Chapter VI: Germany (4)

Although the Brethren of the Free Spirit were the chief objects of all this inquisitorial activity, the Flagellants were not neglected. In 1361 a demonstration of these enthusiasts in far-off Naples awakened the solicitude of Innocent VI. In 1369 we hear of an outbreak of women coming from Hungary, which was summarily suppressed in Saxony. In 1372 Flagellants reappeared in various parts of Germany, asserting the peculiar efficacy of their penance as replacing the sacraments of the Church, so that Gregory XI. felt it necessary to direct the inquisitors to exterminate them. In 1373 and 1374 this irrepressible tendency took a new shape, known as the Dancing Mania, which broke out at the consecration of a church in Aix-la-Chapelle. Bands of both sexes, mostly consisting of poor and simple folk, poured into Flanders from the Rhinelands, dancing and singing as though possessed by the Furies. Under intense spiritual excitement the performer would leap and dance until he fell to earth with convulsions, when his comrades would revive him by jumping upon him, or a cloth which he wore, tied around the belly, would be tightly twisted with a stick. This was generally looked upon as a kind of demoniacal possession until a multitude of these dancers assembled at Herestal and consulted together as to the best plan for slaying all the priests, canons, and clergy of Liège, when the madness was recognized as no longer harmless. Still it spread over a large portion of Germany and lasted for several years. Though not in itself a heresy, it led in some places to heretical opinions on the sacraments, for it was popularly explained by attributing it to defective baptism, caused by the universal practice among priests of keeping concubines.[441]

Scarce had the Inquisition been fairly organized and had settled to its work, when its arbitrary proceedings awakened active opposition. As the heretic Beghards and Beguines were the principal objects of its activity, and the orthodox ones of its cupidity, the sufferings of the latter speedily awoke compassion which found expression in terms so decided that Gregory XI. could not refuse to listen. Accordingly, in April, 1374, he wrote to the Archbishops of Mainz, Trèves, and Cologne, reciting these complaints and ordering a report about the life and conversation of the persons concerned, who should be protected and cherished if innocent, and be punished if guilty. At least from Cologne and Worms, probably from the other prelates, came answers that the persecuted communities were composed of faithful Catholics. In Cologne the magistrates intervened and complained energetically to the pope that a Dominican inquisitor was vexing the poor folk, and they asked that his proceedings be stopped. The victims, they said, were people of little culture, who were interrogated with questions so difficult that the most skilful theologians could scarce answer them, while their edifying lives had led the clergy to protect them against the threats of the Inquisition. Proceedings were thus checked, but still the peculiar garments which the devotees had always worn furnished an excuse for continued persecution, and another appeal was made to Gregory, to which he responded in December, 1377, by ordering the prelates not to permit their molestation on this account so long as they were good Catholics and obedient to the ecclesiastical authorities. The German bishops were thus fully armed with papal authority to restrict the operations of the inquisitors, and those who, like Bishop Lambert of Strassburg, were themselves disposed to persecution, did not dare to proceed further. The regular communities of Beghards and Beguines were assured of toleration, and if the heretical Brethren of the Free Spirit managed to share in this immunity, it probably did not give the prelates much concern.[442]

All this was discouraging to the zeal of inquisitors whose institution had hardly yet taken root in the land, but worse was still to follow. In 1378 died both Gregory XI. and Charles IV. The election of Urban VI. gave rise to the Great Schism, and Wenceslas, the son and successor of Charles, was notoriously indifferent to the interest of religion as represented by the Church. Thus deprived of its two indispensable supporters, the Inquisition could not make head against episcopal jealousy. In 1381 there could have been no inquisitors in the extensive dioceses of Ratisbon, Bamberg, and Misnia, for we find the Archbishop of Prague as papal legate ordering the bishops to appoint them, and threatening to do so himself in case of disobedience. Still the Inquisition did not entirely pretermit its labors. In 1392 we hear of a papal inquisitor named Martin who travelled through Suabia to Würzburg, finding in the latter place a number of peasants and simple folk belonging to the sect of Flagellants and Beghards. They had not in them the stuff of martyrs, and accepted the penance imposed upon them of joining in a crusade then preaching against the Turks--the first time for nearly a century that we meet with this penalty. Then Martin went to Erfurt--always a heretical centre--where he came upon numerous heretics of the same kind. Some of these were obstinate and were duly burned, others accepted penance, and the rest sought safety in flight. The following year there was burned at Cologne, by the papal inquisitor, Albert, a leading Beghard known as Martin of Mainz, a former Benedictine monk and a disciple of the celebrated Nicholas of Basle; and in his trial there are allusions to others of the sect executed not long before at Heidelberg.[443]

