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Medieval Heretics as Protestant Martyrs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Euan Cameron
Euan Cameron*
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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Extract

Two themes which figure repeatedly in the history of the Western Church are the contrasting ones of tradition and renewal. To emphasize tradition, or continuity, is to stress the divine element in the continuous collective teaching and witness of the Church. To call periodically for renewal and reform is to acknowledge that any institution composed of people will, with time, lose its pristine vigour or deviate from its original purpose. At certain periods in church history the tension between these two themes has broken out into open conflict, as happened with such dramatic results in the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The Protestant Reformers seem to present one of the most extreme cases where the desire for renewal triumphed over the instinct to preserve continuity of witness. A fundamentally novel analysis of the process by which human souls were saved was formulated by Martin Luther in the course of debate, and soon adopted or reinvented by others. This analysis was then used as a touchstone against which to test and to attack the most prominent features of contemporary teaching, worship, and church polity. In so far as any appeal was made to Christian antiquity, it was to the scriptural texts and to the early Fathers; though even the latter could be selected and criticized if they deviated from the primary articles of faith. There was, then, no reason why any of the Reformers should have sought to justify their actions by reference to any forbears or ‘forerunners’ in the Middle Ages, whether real or spurious. On the contrary, Martin Luther’s instinctive response towards those condemned by the medieval Church as heretics was to echo the conventional and prejudiced hostility felt by the religious intelligentsia towards those outside their pale.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 30: Martyrs and Martyrologies , 1993 , pp. 185 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1993

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References

1 See the analysis in Cameron, E., The European Reformation (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar, esp. pp. 135, 191–3.

2 See, for instance, the critiques of Augustine by Luther and Calvin, in O. Scheel, ed., Dokumente zu Luthers Entwicklung (bis 1519), 2nd edn. (Tubingen, 1929), p. 192; Calvin, Institutes, III. xi. 15; and discussion in Cameron, European Reformation, p. 123.

3 Wesenbecius, P., Oratio pro Waldensibus et Albigensibus Christiana, as ed. in Camerarius, J., Historica narratio defratrum orthodoxorum ecclesiis (Heidelberg, 1605), p. 413 Google Scholar. Luther’s original preface reads: ‘Ipse inquam cum essem Papista, vere et ex animo istos Pighardos Fratres odiebam magno zelo Dei et Religionis… Denique cum aliquando in aliquot libros Johannis Huss imprudens incidissem, et scripturas tam potenter et pure tractatas vidissem, ut stupere inciperam, cur talem et tantum virum exussissent Papa et Concilium: mox territus, clausi codicem, suspicatus venenum sub melle latere. … Ibi coepit gaudium cordis mei; et circumspectis omnibus, quos Papa pro haeretiris damnaverat et perdiderat, pro Sanctis et martyribus laudabam, praesertim quorum pia scripta vel confessiones pomi reperire.’ See [Uniry of Brethren], Confessiofidei ac religionis, baronum et nobilium regni Bohoemiae, serenissimo ac invittissimo Romanorum, Bohoemiae, etc. Regi… 1535 oblata (n.p., 1558), sigs A4r-v. See also Gonnet, J. and Molnár, A., Les Vaudois au moyen âge (Turin, 1974), p. 290 Google Scholar. Other evidence of Luther’s early attitudes to the Bohemians is found in the early lectures on Psalms and Romans; see references in Gonnet and Molnár, Les Vaudois au moyen âge, pp. 286–7; also M. Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1992), p. 381 and n.

4 For discussion see, e.g., Dickens, A. G., The German Nation and Martin Luther (London, 1974), pp. 93–6 Google Scholar and nn.

5 Cameron, E., The Reformation of the Heretics: the Waldenses of the Alps, 1480–1580 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 17, 111 Google Scholar, based on Paris, BN, MS latin 3375, vol. 1, fols 449V-52r.

6 See Brevicoxa, J., ‘A Treatise on Faith, the Church, the Roman Pontiff, and the General Council’, in Oberman, H. A., Forerunners of the Reformation: the Shape of Late Medieval Thought Illustrated by Key Documents (Philadelphia, 1981), pp. 76–84.Google Scholar

7 Guido [Terreni] de Perpiniano, Summa de haeresibus et earum confutationibus (Paris, 1528); Bernhardus de Lutzenburgo, Catalogus haereticorum omnium pene, qui a scriptoribus passim literis proditi sunt … iv libris conscriptis. Quorum quartus Lutheri negotium nonnihit attingit (Cologne, 1522).

