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
He proved a mine of information well worth the repeated interrogatories
which extended from May 29 to July 10, for he had been a member of the
sect for twenty-five years and a wandering missionary for fifteen, and
was familiar with all the congregations, which appear to have been
numerous, some in the neighborhood of Turin, but mostly in the lower
Alpine valleys between Pignerol and Susa. Though he repeatedly alludes
to the sectaries as Vaudois, they had no affinity with the Waldenses,
and it is observable that he makes no reference to their existence in
any of the distinctive Waldensian valleys, such as Angrogna, Perosa, or
San Martino. They were mostly poor folk--peasants, servants, muleteers,
innkeepers, mechanics, and artisans, and the chiefs of their
“synagogues” were generally of this class, although occasionally a
clerk, a canon, a notary, or other educated person is enumerated among
the members. What were their precise distinctive tenets it is not easy
to define with accuracy. Galosna’s rough handling had evidently rendered
him eager to satisfy the credulity of his examiners, and the imaginative
character of some of his revelations casts a doubt on the truthfulness
of them all. The applicant for initiation had to drink a beverage, foul
of aspect, made with the excrement of a toad kept for the purpose;
taken in excess it was apt to prove fatal, and its power was such that
whoso once partook of it could never thereafter abandon the sect.
Martino del Prete, the chief heresiarch, had a black cat as large as a
lamb, which he declared to be the best friend he had on earth. We may
safely set down the accounts of the sexual abominations which succeeded
religious services in the conventicles, when the lights were
extinguished, as worthy of equal credence. Contradictions in the
repeated statements of the doctrines taught show that Galosna’s
imagination served him better than his memory in his prolonged
examinations. He was told that in joining the sect he would secure
salvation in glory with God the Father, and yet he declares that the
sect rejected immortality, and held that the soul died with the
body--and again, that there was no purgatory, but only heaven and hell
hereafter. They believed, moreover, in God the Father who created the
heavens, but they worshipped the Great Dragon, the creator of the world,
who fought God and the angels, and was more powerful than he on earth.
Christ was not the Son of God, but of Joseph, and was worthy of no
special reverence. Altogether the account is hopelessly confused, but we
can discern the dualism of a bastard Catharism, and allusions are made
to the _consolamentum_ and the sacrament of bread. Like Jacopo Bech,
Galosna had already abjured in the hands of Frà Tommaso da Casacho. Both
were therefore relapsed; there was no mercy for them, and on September
5, 1388, they were abandoned to the secular arm in Turin and necessarily
burned. Unfortunately the record ends here, and we have no details as to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account