The Albigensian Heresy

e Church exerted its full strength to destroy. Our task is not a simple one, because, as already stated, there was not one heresy, but many, an

EY

r which the Inquisitor Eymeric in his "Directorium Inquisitorum

al; declaring that these things were not made by God our heavenly Father ... but by a wicked devil, even Satan ... and so they assume t

their own sect, and declare to {31} be the Church of Jesus Christ; the oth

re, and all who hold the Faith they call heretics and deluded, and positively asser

d Baptism performed with material water, also Confirmation and Orders and Extreme Unction a

, another spiritual Baptism, which they call the

in bread, which they call "blessed bread," or "bread of holy prayer," which, holding in their han

ssa), and that such persons are absolved from all their sins without any other satisfaction, asserting that they themselves have over these the same and as great power as had Peter and Paul and the other Apostles ... saying th

spiritual Matrimony between the soul and God, viz. when the heretics themselves, the p

y ever virgin, asserting that He had not a true human body, etc

she was a woman of flesh (carnalem). But they say their sect and order is the Virgin Mary, and that true pen

ction of human bodies, imagining,

er meat nor cheese nor eggs, nor anything which is b

en when they have not been received into their sect and order by imposition of hands, according to their rite, and tha

a man ought never

AD

} Aquitaine Manichees, seducing the people. They denied Baptism and the Cross, and whatever is of sound doctrine. Abstaining from food, they appeared like monks

NCIL OF

st of ambassador {34} to the King of France, and Lisois, all famous for their learning, holiness and generosity, declared that everything in the Old and New Testaments about the Blessed Trinity, although authority supported it by signs and wonders and ancient witnesses, was nonsense; that heaven and earth never had an author, and are eternal; that Jesus Christ was not born of the Virgin Mary, did not suffer for men, was not placed in the sepulchre, and did not rise again from the dead; that there is no washing away of sins in Baptism; that there is no sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ at the consecration by a priest; intercessions of saints, martyrs and confessors are valueless. Arefast, the informer, said he asked wherein then he could rest his hope of salvation; he was invited to submit to their imposition of hands, then he would be pure from all sin, and be filled with the Holy Spirit Who would teach him the depths and true meaning (profunditatem et veram dignitatem) of all the Scriptures without any reserve. He would see visions of Angels who would always help him, and God his Friend (comes) would never let him want for anything.[28] They were like the Epicureans, and did not believe that flagitious pl

that the Council does not call them Manichees or any other name. In fact, with the exception of Ademar, no one for nearly a century identifies the heretics with Manicheism. They are not labelled at the Council of Charroux in A.D. 1028 (or 1031). At the Council of Rheims in A.D. 1049 they are vaguely spoken of as "new heretics who have arisen in France."

ae qui sunt an

solvi restit

3

NCIL OF

a sort of religion, condemn the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, the Baptism of children, the priesthood and other ecclesiastical orders and the compacts of lawful marriage, we expel from t

TER DE

ssed an open letter "to the lords, fathers and masters of the Church of God, the Archbishops of Arles and Embrun" and certain Bishops. As the Abbot died in A.D. 1126(7), and the heresiarch laboured for twenty years in promulgating his teaching, he was contemporary with the Council of Toulou

) can be saved by the baptism of Christ, and another's faith cannot benefit those who can

sacred places for praying were not necessary to Christians, since equally in tavern or church, in mar

ortured and so cruelly put to death was not worthy of adoration, veneration or any other worship, but in rev

in the Sacrament daily and continually offered up in the Church, but d

nd affirm that these things cannot help any of the dead in the smallest degree.[31] Also "they say God is mocked by Chur

God's help as well as by the aid of Catholic princes you have driven out of your territories. But the slippery serpent, gliding out of your territories, or rather driven out by your prosecution, has betaken itself to the Province of Narbonne, and whereas with you it used to whisper in deserts and hamlets in fear, it now preaches boldly in great meetings and cro

NRY OF

d towns and villages, and made it the emblem and inspiration of a life of self-denial, to which his own monastic training would predispose him. So far from calling for the destruction of sacred buildings, he used them, when he obtained {39} permission-as he did from Bishop Hildebert-for his mission preaching. He insisted upon the celibacy of the clergy, but regulated in minute detail the marriage of the laity. In fact, it is not easy to see how his teaching could be called heretical, unless it were his opposition to saint-worship, and doubtless he would have been allowed to move about freely had he not denounced the luxurious lives of the clergy and exposed them to the contempt and insults of the people. Arrested in A.D. 1134 he was condemned for heresy

