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H. B. Cotterill
Medieval Italy

CHAPTER I
RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS

Much has already been said about what, for want of a more accurate name, is generally called religion, many phases and influences of which we have noted interweaving themselves in the intricate web of medieval Italian history. Without attempting to disentangle the threads and to follow up their connexions further than has been done in the narrative, I shall here note some of the more striking developments of religious sentiment in the thirteenth century.

During the age of the Great Heresies, when men damned and massacred their fellow-men on account of some futile formula that claimed to define the incomprehensible, there were of course large sections of the Christian Church which scornfully rejected Rome as the one repository of orthodoxy; and also amidst those who rather arrogantly called themselves 'Catholics' we find many — and among them even Emperors and Patriarchs — vigorously contesting the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Roman pontiff.

After the triumph of Roman Catholicism in Western Christendom, heresy — that is, doctrinal dissent from Rome — had to hide its head for some centuries: but ere long we begin to hear of an ever-increasing indignation and hostility caused by the growth of the temporal power and the insatiable ambition of the Pope. This hostility was not of the nature of heresy; it was due to political motives, not to doctrinal differences; indeed, it was often strangely combined with deep reverence for the Pope, though a hated political adversary. Thus, even as late as the fourteenth century, Dante laments bitterly the maltreatment and death of his great foe, Boniface VIII, speaking of the outrage as it he saw 'Christ in his Vicar captured, derided, offered vinegar and gall, and slain among robbers.' And still stranger than this combination of reverence and rancour was what in many cases seems to have been a total eclipse of the moral sense — a total incapacity to realize, even in the case of a detested political enemy, that a greed for worldly power, to say nothing of hideous vice and crime, was incompatible with the possession and the transmission of apostolic gifts and with the claims of a Pope to be the Vicar on earth of the holy and gentle Founder of Christianity.

But although this strange superstitious feeling in regard to the Papacy proved long ineradicable, the state of things was being profoundly, if gradually, affected by the rise of republican liberty and by the illumination shed from such centres of learning as the Universities of Bologna, Salerno, and Paris.1 The Dark Age of superstition, in which men had paid reverence (as indeed some still do) to traditional religious authority irrespectively of all questions of morality, was giving way to the light of reason and a truer understanding of Christ's teaching; Christendom was developing a moral sense; and when the Roman Church began to stain her hands with the blood of those who refused her doctrinal guidance the hostility to the Papacy ceased to be only political; it became inspired by moral indignation. 'The noblest feelings of humanity,' says Gregorovius, 'revolted against the hideous enormities perpetrated in the name of Christ's religion and were deeply moved by sympathy with those who suffered in the heroic defence of the liberty of conscience.' Green too, who gives a scathing account of the state of the Anglican Church and its exploitation by Rome at this period, tells us that 'the old reverence for the Papacy now faded away into universal resentment.' But such words would be far too feeble to express the state of feeling in Italy after Pope Innocent's crusade against the Albigenses.

The degradation of the spiritual on its contact with matter is intimated to us in vivid allegory by all great poets and philosophers. Of such degradation the most striking illustration in the history of humanity is offered by the contrast between the life and teaching of Christ and the so‑called Christianity of later days. But in human nature glows inextinguishable a particle of divine fire — or somewhat that like a mirror catches gleams of celestial light — and amidst all the grotesque masquerade and gruesome phantasmagoria of world and flesh and devil that pass before us when we read the chronicles of the medieval Church of Rome we detect here and there amid the endless and tumultuous procession a few human faces, as it were, aglow with earnest belief in Christ's own Gospel of unworldliness and purity and self-denying love. Doubtless many of those who had the courage to act as well as to feel were misled by enthusiasm and exaggeration into dangerous paths, and a gross degradation of their sublimest teachings frequently ensued. But that was inevitable.

