Diego
of Azevedo saw the foundation of Prouille before returning to his diocese of
Osma. He had now been two years in the French provinces, and he felt it was
time to revisit his own church and people. He left the country in which he had
laboured so truly and nobly, with the promise soon to return with fresh
labourers in the cause; but this promise was destined never to be fulfilled.
His companions attended him to the confines of the province of Toulouse, all
journeying on foot and preaching as they went. These last missionary labours of
Diego were crowned with new successes. At Montreal, 500 heretics abjured their
errors. A meeting of the legates and chief Catholics also took place at the
same town, and another at Pamiers, when the increased courage and strength of
the Catholic party were plainly visible, and some of the principal of the
Albigenses made their submission with the most unequivocal marks of sincerity.
After this last conference Diego turned his steps towards Spain, and, still
travelling on foot, reached Osma, having been absent from his diocese exactly
three years. He died before he could carry his intention of returning to France
into execution; and thus he and Dominic never met again. He was the first of a
long line of great men with whom the founder of the Friars Preachers was united
in bonds of no common friendship, nor was he the least worthy of the number. So
holy and stainless was the life he led, that even the heretics were wont to say
of him in the words of blessed Jordan, that "it was
impossible not to believe such a man predestined to eternal life, and that
doubtless he was sent among them to be taught the true doctrine." It
was his influence that had consolidated the weak and scattered elements of the
Catholic party into a firm and united body, and his loss was felt by all to be
that of a father and chief. Nay, it seemed as if his death dissolved in a
moment the tie which had bound them together. They were again scattered, each
in different directions, and a few weeks after the news of his friend's death
reached the ears of Dominic, he found himself alone.
We
cannot guess, or rather we can but guess, what kind of solitude that was when
the work remained to do, but the fellow-labourers, and he among them whose
company had been a brotherhood of fourteen years, were gone. Yet Dominic was
equal to the shock of that great loneliness: he saw one after another of the
missioners depart, the Spanish ecclesiastics to Spain, the Cistercians back to
their abbey, but he remained firm and tranquil at the post where God had placed
him. The sweetness of human, consolation had left it, but the will of God was
clear as ever, and that was the law of his life; and if hitherto he had been
displayed to the world as following rather in another's track, than as himself
the originator of the enterprise in which he was engaged, it was for the test
of a crisis like this to show him to the world in his true light. We have mentioned
Fulk, bishop of Toulouse, as co-operating in the foundation of the convent of
Prouille. His presence and influence in some degree supplied the loss which the
Catholics had sustained by the death of Diego. Until his elevation to the
episcopate, one of the greatest drawbacks to the Catholic cause had been the
coldness and indifference of their own bishops; but the vigorous example of the
new prelate roused many of his colleagues from their negligence, and infused
new life into the ecclesiastical administration of the diocese. He was indeed
in every way a remarkable man, one in whom the energy of human passion had
been, not laid aside, but transformed and sanctified by the influence of grace.
Not many years before, he had been known to the world only as a brilliant
courtier, a successful cultivator of the "gaie
science," the very embodiment of the Provencal character. The world
spoiled him for a time, and then deserted him; or we might rather say that God
had determined to draw to Himself a soul too noble for the world's spoiling.
Deaths came one after another to strip his life of everything that made it
desirable; then there followed that period of bitter conflict and agony which
precedes the putting off of the old nature; and when it was over, Provence had
lost her gayest troubadour, and Fulk was a monk in the abbey of Citeaux. In
1206 he was raised to the bishopric of Toulouse, and in that capacity his
energy and enthusiasm of character was of special service in animating the
chilled and timorous spirit of his colleagues. Towards Dominic and his
companions he was ever a liberal benefactor.
