Medieval panorama : the English scene from conquest to Reformation / by G.G. Coulton.

  • George Gordon Coulton
Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Medieval panorama : the English scene from conquest to Reformation / by G.G. Coulton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    779/842 (page 745)
    CHAPTER XXXV (pp. 457-476) (1) Philosophy and Civilisation in the M.A. 268. (2) Ten Medieval Studies, 37. (3) That which I write in the next few pages is developed more fully, with references, in the second chapter of my Inquisition and Liberty (Heinemann, 1937), and more fully still in my Christy St Francis, and To-day (C.U. Press), 26-38. (4) Dante, Paradiso, xxiv. 106. (5) See the story of Saladin and the Crusaders in Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus Miraculorum, dist. iv, c. 15 (ed. Strange, 1. 188; trans. Scott and Bland, 1. 212). (6) E. Renan, OAverroisme, introd. iii. (7) Renan, l.c. 273; Rashdall, Universities (1st ed.), 362, n. 2. (8) Inferno, cantos ix and x. (9) Renan, l.c. 333, 336. (10) M. Deanesly, Lollard Bible, 36. (11) litienne de Bourbon, Anecd. historiques (1877), 308; cf. 291. I deal fully with this subject in Ten Medieval Studies, ch. vii. (12) P.L. clxxxiii. 1088-102; cf. 82, 676. (13) English Works, 262, 280, 282; cf. 355. (14) H. C. Lea, History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (1887), I. 87. (15) P.L. CCV. 241, 322. (16) LyIn¬ quisition, 284. (17) Eyre, European Civilisation, ill. 699. (18) P.L. CCV. 230. (19) Register, Lib. xii, ep. 138. (20) Serm. 66 in Cant. § 12. His ablest Roman Catholic biographer, Vacandard, confessed: “I am inclined to think that Bernard believed in its efficacity, or at least in its juridical value.” Then, after quoting the saint textually, he asks: “If Bernard had not believed in the validity of this ordeal, how could he say that the accused were convicted, irrefragably convicted?” And he refers to an article which gives full proof of the belief in this ordeal of water among great Churchmen of the twelfth century. (21) Lea’s treatment of this episode is one of the few cases in which Vacandard meets him directly hand to hand and sums up: “ it will be seen how the author, who is nevertheless trying to be impartial, distorts the facts” (JOInquisition [1907], 36). Any reader who follows the difference of opinion between these two honest men (for Vacandard quotes St Leo’s exact words, p. 32) will probably judge that, though the author exaggerates on one side, his critic exaggerates still more on the other. When Lea writes that St Leo declared the heretics ought to be killed Vacandard insists that he has here put into the Pope’s mouth words which were actually spoken by the Emperor. Strictly, this is true; but, considering that Leo writes “our fathers acted rightly.. .for they saw that [here follow the Emperor’s words justifying the execution] ”, it is difficult to deny Lea’s main point that the Pope, by repeating these words with approval, and with the plain word saw where, if he wanted not to commit himself, he would have written thought, may be said to have uttered them himself. Incidentally, one critic of Lea, perhaps the bitterest of all, has recently permitted himself to quote this criticism from Vacandard, with the silent omission of those crucial words which I have here italicised (see my Sectarian History, 68). (22) Eymeric, Directorium Inquisitorum (ed. Pegna, Rome, 1585, with approval of Pope Gregory XIII), 654-6; pars 111, quaest. lxv. This is one of the main points upon which Baumgarten charges Lea with guilty misrepresentation, yet without a shadow of proof for his accusation beyond the vague unvouched assertions of the Jesuit periodical Civilta Cattolica. Alphandery ([Encyc. Brit. 596) supports Lea: and any reader who has access to the British Museum may judge for himself. (23) Eymeric, l.c. 517-19. (24) Douais, Documents etc. (1900), 1. 67. (25) Eymeric, l.c. 510. (26) This Register is printed in the second part of Limborch’s Hist. Inquisitionis. The very first page records as follows: “(1) Peter of St Laurent-de-Garrigues>}<.* Visitations of Toulouse twice a year: in the octaves of Easter to the Church of St-Sernin; on the Invention of St Stephen in August [i.e. Aug. 2] at the Church of St Stephen. * This abbreviation signifies “condemned to wear the cross of infamy”; for which see the case of Raymonde just below.