Heresy
Heresy
What is Heresy? Heresy is a series of religious beliefs and practices that the established (orthodox) Church deems false, and heretics are the people who support these unorthodox beliefs and practices. Heresy is therefore a firm commitment of the will and not just belief. As these definitions suggest, defining heresy is always subjective. What is heresy to one group of believers may be orthodoxy to another, and people who are labeled heretics can establish orthodoxies of their own and call others heretics. In medieval Christendom defining a heretic was ostensibly simple because everyone—except small enclaves of
Jews or Muslims—was Christian as defined by the one Christian Church. Even within Christianity, however, there were differences between Eastern and Western Christianity and the definition of orthodox Christianity and its appropriate practices was still evolving during the Middle Ages. For this reason, what was considered heretical also changed with time. By the twelfth century—as orthodoxy was becoming more clearly defined—the strongest and most widespread heretical movements of the medieval period emerged in Europe. Many of these movements had similar characteristics: an urge to flee from worldly concerns, a stress on purity, and a revulsion for material objects, human flesh, and human desires. Many of them also condemned the medieval clergy for insufficient care of lay pastoral needs.
Early Christian Heresies and Medieval Christianity. Medieval theologians tended to write about heresies in light of standard classifications handed down from the early Christian centuries. From the first century of Christianity there had been disagreements about the nature of the Trinity, the nature of Jesus, the nature of the Christian Church, and a wide variety of collateral topics. Often medieval churchmen cited classical heresies such as Donatism, Nestorianism, and Pelagianism when condemning challenges to contemporary orthodoxy. Among the most enduring classical heresies were Arianism and Gnosticism. Arians opposed the idea of the Trinity, arguing that it was impossible for God the Son (Christ) to be at the same level as God the Father; thus, they asserted, Christ was a man just like other men. Arianism appealed to the “common sense” of many Christians, especially given the patriarchal nature of classical society and the Germanic tribes into which Christianity spread. Gnosticism was the idea that the world and all physical things in it are corrupt and that salvation, therefore, is purely internal. The Gnostics believed that the goal of a true Christian should be to reject all things of this world, which is at best a battleground between the forces of good (God) and evil (Satan). Gnosticism and Manichaeism, to which it was closely related, flourished in various forms throughout the Middle Ages, one of the most dramatic was found in southern France during the early thirteenth century.
Cathars. Although there were also heretical movements during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, in the twelfth century organized heretical movements seemed to sprout throughout Europe. One of the most influential and dramatic appeared in southern France during the late twelfth century: the Cathars, also known as the Albigen-sians. There were various Cathar strongholds in medieval Europe—northern Italy and southern France around the city of Albi in particular—and each group had some common beliefs. The Cathars believed in two universal principles (dualism): good, which was equated with God and the spirit, and evil, which was linked to Satan and this world. In this schema all natural phenomena, from germination to earthquakes, are caused by the Devil, who governs this world, which is also the only hell human souls will ever know. For orthodox Christianity evil is the absences of good, and dualists seemed to set up the Devil as nearly a second god. For Cathars the goal of man was to free his spirit from everything of this world, including the prison of human flesh, and attain communion with God. In order to achieve this goal, celibacy was considered best, but for those who found themselves unable to give up the pleasures
A MANUAL FOR INQUISITORS
Carcasonnc was one of the strongholds of the Cathar heresy, and the city suffered greatly during the Albi-gensian Crusade. The following excerpt from a Dominican manual used by inquisitors there in 1248–1249 gives the methods that should be employed when questioning individuals suspected of heresy.