And
indeed there was need of some support in the position in which the departure
and death of Diego had left his friend. He was not only alone, but alone just
as the difficulties of the cause to which he was bound were about to be
increased tenfold by the horrors of civil war. This conflict, associated as it
was with the religious contest in which he was engaged, could scarcely fail to
entangle him in something of its confusion: so at least it would 'seem, if we
remember that the war was that crusade against the Albigenses, which history
has persisted in linking with the name of Dominic. The reader of his life who
comes full of this prepossession, will turn to the chapter of the Albigensian
crusade with the natural expectation of finding there the most striking details
of the man he has been accustomed to think of as its hero. Whereas it is
literally true that it is just during the ten years of the Albigensian war that
we find least record of Dominic's life, so far as the world knew it. He had a
life, and a work, but one so wholly distinct from the conflict that was raging
around him, that it has hidden him from sight. Here and there we find a trace
of him, but in no case are those scattered notices connected with any of the
warlike or political movements of the times. They are the anecdotes of an
apostolic life, whose course has been thus briefly sketched by Blessed Humbert
in a few lines: "After
the return of the bishop Diego to his diocese," he says, "S. Dominic,
left almost alone with a few companions who were bound to him by no vow, during
ten years upheld the Catholic faith in different parts of the province of
Narbonne, particularly at Carcassona and at Fanjeaux. He devoted himself
entirely to the salvation of souls by the ministry of preaching, and he bore
with a great heart a multitude of affronts, ignominies, and sufferings for the
name of Jesus Christ." And this is all. The few details preserved of
these ten years of suffering and silent work will disappoint any who look for
stirring pictures of the crusade. Some trait of humility and patience exhibited
amid the insults of his enemies,—or, it may be, a few words redolent with the
spirit of prayer and trust in God, which have come down in the tradition of
ages, or the record of miracles, worked, like those of the Master whose steps
he followed, as he went up and down the hills of Narbonne, and among the towns
and villages, preaching the faith, and seeking' for the sheep that were
lost,—this is all we find. There is an evangelical sweetness of simplicity
about these broken notices of his life, which, coming in the midst of the
troubled and bloody history of the period, sounds like the rich notes of a
thrush's song falling on the ear between the intervals of a thunder-storm,—lost
every now and then, and hushed by the angry roll of the elements, then sounding
sweetly again in the stillness when the storm is over. We shall give them as we
find them, in their proper place, but it is necessary first of all to notice
very briefly some of those events which followed on the departure of Diego of
Azevedo, and which plunged the southern provinces of France into the bloody
contest of which we have spoken.
It
will be remembered, that among the legates and missioners whom Dominic and
Diego met at Montpellier, on their first entrance on the mission, mention was
made of Peter de Castelnau, against whom the hatred of the heretics had been so
strongly evinced, that he had been persuaded for some time to withdraw from the
enterprise. Something of severity and harshness in his character may probably
account for the peculiar vindictiveness of which he was the object. He had
often been used to say, that religion would never raise its head in Languedoc
till the soil had been watered with the blood of a martyr; and his constant
prayer was, that he himself might be the victim. It was even as he desired.
