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X
CRUSADES AND HERESIES
AMONG the most loyal adherents of Pope Gregory VII was Odo, a Frenchman, who became Pope with the name of Urban
II, and reigned from 1088 to 1099. He had shown himself a vigorous sub prior of
the great monastery of Cluny, and was made Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, and when
acting as legate in Germany he had been imprisoned by Henry IV. He showed all
the determination of Gregory VII and more diplomacy. He skillfully extended his
authority in France. He maintained good terms with Roger, the son of Robert
Guiscard, the Norman ruler of Sicily and Apulia. He encouraged Conrad, the son
of Henry IV, to rebel against his father. He united Italian and German
opposition to the emperor by arranging a marriage between Matilda, Countess of
Tuscany, then a middle-aged widow, and the eighteen-year-old son of Welf, Duke
of Bavaria. The Welfs were well content, being ignorant of the fact that
Matilda had left her vast lands to the papacy. Henry himself proved his own
enemy by marrying again, this time a Russian princess named Praxedis,
who laid before the Pope serious accusations against the conduct of her
husband. Henry's position in Italy was completely shaken, while that of Urban
was steadily strengthened, in spite of the presence of an antipope in Rome
itself during the early days of his pontificate.
As though these triumphs were not sufficient, Urban was able to put
himself at the head of a popular religious movement which immensely enhanced
his importance. In 1095 he presided at a great synod at Piacenza. To this synod
the Greek Emperor Alexius sent ambassadors to beg for help against the Muslims.
It was indeed an anxious time for Christendom. Seven years before this date a
new clan of Saracens, the Almoravides, had crossed from Africa to Spain and
inflicted a severe defeat upon a Christian army near Badajoz, a defeat which
was a counterpoise to the recovery of Toledo by the Christians in 1085. And now
the Seljukid Turks, recent and ferocious converts to
Islam, had established themselves within the historic walls of Nicaea, and in
1071 captured Jerusalem from the more tolerant Saracens of Egypt. Christian
pilgrims—for Christian pilgrims had never for long ceased to visit the holy
places—returned with unhappy stories of their maltreatment by the Turks. Urban
II heard the envoys of Alexius with sympathy, but he saw the necessity of
appealing to a wider public. He felt that he would be on surer ground in his
own country, so he summoned a council at Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergne.
He crossed the Alps and everywhere in France he was received with
respect. When the council met at Clermont, in November 1095, he delivered
before a vast concourse a moving discourse with an impassioned appeal on behalf
of the persecuted Eastern Christians. The multitude replied with a shout of
'God wills it', and cut out crosses of stuff to fasten on their shoulders. The
First Crusade was already brought to birth and Urban was its proud and honored
parent. Every method at the disposal of the Church was employed to secure
success. Monks preached the crusade. Of the preachers Peter the Hermit and a
poor knight, Gauthier 'sans Avoir' (Walter Lackpenny), were among the most popular and effective. Led
by these two zealous enthusiasts, an unauthorized crusade, the crusade of a
horde of French and German peasants and adventurers, set forth towards the East
by way of Hungary and Bulgaria. The inhabitants of the lands along the Danube
were infuriated by their excesses, the roads were strewn with their corpses,
and when at last they reached Asia Minor the heat of the sun and the swords of
the Turks devoured almost the whole of the lamentable band except Peter himself
and some German nobles.
The official crusade was put in motion a little later. Urban II could
not count upon the help of Philip of France, William Rufus of England, or Henry
IV of Germany, for he had excommunicated all three. So the leaders were not
kings, but nobles. Four armies began their march by four different routes.
Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, Godfrey de Bouillon and his brother Baldwin,
leaders of the northern French, and Bohemond and Tancred, leaders of the
Normans dwelling in Italy and the Italian crusaders, were, with the brothers of
the King of France and Robert II, Count of Flanders, the generals of these
armies. Godfrey, strong, of high character and gentle in his speech, became the
most popular of them all, but Baldwin was quick to understand the Oriental
mind, and the tall Bohemond, with his white skin and blue-green eyes, was the
ablest soldier, the commander who knew when and how to strike. Arrived in Asia,
the Crusaders, in spite of the rivalries of their leaders and the murmurs of
the soldiers, took Nicaea and then Edessa, which from early Christian times had
been an outpost of Christianity. Then they captured the great and strongly
fortified city of Antioch, where most of them gave themselves up to luxury and
ease. Their luxury was soon followed by the extremity of hunger, for the Turks
besieged them in their turn, and the Christian army was on the brink of
despair. Their depression was overcome by a priest who claimed to have found
the spear that pierced the side of Christ. The spear was borne in front of the enthusiastic ranks of the Christians, whom Bohemond marshaled
with his wonted skill; the Turks were decisively defeated and their commander
agreed to accept the Christian faith.
