The Inquisition : $b a political and military study of its establishmentNickerson, Hoffman
History
The Inquisition : $b a political and military study of its establishment
Nickerson, Hoffman
Albigenses; Christian heresies -- History -- Middle Ages, 600-1500; Inquisition; Prohibition
In 1200 we hear of a Cardinal “John of St. Paul” (meaning probably
that his titular church was the basilica of St. Paul without the
walls at Rome) taking part in the Albigensian mission, but of him
we hear no more. Two years later it appears that Rainier fell sick
and was accordingly relieved from duty as legate. What became of his
companion Guy we are not told; he seems to have sunk in the waters of
oblivion without a splash or even a bubble.
Rainier was replaced by two Cistercian monks from the Cistercian
abbey of Font Froide, near Narbonne. One of the two Cistercians
was named Raoul. The other, the soul of the mission, was Peter de
Castelnau, that famous name of Castelnau whose arms are still seen in
the hall of the knights at Versailles, a name that the Germans will
long have reason to remember, since in the desperate first week of
September, 1914, it was a Castelnau who fended them off at the Grand
Couronné de Nancy, and thus made possible the victory of the Marne.
De Castelnau, with an energy and decision that may well remind us
of the soldier Castelnau of our own generation, made straight for
Toulouse itself. There he harangued the inhabitants, demanding that
their magistrates should swear to keep the Catholic faith and expel
heretics, in return for a papal confirmation of the liberties of the
city (which were set down, no doubt, in a charter much like the old
English charters preserved by Bishop Stubbs). The Toulousains rose to
the bait, took the oaths and then failed to move. The legates talked
in a high tone about angry princes and kings coming upon the city to
pillage and destroy, and effected thereby some show of reform, but
no sooner were their backs turned than the heretical preachers began
their midnight meetings as before.
Incidentally, it is interesting to note that, in a place like
Toulouse in the year 1203, the utmost daring of the heretics was to
hold their preaching services at midnight. It looks as if, in the
large centres, there was still a strong feeling that heresy, after
all, was not “the thing.” It was still under a certain amount of
social ban. The feeling even of these non-persecuting communities
must have looked a little askance at it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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