That the shameless licentiousness and greed of the clerics and the papal court, as well as other crying abuses, aroused indignation in a certain section of the Church even in early days is evident from many signs. One of the first general protests against these abuses was formulated by the members of the French Abbey of Cluny, founded by Fra Berno in 910. This attempt at internal reform was at first directed solely against the evil lives of the clerics, especially the degraded Benedictine monks, and although it perhaps unwisely adopted clerical celibacy as one of its main principles its influence doubtless effected much good not only in the provinces but also at Rome, where Odo, the disciple of Berno, was favoured by the republican leader Alberich and was allowed to reform various Roman monasteries. Unfortunately (as in the case of the later Franciscan Order) the Popes, perceiving the popularity of this movement towards reform, captured Cluny, so to speak, and used the Cluny reformers as their emissaries for propagating the doctrines of the spiritual supremacy and the temporal power of the Papacy. Thus the monk Hildebrand, later (1073) Pope Gregory VII, the great adversary of the Emperor IV, was a Cluny monk; and the moral enthusiasm that inspired the first founders of Cluny degenerated into sectarian and party virulence, as is seen in the case of the famous reviver of ascetic monasticism, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who, though himself a sincere reformer of moral abuses opposed fanatically all reasonable and Scriptural teachings and not only gave his voice in favour of the feeble Innocent II against the Cluny Pope, Anacletus, but fiercely persecuted both Abelard, the philosophic reformer of Paris and his disciple, the ill-fated Arnold of Brescia who was hung and burnt at Rome by the English Pope Hadrian.

A striking evidence of the yearning that existed among the clerics themselves and among the people at large for a return to the simplicity and spirituality of early Christianity is the enormous popularity attained by various books advocating an unworldly and Christlike life and prophesying the advent of an era of peace and brotherhood. The De Imitatione, or perhaps the original on which in the fifteenth century Thomas à Kempis founded his book, is believed by Renan and a few others to date from this epoch (c. 1200). Another such book, more certainly of this period, was the Evangelium eternum of a Calabrian monk, Joachin. It contained commentaries of the Apocalypse and other parts of the Bible, in which the writer attempted to harmonize the Old and the New Testaments and cited Scripture to prove the near advent (in the year 1260) of the reign of the Spirit.

Contemporaneous with these attempts at internal reform were various movements of a less orthodox nature. There was a sect of Bulgarian Christians who called themselves Catharoi, i.e. Purists or Puritans. They seem to have combined customs such as those of the Essenes with an Oriental, or Manichaean, belief in two active principles, a Spirit of Good and a Spirit of Evil, such as the Power of Light and the Power of Darkness — the Ormuzd and Ahriman — of the Zoroastrians.2 Some such doctrines as these, together with a zealous advocacy of purity, unworldliness, and poverty, were introduced into Provence and Central France, and were received enthusiastically by many, especially by the Albigeois, the inhabitants and neighbours of Albi, a town of the Tarn. These Albigeois or Albigenses would probably have remained unmolested had they merely preached and practise the spiritual life, even if their theories on the subject of the Power of Darkness were tainted with heterodoxy; but, logically if unwisely, they declared war against the corruption and luxury of the Roman clergy and the papal court, and thus, as we shall see, brought on themselves annihilation.

Another sect was founded at Lyon by Peter Wald (Valdes). These Waldenses, or les pauvres de Lyon, were, from the orthodox standpoint, more virulent heretics than even the Albigenses, for they denied that the Roman Church was in any true sense the Church of Christ, and they appealed, as later reformers did, from the authority of the Pope and of tradition to that of the Bible. Moreover, like later dissenters, they rejected apostolic succession, and some of them entrusted to lay congregations the election of pastors.

In Italy itself doctrinal heresy — that is, the rejection of Roman infallibility in doctrinal matters — for a time made but little progress, but there was a strong and extensive movement against the temporal power of the Church (not only among its political opponents) and in favour of drastic reform in regard to the luxury and immorality of the ecclesiastics — unworldliness and even poverty being applauded as the only means by which the Church could regain its spiritual influence.

