The Devil's World

Heresy and Society 1100-1300

Andrew Roach

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317889007
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Exploring the relationship of heresy, dissent and society in the 12th and 13th Centuries,The Devil's World shows how people made conscious choices between heresy and orthodoxy in the middle ages and were not afraid to exert their power as 'consumers' of religion. The book gives an account of all popular religious movements, looks at the threat that heresy presented to the Church and lay powers and considers the measures they took to deal with it.

Ideal for students of medieval and religious history.

Chapter 1

The Monopoly: 900–1135

In the eleventh century the laity was the consumer of a service from a monopoly provider, charged more for a product which the provider itself admitted was inferior, yet unable either to provide the service for themselves or seek out an alternative. Moreover, the provider was keen to limit perceptions of the product. When the Church had become institutionalised as the imperial faith, the Council of Constantinople announced in 381:

The Faith of the three hundred and eighteen fathers assembled at Nicaea . … shall not be set aside, but shall remain firm. And every heresy shall be anathematised …

The early Church had eliminated choice in favour of doctrinal unity even if this meant outlawing the writings of many influential teachers such as Arius (d.336), Pelagius (d.425) and Donatus the Great (d.355). The struggle with their various followers had been painful and was commemorated in the writings of men whose words were to dominate the succeeding centuries, such as Augustine of Hippo (d.430).

The emphasis on doctrinal unity persisted through the subsequent centuries in which the Christian faith spread throughout Europe. Local bishops found that their religion was threatened less by the remnants of paganism than by the unauthorised forms of Christianity, feeding on popular enthusiasm, curiosity and often credulity. There were cases of prophetesses offering cures for plague in the name of Saint Martin and unauthorised ‘bishops by grace of god’ claiming to know the contents of letters dropped from Heaven by Christ himself. Relying on their considerable secular power and the mastery of a corpus of already ancient texts, bishops strove to establish a ‘correct’ form of Christianity. In this they were helped by the newly resurgent Carolingian imperial authority which relied on the Church for much of its legitimacy. The religion they established was liturgical, grand and deliberately derivative. Preaching was limited to homilies translated from the Church fathers, the only saints which could be venerated had to be respectably dead for centuries and theological speculation was frowned upon. An attempt to discuss predestination in the mid-ninth century ended in embarrassment and confusion: the advantages of it to bolster the authority of the purveyors of the clerical monopoly were outweighed by the demoralising effect of the laity.¹

Religion was then the responsibility of the Church, but in a sense there was no such thing as ‘the Church’; the popes in Rome, enmeshed in Italian politics, local bishops who had inherited many of the responsibilities of secular government at the disappearance of the Roman Empire and the isolated elite in monasteries had little in common. There were examples of great spirituality in all of them, but there was also mutual suspicion and an insistence on local autonomy. There were certainly no clear lines of authority and a wide diversity of practice. As in many monopoly providers this was in many ways very comfortable for those who were a part of it. Neither their superiors nor their lay customers expected much from them and they were rarely disappointed.

There was, at least, doctrinal uniformity. The relatively small number of clerics actively involved in intellectual debate effectively policed themselves and disputes rarely left academic circles. There was a common feeling among clerics that the laity should be kept at arm’s length spiritually and physically. Those whose role in life was to fight or to labour should do exactly that and leave their salvation in the hands of those who prayed and were qualified to deal with such matters. When it came down to buildings, the isolation of the clergy performing ceremonies in the chancel or choir of the church at the east end, cut off from the laity in the larger nave to the west, was mirrored by the isolation of monks from society in general, praying for the sins of the world from behind high walls. In terms of participation in the spiritual community of the Church, lay input was minimal. Any significance they had was only as witnesses to what was done on their behalf. But in that lay the key to change as the witnesses started to articulate what it was they wanted to see.

There are three stages to the breaking of any monopoly and these correspond to the remaining sections of this chapter. In the first place consumers have to be actively interested in the product on offer and not just take it for granted. Between 900 and 1100 the Church slowly built up a consciousness of the lay role in religion through Cluniac monasteries, the movement for clerical reform and the preaching of the First Crusade. Then people have to become dissatisfied with the existing provider. Evidence for this is difficult to gather, but the growth in taxes and emphasis on the sacraments at parish level, particularly where this brought about drastic change from existing practice, may have made lay people aware of the Church’s shortcomings. The growth of pilgrimage encouraged competition between shrines and gave travellers some index of performance of the Church in their local area. Finally, there has to be some viable alternative and though this was only really provided by the emergence of the Cathar and Waldensian organisations, the first stirrings can be seen in the followings of the charismatic preachers of the twelfth century.

