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CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES.

641

But we have seen on a former pagel how bishop Diego of Osma, in Spain, and Dominick, joined themselves to these men, and endeavored to introduce a more spiritual mode of dealing with the heretics. Several colloquies were held on the disputed points with the leading men of the heretical communities. But it was impossible that these transactions, where the two parties proceeded on such opposite principles, should lead to any favorable result; and then, the heretics were found fault with because they would not so easily allow themselves to be converted. In a religious conference of this sort, which was held in 1207, at Montreal, near Carcassone, betwixt the abovementioned Spanish bishop, Dominick, and a pastor of the so-called Albigenses, Arnold Hot,2 the latter defended the three following theses: That the church of Rome is not the bride of Christ, not the holy church, but the Babylon of the Apocalypse, drunk with the blood of saints and martyrs; that her doctrine is a doctrine of Satan, her constitution not a holy one, founded by Christ; that the mass, in the way in which it was at present celebrated, did not originate from Christ and the apostles. But as nothing could be effected by sermons and disputation, and it was believed that nothing could be found in the heretics but incorrigible obstinacy in their rebellion against the church, it was deemed necessary to resort to more compulsory measures. The assassination of one of the papal delegates, added afterwards to the first, the monk Peter of Castelnau (Pierre de Château neuf, Petrus a Castro novo), in 1208,4—which the pope attributed to count Raimund of Toulouse, whom he had excommunicated, though he was afterwards compelled to acknowledge the groundlessness of this accusation; this melancholy event furnished the signal for a thirty years' bloody war, in which the worst outrages of fanaticism and cupidity were practised against the inhabitants of these districts,5- the famous crusade against the Albigenses. The principle that every heretic, or protector of heretics, should lose his land, and that this should fall into the hands of others,

fidem adimit, vitam furatur, justus enim ex fide vivit. See the letter of Innocent to the archbishop of Aix (Aquae), and the bishops of his diocese, lib. i, ep. 93.

See above, p. 269.

The protocol of this religious confer ence was composed in the Catalonian tongue. An extract from it was first published by Nicole Vignier in his Histoire de l'Eglise, and from this book, which has not fallen under my eye, archbishop Usher has transcribed it in his work: De christianarum ecclesiarum in occidentis praesertim partibus ab apostolicis temporibus ad nostram usque aetatem continua successione et statu, f. 157, Londini, 1687.

The above-mentioned Provençal poet, who has given the history of the war with the Albigenses, says, sermons were, to the heretics, not worth a rotten apple. No prezan lo prezio (the preaching) una poma porria. See l. c. v. 52.

Pope Innocent the Third says (lib. xi,

-

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642

DECISIONS OF THE COUNCIL OF TOULOUSE (1229)

furnished an encouragement and pretext for every species of cupidity. The pope himself was compelled to see worldly interests and motives giving direction to the movement he had excited, and could no longer control. A remark worthy of notice was uttered by a certain count Roger de Foix. During the negotiations for peace, in the year 1228, he declared the pope had no business to meddle in the concerns of his religion; for that was a matter in which each man must enjoy his liberty: "This liberty," he said, "his father had always recommended to him; assuring him that, with it, and a mind resolved to maintain it, he might look on calmly though the very vault of heaven gave way and broke over his head; for he had nothing to fear."2 After the land had been laid waste for thirty years, the blood of thousands had been spilt, and a general submission had thus, in the year 1229, been finally brought about by force, the maintenance of the faith was still by no means secured for the future. The sects destroyed by fire and sword sprung up afresh out of the same needs of the spirit from which they had sprung up at the beginning. It required the unceasing vigilance of spiritual despotism to prevent the renewal of those antichurchly tendencies.