Again they took their ease, fought among themselves, and paid a heavy
toll to the climate of Antioch. If Jerusalem was to be won it must be won
quickly, or the army of the Crusaders would melt away. In spite of the fears of
their leaders, the remnant were eager to march to the holy city. When they
arrived there, in June 1099, it is probable that they had lost one half of a
possible 30,000 that had reached Nicaea. Tortured with thirst, the soldiers
fought with each other to obtain water at the pool of Siloam, the Muslims
having destroyed every well that could be used by the invaders. The barons saw
that all must be staked on one supreme effort, and Jerusalem was taken. Fearing
that they would be attacked by Egyptian reinforcements, the Christian soldiers
methodically massacred the inhabitants of Jerusalem, then met and killed the
Egyptians at Ashkelon.
The First Crusade was followed within a space of one hundred and seventy
years by six other Crusades, and their whole history is interwoven with tragedy
and folly, religion and romance.
In 1144 Nuraddin, 'light of the faith',
wrested from the Christians their frontier fortress, Edessa. The news was received
in Europe with emotion, and Pope Eugenius III appealed to the chivalry of
France. The appeal was seconded by St. Bernard, who at first had distrusted the
wisdom of a crusade.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) was an outstanding personality of
the time, spiritually, intellectually, and in the power of communicating to
others the fire which burned in his heart. Filled with zeal for holiness, he
had gone at the age of twenty-two to the languishing Cistercian monastery near
Dijon, taking with him an uncle, five brothers, and a group of young friends
whom he had persuaded to dedicate themselves to God. The result was the growth
of the Cistercian order which is one of the great features of the history of
the twelfth century. Bernard's devotion, which was centered in the human life
and suffering of Christ, led him to practice austerities which he afterwards
saw were injurious to his health and usefulness. But his inner life and his
love of contemplation were united with an extraordinary practical activity. It
was manifested in his sermons, treatises, and letters, in the numerous
monasteries which he founded, and in the part which he played in the gravest
events of his age. He spoke with the same courage to popes and kings and
peasants. Among the salient facts of his career was his intervention in the
simultaneous election of Innocent II and Anacletus II to the papacy in 1130.
Asked for his advice, he pronounced without hesitation in favor of the former;
and during a struggle which lasted until the death of Anacletus in 1138 he
gained many adherents for the Pope whom he protected.
Such was the man, saint, statesman, and preacher, who persuaded Conrad
III of Germany to join Louis VII of France in the Crusade, and in 1147 the two
monarchs set forth to meet the 'infidel'. Arrived in the East they made an
initial mistake. They attacked Damascus, instead of trying to secure the friendship
of the vizier, who might have helped them to checkmate Nuraddin.
The attack was futile. They returned to Europe after covering themselves with
discredit, and Nuraddin steadily continued his task
of enveloping the Frankish colonies in the East until his death in 1174.
About five years before the death of Nuraddin the redoubtable Saladin, 'honoring the faith', had conquered Egypt. It was the
goal not only of the Christian Latins but also of the 'orthodox' (Sunni)
Muslims, who hated the rival sect of Muslims as much as the Latins detested the
Greeks. Saladin's ambition was boundless, and he resolved to wrest Jerusalem
from the Crusaders, who felt at ease in Zion. Muhammad himself was believed to
have been miraculously transported to Jerusalem, and such an enterprise was to
Saladin a 'holy war', the most sacred and meritorious work in which a Muslim
could engage. This was the belief that strengthened the resolution of his
soldiers, and after a sharp battle at Tiberias they
captured the holy city in 1187.
