position from which such optimism seemed a mere delusion; and these men felt the more bitterly because by publicly disputing this in the schools they would have risked their lives. Partly in this way, and partly through contact with Mohammedans in the Crusades, many common folk had drifted into the position of Voltaire's valet: "I am a poor man, but I believe no more than my betters do."

We have seen how often, up to 1150 and even beyond, the heretic was executed by lynch-law. There can be no doubt that, as a rule, the people did greatly prefer the Church to these new conventicles; but we may doubt very seriously whether society in general, left to itself, would have proceeded to such extremes. The evidence enables us to exonerate a certain number (though by no means all) of the hierarchy; but these lynch stories, as a whole, imply the connivance, if not the active prompting, of the parish clergy. The most that can be drawn from the evidence, as a rule, is that enough men could often be found to lynch the nonconformists, and that the majority let the lynching go on. In short, our medieval evidence points rather to what we know to have happened in the case of the Quakers. Still, there can be no doubt that the heretic of 1020-1120 was at least as unpopular as George Fox and his disciples. It was not necessary for pope or prince to burn heretics; the populace and lower clergy seemed to be doing enough in that way.

A little later the scene changed; and, if pope and prince did not interfere, it was rather the orthodox who suffered than the heretics. The most cultured populations of Western Europeit became more and more clear-were rapidly losing their faith. Even St. Bernard, who scarcely ever failed to magnetise men, could gain no enduring victory over the heretics of Provence. Things went from bad to worse, and here we can rely absolutely upon Innocent III's own correspondence, and on the monk Peter who wrote his chronicle for Innocent's information. Heresy, these tell us, had become endemic in Provence: "almost all the barons had become harbourers and defenders of heretics," and there were "more disciples of Manichæus (sic) than of Christ." The heretics defended themselves against their rebukers by pointing to the notoriously evil lives of the clergy. At this point we may trace in modern apologies a change of tone which implicitly, if not explicitly, confesses a great change of fact. The multitude,

who hitherto had been the heroes of the faith, become now a base and impious mob; therefore, every effort must be made to whitewash the Inquisition by blackening that portion of the French population which had retained the strongest tincture of Roman civilization; and, with these, the no less Romanized north of Italy, and the most civilized parts of Germany. Everything must be done to prove that the Cathari of the south and of Lombardy and of Rhineland were exterminated as enemies to civilized society.

Even if all this black-wash were true, it could not really avail; for, as an enlightened Roman Catholic like Vacandard points out, the Inquisition "made no distinction between those teachings which entailed injury on the family and on society, and those which merely denied certain revealed truths" (p. 159). Any baptized person who pertinaciously opposed any papal bull was amenable to its rigours; so that (for instance) four devoted Franciscans were burned at Marseilles in 1318 for what was, in effect, a refusal to abjure an essential point of St. Francis's teaching in obedience to a new papal decree which flatly contradicted another saint and a previous pope.

But, let us consider on its own merits this plea that the Inquisition was a civilizing force, arrayed against the worst enemies of civilization, and that its failure (as Mr. Maycock writes on p. 99) "would have involved a complete collapse of western Christendom." For this is now the fashionable theory. Though it is built upon certain over-generous admissions of men like Michelet and Lea,* and upon the bitter ex-parte accusations of inquisitors or their friends, and upon ignorance of much that is most significant in the original documents, yet it has, by constant repetition in popular books and magazines, become la dernière nouveauté; and anybody who still prefers to hold by what contemporaries actually wrote and thought from 1100 onwards must resign himself to be condemned as backward or hopelessly prejudiced. The theory is commonly supported by an argument resembling Mr. Belloc's. When we are confronted with what is in fact a purely modern plea, all our protests are brushed aside

*Lord Acton expressly notes that Lea's struggle for impartiality sometimes betrays him into over-indulgence. Michelet, after farther reading, repented of a good deal that he had written in his medieval volumes.

as ignorant anachronisms; we are assured that, if only we knew more of the real Middle Ages, we should believe. Let us, then, take one of the most fashionable and emphatic arguments, and see how it would have been judged in the real Middle Ages.

