Praetorship

“ The prelates of the infected provinces were bitterly reproached for the negligence and timidity which had permitted heresy to assume its alarming proportions. They were ordered to obey humbly whatever the legates might see fit to command, and the vengeance of the Holy See was threatened for slackness or contumacy. Wherever heresy existed, the legates were armed with authority “to destroy, throw down, or pluck up whatever is to be destroyed, thrown down, or plucked up, and to plant and build whatever is to be built or planted.” ”

“ Can there be anything reasonable in the turpitude of heresy?
Then he hurried to find the Bishop:
—I have emptied our young man's bag, he said to him. Do you know,
Monseigneur, what there was at the bottom?
—Oh, oh. Has he been inclined to debauchery? He is so young.
—Would to heaven it were only that, Monseigneur. But it is a hundred times worse.
—What do you tell me? Must I fear then for all my little sheep? We must look after him then.
—I repeat, Monseigneur, that that would be nothing.... It is the abomination of abomination, a whole world of turpitude, heresies in embryo. ”

“ Recognizing, moreover, of how little worth were ecclesiastical censures, Innocent proceeded to appeal to force, which was evidently the only possible cure for the trouble. Not only were the legates directed to deliver all impenitent heretics to the secular arm for perpetual proscription and confiscation of property, but they were empowered to offer complete remission of sins, the same as for a crusade to the Holy Land, to Philip Augustus and his son, Louis Cœur-de-Lion, and to all nobles who should aid in the suppression of heresy. ”

“ By the jurisdiction of which key the fullness of my power is so great that, whereas all others are subjects--yea, and emperors themselves, ought to subdue their executions to me: only I am a subject to no creature, no, not to myself; so that my papal majesty ever remaineth undiminished; superior to all men; whom all persons ought to obey, and follow, whom no man must judge or accuse of any crime, no man depose but I myself. ”

“ The prostituted pack of clergymen, courtiers and warriors who surrounded the Very Christian King knew the trick how to inherit the property of heretics. To burn or massacre the reformers was to coin money for the royal pack, the sovereign having the right to transmit to the good Catholics the wealth confiscated from condemned heretics. But, to kill the heretics, to torture them, to burn them alive, that did not satisfy the pious monarch. Human thought was to be shackled. ”

“ It [pg 310] were better for you, emperor, if the choice were offered you, to be called a heretic than the persecutor and destroyer of the histories, the pictures, the images, the sufferings of our Lord. Yet to be called a heretic would be thy misery and thy loss. Let me tell you the difference. The heretic is said to be known, when he is known only to few. The scandals he gives are dark, the thoughts perplexed and hard to discern. Those who enforce them and are destitute of humiliation soon fall by their own ignorance and confusion of mind. ”

“ It admits that an emperor rendering himself suspect in the faith can be put under ban by the pope. It provides death by fire for the heretic. It directs that when heretics are known to exist, the ecclesiastical courts shall inquire about them and proceed against them. If convicted, the secular judge shall seize them and doom them according to law. If he neglects or refuses he is to be excommunicated by the bishop, and his suzerain shall inflict on him the penalty of heresy. If a secular prince does not punish heresy he is to be excommunicated by the episcopal court ”

“ In the quarrel between the empire and papacy over the question of the investitures, the Council of Lateran, in 1102, required all the bishops in attendance to subscribe a declaration anathematizing the new heresy of disregarding the papal anathema, and though the Church as yet was by no means determined on the death-penalty for ordinary heresy, it had no hesitation as to the punishment due to the imperialists who maintained the traditional rights of the empire against its new pretensions. ”

“ The larger struggles of city against city and of pope against emperor afforded a still wider field for the exercise of this diplomatic ability, of which full advantage was taken. When the formulas of persecution became defined under Honorius III., Gregory IX., and Frederic II., and fautorship was made equivalent to heresy, the factions and the nobles who tolerated or protected heretics became involved in the common anathema, and whole communities were stigmatized as given over to false idols. ”

“ The coronation-edict, which formed the basis of all subsequent legislation against heresy, was drawn up by the papal curia, and sent, a fortnight before the ceremony, to the Legate Bishop of Tusculum, with orders to procure the imperial signature and return it, so that it could be published under the emperor’s name in the church of St. Peter (Raynald. ann. 1220, No. 19.—Hist. Dipl. I. II. 880) . Nothing could seem a plainer duty to an ecclesiastic of the time than that the Church should stimulate the temporal ruler to the sharpest persecution of heresy. ”

“ The other bull is addressed “to the Priors and Friars of the Order of Preachers, Inquisitors,” and after alluding to the sons of perdition who defend heresy, it proceeds: “Therefore you, or any of you, wherever you may happen to preach, are empowered, unless they desist from such defence (of heretics) on monition, to deprive clerks of their benefices forever, and to proceed against them and all others, without appeal, calling in the aid of the secular arm, if necessary, and coercing opposition, if requisite, with the censures of the Church, without appeal.” ”

“ Besides, it is evident that the crime of heresy itself was brought under the cognizance of the ecclesiastical tribunals up to the point when the heretics, being convicted, and found obstinate, were first punished by ecclesiastical censures, and afterwards, being subjected by the lay power to capital penalty, were exterminated." Page 222: "The Church never pronounced a sentence of blood. Even the Inquisition smote heretics with the spiritual sword, and prison, but the lay princes subjected them to the last capital penalty." ”

“ Accordingly, either after abjuring he will hold heresy or error—or before doing so, he will be proved to have held what he abjures. Therefore, understand that in their letters they judge you to be heretics and demand that you abjure the heresy which they suppose you to hold. From this it is evident that a son or friend of yours, if he abjure, can be disgraced for having consorted with a heretical father or friend. Further, it is evident that any other person can rightly say to any one who abjures, “You abjured the heresy which you held and you are not worthy of me.” ”