8 For Leipzig, see, e.g., Kidd, B. J., ed., Documents Illustrative of the Continental Reformation (Oxford, 1911), pp. 47, 49–50 Google Scholar; for Luther’s reply to Ambrogio Catharino, see Gonnet and Molnár, Vaudois au moyen âge, p. 289, n. 21.

9 Johannes [Maier von] Eck, Enchiridion locorum communium (Ingolstadt, 1541), fol 5v: ‘Sic Lutherani relinquentes verum et vivum fontem ecclesiae, fodiunt cisternas dissiparas haereticorum, Wikleff, Husz, Albigentium etc’ Cf. fols 11v, 162v. The original edition appeared in 1535.

10 A. de Castro, Adversus omnes hereses, in Opera (Paris, 1578), arts ‘cibus’, col. 254, ‘confessio’, col. 303, and ‘papa’, cols 785–7.

11 F. Griffin Stokes, Epistolae obscurorum virorum: the Latin Text with an English Rendering (London, 1909), passim; François Rabelais, Pantagruel, ch. 7.

12 O. Gratius, Fasciculus rerum expetendarum ac fugiendarum (Cologne, 1535), epistola dedicatoria to Johannes Helmannus, sig. Aiv verso.

13 Some theologians did, of course, attempt the latter course, e.g. Jakob von Hochstraten or John Fisher: see Ozment, S. E., ‘Homo viator: Luther and late medieval theology’, in his The Reformation in Medieval Perspective (Chicago, 1971), pp. 148–52 Google Scholar; Ickert, S., ‘Defending the Ordo salutis’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 78 (1987), pp. 81–97 Google Scholar; Rex, R., The Theology of John Fisher (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 110–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 For the dilemmas facing the Catholic Church in the 1530s over justification, see, e.g., D. Fenlon, Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy: Cardinal Pole and the Counter Reformation (Cambridge, 1972); P. Matheson, Cardinal Contarini at Regensburg (Oxford, 1972); B. Collett, Italian Benedictine Scholars and the Reformation (Oxford, 1985), and a summary in E. Cameron, ‘Italy’, in A. Pettegree, ed., The Early Reformation in Europe (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 188–214.

15 Lerner, R. E., The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1972), pp. 20ff.Google Scholar, 65, 78–80, 117ff.

16 Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, pp. 108ff.

17 Salmeron, A., Commentarii in evangelicam historiam et in acta apostolorum (Cologne, 1602–4)Google Scholar, 5, treatise 38, as cited by Ussher, J., Gravissimae quaestionis, de Christianarum ecclesiarum in occidentis praesertim partibus, ab apostoiicis temporibus ad nostram usque aetatem continua successione et statu, historica explicatio (London, 1613), p. 160 Google Scholar. Cf. Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, p. 108, n. 31, for similar accusations against Waldenses.

18 References in Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, p. 111, nn. 49–50. Discussed in Ussher, Gravissimae quaestionis… explicatio, pp. 159f.

19 See Cameron, European Reformation, pp. 356–8.

20 See Foxe, John, The Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, J., 4th edn, 8 vols (London, n.d.), 3, pp. 107ff., 531ff., 581ff., 702ff. Google Scholar; 4, 123ff., 173ff., 205ff., 221ff, 557ff.

21 For the case for Foxe’s veracity, see Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation (London, 1964), pp. 46ff Google Scholar. In some cases Foxe may have misled by omission, or by alleging falsehood on the part of the inquisitors. See a striking example discussed in Brigden, S., London and the Reformation (Oxford, 1989), p. 92 Google Scholar, based on Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, 4, p. 175.

22 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Cod. Helmst. 403, as discussed and calendared by D. Kurze, Quellen zur Ketzergeschichle Brandenburgs und Pommerns — Veröffentlichungen der historischen Kommission zu Berlin, 45 (Berlin and New York, 1975), pp. 18–31, 77–261.

23 These materials are now chiefly contained in Cambridge, University Library, MSS Dd. 3.25–6; Trinity College, Dublin, MSS 265–6; Archives Departmental de l’Isère, Grenoble, MSS B 4350–1, and Paris, BN, MS latin 3375, vols 1–2, as described in Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, pp. 268–9.