ALPH

fe, saying that they do not lie or swear at all; on the pretence of abstinence and continence they condemn flesh-food and marriage. They say that it is as great a sin to approach a wife as it is a mother or daughter. They condemn the Old Testament, and receive only some parts of the New. But what is more serious is they preach that there are two authors of Nature (reru

ARD OF C

terly despicable, but you must not deal with them carelessly.... They prohibit marriage, they abstain from food. The Manicheans had Mani for chief and instructor, the Arians Arius, etc. By what name or title do you think you can call these? By none, for their heresy is not of

4

UNCIL

e heresy is, if the title is authentic, directly and officially connected with these people, although Toulouse, and not Albi, is specifically mentioned in the Canon itself. The fourth Canon says: "In the parts of Toulouse a damnable heresy has lately arisen, and like a canker is slowly diffusing itself into the neighbouring localities, and has already infected Gascony[35] and many other provinces. The Bishops and Priests of the Lord in those parts we enjoin to

UNCIL O

ève, at the instance of Gerald, Bishop of Albi. (1) They answered that they rejected the whole of the Old Testament, but accepted "the Gospels, the Epistles of Paul, the seven canonical (Catholic?) Epistles and the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse." (2) They would say nothing about their Creed unless they were forced. (3) As for the Baptism of little children, and whether they were saved, they would say nothing, but would quote from the Gospels and Epistles. (4) Questioned on the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord as to where it was consecrated, through whom they received it, and who received it, and whether the consecration was affected by the good or evil character of him who consecrated, they replied that those who received it worthily were saved, and those who received it unworthily acquired to themselves damnation, and added that it was consecrated by every good man, whether clerical or lay. Further than this they would not answer, maintaining that they ought not to be compelled to answer concerning their Creed. (5) About Matrimony they answered evasively, sheltering themselves behind a quotation from St. Paul's Epistle. (6) With regard to Penance, whether it is efficacious for salvation at the end of life, whether soldiers, mortally wounded, would be saved if they repented at the end, {44} whether each one ought to confess his sins to the priests and ministers of the Church, or to any layman whatever, or of whom St. James spake: "Confess ye your sins one to another," they said it sufficed for the weak to confess to whomsoever they would; and as for soldiers they would say nothing, because St. James says nothing, but only about the sick. Gaucelin inquired whether, in their opinion, contrition of he

endencies. Also, this Council was the most formidable array of the powers that be which the heretics had had to face. Yet no penalties are imposed, much less inflicted upon the guilty. The Council contents itself with a mere Refutation. The most probable explanation is that the people were not overawed by the move of the

EACHING E

s illos ad fidem Christianam converterent," Raymond, Count of Toulouse and Raymond, Count of Castranuovo, and others lending them secular support. This move proved more successful than the Council, and many yielded. Sometimes the Commission would summon or invite the heretics to be more explicit as to their creed, granting them a safe conduct eundi et redeundi. Under these conditions two heresiarchs came forward, called Raymond and Bernard, and produced a certain paper in which they had drawn up the articles of their faith. But they could scarcely speak a word of Latin, and the Court "condescended" to hold the discussion in the vulgar tongue. They answered, "sane et circumspecte, ac si Christiani essent;"

RD LATER

e only with their doctrines, which they professed to draw entirely from the Bible and the authoritative utterances of the Saints (auctoritates sanctorum). Had Alexander III been a Pope of statesmanlike prescience, the Preaching Orders which eventually saved the Church might have been anticipated by some thirty years. These Waldenses had no certain dwelling-place, travelled barefoot, wore woollen clothes only, had no private property, but "had all things in common," they followed naked the naked Christ. The Pope, to whom they gave a book containing the text of the Psalter with notes {48} and several other books of "either Law," approved of their vow of voluntary poverty, but refused them permission to preach, unless the clergy (sacerdotes) asked them. Walter Mapes, an Englishman, afterwards a Franciscan, tells us ("De Nugis" i. 31) that he met the Waldenses in Rome. He c

PAPAL

luding "Cathari, Patarini et ii qui se Humiliati vel Pauperes de Lugduno falso nomine mentiuntur." They wer

