A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume ILea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume I
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- History
whom the world now regards as tares may be garnered by him as wheat when
comes the harvest-time. Those whom we deem the adversaries of God he
may make superior to us in heaven." Wazo, indeed, had heard that
heretics were commonly detected by their pallor, and, under the delusion
that those who were pale must necessarily be heretics, many good
Catholics had been slain. By the year 1052 the heresy had extended to
Germany, where the pious emperor, Henry the Black, caused a number to be
hanged at Goslar. During the rest of the century we hear little more of
them, though traces of them occur at Toulouse in 1056 and Béziers in
1062, and about the year 1200 they are described as infecting the whole
diocese of Agen.[82]
In the twelfth century the evil continued unabated in northern France.
Count John of Soissons was noted as a protector of heretics, but, in
spite of his favor, Lisiard, the bishop, captured several, and gave the
first example of what subsequently became common enough--the use of the
ordeal to determine heretical guilt. One, at least, of the accused,
floated when thrown into exorcised water, and the bishop, not knowing
what to do with them, held them in prison while he went to the Council
of Beauvais, in 1114, to consult his episcopal brethren. The populace,
however, felt no doubts on the subject, and, fearing that they would be
deprived of their prey, broke open the jail and burned them during the
bishop's absence--a manifestation of holy zeal which greatly pleased the
pious chronicler. About the same time Flanders was the scene of another
discovery of Catharism. The heresiarch, on being summoned before the
Bishop of Cambrai, made no secret of his crime; he was stubborn, and
was shut up in a hut, which was fired, and he died in prayer. The people
must, in this case, have been rather favorably inclined to him, for they
allowed his friends to collect his remains, and he was found to have
many followers, especially among the craft of weavers. When, about the
same period, we see Paschal II. advising the Bishop of Constance that
converted heretics were to be welcomed back, we may conclude that error
had penetrated even into Switzerland.[83]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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