I. 2. THE INQUISITION ONCE MORE II. A History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages. By H. C. LEA. New Histoire de l'Inquisition en France. By TH. DE CAUZONS. Paris: Bloud. 3. The Inquisition. By E. VACANDARD. Longmans. 1908. 4. Medieval Heresy and the Inquisition. By A. S. TURBERVILLE. Lockwood. 1920. 5. The Inquisition. By A. L. MAYCOCK. With an Introduction by Father Ronald Knox. Constable. 1926. 6. The Inquisition. By HOFFMAN NICKERSON. With a Preface by Hilaire Belloc. Bale. 1923. 7. Inquisition et Inquisitions. By l'abbé L. A. GAFFRE. Paris. 1905. 8. Lettres à un gentilhomme russe sur l'inquisition espagnole. By le comte JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. Paris: Pélagaud. 1854. 9. The History of the Inquisition of Spain. By J. A. LLORENTE. Whitaker. 1826. 10. L'Inquisition. By C. DOUAIS, evêque de Beauvais. Paris: Plon. 1906. THE HE underlying psychology of the Inquisition can be best understood, perhaps, if we start from that decree of Innocent III which, without formally erecting the new court, did enunciate doctrines clearly implying some such tribunal to enforce those doctrines in the last resort. In 1199, Innocent III addressed a letter to the clergy, magistrates and people of Viterbo, of which the essential portions were embodied in Canon Law,* and thus became imperative for all Roman Christendom. Its preamble runs : The decay of a century tottering to old age may be scented in the corruption not only of the elements [of the universe], but even in that most worthy of all creatures [man], fashioned in the image and likeness of God, and set above the fowls of the air and all the beasts of the field in privilege of dignity; nor does he merely fail in these days with the failing century, but he also infects and is infected with the foul canker of old-age. For man, most wretched, sinneth at the last; and he who, at his own creation and that of the world, could not remain in Paradise, is now degenerating in these days of dissolution for himself and the whole earth, and, at the end of time, forgetting the price of his redemption, by thrusting himself into the manifold vain meshes of This is the decretal Vergentis (Decret. Greg. lib. V, tit. vii. c. 10). The letter is the first of the second book of Innocent's Register. questioning, entangles himself in the snares of his own fraud, and falls into the pit which he hath digged. Heresies swarm, and the heretic, robbing his brother of his heavenly inheritance, makes him heir to his own heresy and to damnation. . . . These, as the Apostle saith, "have an appearance indeed of godliness, but deny the power thereof." [Heresy] was creeping privily like a cancer, and now it poureth forth openly the venom of its iniquity; for, under an apparent cloak of religion, it deceiveth many simple folk and seduceth some even of the wary. Therefore Innocent III, as a man called at this eleventh hour of the world's existence to work in the Lord's vineyard, must fight manfully against the evil, and must demand from the faithful not opposition, but help. Any favourer of heretics shall be branded as infamous, and incapable of public office or councillorship; his vote shall be null, his testament null; if he be a judge, his judgment shall be without legal effect; if an advocate, let no judge hear him; if a notary, all his writings shall be void; "if a cleric, let him be deposed from all office and benefice." His whole possessions shall be confiscated; and any magistrate who neglects this duty shall be coerced by excommunication. For, seeing that the laws, when men are condemned to death for high treason, confiscate their goods and reserve a livelihood for their children only as an act of mercy, how much more should those who, straying from the Faith, offend against Jesus Christ, God and Son of God, be cut off by ecclesiastical rigour from our Head, who is Christ, and be despoiled of their earthly goods, since it is far more grievous to sin against the eternal than against an earthly Majesty. It was upon this last sentence that Aquinas based his famous argument: "If false coiners or other felons are justly committed to death without delay by worldly princes, much more may heretics, from the moment that they are convicted, be not only excommunicated, but slain justly out of hand." (2a, 2*, q. XI, art. iii.) From this memorable decree of Innocent III three very important points stand clearly forth his dogmatic optimism, his social pessimism and, as a result, his panic fear. What he, as pope, thought in the moral and religious sphere, and what he believed all good Christians to have believed from Christ onwards, was truth; everything else was falsehood. Yet, in his view, not only was human society then on its last legs, and the Second Advent close at hand, but even the few latest hours of mundane history were being embittered by the rapid growth of beliefs which, since they were incompatible with the One and Only Truth, must lead their advocates and their converts to hell. In those days of 1199, in which the saving dogmas of faith were being formulated more clearly than ever before, unfaith in those dogmas was growing at an accelerated rate. The situation, therefore, was desperate, the only remedy was that the Church should strike as she had never yet struck in all history; energy was the crying need-violent and even hysterical energy-de l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace or the enemy would win after all! This is the first step for the comprehension of the Inquisition. We must begin by realizing how, behind that imposing façade of the medieval Church, there lurked a crowd of misgivings, generally unconscious, not often even sub-conscious, still more seldom confessed, yet very deep all the while, and tyrannous in their action upon the orthodox mind. Berthold of Regensburg, the Franciscan mission-preacher whom Roger Bacon singles out for such high praise, gives us an example of this sub-conscious misgiving : Had I a sister in a country wherein were only one heretic, yet that one heretic would keep me in fear for her . . . I myself, by God's grace, am as fast rooted in the Christian faith as any Christian man should rightly be; yet, rather than dwell knowingly one brief fortnight in the same house with an heretic, I would dwell a whole year with five hundred devils! So also his younger contemporary, the Dominican Etienne de Bourbon, complains that, while heretics pervert many from the Faith, none are ever re-converted. He explains it ingeniously: wine may turn into vinegar, but never vinegar to wine. Berthold notes the same sad fact, but offers a different physical analogy. Again, the conscious misgivings of faith are clearly shown by one of Joinville's most striking stories. A great doctor of divinity at Paris came and confessed to his bishop: "I hold myself for an infidel, since I cannot bring my heart to believe in the Sacrament of the Altar, as Holy Church teaches it; and I know well that this is one of the devil's temptations."