LAN DE

"De Fide Catholica contra haereticos sui temporis praesertim Albigenses." The Albigenses, however, are not mentioned by name throughout the work. The second book is entitled, "Contra Waldenses," in which he says: "The Waldenses are so called from their heresiarch, Waldus, who, of his own will (suo spiritu ductus), not sent by God, started a new sect, presuming forsooth to preach without the authority of a Bishop, without the inspiration of God, without learning. They assert that no one should be obeyed but God only (which is ex

thing to our knowledge. Nor does Bonacursus, writing later in the same year, except some gross and preposterous distortion of

the law of Moses was given by the Prince of evil spirits; (3) Docetic views; (4) stating that in "Hoc est corpus meum," "hoc does not refer to the bread which He (our Lord) held in His hands and blessed and brake and distributed to His disciples, but to His Bo

ER DE VA

usalem. The good Christ never assumed real (veram) flesh, and never was in this world, except spiritually in the body of Paul. The heretics imagined a new and invisible earth, and there, according to some, the good Christ was born and crucified. The good God had two wives, Colla and Coliba, and had sons and daughters. Others say there is one Creator who had as sons Christ and the Devil. They say, too, that all the Creators were good, but that all things were corrupted by the daughters spoken of in the Apocalypse. Almost the whole of the Roman Church is a den of thieves, and is "illa meretrix" mentioned in the Apocalypse. On the Sacraments they held views already ascribed by Eymeric to the Manichees, and mentioned by others, "instilling into the ears of the simple this blasphemy, that, had the body of Christ been as large as the Alps, it would long ago have been consumed by the partakers thereof."[43] "Some, denying the resurrection of the flesh, said that our souls were those angelic spirits which, after being thrust out of heaven through the pride of apostasy, left their glorified bodies in the air, and after a seven-times succession in certain terrestrial bod

EINéRI

(A.D. 1254). He distinguishes between Catharist and Waldensian, but his remarks refer primarily to the heretics of Lombardy, although he is careful to poin

first man was made materially from the Holy S

f God in the same way as Christ was,

of Christ, or any created thing,

ce (poenitentia

men enter and leave t

Purgatory is nothing el

for the dead

actions should be given to

Church music and t

rofit nothing, because

t the head of the Church. I

follow them, even if his wife is unw

n be saved out

yman has power to absolve: he can also remit sins by the imposition of hands, and give the Holy Spirit-Public Penance is to be reprobated, especially in the case of women-married persons sin mortally, if they come together without hope of {54} offspring-Holy Orders, Extreme Unction and the tonsure were derided-every one without distinction of sex may preach-Holy Scripture has the same effect in

orezenses and Bognolenses. There were others in Tuscany, the Marquisate of Treves and in Proven?e who

de the world and

ch are of the Devil, and the Churc

riage is alway

o resurrection

in to eat eggs, fl

the secular power to puni

no such thing

s an animal comm

position of hands and the saying of the Lord's Prayer there is no remission of sins if the

es the following {55} doctrines (which

two principles,

holic sense, for the Father is grea

that is in it were cr

ld some Vale

y incarnate in the Virgin Mary, a

hs were the serva

ment, except Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Wisdom, Ec

orld will

Judgement

is in th

ference in their deism. The Waldensian, according to Saccho's classification, knows nothing of Dualism, is sound on the doctrine of the Trinity, and believes both Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God. The Catharist, on the other hand, believes in a good and an evil God, the latter being the Creator of the world of matter, which therefore is itself evil. Hence, whatever perpetuates matter, e.g. marriage, is also evi

INQUI

inst the Waldenses and Albigenses, and he came to the conclusion that while they had some dogmas in common, they had different opinions and were separate sects. According to him the Waldenses and Albigenses had only three opinions in common: (1) All oaths are unlawful; (2) any good man can receive a Confession, but only God can absolve from sin; (3) no obedience is due to the Roman Church. The following opinions he ascribes to the Albigenses, and not to the Waldenses: (1) There are two Gods, good and evil; {57} (2) the Sacraments of the Church of Rome are vain and unprofitable-the Eucharist is merely bread-a man is saved by the imposition of their hands-sins are remitted without Confession and satisfaction-Baptism avails nothing; Baptism by water is of no benefit to children, since they are so far from consenting to it that they weep-the Order of St. James, or Extreme Unction, made by mat

to any punishment (St. Matt, vii.); (2) indulgences are worthless; (3) purgatory exists only in this life, and therefore prayers cannot profit the dead; (4)

