the work begun by his father. Raymund therefore, being pressed on every side, made peace in the year 1229 on the hardest terms; for he ceded the greatest part of his territories to the king, besides some cessions to the Romish church. After this peace the heretics were entirely prostrate; for the tribunal of the Inquisition was established at Toulouse, and besides relating to religion; and must give up to the legate Saint Lewis, Raymund himself, formerly a seven fortresses for his security. He must also do public ecclesiastical penance, and suffer himself to be patron of the heretics, became their unscourged with rods by the legate. And in proof of his relenting persecutor. He indeed renewed sincerity, he must assume the cross and take the field the war afterwards, against both the king that Simon and the legate advanced against his terri- and the Inquisitors who abused their power tories, and aimed to get the castles of the heretics there beyond measure; but it was attended with into their hands, he separated himself from the crusading army in the year 1210, and sought in vain for aid little or no success. At last, exhausted from France, England, Germany, and Rome,. His and broken down by a series of afflictions near friend and relative indeed, Peter, king of Aragon, and troubles, he died without issue in the took up arms in his behalf against Simon of Montfort; but he unfortunately was slain in the first battle, and year 1249, being the last of the once very Raymund was obliged to witness the misfortunes of his powerful earls of Toulouse. This crusade, own country while he remained in Aragon an inactive spectator. At length, many lords and districts of of which religion was in part the cause and country revolted from Simon and recalled their legiti- in part only the pretext, was of course mate sovereign, who threw himself into the city of Toulouse, and was there besieged by Simon. Raymund exceedingly advantageous both to the kings appears to have been a warlike and energetic prince, of France and to the Roman pontiffs.3 and one who had no partiality for prelates. To the Cistercians also he was no friend; and he used to say, they could not possibly be good men, because they were so voluptuous. On the contrary, he had very high regard for the heretics who inhabited his territories, and he protected them, partly as subjects and partly as his personal friends.-Schl.

to the legate in everything, and especially in all matters

against his own friends and vassals. But when he saw

2 The cruelties which were practised under the command of Simon are indescribable. It must be admitted however that the heretics sometimes returned like for like. At the capture of Minerbe, Simon found one hundred and forty Manichæans; all of whom were burned at the stake because they would not abjure their religion. At Beziers, 6,000 persons were slain; and at Toulouse, 20,000; and at Carcassonne the priests shouted for joy at the burning of so many miserable beings, whose only crime was that they did not believe what the church believed. Still more shocking is the account given by Peter of Walcerney, cap. xxxiv. that the crusaders captured a castle called Brom, in which were found one hundred persons; and that the papal general, Simon, ordered all their noses to be amputated and their eyes to be put out, except a single eye of one individual who might serve as guide to the rest, who were sent to Cabrieres to terrify others. It is true, the monk informs us of similar cruelties by the other party. But retaliation in such a case is cruelty, and especially |

in the assailing party and one which pretends to fight only for the cause of God and religion. Who can refrain from adopting the wish of the poet :

Périsse à jamais l'affreuse politique,

Qui prétend sur les cœurs un pouvoir despotique : Qui veut le fer en main convertir les mortels, Qui du sang hérétique arrose les autels, Et suivant un faux zèle ou l'intérêt pour guides, Ne sert un Dieu de Paix, que par des homicides.- Schl. 3 Many writers, both ancient and modern, have given us histories of this crusade against the earls of Toulouse and their associates who favoured the heretics, and against the heretics themselves. But among them, I have not found one who was free from partiality. The Protestant writers, among whom Basrage (in his Hist. de l'Eglise, and in his Hist. des Eglises Réformées) stands pre-eminent, all favour too much the Raymunds and the Albigenses. On the contrary, the Roman Catholic writers, of whom the most recent are Benoist, a Dominican monk (Hist. des Albigeois des Vaudois, et des Barbets, Paris, 1691, 2 vols. 12mo); Langlois, a Jesuit (Hist. des Croisades contre les Abigeois, Rouen, 1703, 12mo); Percin (Monumenta Conventus Tolosani Ordinis Frat. Prædicator. in quibus Historia hujus conventus distribuitur, et refertur totius Albigensium facti KK

their bread with loud vociferations; for they maintained that labour prevented the elevation of the soul to God and devout contemplation. They were accompanied by women under the appellation of sisters, with whom they lived in the greatest familiarity; and for this reason the Germans called them Schwestriones [Sisterers], as appears from the enactments of councils. They distributed books containing their principles, held nocturnal assemblies in retired. places, and dissuaded the people from attending public worship in the churches.