Of this movement an interesting example is afforded by the Pataria ('ragged Canaille') of Milan. The Patarini, or Paterini, like the Gueux of later days in the Netherlands, adopted with pride the term of contempt. At first, during the stormy period that followed the death of Archbishop Aribert in 1045, the Pataria was the popular, anti-imperial party in Milan, at feud with the nobles and the superior clergy, and for this reason (but for no other) hostile also to the independence of the Ambrosian Church, which the Milanese prelates and aristocracy favoured. Thus we have one of the perplexing combinations so common in the history of Italian faction — a popular and unorthodox party on the side of the Papacy, gulled by empty promises of reform. But that did not last very long. Recognizing Rome as the real foe of their religious reforms, the Patarini discarded their papal ally and developed into an openly heretical sect,3 which became the object of furious attack on the part of the Popes and of those 'dogs of the Lord,' the Domenicans.

The rise of the Albigenses has been already described. Their extermination took place in 1205. Pope Innocent III, who, as we have seen succeeded in imposing his over-lordship on almost every monarch in Europe, was determined to brook no heretics in Western Christendom. At first, it is said, he hoped to effect his purpose by argument, and sent preachers to Languedoc. These were joined by a Spanish canon, the notorious Domenic (Domingo of Calahorra), who, on his return from a mission to Denmark, found himself in l'Albigeois and at once devoted himself with holy ardour to the work of conversion; and when Pope Innocent, finding that his version of Christ's evangel was useless, determined to try fire ad sword and sent his Inquisitors and legates armed with authority to extirpate the abomination, the nobles of Southern France (as Villari says) were organized by these papal emissaries into a veritable army of Crusaders, who, excited by the inflammatory preaching of Domenic and his fellow-fanatics, such as the sinister and merciless Bishop Folquet of Toulouse, and captained by the bloodthirsty Simon de Montfort, hurled themselves on the defenceless population and turned many of the fairest districts of Provence and Central France into a desolation.

How far Domenic himself approved or incited, or took actual part in, these horrors is not certain; it is certain however that the Inquisitors of Toulouse conferred on him the title of 'Persecutor of Heretics,' and that the whole machinery of the Inquisition was shortly after his death intrusted to his Black Friars. But whether we are justified in stating, as Mrs. Jameson asserts, that he was so utterly and devilishly heartless as to 'gaze unmoved at the smoking ruins of Beziers, where at the command of Abbot Arnold twenty thousand human beings were murdered,' may be questioned. He was probably not unmoved. His whole nature was probably deeply moved by what he called love of God and of man — by an intense yearning to save the souls of his fellow-men from what he sincerely believed to be as terrible as hell itself — liberty of thought. Let us refrain from holding inquisition over his character, although we may not be able to enter the Spanish Chapel, or S. Maria Novella itself, without a shudder, or even pass Angelico's wondrous Crucifixion in the cloister of S. Marco without sadness of heart and perplexity of mind.

'In the later years of his life,' says Villari, 'Innocent as if horrified at his own work, would have wished to restrain the forces which had effected almost the total destruction of a whole region. But it was too late. Blood had been shed and the ruin of the land was complete. The fugitives from Provence flooded Italy. They moved pity by the accounts of their misfortunes and aroused hated against him who had been the first cause of their cruel sufferings. Thus they contributed towards the antagonism between the Papacy and those classes with which the Popes had formerly allied themselves in their contest with the Empire. From this time onward the relations of the Italian people towards the Papacy began to experience a most momentous change.'

In 1215 Domenic was honoured at Rome by the Pope's approval of his zealous activities and his institution of preaching friars, and when soon afterwards Innocent died the formal confirmation of the Domenican Order was granted by Honorius III. Three years later (1219) the centre of the Order was established at Bologna, and before his death there in 1221 Domenic's Black Friars, in co-operation with the Inquisition had worked very hard at extirpating heresy in Northern Italy; but 'Italy was almost as badly honeycombed with heretics as Languedoc had been. The Patarini . . . abounded in Milan. In Ferrara, Verona, Rimini, Florence, and other towns anti-sacerdotal sentiment was very strong. In Viterbo the heretics were numerous enough to elect their Count . . . . In Assisi a heretic was elected Podestà.' (Sedgewick.)