This fall of Jerusalem was followed by forty years of a struggle that
was concentrated in the Third, the Fourth, and the Fifth Crusade. The Third
Crusade (1189-119z) was the most imposing that had hitherto been launched. Nor
did it lack a genuinely religious element, for the people of Europe were
touched with a sense that if the Christian world had not sinned Jerusalem would
not have fallen captive. Henry II of England and Philip Augustus of France laid
aside their bitter quarrel and gave to each other the kiss of peace. The
Emperor Frederic I Barbarossa, went to Asia Minor and penetrated it beyond
Iconium, but was drowned in crossing a river, and only a feeble remnant of his
soldiers survived their marches. The English Henry II was succeeded by his son
Richard Coeur de Lion, who with the King of France betook himself to Acre. This
important fortress had been besieged by the Christians for two years. The
besiegers were perishing for want of water, and the besieged were dying for
want of food. Richard captured the city and he refortified Jaffa. The Christian
principality of Antioch was also saved. But the most remarkable event of this
Third Crusade was the conclusion of a three years' truce between Richard and
Saladin, a treaty which appears to have been dictated by genuine chivalrous
respect on either side, and was accompanied with the strange proposal that
Saladin's brother should marry Richard's sister Johanna.
In spite of the active interest which Pope Gregory VIII took in
organizing the Third Crusade, it is evident that the crusading movement was
slipping more than ever out of papal control into the hands of kings and
statesmen. This was made sharply manifest in the Fourth and in the Fifth
Crusade.
The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) had as its first objective Egypt, which
was seen to be the true gateway of the East. The Crusaders, who were mostly
French, sent envoys to Venice to negotiate for the passage of their army to
Egypt. The Venetians, cunning merchantmen, demanded, in payment for their
assistance, not only half of any conquests which the Crusaders might make, but
also 85,000 marks. When it was told them that the Crusaders had not enough
money to pay, it was suggested that the debt could be cleared if they would
capture from the King of Hungary the seaport of Zara on the Adriatic. To the
wrath of Pope Innocent III, the Crusaders took Zara. Nor did this infamy stop
on the shores of the Adriatic. Philip, Duke of Swabia, who had a quarrel with
the Pope, was by marriage related to the Greek prince, Alexius, son of the
deposed emperor, Isaac Angelus. Philip induced the Crusaders to go to Constantinople;
they entered it in November 1203 and proclaimed Alexius emperor with the title
of Alexius IV. The city rebelled, the Crusaders besieged the city, and during
the siege another Alexius was chosen emperor. A brave man, he fled when he saw
that the city was doomed. He was captured and killed by the Crusaders, who in
1204 took the city and looted its almost unsearchable treasures. The only
satisfaction to be derived from this repulsive story is the fact that some of
these exquisite treasures, which are still to be found in Western museums and
sacristies, were saved from the future clutches of the Turks by the avarice of
the 'Franks'. Innocent III came gradually to acquiesce. He was dazzled by the
hope of subjugating the Eastern Church to Rome, and a Venetian prelate was made
Latin Patriarch of Constantinople.
The Fifth Crusade (1219-1222) was
preceded by the piteous Children's Crusade, of which a faint tradition appears
to survive in the legend of the Piper of Hameln, the magic of whose flute lured
little children to follow him to an unknown world. A French shepherd boy named
Stephen and a German boy named Nicolas persuaded thousands of children to begin
a journey to the Holy Land, fully persuaded that miracles would attend them and
bring them across the sea. They died or were captured and sold as slaves to the
Muslims. The Fifth Crusade itself proved a dismal failure. It was led by John
of Brienne, titular King of Jerusalem, who was
unfortunately accompanied by a papal legate with the ill-omened name of
Pelagius. Damietta was captured and Malik-al-Kamil,
the Sultan of Egypt, was ready to offer generous terms if the Crusaders would
evacuate the country. The legate, however, demanded an indemnity as well as
territory. The sultan's attitude then stiffened. He resolved to fight and soon
cleared the country of its invaders.
The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229) was a lay crusade, cursed by the papacy
but not unsuccessful. It was the work of the Emperor Frederick II. An adroit
diplomatist, he established friendly relations with Al-Kamil,
secured possession of Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem, and crowned himself
King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For fifteen-years
Jerusalem was again a Christian city, and then again it fell in 1244, never to
be recovered by crusading armies.
