The death of De
Castelnau took place in February of the year 1208. Early in the following
month Pope Innocent addressed letters to the kings of France and England, and
to the sovereign nobles of France, calling on them to lay aside their private quarrels,
and join in an unanimous effort against "the
rage of heresy." The crime of the Count of Toulouse was declared to be
one which freed his subjects from their allegiance until such time as he would
return to his own allegiance to the Church; and a new commission of bishops and
abbots was appointed to preach the crusade, and undertake the ecclesiastical
government of the country. In this commission Dominic's name does not occur;
Arnold of Citeaux is the man charged with the chief burden of the whole undertaking,
and his fiery and inflexible temper caused him to fulfil his charge with an
unrelenting severity, which can never be excused. If indeed we had to make any
religious body responsible for the severities of the crusade, it certainly seems
as though the Cistercians had done more to merit such a reproach than any
other. We find their leader, Arnold, eagerly and zealously engaged in all the
movements of the Catholic chiefs, often accompanying them to the field and
rousing the country to arms with the energy of his preaching. Every representation
of the progress of the war which reached the Pope came through him and his
followers; and these representations seem, in more instances than one, to have
been coloured by partiality, and to have misled the Pontiff whom they were intended
to direct. For more than a year after the war first broke out, Arnold was the
only acknowledged leader and director of the Catholic forces; and the
unfortunate plan of setting the two houses of Montfort and Toulouse in rivalry
one against the other, as the means of destroying the latter by the
vindictiveness of a personal quarrel, was the invention of his own scheming
brain.
Yet this man, who
really played so conspicuous a part in the history of his time, and who stands
bound to every detail in those proceedings of which he was the animating spirit,
is almost forgotten by Protestant historians and their readers, so eager are
they to heap terms of reproach on one who had little or no share in them.
Doubtless in their own day, Dominic Gusman was a very insignificant person
compared to the legate, Arnold of Citeaux; but the Church, in her unerring
justice, has raised one to her altars, and left the other to the mercy and
indifference of future ages; and this explains what would otherwise be an
unaccountable phenomenon. Arnold of Citeaux, though a busy man in his time, is
in no way a representative of the Catholic Church she has not identified herself
with him, and so there is no good reason for attacking him and his order, and
holding up their names for popular abuse, however deeply they were responsible for
the excesses of the crusade. But it is quite another thing to vilify a Catholic
saint. Dominic bears on his brow the indelible seal of the Church's
canonization, and therefore no Protestant can touch on the history of the Albigensian
war without assuring us that it was
"preached by the infamous Dominic," with a thousand other like expressions
which would give us to understand that he was the foremost character in the
whole affair, but which are simply inexplicable to any one who, in studying his
life, finds it his chief difficulty to come on any trace of him during this
period.
It must be acknowledged
that the perpetual insincerities of the Count of Toulouse render it difficult
to follow, with anything like clearness, a history which shows him to us
submitting to public penance in the church of S. Gilles in 1209, and swearing
at the same time, on holy relics and the very body of our Lord, to drive away
the heretic insurgents, to repair the churches, and replace the lawful bishops
in their sees; then a year afterwards, evading the4 demands of the council,
held at the same place, which called on him to fulfil his engagements, and persisting
in his refusal, even whilst he supplicates to be heard in justification of the
accusations brought against him. A little while after, we find him at Toulouse,
preparing to take up arms against the Catholic forces whom he had sworn to
assist; and, in return for this breach of faith, we have a touching and affectionate
letter from Pope Innocent, calling on him once more to stand to his plighted
word. Then more conferences and more evasions. In 1211, at a meeting held at
Montpellier, he seems about to yield, but suddenly leaves the city without a
word of explanation. Then at length the thunder of excommunication falls on his
head a second time; and the war begins in earnest. Raymond had the powerful
protection of his brother-in-law, the king of Arragon, together with many of
the territorial lords of the south. The power of the crusaders under the
leadership of Count Simon de Montfort was certainly in no overwhelming
disproportion, and, we are told, more than a thousand cities and towns were in
the hands of the heretics. Two of these towns, Beziers and Carcassona, had
yielded to the Catholic confederates, after a bloody contest at the very
commencement of the war, and before the final rupture with Raymond. The cruelties
practised on the inhabitants of the former, and the pillage of the latter, gave
a vindictive character to the very, opening of the campaign. For the enormities
perpetrated by the heretics had lashed the Catholics of Languedoc to fury; and
when the day of retribution came, and vengeance was in the power of men who had
so long suffered the worst injuries without redress, it broke out into the usual
excesses. There is no temptation to justify such excesses, yet surely there is
an astonishing unfairness, may we not say an astonishing hypocrisy, in those
who can find no words to express their horror at the slaughter of Beziers, yet
forget the tortures of helpless women, the profanation of holy things, the murders
and oppressions of the century which had passed, the recollection of which was
doubtless too terribly alive in the minds of the crusaders for them to find
such mercy in their hearts for those who were in turn their victims.