“ The flimsiness of this theory, however, is manifest from the fact that it was not only heretics—those who consciously erred in matters of faith—who were subjected to the jurisdiction and chastisement of the Inquisition. Fautors, receivers, and defenders—those who showed hospitality, gave alms, or sheltered or assisted heretics in any way, or neglected to denounce them to the authorities, or to capture them when occasion offered, also rulers who omitted to execute the laws against heresy, however orthodox themselves, incurred suspicion of heresy, simple, vehement, or violent. ”

“ Innocent describes the heresy as established so firmly and widely that it embraced not only the simple folk, but also princes and magnates, and it was so elaborately organized that it had a chief who was reverenced as pope. These are all declared excommunicate, their lands confiscated for the benefit of the first occupant, and any who shall relapse after recantation are to be abandoned to the secular arm without a hearing, in accordance with the canons. ”

“ The secular authority is also required to inflict torture on those heretics who refused to confess or inculpate their confederates, to see to the exaction of fines and destruction of heretics’ houses, to keep lists of those defamed of heresy.329 These statutes, and all others which might subsequently be added against heresy, are to be religiously preserved in the statute-books of every city, on pain of excommunication for any non-compliant official, of interdict for any recalcitrant city. ”

“ Persecution is not a term applicable to the acts of the Emperor. The Emperor is the Defender of the Faith. In throwing you to the lions he will be upholding the interests of religion in Rome. If you were to throw him to the lions, that would no doubt be persecution. ”

“ All rulers and magistrates, present or future, were required to swear to exterminate with their utmost ability all whom the Church might designate as heretics, under pain of forfeiture of office. The lands of any temporal lord who neglected, for a year after summons by the Church, to clear them of heresy, were exposed to the occupancy of any Catholics who, after extirpating the heretics, were to possess them in peace without prejudice to the rights of{322} the suzerain, provided he had offered no opposition. ”

“ And so well have the priesthood managed this matter, that in many countries we actually see the people more inclined to lean to the authority of the Vicars of Jesus Christ than to that of the civil government. The priesthood claim the right of commanding monarchs themselves, and sustained by their emissaries and the credulity of the people, their ridiculous pretensions have engaged princes in the most serious affairs, sown trouble and discord in kingdoms, and so shook thrones as to compel their occupants to make submission to an intolerant hierarchy. ”

“ Thus we see in the statutes of Verona, in 1228, the Podestà swearing, on taking office, to expel all heretics from the city; and in the Schwabenspiegel, or code in force throughout southern Germany, it is laid down that a ruler who neglects to persecute heresy is to be stripped of all possessions, and if he does not burn those who are delivered to him as heretics by the ecclesiastical courts he is to be punished as a heretic himself. ”

“ Issued after mature deliberation with the Sacred College, it confirms and renews all the laws, decrees and statutes against heresy, at any time issued, and orders their strict enforcement. As the vicar of God on earth and clothed with supreme power, Paul IV decrees in perpetuity that all guilty of heresy or schism or fautorship—clerics from the lowest up to cardinals and laymen up to kings and emperors—shall be subject to these laws against heresy, shall be deprived of their dignities and possessions, which may be seized by any one obedient to the Holy See ”

“ Angered and humiliated by the powers conferred on the representatives of Rome, and alarmed at the attempts to punish their evil lives, the local prelates were in no mood to second the exertions put forth for the eradication of heresy, and at one time it would even seem as though they might be driven to make common cause with the heretics, in opposition to the Holy See, in order to protect themselves and their clergy. ”

“ And, to say truth, what heresy hath ever burst forth, but under the name of some certain man, in some certain place, and at some certain time? Who ever set up any heresy, but first divided himself from the consent of the universality and antiquity of the Catholic Church? Which to be true, examples do plainly prove. ”

“ Your only son has dishonoured my daughter; command him to be punished." These words greatly distressed the emperor, but he gave instant orders respecting the punishment of his son. On this, two noblemen observed: "The young man is your only child, and heir to the throne: it were impious, if for this he should lose his eyes." The emperor answered, "Is it not evident to you, that I myself ordained this very law? disgraceful as the occasion is, it may break my heart, but not my resolution. My son has been the first to transgress the law, and therefore, shall be the first to undergo the penalty." ”

“ Their vicars and commissioners they held to be completely beyond any jurisdiction but their own, and any attempt on the part of a provincial to remove such a subordinate was to be met with a prosecution for suspicion of heresy, as an impeding of the Inquisition, to be followed by excommunication, when, if this was endured for a year, it was to be ended by condemnation for heresy. Men armed with these tremendous powers, and animated with this resolute spirit, were not lightly to be meddled with. ”

“ Every thing is now as is should be: unless, perhaps, that heresy ought to be more strictly defined, and no prosecution permitted, even in the Ecclesiastical Courts, till the tenets in question are by proper authority previously declared to be heretical. ”

“ And if one of the practisers of the heresy [116] should arrive from a strange country, they hold all things in common for him, and those whom they knew not before they receive as guests and intimates. And they travel about their native land, and when they go on a journey they carry nothing with them except arms. And they have in every city a ruler who spends what is collected for the purpose of providing clothes and food for them. And their dress and its fashion are modest. They do not possess two tunics or a double set of footgear; but when those in use become old, they take others. ”

“ As for the treatment which heretics deserve, the same authority is very explicit.
'In the first place, heretics do more mischief than any pirate or brigand, because they slay souls; nay more, they subvert the foundations of all good and fill the commonwealth with the disturbances which necessarily follow religious differences. In the second place, capital punishment inflicted on them has a good effect on very many persons. ”