legislation was exceedingly moderate as to heretics, merely classing them with Pagans, Jews, and infamous persons, and subjecting them to certain disabilities.[1]
The stupor of the tenth century was too profound for heresy, which presupposes a certain amount of healthy mental activity. The Church, ruling unquestioned over the slumbering consciences of men, laid aside the rusted weapons of persecution and forgot their use. When, about 1018, Bishop Burchard compiled his collection of canon law he made no reference to heretical opinions or their punishment save a couple of regulations exhumed from the forgotten Council of Elvira in 305, respecting the treatment of apostates to idolatry. Even the introduction of the doctrine of transubstantiation was received submissively until, two centuries after Gottschale, Berenger of Tours called it in question; but he had not in him the stuff of martyrdom, and yielded to moderate pressure. The warmer faith of the Cathari, who commenced to disturb the stagnation of orthodoxy in the eleventh century, called for energetic measures, but even with those abhorred sectaries the Church was wonderfully slow to resort to extremities. It hesitated before the unaccustomed task; it shrank from contradicting its teachings of charity and was driven forward by popular fanaticism. The persecution of Orleans in 1017 was the work of King Robert the Pious; the burning at Milan soon after was done by the people against the will of the archbishop. So unfamiliar was the Church with its duty that when, about 1045, some Manichæans were discovered at Chalons, Bishop Roger applied to Bishop Wazo of Liége for advice as to what he should do with them, and whether he should hand them over to the secular arm for punishment; to which the good Wazo replied, urging that their lives should not be for-
- ↑ Mag. Biblioth. Pat. IX. IL 875.-Chron. Turonens. ann. S78.-Concil. Ratispon. ann. 702.C. Francfortiens. ann. 7904. C. Romanum ann. 799.-C. Aquis gran. ann. 799.-Alcuini Epistt. 108, 117.-Agobardi Lib, adv. Felicem c. 5. 6.-Nic. Anton. Bib. Vet. Hispan. Lib. vI. c. ii. No. 42-3 (cf. Pelayo, Heterod. Españ. 1. 297, 678 sqq-). Hincmari Remens, de Prædestinat. II. c. 2.- Annal. Rertin. ann. 849.-Concil. Carisiacens. ann. 849 (cf. C. Agathens. ann. 508 c. 38).-Cap Car. Mag. ann. 789 c. 44.-Capitul. Add. III. c. 90 For the slenderness of thc disabilities inflicted on Jews under the Carlovingians see Reginald Lane Poole's "Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought," London, 1884, p. 47
