§ 79. THE MEDIAEVAL DISSENTERS. 467
dogs that bite and foxes that deceive.1 Free use was made of the withered branch of John 15. 6, which was to be cast out and burnt, and of the historical examples of the destruc tion of the Canaanites and of Korah, Dothan, and Abiram. Thomas Aquinas put heretics in the same category with coin clippers who were felons before the civil tribunal. Earth quakes, like the great earthquake in Lombardy of 1222, and other natural calamities were ascribed by the orthodox to God's anger against heresy.2
The principle of toleration was unknown, or at best only here and there a voice was raised against the death penalty, as in the case of Hildegard, Rupert of Deutz,3 and Peter Cantor, bishop of Paris.4 Bernard went farther and admon ished Eugenius III. against the use of force in the treatment of heretics 5 and in commenting upon Cant. II. 15, " take me the foxes that spoil the vines," he said, that they should be caught not by arms but by arguments, and be reconciled to the Church in accordance with the purpose of Him who wills all men to be saved. He added that a false Catholic does more harm than an open heretic.6 The opinion came to pre vail, that what disease is to the body that heresy is to the Church, and the most merciful procedure was to cut off the heretic. No distinction was made between the man and the error. The popes were chiefly responsible for the policy which acted upon this view. The civil codes adopted and pro nounced death as the heretic's "merited reward," poena debitaJ Thomas Aquinas and the theologians established it by arguments. Bernard Guy expressed the opinion of his age when he declared that heresy can be destroyed only when its advocates are converted or burnt. To extirpate religious dis sent, the fierce tribunal of the Inquisition was established.
1 De consid. III. 1. 2 Coulton's Salimbene, p. 13.
8 See Dollinger, Akad. Vortrage, III. 280.
4 Gutjahr, Petrus Cantor Paris, sein Leben u. Schriften, Gratz, 1899. 6 De consid. III. I.
6 Serm. in Cant., 64, 65, Migne, 183. 1086, 1091, plus nocetfalsus catholicus quam verus hereticus.
7 This was the usual expression used by the Church and in legal documents. Flade, p. 114.
468 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
The last measure to be resorted to was an organized crusade, waged under the banner of the pope, which shed the blood of the mediaeval dissenters without pity and with as little com punction as the blood of Saracens in the East.
The confusion, which reigned among the Church authorities concerning the sectaries, and also the differences which existed among the sectaries themselves, appear from the many names by which they were known. The most elaborate list is given in the code of Frederick II. 1238,1 and enumerates nineteen different sects, among which the most familiar are Cathari, Patarenes, Beguines, Arnoldists, and Waldenses. But the code did not regard this enumeration as exhaustive, and adds to the names " all heretics of both sexes, whatever be the term used to designate them." And in fact the list is not exhaus tive, for it does not include the respectable group of North ern Italy known as the Humiliati, or the Ortlibenses of Strassburg, or the Apostolicals of Belgium. One document speaks of no less than seventy-two, and Salimbene of one hun dred and thirty different sects.2 The council of Verona, 1183, condemned " first of all the Cathari and Patarenes and those who falsely called themselves Humiliati or Poor Men of Lyons, also the Passaging Josephini, and Arnoldists, whom we put under perpetual anathema." The lack of compact organiza tion explains in part the number of these names, some of which were taken from localities or towns and did not indicate any differences of belief or practice from other sectaries. The numbers of the heretics must be largely a matter of conjecture. A panic took hold of the Church authorities, and some of the statements, like those of Innocent III., must be regarded as exaggerations, as are often the rumors about a hostile army in a panic-stricken country, awaiting its arrival. Innocent pronounced the number of heretics in Southern France in-
1 Catharos, Patarenos, Speronistas, Leonistas, Arnaldistas, Circumcisos, Passaginos, Josephinos, Garatenses, Albanenses, Franziscos, Bagnarolos, Commixtos, Waldenses, Roncarolos, Communellos, Warinos et Ortolinos cum illis de Aqua Nigra et omnes hcereticos utriusque sexus, quocumque nomine censeantur. BrSholles, V. 280.
- Dollinger, II. 300 ; Coulton's Salimbene, p. 13.