About this period, after a long interval, we again become cognizant of the existence of Waldenses. The Beghards had succeeded in concentrating upon themselves the attention of the papal and episcopal inquisitions, and the followers of Peter Waldo had remained unnoticed, doubtless owing their safety to outward conformity, though by absenting themselves from their parishes about the Easter tide they sometimes managed to escape taking communion for five or six years in succession. Thus laboring quietly and peacefully, preaching by night in cellars, mills, stables, and other retired places, they gained numerous converts among the peasants and artisans, who saw in the sanctity of their lives, as sadly admitted by the so-called Peter of Pilichdorf, the strongest contrast with the scandalous license of the clergy.[444] Thus they multiplied in secret until all Germany was full of them, including the closely-related sect of Winkelers. About 1390 they were discovered in Mainz, where for a hundred years they had lurked undisturbed. The Archbishop, Conrad II., kept the matter in his own hands. In 1392 he issued a commission, as episcopal inquisitors, to Frederic, Bishop of Toul, Nicholas of Saulheim, the Dean of St. Stephen, and John Wasmod, of Homburg, a priest of the cathedral, to whom the papal inquisitor could adjoin himself if he so chose. These inquisitors were armed with full authority to arrest, try, torture, sentence, and abandon to the secular arm all heretics, and were instructed to proceed in accordance with the practice of the Inquisition. They zealously discharged their duty. A number of Waldenses were already in the episcopal prison, and they made diligent perquisition after the rest. By free use of torture they obtained the necessary avowals and evidence. Those who were obstinate were handed over to the secular arm, and an _auto de fé_ celebrated at Bingen in 1392, where six-and-thirty wretches were burned, proved that the papal Inquisition itself could not have been more effective. A little tract on the examination of Waldenses, evidently written on this occasion, shows that the inquisitorial process was fairly well understood, and that the episcopal officials had not much to learn from their rivals.[445]

When attention was once attracted to this secret heresy, it was not long before Waldenses were discovered everywhere. In a short list of them, dated 1391, Poland, Hungary, Bavaria, Suabia, and Saxony are represented. The author of the tract which passes under the name of Peter of Pilichdorf, who took an energetic part both with the pen and in action in suppressing this suddenly discovered heresy, informs us, in 1395, that the Netherlands, Westphalia, Prussia, and Poland were not infected with it, while Thuringia, Misnia, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, and Hungary numbered their heretics by thousands. Curiously enough, in this list he omits Pomerania, where, along the Baltic regions, the Waldenses were thickly scattered from Stettin to Königsberg. The heresy had been deeply rooted there for at least a century, and the local priesthood seem to have borne no ill-will to the harmless sectaries, who conformed outwardly to the orthodox observances. Even when in confession intimations of the heresy escaped, as sometimes happened, they were wisely and mercifully overlooked. Yet there is evidence of previous persecution in the confession of Sophia Myndekin, of Fleit, who said that she had been fifty years in the sect, that her husband had been burned at Angermünde, and that she had only escaped on account of pregnancy, while all their little property was confiscated. They were poor folk, mostly peasants and laborers, and though there are occasional allusions in the trials to men of gentle blood, the tenets of the sect excluded all who owed feudal military service, war and bloodshed being strictly forbidden. They were visited yearly by their ministers, some of whom were mechanics, and others learned men skilled in Holy Writ, probably from Bohemia, who preached, heard confessions, and granted absolution, the utmost secrecy being observed in these ministrations. Moreover, collections were made and remitted to the headquarters of the sect, showing that they formed part of the great Waldensian organization.[446]

They had long been unmolested when one of their ministers, known as Brother Klaus, who had visited them in 1391 and had heard many confessions, apparently became frightened at the movement against them. He apostatized, and seems to have betrayed the names of his penitents. The Church made haste to secure the fruits of his repentance. Brother Peter, Provincial of the Celestinian Order, was appointed papal inquisitor, and early in 1393 he came to Stettin armed with full powers from the Archbishop of Prague and the Bishops of Lebus and Camin to represent them. He issued citations, both general ones from the pulpits of the infected region, and special summonses to individuals. This naturally caused great excitement, and some of the suspects fled; in Klein-Wurbiser, indeed, there was a faint demonstration made against the inquisitorial apparitors, but there was no resistance, and the great majority submitted to the inevitable. Friar Peter, as customary, was lenient with those who spontaneously confessed and abjured; all took the oaths, including that of persecuting heresy and heretics, with only an occasional manifestation of hesitancy. Torture seems to have been unnecessary; there was no exhibition of obstinacy, and no burnings. They were condemned to wear crosses and perform other penance, and when, as was usually the case, their parents had died in the sect, they were required to indicate the place of burial, presumably for exhumation. From January, 1393, until February, 1394, Friar Peter was engaged in this work. One of his registers, comprising four hundred and forty-three cases, was in the hands of Flacius Illyricus, fragments of which have recently been discovered and described by Herr Wattenbach.[447]

From Pomerania, Friar Peter hastened to the south, where he found Waldenses as numerous, and less inclined to submission. He has left a brief memorial of his labors, written in 1395, in which he expresses his fears that the heresy would become dominant, as the Waldenses were resorting to force, and were employing arson and homicide to intimidate the orthodox. His only evidence of this, however, is that on September 8, those of Steyer, to punish the parish priest for receiving the inquisitors in his house, burned his barn, and affixed to the town gates, by night, a warning in the shape of a half-burned brand and a bloody knife. This offence was cruelly avenged, for in 1397, at Steyer, more than a hundred Waldenses of either sex were burned. In this relentless persecution the case of a child of ten condemned to wear crosses shows how unsparing were the tribunals, while others in which the culprits were burned for relapse, having already abjured before the inquisitor, Henry of Olmütz, indicate that this was not the first effort made to exterminate the heresy. How extended it was, and how vigorous its repression, may be gathered from the pseudo Peter of Pilichdorf, who tells us that from Thuringia to Moravia a thousand converts were made in two years, and that the inquisitors who were busy in Austria and Hungary expected soon to have a thousand more.[448]