At a council of Toulouse, held in 1229, it was ordered, after the precedent of measures appointed already at the Lateran council, c. iii, in 1215, that a permanent Inquisition should be established against the heretics. 1. The bishops were to appoint in all the communities, in city and country, a priest, and with him two or three, or if necessary several laymen, of good standing and character, and bind them by oath, carefully and faithfully to ferret out the heretics, to search suspected houses, subterranean chambers, and other hiding-places, all which should be destroyed; to lodge as speedily as possible with the archbishop, bishop, or the lord or magistrate of the province, an information against detected heretics, their patrons and concealers, after first taking every precautionary measure to prevent their escape, in order that they might be brought to condign punishment, c. xii. In every commune all males, from the age of fourteen and upward, and females from the age of twelve, should abjure all doctrines in hostility to the church of Rome, also swear that they would preserve the Catholic faith which the church of Rome holds and preaches, and persecute and conscientiously make known all heretics, according to their ability. That this oath might be taken by every individual, the names of all the men and women in each parish should be recorded. And if any person should be absent at the time of the taking of this oath, and did not take it within fourteen days after his return, he should be put down as suspected of heresy. This oath should be renewed once in every two years. Manifold disadvantages should, in civil life, be connected with the fact that a man was even suspected of heresy. But every man was so suspected, whom public rumor accused of that crime.

See a letter of Innocent the Third to his legates, in which he declares against the unjust proceedings of the count of Toulouse. Lib. xv, ep. 102.

* See Paul Perrin, Histoire des Albigeois, Genève, 1568, p. 141, from a manuscript account of the life of this count.

WITH REGARD TO PROCEEDINGS AGAINST HERETICS.

643

Though, according to the church constitution up to this time, it belonged to the bishops to administer and direct all such measures, yet, for the reasons already mentioned, the practice was adopted, by pope Gregory the Ninth, in 1232-33, after the example set by Innocent the Third, of selecting for this purpose monks, who might proceed independently of the bishops, and particularly from that order which had derived its origin from the contests with the heretics, the order of the Dominicans. Thus were formed those tribunals which obtained special jurisdiction over cases of transgression coming within the spiritual province, the inquisitores haereticae pravitatis. The church hypocritically deprecated the appearance of having anything to do with the shedding of blood, but used the secular power as its executioner, the blind tool of its cruel fanaticism. The convicts, excommunicated by the spiritual tribunal, were handed over to the secular power, which put them to the stake. The arbitrary violence of these tribunals, instituted first in Toulouse and Carcassone, and in Spain, might light also upon such as in any way fell under the suspicion of the zealots for orthodoxy, or of the hierarchy, or against whom their enemies might seek, in the charge of heresy, a means of revenge.

When such a power against heresy first began to be formed, it was the priest Conrad of Marburg who was charged with the execution of it in Germany; a man in whose hands such power must heve been especially dangerous, on account of his inexorable severity and his credulity, at a time when, after the year 1230, the sects were uninterruptedly spreading in the countries about the Rhine.1 Conrad's example showed how ruinous those measures appointed by Innocent the Third and Gregory the Ninth against the heretics and those suspected of heresy might prove, not to the heretics alone, but to persons who in this respect were altogether innocent. No man was safe before the terrific power of Conrad; he exercised it, unscrupulously, against the highest as well as the humblest individuals. A man once accused of heresy, could save his life only by declaring himself guilty, and confirming all that had ever been said by the most extravagant rumors concerning the assemblies of the heretics, and subjecting himself to penance. But he who would not confess, was held to be guilty, and burnt. These accusations were employed as means of revenge.2 The archbishop of Mentz and the Dominican Bernhard held it necessary, afterwards, to draw up a report to the old credulous pope, Gregory the Ninth, concerning the arbitrary use which Conrad the priest made of the power entrusted to him, and the disorders thus created in Germany.3 His credulous fanaticism also brought war and devastation over another district of Germany. That branch of Frieslanders which dwelt in the territory of Oldenburg, the Stedingers, had been involved, by their inflexible love of liberty, in violent contests with the nobles and with the clergy, the archbishop of Bremen in particular. The rebellion

See above, p. 609.