Where was Dominic all
this time? Some of his historians gave the year 1207 as the date of the
foundation of his order; inasmuch as it was then that he took the command of
that little company of missionaries who remained with him after the departure
of Diego. But they were bound to him by no other tie than a common interest;
and the only ground for the supposition seems to be, that they lived together
in a kind of community-life, and were known by the name of the Preaching
Brothers. It does not, however, seem that they had anything of the formation of
a regular religious body, and probably no plan for such a formation had yet
been clearly developed in Dominic's own mind. Of their manner of life we can form
some notion from those scattered anecdotes which are all that are left us. Even
amid the hottest period of the war, it was the same as it had ever been; they
went about barefoot from village to village preaching the faith. The only
commission which Dominic held, was the original one he possessed in virtue of
that first legation to which he and Diego had been associated before the crusade
began. It gave him the power of reconciling heretics, and receiving them to
penance, an office which has acquired him the title of the first Inquisitor. If
by this is meant that the office of the Inquisition, as afterwards constituted,
was established at this time such title is certainly an error; no such office
existed before the Lateran Council of 1215, and it was not until 1230, nine
years after the death of Dominic, that the Council of Toulouse gave it a new
form, and intrusted a large share of its government to the recently instituted
order of Friars Preachers. It is singular also, that the first commission for
denouncing heretics to the civil magistrate was granted to the Cistercians.
But, on the other hand, there is no doubt that the commission of reconciling
heretics, held by S. Dominic, was the germ from which the Inquisition
afterwards sprang; and so Dominic may be called the first Inquisitor, in the
same sense as the Marquis of Worcester is called the inventor of the
steam-engine, or Roger Bacon the discoverer of gunpowder; without supposing
that the marvels of a cotton-mill, or the broadside of a three-decker, ever
crossed the imagination of either. (1)
His chief residence was
at Fanjeaux and Carcassona. Fanjeaux he chose for its proximity to Notre Dame de
Prouille, and Carcassona for another reason. "Why do you not live in Toulouse, or the diocese?" was a
question one day asked him. "I know
many people in Toulouse," he replied, "and they show me respect; but at Carcassona, every one is against
me." They certainly were: it was their diversion to treat the humble
barefooted friar who was to be seen about their streets as a fool; rather let
us say, they gave the truest testimony to his likeness to his Lord by the
likeness of their treatment of him. They were wont to follow him, throwing dirt
at him and spitting in his face; tying straws to his cloak and hat, and pursuing
him with shouts of derisive laughter. He never seemed to heed them, or to let
the singular quietude of his soul be once disturbed by these affronts.