About the year 1400, in Strassburg, there was active persecution against a sect known as Winkelers, who were discovered to have four assemblies in the city, and others in Mainz and Hagenau. In their confessions they alluded to their comrades in many other places, such as Nordlingen, Ratisbon, Augsburg, Tischengen, Soleure, Berne, Weissenberg, Speier, Holzhausen, Schwäbisch-Wörth, Friedberg, and Vienna. Although, strictly speaking, not Waldenses, they had so many traits in common that the distinction is rather one of organization than of faith. In 1374 one of their number returned to the Church, and the fear of his betraying the little community led to his deliberate murder, the assassins being paid, and undergoing penance to obtain absolution. Some years later the inquisitor, John Arnoldi, was threatened with similar vengeance and left the city. In the final persecution some thirty families were put on trial, while many succeeded in remaining concealed. There was but one noble among them, Blumstein, who abjured, and who, some twenty years later, is found filling important civic posts. Though reference is made in one of the trials to members of the sect who had been burned at Ratisbon, those of Strassburg were more fortunate. The inquisitor, Böckeln, is said to have received bribes for assigning private penance to some of the guilty; and though the Dominicans demanded the burning of the heretics, the magistrates interceded with the episcopal official, and banishment was the severest penalty inflicted. Torture, however, had been freely used in obtaining confessions. After this, nothing more is heard in Strassburg of either Winkelers or Waldenses until the burning of Frederic Reiser in 1458.[449]

There evidently was ample work for the Inquisition in Germany, but it seems to have been more anxious to repair its defeat in the contest with the Beghards than to operate against the Waldenses. In the general excitement on the subject of heresy it was not difficult to render the Beghards objects of renewed suspicion and persecution. To some extent the bishops and most of the inquisitors joined in this, but the suspects had friends among the prelates, who wrote, towards the close of 1393, to Boniface IX., eulogizing their piety, obedience, and good works, and asking protection for them. To this Boniface responded, January 7, 1394, in a brief addressed to the German prelates, ordering them to investigate whether these persons are contaminated with the errors condemned by Clement V. and John XXII., and whether they follow any reproved religious Order; if not, they are to be efficiently protected. An exemplified copy of this brief, given by the Archbishop of Magdeburg, October 20, 1396, shows that it continued to be used and was relied upon in the troubles which followed, soon after, through a sudden change of policy by Boniface. The Inquisition did not remain passive under this interference with its operations. It represented to Boniface that for a hundred years heresies had lurked under the outward fair-seeming of the Beghards and Beguines, in consequence of which, almost every year, obstinate heretics had been burned in the different cities of the empire, and that their suppression was impeded by certain papal constitutions which were urged in their protection. Boniface was easily moved to reversing his recent action, and by a bull of January 31, 1395, he restored to vigor the decrees of Urban V., Gregory XI., and Charles IV., under which he ordered the Inquisition to prosecute earnestly the Beghards, Lollards, and _Zwestriones_. This gave full power to molest the orthodox associations as well as the heretic Brethren of the Free Spirit, and a severe storm of persecution burst over them. Even some of the bishops joined in this, as appears from a synod held in Magdeburg about this time, which ordered the priests to excommunicate and expel them. Yet this again aroused their friends, and Boniface was induced to reissue his bull with an addition which, like the contradictory provisions of the Clementines, shows the perplexity caused by the admixture of orthodoxy and heresy among the Beguines. After repeating his commands for their suppression, he adds that there are pious organizations known as Beghards, Lollards, and _Zwestriones_, which shall be permitted to wear their vestments, to beg, and to continue their mode of life, excommunication being threatened against any inquisitor who shall molest them, unless they have been convicted by the ordinaries of the diocese.[450]

This left the matter very much to the discretion of the local authorities, but the spirit of persecution was fairly revived, and the Inquisition made haste to fortify its position. Under pretext that the bulls of Gregory XI. were becoming worn by age and use, it procured their renewal from Boniface IX., in 1395, though the pope is careful to express that he grants no new privileges. In 1399 it succeeded in having the number of inquisitors increased to six for the Dominican province of Saxony alone, on the plea that its wide extent and populous cities rendered the existing force insufficient. This was not without reason, for the province embraced the great archiepiscopal districts of Mainz, Cologne, Magdeburg, and Bremen, to which were added Rügen and Camin. Camin belonged to the province of Gnesen, and Rügen formed part of the diocese of Roskild, which was suffragan to the metropolitan of Lünden in Sweden, thus furnishing the only instance of inquisitorial jurisdiction in any region that can be called Scandinavian, save a barren attempt made, in 1421, under the stimulus of the Hussite troubles. A few weeks later Boniface issued another bull, ordering the prelates and secular rulers of Germany to give all aid and protection to Friar Eylard Schöneveld and other inquisitors, and especially to lend the use of their prisons, as the Inquisition in those parts is said to have none of its own, which shows that Kerlinger's scheme of obtaining them from the property of the Beghards had not proved a success. Eylard set vigorously to work in the lands adjoining the Baltic, which from their remoteness had probably escaped his predecessors. At Lubec, in 1402, he procured the arrest of a Dolcinist named Wilhelm by the municipal officials, showing that he had no familiars of his own; the accused was examined several times in the presence of numerous clerks, monks, and laymen, showing that the secrecy of the inquisitorial process was unknown or unobserved, and he was finally burned. He had a comrade named Bernhard, who fled to Wismar, whither Schöneveld followed him and had him burned in 1403. The same year he seized a priest at Stralsund, who rejected all solicitations to abjure, and was burned as a persistent heretic; and at Rostock he condemned for heresy a woman who drove away with the bitterest reproaches her son, a Cistercian monk, when he urged her to recant, and who likewise perished in the flames.[451]