Thereafter, the person is diligently questioned about whether he saw a heretic or Waldcnsian, where and when, how often and with whom, about others who were present; whether he listed to their preaching or exhortation and whether he gave them lodging or arranged shelter for them; whether he conducted them from place to place or otherwise consorted with them or arranged for them to be guided or escorted; whether he ate or drank with them or ate bread blessed by them; whether he gave or sent anything to them; whether he acted as their financial agent or messenger or assistant; whether he held any deposit or anything else of theirs; whether he received the Peace from their book, mouth, shoulder, or elbow; whether he adored a heretic or bowed hit. head or genuflected and said “Bless us” before heretics or whether he was present at their baptisms or confessions; whether he was present at a Walden-sian Lord’s Supper, confessed his sins to them, accepted penance or learned anything from them; whether he was otherwise on familiar terms with or associated with heretics or Waldenscs in any way; whether he made an agreement, heeded requests, or received gifts in return for not telling the truth about himself or others; whether lie advised or persuaded anyone or cause anyone to be persuaded to do any of the foregoing; whether lie knows any other man or woman to have done any of the foregoing; whether he believed in the heretics or their errors.
Finally, after that which he has confessed about himself or testified about other persons on all of these matters—and sometimes on others about which he was questioned, but not without good reason—has been written down, in the presence of one or both of us [the inquisitors], with ;it least two other persons qualified for careful discharge of this ras.k associated with us, he verifies everything which he caused to be recorded. In this way we authenticate the records of the Inquisition as to confessions and depositions, whether they arc prepared by the notary or by another scribe.
And when a region is widely infected we make general inquisition of all persons in the manner just described, entering the names of all of them in the record, even of those who insist that they know nothing about others and have themselves committed no crime, so that if they have lied or if subsequently they commit an offense, as is often found true of a number of persons, it is on record that they have abjured and have been interrogated in detail.
Source; Edward Peters, ed,, Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe (Philadelphia: University of Peftnsylvtma Press, 1980), pp 200–201.
of the flesh, concubinage was preferable to marriage because having a mistress was impermanent. The Cathars also commended abstention from all animal food, except fish. Cathars leaders, called perfecti, traveled the countryside in groups of two or three preaching Cathar doctrines and following—with varying degrees of success—Cathar behavioral standards, including celibacy. The highest good a Cathar could obtain on this earth was the endura, a ritual fast in which a person starved him- or herself to death, thereby showing complete rejection of worldly concerns. Although Cathar doctrines were heretical, most people did not consider them truly dangerous until the Cathars were linked to movements for political independence by southern French nobles. For this reason, when Pope Innocent III called for a crusade against them in 1207-1208 he found ready allies among impoverished northern French nobles. This Albigensian Crusade, which began in 1209, was notoriously bloody. Although the well-known saying of “Slay them all; God will know his own,” which was attributed to crusaders at the siege of Beziers, is apocryphal, there were incidents of massacres involving six thousand people, including women and children. Despite the viciousness of the Albigensian Crusade and the establishment of inquisitorial Church courts in southern France to root out and punish the remaining heretics, Cathars continued to be a strong minority in this region throughout the Middle Ages.