Count Raymond of Toulouse, the sovereign of the distracted provinces, had been
the constant but not always the avowed protector of the Albigenses during the
whole period of his government. Again and again, in reply to the pressing
entreaties of the Holy See, he had promised to use his authority to suppress
their disorders, and to defend the property and liberty of the Catholics; and
again and again, when the dread of excommunication was withdrawn, he had failed
to fulfil his engagements. It is no part of history to asperse its characters
with epithets of reproach. Count Raymond has been the hero of one party, and
the object of unlimited abuse from the other; but we may well content ourselves
with such conclusions as may be drawn from facts which none have attempted to
dispute. Ho had bound himself by solemn oaths to suppress those violent
disorders, the frightful increase of which had opened the eyes of his
predecessor, and forced from him the unwilling acknowledgment, that "the spiritual
sword was no longer enough; the material sword was needed also." These
oaths were made, and as often violated; after incessant remonstrances, Peter de
Castelnau, in his office of Papal legate, pronounced the final sentence of
excommunication against him. The result was an earnest entreaty from the count
to meet him at Saint Gilles, in order that by fresh submissions he might be
once more reconciled to the Church. His request was agreed to, but it seemed
impossible for Raymond to act with good faith. No sooner were the legates in
his power, than he changed his tone of submission, and haughtily threatened
them with imprisonment if they did not grant him the unconditional repeal of
his sentence. Such threats were lightly felt by men who counted their lives as
nothing in the cause in which they were engaged, and they answered him only
with a stern reproof. Next day, as they stood by the rapid waters of the Rhone,
on the banks of which they had passed the night, and which they were preparing
to cross, two members of the count's household came up in pursuit of them, and
one plunged his lance into the body of Peter de Castelnau. It was the death for
which he had so often longed; he fell without a struggle, and summoned his
departing strength to utter words worthy of a martyr. "May God pardon
you," he said to his murderer; "as for me, I
forgive you,—I forgive you;" then turning to his companion, "Keep the
faith," he said, "and serve God's
Church without fear, and without negligence;" and, with these words
upon his lips, he died.
When
the news of this murder reached the ears of the Pope and the Catholic
potentates of Europe, there seemed a unanimous feeling that all time for
further treating with the heretics was at an end. Let us remember, that the
south of France had now been at their mercy for more than a century; that
during that time these atrocious wretches, whom Protestants are not ashamed to
boast of as their ancestors in the faith, had ravaged the country like bandits,
setting fire to churches, torturing priests and nuns, trampling underfoot the
holy Eucharist, and committing every violence most shocking to human feeling;
and that during this century of crime the Church had opposed only her censures
and her entreaties, sending among them missionaries and preachers, but never
unloosing the temporal sword. Nay, she had even interposed with peaceful
measures when the civil arm was at length raised against them. Raymond of
Toulouse, the predecessor of the present count, and himself a favourer of the
heretics, had at length become aware of the danger threatened to his own
government, and to the very existence of all law, by their continued excesses.
Too late he strove to check the evil he had fostered, but he found the task was
far beyond his strength. In his terror he wrote to the French king a memorable
letter, which, as coming from his pen, may fairly be received as impartial
testimony, "Our
churches," he says, "are in ruins,
penance is despised, the Holy Eucharist is held in abomination, all the
sacraments are rejected—yet no one thinks of offering any resistance to these
wretches." He then makes an earnest appeal to the king for assistance,
and would have obtained it had not the reigning Pontiff, Alexander III,
interfered, and proposed once more to try the effect of an ecclesiastical
mission before harsher measures were adopted.
But
however well fitted a legation of monks and preachers might be for the
suppression of theological errors, it scarcely had the strength necessary for
delivering Languedoc from its swarms of bandits. The sufferings of the country
were not simply doctrinal: Stephen, abbot of S. Genevieve, sent to Toulouse by
the king, and an eye-witness of what he describes, gives us a picture of the
state of things in his time in a few words which occur in one of his letters: "I have
seen," he says, "churches burnt
and ruined to their foundations; I have seen the dwellings of men changed into
the dens of beasts." Is it any wonder, therefore, that after these
terrible disorders had been endured for more than a century, and opposed only
by the weapons of ecclesiastical censures, the murder in cold blood of the Papal
legate by the avowed leader of the Albigenses seemed to fill the measure of
their iniquity? War at once burst out; and surely if ever war is just, it must
be deemed so when waged to defend society from outrage, and the faith from
ruin. This at least we may affirm without in any way binding ourselves to
vindicate the manner in which it was carried on, when men's passions and
personal interests were once irretrievably engaged; but we cannot think that
the act which proclaimed the crusade against the Albigenses, after a century of
forbearance, can be condemned by any who will patiently go over that century's
most melancholy history.
Source:
Alemany, Most Reverend J. S., D. D. Life of St. Dominic and a Sketch of the Dominican
Order. New York: P. O'Shea Publisher, 1867
No comments:
Post a Comment