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The medieval Church defined itself as much by its opposition to heresy as by its positive doctrines. From the eleventh century onward, the Church developed increasingly sophisticated systems for identifying, investigating, and suppressing heterodox movements, and the Inquisition — established in the early thirteenth century — became one of the most distinctive and most controversial institutions of the medieval Church. The Cathars of southern France, the Waldensians of the Alpine valleys, the Spiritual Franciscans, and the various other heterodox movements of the period were all major challenges to the institutional Church, and the response of the Church to these challenges was a major feature of the religious history of the High Middle Ages.
This cluster explores heresy and the Inquisition in the High Middle Ages. The articles in the related long-tail pages provide deeper examinations of specific heresies and topics.
R. I. Moore, “The War on Heresy” (2012), is the most ambitious recent synthesis of the medieval persecution of heresy. Malcolm Barber, “The Cathars” (2000), is the standard treatment of the most important single heretical movement. The page below uses both, and adds the inquisitorial records themselves (the registers of the Toulouse Inquisition, the Italian registers edited by Andrea Erba) as primary material.
The Problem of Heresy
The medieval Church defined heresy as the conscious and persistent denial of a truth defined by the Church as essential to Christian faith. The definition was derived from the Roman law of sacrilegium and from the canonical tradition of the early Church, and it was elaborated by the scholastic theologians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The heretic was understood to be a baptized Christian who had knowingly and willfully rejected a truth of faith, and who persisted in his error despite the admonition of the Church.
The medieval Church distinguished heresy from apostasy (the complete rejection of the Christian faith) and from schism (the rejection of the authority of the pope while continuing to hold the basic doctrines of the faith). The three were related, but the medieval treatises on the subject generally treated them as separate offenses, with different canonical consequences.
The medieval approach to heresy was based on the assumption that the heretic was a misled Christian who could be corrected by the truth. The Church was expected to admonish the heretic, to reason with him, and to lead him back to the truth of the faith. The penalties for heresy were graded according to the seriousness of the offense and the cooperation of the heretic: the penitent heretic might be reconciled to the Church and required to perform a penance; the obstinate heretic was subject to excommunication and relinquishment to the secular arm.
The medieval approach to heresy was also based on the assumption that the heretic was a threat to the unity of the Christian community. The heretic was seen as a contagion that could infect the faithful and destroy the unity of the Church. The penalty of excommunication was a spiritual penalty, but the penalty of relinquishment to the secular arm was a physical penalty that could include imprisonment, confiscation of property, and even death. The secular authorities, who had an interest in the preservation of social order, were generally willing to enforce the penalties imposed by the Church.
The Cathar Heresy
The Cathar heresy was the most important heretical movement of the period. The Cathars — also called Albigensians, from the city of Albi in southern France where they were particularly strong — emerged in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, and they flourished in southern France and northern Italy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Cathars were a serious challenge to the institutional Church, and they provoked one of the most brutal and most controversial campaigns of persecution in medieval history.
The Cathar doctrine was based on a dualist cosmology. The Cathars believed that there were two principles in the universe — a good spiritual principle and an evil material principle — and that the material world was the creation of the evil principle. They rejected the Old Testament as the work of the evil principle, they rejected the institution of the Church as the creation of the evil principle, and they rejected the sacraments as the means of salvation in the material world. They believed that salvation was achieved by the liberation of the spirit from the body, and they practiced an ascetic discipline designed to free the spirit from the bonds of matter.
The Cathar movement was organized around a hierarchy of believers and perfects. The believers lived ordinary lives in the world, but they received the consolamentum — the Cathar baptism and the central ritual of the movement — at the hour of death, and they attempted to live according to the Cathar principles in the interval. The perfects — the Cathar clergy — lived an ascetic life of poverty, chastity, and abstinence from animal food, and they devoted themselves to the ministry of the consolamentum and the pastoral care of the believers.
The Cathar movement was particularly strong in the Lombard region of northern Italy and in the Languedoc — the region of southern France centered on Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne, and Béziers. The Languedoc of the twelfth century was a region of high culture, with its own language (Occitan), its own literature (the troubadour tradition), and its own political institutions (the courtly society of the great lords). The Cathar movement found a fertile soil in this region, where the corruption of the clergy and the luxury of the Church had produced a skeptical attitude toward institutional religion.
The response of the Church to the Cathar heresy was multi-faceted. The papal legates were sent to the Languedoc to preach and to convert; the Dominican Order was founded, in part, to combat the Cathar heresy; and the Cistercian monks, especially St. Bernard of Clairvaux, conducted missionary campaigns in the region. But the primary response was the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229), a military campaign proclaimed by Pope Innocent III and led by the northern French lords, with the support of the papacy. The Crusade was marked by brutal episodes — the massacre at Béziers in 1209, in which the Crusaders killed an estimated 7,000 to 20,000 people, men, women, and children, Catholic as well as Cathar — and it effectively destroyed the Cathar movement as a political and social force, even though individual Cathars continued to practice their faith in secret for many years.