24 See the account in Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, pp. 234, 242, for the Embrun records now at Cambridge. The Grenoble dossier, originally from the Chambre des Comptes of the Dauphiné, was not fully exploited until J. Chevalier, Mémoire historique sur les hérésies en Dauphiné (Valence, 1890); the Paris dossier was first analysed extensively in Marx, J., L’Inquisition en Dauphiné (Paris, 1914).Google Scholar

25 The fullest recent treatment of this episode is that in Audisio, G., Les Vaudois du Luberon: une minoritéen Provence (1460-1560) (Mérindol, 1984), pp. 296–407.Google Scholar

26 See sources cited in Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, pp. 162–4, and nn.

27 For the Calabrians, see Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, 4, pp. 472–3, based on H. Pantaleon, Martyrum Historia (Basle, 1563), p. 337; a modern account is in A. Armand-Hugon, Storia dei valdesi II: dall’adesione alla Riforma all’Emancipazione (1532-1848) (Turin, 1974), pp.35-42.

28 For the revision according to which the final integration of the Vaudois into the Reformed churches is dated to the 1560s, see the agreement between Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, pp. 155–66, 191–9, 213–15, and Audisio, Vaudois du Luberon, pp. 409–29.

29 From the account of Martin Gonin in J. Crespin, Actes des Martyrs (n. p., 1565), p. 138.

30 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, 4, pp. 474–5, translating Crespin. Cf. paraphrase of this by Peter Wesenbec in Camerarius, Historica narratio, p. 420.

31 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, 4, p. 508.

32 T. de Bèze, Icones, id est, verae imagines… (n. p., 1580), sig. Cc. i; Histoire ecclésiastique des églises réforméesau royaume de France (‘Anvers’ [i.e. Geneva], 1580), 1, pp. 23, 35f.

33 See Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, 4, pp. 490, 494.

34 Ibid., pp. 205, 218. For modem arguments to similar effect, see Hudson, Anne, The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History (Oxford, 1988), pp. 508ff Google Scholar; Dickens, A. G., ‘Heresy and the Origins of the English Reformation’, in his Reformation Studies (London, 1983), pp. 363–82 Google Scholar; Davis, J. F., Heresy and Reformation in the South East of England, 1520–1559 (London, 1983)Google Scholar; Brigden, London and the Reformation, pp. 122ff.

35 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, 3, pp. 102, 104.

36 Ibid., 4, p. 176.

37 Ibid., p. 179.

38 Ibid., pp. 179–80; also 3, pp. 99, 172–3.

39 Histoire ecclésiastique (1580), 1, p. 26. Brun’s martyrdom is also reported in Crespin, Actes des Martyrs, pp. 154f., but without the details cited.

40 Cormerius, T., Rerum gestarum Henrici II regis Galliae (Paris, 1584)Google Scholar, fols 48r—53r; Thuanus, J. A., Historiarumsui temporis (Paris, 1604-8), 1, pp. 455–73 Google Scholar; 3, pp. 19–50. See Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, pp. 240–1.

41 Aubéry, J., Pro Merindoliis ac Caprariensihus actio, ed. Heinsius, D. (Leiden, 1619)Google Scholar; idem, , Histoire de l’exécution de Cabrières et de Mérindol (Paris, 1645).Google Scholar

42 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, 1, p. 8.

43 Ibid., p. xxiii.

44 Ibid., pp. 7–8. Cf. also preface, ibid., p. xxxiv. Cf. A. Pighius, Controversiarum praecipuarum in comitiis Ratisponensibus tractatarum, et quibus nunc potissimum exagitatur Christi fides et religio, diligens et luculenta explicatio (Paris, 1549), fols 175r-190r, esp.fol. 177r:‘conabimur…tantum meminisse et revocare ad memoriam, ecclesiae filios, in praedictis teneri vivere, ab antiquo, imo ab initio observaos in Ecclesiastica domo ritibus, consuetudinibus, et legibus’; also S. Hosius, Confutano Prolegomenon Brenta (Cologne, 1560), esp. pp. 1–2: ‘Ante quadraginta hos annos is fuit orbis universi status … Erat terra labii unius et sermonum eorundem … Multitudinis credentium erat cor unum, et anima una. Sicut unus Deus ab omnibus colebatur, ita fides una retinebatur.’