9. All this severity of the pontiffs against Clothed in a singular manner they ran the heretics and the numerous safeguards about the cities and the country, begging erected against the enemies of the church could not prevent new and very pernicious sects from starting up. Passing by the more obscure and short-lived among them, one not the least considerable was that of the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, which at this time secretly spread itself over Italy, France, and Germany, and by a great show of piety drew after it many persons of both sexes. Few decisions of councils against these people in this century can be found; but in the next century, the councils in every part of Germany and in other countries published decrees against them; and the Inquisitors seized and cruelly burned a large number of them. They derived their name from the words of Paul, Rom. viii. 2, 14, and they maintained that the true sons of God were brought into the most perfect freedom from the law. The Germans and Belgians called them Beghardi and Beghardæ or Begutta, which were the common designations of all those who pretended to uncommon piety. Some called them by way of contempt Bicorni, that is Idiots. In France they were called Beghini and Beghine, and by the populace (I know not why) they were called Turlupins.2 narratio, Toulouse, 1693, fol.), these are all very unjust to the Raymunds and the Albigenses; and they cover over and conceal the horrid deeds of Simon de Montfort, and the ambitious designs of the kings of France to extend their power. The most full and accurate history of these wars against the heretics is that of the Benedictine monks, Claude le Vic and Joseph Vaissette, two very learned men, in that excellent work, Hist. Générale de Languedoc, Paris, 1730, &c. fol. nearly the whole of the third volume. Their only fault is that they sometimes omit what they ought not. [Sismondi has given full details of these unexampled severities in the sixth and seventh volumes of his Histoire des Français, which have been translated into English and published anonymously under the title of, History of the Crusades against the Albigenses in the 13th Century, Lond. 1826, 8vo. Among the Documents Inédites sur l'Histoire de France, published by the French government, is one on this subject edited by M. C. Fauriel, entitled Histoire de la Croisade contre les Hérétiques Albigeois, Paris, 1837, 4to. It is written by a contemporary poet in the Provençal dialect, but a French translation is annexed. It contains a dry chronicle of events from the year 1208 to June, 1219, and amply corroborates all that has since been written of the unparalleled cruelties of that crusade.-R.

1 These statements are derived from documents of the most credible character, many of them not yet published, from the decrees and councils in France and Germany, the bulls of the popes, the decisions of the Inquisition, and others, of all which a great many have fallen into my hands. I have also extracts from certain books of these people, and particularly from a book on the nine spiritual rocks, which they highly recommended as being full of divine sentences. As these documents cannot here be exhibited, I will merely refer the reader to a long edict against them, by Henry I. archbishop of Cologne, in the Statuta Coloniensia, p. 58, ed. Colon. 1554, 4to. In perfect harmony with this are the decrees of Mentz, Aschaffenburg, Treves, Paderborn, Beziers, and others.

Concerning the Turlupins, many have written much but nono accurately. See Beausobre (Diss. sur les Adamites, par. ii. p. 384, &c.), who has committed

10. These brethren, who boasted of being free from the law and of having attained to the freedom of the Spirit, professed a rigid and austere species of mystic theology, based upon philosophical principles which were not far removed from the impiety of those called pantheists. For they held that all things emanated from God and would revert back into Him; that rational souls were parts of the Supreme Being, and that the whole universe was God; that a man, by turning his thoughts inward and withdrawing his attention from all sensible objects, may become united in an inexplicable manner with the Parent with Him; that persons thus immersed in and First Cause of all things, and be one the vortex of the Deity by long contemplation attain to perfect freedom, and be come divested not only of all their lusts but of the instincts of nature. From these and similar principles they inferred that sorbed as it were in the divine nature, is a person thus raised up to God, and abhimself God and such a son of God as Christ was, and therefore is raised above all laws human and divine. And they maintained consequently that all external Worship of God, prayer, fasting, baptism, the sacred supper, &c. are mere elements. for children, which a man no longer needs when converted into God himself and detached from this visible universe.3

numerous errors, as he usually does on such subjects. The origin of the name I know not, but I am able to prove from substantial documents that the Turlupins, who were burned at Paris and in other parts of France, were no other than the Brethren of the Free Spirit, whom the pontiff's and councils condemned.

3 I will here subjoin some positions extracted from their more private books. I. Every good man is the only-begotten son of God, whom the Father hath begotten from eternity. For all that the sacred scriptures teach respecting a distinction of three persons in the divine nature, they maintained was not to be under. stood literally, but to be explained in conformity with their recondite system of doctrines. II. All created objects are nothing; I do not say that they are small something in the human mind which is not created nor and trivial, but that they are nothing. III. There is creatable, and that is, rationality. IV. God is neither

