Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe

VI THE WAY OF POTESTAS: CRUSADE AND CRIMINAL SANCTIONS

VI THE WAY OF POTESTAS: CRUSADE AND CRIMINAL SANCTIONS As early as the eleventh century, heretics, dissidents, and reformers had been physically persecuted and killed, but the first stirrings of violence against dissidents were usually the result of popular resentment. Although Roman law contained severe strictures against heretics and schismatics, it was not consistently known or applied during the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, nor was there a universally used reference work of ecclesiastical law before 1140. A text from Caesarius of Heisterbach's handbook for the teaching of Cistercian novices, the Dialogue on Miracles (no. 36) illustrates popular violence against heretics. Technically, the responsibility for dealing with heresy belonged to bishops, and bishops had always had the right (although they appear rarely to have made use of it) to use the legal procedure known as inquisitio (in this early sense, simply a form of inquest) to discover it. As the texts in chapters II through V above make clear, neither of these methods seemed particularly successful, and until the late twelfth century the Church relied more on warnings, injunctions to prelates and clergy, preaching missions led by Cistercians, and penitential discipline of an irregular character to curb the growth of heresy and dissent. From the late twelfth century on, however, the Church began to turn to the way of potestas, force, at first in those cases where nothing else seemed to work, and later routinely. In 1184, Pope Lucius III issued the decretal Ad Abolendam (above, no. 29), which formally instituted the episcopal inquisition throughout Latin Christendom and condemned heresy in universal terms as contumacy toward ecclesiastical authority. The Fourth Lateran Council in [ 189 1 [ 190] Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe 1215 (above, no. 30) reiterated early statements on the excommunication of heretics, and by the time of the council the legal punishment known as infamy, which entailed severe legal restrictions, was inflicted on heretics, as is reflected in both canon and Roman law. Other firm steps were taken against heretics in general in the last years of the twelfth and first years of the thirteenth century. In 1199 Pope Innocent III issued his decretal Vergentis in senium, which stated that the heretics were to be considered comparable to traitors in Roman law, thus opening up a broad legal avenue for further juridical actions. In 1208 the murder of Innocent's legate, Peter of Castelnau, in Languedoc led to Innocent's launching of a crusade against heretics in southern France, long known as the Albigensian Crusade. At the same time, Innocent developed the doctrine that temporal rulers were obliged to drive heresy from their lands or risk their lands being declared open to Christians who would do so. The invocation of the "secular arm" of temporal society had dramatic results. Between 1220 and 1231 Emperor Frederick II enacted a series of laws for Germany and Sicily (no. 41) that were the harshest temporal laws yet against heretics. The punishments in these decrees ranged from legal incapacitation, exile, confiscation of goods, and disinheritance of offspring to death itself. In 1231 Pope Gregory IX issued the decretal Excommunicamus, which was an extension of Ad Abolendam and inflicted further disabilities on those convicted of heresy or those guilty of supporting or sympathizing with heretics: We excommunicate and anathematize all heretics, Cathars, Patarines, the Poor of Lyons, the Passagians, the Josephites, Arnoldists, Speronists , and others under whatever name they may be included, for although they may have different appearances, they are bound together the same at the tail, since by vanity they take pleasure in this. Those condemned by the Church will be relaxed to the secular arm where they will be punished by the debt of hatred; clerks are to be degraded from their orders first. If any of those mentioned above, after they have been condemned, wish to return to the Church and perform appropriate penance, they are to be perpetually imprisoned. Those who believe in heretical errors we adjudge to the same process. Receivers, defenders, and aiders of heretics we submit to the sentence of excommunication, most firmly decreeing that if afterward such a one is marked for excommunication, the presumption [of heresy] shall not cease, and they shall be by this act itself declared infamous, nor shall they be fit for public office or public advice, nor shall they be elected to any office nor admitted to testimony. They shall be intestate, so that, having no testament, they shall accede to no inheritance. They may not commence any...