45 Ussher, Gravissimae quaestionis… explicatio, epistola dedicatoria, referring to R Bristow, A Brief Treatise of Diverse Plain and Sure Wayes… (Antwerp, 1574).

46 Gretser, J., Murices Catholicae el Germanicae antiquitatis, sectariomm praedicantium pedibus positi et sparsi (Ingolstadt, 1608)Google Scholar, passim. A murex or tribulus was an iron contraption in the form of a tetrahedron which would impale or unhorse anyone who stepped on it, whichever way it was thrown on the ground.

47 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, 1, p. xxi.

48 See Lambert, Medieval Heresy, pp. xii, 35ff.

49 Illyricus, M. Flacius, Catalogas Testium Veritalis qui ante nostrani aelatem reclamarunt papae (Basle, 1556, and Geneva, 1608)Google Scholar; see the theory of church history contained in the prefaces, esp. in the 1608 edn., sigs **, fols 3v-4r.

50 Aeneas Sylvius Piccolommeus, Historia Bohemica, in his Opera (Basle, 1551), pp. 102ff.; for the Brethren and Luke of Prague, see Gonnet and Molnár, Vaudoisau moyen âge, pp. 249ff., 276ff, 348ff.; also Lambert, Medieval Heresy, pp. 35s, 384ff.

51 Confessio Waldensium de plerisque nunc controversiis dogmatibus ante 134 annos contra claudicantes Hussitas scripta, nostrisaue temporibus statui, ac rebus pulchre correspondens, ed. M. Flacius Illyricus (Basle, 1568); on the Consensus Sendomirensis, see, e.g., B. J. Kidd, Documents Illustrative of the Continental Reformation (Oxford, 1911), pp.658f.; cf. also B. Lydius, Waldensia, 2 vols (Rotterdam and Dordrecht, 1616–17), which is entirely composed of material from the Hussites, the Taborites, or the Unity of Brethren. Amedeo Molnár long claimed that there was a real and close association between all the later Waldenses and Hussites: see Gonnet and Molnár, Vaudois au moyen âge, pp. 211–82. Neither Audisio or myself have found any evidence to support this in the behaviour of the Vaudois of the Alps or Provence, as, e.g., in G. Audisio, Les “Vaudois”: Naissance, vie et mort d’une dissidence (xiie-xvie siècles) (Turin, 1989), pp. 82ff. However, some Taborite treatises were translated into Provençal, possibly in the early sixteenth century, for reasons which remain to be fully elucidated: see the MSS listed by Gonnet and Molnár, Vaudoisau moyen âge, pp. 348ff.

52 Flacius Illyricus, Catalogus (1556 edn.), pp. 704–12, 760–1.

53 Ibid., pp. 723–57.

54 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, 2, pp. 264–71; for Lentolo’s use of Flacius Illyricus, see S. Lentolo, Historia delle grande e crudeli persecutioni fatti ai tempi nostri… contro il popolo che chiamano valdese, ed. T. Gay (Torre Pèllice, 1906), pp. 19–22. This edition is a partial transcription of the original in Bern, Stadtsbibliothek, MS 716; copy in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Barlow 8.

55 Freher, M., ed., Rerum Bohemicarum antiqui scriptores (Hanover, 1602)Google Scholar, includes on pp. 222ff. the Pseudo-Reinerius Treatise, on pp. 238ff. the Confessio fidei fratrum Waldensium sent to Wladislaw II, on pp. 245ff. the Oratio acusatoria, and on pp. 249–68 the Excusatio fratrum Waldensium,.. contra binas literas D. Augustini; the last three were all written by the Unity of Brethren c. 1508.

56 Ussher, Gravissimae quaestionis… explicatio, esp., e.g., pp. 234–5, 296–9.

57 For a recent survey see Lambert, Medieval Heresy, pp. 105ff.

58 Ibid., pp. 62ff.; on Durand of Osca or Huesca (there is debate about the name), see pp. 74ff.

59 Wesenbec, Oratio, in Camerarius, Historica Narratio, pp. 411–12.

60 Ibid., pp. 414ff.

61 J. Chassanion, Histoire des Albigeois: touchant leur doctrine el religion, contre les faux bruits qui ont esté semés contre eux, et les écrits dont on les a à tort diffamés… (‘Monistrol en Velay’[= Geneva], 1595), pp. 24–9.