The heretics had often religious objections to marriage and to flesh-food, but still more frequently to swearing in any form. This heretical objection to oaths "struck at the whole feudal system." So writes Mr. Maycock on p. 46, borrowing from Mr. Nickerson's "Remember that to deny the value of oaths was to attack the all-important feudal oath of allegiance, the one theoretical base of medieval society. Here was an explosive mixture indeed "(56; cf. 42). Let us test this by direct testimony from the days when the crisis was already severe enough to create deep heart-searchings, yet when thoughtful men were still free to speak their minds.

Petrus Cantor (c. 1180), one of the most pious and learned theologians of his time, fears that men are sinning against Christ when they swear, or require oaths, in confirmation of the mere Yea or Nay. He quotes with approval an early disciple, who, in similar circumstances, said "I am a Christian, God forbid that I should swear!" He deplores the multiplication of judicial oaths in Christendom, since, through this practice," we seem to be compelled to transgress God's command." He repudiates the plea of its practical utility, for a true Christian regards not expediency but principle. As a matter of fact, he thinks these judicial oaths are not unconnected with the habit of blasphemous swearing in men's daily talk. Therefore, even though the abstention from oaths may be a counsel of perfection, why not aim at it? Or, why, when a man does keep this counsel of perfection, do we at once denounce him as a Catharist? An excellent comment on these words is supplied by the evidence of an inquisitor who was at work about 1233. A suspect, brought before the tribunal, protested as follows: Hear me, my lords! I am no heretic, for I have a wife, and cohabit with her, and have children; and I eat flesh and lie and swear and am a faithful

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"Verbum Abbreviatum," cc. 80, 127 (Migne, P. L., vol. 205, coll. 241, 322). Mr. Maycock mentions elsewhere that Petrus objected on other grounds to the killing of heretics, but even this he evidently knows only at second-hand.

Christian."* Those last crucial words are omitted by Mr. Maycock (p. 139), simply because he borrows here from De Cauzons, who finds it convenient to break off in the middle of this sentence. Yet these are the real gist of the evidence, when we confront them with the complaints of medieval churchfolk that "modern" men are quite reckless of perjury, and that a small money-pledge is a far more efficacious guarantee than an oath. As Dr. Rashdall pointed out, men were sometimes actually required to take an oath that they would keep their oath.

Feudal lords knew this well enough, and they knew that the heretics were not such anti-social pests as medieval inquisitors and modern apologists, secure from contradiction by the actual victims, love to describe. Many rulers persecuted them, sometimes, no doubt, in their own direct political interest, but always under the far greater temptation of buying clerical support at the cheapest possible price: thus Frederick II was perfectly willing to burn others for clumsily denying what he himself did not believe. But the whole story of the Albigensian Crusade shows that the rulers of the south, who knew the heretics well, had no rooted objection to them as subjects; some, indeed, preferred them to the Catholics. If the Count of Toulouse had lent himself whole-heartedly to their extirpation, and if many barons had not protected the Catharists and actually fought for them, the papal Crusade would never have been proclaimed. Even more significant, perhaps, is the attitude of Philip Augustus, the craftiest statesman of the day. If he had seen these things with modern eyes he would have felt his own crown, and the fidelity of his subjects, to be at stake in this matter. Yet, when Innocent called upon him urgently and repeatedly to draw his sword in God's cause, he declined except on terms which would secure him rich business profits. If he might first practically secure himself against loss, and finally appropriate the fruits of his conquest, then he was willing to proceed, otherwise, he saw no harm in leaving things as they were. And, finally, the papal and conciliar pronouncements bear witness against the modern theory.

*Guillelmi Pelisso, "Chronicon "; ed. Molinier, p. 17.

It was part of his solemn pact in The Golden Bull of 1213, by which he bought the Pope's support, that Frederick should persecute heresy.

So little could the hierarchy count upon a general war against these enemies of all human society, that every fresh statute breathes threatenings and slaughter against princes and magistrates who favour heretics and resist the Church.

Having thus dealt briefly with the origins of the Inquisition, I will attempt to describe in a concluding article, how it was deflected from its original object to the lower plane of witchhunting and political persecution, as exemplified in the suppression of the Templars and the trial of Joan of Arc.

G. G. COULTON

VOL. 245. NO. 500.