Sometimes their insults were accompanied with blasphemous oaths and threats of
death: "I am not worthy of
martyrdom," was the only answer they were able to draw from him. He
was warned once of a party of heretics who lay in ambush in a certain place to
assassinate him. He treated the information with his usual indifference, and passed
by the place singing hymns with a joyful aspect. The heretics, who were probably
not prepared for the actual execution of their threat, accosted him on their
next meeting in their usual style. "And
so thou dost not fear death? Tell us, what wouldst thou have done if thou hadst
fallen into our hands?" Then the great and courageous spirit of
Dominic spoke in a memorable reply: "I
would have prayed you," he said, "not
to have taken my life at a single blow, but little by little, cutting off each
member of my body, one by one; and when you had done that, you should have
plucked out my eyes, and then have left me so, to prolong my torments, and gain
me a richer crown." It is said that this reply so confounded his
enemies, that for some time afterwards they left him unmolested, being convinced
that to persecute such a man was to give him the only consolation he desired.
The place of the intended attempt on his life is still shown, half-way between
Prouille and Fanjeaux, and its name "Al
Sicari," in the dialect of the country, commemorates the event.
On another occasion a
great conference was appointed to be held with the heretics, at which one of
the neighbouring bishops (who, some writers tell us, was Fulk of Toulouse) was
to attend. He came in great pomp, to the great displeasure of Dominic. "Then the humble herald of God spoke to
him, and said, 'My father, it is not thus that we must act against this
generation of pride. The enemies of the truth must rather be convinced by the example
of humility and patience, than by the pomp and grandeur of worldly show. Let us
arm ourselves with prayer and humility, and so let us go barefooted against
these Goliaths.'" (2) The bishop complied with his wishes, and they
all took off their shoes, and went to meet the heretics singing psalms upon the
way. Now, as they were not sure of their road, they applied to a man whom they met
and believed to be a Catholic, but who was in truth a concealed and bitter
heretic; and who offered to be their guide to the place of meeting, with no
other design than that of embarrassing and annoying them. He led them, therefore,
through a thorny wood, where the rough stones and briers tore their naked feet,
and caused them to dye the ground with their blood. The bishop and his suite
were a little disconcerted at this, but Dominic encouraged them to persevere.
Joyous and patient as ever, he exhorted his comrades to give thanks for their
sufferings, saying, "Trust in God,
my beloved; the victory is surely ours, since our sins are expiated in blood; 'is
it not written, 'How beautiful are the feet of them who bring the gospel of
peace?'" Then he intoned a joyful hymn, and the hearts of his
companions took courage, and they also sang with him; and the heretic, when he
witnessed the patience and courage of the saint, was touched to the heart, and,
falling at his feet, confessed his malice, and abjured his heresy.
As we have said,
these anecdotes of Dominic's apostolic life in Languedoc can hardly be given in
successive order as they occurred; the most ancient writers tell us only in general
terms, that during this time he suffered many affronts from his enemies, and
overcame their wiles by his patience, giving these disconnected stories without
anything to guide us as to the particular times when they happened. One anecdote,
however, in which the miraculous powers of the saint are first exhibited to us,
is given with greater exactness. It was in 1211, whilst the crusaders were
under the walls of Toulouse, and just after open hostilities had for the first
time broken out with Count Raymond, that the course of Dominic's apostolic
wanderings led him to the bank of the river Garrone. Whilst he was there, a
band of English pilgrims also arrived in the neighbourhood. They were about
forty in number, bound to the shrine of S. James of Compostella. In order to
avoid the town, which lay under the Papal interdict, they took a boat to cross
the river ; but the boat, being small and overladen, was upset, and all those
who were in it sank to the bottom. Dominic was praying in a small church which
stood near the scene of the accident, but the cries of the sufferers and some
of the soldiers who saw their danger roused him from his devotions. He came to
the river's bank, but not one of the pilgrims was to be seen. Then he
prostrated himself on the earth in silent prayer, and, rising full of a lively
faith, "I command you," he
cried, "in the name of Jesus Christ,
to come to the shore alive and unhurt." Instantly the bodies rose to
the surface, and with the help of the soldiers, who flung them their shields
and lances, they all safely reached the bank, praising God and his servant
Dominic.
Several other
miracles are related as having happened at this period, they are the only
footprints left us of his apostolic journeys over Languedoc. At one time we
hear of him dropping his books into the river Ariege as he forded it on foot,
and after three days they are recovered by a fisherman, and found perfectly dry
and uninjured. At another time he is crossing the same river in a little boat,
and being landed on the opposite shore, finds he has no money to pay the boatman.