The Waldensian Heresy
The Waldensian heresy was another major heretical movement of the period. The Waldensians were founded by Peter Waldo (c. 1140–c. 1218), a wealthy merchant of Lyon who, after a dramatic conversion, gave away his property and began to preach the Gospel in the vernacular. The Waldensians — also called the Poor of Lyon — were inspired by the evangelical example of the apostles, and they practiced a rigorous form of poverty, preaching, and biblical translation.
The Waldensian movement was initially tolerated by the local clergy, and Waldo even received the approval of the archbishop of Lyon for his preaching. But the movement was eventually condemned by the Third Lateran Council in 1179, on the grounds that Waldo and his followers were preaching without authorization from the Church. The Waldensians were forced to choose between recantation and excommunication, and most chose to continue in their beliefs.
The Waldensians survived the persecution of the medieval Church by retreating to the remote valleys of the Alps, where they established communities in the Piedmont region of northern Italy and in the French Alps. The Waldensian communities preserved their distinctive tradition of biblical translation, lay preaching, and evangelical poverty for centuries, and they eventually merged with the Reformed tradition of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century.
The Waldensian movement was less theologically radical than the Cathar movement. The Waldensians did not reject the institution of the Church altogether, and they did not develop a dualist cosmology. Their offense was more practical than doctrinal: they preached without authorization, they translated the Bible into the vernacular, and they practiced a form of evangelical poverty that was a criticism of the wealth of the institutional Church. The Waldensian movement is often seen as a precursor of the Protestant Reformation, and the Waldensian communities in the Alps are among the oldest continuous Protestant communities in the world.
The Founding of the Inquisition
The Inquisition was the institution of the medieval Church dedicated to the investigation and suppression of heresy. The Inquisition was established in the early thirteenth century, in response to the failure of the Albigensian Crusade to eliminate the Cathar heresy and the failure of the episcopal courts to deal effectively with the heretical movements of the period. The Inquisition was staffed by members of the Dominican and Franciscan orders, who had the theological training to identify doctrinal errors and the pastoral skills to win back the erring.
The papal Inquisition was established by Pope Gregory IX in 1231, with the bull Excommunicamus. The bull delegated the investigation of heresy to the Dominican and Franciscan friars, who were granted special powers to inquire, to arrest, to try, and to punish heretics. The medieval Inquisition developed a sophisticated legal procedure, with formal charges, defense counsel, and opportunities for confession and reconciliation. The penalty for unrepentant heretics was excommunication and relinquishment to the secular arm — a formula that allowed the inquisitors to deny responsibility for the death penalty that the secular authorities might impose.
The medieval Inquisition was not a single institution but a collection of inquisitorial tribunals operating in different regions of Christendom. The Inquisition in southern France, staffed by Dominicans and based in Toulouse, was particularly active in the suppression of Cathar and Waldensian heresy. The Inquisition in northern Italy, staffed by Dominicans and based in Milan, was active in the suppression of Cathar and Waldensian heresy in the Lombard region. The Inquisition in Spain, established in 1478 and known as the Spanish Inquisition, was a royal institution that would later be infamous for its persecution of conversos (Jews who had converted to Christianity) and Moriscos (Muslims who had converted to Christianity).
The Inquisition produced extensive records — the inquisitorial registers, the sentences, the confessions — that are major sources for the social and religious history of the period. The records of the Toulouse Inquisition, edited by Jean Duvernoy and others, are a major source for the history of the Cathar movement. The records of the Italian Inquisition, edited by Andrea Erba and others, are major sources for the history of the medieval heresies in northern Italy.
The Persistence of Heresy
The persistence of heresy in the medieval Church was a constant reminder of the limits of institutional persecution. Despite the Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition, the Cathar movement continued to survive in secret for many years after the crusade. Despite the persecution of the Waldensians, the Waldensian communities continued to exist in the Alps and to attract new adherents. Despite the suppression of the Spiritual Franciscans, the mystical and evangelical traditions of the Franciscan movement continued to inspire the laity and the clergy.
The Lollard movement in England, founded by John Wycliffe (c. 1328–1384) and his followers in the late fourteenth century, was a parallel movement to the Waldensian and Hussite traditions. The Lollards rejected the transubstantiation of the Mass, the auricular confession of sins, the veneration of saints and relics, and the papal claims to supremacy. The Lollard movement was suppressed by the English crown and the English Church, but the Lollard tradition continued to influence the religious life of England down to the Protestant Reformation.
The Hussite movement in Bohemia, founded by Jan Hus (c. 1372–1415) and his followers in the early fifteenth century, was another major heretical movement. The Hussites were inspired by the writings of John Wycliffe, and they advocated for the reform of the Church, the use of the vernacular in the liturgy, and the reception of the Eucharist under both kinds (bread and wine) for the laity. The Hussite wars of the early fifteenth century were a major conflict that eventually led to the compromise of the Council of Basel and the establishment of the Utraquist Church in Bohemia.
Sources
Principal sources used in this article:
- R. I. Moore, The War on Heresy (Profile, 2012).
Further reading:
- Malcolm Barber, The Cathars (Longman, 2000).
For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).