Monks, popes and ‘people’

The eleventh and early twelfth century saw the emergence of the laity, the troublesome ‘people’ recorded by clerical writers. Laity and clerics had always been closely entwined. Monks and leading secular clergy were mostly drawn from the European aristocracy and shared their inclination to rule. Secular rulers were the fathers, brothers and sisters of clerics and took on the role of protectors and benefactors. In return dubious claims to governance were legitimated and prayers offered for clouded characters. At a lower level the Church was enmeshed with the life of lay society besides religion; because over 20 per cent of land in western Europe was in the hands of ecclesiastical institutions, the local church or monastery could be your landlord or your employer. In urban communities chapters of cathedral clergy controlled house rents and market tolls. Since many folk were tied to the land they often found themselves handed over in property transactions or obliged to work on the estates of a bishop or abbey. Where secular government was weak the Church could act as a secular lord with responsibilities for defence, justice and public order. The wielding of effective political and economic power by ecclesiastical institutions ensured that any expressions of dissatisfaction usually occurred at local level.

Juxtaposed with the Church’s responsibilities within secular society were the duties of the spiritual elite to the men and women around them. With varying degrees of enthusiasm the various component parts of the Church acknowledged their obligation to provide pastoral care in the sense of preaching, administering the sacraments and giving fatherly (and occasionally motherly) advice to believers. This need linked the middle ages with the early centuries of the Christian Church, and in the tenth century took the form of a calling for reform from within the Church itself. There was no desire to break the monopoly, but there was concern to improve the moral character of those providing it. In the search for support reformers turned to the laity and were able to mobilise forces in society not previously involved in religion. The monastery of Cluny on the Rhône was founded in 909 and proved to be notably innovative in bringing together monks with outsiders. At its heart was a very old-fashioned idea of prayer and ceremony as an almost magical series of acts and incantations; if these were completed precisely God’s approval would be gained both for the monastery and society as a whole.² Consequently, although like all monks the Cluniacs were devoted to poverty in their personal lives, they made sure their worship was a rich and sensuous experience with a chandelier above the high altar and rare spices perfuming the incense.

If it was hoped that God would be impressed by this form of devotion, many on earth certainly were. In the absence of a strong royal protector, Cluny looked to the local lay aristocracy for both patronage and protection and was therefore forced to live on its reputation. Supporters had to be confident that the religious ceremonies were being performed correctly and that discipline was being maintained. The abbey inspired many offshoots throughout France, but they were termed priories to emphasise the controlling influence of the mother house and its abbot, while in turn Cluny had itself placed under the direct authority of the pope. Moreover, each monk was supposed to make the journey to the mother abbey to make his profession. This looks a little like modern branding and indeed Cluny very consciously made a virtue of its name. Moreover, the Cluniac order formed a loosely organised corporation within the Church, offering lay supporters a conscious choice of association with it.

Lay nobles were admitted into the order often late in life, even though they had not the Latin education necessary to play a full part in services and sometimes despite horrible crimes committed ‘in the world’. Those who were unwilling to take on such a commitment in this life could at least benefit in the next since the Cluniacs also allowed the burial of lay benefactors within the monastic precincts. Again an innovative practice tapped into very ancient roots. In western Europe the dead were often quite close to the living. The design of the monastic cloister demonstrated a reliance on the dead. On the first floor, the living monks slept and stumbled to their night services. Beneath the ground slept dead founders and prominent previous abbots. Above them in the chapter house on the ground floor the abbot presided over the daily reading of a chapter of the Rule and, hopefully, a meeting of the combined wisdom of the living and the dead. The idea was given new urgency by the recently articulated doctrine of purgatory, a kind of fiery antechamber to heaven. Prayers for the dead now could be helpful in the specific context of shortening the time deceased friends and relatives spent there paying for their sins. Cluny promoted a day of prayer for the dead on November 2, All Soul’s Day. This deepened the unity between the abbey and the aristocratic society to which it appealed because its monks were the brothers and uncles of the knightly class which dominated lay society. The very success of the monastery and its dependants did rather emphasise the belief of many that the only certain salvation was within the monastery walls. Other members of the laity could only look on enviously.

Cluny made the most of its links with the papacy. Two of its monks ascended to the see of Saint Peter and the monastery and its many daughter houses played their part in the revival of papal prestige. Popes of the eleventh century set about reasserting their leadership in reforming the Church and to this end they did not merely issue edicts from Rome, but instead criss-crossed Europe holding synods and councils. Leo IX preached at Reims in 1049, Paschal II was at Troyes in 1107. Between them the crusading Pope Urban II completed a full preaching tour of southern France and north Italy. More than any century before the twentieth it was possible to have seen the pope and heard his words.

The two issues which concerned the papacy above all were simony, the taking of money for ecclesiastical positions and nicolaitism, priests marrying instead of living lives of celibacy.³ Both these issues were raised not just for the moral benefit of the clergy. Cluniac monks and successive popes addressed the paradox that the surest way to win general lay support and respect was to emphasise ecclesiastical independence of the grubby bullying and concerns of the lay world. Moves against simony were designed to allow monastic and cathedral chapters to elect their own candidates free from interference, whereas the encouragement of clerical celibacy was an attack on the large number of ecclesiastical posts or benefices run effectively as family businesses, passed down from father to son. Both issues grew from Cluny’s insistence on its own autonomy and contemporary interest in how the Church had been run under the first popes. What was striking was the wider concern among the laity about such matters.