The boatman insisted on his fare: "I
am," said Dominic, “a follower
of Jesus Christ; I carry neither gold nor silver; God will pay you the price of
my passage." But the boatman, being angry, laid hold of his cloak,
saying, "You will either leave your cloak
with me, or pay me my money." Dominic, raising his eyes to heaven, entered
for a moment into prayer; then, looking on the ground, he showed the man a piece
of silver which lay there, which Providence had sent, and said to him, "My brother, there is what you ask,
take it, and suffer me to go my way."
Cardinal Ranieri
Capocci, who lived during the time of S. Dominic, in a sermon preached shortly
after his canonisation, relates the following fact which had come to his own
knowledge. A certain religious chanced to be the companion of the saint on a
journey of some days, but being of another country, and neither of them understanding
the language of the other, they were unable to hold any conversation together.
Desiring very much, however, to profit by the time he should spend in his society,
this religious secretly prayed to God that, for the three days they should be
together, they might be intelligible to one another, each speaking in his own
tongue, and this favour was granted until they reached their journey's end. We
read also that, after a night spent in long disputes with the heretics, Dominic
left the place of conference in company with a Cistercian monk, and desired to
retire into a neighbouring church, in order, according to his custom, to spend
the remainder of the night in prayer. They found the doors locked, and were therefore
obliged to kneel outside. But scarcely had they done so, than, without being
able to say how, they found themselves before the high altar inside the church,
and remained there until break of day. In the morning the people found them
there, and crowding together, brought them the sick and infirm in great numbers
to be healed. Among these were several possessed persons, whom the holy father
was entreated to restore by his touch. He took a stole, and fastened it on his
shoulders as if about to vest for mass; then throwing it around the necks of
the possessed, they were immediately delivered.
These miracles, some
of which are mentioned in the process of his canonization, were commonly known
and talked of both by the crusaders and by the people of Toulouse. Among the latter
their effect was sensibly felt, and in no small degree aided the success of his
preaching. Yet the marvels produced by his simple eloquence were, perhaps, as
great in their way as those directly supernatural gifts communicated to him by
God. One day, as he prayed in the church of Fanjeaux, nine women who until then
had been of the heretical sect, came to him, and threw themselves at his feet
in great anguish. "Servant of
God," they cried, "if what
you preached to us this morning is true, we have till now been living in
horrible darkness ; therefore have compassion on us, and teach us how we may be
saved." The holy man looked on them with a bright and cheerful countenance,
and comforted them with words of hope. Then he prayed awhile, and turning to
them bade them be of good heart, and not be afraid of what they should see.
Scarcely had he spoken, when they saw in the midst of them a hideous animal, of
a ferocious and horrible aspect. It fled from among them, and seemed to escape
from the church through the bell-tower. The women were greatly terrified, but
Dominic spoke and reassured them. "God
has shown you, my daughters," he said, "how terrible is the devil whom till now you have served; thank
Him, therefore, for the evil one has from this moment no more power over
you." These women, who were all of noble birth, he afterwards caused
to be instructed in the faith, and received into the monastery of Prouille.
Miracles and preaching, however, are not the only means, scarcely the most
powerful, by which the saints of God extend the kingdom of their Master. The silent
eloquence of a holy life has a larger apostolate than the gifts of tongues or of
healing; and we find some records of the harvest of souls which were gathered
to the faith solely by the example of the servant of God. There were living,
near Toulouse, some noble ladies who had been led to join the heretics, being
seduced into this error by the show of pretended austerity which their
preachers affected Dominic, who had their conversion greatly at heart,
determined to preach there that Lent; and, going thither with one companion, it
chanced, by the providence of God, that they were received to lodge in the
house occupied by these ladies. He remained there during the whole time of his
stay, and they saw with wonder the reality of that life of penance which differed
so widely from the empty professions of the heretics. The soft beds which had
been prepared for them were never used, for Dominic and his companion slept
upon the ground. Their food was scarcely touched; until Easter time they took
only bread and water, and that in scanty measure. Their nights were spent in
prayer and austerities, their days in labours for God; and so new and wonderful
did this life seem to those who beheld it, that it opened their eyes to the
truth of the faith which inspired it; and the whole household made their
recantation in his hands before the time of his stay was ended. In after days
he was often accustomed to exhort his brethren to this, as the best method of
preaching, reminding them that it was by good works, and by the outward habit,
even more than by holy words, that we must let our light shine before men to
the glory of God.