62 Ibid., pp. 37–48.

63 Ibid., pp. 51–5.

64 P. de Marnix, Sr. de Ste-Aldegonde, Le Tableau des differens de la religion, traiclant de l’église…, 2 vols (Leiden, 1603–5), 1, fol. 151v; for the full entry, see 1, fols 149r-153r.

65 Ibid., 1, fol. 154r.

66 N. Vignier, Théatre de l’antechrist, auquel est respondu au Cardinal Bellarmin (n.p., 1610), pp. 235ff. For further instances of the elision of Albigenses and Waldenses, see the works of Agrippa d’Aubigné, Forbes of Corse, Basnage, and Allix referred to in Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, pp. 235, 249–51; Allix also amalgamated the Albigenses and the Lollards.

67 Perrin, J.-P., Histoire Jes Chrestiens Albigeois (Geneva, 1618)Google Scholar; and Histoire des Vaudois (Geneva, 1619); for details on the origins of these works see Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, pp. 234–5.

68 [J.-P. Perrin], The Bloudy Rage of that Great Antichrist of Rome, and his superstitious adherents, against the true Church of Christ, and the faithful professors of his Gospell. Declared at large in the Historie of the Waldenses and Albigenses, apparently manifesting unto the world the visibilitie of our Church of England, and of all the reformed Churches throughout Christendome, for above foure hundred and fiftie years last past (some copies variously entitled Luther’s Fore-runners, or, a Cloud of Witnesses, deposing for the Protestant Faith), tr. S. Lennard (London, 1624), preface to William Earl of Pembroke. There was also a partial German translation by J. J. Grassem, Waldenser Chronick, von den Verfolgungen, so die Waldenser, Albigenser, Picarder und Hussiten, etc. Fünffthalb hundert Jahr lang durch ganz Europam uber dem H Evangelio haben aussgestanden… (Basle, 1623).

69 [Perrin], Bloudy Rage, tr. Lennard, pp. 1–66 (first page-sequence).

70 See, e.g., cases of the English Jesuits, and Bellarmine as discussed below, n. 73.

71 Compare the Reformers’ attitudes to Scripture as a source-text, e.g., in Cameron, European Reformation, pp. 136ff.

72 Sanderus, N., De visibili monarchia ecclesiae libri VIII (Würzburg, 1592), pp. 469–81 Google Scholar; also ‘N. D.’ [= Robert Parsons, S.J.], A Treatise of Three Conversions of England, 3 vols (n. p., 1603), 1, pp. 513–46. See discussion of these in Ussher, Gravissimae quaestionis… explicaria, pp. 158–74, which also cites Jodocus Coccius, Thesaurus Catholicus, in quo controversiae fidei… explicantur, 2 vols (Cologne, 1600–1), 1, bk 8, art. 3.

73 Bossuet, J.-B., Histoire des variations des églises protestantes, in Oeuvres, 20 (Versailles, 1817), pp. 160–9 Google Scholar. The original MS version of the trial is in Paris, BN, MS latin 3375, 1, fols 215r-276V.

74 Ussher, Gravissimae quaestionis … explicatio, pp. 224–36. A further long discussion of the Albigenses, where they are regarded as sharing beliefs and identity with other groups such as the Waldenses and Humiliati, occupies ibid., pp. 291–372.

75 This is the argument used repeatedly by Ussher, Gravissimae quaestionis … explicatio, e.g., pp. 173, 301–3.

76 Revelation 20.1-3, 7–8 (NEB).

77 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. Pratt, 1, pp. 4–5.

78 Ussher, Gravissimae quaestionis… explicatio, sigs A2v-A3r.

79 For inquisitorial texts, see Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, pp. 39, 120ff.

80 Cf. ibid., pp. 76ff., for this preoccupation of inquisitors.

81 For Lollards, see Lambert, Medieval Heresy, pp. 372–81; for Waldenses, ibid., pp. 362–7; Cameron, Reformation of the Heretics, pp. 155ff., 171ff., 213ff.; Audisio, Les “Vaudois”, pp. 233–6.

82 Lambert, Medieval Heresy, pp. 381–9.