The last Cathars haunted the remote valleys of the Piedmont. An almost invisible presence, they co-existed with groups of fugitive Waldensians, only occasionally breaking their cover to murder a priest who tipped off the Inquisition about their location in 1332, and two Inquisitors, who met the same fate in 1365 and 1374. Once enemies, the Waldensians and the Cathars were now forced together by circumstance, and ‘came to see persecution as a special mark of the true church.’101 The persecution continued in the form of sporadic military action: the French mounted an expedition against the Waldensians in the Dauphine in 1375, but on the Lombard side of the Alps, the use of force remained a logistical and political impossibility. Slowly but surely, the Inquisition closed in on the last remaining communities. Cathar sentiments were discovered in 1373 in the Val di Lanzo, while Antonio di Settimo di Savigliano’s Inquisition of 1387—9 uncovered the last two major Cathars: Antonio di Galosna and Jacob Bech.
Antonio di Galosna had been a Franciscan in Chieri,
Near Turin, but in 1362 had been introduced to the heresy in a house in Andezeno, a small town to the north-east of Chieri. The ceremony he participated in seems to have been part Waldensian and part Cathar, which indicates that, by this very late date, the Piedmont Cathars were practising a hybrid form of the faith. Galosna related to the Inquisition that he had renounced his belief in the incarnation of Christ and the sacraments of the Catholic Church. That a syncretistic or degenerate form of Catharism was being preached at Andezeno is evident in that, after visiting his teacher several times, Antonio was ritually struck on the head with a sword in order to induct him into the heresy.102 He was then given dualist instruction, in which God was extolled as the creator of heaven, but not of earth; the latter was apparently created by a fearsome dragon, which exercised more power in the earthly realm than the true god.103 A further teacher, Martin de Presbitero, had appointed Antonio to hear confessions, and was apparently present at two degenerate consolamentums, in which the consoled, rather than being put into the endura, were suffocated with pillows. Under torture, Antonio related stories of orgies presided over by a woman called Bilia la Castagna, who made a magic potion out of toad droppings and pubic hair to ensure that the novice would never leave the sect. This was undoubtedly untrue, as belief in sexual deviation had been a standard part of heresy accusations ever since Orleans in 1022, and it is fairly certain that Antonio was merely telling the Inquisitors what they wanted to hear.
Jacob Bech’s confession, however, makes it clear that
Not all of the Piedmont Cathars entertained notions about dragons — he was taught the more orthodox Cathar view that material creation was under the sway of Satan, and he also told the Inquisition of links between the Piedmont Cathars and Ecclesia Sclavoniae, which was apparently still active at that time. Indeed, Bech claimed to have been converted by two Italian Cathars and a third individual from ‘Sclavonia’, and that the Balkan heretics had their own pope.104 Before that, Bech had been a member of various heretical groups, including the Apostolics, and his travels had taken him as far as Rome and Avignon. At one point, he had even been given money by a well-wisher to cross the Adriatic to seek further instruction from Balkan heretics, but was unable to make the crossing due to inclement weather. In time, Bech himself began to gather disciples, and at Castagnole he was honoured with a feast. When he was asked about the consolamentum, Bech corroborated Galosna with reference to the euthanasia by suffocation, but added that the consoled had another option, that of a complete three-day fast, in which they could not even take that staple of the endura, cold water. If they survived, they would become Perfect, but would have to give all their worldly goods to the one who had consoled them. Bech told the Inquisition that he had settled in Chieri, where moderate Catharism was rife, and that a number of other Cathars had gone from there to Bosnia for further instruction.105 Both Galosna and Bech were burnt, and Catharism in the west effectively died with them.
In 1412, the Inquisition returned to Chieri and dug up 15 dead Cathars — some of whom had been named by Bech
As having journeyed to Bosnia — and burnt their remains. There were apparently no Cathars left alive, although the Inquisition acknowledged that the heresy was still rife across the Adriatic.
The Enigma of the Bosnian Church
Bosnia had always had a reputation for heresy. As early as 1203, Innocent III had urged the king of Hungary — the Church’s only real ally in eastern Europe and the Balkans — to mount a campaign against the heretics there. The Ban — or ruler — of Bosnia, Kulin, was thought to be a heretic, as were 10,000 of his subjects. At length, Innocent’s chaplain, John de Casamaris, was sent to investigate. Ban Kulin rejected all accusations of heresy, and pointed out to John that he had just built a church that celebrated a recent military victory. However, Christianity in Bosnia was underdeveloped, and it is possible that Ban Kulin was not aware of where orthodoxy ended and heresy began. As a precaution, seven senior leaders from various monastic communities submitted to Roman rule at Bilino Polje on 8 April 1203 before Ban Kulin and the papal legate. On 30 April, the ceremony was repeated on an island off Csepel in the Danube south of Budapest, only this time the seven priors made their submission in front of Ban Kulin, Emeric, king of Hungary, and senior Hungarian churchmen. In addition to submitting to the rule of the Church, the Bosnians were made to agree not to receive anyone they suspected of being a ‘Manichaean’.