Waldensians. Waldensianism was less a system of belief than a way of life that stressed apostolic poverty and the ministry. Early Waldensians were known for their personal simplicity and poverty, their care for the unfortunate, and their preaching (generally unauthorized). Because of their rejection of many aspects of the institutional Church, including its wealth and worldly possessions, they have often been confused with the Cathars, who were more distinctly dualist than the Waldensians. The Waldensians’ roots can be found in the life of Valdes, a rich businessman in Lyons, France, who in the mid 1170s gave up his family and—after assuring that his wife and children had places in monasteries—donated all his wealth to the poor. Admired by the general population for his exceptional sacrifices and holiness and mistrusted by the clergy because of his rejection of Church control over preaching and the sacraments, Valdes soon attracted a group of followers. Thus far, Valdes’s career sounds much like that of St. Francis, but there were some fundamental differences. Waldensian leaders argued that the vernacular scripture, rather than the Latin version used by the Church, should be the foundation text for all Christians. They also called for the elimination of key aspects of medieval piety such as religious images, pilgrimages, and the belief in purgatory. In this sense, they challenged foundations of medieval Christianity and the right of the Church to legislate for all Christians. For this reason, the Church attempted to curtail Valdes’s
MARGUERITE PORETE
Marguerite Porete exemplifies the learning and personal spirituality that was possible in some Beguine communities. Her book Mirror of Simple Souls is proof of her extensive scriptural knowledge and her familiarity with the work of thinkers such as Bernard of Clairvaux. Her fate and that of her book also reveal the tensions within medieval Christianity. Though the Church feared women who stepped beyond the bounds of traditional piety, at least some of the mysticism in her book found popular acceptance. As Malcolm Lambert has explained, around 1306–1308,
Marguerite Porete of Hainault, one of whose books had already been burnt by the bishop of Cambrai, was arrested for spreading heresy “among simple people and beghards” through another book, and was sent to Paris. There she refused to respond to interrogation, and was convicted of heresy on the strength of some extracts taken from this book, submitted for judgement to a commission of theologians. Her earlier conviction meant that she was guilty of relapse, and she was burnt in Paris in 1310.
The charge was again heretical mysticism, but in this instance we have the heretic’s own work with which to check the veracity of the accusations made against her. By chance, the treatise which caused her conviction and burning, the Mirror of Simple Souls, survived, to circulate anonymously in monasteries and nunneries, in the original and in translation, from the fourteenth century to the present. So little obvious was the heresy in it that hardly any of its readers over the centuries questioned its orthodoxy….
Marguerite was aware of the dangers … and remarked that “simple minds might misunderstand them at their peril.” She was treating of esoteric matters, and it was not a book for the many, although obviously designed for reading aloud in the vernacular. Two factors seem to have weighed in her condemnation: her pertinacy, shown in the repeated dissemination of her views and her refusal to respond to interrogation, and the alleged publicity given to the Mirror among simple people. What might have been possible in an established nunnery, without publicity, appeared not to be allowed to a beguine who wanted to propagate her work. Her views were not fairly represented.
Source: Malcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, second edition (Oxford, U.K. & Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 184–185.
preaching, and by 1184, after Valdes’s death, Waldensian-ism had been declared heretical. Compared to Catharism, however, Waldensian doctrines were closer to the primary doctrines of Christianity. The Waldensians outlasted the thirteenth-century persecutions, mainly in remote parts of Europe and in the lower social classes.
Combating Heresy: Dominicans and Education. The Dominican Order of friars was founded in response to the Albigensian heresy and had a key role in combating the heretical movements of the thirteenth century. In 1206 Dominic Guzman (1170–1221) joined a papal mission against the Albigensians and entered into discussions with their leaders. Near the end of the Albigensian Crusade, around 1215, Dominic founded a religious community with a mission to study in order to preach and teach. In fact, preaching is so central to the Dominican Order that its proper name is the “Order of Preachers.” Dominic and his follows traveled throughout Italy, Spain, and France as well as visiting major cities in other parts of Europe. Because of their emphasis on preaching, Dominicans had to be ordained clergymen and generally had years of university education. Although they took vows of poverty, it was never as central an issue for them as it was for the other great mendicant order: the Franciscans. For the same reason Dominicans put far less emphasis on living a cloistered, or enclosed, life than most medieval son Dominicans and Dominican theology had a strong influence at European universities, and some of the greatest thinkers of medieval Europe were Dominicans, including St. Thomas Aquinas.