About this period heresy appears to have had also to contend with a reaction on the part of the secular authorities. When, in 1400, the Flagellants made a demonstration in the Low Countries, the magistrates of Maestricht expelled them, and when the people took their side the energetic interference of the Bishop of Liège put an end to the insubordination; besides, the Sire de Perweis threw a band of Flagellants into his dungeons and Tongres closed its gates upon them, so that the epidemic was checked. With the year 1400 the comparative peace which the Beguines had enjoyed for some fifteen years came to an end. Their most dreaded enemy was the Dominican, John of Mühlberg, whose purity of life and energy in battling with the moral and spiritual errors of his time won him a wide reputation throughout Germany, so that when he died in exile, driven from Basle by the clergy whom his attacks had embittered, he was long regarded by the people as a saint and a martyr. About 1400 he stirred up in Basle a struggle with the Beguines, which for ten years kept the city in an uproar. Primarily an episode in the hostility between the Dominicans and Franciscans, it extended to the clergy and magistrates, and finally to the citizens at large. In 1405 the Beguines were expelled, but the Franciscans obtained from the papacy bulls ordering their restoration, and the retraction of all that had been said against them. At last, in 1411, Bishop Humbert and the town council, excited by a fiery sermon of John Pastoris, abolished the associations, which were forced to abandon their living in common and their vestments, or to leave the place. The city of Berne followed this example, and the magistrates of Strassburg took the same course, when some of the Beguines adopted the former alternative and some the latter. Many of these took refuge secretly at Mainz. They were discovered, and the archbishop, John II., holding them to be heretics, ordered them to be prosecuted. The matter was intrusted to Master Henry von Stein, who set vigorously about it. The refugees from Strassburg, mostly women, were thrown into prison; we also hear of a nun who was likewise incarcerated, and of a youth from Rotenburg, who was mounted on a hogshead in the public square, and in the presence of the populace was obliged to accept the penance of crosses, in an _auto de fé_ much less impressive than those which Bernard Gui was wont to celebrate.[452]

It was not long before this that the Brethren of the Free Spirit were deprived of their greatest leader, Nicholas of Basle. As a wandering missionary he had for many years been engaged in propagating the doctrines of the sect, and had gained many proselytes. The Inquisition had been eagerly on his track, but he was shrewd and crafty, and had eluded its pursuit. Forced, probably about 1397, to fly to Vienna with two of his disciples, John and James, they were discovered and seized. The celebrated Henry of Hesse (Langenstein) undertook their conversion, and flattered himself that he had succeeded, but they all relapsed and were burned. As Peter, the Celestinian abbot, was at this time Inquisitor of Passau, he probably had the satisfaction of ridding the Church of this dangerous heresiarch, whose belief in his own divine inspiration was such that he considered his will to be equal to that of God.

Not long after a similar martyrdom occurred at Constance, where a Beghard, named Burgin, had founded a sect of extreme austerity. Captured with his disciples by the bishop, he would not abandon his doctrines, and was duly relaxed. Gerson's numerous allusions to the Turelupins and Beghards show that at this period the sect was attracting much attention and was regarded as seductively dangerous. With all his tendency to mysticism, Gerson could recognize the peril incurred by those whom he describes as deceived through too great a desire to reach the sweetness of God, and who mistake the delirium of their own hearts for divine promptings: thus disregarding the law of Christ, they follow their own inclinations without submitting to rule, and are precipitated into guilt by their own presumption. He was especially averse to the spiritual intimacy between the sexes, where devotion screened the precipice on the brink of which they stood. Mary of Valenciennes, he says, was especially to be avoided on this account, for she applied what is set forth about the divine fruition to the passions seething in her own soul, and she argues that he who reaches the perfection of divine love is released from the observance of all precepts. Thus the Brethren of the Free Spirit were practically the same in the fifteenth century as in the times of Ortlieb and Amauri.[453]

Giles Cantor, who founded in Brussels the sect which styled itself Men of Intelligence, was probably a disciple of Mary of Valenciennes, and the name was adopted merely to cover its affiliation with the proscribed Brethren of the Free Spirit. Its doctrines were substantially the same in their mystic pantheism and illuminism; and their practical application is seen in the story that on one occasion Giles was moved by the spirit to go naked for some miles when carrying provision to a poor person. So open a manifestation would have insured his prosecution had there been any machinery for persecution in efficient condition in Brabant; but he was allowed to propagate his doctrines in peace until he died. He was succeeded in the leadership of the sect by a Carmelite known as William of Hilderniss, and at length it attracted, in 1411, the attention of Cardinal Peter d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai. Fortunately for William, the bishop chose to direct the proceedings himself, and they show complete disregard of inquisitorial methods. He appointed special commissioners, who made an inquisition; both the names and the testimony of the witnesses were submitted to William, who made what defence he could. In rendering judgment d'Ailly called in the Dominican Prior of St. Quentin, who was inquisitor of the district of Cambrai, and the sentence was as irregular as the proceedings. William had no desire for martyrdom, and abjured the heresy; he was required to purge himself with six compurgators, after which he was to undergo the penance of three years' confinement in a castle of the bishop's, while if he failed in his purgation he was to be imprisoned in a convent of his order during the archbishop's pleasure--a most curious and illogical medley. He succeeded in finding the requisite number of compurgators, but though he disappeared from the scene his sect was by no means extinguished, and we hear of the persecution of a heresiarch as late as 1428.[454]