The Seventh Crusade (1248-1254) and the Eighth (12671270) were the
Crusades of Saint Louis. This Louis IX, King of France, was a mirror of
medieval chivalry and of devotion to God and man. Simple in his dress and most
ascetic in his food, he maintained the full dignity of his court. Humble and
constant in prayer, habitually rising at midnight to attend Mattins,
and never hearing less than two masses a day, he was a brave and accomplished
knight with a spice of irony and humor. He was without favorites and without
affectation. He could be thrifty and prudent, but his darling object was to
free the Holy Land, and when this object was concerned he threw to the winds
both thrift and prudence. He was not content to build in Paris the
Sainte-Chapelle to enshrine the Saviour's crown of
thorns and other relics of the Passion. He must himself take the cross with his
three brothers. He captured Damietta, but suffered a crushing defeat at
Mansura, where he was taken prisoner and not released until he had paid 400,000
pieces of gold to the Sultan of Egypt. After spending four years in the Holy
Land, where he effected little, he returned to France where his presence was
urgently needed.
But the heart of Saint Louis was not in France. He was determined to
fight the infidel once more, and Prince Edward of England prepared to follow
his example. The Crusaders left Aigues-Mortes in the
south of France on July the 1st, 1270.
In a scorching sun they sailed for Tunis. Louis had been led to think
that the Bey of Tunis was willing to be converted, he
imagined that the Egyptians drew supplies from Tunis, and he longed to restore
to Christendom the regions which had once been illuminated by the teaching of
St. Augustine. After a voyage of seventeen days the fleet reached Carthage;
then heat and disease began to do their work and mowed down the army like
grass. Louis caught the plague and died murmuring “Jerusalem, we shall go into
Jerusalem”. But it was not the earthly Jerusalem that he saw and entered.
When Prince Edward, afterwards our King Edward I, reached Africa Louis
was already dead, and to his wrath he found that the other chiefs of the crusade
had made peace with the unbelievers. He swore by the blood of God that he would
enter Acre, and he kept his word. It was in the Holy Land and on his birthday,
June the 17th, 1272, that an assassin gave him the poisoned wound which Eleanor
his wife was afterwards said to have sucked with her own lips. His forces were
too small to achieve great permanent results. He made a ten years' truce with
the sultan and came back to England. Thus the Crusades came to their inevitable
and melancholy dissolution. And yet this end was not destitute of dignity, nor
even of glamour, since the last great figures in the last real Crusade were the
King of France who lived to pray, the King of England who honored his own
words, and the Castilian queen who was 'the lover of all the English' and
beloved by them all.
The effect of the Crusades upon the history of the Church was wide and
in some respects permanent. The First Crusade consolidated the papal theocracy,
for it was Rome that planned and guided the movement that planted the cross on
the mosque of Omar and set free the Holy Sepulchre. The military orders,
composed of men who were both monks and soldiers, took their origin from the
necessity of defending the frontiers of Christendom. Within those distant
frontiers many Latin bishoprics and monasteries were established, and efforts
were made for uniting the Churches of the East with Rome. As early as 1098 a
synod was held at Bari in South Italy at which St. Anselm of Canterbury was
present, and Latin and Greek theologians discussed the doctrine of the
procession of the Holy Ghost. No solid result was attained, and the orthodox
Greeks conceived, a passionate hatred of the 'Franks' when the latter, on their
pretended crusade of 1204, looted Constantinople, the second city in
Christendom. With Orientals who were not Greeks Rome established more friendly
relations. In 1182 the large Syrian Christian sect known as the Maronites accepted Roman supremacy, and their descendants
in the Lebanon have remained faithful to the papacy. In Cilicia, about the same
date, Rome secured the adhesion of a considerable number of Armenians. In
Serbia, at the dawn of the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent III gained a
temporary footing. The throne of Serbia was claimed by two brothers, Vulkan and Stephen, who in turn appealed to the Pope. The
former won at the expense of recognizing the suzerainty of the King of Hungary
and the jurisdiction of the Pope (1202). The King of Hungary died two years
later, Stephen defeated Vulkan, and for a time the
schemes of the Pope were frustrated.
More important than these attempts to promote reunion with Rome, was the
stimulus given by the Crusades to peaceful missionary work among
non-Christians, both heathen and Muslim. In 1252 Saint Louis sent the
Franciscan William Rubruquis to the Great Khan in
central Asia, hoping for the conversion of the new Mongol empire. The next year
Pope Innocent IV created the first missionary society formed since the
conversion of the West, the Peregrinantes propter Christum, and at the beginning of the
fourteenth century active missionary work was in progress in Persia, India,
China, and Tibet. Raymond Lull, the apostle to the Muslims, will be mentioned
later. The evangelistic activities of the Church were chilled by troubles
nearer home in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but some knowledge of
the East and its spiritual needs was gradually accumulated for future
generations.