ex

11. Among these people there were some piscence, are still far, very far from God." upright and conscientious persons, who There were also among these people some did not extend that liberty of the spirit who abused their doctrines to justify all which they said was possessed by persons iniquity; and who did not fear to teach united to God beyond an exemption from that a godlike man, or one who is closely external worship and from ecclesiastical united to God, cannot sin do what he may. law. They made religion to consist ex- This senseless, impious dogma was clusively in internal worship, despising plained by them in different ways. Some that which is external; and they main-held that the motions and actions of the tained that a perfect man ought to look body had no connexion with the soul, with contempt on the rules of monastic which was elevated and blended with the discipline, and the other institutions which divine nature. But others maintained the were regarded as sacred. Of this character | blasphemous sentiment, that the emotions were those who in the middle of the cen- and desires arising in the soul after its tury persuaded many monks and nuns union with God were the acts and operain Swabia to live without any rule, saying, tions of God himself; and therefore, that in this way they could serve God though apparently criminal and contrary better in the liberty of the spirit. Not to the law, they were really holy and a few persons of this description, being good, because God is above all law.3 apprehended by the Inquisitors, expired cheerfully and calmly in the flames. But there were others of a worse character among them, and whose piety was foolish as it was dangerous. These maintained that by persevering contemplation all the instincts of nature might be eradicated and excluded from the godlike soul, and a kind of holy or divine stupor be brought over the mind. Persons of these sentiments throwing off all clothing held their secret assemblies in a state of nudity, and in the same state slept in the same bed with the spiritual sisters and other women. For modesty and shame they said indicated a mind not yet sufficiently detached from the sentient and libidinous soul, nor brought back to the source from which it originated, that is, the divine nature; and those who still experience the carnal emotions of nature, or are excited and inflamed by the aspect or touch of bodies of a different sex, or who are unable to repress and subdue the occasional emotions of concu

as

good, nor better, nor the best; whoever calls God good talks as foolishly as the man who calls a thing black while he knows it to be white. V. God still begets his only-begotten son, and begets the same son that he begat from eternity. For every operation of God is uniform and one, and he therefore engenders his son without any division. VI. What the scripturo says of Christ is true of every godly man. And what is predicable of the divine nature is also predicable of every godly man. To these we shall add the following, taken not from their own books, but from the long rescript of John, bishop of Strasburg, against the Brethren of the Free Spirit or the Bechardi, A.D. 1317, on the sabbath before the assumption of the Virgin Mary. VII. God is formally whatever exists. VIII. Every perfect man is Christ by nature. IX. A perfect man is free totally, nor is he required to obey the precepts which God gave to the church. X. Many things in the gospel are poetic and not [literally] true; and men ought to believe the conceptions which proceed from their souls when united to God rather than the gospel.

1 See Crusius, Annales Suevicorum, par. iii. lib. ii. cap. 14, ad ann. 1216, p. 99. old ed. He extracts from Felix Faber, a writer of that age.

2 Those who study to vindicate and defend the character of the heretics, and who think that all those who seceded from the Romish church in the middle ages were holy persons, conjecture that the things here stated are falsehoods, invented by the Inquisitors for the purpose of defaming pions men; but they are the Inquisitors themselves admit, that the Beghards, strictly true. This we may infer from the fact which though divested of all sense of shame, yet in general did not offend against chastity and modesty. This Inquisitors attribute to the power of the devil. For they believed with the simple Jo. Nieder (Formicarium, lib. iii. cap. v. p. 346), that the devil can render he so operated upon his friends as to render them utterly insensible, so that they might appear to common people more exalted and holy. "Credo" (says Nieder, who was a Dominican and an Inquisitor), "quosdam ex eis dæmonis opere affectos fuisse, ne moverentur ad naturales actus incontinentiæ. Facilli

firmness of mind and unsusceptibility of emotion the

men cold or extinguish the natural emotions; and that

mum enim est dæmonibus infrigidare."

3 That I may not seem chargeable with misrepreof the Brethren of the Free Spirit, entitled De Novem

God he worked and created heaven and earth. He is

should therefore make his will conformable to God's

If

sentation, I will cite the very words of a private book Rupibus:-" Moreover, the godlike man operates and begets the same that God operates and begets. For in also the generator of the eternal Word. Nor can God do anything without this man. The godlike man will, so that he should will all that God wills. therefore God wills that I should sin, I ought by no means to will that I may not have sinned. This is true contrition. And if a man have committed a thousand mortal sins, and the man is well regulated and united to God, he ought not to wish that he had not done those sins; and he ought to prefer suffering a thousand deaths, rather than to have omitted one of those mortal sins." Here is that sentiment with which the Inquisitors often tax this sect, that the sin of a man who is united to God is not sin because God works all in him. In the next century Henry Suso, a celebrated writer among the mystics and a Dominican monk, composed likewise a book De Novem Rupibus, which is extant among his works published by Surius. But this book of Suso is altogether different from that which was in so much estimation among the Beghards. The latter was much more ancient, and was in circulation among the Brethren of the Free Spirit in Germany before Suso was born. There has fallen into my hands an old manuscript book of the fifteenth century, composed in Alsace, containing various revelations and visions of that age. I find there a piece entitled Declaratio Religiosi cujusdam, super Revelatione Cartusiano cuidam de Ecclesiae per Gladium Reformatione, Leodice, anno 1453, fucta; near the beginning of which there is the following passage relating to the book of the Beghards, De Novem Rupibus:-" Homo quidam devotissimus, licet laicus, librum De Novem Kupibus