That Clement VI. did not err when he foresaw the dangerous errors lurking under the devotion of the Flagellants was demonstrated in 1414. The sect still existed, and its crude theories as to the efficacy of flagellation had gradually been developed into an antisacerdotal heresy of the most uncompromising character. A certain Conrad Schmidt was the constructive heresiarch who gave to its belief an organized completeness, and his death made no diminution of the zeal of his disciples, nor did the failure of his prophecy of the end of the world in 1309. The curious connection between the Flagellants and the Beghards is indicated by the fact that these Flagellant Brethren, or Brethren of the Cross, as they styled themselves, regarded Conrad as the incarnation of Enoch, and a certain Beghard, who had been burned at Erfurt about 1364, as Elias--an angel having brought their souls from heaven and infused them into Schmidt and this Beghard while yet in the womb. Schmidt was to preside at the approaching Day of Judgment, which was constantly believed to be at hand, Antichrist being the pope and the priests, whose reign was drawing to an end.

When, in 1343, the letter commanding flagellation, to which I have already alluded, was brought by an angel and laid on the altar of St. Peter, God withdrew all spiritual power from the Church and bestowed it on the Brethren of the Cross. Since then all sacraments had lost their virtue, and to partake of them was mortal sin. Baptism had been replaced by that of the blood drawn by the scourge; the sacrament of matrimony only defiled marriage; the Eucharist was but a device by which the priests sold a morsel of bread for a penny--if they believed it to be the body of Christ they were worse than Judas, who got thirty pieces of silver for it; flagellation replaced them all. Oaths were a mortal sin, but to avoid betraying the sect the faithful could take them and receive the sacraments, and then expiate it by flagellation. The growth of such a belief and the mingled contempt and hatred manifested for the clergy prove that to the people the Church was as much a stranger and an oppressor as it had been in the twelfth century. It had learned nothing, and was as far from Christ as ever.

Conrad Schmidt had promulgated his errors in Thuringia, where his sectaries were discovered, in 1414, at Sangerhausen. Thither sped the inquisitor Schöneveld--called Henry by the chroniclers, but probably the same as the Eylard, whom we have seen at work some years before on the shores of the Baltic. The princes of Thuringia and Misnia were ordered to assist him, and they were eager to share in the suppression of a heresy which threatened to revolutionize the social order. The proceedings must have been more energetic than regular. Torture must have been freely used to gather into the net so many victims; nor can a patient hearing have been given to the accused. Their shrift was short, and before Schöneveld had left the scene of action he had caused the burning of ninety-one at Sangerhausen, forty-four in the neighboring town of Winkel, and many more in other villages. Yet such was the persistence of the heresy that even this wholesale slaughter did not suffice for its suppression. Two years later, in 1416, its remains were discovered, and again Schöneveld was sent for. He examined the accused. To those who abjured he assigned penances, and handed over the obstinate to the secular arm. His assizes must have been hurried, for he did not stay to witness the execution of those whom he had condemned, and after his departure the princes gathered all together, both penitents and impenitents, some three hundred in number, and burned the whole of them in one day. This terrible example produced the profound impression that was desired, and hereafter the sect of Flagellants may be regarded as unimportant. Some discussion, as we have seen, took place the next year at the Council of Constance, when San Vicente Ferrer expressed his approbation of this form of discipline, and Gerson mildly urged its dangers; but when, in 1434, a certain Bishop Andreas specified, among the objects of the Council of Basle, the suppression of the heresies of the Hussites, Waldenses, Fraticelli, Wickliffites, the Manichæans of Bosnia, the Beghards, and the schismatic Greeks, there is no allusion in the enumeration to Flagellants. Yet the causes which had given rise to the heresy continued in full force and it was still cherished in secret. In 1453 and 1454 Brethren of the Cross were again discovered in Thuringia, and the Inquisition was speedily at work to reclaim them. Besides the errors propagated by Conrad Schmidt, it was not difficult to extort from the accused the customary confessions of foul sexual excesses committed in dark subterranean conventicles, and even of Luciferan doctrines, teaching that in time Satan would regain his place in heaven and expel Christ; though when we hear that they alleged the evil lives of the clergy as the cause of their misbelief we may reasonably doubt the accuracy of these reports. Aschersleben, Sondershausen, and Sangerhausen were the centres of the sect, and at the latter place, in 1454, twenty-two men and women were burned as obstinate heretics. In 1481 a few were punished in Anhalt, and the sect gradually disappeared.[455]

