Part 12 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Simon de Montfort.]

In 1211 the crusaders attacked Count Raymond's territories. He had never yet been tried for the murder of the legate, of which he was accused; and already Philip of France had warned the Pope that in any question of Raymond's forfeiture, it was for the French King as suzerain and not for the Pope to proclaim it. By a visit to Rome Raymond hoped that he had gained permission to purge himself from the impending charges; but at the last moment this was p.r.o.nounced impossible, because in having failed to clear his lands of heresy, as he had promised to do, he was forsworn. In a war of sieges De Montfort's skill took from Raymond everything except Toulouse and Montauban. Raymond's brother-in-law, Pedro II of Aragon, now intervened; but when Innocent III, misled by his legates, refused a further offer of purgation on the part of Raymond, Pedro formally declared war against De Montfort. He invaded and laid siege to Muret; but his forces were defeated and he was killed (1213). So far Innocent III had avoided the recognition of De Montfort's conquests in Toulouse. But early in 1215 he ratified the act of the Council of Montpellier which had elected Simon de Montfort as lord of the whole conquered land. Raymond, although he had never yet been tried, was declared deposed for heresy; and the fourth Lateran Council, while confirming this decision, left a small portion of the territory still unconquered, for his son. It seems likely that Innocent would have been willing to deal fairly with the Count of Toulouse; but by this time there were too many interested in the ruin of the House of Toulouse, and the Pope was deliberately misled by his legates. Hence it came that a judgment which might, as it was expected that it would, have righted a great wrong, proved only a signal for revolt. Raymond and his son were welcomed back by an united people, and finally in 1218 Simon de Montfort was killed while besieging Toulouse.

[Sidenote: A war of aggression.]

De Montfort's son could make no headway against a people in arms. But in 1222 Raymond VI and Philip of France vainly tried to promote a peaceful settlement between Amaury de Montfort and Raymond VII.

Amaury, despairing of success, offered his claims to the French King, and in 1223 Philip's successor, Louis VIII, overpersuaded by the Pope, accepted them. The young Count Raymond vainly endeavoured to ward off the threatened invasion and showed every desire to be reconciled with the Church. There was scarcely any longer a pretence of religious war.

From the first it had been largely a war of races, promoted by northern jealousy at the wealth and civilisation of the south and by a desire for the completion of the Frank conquest of Gaul. Thus from the beginning of hostilities the whole population of the south, Catholic as well as heretic, had stood together in resistance to the crusading army, and despite his tergiversations Raymond VI had never lost their affection and support. The war lasted for three years (1226-9); Louis VIII led an expedition southwards, which for some inexplicable reason turned back before it had achieved complete success; and after his death the Queen-Regent, Blanche of Castile, with the encouragement of Pope Gregory IX, came to terms with Raymond VII. By the Treaty of Meaux (1229) Count Raymond agreed to hunt down all heretics, to a.s.sume the cross as a penance, to give up at once about two-thirds of his lands, while the remainder was to go to his daughter, who was to be married to a French prince, with the ultimate reversion to the French Crown. In 1237 Jeanne of Toulouse was married to Alfonso, brother of Louis IX; in 1249, on the death of Raymond VII, they succeeded to his dominions, and on their death in 1271 without children Philip III annexed all their possessions to the dominions of the French Crown.

[Sidenote: Punishment for heresy.]

The question of the acquisition of territory was thus shown to be far more important than the suppression of heresy. But a university was established at Toulouse for the teaching of true philosophy, and the Inquisition was set up under the Dominicans for the suppression of false doctrine. The time had definitely gone by when the Church would rely upon methods of persuasion in dealing with heretics. And yet for a long time there was much hesitation among Churchmen. Even as late as 1145 St. Bernard pleads for reasoning rather than coercion. And the application of methods of coercion was equally tentative. At first the obstinate heretic was imprisoned or exiled and his property was confiscated. But the practice of burning a heretic alive was long the custom before it was adopted anywhere as positive law. Pedro II of Aragon, the champion of Raymond VI, first definitely legalised it (1197). In 1238 by the Edict of Cremona this became the recognised law of the Empire, and was afterwards embodied in the Sachsenspiegel and Schwabenspiegel, the munic.i.p.al codes of Northern and Southern Germany respectively. The Etabliss.e.m.e.nts of Louis IX (1270) recognised the practice for France. It is a tribute to English orthodoxy that the Act ”de haeretico comburendo” was not pa.s.sed until 1401.

[Sidenote: The secular arm.]

Early usage forbade the clergy to be concerned in judgments involving death or mutilation. This finds expression in the Const.i.tutions of Clarendon (1164); and the fourth Lateran Council (1215) definitely forbade clerks to utter a judgment of blood or to be present at an execution. Thus the Church merely found a man a heretic and called upon the secular authority to punish him. It was impressed upon all secular potentates from highest to lowest that it was their business to obey the behests of the Church in the extirpation of heresy.