The early years of the thirteenth century witnessed in France certain
vigorous movements opposed to the Church, movements which provoked a crusade
against heresy more successful than the crusades against Islam. France in fact
was threatened by a religious revolution. It was a peril not only to the Church
but also in a considerable degree to the State, a peril increased by the fact
that it arose in the south of France, which differed widely from the north of
France in language and in general culture. The revolutionary movement included
two distinct elements. The more moderate element was essentially Christian, and
might almost be described as an ascetic form of Methodism. The more extreme
element was essentially non-Christian, and might be called an organized
theosophy. The former was calculated to weaken the Catholic hierarchy, the
latter was also of such a nature as to undermine the whole fabric of Christian
society. The two sects are known respectively as the Vaudois or Waldensians, and the Albigenses or Cathari.
The Waldensians or Vaudois have been
surrounded by a thick mist of legend since the sixteenth century. It became
widely believed that the inhabitants of the Piedmontese valleys had preserved from primitive, if not actually apostolic, times a
religion distinct from the religion of Rome and opposed to it. This legend has
been shattered by a critical investigation of their literature. It has been
shown that certain alleged early Waldensian writings
are translated from Hussite Bohemian works, that their Confession of Faith,
said to be ancient, is based on the works of the reformer Bucer,
and that the manuscript of the Waldensian religious
poem called the Nobla Laiczon or Noble Lesson has had the year 1430 unscrupulously altered into 1130 in order
to make it appear that there were Waldensians before Waldus began to preach.
Peter Valdo, Waldus, Valdez, or Valesius, was
a rich citizen of Lyons who, in 1173, was deeply impressed by reading Christ's
words to the rich young man in Matthew XIX. 21. After bestowing his goods upon
the poor and studying the Bible, he founded, in 1177, a society of men and
women, who abandoned all worldly possessions and went forth two and two to
preach the Gospel. The Archbishop of Lyons forbade their preaching. Valdo then
appealed to the Pope, Alexander III. The Pope was not unsympathetic; he praised
Valdo for taking the vow of poverty and gave him leave to preach if and where
the clergy agreed. The Waldensians, however, were excommunicated in 1184 by
Pope Lucius III, who describes them as the 'Poor men
of Lyons'. They spread rapidly from Provence in the south to Lorraine in the
north, and in 1210 Pope Innocent III tried to counteract their work by founding
a society called the 'Poor Catholics', whom he allowed to preach and expound
the Scriptures. They were to adopt apostolic poverty, dress, and life. This
Catholic movement met with some success both in France and in Lombardy, where
Valdo had secured a very large number of adherents. But in both countries it
was eclipsed by the two great mendicant orders, that of St. Francis and that of
St. Dominic, which did the same work with better resources and far greater
results.
Some sharp differences of opinion separated the French and the Lombard
Waldensians. The most important was that the French maintained, and the
Lombards repudiated, the Catholic doctrine that the efficacy of the sacraments
is not hindered by the unworthiness of the priest who administers them. Both
parties held that priests were guilty of mortal sin if they assumed the
privileges of their office without undertaking the obligation of apostolic
poverty and a life such as is described in Luke X. They prohibited all swearing
and also military service. Both parties also rejected the then current
doctrines of indulgences and purgatory, and with them the celebration of
requiem masses and the performance of good works by the living for the dead,
practices which were becoming inextricably associated with indulgences. Valdo
himself ordained 'ministers' for his sect. They had bishops, priests, and
deacons, whose duties closely corresponded with those of the threefold ministry
of the Church. Admission to the 'Society of the Brethren' was granted by
ordination to the diaconate, which necessitated vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience. The lay adherents or 'Friends' were not organized as independent
communities, because they continued to share in the services and sacraments of
the Catholic Church. But they also made their confessions to their own
ministers, who imposed penances and absolved, or rather prayed for the
absolution of the penitents. They were well versed in the Bible, which, with
some extracts from the Fathers and the Moralia of St.
Gregory, provided their favorite reading.
