Paul Daniel Alphandéry

“ ARNOLD, known as “Arnold of Brescia” (d. 1155) , one of the most ardent adversaries of the temporal power of the popes. He belonged to a family of importance, if not noble, and was born probably at Brescia, in Italy, towards the end of the 11th century. He distinguished himself in his monastic studies, and went to France about 1115. He studied theology in Paris, but there is no proof that he was a pupil of Abelard. Returning to Italy he became a canon regular. His life was rigidly austere, St Bernard calling him “homo neque manducans neque bibens.” ”

“ Joachim divides the history of humanity, past, present and future, into three periods, which, in his Expositio in Apocalypsin (bk. i. ch. 5) , he defines as the age of the Law, or of the Father; the age of the Gospel, or of the Son; and the age of the Spirit, which will bring the ages to an end. Before each of these ages there is a period of incubation, or initiation: the first age begins with Abraham, but the period of initiation with the first man Adam. ”

“ FLAGELLANTS (from Lat. flagellare, to whip) , in religion, the name given to those who scourge themselves, or are scourged, by way of discipline or penance. Voluntary flagellation, as a form of exalted devotion, occurs in almost all religions. ”

“ Hugh was more especially the initiator of a movement of ideas—the mysticism of the school of St Victor—which filled the whole of the second part of the 12th century. “The mysticism which he inaugurated,” says Ch. V. Langlois, “is learned, unctuous, ornate, florid, a mysticism which never indulges in dangerous temerities; it is the orthodox mysticism of a subtle and prudent rhetorician.” ”

“ APOSTOLICI, Apostolic Brethren, or Apostles, the names given to various Christian heretics, whose common doctrinal feature was an ascetic rigidity of morals, which made them reject property and marriage. The earliest Apostolici appeared in Phrygia, Cilicia, Pisidia and Pamphylia towards the end of the 2nd century or the beginning of the 3rd. ”

“ The bishops were forbidden to oppose any of the utterances of the Humiliati brethren, “for the spirit must not be stifled.” James of Vitry, without being unfavourable to their tendencies, represents their association as one of the peculiarities of the church of his time (Historia orientalis, Douai, 1597) . So broad a discipline must of necessity have led back some waverers into the pale of the church, but the Waldenses of Lombardy, in their congregationes laborantium, preserved the tradition of the independent Humiliati. ”

“ The handing over of impenitent persons, and those who had relapsed, to the secular power, and their punishment, did not usually take place on the occasion of an auto-da-fé, properly so called. Sometimes those who were condemned to the flames were burned on the night following the ceremony. The first great auto-da-fés were celebrated when Thomas de Torquemada, was at the head of the Spanish inquisition (Seville 1482, Toledo 1486, &c.) ”

“ In his opinion—which is, in form at least, perfectly orthodox—the church of Peter will be, not abolished, but purified; actually, the hierarchy effaces itself in the third age before the order of the monks, the viri spirituales. The entire world will become a vast monastery in that day, which will be the resting-season, the sabbath of humanity. In various passages in Joachim’s writings the clerical hierarchy is represented by Rachel and the contemplative order by her son Joseph, and Rachel is destined to efface herself before her son. ”

“ Excommunicated on the 21st of March 1324, Louis retorted by appealing for a second time to a general council, which was held on the 22nd of May 1324, and accused John of being an enemy to the peace and the law, stigmatizing him as a heretic on the ground that he opposed the principle of evangelical poverty as professed by the strict Franciscans. From this moment Louis appeared in the character of the natural ally and even the protector of the Spirituals against the persecution of the pope. ”

“ Louis was gradually recognized by the whole of Germany, especially after his victory at Mühldorf (1322) , and gained numerous adherents in Italy, where he supported the Visconti, who had been condemned as heretics by the pope. John affected to ignore the successes of Louis, and on the 8th of October 1323 forbade his recognition as king of the Romans. After demanding a respite, Louis abruptly appealed at Nuremberg from the future sentence of the pope to a general council (December 8, 1323) . ”