Despite this, the heresy situation in Bosnia continued to
Worry successive popes. In 1232, it was discovered that the Catholic bishop of Bosnia was an uneducated simoniac who not only did not know how to baptise, but also lived in the same village as heretics.106 He was removed from office and replaced by a Dominican. It became clear to Gregory IX that a military solution was necessary. He appointed the king of Hungary to lead Crusades against the Bosnian heretics, and campaigns were mounted between 1234 and 1246, which saw a number of heretics being burnt. Following the death of Ban Ninoslav around 1250, Bosnia was forced to accept Hungarian rule.
This seems to have been a major turning point in Bosnian religious affairs. While the Crusades were attempts to extirpate heresy, they ultimately backfired, as it was under Hungarian suzerainty that the Bosnian Church was probably founded; it is still a matter for debate, as records are scarce for the period. Little seems to have been done to check heresy; the Dominicans were driven out and their convents burnt down. Elisabeth, the mother of the boy king of Hungary, Ladislas (1272—90), promised Pope Nicholas III in 1280 that she would take measures against the heretics, but it is not known if these measures achieved anything. It is unlikely they did, as, by the time the Bosnian Church emerged again into the historical record, around 1322, it was condemned by both Rome and the Serbian Orthodox Church as heretical.
The precise nature of the Bosnian Church’s heresy remains a matter for speculation. That its members were known as Patarenes — the name for Cathars in Italy — suggests a Catharist orientation. Furthermore, the Church used a ritual that was very similar to the consolamentum and included the giveaway phrase ‘supersubstantial bread’ in the Lord’s Prayer, a further strong suggestion that the Bosnian Church was either Cathar, semi-Cathar or at least tolerated Cathar practices within it.
In 1325, Pope John XXII (1316—34) exhorted a number of leaders to take action against the Bosnian Church, as ‘many heretics’ were flooding into Bosnia. His successor knew all about heresy, as he was none other than the bishop of Pamiers, James Fournier, who ruled as Benedict II (1334—42), but even he was unable to get a Crusade in motion. The most headway that the Catholic Church was able to make was in the sending of a Franciscan mission to Bosnia, but Stephen Kotromanic, Ban 1318—53, remained tolerant of the Bosnian Church, and there were no persecutions. He remained on good terms with the Franciscans, and converted to Catholicism. Heretics remained unpersecuted under Stephen’s successor, his nephew, Tvrtko I (1353—91), so much so that the Franciscans complained that ‘Patarenes’ were allowed into church when they said mass, and the support for the heretics was so great that the Franciscans almost had to practise their religion in secret.
Heretics long remained in positions of prominence in Bosnia, and were even sent on diplomatic missions, such as those to Dubrovnik — then an independent republic — in the first half of the fifteenth century. (Indeed, a merchant from Dubrovnik noted in 1458 that the Bosnians ‘follow Manichee customs’.107) The last great gosti — or elder — of the Bosnian Church, Radin, enjoyed a long and successful parallel career as a diplomat, serving both the Bosnian monarchy and Dubrovnik. When he drew up his will in 1466, he drew sharp distinction between members of the Bosnian Church and Catholics, although that did not stop him bequeathing money to the latter.
The increasing threat from the Ottoman Turks led the Bosnian king, Stephen Thomas (1443—61), to appeal to the west for help. To increase his chances of receiving support, he converted to Catholicism and began to persecute the Bosnian Church, a move that made him extremely unpopular with his subjects. Members of the Church were offered the choice of conversion or exile. Some of Radin’s community were given asylum in Dubrovnik and Venice, while others chose to defy their king and collaborate with the Ottomans. Bosnia fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1463, but the fate of those members of the Bosnian Church who did not go into exile remains obscure. They are traditionally thought to have converted to Islam, although there are reports of Bogomils, Patarenes and Manichaeans in Bosnia well into the eighteenth century; the last known report dates from 1867.108 It is perhaps fitting that the Great Heresy, which emerged seemingly from nowhere during the tenth century, should have an equally obscure and mysterious end.
World History
