Chapter III: Origin of the Romish Inquisition

Persecution of the Paulicians--Albigenses--Their sufferings in
Languedoc--In England, Spain, France--Counts Raymond and
Roger--Massacre of their People--Dominic, founder of the
Inquisition.

Intolerance seems essential to the office of a priest; as no sooner was this character assumed by Christian pastors, than they commenced persecution against those who disputed their claims. Hence originated the Inquisition. Its operations have ever been directed against all who differed from the ruling prelates, even when making their appeal to the Holy Scriptures. And such there were from the time of the apostles. Among the earliest of those who were put to death by professing Christians were the Paulicians.

These people are thought to have been so called from Paul, a preacher, of the Armenian church, in the seventh century; but some consider Constantine of Samosata their founder, about A.D. 660. He received from a pious deacon, who had escaped from captivity among the Mohammedans, a copy of the New Testament. This he esteemed as a precious gift; and, finding the instruction of the Scriptures different from the prevailing superstitions, he formed a system of theology for himself from the sacred oracles. Constantine devoted himself to the work of the ministry, assuming the name of Sylvanus, a companion of the apostle Paul. His colleagues in preaching were called Timothy, Titus, and Tychicus; and six of their churches were named after those to whom Paul had addressed his Epistles. They rejected human traditions in religion, the worship of the Virgin Mary, of images, and of the cross. They abolished the lofty titles of the priesthood, and instituted pastors, with perfect equality, and without robes to distinguish them from the people. In Asia Minor they increased greatly, and the Greek emperors persecuted them grievously. An officer named Simeon was sent, as an inquisitor, to seek Sylvanus, and he was apprehended, with some of his followers, at Colonia. As the price of liberty, they were required _to stone their pastor!_ One only among them, Justus, was found sufficiently base; and he murdered thus his faithful teacher, who fell a martyr for Christ, after having laboured for twenty-seven years, diffusing the doctrine of the Gospel. Justus aggravated his guilt by betraying his brethren; while Simeon, observing the grace of God in the joyful sufferers, embraced the Gospel, forsook the world, preached the faith, and died also a martyr for Jesus.

From the Paulicians arose, as it is believed, a branch of the celebrated Christian confessors, the Valdenses, or Waldenses. Dr. Haweis, therefore, says of them, “At the close of the seventh century we see the first traces of a small but precious body, afterwards named Valdenses, which some suppose a branch of the Paulicians. Retiring from the insolence and oppressions of the Romish clergy, and disgusted with their vices, they sought a hiding-place in the secluded valleys of the Pais de Vaud, embosomed by the Alps, and removed from the observation of their persecutors, where they might enjoy purer worship and communion with God.”

These Paulicians increased, and scriptural knowledge was eagerly sought by several persons, who became eminent preachers in the southern parts of France, in Savoy, in Piedmont, and in the contiguous districts of Germany. Their followers were called after their teachers, or by various contemptuous appellations, taken from their peculiar customs or principles. Some were _Petrobrusians_, from Peter de Bruys, who, after twenty years’ labour, became a martyr for Christ; _Henricians_, from Henry, a disciple and colleague of Peter; _Albigenses_, from the city of Albi, where they were condemned in a council; _Cathari_, or Puritans, from their seeking the purity of Christian doctrine; and _Waldenses_, from Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, in France. This great man procured translations of several parts of the Scriptures, and commenced his ministry, having relinquished his trade, about A.D. 1180, especially in France and Lombardy. The converts of these zealous men became very numerous; and they soon attracted the notice of the papal court in this century.

Egbert, a German abbot, says of them, “They are increased to great multitudes throughout all countries. In Germany, we call them _Cathari_; in Flanders, they call them _Pipples_; in France, _Tisserands_ (weavers), because many of them are of that occupation.”

Among these people many churches were formed, with intelligent and devout pastors of their own choosing. The _Cathari_, especially in Piedmont, formed separate societies, which were screened, in a great measure, from the popish prelates, by the retired seclusion of their habitations in the valleys, from which they were called _Valdenses_.

