The Cathars - Part 4

Inquisition

We hear much about the Spanish Inquisition of the 15th century and its atrocities. Little to nothing is mentioned of the Papal-ordered Inquisition that preceded it in the South of France during the 13th century. A snapshot is presented below.

[QUOTING]

It is an obligation of every good Catholic to reveal any heretic he knows. The officials of the King and the Count of Toulouse are to seek them out and a substantial reward is offered for anyone who reveals a heretic and procures his condemnation. A Council was convened at Toulouse by the Papal legate which formulated forty-five canons for the purging of the country of heresy. These canons codified a whole procedure of search, pursuit and repression, the first outlines of what shortly afterwards became the Inquisition.

The bishops were to appoint a priest and two laymen in each parish who were to take an oath to seek out heretics and their abettors, and for this purpose they were authorized to search houses, barns, cellars, anywhere they had reason to suspect a Cathar might be hiding. Those who gave shelter to a heretic were to have their houses burned and their goods confiscated. Any official who was not considered zealous enough in hunting out heretics was liable to the confiscation of his goods, while any lord on whose territory too many heretics were found was liable to lose his lands. Every man over fourteen and every woman over twelve was to take an oath of fidelity to orthodoxy and swear to seek out and denounce heretics. Those who failed to take this oath or who did not come to communion and confession three times a year were to be treated as suspected of heresy.

No layman was to possess a copy of the Scriptures except a psalter, breviary, and the canonical Hours, and all in Latin. Catharists who were converted voluntarily to Catholicism were obliged to wear a yellow cross sewn on their clothes front and back, to live in a Catholic city, and to lose all civil rights. Those who were converted only after proceedings against them had been taken suffered imprisonment and the confiscation of their goods. Finally, no heretic was to practice as a doctor and persons dangerously ill were to be watched to prevent the approach of anyone who might confer the Consolamentum, and the making of wills was to be witnessed by a priest.

The collaboration of the civil and religious authority was thus organized for searching out and punishing heresy. At first this repression acted intermittently under the ordinary authority of the bishops. But in 1233 Pope Gregory IX made it a permanent and continuous institution and entrusted its exercise to the Dominican Order acting in the name of the Holy See.

"Catharism: The Historical Setting" - The Treasure of Montsegur - Berks, Gilbert

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Yes, that Dominican Order, as in the order founded by "Saint" Dominic to mimic the style of the Cathar parfaits who walked the countryside in poverty and humility. The Dominicans were to also play a major role in the Spanish Inquisition two centuries later.

For Cathar sympathizers and supporters, the penalties were severe. This was the Middle Ages, the high point of feudalism. For the people of that time, their land and personal goods were all that stood between them and poverty. The threat of confiscation was not an idle one. We can only imagine the difficult and heart-wrenching decisions that had to be made by those who were confronted by the Inquisition.

This is a vast and complex subject of great significance that has been buried and suppressed for centuries. Not a single mention is made of this Church-sponsored search-and-destroy mission in any history book from elementary school right through college. Part of the reason is that the Church wants to put their role in this episode of history behind them.

The other, more important reason, is that there is no way that the Vatican wants anyone to remember the Cathars or begin researching them. There is no way that they want this "heresy" and its pure doctrine to re-surface ever, ever again. Thankfully, despite those decades of cruelty, injustice and bloodthirstiness, they failed in their objective.

You can't kill the truth.

~ g
.