It was this singular
holiness of life which endeared him so wonderfully to all those among whom he was
thrown. Three times the episcopal dignity was offered to him, but he refused it
with a kind of horror. He was used to say he would rather go away by night with
nothing but his staff than accept any office or dignity. He could not, however,
succeed in avoiding a temporary appointment as vicar to Guy, bishop of Carcassona,
during the time that the latter was absent from his diocese preaching the crusade,
and gathering together fresh forces to join the army of the Count de Montfort.
. He held this charge during the Lent of the year 1213, during which time he
resided in the episcopal palace, and discharged all the duties of the office,
without, however, suffering them to interfere with his customary occupation of
preaching and instructing in the faith. During this Lent we again find him spoken
of as fasting on bread and water, and sleeping on the ground. "When Easter came," says his
historian, "he seemed stronger and
more vigorous than before, and of a better aspect." We may remark in
this appointment, how entirely distinct Dominic's mission was from the military
or political affairs in which many other of the Catholic clergy and prelates
took their share. So far from being himself the preacher of the crusade, we see
him taking the place and duties of another who is engaged in that undertaking,
as if the purely spiritual character of his ministry were generally recognised.
Once, and once only, do we find his name in any way associated with any of the
judicial severities of the time; it is in an anecdote given by Theodoric of
Apoldia, but it will be hard to draw from it the conclusion that Dominic was
the bloody persecutor represented in popular fiction; for as we shall see, his
part was to release, and not to condemn the prisoner in question. "Some heretics," says the historian,
"having been taken and convicted in
the country of Toulouse, were given over to secular judgment, because they
refused to return to the faith, and were condemned to the flames. Dominic
looked at one of them with a heart to which were revealed the secrets of God,
and said to the officers of the court, ' Put that man aside, and see well that
no harm befall him.' Then, turning to the heretic, he said with great
sweetness, ' My son, I know that you must have time, but you will at length
become a saint.' Wonderful to relate, this man remained for twenty years longer
in the blindness of heresy, till at length, touched by the grace of God, he
renounced his errors, and died in the habit of the Friars Preachers, with the
reputation of sanctity."
The presence of Dominic
at this execution will be understood, if we remember that, before the
deliverance of any heretic to the secular arm for punishment, every effort was
made, by the exhortations of persons appointed for that purpose, to convince
them of their errors, and reconcile them to the Church; in which case their sentence
was rescinded, and they were admitted to canonical penance. This course was
always followed in the later proceedings of the Inquisition; the part of the
Church was to reconcile and convince, and not to condemn; in the instance just
quoted, we might call it to pardon. This office was exercised by Dominic in
virtue of the powers he held from the Papal legates; two letters proving this
fact are given us by Echard, but have no date attached, although there is little
doubt they belong to this period of his life. They are as follows: "To all the faithful in Christ to
whom these presents may come, Brother Dominic, canon of Osma, the humble
minister of preaching, wishes health and charity in the Lord. We make known to
your discretion, that we have permitted Raymund William de Hauterive Pelaganira
to receive into his house of Toulouse, to live there after the ordinary life,
William Huguecion, whom he has declared to us to have hitherto worn the habit
of the heretics. We permit this until such time as it shall be otherwise
ordered either to him or to me by the Lord Cardinal; and this shall not in any
way turn to his dishonour or prejudice." If it seems singular to us in
those days that a written permission was necessary in order to allow any man to
receive into his house a reconciled heretic, we must remember the double character
attaching to these people. They were not merely heretics, but the disturbers of
the public peace; and, as the authors of every kind of outrage against society,
it is not singular that some kind of pledge for their future good conduct was
reasonably demanded.