The most famous clashes took place at Milan, on the Lombard plain, the largest city in western Europe and a major economic centre. In the late 1050s Milan’s sophisticated lay population started a boycott of sacraments from their own clergy, who for centuries had openly married and paid the archbishop on receiving a new appointment.⁴ With papal backing, the protesters were organised by one Ariald, the descendant of a rural knight. Many of his supporters came from the vavassores, or newly arrived lesser nobility, and the cives, an assortment of merchants and notaries. Together these so-called Patareni represented a threat, not only in the religious sense but as major powers in the government of the city, to the older aristocracy from whom the archbishop and his cathedral chapter were drawn.

The campaign against simony moved on to larger targets. In the eyes of the reformers the most glaring abuse of ecclesiastical office was that prelates with souls in their care could be appointed by lay rulers and used as government officials. In formal terms the issue hinged on who would invest bishops with the ring and staff which marked their office. During the pontificate of Gregory VII between 1073 and 1085 the logic of the boycott used in Milan hardened into a two-pronged ideology. First, Gregory attacked those churchmen who benefitted from the arrangement:

Those who have been promoted by the simoniac heresy, that is, by the intervention of money, to any rank or office of holy orders may no longer exercise any ministry in holy church … Nor may those who are guilty of the crime of fornication celebrate masses or minister at the altar in lesser orders.

But who was to enforce this draconian commandment?

If they [the clergy] disregard our rulings … the people may in no wise receive their ministrations, so that those who are not corrected from the love of God and the honour of their office may be brought to their senses by the shame of the world and the reproof of the people.⁵

Gregory then turned to the greatest simoniac of all, the Emperor Henry IV who had been accustomed to nominate his own bishops. He deposed and excommunicated him in 1076, explaining that ‘it is fitting that he who strives to lessen the honour of your Church should himself lose the honour which seems to belong to him’.⁶

At a stroke, Gregory and those who supported him dispensed with two important elements of the Church’s monopoly position. In the first place they conferred an important role on the consumer to judge who was of suitable moral character to minister to them and this could potentially destabilise any spiritual figure, not least the pope himself. At the same time the rejection of the lay ruler distanced the Church from the coercive support of the secular power. Formal co-operation between ecclesiastical and secular government could no longer be taken for granted.

Exactly how the laity became informed about these issues is little known. Preaching by informed religious figures was rare and although, centuries before, Carolingian church councils may have expected priests to preach it was at best limited, and following the collapse of the Carolingian state may have disappeared completely. The traditional preachers of the Church were bishops; however there are few sermons from this period and even notable exceptions such as Fulbert of Chartres and Anselm of Bec in the eleventh century seem to have preached only to a limited public.⁷ It is possible that the first widespread preaching to the laity which involved them in religious reform came during the late tenth and early eleventh century with the so-called ‘Peace of God’ movement.⁸ These were assemblies around the year 1000, mainly in the Poitou, Limoges and Berry areas of western France, primarily to restrict violence and robbery by powerful laymen taking advantage of the collapse of central authority in the country. In an attempt to enlist divine support restrictions were also proclaimed on clerical marriage, simony and priests bearing arms. Some of the prelates present could be as predatory as any lay man, often defending family interests with violence and blurring ecclesiastical and personal property, so ideas of clerical purity connected seamlessly with the aim of bringing robbers under the authority of the law.⁹

The most famous chronicler of the councils was Ralph Glaber, a monk who left a vivid generic account of them around 1033. Summoned by bishops, abbots and ‘other devout men’, people came – rich, middling and poor. Bodies of saints and innumerable caskets of holy relics added to the solemnity of the occasion and concentrated the Church’s spiritual firepower. At the climax:

The bishops raised their crosiers to the heavens, and all cried out with one voice to God, their hands extended, ‘Peace! Peace! Peace!’

For all the transcendental fervour both clergy and laity had vital but prosaic outcomes in mind. It was understood that the council would reassemble in five years and in the meantime the m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Maps and Plates
• Acknowledgements
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Preface
• Abbreviations of Sources Most Frequently Cited
• Timeline
• Maps
• Introduction
• chapter 1. The Monopoly: 900–1135
• chapter 2. The New Economy: Markets, Troubadours, Universities and Heretics
• chapter 3. A World of Choices: Organised Heresy in Eastern and Western Europe
• chapter 4. Nails to Drive Out Nails: The Albigensian Crusade, The Fourth Lateran Council, Dominic Gusman and Francis of Assisi
• chapter 5. Competing for Souls: From the Death of Francis to the Fall of Montségur
• chapter 6. Restricting Choice: The Inquisition and the Decline of the Cathars
• chapter 7. The Decline of the Holy Men: 1244–1300
• chapter 8. Women and Heresy
• chapter 9. ‘Just as there are 72 Tongues …’: The Decline of Organised Heresy
• Notes
• Further Reading
• Index