Indeed, it may almost be said that the validity of this command of the Church was the princ.i.p.al point at issue in the Albigensian crusade; for Raymond's lands were declared forfeit merely because he would not take an active part in the punishment of his heretical subjects. Thus by the thirteenth century all hesitation as to the att.i.tude of the Church towards heretics had entirely disappeared. As Innocent III lays it down, ”faith is not to be kept with him who keeps not faith with G.o.d,” and Councils of this century declared that any temporal ruler who did not persecute heresy must be regarded as an accomplice and so as himself a heretic.

We cannot apply modern standards to the mediaeval feelings about heresy. The n.o.blest and most saintly among clergy and laity alike were often the fiercest persecutors. Church and State were closely intermingled; heresy was a crime as well as a sin; the heretic was a rebel; mild measures only made him bolder; and in fear of the overthrow of the whole social system the rulers of State and Church combined to crush him.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MENDICANT ORDERS

[Sidenote: Need for new kinds of Orders.]

At the Lateran Council in 1215 Innocent III issued a decree which practically forbade the foundation of new monastic Orders. The increase of such Orders in the name of religious reform had not always tended to the promotion of orthodoxy. Moreover, the monastic ideal was the spiritual perfection of the individual, to be gained by separation from the world; but the growth of large urban populations with the accompanying disease and misery called for a new kind of dedication to religion. There was strength in members.h.i.+p of an Order, and during the twelfth century there were founded alongside of the newer monastic Orders organisations devoted to social work of various kinds. Such was the origin of the Hospitallers and perhaps of the Templars also, and of a number of small Orders, most of them merely local in their work and following, which were founded all over Western Europe for care of the sick and pilgrims and for other charitable work.

A point that demanded even more immediate attention was the almost total neglect of preaching by the parochial clergy and the consequent success of the Waldensian and other heretical preachers. There were isolated examples of missionary devotion among the clergy. Fulk of Neuilly, a priest, obtained a licence from Innocent III to preach, and met with marvellous success among the Cathari until he was turned aside by Innocent's exhortation to preach a new crusade. But he died before it set out (1202). Duran de Huesca, a Catalan, conceived the idea of fighting the heretics with their own weapons, and founded the Pauperes Catholici as an Order professing poverty and engaged in missionary work. But the outbreak of the Albigensian War superseded the work of the Order by more summary methods of dealing with heretics.

[Sidenote: Dominicans.]

But these Poor Catholics were the precursors, if not the actual model of the Preaching Friars of St. Dominic. The founder was a Spaniard, who had studied long in the University of Palencia, and had become sub-prior of the cathedral of Osma. He accompanied his bishop to Rome, and thence on a mission among the Albigenses. He wandered as a mendicant through the most heretical districts of Languedoc for three years (1205-8) before the outbreak of war, holding religious discussions with leading heretics. But amid the clash of arms his activity took a different shape. Communities had been founded among the Albigenses for the reception of the daughters of dead or ruined n.o.bles. For the protection of such and of any others of the gentle s.e.x who returned to Catholicism, Dominic founded the monastery of Prouille (1206). This was established on the lines of houses in other Orders; and although he led a life of extreme asceticism, he did not at first contemplate imposing a rule of collective poverty upon his Order.

Indeed, he received for the use of Prouille gifts of all kinds in land and movables, and even increased the possessions by purchase. Towards the end of the war Dominic established a brotherhood which should devote itself to preaching with a view to refuting heretics. In 1215 he appeared at the Lateran Council, in order to obtain the papal approbation of this new Order. Innocent III, while taking under his protection the monastery of Prouille, desired Dominic to choose an already existing rule for his new community. The Dominican legend depicts Innocent as converted to the recognition of the Order by a dream, in which he saw the Lateran Church tottering and upheld by the support of the Spanish saint. But Innocent died before Dominic had decided with his followers that they would place themselves under the rule of the Augustinian Canons; and it was from Honorius III that the Friars Preachers obtained the confirmation of their Order. A parallel story is told of the papal approval of the Franciscans; but there is no proof that St. Francis was present at the Council, nor is it likely that in the face of the decree against the foundation of new Orders the sanction of the Pope should have been given to his rule. But the meeting of the two great founders at Rome in 1216 is an historical event of great importance; for the example of the Franciscans caused the adoption of the life of poverty by the Dominicans also.

[Sidenote: Their spread.]

Immediately after the papal confirmation the Order began its work. The first followers of Dominic included natives of Spain, England, Normandy, and Lorraine, and the Friars Preachers are soon found in every country of Western and Central Europe. The nature of the work to which they set themselves made them from the beginning a congregation of intellectual men. Honorius III conferred on Dominic himself the Masters.h.i.+p of the Sacred Palace, which gave to him, and even more to those who succeeded him in the heads.h.i.+p of the Order, not merely the religious instruction of the households of popes and cardinals, but also the censors.h.i.+p of books. Paris, the headquarters of the scholastic theology, and Bologna, the great law school of the Middle Ages, became at once the chief seats of training. The Dominicans spread so rapidly that at the death of their founder in 1221 they possessed sixty houses, which had just been divided into eight provinces. To these four were subsequently added. The death of Dominic, like his life, has been almost overwhelmed in the miraculous; but for whatever reason, it was not until thirteen years after his death that he was enrolled among the recognised saints of the Church, although the honour of canonisation had been paid to St. Francis eight years earlier and within two years of his death.

