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A teaser snippet from the book (with consent of the authors), setting forth the early condemnation of the Penitent Movement by the Church, and the context.. The book can be obtained from the publisher
Still, when we say “pious Christian” to describe Ferrer, let us note that he himself was not exempt from accusations of heresy. He was “a penitent flagellant” himself, a man who was half monk and half layman, living with his disciples, and whose mysticism was focused by long periods of mortification. He may have been Christian, but in practice, he was exactly like the Manicheans, flagellating himself in the streets. When the weavers and garderners joined him in the street procession in Perpignan, it was largely because they saw in him one of them.
Pope Clement VI, in his bull “Inter Sollicitudines”, dated 19th November 1350, had already spoken out against this flagellant movement as it apparently distressed the clerics. The penitents seemed to be a “reincarnation” of the Cathars, originating as they did from the Cathar regions in Flanders and Central Italy, where they had not been subject to a crusade, but must have realised that reform was necessary in order to survive. Fifty years later, we find them in the South of France, the former heartland of the Cathar religion, near and in Perpignan, with Ferrer at the helm. Under the direction of Ferrer, large processions were organised, and soon, the streets were full of people dressed in the now infamous “cagoules” (hoods with eye holes), flagellating themselves, sometimes to the brink of death (hence the term mortification)… if not actually into that realm.
The issue of flagellation occurred within a larger framework: a Schism within the Church. The Council of Constance (1414-1418) was organised to end the Papal schism which had resulted from the Avignon Papacy, or as it is sometimes known, the "Babylonian Captivity of the Church". In the history of the Roman Catholic Church, the Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1377 during which seven popes, all French, resided in the French city of Avignon. In 1378, Gregory XI moved the papal residence back to Rome. But due to a dispute over the election of his successor, a faction of cardinals set up an anti-pope back in Avignon.
Although the Council of Constance dismantled the last vestiges of the Avignon papacy, we cannot treat the episode as a one-liner. For one, we note that the foundation of La Sanch occurred in 1416, in the middle of the Council’s existence. In 1415, at about the same time as the Council was in operation, a popular book on how to die, Ars Moriendi (The Art of Dying), was published. It offered advice on the protocols and procedures of a good death and on how to "die well", according to Christian precepts of the late Middle Ages. It was written within the historical context of the effects of the macabre horrors of the Black Death sixty years earlier and the consequent social upheavals of the 15th century. But we should also note that the Cathars were renowned for a specific methodology of dying, with a rite known as the consolamentum, and that the mortifications of the penitent movement was gaining popularity and fame and thus required an admonition from the Pope.
In theory, the Council of Constance was there to mediate, but in practice, to end the Avignon line. Vincent Ferrer was in the Avignon camp, first supporting Clement VII and then Benedict XIII, or Pedro de Luna, a fellow Catalan, who had to flee Avignon and lived in Perpignan at the time. In 1417, the Council, advised by the theologian Jean Gerson, deposed John XXII and the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII, secured the formal resignation of the Roman Pope Gregory XII (who had abdicated in 1415), and elected Pope Martin V, thereby ending the Schism and recognising the line of Roman popes as the legitimate line.
But before this outcome, the Council had also observed that despite such agreements at the top of the church, the heretics might ruin the Church as an entity, preaching, as they were, for a society that had neither a clergy nor priests. Hence, the Council condemned Vincent Ferrer, a condemnation that was no doubt the result of his religious doctrine and his political alliance. On cue, several “scholars" spoke out against what they called “Maniacal” movements, reusing the terms that previous centuries had used against the Manicheans, thus seeding public antipathy against Ferrer and the heretics.
Again it was Jean Gerson who was one of the severest critics of Vincent Ferrer and La Sanch. He was the great theologian of the University of Paris and scandalised by the sect “which infects the Languedoc”. He wrote a discourse to Ferrer, in which he accused him of practicing “cruel rites” as well as “not respecting God’s Law” and also of keeping bad company – which must have implied Pope Benedict XIII, but may have implied others.
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7 Mgr. Leuilleux, Œuvres Complètes (Introduction, textes et notes par Mgr. Glorieux), Paris, Desclée, vol. II (l’œuvre épistolaire), 1960, pp. 200-202; vol. X (l’œuvre polémique), 1973, pp. 46-51.
8 Bernard Duhourceau, « Guide des Pyrénées Mystérieuses », éditions « Tchou ».
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