Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 6 and 7 (of 7): The Catholic ReactionSymonds, John Addington
History
Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 6 and 7 (of 7): The Catholic Reaction
Symonds, John Addington
Catholic Church -- Italy -- History; Renaissance -- Italy
In spite of opposition, the Papal institution took root and flourished.
Philip Augustus responded to the appeals of Innocent; and a crusade
began against the Albigenses, in which Simon de Montfort won his
sinister celebrity. During those bloody wars the Inquisition developed
itself as a force of formidable expansive energy. Material assistance to
the cause was rendered by a Spanish monk of the Augustine order, who
settled in Provence on his way back from Rome in 1206. Domenigo de
Guzman, known to universal history as S. Dominic, organized a new
militia for the service of the orthodox Church between the years 1215
and 1219. His order, called the Order of the Preachers, was originally
designed to repress heresy and confirm the faith by diffusing Catholic
doctrine and maintaining the creed in its purity. It consisted of three
sections: the Preaching Friars; nuns living in conventual retreat; and
laymen, entitled the Third Order of Penitence or the Militia of Christ,
who in after years were merged with the congregation of S. Peter Martyr,
and corresponded to the familiars of the Inquisition. Since the
Dominicans were established in the heat and passion of a crusade against
heresy, by a rigid Spaniard who employed his energies in persecuting
misbelievers, they assumed at the outset a belligerent and inquisitorial
attitude. Yet it is not strictly accurate to represent S. Dominic
himself as the first Grand Inquisitor. The Papacy proceeded with caution
in its design of forming a tribunal dependent on the Holy See and
independent of the bishops. Papal Legates with plenipotentiary authority
were sent to Languedoc, and decrees were issued against the heretics, in
which the Inquisition was rather implied than directly named; nor can I
find that S. Dominic, though he continued to be the soul of the new
institution until his death in 1221, obtained the title of Inquisitor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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