The History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages Volume II

CHAPTER II.

FRANCE.

ALTHOUGH Catharism never obtained in the North sufficient foothold to render it threatening to the Church, yet the crusades and the efforts which followed the pacification of 1229 must have driven many heretics to seek refuge in places where they might escape suspicion. In organizing persecution in the South, therefore, it was necessary to provide some supervision more watchful than episcopal negligence was likely to supply, over the regions whither heretics might fly when pursued at home, or the efforts made in Languedoc would only be scattering the infection. Vigilant guardians of the faith were consequently requisite in lands where heretics were few and hidden, as well as in those where they were numerous and enjoyed protection from noble and city. Under the pious king, St. Louis, who declared that the only argument a layman could use with a heretic was to thrust a sword into him up to the hilt, they were sure of ample support from the secular power.[125]

Accordingly when, in 1233, the experiment was tried of appointing Pierre Cella and Guillem Arnaud as inquisitors in Toulouse, a similar tentative effort was made in the northern part of the kingdom. Here also it was the Dominican Order which was called upon to furnish the necessary zealots. I have already alluded to the failure of the attempt to induce the Friars of Franche-Comté to undertake the work. In western Burgundy, however, the Church was more fortunate in finding a proper instrument. Like Rainerio Saccone, Frère Robert, known as le Bugre, had been a Patarin. The peculiar fitness thence derived for detecting the hidden heretic was rendered still more effective by the special gift which he is said to have claimed, of being able to recognize them by their speech and carriage. In addition, he was fitted for the work by the ardent fanaticism of the convert, by his learning, his fiery eloquence, and his mercilessness. When, early in 1233, instructions to persecute heresy were sent to the Prior of Besançon, Robert was nominated to represent him and act as his substitute; and, eager to manifest his zeal, he lost no time in making a descent upon La Charité. It will be remembered that this place was notorious as a centre of heresy in the twelfth century, and that repeated efforts had been made to purify it. These had proved fruitless against the stubbornness of the misbelievers, and Frère Robert found Stephen, the Cluniac prior, vainly endeavoring to win or force them over. The new inquisitor seems to have been armed with no special powers, but his energy speedily made a profound impression, and heretics came forward and confessed their errors in crowds, husbands and wives, parents and children, accusing themselves and each other without reserve. He reported to Gregory IX. that the reality was far worse than had been rumored; that the whole town was a stinking nest of heretical wickedness, where the Catholic faith was almost wholly set aside and the people in their secret conventicles had thrown off its yoke. Under a specious appearance of piety they deceived the wisest, and their earnest missionary efforts, extending over the whole of France, were seducing souls from Flanders to Britanny. Uncertain as to his authority, he applied to Gregory for instructions and was told to act energetically in conjunction with the bishops, and, under the statutes recently issued by the Holy See, to extirpate heresy thoroughly from the whole region, invoking the aid of the secular arm, and coercing it if necessary with the censures of the Church.[126]