* A great monastic reformer of two centuries later, Johann Busch, speaks of this as a common temptation. In the face of these things, the question "Mémoires," $46; I give similar examples on pp. 313, 404 of "From St. Francis to Dante," 2nd ed. of comparative morality between heretic and orthodox, or even the question of saving the State from anti-social revolutionaries, sinks into the background. Why talk of the State, or even think of the State, when the Faith itself hangs on the hazard of a die? Indeed, one of its worst perils is this seeming contrast between heretics who had "an appearance of godliness" and an admittedly corrupt clergy; for, on the evidence of Innocent III and his own friends, the clergy in general had indeed sunk very low. Here, then, was still the same problem in 1199 as two generations earlier, when Provost Erwin of Steinfeld had written to consult St. Bernard about the Rhineland heretics. Erwin described these men as apparently inoffensive: they did, indeed, travel about with women, but so, he remembers, had the Apostles done; and he brings no accusation of actual impropriety. Again, it is admitted that in diet and other ways they showed an example of great self-restraint, and Erwin notes that the heretics constantly appealed to Christ's words as a criterion between themselves and the orthodox: "By their fruits ye shall know them." St. Bernard's answer shows how overwhelmingly the question of religious faith outweighs all other social or moral questions. He knows well enough how fateful this question of comparative morals is; he has laid elsewhere his finger on the open sore of the Church : We can no longer say, with Isaiah, that the priest is as the people,' for the priests of our day are worse than the people." He admits these heretics' apparent regularity of life, and even their semblance of belief : - If you enquire into [such a man's] faith, nothing is more Christian ; if into his conversation, nothing is more blameless; and he proves by his deeds what he speaks with his mouth. You may see the man, in witness of his faith, frequenting the church, honouring the priests, offering his gift, making his confession, communicating in the sacraments. What can be more faithful? As regards life and morals, he cozens no man, over-reaches none, does violence to none. Moreover he is pale with fasting; he eats no bread of idleness; he works with his hands for his livelihood. Where, then, is the fox ? The allusion, of course, is to Cant. II. 15, and St. Bernard explains how this man is one of the little foxes that must be caught, because they ravage the Lord's vineyard. This going about with women is very dangerous; he cannot assert (though he suspects) that it has borne fruit in evil deeds, but certainly the Church has forbidden it; and it is wicked to appeal to the New Testament against the Church. Moreover, the one sin which heretics themselves cannot deny is that of giving holy things to the dogs. St. Bernard, in his incautious contempt, practically repeats the Jewish argument of John VII, 47: "Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?" For he points out how these men, who presume to set up their ideas against the Church, are a vile and rustic crew, unlettered and altogether unwarlike "; their converts are "ignorant peasant women, and of such sort as I have always found all folk of this sect whom I have known as yet." Even their righteousness is but as filthy rags: "They do indeed abstain, but they abstain heretically." How, then, are they to be brought to this one allsaving Faith without which their good works are vain ? St. Bernard heartily disapproves of lynch-law: "Faith must be persuaded to men, and not imposed upon them." Historians have been too prone to quote that noble word, mainly at secondhand, from each other, without even reading the next sentence, in which St. Bernard foreshadows plainly the choice that lay finally before Innocent III. For he adds: "Yet it would be better that they were coerced by the sword of that [magistrate] who beareth not the sword in vain, than that they should be suffered to bring many others into their own error. For he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.'" And this quotation from Romans XIII, 4, is reinforced by other passages in those two sermons of his (the 64th and 65th of the series on the Canticle of Canticles), approving the banishment or imprisonment of all heretics who preach their doctrines openly. Even St. Bernard could not go farther in tolerance than this, considering the overwhelming super-importance of dogmatic faith; and Innocent III could not even go so far. The two intervening generations had shown that, if it came to St. Bernard's trial of mere persuasion, the heretics were more likely to win than the faithful. Indeed, by the time of Innocent III, as he himself complained, they were already grown to a majority in southern France. St. Bernard, in such a case, would doubtless have decided with Innocent, salus populi suprema lex: here is the field of Armageddon; in this last and desperate conflict, no weapon must be left idle, we must be ruthless to bodies where souls are to be saved. Therefore (to omit intermediate steps) Innocent III, at the Ecumenical Lateran Council of 1215, proclaimed the severest |