[Sidenote: Popularity of the friars.]

Jealousy between the conventual and the parochial clergy had been of long standing: it had been based upon the exemption of monks from the jurisdiction of the local Church. The monks had, however, been definitely warned off themselves taking part in parochial work. But the friars began with a missionary purpose; and in 1227 Gregory IX, who as Cardinal Ugolino had been Protector of the Franciscans, conferred on both Orders the right not only of preaching, but also of hearing confessions and granting absolution everywhere. The rules of the Orders forbade them to preach in a church without the leave of the parish priest; but they ignored this prohibition, set up their own altars, at which a papal privilege allowed them to celebrate Ma.s.s, and not only superseded the lazy secular clergy in all the work of the cure of souls, but deprived them of the fees which were a chief source of their income. The secular clergy bitterly resented the presence of the intruders; but the Pope favoured the friars and heaped privileges upon them, since they formed an international body easy to mobilise for use against the hierarchy, and able to be used for transmitting and executing papal orders. The people also welcomed them, because, at first at any rate, they worked for their daily bread, and were prevented by their vow of poverty from seeking endowments: while the peripatetic character of his life made the friar popular as a confessor who could know nothing about his penitents.

[Sidenote: Dominicans and University of Paris.]

The characteristic work of the Dominicans as preachers and teachers rather determined the particular form which the struggle should a.s.sume between them and the seculars. The University of Paris welcomed the Dominicans on their first arrival; the new-comers soon fixed themselves in the Hospital of St. Jacques (the site of the Jacobin Club of 1789), on University ground, and many members of the University became affiliated to their Order. In 1229 the privileges of the University were violated by the munic.i.p.ality, and, since the Crown would give no redress, the whole body of masters and students dispersed themselves among different provincial towns. In 1231 a bull of Gregory IX confirmed their privileges and brought them back to Paris. But during their absence the Dominicans, with the approval of the Bishop, admitted scholars to their house of St. Jacques and appointed their own teachers; while several of the most famous secular teachers took the Dominican habit. Thus after 1231 there were in the University several theological chairs occupied by Mendicants. The prosperity and aggressiveness of the friars, and political and doctrinal differences between them and the seculars, caused great tension. Not without reason the seculars complained that they were likely to be deprived of all the theological teaching. Matters came to an issue in 1253, when, on the murder of a scholar by the munic.i.p.al officers, the University in accordance with its privileges proclaimed a cessation or suspension of the cla.s.ses. In this act the Mendicants refused to join without the papal sanction. The University attempted to expel them from the teaching body, and under the leaders.h.i.+p of William of St. Amour it so far prevailed at Rome that Innocent IV, for whatever reason, issued the ”terrible” bull _Etsi Animarum_, by which the Mendicants were deprived at one blow of all the privileges which had given them the power of interfering in parochial life. But in the legend of the Order Innocent was prayed to death by the revengeful friars. Anyhow, his death (1254) saved the situation, since his successor, Alexander IV, declared unreservedly for them. The University was forced to receive them, and to acknowledge their rights of preaching and hearing confessions. On the other hand, it was arranged under Urban IV that the number of theological chairs to be held by Mendicant teachers, whose representatives at the moment were Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura, should be limited to three. But the war against the Mendicants continued, and the bullying to which the University was subjected, especially by Benedict Gaetani, the papal legate, in 1290, accounts perhaps for the support given by the University to Philip IV in his quarrel with Boniface VIII, and for the political action of the University at a later date.

[Sidenote: Friars and Inquisition.]

The spread of heresy and the feeble attempts of the bishops to use the machinery at their disposal for dealing with it, caused the gradual growth of the system known as the Papal Inquisition. This was feasible, partly because the civil government, led by Frederick II, were enacting severe laws against heresy, but chiefly because in the new Mendicant Orders there were now to be found men of sufficient knowledge and training to cope with the difficulty of unmasking heresy. But it is a mistake to suppose that the inquisitorial work was a perquisite of the Dominicans. Both Orders alike were employed by the Papacy in the unsavoury duty, although ultimately the Dominicans took the larger share. For the service of the wretched, to which the Franciscans primarily devoted themselves, soon necessitated a study of medicine in order to cope with disease and a study of theology in order to deal with heresy. If as a body they never came to represent learning like the Dominicans, the names of Bonaventura, Roger Bacon, and Duns Scotus sufficiently prove that there was no necessary antagonism between learning and the Franciscan ideal.