See Extracts therefrom in the Chron

2 See the description in the Gestis Tre- icon of Alberic, A. D. 1233, in the Accesvirorum i, c. civ, and c. cv, f. 317. siones historicae of Leibnitz, t. ii, p. 543.

644

CONRAD OF MARBURG AND THE STEDINGERS.

against the hierarchy arose here, not from a religious but from a political element. But this furnished occasion for drawing the matter within the religious province. Conrad of Marburg could believe the most extravagant things of the Stedingers, and make them believed by the pope. After the crusade against the Albigenses followed that against the Stedingers: the pope surrendered the poor people victims to their enemies; but when, after their subjection, the church became reconciled with them, the accusation of heresy which had been brought against them the groundlessness of which must probably have been well known-was no longer mentioned. Conrad of Marburg at length fell himself a victim to his own ferocity; the vengeance of a mighty lord, whom he had without cause stigmatized as an heretic, overtook him, and he was murdered in 1233. These unfortunate events had however a beneficial effect, in that they operated as a warning and terrifying example for Germany, which kept the tribunal of the Inquisition at a distance from that country.

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Abelard, 243, 257, 346, 350, 371, 373, 450, Anthony, fire of St. 266.

453, 458, 462, 467, 493, 501, 528.
Absalom, bishop of Roeskilde, 31.

Adalbert, companion of Otto of Bamberg,

17.

Adalbert, bishop of Bremen, 33.
Adalbert, archbishop of Prague, 41.
Adalbert, bishop of Würzburg, 107.
Ademar, bishop of Puy, 125.
Adiaphora, 387, 524.

Adolph, Duke of Holstein, 35.
Adrian the Fourth, 161, 167.
Aegidius of Assisi, 311.

Alanus Magnus, 417, 461.

Alberic of Citeaux, 252.

Alberic of Ostia, 603.

Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem, 266.

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Albigenses, 270, 570.

Anthony of Padua, 291.
Appeals, 199.

Apostolicals, 303, 604, 626.
Archdeacons, 211.

Aristotle, 392, 417, 419, 449, 488, 519, 567.
Arnold, companion of John of Monte Cor-
vino, 57.

Arnold of Brescia, 147, 162, 180, 208, 398.
Arnold Hot, Waldensian, 641.

Arsenius, patriarch of Constantinople, 543.
Arsenians, 550.

Ascellin, monk, 49.

Asia, conversion of, 45.

Auditores, 580.

Augustin, 376, 389, 409, 427, 434, 457, 474,
479, 485, 492, 493, 495, 497, 510, 515.

Albertus Magnus, 286, 345, 421, 429, 449, Averrhoes, 426, 431, 449.

Aybert, 238.

B

Albin, companion of Otto of Bamberg, 20. Bartholomew, Catharist pope, 590.

Albrecht (Albert) the bear, 21.

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Basilius, Bogomile, 559.
Beatrice, margravine, 91.
Bec, monastery of, 362.
Becket, Thomas à, 169.
Beghardi, 286, 303.
Beguinae, Beguttae, 286.
Beccus, Johannes, 545.

Belgrade, city in Pommerania, 16.
Berengar, 257, 337.
Bernard, priest, 448.

Bernard of Clairvaux, 73, 144, 150, 152,
153, 194, 198, 217, 252, 331, 371, 386,
394, 409, 503, 509, 516, 603.

Bernard's mother, 234.

Bernard, Dominican, 643.

|Bernard, converter of Pommerania, 2.
Bernard of Tiron, 236, 308, 312.

Bernard of Ydros, 606.

Bertha, 121.

Berthold of Calabria, 266.

Berthold, Franciscan, preacher of repent-
ance, 279, 318, 351.

Berthold, bishop of Liefland, 37.
Berthrade, 121.

Besançon, diet at, 164.

Bible, reading of the, 321.

Bible, versions of the, 320.

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