These people were regarded with jealousy by the prelates, and their enemies commonly accused them of grievous errors; but it is well known that they were slandered, and that, while they rejected the claims and idolatries of the Romish priesthood, they generally held the essentials of the Gospel, as they derived their principles from the Scriptures. Egbert, the abbot, says of them, “They are armed with all those passages of Holy Scripture, which, in any degree, seem to favour their views: with these they know how to defend themselves, and to oppose the Catholic truth, though they mistake entirely the true sense of Scripture, which cannot be discovered without great judgment.”

Evervinus, an abbot in Cologne, in a letter to Bernard, the most famous priest of the church of Rome of his time, called _St. Bernard_, says, A.D. 1140, “There have been lately some heretics discovered among us, near Cologne, though some of them have, with satisfaction, returned again to the church. One of their bishops and his companions openly opposed us in the assembly of the clergy and laity, in the presence of the archbishop of Cologne and of many of the nobility, defending their heresy by the words of Christ and his apostles. Finding that they made no impression, they desired that a day might be appointed for them, on which they might bring their teachers to a conference, promising to return to the church, provided they found their masters unable to answer the arguments of their opponents, but that otherwise they would rather die than depart from their judgment. Upon this declaration, having been admonished to repent for three days, they were seized by the people in the excess of zeal, and _burnt to death_; and what is very amazing, they came to the stake, and bore the pain, not only with patience, but even with joy! Were I with you, father, I should be glad to ask you, how these members of Satan could persist in their heresy with such courage and constancy as is scarcely to be found in the most religious believers in Christianity.”

St. Bernard himself was a violent persecutor, yet he says of them, “If you ask them of their faith, nothing can be more Christian; if you observe their conversation, nothing can be more blameless; and what they speak they prove by deeds.” Claudius, archbishop of Turin, writes, “Their heresy excepted, they generally live a purer life than other Christians.” Cassini, a Franciscan friar, says, “That ALL THE ERRORS of these Waldenses consisted in this, that they denied the church of Rome to be the HOLY MOTHER-CHURCH, AND WOULD NOT OBEY HER TRADITIONS!” Thuanus, a Catholic historian, says they are charged with holding, “That the church of Rome, because it renounced the true faith of Christ, WAS THE WHORE OF BABYLON, and the barren tree which Christ himself cursed and commanded to be plucked up; that, consequently, NO OBEDIENCE WAS TO BE PAID TO THE POPE, or to the bishops who maintain her errors; that a monastic life was the sink and dungeon of the church; that the orders of the priesthood were marks of the great beast mentioned in the Revelation; that the fire of purgatory, the solemn mass, the consecration days of churches, the worship of saints, and propitiation for the dead, were devices of Satan.”

Exemplary as were their morals, and scriptural as were their principles, thus testified by their enemies, cruel persecution was carried on against these dissenters; and the inquisitors, sent by the Pope to search for and to destroy them, brought multitudes to suffer as martyrs for Christ. Some, we have seen, fell victims at Cologne, while others escaped from the power of their enemies. They found, however, the intolerance of popery where-ever they went. This will be illustrated by one fact in English history of that period. Thirty of these persecuted Germans sought an asylum in England, and settled as a church near Oxford, A.D. 1159, but they were apprehended by order of the clergy. Their pastor, Gerard, was a man of learning; and he professed that they believed the doctrines of the apostles, though they disbelieved in purgatory, prayers for the dead, and the invocation of saints. But they were condemned in an ecclesiastical council, and delivered to the magistrates to be punished. The king, Henry II., at the instigation of the ruling clergy, ordered them to be branded on the forehead with a red-hot iron; to be whipped through the streets of Oxford; and, having their clothes cut short at their girdles, to be turned into the open country. None being allowed to afford them shelter, they perished with cold and hunger!

Dr. Milner, in his valuable “Church History,” in recording this fact concerning these earliest dissenters from popery, who were put to death in England, makes this natural reflection:--“What darkness must at that time have filled this island! A wise and sagacious king, a renowned university, the whole body of the clergy and laity, all united in expelling Christ from their coasts! Driven, most probably, from home by the rage of persecution, they had brought the light and power of the Gospel with them into England. Brief as is the account of them, it is evident they were the martyrs of Christ.”