A few months probably before Domenic arrived at Rome another celebrated Order had won the approval of Innocent.4 Francis Bernadone of Assisi and his small band of devoted followers were received at first at the papal court with considerable suspicion, and doubtless some contemptuous amusement. What Francis had come to request was not permission to extirpate heretics, but merely permission to found a society of men who should attempt to live according to the precepts and the example of Christ. Such a visionary scheme had no interest for Popes and cardinals, but — so the story runs — an opportune dream induced Innocent to reflect, and reflexion made him perceive the possibility of using for his own purposes this new form of religious enthusiasm. The story of St. Francis of Assisi — his renunciation of all worldly ideals, his self-consecration to poverty and to a humble and Christlike life of loving service for humanity and for all creatures great and small — the building of the little chapel of the Portiuncula and the institution of the mendicant and preaching Grey Brothers and the Sisters of S. Chiara and the Lesser Brethren — the visit to the Soldan in Egypt — the calm and beautiful passing away of the saintly soul — all this has been told fully and sympathetically by many writers, so that I need not make the attempt to retell it in what would necessarily be a painfully concise form. Nor need we try to explain the fact that the aims and ideals professed by these two men, Francis and Domenic, had a certain external resemblance, both their systems originally recognizing the principle of poverty and that of intercourse with humanity rather than monastic seclusion. That such external resemblances may exist in spite of the profoundest differences in the real nature of things is of course a truism. The difference in this case is perhaps best intimated by quite simple words, such as those used by Villari: 'Domenico andò a predicare la crociata contro gli Albigesi, infiammando gli animi ad una sanguinosa persecuzione degli eretici. Francesco invece si sarebbe sottoposto ad ogni tormento piuttosto che far soffrire una qualunque creatura.' While Domenic was inciting and leading the bloody and merciless crusade against the Albigenses Francis was visiting hospitals, tending lepers, helping to carry stones to build churches, meditating verses full of tender love for all things living and a gratitude for the glories and beauty of nature.

Some indication of this deep-lying difference is afforded by the fact that St. Francis is said to have refused, when he met Domenic at Rome, to allow his Order to be fused with that of the Domenicans. Doubtless he saw plainly what kind of spirit actuated his fellow-founder. Both Orders (as was also the case of the far older Benedictine Order) soon deviated widely from the Rules of their founders,4 so that comparisons drawn from their later history are apt to prove misleading; but the fact that the Domenicans have been ever on the side of worldly power as agents of tyranny and persecution seems a proof of the essential difference between the spirit of Francis and that of Domenic. Indeed, the followers of St. Francis have themselves often suffered persecution. On account of the Christian charity and human fellow-feeling that they showed even towards the unorthodox they were accused of treason by Pope Gregory IX, who, with the help of the free-thinker and semi-Moslem Frederick II, carried on a violent crusade against heretics; and some of these, condemned by the Inquisition and burnt at Rome about the year 1225, were probably Franciscan Minorities.

In Cantos XI and XII of the Paradiso Dante makes the spirit of Thomas Aquinas, the great Domenican schoolman, utter a magnificent panegyric on St. Francis, and the spirit of the Franciscan Bonaventura describes the militant activities of Domenic —

That champion consecrate
Kind to his own and cruel to his foes
Whose impetus with greater fury smote
Wherever the resistance greatest was.

The Franciscan's praise of Domenic, although the canto scintillates with splendid thoughts and language, seems at times somewhat forced and hesitating, whereas the words of Thomas Aquinas (Domenican and dryasdust schoolman as he was) seem to tremble with emotion as he describes the life of St. Francis — the rising, as it were, of a glorious sun — the marriage of Francis to his bride, Poverty — the founding of the Order — the 'final seal' of the Stigmata — the departure of the sainted spirit to its native realm of heaven. In lines of the most wondrous music Dante intimates to us what he believed to be the characteristics of these two 'Princes of the Church':

L'un fu tutto serafico in ardore
L'altro per sapienza in terra fue
Di cherubica luce uno splendore.

