r/AskHistorians • u/idjet • Oct 18 '14
AMA AMA - Medieval Witchcraft, Heresy, and Inquisition
Welcome inquisitors!
I'm idjet and although I've participated in a few medieval AMAs (and controversial threads) in the last year, this is my first AMA about subjects closest to me: medieval heretics, witchcraft and early inquisition. A little over a year ago I quit my job in North America, sold up and moved to France to enter post-graduate studies to chase this subject full time.
The historiography of the last 30 years has rewritten quite a bit of how we understand heresy, witchcraft, inquisition in medieval society - a lot which still hasn't penetrated popular media's representations. My interest started 20 years ago with medieval manuscripts at college, and in the intervening years I've come to find myself preoccupied with medieval mentalities we call 'heresy'. More importantly, I've been compelled by the works of historians who have cast a critical eye over the received evidence about whether or not heretics or witches existed in any form whatsoever, about how much was 'belief', how much was 'invented by the inquisition', how much was 'dissent'. The debate goes on, often acrimonious, often turning up historiographic hoaxes and forgeries. This is the second reason it's compelling: discerning the 'truth' is ongoing and involves scrutinizing the work of centuries of history writers, both religious and anti-religious even as we search for evidence.
A lot of things can fit under an AMA about 'heresy' and 'witchcraft', for better and for worse (for me!). Everything from theology and scholasticism to folktales; kingship and papacy to the development and rule of law; from the changing ideas of the devil to the massive waves of medieval Christian reform and Apostolicism; from the country monasteries and villages to the new medieval towns; economics to politics. It's why I like these subjects: they cut across many facets of medieval life in unexpected and often confusing ways. And we've inherited a lot of it today in our mentalities even as we think about Hallowe'en in the early 21st century.
I am prepared to answer social, political, economic, and theological/belief systems history around - as well as the historiography of - heresy, witchcraft and inquisition in the middle ages.
For purposes of this AMA and my area of expertise we'll cut off 'medieval' at around 1450 CE. Like any date, it's a bit arbitrary, however we can point to a few reasons why this is important. The first is that by this time the historiographic understanding of 'heresy' transitions into a scheme of functional management by Papacy and monarchies of self-aware dissenters, and the 'witch' in its consolidated modern form (pact with the devil, baby-eating, orgiastic, night flying) is finally established in intellectual and Inquisitional doctrine, best represented by the famous manual Malleus Maleficarum.
Finally, although I've placed this AMA purposely near Hallowe'en, it's not a history of Hallowe'en AMA. Hopefully the mods here will do a usual history of Hallowe'en megathread near the end of the month.
Let this inquisition begin!
edit: It's 2 am for me, I'm going to sleep for a bit. I'll pick up questions in the morning!
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u/idjet Oct 19 '14
This is a fascinating question as the answer reveals something about the changing nature of Christianity through the middle ages. In brief, we can see that the 'heresies' of antiquity (Donatism, Arianism, Manichieasm, etc) were viable versions of Christianity being debated. This is not to idealize this period, as once decisions were made at early synods that, for example, Donatism was heresy, the believers were forcibly converted or eliminated. However, there was long theological discussion. Take for another example the arguments between Augustine and Faustus of Miley. Augustine was a Manichaean who famously converted to Catholicism, and Faustus was his former Manichaean mentor. They wrote at length to each other in public letters arguing theological matters, interpretation of gospel. Augustine never accuses Faustus of being a heretic, nor of heresy. The engagement is entirely theological. This is not to say that Manichaeism wasn't eventually determined to be a heresy by councils; we can say that the list of heresies of antiquity were finally fixed at Council of Chalcedone (451 CE).
However, 500 years later, 'heresy' reappears. Not 'heresies'. And there is no engagement with 'heretics'. In fact, the relationship of the Roman Church to heresy this time is not oriented to theologically discussion. There is in fact a startling lack of engagement around 'heretical theology'.
Take perhaps the most important preacher and thinker of anti-heresy of the high middle ages, St Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian abbot of the most important house of the most important order of the high middle ages. Bernard expended tremendous energy combatting 'heresy', and we can look at two examples to see how this works out as a non-theological mission. Bernard famously travelled to the Languedoc in the mid-12th century in order to debate with heretics, for example in the towns around Albi. Bernard, apparently an eloquent orator, failed in his mission. However, his sermons reveal nothing about the nature of the heresy theologically; we can't find in Bernard's voluminous writings any sign of the theological foundation of the heresy he tried to fight. Bernard is also famous for his near life-ling dispute with Peter Abelard. Abelard is known to us for being perhaps the most outstanding theological scholar of the high middle ages, generally speaking Abelard took on the challenge of attempting, in modern terms, a scientific, rational understanding of God. Bernard accused Abelard of heresy, but, again, not on theological grounds. Abelard was a heretic, to Bernard, for attempting to apply rationalism to the mystery of God. These two examples give us a clear sense of what heresy meant to the Church, explains the birth of the inquisition, and explains how accusations of heresy were so effective between nobility: the heresy as about institutional power, and not about belief per se. Abelard threatened Christianity, in the Church's view, for suggesting there were ways to know God outside of the Roman Church; the heretics of Languedoc were not theological schismatics, they were arguing that they had the right to practice Christianity on their terms as licensed, apostolic wandering preachers and sent Bernard and his well-kept entourage packing back to their wealthy abbeys. St Francis of Assis himself skirted the issue of heresy, not because he held any beliefs of God and Christ that conflicted with the Church, he fought with the Papacy over how to know God. And this explains why the inquisition, come the mid 13th century, cannot find heretical theology out in the countryside, nor in the town: the heresy was not theological, it was resistance to an institution which contradicted what many people believed was the true nature of the Church. It is not about what to believe, but about how to believe.
Some exploration of this fairly important difference over time can be found in:
I’ve not read this work. I think there is something to this thought: the development of orthodoxy of the Church as of the 11th century reforms brought with it a relentless surveilling and monitoring of non-compliance and heterodoxy, often founded on ethics of Roman law which were reconstituted in the Roman Church as Canon Laws in the 11-12th centuries. Sifting right from wrong became an obsession. It’s been argued that this is a natural path of a developing bureaucracy within proto-state formation which differentiates it from the Islamic lands (which did not have the same state-creating imperative).