Papal vengeance was threatened against all whom the prelates regarded as heretics; and, A.D. 1163, in the synod of Tours, it was commanded to all bishops and priests in Languedoc, whose capital was Thoulouse, “to take care, and to forbid, under pain of excommunication, every person from presuming to give reception, or the least assistance to the followers of this heresy, _which first began in the country of Thoulouse_, whenever they shall be discovered. As many of them as can be found, let them be imprisoned by the Catholic princes, and punished with the forfeiture of all their substance.”

In like manner, Pope Alexander III., A.D. 1179, issued an edict, which expresses his mind thus:--“Because in Gascony, Albi, in the parts of Thoulouse, and other regions, _the accursed perverseness of the heretics_, Cathari, or Patrenas, or Publicans, or distinguished by sundry names, has so prevailed: We therefore SUBJECT TO A CURSE, both themselves and their defenders and harbourers; and, _under a curse, we prohibit all persons from admitting them into their houses, or receiving them upon their lands, or cherishing them, or exercising any trade with them_. But if any die in their sin, _let them not receive Christian burial_, under pretence of any privilege granted by us, or any other pretext whatever!”

Some of the Waldenses having escaped to Arragon, in Spain, King Ildefonsus, A.D. 1194, issued an edict, by which he banished them from his kingdom, and all his dominions, as enemies of the cross of Christ, profaners of the Christian religion, and public enemies, adding, “If any, from this day, shall presume to receive into their houses the aforesaid Waldenses, or other heretics, or to hear their abominable preachings, or to give them food, let him know that he shall incur the indignation of Almighty God and ours, and without appeal be punished as though guilty of high treason. However, we give these wicked wretches liberty till the day after All Saints (though it may seem contrary to justice and reason), by which they must be gone from our dominions; but afterwards they shall be plundered, whipped, and beaten, and treated with all manner of disgrace and severity.”

Pope Innocent III., about A.D. 1198, having just ascended the pontifical throne, deputed two monks of Citeaux, Guido and Regnier, to proceed to Narbonne, as inquisitors, to search after and punish heretics; and in the following year, Peter of Castelnau was added to that mission, with increased authority. They promised indulgences to all who afforded them aid against the heretics; and they succeeded in this office, but rendered themselves hated for their bigotry and cruelty, wherever they carried on their antichristian work. They were assisted greatly by the services of a body of preaching friars, under their leader, Dominic. Francis, another zealous monk, with a numerous company of disciples, was deputed by the Pope to contend against the heretics in Italy; and these two leaders became the founders, about A.D. 1200, of the famous, but opposed orders of friars, called, after them, _Dominicans_ and _Franciscans_.

Castelnau projected the extension of his mission into the territories of Thoulouse, A.D. 1207; but the prince refused his sanction to this invasion, for such a purpose, and the haughty priest excommunicated Raymond. This audacious act received the express sanction of the Pope, but it led to contests; and one of the friends of Raymond, provoked by the insulting denunciations of the agent of the pontiff, struck him with his poniard, and killed him.

Innocent, incensed to fury by the murder of Castelnau, seized the occasion to prosecute the designs of his cruel bigotry, and summoned the counts, barons, and knights of the four provinces of the southern parts of France, to invade the territories of Count Raymond, authorising them to seize the property of the heretics. As the same indulgences were promised to those engaging in this war, as had been assured to the crusaders against the Saracens in the Holy Land, an army of _fifty thousand_ cross-bearers was soon assembled, and placed for service, during the period of forty days, under the direction of Arnald Almeric, abbot of Citeaux. The Pope gave directions regarding this crusade:--“We counsel you, with the apostle Paul, to employ guile with regard to the count; for in this case it ought to be called prudence. We must attack separately, those who are separated from unity. Leave, for a time, the count of Thoulouse, employing towards him a wise dissimulation, that the other heretics may the more easily be defeated, and that afterwards we may crush him, when he shall be left alone.”

