Europe's inner demons

Conrad also relied greatly on denunciations supplied by former heretics who had since returned to the Church. Whatever such people told him he accepted blindly, without troubling to check it; and this casual approach led to endless abuses. Real heretics were able to exploit his credulity to their own advantage. They arranged for some of their number to fake conversion, so that they could then denounce good Catholics as heretics — partly to avenge their brethren who had perished in the flames, partly to direct attention away from their brethren who were still alive. And the persecutory apparatus could also be exploited for purposes of private vengeance. A young woman called Adelheid voluntarily presented herself as a repentant heretic for the sole purpose of denouncing her relatives, who were trying to deprive her of an inheritance. Conrad obligingly had them all burned.⁽¹⁶⁾

Conrad’s activity as inquisitor lasted about a year and a half and covered places as far apart as Erfurt, Marburg and the Rhine towns of Mainz, Bingen and Worms. It is impossible to say even approximately how many burnings it involved, but all contemporary sources agree that they were very numerous. Certainly the atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety, the wave of false denunciations and false confessions, produced widespread disquiet in the population.

The higher clergy themselves were shocked. Conrad’s own superior, Archbishop Siegfried III of Mainz, joined with the archbishops of Cologne and Trier in asking the fanatical priest to restrain himself. A synod held at Mainz on 25 June 1233 tried to introduce a more orderly procedure which would encourage the instruction and conversion of heretics rather than their physical destruction.⁽¹⁷⁾ Amongst the more prominent ecclesiastics only one supported the inquisitor — the bishop of Hildesheim, who was himself a fanatic. The rest all counselled moderation; but such counsel merely increased Conrad’s fury and drove him to further excesses. In the end he began to accuse people who were both of high birth and of notable piety; and this proved his undoing.

Count Henry of Sayn was a great lord who owned much land both along the Rhine and in Hesse. He was also a devout Catholic, who had not only endowed monasteries and churches but had even gone on a crusade. Yet Conrad summoned him to appear on a charge of heresy; for he had witnesses who claimed to have seen the count — presumably at some nocturnal orgy — riding on a crab. The archbishop of Mainz prudently arranged for the case to be heard at an assembly of the states of the Empire, to be held at Mainz immediately after the synod. The count and the inquisitor both appeared with their witnesses; and whereas the count’s witnesses unhesitatingly affirmed his orthodoxy and piety, Conrad’s all recanted, some admitting that they had denounced the count only to save their lives, others that they had done so out of personal malice. The clergy present were unanimously convinced of the count’s innocence, and said so. It was a crushing defeat for Conrad.

Embittered and enraged, Conrad began to preach publicly against certain other noble personages whom he charged with heresy; and then set off to ride back from Mainz to his native Marburg. Blinded by his anger and overconfident in the sanctity of his office, he refused the escort which the king and the archbishop offered him. On 30 July 1233 he was murdered on the open road, either by vassals of Count Sayn or by the nobles whom he was still attacking.

In all the regions where Conrad had been active the news of the assassination was greeted with joy. His end was regarded as a judgement of God, and he was assigned his place amongst the damned in hell. For his accomplices, too, things went badly: Conrad Torso was stabbed to death, and Johannes was hanged, while the false witnesses against Count Sayn were imprisoned by the archbishop of Mainz. Thereafter, although the laws against heresy remained in force, there were no more major persecutions. As one chronicler remarks, it was the end of a persecution the like of which had never been seen since the persecution of the early Christians; now the times became milder and more peaceable again.⁽¹⁸⁾