The other letter is
of a severer character; it is as follows: "To
all the faithful in Christ to whom these presents may come, Brother Dominic,
canon of Osma, wishes health in the Lord. By the authority of the Lord Abbot of
Citeaux, who has committed to us this office, we have reconciled to the Church
the bearer of these presents, Ponce Royer, converted by the grace of God from
heresy to the faith; and we order, in virtue of the oath which he has taken to
us, that during three Sundays or feast days he shall go to the entrance of the
village, bare to the waist, and be struck with rods by the priest. We also order
him to abstain for ever from flesh, eggs, cheese, and all which comes from flesh,
except at Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas, when he shall eat some to protest
against his former errors. He shall keep three Lents each year, fasting and
abstaining from fish, unless from bodily infirmity or the heat of the weather
he shall be dispensed. He shall dress in religious habit, as well in the form
as in the colour, to the ends of which shall be hung two little crosses. Every
day, if possible, he shall hear mass, and he shall go to vespers on festival
days. Seven times a day he shall recite ten ‘Pater Nosters,’ and he shall say twenty
in the middle of the night. He shall observe chastity, and once a month he
shall, in the morning, present this paper to the Chaplain of the village of
Cere. We desire this Chaplain to have great care that his penitent lead a holy
life, and observe all we have said until the lord legate shall otherwise
ordain. If he neglect to do so through contempt, we will that he be excommunicated
as perjured and heretic, and be separated from the society of the faithful."
Such was still the
Church's discipline in the thirteenth century. We who live in days when that
discipline has been gradually, though reluctantly, relaxed, because of the
relaxing love and faith of penitents, are amazed at its severity: we are even
disposed to lay the responsibility of its seeming harshness on the head of him
who pronounced the sentence. But Dominic was in no way the legislator in such a
case as this: he was simply the executor and dispenser of the Church's law. The
above diploma is one of those monumental records of canonical penances which we
occasionally find preserved in the course of history, and which when so
stumbled on are almost invariably rocks of offence to those who are accustomed
to look on a litany, or a 'Salve Regina,' as a reasonable penance for the sins
of a life. The accumulation of indulgences in modern times ought surely to have
its significance to such minds. In those days, men really performed the
penances which are now dispensed. The rod which descends so gently on the head of
the wandering stranger in the Roman basilicas,—that ghost of the ancient penitential
discipline,—fell with a hearty earnestness on the shoulders of our fathers; and
we cannot too often remind ourselves, by means of such documents as that we have
just read, of a difference which should cover us with humiliation for the
feeble ness of modern penitence, rather than send us to criticize the severity
with which the Church has ever looked on sin.
Notes:
(1)
It
is no part of the plan -which we have laid down for ourselves, to enter at any
length into the vexed question of the character of the Inquisition. But we
cannot resist referring to one authority, quoted by Pere Lacordaire, in his
well-known "Memorial to the French
People," whose partiality can scarcely be questioned. It is from the
Report presented to the Cortes, on the character of that tribunal, which was
followed by its suppression, and bears the date of 1812. Considering that it
proceeded from the party most violently opposed to the Inquisition, and whose
political successors, the Progressistas of Spain , have succeeded in abolishing
all religious orders in that country, its testimony is of peculiar value. "The early Inquisitors," they
say, "encountered heresy with no other
arms than those of prayer, patience, and instruction; and this remark applies
more particularly to S. Dominic, as we are assured by the Bollandists, with
Echard and Touron. Philip II was the real Founder of the Inquisition." For
a minute and careful account of the change introduced into the character of the
tribunal by the royal influence, we must refer the reader to the celebrated
work of Balmez, on "Protestantism and
Catholicity compared in their Effects on the civilization of Europe.”
(2)
Theodoric
of Apoldia
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
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