“ When Sicily passed into the hands of Peter III. of Aragon, moreover, it came into a position of open hostility to the Holy See and became a refuge for heretics.
Venice always preserved its autonomy as regards the repression of heresy; she was perfectly orthodox, but remained entirely independent of Rome; Innocent IV. sent inquisitors there, but the heretics continued actually to be subject to the secular tribunals. In 1288 a compromise was arrived at, and the papal Inquisition was admitted into the republic, but only on condition that it should remain under the control of the secular power ”

“ The “Chronicon anonymi Laudunensis canonici” (Mon. Germ. hist. Scriptores, xxvi. 449) , at date 1178, states that a group of Lombards came to Rome with the intention of obtaining the pope’s approval of the rule of life which they had spontaneously chosen; while continuing to live in their houses in the midst of their families, they wished to lead a more pious existence than of old, to abandon oaths and litigation, to content themselves with a modest dress, and all in a spirit of Catholic piety. ”

“ Legend, poetry, drama and politics have from time to time been much occupied with the personality of Arnold of Brescia, and not seldom have distorted it, through the desire to see in him a hero of Italian independence and a modern democrat. ”

“ But at that time in Spain orthodoxy was generally threatened only by a few Fraticelli and Waldenses, who were not numerous enough to call for active repression. The Spanish inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich, the author of the famous Directorium Inquisitorum, had rarely to exercise his functions during the whole of his long career (end of 14th century) . It was not against heresy that the church had to direct its vigilance. A mutual tolerance between the different religions had in fact sprung up, even after the conquest ”

“ John, on the other hand, in the bull Quorundam exigit (April 13, 1317) , adopted an uncompromising and absolute attitude, and by the bull Gloriosam ecclesiam (January 23, 1318) condemned the protests which had been raised against the bull Quorundam by a group of seventy-four Spirituals and conveyed to Avignon by the monk Bernard Délicieux. Shortly afterwards four Spirituals were burned at Marseilles. These were immediately hailed as martyrs, and in the eyes of the exalted Franciscans at Naples and in Sicily and the south of France the pope was regarded as antichrist. ”

“ It seems certain that Arnold professed moral theology in Paris, and several times reprimanded St Bernard, whom he accused of pride and jealousy. St Bernard, as a last resort, begged King Louis VII. to take severe measures against Arnold, who had to leave France and take refuge at Zürich. There he soon became popular, especially with the lay nobility; but, denounced anew by St Bernard to the ecclesiastical authorities, he returned to Italy, and turned his steps towards Rome (1145) . ”

“ Subject also to the tribunal of the Holy Office were bigamists, blasphemers, usurers, sodomites, priests who had married or broken the secrecy of the confessional, laymen who assumed ecclesiastical costume, &c. “In all these matters, though the Inquisition may have been indiscreet in meddling with affairs which did not concern it, it must be confessed that it was not cruel, and that it was always preferable to fall into the hands of the Inquisition rather than those of the secular judges, or even the Roman inquisitors” (S. Reinach) . ”

“ The order of the Apostles was founded about 1260 by a young workman from the environs of Parma, Gerard Segarelli, who had sought admission unsuccessfully to the Franciscan order. To make his life conform to that of Christ, his contemporaries say that he had himself circumcised, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a cradle, and that he then, clad in a white robe and bare-footed, walked through the streets of Parma crying “Penitenz agite!” (“Poenitentiam agite!”) . He was soon followed by a throng of men and women, peasants and mechanics. ”

“ In 1278 Nicholas IV. commanded the general of the Dominicans to send friars into all parts of the kingdom to work for the conversion of the Jews, and draw up lists of those who should refuse to be baptized. It was in vain that a few princes such as Peter III. or Ferdinand of Castile interfered; the Spanish clergy directed the persecution with ever increasing zeal. In the 14th century the massacres increased, and during the year 1391 whole towns were destroyed by fire and sword, while at Valencia eleven thousand forced baptisms took place. ”

