Untitled - Shattering Denial

THE INQUISITION 33
tical origin. The Roman law knew nothing of it. It
was at first a penalty peculiar to monks and clerics, al
though later on laymen also were subjected to it.
About the year 1000, the Manicheans under various
names came from Bulgaria, and spread over western
Europe. 1 We meet them about this time in Italy, Spain,
France, and Germany. Public sentiment soon became
bitter against them, and they became the victims of a
general, though intermittent, persecution. Orleans, Arras,
Cambrai, Chalons, Goslai, Liege, Soissons, Ravenna,
Monteforte, Asti, and Toulouse became the field of their
propaganda, and often the place
of their execution.
Several heretics like Peter of Bruys, Henry of Lausanne,
Arnold of Brescia, and Eon de 1 Etoile (Eudo de Stella),
likewise troubled the Church, who to stop their bold propa
ganda used force herself, or permitted the State or the
people
to use it.
It was at Orleans in 1022 that Catholics for the first
time during this period treated heretics with cruelty.
An historian of the time assures us that this cruelty was
due to both king and people: regis jussu et universe?
plebis
consensu. 2
King Robert, dreading
the disastrous
effects of heresy upon his kingdom, and the consequent
1 Cf. C. Schmidt, Histoire et doctrine de la secte des Cathares, vol. i, pp. 16-
54, 82.
2 Raoul Glaber, Hist., lib. iii, cap. viii, Hist, des Gaules, vol. x, p. 38.
For other authorities consult Julien Havet, L heresie et le bras seculier au moyen
age, in his (Euvres, Paris, 1896, vol. ii, pp. 128-130.
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