* * * * *

The case of the Beghards and Beguines came before the Council of Constance in several shapes. To guard themselves from the incessant molestations to which they were exposed they had, to a large extent, affiliated themselves, nominally at least, as Tertiaries, to the Mendicant Orders, chiefly to the Franciscan, whose scapular they adopted. In a project of reform, carefully prepared for action by the council, this is strongly denounced; they are said to live in forests and in cities, free from subjection, indulging in indecent habits, not without suspicion of heresy, and though able of body and fit to earn their livelihood by labor, they subsist on alms, to the prejudice of the poor and miserable. It was therefore proposed to forbid the wearing of the scapular by all who were not bound by vows to the Orders and subjected to the Rules. It was also pronounced necessary to make frequent visitations of their communities on account of the peculiarities of their life, and magistrates and nobles were to be ordered not to interfere with such wholesome supervision under pain of interdict. It was possibly to meet this attack that numerous testimonial letters from the clergy and magistrates of Germany certifying to the orthodoxy, piety, and usefulness of the associations were sent to Martin V., who submitted them to Angelo, Cardinal of SS. Peter and Marcellus, and received from him a favorable report. Towards the close of the council, in 1418, a more formidable assault was made upon them by Matthew Grabon, a Dominican of Wismar, who laid before Martin V. twenty-four articles to prove that all such associations outside of the approved religious orders ought to be abolished. To accomplish this, after the approved style of scholastic logic, he was obliged to assert such absurd general principles as that it was equivalent to suicide, and therefore a mortal sin, for any secular person to give away his property in charity, and that the pope had no power to grant a dispensation in such cases. Grabon's propositions and conclusions were referred to Antonio, Cardinal of Verona, who submitted them to Cardinal Peter d'Ailly and Chancellor Gerson. The former reported that the paper was heretical and should be burned, while the jurists should be called upon to decide what ought to be done to its writer. The latter, that the doctrine was pestiferous and blasphemous, and that its author, if obstinate, should be arrested. Grabon was glad to escape by publicly abjuring some of his articles as heretical, others as erroneous, and others as scandalous and offensive to pious ears. The triumph of the Beguines was decisive, and they might at last hope for a respite from persecution. The associations increased and flourished accordingly, and under their shelter the Brethren of the Free Spirit continued to propagate their heresy.[456]

From this time forward the attention of the Church was mainly directed to Hussitism, the most formidable enemy that it had encountered since the Catharism of the twelfth century. This will be considered in a following chapter, and meanwhile I need only say that its secret but threatening progress throughout Germany called for active means of repression and led to more thorough organization of the Inquisition. The bull of Martin V., issued February 22, 1418, against Wickliffites and Hussites, is addressed not only to prelates but to inquisitors commissioned in the dioceses and cities of Salzburg, Prague, Gnesen, Olmütz, Litomysl, Bamberg, Misnia, Passau, Breslau, Ratisbon, Cracow, Posen, and Neutra. While of course this is not to be taken literally, as though there were an organized tribunal of the Holy Office in each of these places, still it indicates that in the districts infected or exposed to infection the Church was arming itself with its most effective weapons. The growing danger, moreover, was leading the bishops to abandon somewhat their traditional jealousy. In this same year, 1418, the council of the great province of Salzburg not only urged the bishops to extirpate heresy and to enforce the canons against the secular powers neglecting their duty in this respect, but commanded all princes and potentates to seize and imprison all who were designated as suspect of heresy by the prelates and the inquisitors. Thus at last the episcopate recognized the Inquisition and came to its support.[457]

Yet the attention of the persecutors was not so exclusively directed to the Hussites as to allow the Brethren of the Free Spirit to escape, and in their zeal they continued to molest the orthodox Beguines in spite of the action of Martin V. at Constance. In 1431 Eugenius IV. found himself obliged to intervene for their protection. In a bull, addressed to the German prelates, he recites the favorable action of his predecessors and the troubles to which, in spite of this, they were exposed by the inquisitors. Those who wander around without fixed habitations he orders to be compelled to dwell in the houses of the confraternity, and those who reside quietly and piously are to be efficiently protected. This bull affords perhaps the only instance in which the episcopal power is rendered superior to the Inquisition, for the bishops are authorized to enforce its provisions by the censures of the Church, without appeal, even if those who interfere with the Beguines enjoy special immunities, thus subjecting the inquisitors to excommunication by the prelates. This stretch of papal power exasperated Doctor Felix Hemmerlin, Cantor of Zurich, who detested the Beguines. He wrote several bitter tracts against them, and explained the favor shown them by Eugenius by irreverently stating that the pope had himself been once a Beghard at Padua. In one of his numerous assaults upon them, written probably about 1436, he alludes to several recent cases within a limited region, which would indicate that in spite of the papal protection of the Beguines, the Brethren of the Free Spirit were actively persecuted, and that, if the statistics of the whole empire could be procured, the number of victims would be found not small. Thus in Zurich a certain Burchard and his disciples were tried and penanced with crosses; but they were subsequently found to be relapsed and were all burned. At Uri, Charles and his followers were similarly burned. At Constance Henry de Tierra was forced to abjure. At Ulm, John and a numerous company were subjected to public penance. In Würtemberg there was a great heresiarch punished, whose conviction was only secured after infinite pains. Then from Bohemia there come Beghards every year who seduce a countless number to heresy in Berne and Soleure. This leads one to think that Hemmerlin, in his passion, may confound Hussites with Beghards, and this is confirmed by his assertion that there is in Upper Germany no heresy save that introduced by the foxes of this pernicious sect. Nider, in fact, writing immediately after the Council of Basle had effected a settlement with the Hussites, when, for a time at least, in Germany they were no longer considered enemies of the Church, declares that heretics were few and powerless, skulking in concealment and not to be dreaded, although he had, in describing the errors of the Brethren of the Free Spirit, stated that they were still by no means uncommon in Suabia. It was evidently a member of this sect whom he describes as seeing at Ratisbon when proceeding with the Archdeacon of Barcelona on a mission from the Council of Basle to the Hussites. She was a young woman of spotless character, who made no effort to propagate her faith, but she could not be induced to recant. The archdeacon advised that she be tortured to break her spirit, which was done without success and without forcing her to name her confederates; but when Nider visited her in her cell during the evening, he found her exhausted with suffering, and he readily brought her to acknowledge her error, after which she made a public recantation. This shows us that there could have been no Inquisition in Ratisbon, and that the local authorities had even lost the memory of inquisitorial proceedings.[458]