“ In 1816 the pope abolished torture in all the tribunals of the Inquisition. It is a too frequent practice to represent as peculiar to the Spanish Inquisition modes of procedure in use for a long time in the inquisitorial tribunals of the rest of Europe. There are no special manuals, or practica, for the inquisitorial procedure in Spain; but the few distinctive characteristics of this procedure may be mentioned. The Suprema allowed the accused an advocate chosen from among the members or familiars of the Holy Office ”

“ As a theologian Alain de Lille shared in the mystic reaction of the second half of the 12th century against the scholastic philosophy. His mysticism, however, is far from being as absolute as that of the Victorines. In the Anticlaudianus he sums up as follows: Reason, guided by prudence, can unaided discover most of the truths of the physical order; for the apprehension of religious truths it must trust to faith. This rule is completed in his treatise, Ars catholicae fidei, as follows: Theology itself may be demonstrated by reason. ”

“ Certain nobles having offered him resistance, he preached a crusade against them, but died by the hand of an assassin. The council of Mainz (April 1234) dealt gently with Conrad’s murderers, but severely with the false witnesses whom he had employed. Shortly before (February 1234) , the diet of Frankfort had decided, in spite of the pope’s injunctions, that the destruction of heresy should be entrusted to the ordinary magistrates. And besides, thanks to the struggle between the Empire and the papacy, the German prelates always limited the prerogatives of the papal Inquisition. ”

“ Between 1308 and 1323, Bernard Guy, who cannot be accused of inactivity, only handed over to the secular arm 42 persons, out of 930 who were convicted of heresy.
From the point of view of jurisprudence of the Inquisition, the confiscation of the condemned man’s property by the ecclesiastical and secular powers is only the accompaniment to the more severe penalties of perpetual imprisonment or death; but from the point of view of Punishment by confiscation of goods. its economic history the importance of the confiscation is supreme. ”

“ Influence of the Canon Law. it is clear that the appeal to the secular arm was equally guarded: at Reims (1049) excommunication alone is decreed against heretics; and when, as at Toulouse (1119) and the Lateran council (1139) , it is laid down that heretics, in addition to excommunication, should be dealt with per potestates exteras, or when, as at the council of Reims (1148) , the secular princes are forbidden to support or harbour heretics, there is never any suggestion of capital punishment. ”

“ The pope’s commissioners “in the matter of heresy” at first travelled from place to place. On arriving in a district they addressed its inhabitants, called upon them to confess, if they were heretics, or to denounce those whom they knew to be heretics: a “time of grace” was opened, during which those who freely confessed were dispensed from all penalties, or only given a secret and very light penance; while those whose heresy had been openly manifested were exempted from the penalties of death and perpetual imprisonment. ”

“ The Inquisition and the Crown could refuse each other nothing, and appeals to the pope met with their united resistance. As early as the reign of Ferdinand certain rich Conversos who had bought letters of indulgence from the Holy See were nevertheless prosecuted by Ferdinand and Torquemada, in spite of the protests of Sixtus IV. The papacy met with the most serious checks under the Bourbons. Philip V. forbade all his subjects to carry appeals to Rome, or to make public any papal briefs without the royal exequatur. ”

“ But, as M. Vacandard says, “If the secular judges had thought fit to take this formula literally, they would soon have been brought back to a recognition of the true state of affairs by excommunication.” In effect, handing over to the secular arm was equivalent to a sentence of death, and of death by fire. The Dominican Jacob Sprenger, provincial of his order in Germany (1494) and inquisitor, does not hesitate to speak of the victims quas incinerari fecimus (“whom we [the inquisitors] caused to be burnt to ashes”) . ”

“ Heretics or persons deprived of civil rights (infames) were admitted as witnesses in cases of heresy. Women, children or slaves could be witnesses for the prosecution, but not for the defence, and cases are even to be found in which the witnesses were only ten years of age. Langhino Ugolini states that a witness who should retract his hostile evidence should be punished for false witness, but that his evidence should be retained, and have its full effect on the sentence. No witness might refuse to give evidence, under pain of being considered guilty of heresy. ”