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
The Waldenses had great reputation as skilful leeches, and
two men who had called them in for their wives and children were
penanced with the pilgrimages of Puy, St. Gilles, and Compostella. A man
who had seen heretics two or three times, and had already purchased
reconciliation by a gift to a monastery, was sent on a long series of
pilgrimages, embracing both Compostella and Canterbury, besides wearing
the yellow cross for a year. Another was sent to Compostella because he
had once been thrown into company with heretics in a boat, although he
had left them on hearing their heresies; and yet another because, when a
boy, he had spent part of a day and night with heretics. One who had
seen heretics when he was twelve years old was sent to Puy; while a
woman who had seen them in her father’s house was obliged to go to Puy
and St. Gilles. A man who had seen two heretics leaving a place which he
had rented was sent to Compostella, and another who had allowed his
Waldensian mother to visit him and had given her an ell of cloth was
forced to expiate it with pilgrimages to Puy, St. Gilles, and
Compostella.[36] The list might be prolonged almost indefinitely, but
these cases will suffice to show the character of the offence and the
nature of the grace proffered for voluntary confession. There is no
pretence that any of these particular culprits themselves were not
wholly orthodox, but the people were to be taught that the toleration
which had existed for generations was at an end; that the neighborly
intercourse which had established itself between Catholic and Catharan
and Waldensian was in itself a sin; that the heretic was to be tracked
and captured like a wild beast, or at least to be shunned like a leper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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