Fiercely persecuted in the thirteenth century, the remnants of the
Waldensians were in the fourteenth century mostly to be found in the valleys of
the Cottian Alps. Large colonies moved from thence to Calabria and Apulia,
where they were exterminated in 1561. Those in Piedmont were discovered late in
the fifteenth century by the Bohemian Hussites, and there was a somewhat close
intercourse between the two bodies. But it was not until the sixteenth century
that the main body of the Waldensians adopted any specifically Protestant
opinions. In 1520 one of their ministers, Martin of Lucerne, brought to them
certain writings of the Reformers, and in 1530 two Waldensians, George Morel
and Peter Masson, conferred with Ecolampadius and Bucer. The result was a synod held in 1532 at the Piedmontese village of Chanvoran,
at which for the first time the Waldensians gave up reckoning the sacraments as
seven, the invocation of saints, and auricular confession. They adopted the
Calvinistic `doctrine of predestination, and from that day until the present
have been a Protestant community. After the Reformation the Waldensians were
more fiercely persecuted than ever, and their sufferings inspired Milton's
noble, if misleading, sonnet which begins,
Avenge, 0 Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worship'd stocks and
stones.
The Albigenses were very different from their Waldensian neighbors, and far more dangerous. The survival of the Waldensians may be
attributed partly to their sincere Christianity and partly to their poverty.
But the Albigenses invited and provoked attack by their abundant riches no less
than by their erroneous principles. Their earliest history is rather obscure.
But it is a most significant fact that whereas they bore the Greek name of
Cathari or Puritans, their opponents in popular speech called them by two other
names. One of these is simply a slightly corrupted form of the Southern Slav
word for Bulgarian, and the other word, Publicani, is
a corruption of Pauliciani. In the eighth and in the
tenth century large numbers of Armenians who were members of the Unitarian sect
of Paulicians were transplanted by the Greeks into
Thrace, and according to the Slavonic Life of St. Clement, Paulicians entered Bulgaria after his death in 916. This Unitarian and anti-sacramental
sect had become infected with a dualistic theory which taught that physical
matter is evil. The same theory was developed by a Slavonic sect called the Bogumili, Friends of God, who were already active in the
tenth century. They gained a firm hold over the Serbians and retained it for
two centuries, until they were crushed in the reign of Stephen Nemanja. Many of the Bogumili then migrated to Bosnia and dominated the social life of the country until the
time of the Turkish conquest of Bosnia. They then accepted Islam.
Although the town of Albi, famous for its
wonderful cathedral church, gave to the Cathari their usual name of Albigenses,
their first centre in France appears to have been Toulouse. They are found
there in 1017, a century before the notable heretics Peter de Bruys and Henry of Lausanne, who are thought to have
belonged to the same sect. In 1163 the Cathari held a general council at St. Felix
near Toulouse. In 1223 the Bogumili were in
communication with the Cathari of Toulouse, and Matthew of Paris mentions the
Pope of the Cathari, who lived between Croatia and Dalmatia. He was called by
the Bogumili their “Djed” (grandfather).
The sect had originally no hierarchy, but gradually developed a simple
organization. In the Balkans the vow of poverty was strictly enforced and
marriage was only permitted to the inferior class of adherents.
Pope Innocent III endeavored to counteract the work of the Cathari by
vigorous evangelistic methods. These efforts met with only a meager success,
and in 1208 the murder of Pierre de Castelnau, the
papal legate, by an adherent of the Albigenses, led to a change in the papal
policy. In the next chapter a short account will be given of the persecution of
the Cathari, a persecution which was almost an extermination. For the present
we may observe that the diffusion of the doctrines of the Waldensians and the
Cathari was the chief cause of the establishment of the papal Inquisition in
the thirteenth century. Previous to that date bishops exercised inquisitorial
powers by virtue of their authority to guard the deposit of the faith. They did
not put the heretics to death by the agency of their own officials, but they
might leave them to the mercy of a mob, or hand them over to 'the secular arm'.
But merely local authorities, whether ecclesiastical or civil, are frequently
lenient, and the popes began to think that the work would be done better by
commissioners of their own choosing. So we find after the time of Innocent III
papal inquisitors, who were selected from the ranks of the Dominicans and
Franciscans. After various preliminary steps the papal Inquisition was put on a
definite basis in 1252 by the bull Ad extirpanda of Innocent IV. The immediate cause of this
bull was the murder at Verona of the inquisitor St. Peter Martyr, a persecutor
of the Cathari of Lombardy.
These papal inquisitors could not carry on their work against the wish
of the diocesan bishops and the temporal princes. And in view of the events of
a later time it is worth noting that they were not admitted into England, nor
into Portugal and Castile, where the extermination of the Jews was almost as
thorough as that of the Cathari in Languedoc.
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