A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume IILea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume II
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- History
In 1381 Frère Jacques de More had a more illustrious victim in Hugues
Aubriot. A Burgundian by birth, Aubriot’s energy and ability had won for
him the confidence of the wise King Charles, who had made him Prévôt of
Paris. This office he filled with unprecedented vigor. To him the city
owed the first system of sewerage that had been attempted, as well as
the Bastille, which he built as a bulwark against the English, and he
imposed some limitation on the flourishing industry of the _filles de
vie_. His good government gained him the respect and affection of the
people, but he made a mortal enemy of the University by disregarding
the immunities on the preservation of which, in the previous century, it
had staked its existence. In savage mockery of its wrath, when building
the Petit-Châtelet, he named two foul dungeons after two of the
principal quarters of the University, le Clos Bruneau and la Rue du
Foing, saying that they were intended for the students. Under the strong
rule of Charles V. the University had to digest its wrongs as best it
could, but after his death, in 1380, it eagerly watched its opportunity.
This was not long in coming, nor, in the rivalry between the Dukes of
Berri and Burgundy, was it difficult to enlist the former against
Aubriot as a Burgundian. The rule of the princes, at once feeble and
despotic, invited disorder, and when the people, November 25, 1380, rose
against the Jews, pillaged their houses, and forcibly baptized their
children, Aubriot incurred the implacable enmity of the Church by
forcing a restoration of the infants to their parents. The combination
against him thus became too strong for the court to resist. It yielded,
and on January 21, 1381, he was cited to appear before the bishop and
inquisitor. He disdained to obey the summons, and his excommunication
for contumacy was published in all the churches of Paris. This compelled
obedience, and when he came before the inquisitor, on February 1, he was
at once thrown into the episcopal prison while his trial proceeded. The
charges were most frivolous, except the affair of the Jewish children
and his having released from the Châtelet a prisoner accused of heresy,
placed there by the inquisitor. It was alleged that on one occasion one
of his sergeants had excused himself for delay by saying that he had
waited at church to see God (the elevation of the Host), when Aubriot
angrily rejoined, “Sirrah, know ye not that I have more power to harm
you than God to help;” and again that when some one had told him that
they would see God in a mass celebrated by Silvestre de la Cervelle,
Bishop of Coutances, he replied that God would not permit himself to be
handled by such a man as the bishop. His enemies were so exasperated
that on the strength of this flimsy gossip he was actually condemned to
be burned without the privilege allowed to all heretics of saving
himself by abjuration; but the princes intervened and succeeded in
obtaining this for him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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