Medieval Heretics

Throughout the twelfth century, the identity of heretics became increasingly more specific and with that came a lawful system that those accused of heresy had to adhere to. During these times an increasingly growing population fell under the umbrella title known as a heretic, as there were many different systems of belief that were not Catholicism, which was the religion that was backed by the ruling system. Because of the multitude of different kinds possible heretics, they were, at first, hard to track down, which possibly could have added to the urge to flush them out. As stated in Deane and Kolpacoff’s A History of Medieval Heresy and Inquisition “By the mid-twelfth century, therefore, it was already difficult for church leaders to distinguish

between piety and pretense, holiness and hypocrisy,” (pg. 26). However, it is important to understand that people didn’t set out with the intention of disobeying the Church, in fact most of those in an organization deemed heretic thought they were the true Church, and were so convicted of this that they set out preaching themselves.
There are multiple examples of people who thought that they were followers of the one right religion.

A man named Valdes preached a message of giving up riches as he had done and relying instead on God. This appealed to many people, and these followers were called many names, such as Friends, the Known, Valdesi or most commonly the Poor. This group threatened the church because of their public dismissal of material riches, which the Church made use of. Additionally, the Poor could be identified by being very liberal about which among them could preach, and in the past the Church only allowed clergy approved men to preach. Eventually Pope Lucious III had the group excommunicated. Another example of a group that were considered heretic were the Good Men and Women. This group was identifiable through their beliefs which were very different from Catholicism. These included the notion that one could be baptized through the laying of the hands (versus that of water), they believed that souls were angels trapped in flesh and that the only way to end the cycle of eternal rebirth for angels was for procreation to end entirely. Because of this they didn’t wed or have sex. They wouldn’t eat any meat as it was produced from beings that had had sex. They had a group within the religion known as the “Elected” who had been cleansed and could never sin again. Per the Good Men and Women, God could only hear the Elected’s prayers and therefore those were who were not the Elected frequently

prayed to them. These people were also known widely as “Cathars” which was a derogatory word of unclear origin meaning heretic. (pg. 27)
Nevertheless, the search for heretics was not initially driven by righteous Catholics in search of doing what they perceived as right.

During this time, there was a struggle for power between the Pope and the Emperor, and the supposed just crusade against heretics was a convenient excuse for Pope Innocent to war against political enemies. “Although deeply entangled with the notion of heresy, the Albengensian Crusade was at heart a crusade of conquest, firmly linked to political ambitions and territorial concerns” (pg. 47). Once the crusading had taken its toll, many of those in positions of authority had been killed, and those who filled those seats were committed to finding and reforming heretics. This event combined with the Treaty of Paris in 1229 set the stage for the beginning of heretic

hunting.
While there was never an “Inquisition” as glorified by media over the years, a steady stream of supposed heretics was tried and punished during this time. Except for a few Inquisitors, most of the lot were conservative and cautious. When Emperor Frederick II mandated that heretics be burned to death in the early thirteenth century, it became more important than ever to have an effective system with which to find and try the guilty. The original system was known as accusatio. It consisted of a person going to court with an accusation of another person being a heretic which they must then back. Tests were performed, such as dunking the accused in water and judging the time which it takes them to float as a sign of innocence or guilt. However, the real test was the crowd’s reaction to the trial, since these people were of the community that the accused was from and were thought to have a good understanding of that person’s moral character. In later years, a method known as Inquisitio was used, which consisted of a judge prosecuting a suspect based on information found by deputized officers. The later method would be decreed by Pope Innocent as the way all should be tried, including crimes of heresy.
Those who were accused of being a heretic seldom (if ever) identified themselves as such. “The problem is that the term “Cathars” was largely derogatory and never employed by those accused of heresy, who referred to themselves and their leaders variously as believers…” (pg. 27). The majority were people of a different faith than that which was supported by the law. Since these people continued to sprout up throughout the ages, the system with which to eradicate heretics developed into Inquisitio, and the deputized men, judges and clergy who accused people of being heretics identified themselves as doing what they believed to be the right thing.