We have no means of knowing what measures Robert adopted, but there can be no doubt that under this stimulus, and clothed with this authority, he was active and unsparing. His crazy fanaticism probably exaggerated greatly the extent of the evil and confounded the innocent with the guilty. It was not long before the Archbishop of Sens, in whose province La Charité lay, expostulated with Gregory upon this interference with his jurisdiction, and in this he was joined by other prelates, alarmed at the authority given to the Dominican Provincial of Paris to appoint inquisitors for all portions of the kingdom. They assured the pope that there was no heresy in their provinces and no necessity for these extraordinary measures. Gregory thereupon revoked all commissions early in February, 1234, and urged the prelates to be vigilant, recommending them to make use of Dominicans in all cases where action appeared desirable, as the friars were specially skilled in the refutation of heresy. Had Robert been an ordinary man this might have postponed for some time the extension of the Inquisition in France, but he was too ardent to be repressed. In June, 1234, we find St. Louis paying for the maintenance of heretics in prison at St. Pierre-le-Moutier, near Nevers, which would seem as though Frère Robert had succeeded in getting to work again on his old field of operations. Meanwhile he had not been idle elsewhere. King Louis furnished him with an armed guard to protect him from the enmities which he aroused, and, secure in the royal favor, he traversed the country carrying terror everywhere. At Péronne he burned five victims; at Elincourt, four, besides a pregnant woman who was spared for a time at the intercession of the queen. His methods were speedy, for before Lent was out we find him at Cambrai, where, with the assistance of the Archbishop of Reims and three bishops, he burned about twenty and condemned others to crosses and prison. Thence he hastened to Douai, where, in May, he had the satisfaction of burning ten more, and condemning numerous others to crosses and prison in the presence of the Count of Flanders, the Archbishop of Reims, sundry bishops and an immense multitude who crowded to the spectacle. Thence he hurried to Lille, where more executions followed. All this was sufficient to convince Gregory that he had been misinformed as to the absence of heresy. Undisturbed by the severe experience which he had just undergone with a similar apostle of persecution, Conrad of Marburg, we find him, in August, 1235, excitedly announcing to the Dominican provincial that God had revealed to him that the whole of France was boiling with the venom of heretical reptiles, and that the business of the Inquisition must be resumed with loosened rein. Frère Robert was to be commissioned again, with fitting colleagues to scour the whole kingdom, aided by the prelates, so that innocence should not suffer nor guilt escape. The Archbishop of Sens was strictly ordered to lend efficient help to Robert, whom God had gifted with especial grace in these matters, and Robert himself was honored with a special papal commission empowering him to act throughout the whole of France. The pope, moreover, spurred him on with exhortations to spare no labor in the work, and not to shrink from martyrdom if necessary for the salvation of souls.[127]

This was pouring oil upon the flames. Robert's untempered fanaticism had required no stimulus, and now it raged beyond all bounds. The kingdom, by Gregory's thoughtless zeal, was delivered up to one who was little better than a madman. Supported by the piety of St. Louis, the prelates were obliged to aid him and carry out his behests, and for several years he traversed the provinces of Flanders, Champagne, Burgundy, and France with none to curb or oppose him. The crazy ardor of such a man was not likely to be discriminating or to require much proof of guilt. Those whom he designated as heretics had the alternative of abjuration with perpetual imprisonment or of the stake-varied occasionally with burial alive. In one term of two or three months he is said to have thus despatched about fifty unfortunates of either sex, and the whole number of his victims during his unchecked career of several years must have been large. The terror spread by his arbitrary and pitiless proceedings rendered him formidable to high and low alike, until at length the evident confounding of the innocent with the guilty raised a clamor to which even Gregory IX. was forced to listen. An investigation was held in 1238 which exposed his misdeeds, though not before he had time, in 1239, to burn a number of heretics at Montmorillon in Vienne, and twenty-seven, or, according to other accounts, one hundred and eighty-three, at Mont-Wimer-the original seat of Catharism in the eleventh century-where, at this holocaust pleasing to God, there were present the King of Navarre with a crowd of prelates and nobles and a multitude wildly estimated at seven hundred thousand souls. Robert's commission was withdrawn, and he expiated his insane cruelties in perpetual prison. The case ought to have proved, like that of Conrad of Marburg, a wholesome warning. Unfortunately the spirit which he had aroused survived him, and for three or four years after his fall active persecution raged from the Rhine to the Loire, under the belief that the land was full of heretics.[128]

The unlucky termination of Robert's career did not affect his colleagues, and thenceforth the Inquisition was permanently established throughout France in Dominican hands. The prelates at first were stimulated to some show of rivalry in the performance of their neglected duties. Thus the provincial council of Tours, in 1239, endeavored to revive the forgotten system of synodal witnesses. Every bishop was instructed to appoint in each parish three clerks-or, if such could not be had, three laymen worthy of trust-who were to be sworn to reveal to the officials all ecclesiastical offences, especially those concerning the faith. Such devices, however, were too cumbrous and obsolete to be of any avail against a crime so sedulously and so easily concealed...