In 1446 the Council of Würzburg found it necessary to repeat the canon of that of Mainz in 1310, ordering the expulsion of all wandering Beghards using the old cry of "_Brod durch Gott_" and preaching in caverns and secret places, showing the maintenance of the traditional customs and also the absence of more active persecution. In 1453 Nicholas V. formally adjoined them to the Mendicant Orders as Tertiaries. Some of them obeyed and formed a distinct class, known as Zepperenses, from their principal house at Zepper. They diminished greatly in number, however, and in 1650 Innocent X. united them with the Tertiaries of Italy, under the General Master residing in Lombardy. The female portion of the associations, which became distinctively known as Beguines, were more fortunate. They were able to preserve their identity and their communities, which remain flourishing to the present day, especially in the Netherlands, where in 1857 the great Beguinage of Ghent contained six hundred Beguines and two hundred locataires or boarders.[459]

Still there remained a considerable number both of heretic Brethren of the Free Spirit and of orthodox Beghards of both sexes who recalcitrated of being thus brought under rule and deprived of their accustomed independence. Thus it is related of Bernhard, who was elected Abbot of Hirsau in 1460, that among other reforms he ejected all the Beguines from their house at Altburg, on account of their impurity of life, and replaced them with Dominican Tertiaries. This aroused the hostility of the Beghards who dwelt in hermitages in the forest of Hirsau, and they conspired against the abbot, but only to their own detriment. In 1463 the Synod of Constance complains of the unlawful wearing of the Franciscan scapular by Lollards and Beguines; all who do so are required to prove their right or to lay it aside, and able-bodied Lollards are ordered to live by honest labor and not by beggary. This latter practice was ineradicable, however, and twenty years later another synod was compelled to repeat the command. In 1491 a synod of Bamberg refers to the provisions of the Clementines against the Beguines as though their enforcement was still called for; and Friar John of Moravia, who died at Brünn in 1492, is warmly praised as a fierce and indefatigable persecutor of Hussites and Beghards. These insubordinate religionists continued to exist under almost constant persecution, until the Reformation, when they served as one of the elements which contributed to the spread of Lutheranism.[460]

* * * * *

It was impossible that Hussitism should triumph in Bohemia without awakening an echo throughout Germany, or that the Hussites should abstain from missionary and proselyting efforts, but the spread of the heresy through the Teutonic populations was sternly and successfully repressed. In 1423 the Council of Siena, under the presidency of papal legates, showed itself fully alive to the danger. It sharply reproved both inquisitors and episcopal ordinaries for the supineness which alone could explain the threatening spread of heresy. They were urged to constant and unsparing vigilance under pain of four months' suspension from entering a church and such other punishment as might seem opportune. They were further ordered to curse the heretics with bell, book, and candle every Sunday in all the principal churches. Holy Land indulgences were offered to all who would assist them in capturing heretics, as well as to rulers who, unable to capture them, should at least expel them from their territories. The earnest tone of the council reflects the alarm that was everywhere felt, and it unquestionably led to renewed exertions, though only a few instances of successful activity chance to be recorded. Thus, in 1420, a priest, known as Henry Grünfeld, who had embraced Hussite doctrines, was burned at Ratisbon, where likewise, in 1423, another priest named Henry Rathgeber met the same fate. In 1424 a priest named John Drändorf suffered at Worms, and in 1426 Peter Turman was burned at Speier. Even after the Council of Basle had recognized the Hussites as orthodox, and under the Compactata they enjoyed toleration in states where they held temporal authority, they were still persecuted as heretics elsewhere. About 1450 John Müller ventured to preach Hussite doctrines throughout Franconia, where he met with much acceptance and gained a numerous following, but he was forced to fly, and one hundred and thirty of his disciples were seized and carried to Würzburg. There they were persuaded to recant by the Abbot John of Grumbach and Master Anthony, a preacher of the cathedral. More tragic was the fate of Frederic Reiser, a Suabian, educated in Waldensianism. Under the guise of a merchant he had served as a preacher among the Waldensian churches which maintained a secret existence throughout Germany. At Heilsbronn he was captured in a Hussite raid, when, carried to Mount Tabor, he recognized the practical identity of the faiths and received ordination at the hands of the Taborite Bishop Nicholas. He labored to bring about a union of the churches, and wandered as a missionary through Germany, Bohemia, and Switzerland. Finally he settled at Strassburg, which was always a heretic centre, and gathered a community of disciples around him. He called himself "Frederic, by the grace of God bishop of the faithful in the Roman Church who spurn the Donation of Constantine." He was detected in 1458 and arrested with his followers. Under torture he confessed all that was required of him, only to withdraw it when removed from the torture-chamber. The burgomaster, Hans Drachenfels, and the civic magistracy earnestly opposed his execution, but they were obliged to yield, and he was burned, together with his faithful servant, Anna Weiler, an old woman of Nürnberg.[461]