Raymond and his nephew, Roger, count of Beziers, waited upon Arnald, to avert the impending storm; but to no purpose. Raymond submitted to the terrible power, and joined the army that was marching against his own subjects and those of his nephew; but he first performed the dreadful penance appointed for him on account of the murder of Castelnau. He was made to swear upon the host, as the body of Christ, and upon the relics of the saints, that he would _obey the Pope_, and the holy Roman church, and pursue the Albigenses, _with fire and sword_, till they were extirpated. Having taken this oath, he was ordered _to strip himself naked, from head to foot_, with only a linen cloth around his waist; the legate threw a priest’s stole round his neck, and leading him by it into the church, nine times round the pretended martyr’s grave, he inflicted the discipline of the church upon the naked shoulders of the humbled prince. He then granted him absolution, on his taking another oath, inviolably to maintain all the rights, privileges, immunities, and liberties of the church and the clergy!

Count Roger offered terms of reconciliation; but the legate rejected his proposals, and intimated that no mercy would be shown to him. The city of Beziers was taken; and the inhabitants, who had crowded into the churches, were barbarously massacred; so that _seven thousand_ corpses were said to have been found in the church of St. Magdalen. Some were desirous of sparing the Catholics who might be among the heretics, and they applied to the legate for that purpose; but, in a rage, he replied, “_Kill them all; the Lord knoweth them that are His!_”

Beziers contained a population of about _fifteen thousand_; and Arnald, in his report to the Pope, acknowledged that so many were massacred! But as multitudes, especially women and children, from the surrounding country, had sought a refuge there, in hope of security against the invading army, and none were spared, historians of fidelity reckon that _sixty thousand_ were then murdered by the agents of the Pope, and the city was then burnt to ashes!

Count Roger had escaped to Carcassonne, which was next besieged, as he had shut himself up with the inhabitants in that city; but he offered to capitulate. Dissimulation was practised, as enjoined by the Pope; so that the prince, with three hundred knights, were admitted to confer with Arnald, who, with the leaders of the army, had given a solemn oath for their safety; but having them now in his power, he perfidiously arrested them, delivering them over to the general of the army, Simon de Montfort. The citizens, however, made their escape, during the night, and fled to other provinces; but a few of them being captured, _four hundred_ of the captives were burned alive, and _fifty_ more were hanged, by Simon de Montfort, under the direction of Arnald, as legate of the Pope. The noble Count Roger was thrown into prison, and soon died by violence, as acknowledged by the Pope.

It would be impossible to detail the sufferings of the poor Albigenses, under Simon de Montfort. With an army of cross-bearers, A.D. 1210, he took several strong castles, and hanged the inhabitants and refugees on gibbets. He selected more than a hundred of the people of Brom, _tore out their eyes, and cut off their noses_, and sent them, under the guidance of a one-eyed man, to Cabaret, to terrify the inhabitants by their example. In the following year, he stormed La Vaur, and destroyed the inhabitants by fire and sword. He hanged Almeric, the governor, lord of Montreal, and then massacred _eighty_ of the chief citizens. His sister, Girarda, the lady of the castle, by order of the count, was thrown into a pit, and covered with stones. He afterwards collected all the heretics in the castle, and burned them, with rejoicing. He took possession of the castle of Cassero, which surrendered; but “the pilgrims, seizing nearly _sixty heretics, burned them with infinite joy_,” as testified by the Catholic historian, Petrus Pallensis. At Castris de Termis they put Raymond, the governor, into prison, where he died shortly; and, in one large fire, they burned his wife, his sister, and his daughter, with some other noble ladies, whom they could not prevail upon to return to the profession of the church of Rome. Thus they were sacrificed to papal bigotry, as faithful martyrs for Christ! What adds to the revolting character of these murders was, as usual, the bishops and priests present in the army, in their pontifical habits, who expressed their satisfaction in witnessing the carnage, by singing _Veni Creator_!