Combating Heresy: The Medieval Inquisition. The Dominicans’ emphasis on education, particularly in canon law, made them naturals to staff the new courts that were developed to deal with heretics, and their prevalence in these courts gave them the nickname “hounds of the Lord,” based on a Latin pun on their name: Domini (of the Lord), Canes (hound). The courts they staffed are the most misunderstood institutions in the medieval Church: the Inquisition. Even calling these courts “the” Inquisition is a misnomer because there was no single Inquisition supervised by Rome. Instead, the Inquisition of medieval Europe was a series of courts, staffed by papal delegates, and the name refers to a particular method of legal inquiry, thus the term inquisition used in secular and ecclesiastical courts. There was nothing particularly diabolical about it by medieval standards. In fact, in many cases the medieval inquisitorial courts were more lenient and fair by modern standards than many secular courts. Yet, inquisitorial courts had common procedures that might be surprising. Inquisitors were generally free from episcopal control, and they could proceed against a suspected heretic even if he or she had not been formally accused. According to James B. Given, people called before the inquisitors were forced to testify against themselves or face prosecution for contumacy (contempt of court) or perjury. All court sessions were held in secrecy, and the accused were usually denied legal representation. Moreover, they were rarely told the names of people who testified against them, and inquisitors accepted depositions from people whom canon law barred from testifying—including children, convicted criminals, accomplices, and heretics. Among the best-known medieval inquisitors is Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Palmiers, who conducted an extensive campaign against the Cathars of his region from 1318 to 1325. Some of the books recording the testimonies of witnesses and the accused have survived and are valuable sources of information about Catharism and medieval inquisitorial courts.
The Movement of the Free Spirit. Although Catharism and Waldensianism are probably the best-known medieval heresies, they are not the only ones that spread hundreds of miles. Beginning in the late thirteenth century and throughout the fourteenth, a powerful heretical movement emerged in western Germany (the Rhineland) and in the Low Countries. This movement, known as the heresy of the Free Spirit, stressed the believers’ freedom from not just the institutional Church but from all religious authorities. Basing their argument on the writings of St. Paul, members of the Free Spirit stated that all morally just people were “sons of God.” For this reason, they did not need the sacraments of the Christian Church, including baptism and the eucharist; they had truly free spirits. All who followed this movement believed that everyone in the community of the Free Spirit was morally just and everyone outside the community was not. Because they rejected the sacramental structure of the Church, but especially because they saw themselves as free to make independent moral decisions without the guidelines of the established Church, the Free Spirits were accused of heresy for denying God’s moral laws.
Women and Heresy: The Beguines. Although the medieval Church offered women outlets for their piety—they could become nuns and practice the same sacraments as most men—the Church was influenced by the patriarchal society of which it was a part. In general, female spirituality was more suspect than men’s and fewer opportunities for social and intellectual advancement were open to church-women than to churchmen. Given this situation, it is probably not surprising that many heretical movements found a disproportionate share of their support among women. One of the best-known heresies emerged within communities of Beghards (men) and Beguines (women). The Beghards and Beguines were lay people who did not want to join religious orders but who wished to live a life following basic scriptural tenets and Christian ideals, such as poverty and chastity. They found strong support in the Low Countries, and many towns in modern Belgium and Holland still have buildings that were used by this movement. The Beguines, in particular, faced strong legal obstacles. In medieval society it was rare for a woman to be legally independent; generally, she went from the legal authority of her father to that of her husband and eventually her son. If a woman wanted to be a Beguine, people asked, who would supervise her? The religious orders, such as the Benedictines, were suspicious of Beguines because they were not responsible to canon law or any Rule authorized by a bishop or Pope. Moreover, in regions such as Germany and Holland, Beghards actually preached, and Beguines ministered to the poor and sick and published religious treatises. All these activities were traditionally clerical responsibilities and sources of income for the clergy. Because of their ambiguous legal position and their challenge to the social structures and gender roles of late medieval society, by the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries prosecution of Beguines and Beghards was widespread, and they ended as an organized movement by 1400.
Sources
Malcolm Barber, The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages (Harlow, U.K. & New York: Longman, 2000).
James B. Given, Inquisition and Medieval Society: Power, Discipline, and Resistance in Languedoc (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997).
Malcolm Lambert, The Cathars (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1998).
Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, second edition (Oxford, U.K. & Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1998).