rned, simple folk and did not understand the question. Then they contended that to take an oath was a clear violation of Christ's words in St. Matthew v., and therefore a grievous sin; yet according to the Report of the Inquisition of Carcassonne they pleaded that they might swear if by so doing they could escape death themselves or screen others from death by not betraying their friends or revealing the secrets of their sect. Their defence was that they were filled with the Holy Ghost and were doing His work; to injure or cut short that work was to sin the sin against the Holy {59} Ghost, which hath never forgiveness. Thus in a lawsuit a heretic might take the oath, because refusal meant revelation; he would be absolved on confession. But when they were ordered to take the oath, "juro per ista sancta evangelia quod nunquam didici vel credidi aliquid quod sit contra fidem veram quam sancta Romana ecclesia credit et tenet," with uplifted hand and touching the Gospels, i.e. ex animo, they prevaricated. Another instance of this evasiveness was their outward conformity to the established religion. They would attend Church and behave with the utmost decorum; in conversation with a known Catholic their speech was most orthodox and prudent. Although they would not touch a woman, or even sit on the same bench with her, however great the distance

orgiveness of sins. Their Sacraments and those of the Roman Church were equally valid. Peter was the head of the Church after Christ, and the Roman Pontiffs after Peter, and their own "Majors" were under the Pope; if the Roman Church disappeared, they would all become pagans. The chief points on which their "Majors" differed from the Roman Church were Purgatory and Oaths, and the Church would grievously sin if it excommunicated him for not swearing, or for not believing that Purgatory was

tholic who persecuted them; and as a matter of fact, Raymond Issaura acknowledged to the Inquisition of Carcassonne "against the Albigenses," A.D. 1308, that his brother, William, with three others, had waylaid a Beguin who confessed that he had been plotting the capture of Peter and William Autéri, and that they had killed him and thrown his body into a crevasse. And on the question of revenge generally, the theory of its sinfulness was argued differently by Catharists and Waldenses, according to the Book called "Supra Stella."[47] Th

lved, except by consent of both parties, or on some ground which commended itself to the community. They held that Peter Waldo was in the Paradise of God, and they could have no communion with any who denied it. With regard to the Holy Communion they maintained that "the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the Body and Blood of Christ by the sole utterance (prolatio) of the Lord's words,"[49] adding: "We attribute the virtue not to man, but to the words of God;" to which those of Lombardy objected: "Anyone, whether Jew or Gentile, by uttering these words may make (conficiat) the Body and Blood of Christ." They carried their objection {63} further, because the Ultramontane associates of Waldesius "held that no one could baptize who could not make (valet conficere) the Body of Christ;" and as it was agreed that anyone might baptize, it would follow that anyon

while presenting a creed fundamentally Dualistic, either absolute or mitigated, did not at first address {64} themselves to this question of the origin of evil in man, but merely assumed it; but it was not a point that could be shelved. With some variations the solution was at length propounded that the good God had created only a limited number of good spirits,[50] but that the evil god (or Satanael,[51] a fallen angel) introduced to these good spirits a beautiful woman by whom they were seduced from their allegiance to the good God. These fallen spirits the evil god provided with tunics, i.e. bodies of flesh, so that they might forget their fir

II, pp. 273,

v. infr

Migne's "Patrol,

ory," Book I

"Spicilegium,"

called to decide a matter of faith presided over by

A

Ardens, however, preacher of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (d. 1137), s

s dead by A.D. 1121. v.

"Patrol," To

Ibid.,

later (A.D. 1114) Robert of Arbrisselles, summoned by the Bp. Amelius to Toulouse, by hi

Cantica," LXVI (Song

hey were, however, ignorant rustics and dull of understanding.... From this and other plagues of heresy England has certainly been free (immunis), although in other parts of the world so many heresies have sprouted up. There were thirty of them, both men and women, under the leadership of one Gerard, who alone was educated. In nation and language they were Teutons, but they had contrived to bewitch with their sorceries a little woma

e Inquisition of Carcassonne. Trenve?al, Viscount of Albi,

hout authority, cal

orwich; Robert, Bp. of Hereford; and Regin

, and Catholicus, Archbp. of Tuam,

ymen can consecrate: unrighteous laymen lose their power. (4) Consecration of the elements once in the year, without "hoc est corpus meum," but by saying Pater noster seven times. (5) Derided indulgences, purgatory, in

retzer,"

id man should surely die if he ate of the tree, and he

s Radbert used t

retzer,"

D. 1235, in which all heretics are charged with agreeing that "Matrimony makes us debtors to the flesh," which saints must not be (Rom. v

pointed out to him that the Eastern Church did not enforce celibacy on its c

v. p. 6

, the points of controversy would have

v.

s also the opi

Satan-God.