Historians scarcely know how to speak of these enormities. Sismondi states, that “hundreds of villages had seen all their inhabitants massacred with a blind fury, and without the crusaders giving themselves the trouble to examine whether they contained a single heretic. We cannot tell what credit to give to the numbers assigned for the armies of the cross, nor whether we may believe that, in the course of a single year, five hundred thousand men were poured into Languedoc.” But this we certainly know, that armies, much superior in numbers, and much inferior in discipline, to those which were employed in other wars, had arrived for seven or eight successive years; that they entered this country without pay, and without magazines; that they provided for all their necessities with the sword; that they considered it as their right to live at the expense of the country; and that all the harvests of the peasants, all the provisions and merchandise of the citizens, were on every occasion seized with a rapacious hand, and divided among the crusaders. No calculation can ascertain, with any degree of precision, the dissipation of wealth, or the destruction of human life, which were the consequences of the crusade against the Albigenses. “There was scarcely a peasant who did not reckon in his family some unhappy one cut off by the sword of Montfort’s soldiers. More than three quarters of the knights and landed proprietors had been spoiled of their castles and fiefs, to gratify some of the French soldiers--some of Simon de Montfort’s creatures. Thus spoiled, they were named _Faidits_, and had the favour granted them of remaining in the country, provided they were neither heretics nor excommunicated, nor suspected of having given an asylum to those who were so; but they were never to be permitted to enter a walled city, nor to enjoy the honour of mounting a war-horse. Every species of injustice, all kinds of affronts, persecutions of every name, had been heaped on the heads of the unhappy Languedocians, under the general name of Albigenses.”

So truly horrible was this bloody work, that a native of Thoulouse, a _poet_ and a _Catholic_, who witnessed this crusade against the Albigenses, afterwards delivered the following denunciation against Antichrist:--“I know I shall be censured if I write against Rome, that sink of all evil; but I cannot hold my peace. It is no wonder that the world lies in wickedness. It is you, treacherous Rome, who have sown confusion and war. By the baits of thy delusive pardons, thou deliverest up the French nobility to persecution, and dost establish thy throne in the bottomless pit. Heaven will remember thy pilgrimage to Avignon, and the murders thou committest there. In what book hast thou read that it was thy duty to exterminate Christians? Like an enraged beast, thou devourest both great and small. Rome, your head and whole body is arraigned for having committed that horrible murder at Beziers. Under the appearance of a lamb, with an air of modesty and simplicity, you are inwardly a wily serpent and a ravenous wolf. Rome, I comfort myself in the assurance that thy power will decay, and thou wilt soon be no more. If thy dominion is not destroyed, the world will be overthrown!”

Dominic witnessed many of these sad outrages and dreadful slaughters; and he proceeded, as the chief inquisitor, to search out the number and quality of the alleged heretics, to excite the princes and prelates to extirpate them, and so to fulfil his commission from the Pope. His success he fully reported to Rome; and formed a plan of a regular Court of Inquisition. In this he was aided by a nobleman, with whom he had resided at Thoulouse; for having been seduced by that zealous monk to the Catholic faith, he devoted his mansion and his other property to the service of that father. Dominic submitted his scheme to the papal legate, Arnald, by whom it was highly approved; and that abbot appointed him inquisitor-general in Gallia Narbonensis, about A.D. 1208; and he was confirmed in that office, in the fourth Lateran Council, A.D. 1215, at which Dominic was present, and greatly honoured by the Pope on account of his exploits against the Albigenses.

Dominic was a native of Spain, of the noble family of Gusman. His mother dreamed, before his birth, that she was delivered of a whelp carrying a lighted torch in his mouth; that he alarmed the world by his barking, and set it on fire by his torch. These were interpreted of his preaching, by which he terrified the people, and of his dreadful Inquisition. His promotion was the consequence of his fiery zeal and activity; and his priestly domination will appear from a few passages in his imposition of penance on a reclaimed heretic, as follow:--

“Brother Dominic, the least of preachers, to all Christ’s faithful people, to whom these presents shall come, greeting in the Lord:--

“By the authority of the Cistertian abbot, who hath appointed us to this office, we have reconciled the bearer of these presents, P. Rogerius, converted by God’s blessing from the heretical sect, charging and requiring him, by the oath which he hath taken, that three Sundays, or three festival days, he be led by a priest, naked from his shoulders down to his drawers, from the coming into the town unto the church doors, being whipped all the way!” Most rigorous rules for the whole of his life, and total separation from his wife, were also imposed on him, on pain of excommunication!

Dominic founded sixty monasteries, in different provinces, forming the centres of so many courts of inquisition; and he died, A.D. 1221, esteemed as an extraordinary character; so that he was canonised, A.D. 1234, by Pope Gregory IX. The Dominicans were called _Jacobins_ in France, and _Black Friars_ in England.