During the latter half of the thirteenth century, as we shall see in another chapter, the new light of learning and of art ceaselessly spread its illumination, till liberty of thought and of Christian sentiment had so won its way onward that, after the death of Dante's great enemy, the 'triple tyrant' Pope Boniface VIII, the medieval Papacy for a season almost disappeared as a political and religious influence — glowering like some savage wounded animal in the cavernous gloom of the vast papal palace at Avignon. Amidst this break-up of the old system we find many strange phenomena; for old superstitions prove long ineradicable after the jungle itself has been razed. One of these strange phenomena of the thirteenth century is the free-thinking, oft-excommunicated, half-Oriental Emperor Frederick II, who although an open disbeliever, and encouraging at his Sicilian court not only the learning and the voluptuous manners but also the religion of the Saracens, undertook a Christian crusade against the Saracens of Palestine and actually assumed the crown of Jerusalem, and then, on his return, zealously persecuted home heretics, handing over many to Gregory to be burnt.

The curious state of religious excitement that prevailed in Italy during this transition period is evidenced by the appearance of numerous sects, some of which for a time attained very considerable, though short-lived, influence, especially in the free cities of North and Central Italy. As was but natural, many strange extravagances occurred. Among these we may note the episode of the Flagellants, or 'Scourgers.' A sudden seismic wave, as it were, of religious hysteria began at Perugia and spread rapidly through and beyond all Italy. Thousands and thousands of frenzied, half-naked penitents, men, women, and children, in great companies traversed the whole country, howling their lamentations and prayers and scourging each other pitilessly. At every town they reached they poured forth imprecations and entreaties in an attempt to put an end to political and religious feuds; they visited prisons and strove to induce malefactors to repent; they liberated many prisoners. At last the civil powers, alarmed, issued severe penalties against these excesses. 'The hard-headed rulers of Milan,' says a writer, 'erected six hundred gallows on their borders and threatened to hang every Flagellant who came that way.' After about 1260 we hear no more of them.

When we seek for the causes that produced such strange effects we find that they were without any doubt the widespread despair caused by the intestinal feuds and the growing conviction that the Church had failed completely as bearer of the Gospel of love and peace. The one great incentive that fired the hysterical extravagances of the Flagellants no less than the seraphic ardour of St. Francis was the yearning for the reign of Christian love on earth. And how universal this yearning was in Italy is proved by many other attempts at peace-making, some of them of a very dramatic and emotional nature. On one occasion (about 1275) the leaders of the rancorous factions in Florence were persuaded to meet on the sandy flats of the Arno and to embrace each other and vow eternal reconciliation — a vow soon broken. On the plain outside Verona a vast multitude (some say of 400,000 human beings) met, collected from various cities by a monk of Vicenza, and, melted to tears by the eloquence of preaching friars, beat their breasts, lamenting their sins and supplicating God's mercy, and took solemn oaths — alas, soon to be utterly forgotten — that war and party feuds should be abolished among them for ever.

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The Author's Notes:

1 As we have frequently noted, the Popes, although the natural foes of liberty and progress, often sought alliance with the republics — a fact that may well give us pause, seeing that it was just the light of liberty and progress which revealed the hideous inner corruption of the Papacy and fostered reform.

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2 The doctrine of the real existence of Evil as an active principle is, of course, like the doctrines of Transmigration and Purgatory, a very convenient solvent of certain intellectual difficulties, and it can scarcely be condemned as heretical by those who accept the Biblical Devil.

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3 The word paterino has become a synonym for eretico.

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4 As in the case of the Domenicans, the Pope's death delayed the confirmation of the Franciscan Order. It received, as Dante says, its 'primal seal' from Innocent in 1214 and was 'incoronalled with a second crown' by Honorius in 1223.

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5 The lower church at Assisi, begun shortly after the death of Francis, who bade his disciples build no large churches, and the (much later) magnificent S. Maria degli Angeli, built over the remains of the little Portiuncula are striking proofs of this. As Dante says, the followers of St. Francis trod in his footsteps 'setting toe on heel,' i.e. in reverse direction.