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Abstract
When sanctioned in 1233 by Pope Gregory IX, the medieval inquisition sought to identify deviance from Catholic tradition and practice, with the immediate goal of reforming and punishing those whose actions and beliefs did not coincide with the ideals of the institutional church. Gregory petitioned the Order of Preachers, or Dominicans, to act as inquisitors in all of what is now modern-day France, including Provence.
Following a series of struggles faced by Dominican inquisitors in Provence during the mid-thirteenth century, the papacy appealed to the Order of Friars Minor, or Franciscans, to assist in the struggle against heresy to the east of the Rhône.
Unlike the Dominican order, which was founded with the express purpose of preaching to religious dissidents in southern France, the Franciscans had no such mission originally. Moreover, the initial rule that Francis composed for his order counseled the brothers against assuming positions of authority and prestige. In addition, many of those prosecuted by the inquisition in southeastern France were lay adherents of the Third Order of Saint Francis, Beguins, or Spiritual Franciscans.
This dissertation examines some of the internal and external tensions peculiar to Franciscan inquisitors in the south of France from 1235 until 1340. Franciscan inquisitors relied on flexible interpretations of the order's rule for permission to accomplish their inquisitorial duties, and quickly established themselves as enforcers of orthodoxy within the region. Because Franciscans continually struggled with heterodox and marginal tendencies and factions within their own order and among their lay supporters, Franciscan inquisitors did more than police the general population: they also kept a watchful eye on their own dissident brothers. Unlike their Languedocian counterparts, inquisitorial tribunals in Provence were itinerant. Still, some Franciscan inquisitors became familiar figures in the urban centers where they spent a majority of their time. By capitalizing on devotion to the order and by becoming active participants in city life, Franciscan inquisitors helped to create a sense of community in which they substituted orthodox models of Franciscan spirituality for less appropriate ones.
By analyzing the roles played by the brothers of Saint Francis as defenders of the faith, this dissertation broadens the study of both the inquisition and the Franciscan order in the Middle Ages.