Reiser had been specially successful with the descendants of the Pomeranian Waldenses who, as we have seen, abjured before the inquisitor Peter in 1393. They appear to have by no means abandoned their heresy, and were easily brought to the modifications which assimilated them to the Hussites--.the adoption of bishops, priests, and deacons, the communion in both elements, and the honoring of Wickliff, Huss, and Jerome of Prague. In this same year, 1458, a tailor of Selchow, named Matthew Hagen, was arrested with three disciples and carried to Berlin for trial by order of the Elector Frederic II. He had been ordained as a priest in Bohemia by Reiser, and had returned to propagate the doctrines of the sect and administer its sacraments. His followers weakened and abjured, but he remained steadfast, and was abandoned to the secular arm. To root out the sect, Dr. John Canneman, who had tried Hagen, was sent to Angermünde as episcopal inquisitor; he found many sectaries but no obstinacy, for they willingly submitted and abjured.[462]

There was, in fact, enough in common between the doctrines of the more radical Hussites and those of the Waldenses to bring the sects eventually together. The Waldenses had by no means been extirpated, and when, in 1467, the remnant of the Taborites known as the Bohemian Brethren opened communication with them, the envoys sent had no difficulty in finding them on the confines between Austria and Moravia, where they had existed for more than two centuries. They had a bishop named Stephen, who speedily called in another bishop to perform the rite of ordination for the Brethren, showing that the heretic communities were numerous and well organized. The negotiations unfortunately attracted attention, and the Church made short work of those on whom it could lay its hands. Bishop Stephen was burned at Vienna and the flock was scattered, many of them finding refuge in Moravia. Others fled as far as Brandenburg, where already there were flourishing Waldensian communities. These were soon afterwards discovered, and steel, fire, and water were unsparingly used for their destruction, without blotting them out. A portion of those who escaped emigrated to Bohemia, where they were gladly received by the Bohemian Brethren and incorporated into their societies. The close association thus formed between the Brethren and the Waldenses resulted in a virtual coalescence which gave rise to a new word in the nomenclature of heresy. When, in 1479, Sixtus IV. confirmed Friar Thomas Gognati as Inquisitor of Vienna, he urged him to put forth every exertion to suppress the Hussites and Nicolinistæ. These latter, who took their name from Nicholas of Silesia, were evidently Bohemian Brethren who adhered to the extreme doctrine common to both sects, that nothing could justify putting a human being to death. Thus the struggle continued, and though the danger was averted which had once seemed threatening, of the widespread adoption of Hussite theories, there remained concealed enough Hussite and Waldensian hostility to Rome to serve as a nucleus of discontent and to give sufficient support to revolt when a man was found, like Luther, bold enough to clothe in words the convictions which thousands were secretly nursing.[463]

Signs, indeed, were not wanting in the fifteenth century or the inevitable rupture of the sixteenth. Prominent among those who boldly defied the power of Rome was Gregory of Heimburg, whom Ullman well designates as the citizen-Luther of the fifteenth century. He first comes into view at the Council of Basle, in the service of Æneas Sylvius, who was then one of the foremost advocates of the reforming party, and he remained steadfast to the principles which his patron bartered for the papacy. A forerunner of the Humanists, he labored to diffuse classical culture, and with his admiration for the ancients he had, like Marsiglio of Padua, imbibed the imperial theory of the relations between Church and State. With tongue and pen inspired by dauntless courage he was indefatigable to the last in maintaining the rights of the empire and the supremacy of general councils. The power of the keys, he taught, had been granted to the apostles collectively; these were represented by general councils, and the monopoly in the hands of the pope was a usurpation. His free expression of opinion infallibly brought him into collision with his early patron, and the antagonism was sharpened when Pius II. convoked the assembly of princes at Mantua to provide for a new crusade. Gregory, who was there as counsellor of the princes, boldly declared that this was only a scheme to augment the papal power and drain all Germany of money. When Nicholas of Cusa, a time-server like Pius, was appointed Bishop of Brixen and claimed property and rights regarded by Sigismund of Austria as belonging to himself, Sigismund, under Gregory's advice, arrested the bishop. Thereupon Pius, in June, 1460, laid Sigismund's territories under interdict, and induced the Swiss to attack him. Gregory drew up an appeal to a general council, which Sigismund issued, although Pius had forbidden such appeals, and he further had the hardihood to prove by Scripture, the fathers, and history, that the Church was subject to the State. It was no wonder that Gregory shared his master's excommunication. In October, 1460, he was declared a heretic, and all the faithful were ordered to seize his property and punish him. To this he responded in vigorous appeals and replications, couched in the most insolent and contemptuous language towards both Pius and Nicholas. In October, 1461, Pius sent Friar Martin of Rotenburg to preach the faith and preserve the faithful from the errors of Sigismund and his heresiarch Gregory, and, professing to believe that Martin was in personal danger, he offered an indulgence of two years and eighty days to all who would render him assistance in his need. He also ordered the magistrates of Nürnburg to seize Gregory's property and expel him or deliver him up for punishment. We next find Gregory aiding Diether, Archbishop of Cologne, in his quarrel with Pius over the unprecedented and extortionate demand of the Holy See for annates; but Diether resigned, Sigismund made his peace, and Gregory was abandoned to his excommunication, even the city of Nürnburg withdrawing its protection. He then took refuge in Bohemia with George Podiebrad, whom he served efficiently as a controversialist, earning a special denunciation as a heretic of the worst type from Paul II., in 1469; but Podiebrad died in 1471. Gregory then went to Saxony, where Duke Albert protected him and effected his reconciliation with Sixtus IV. He was absolved at Easter, 1472, only to die in the following August, after spending a quarter of a century in ceaseless combat with the papacy.[464]