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124-483: The name "Friends of God" may have been influenced by various sources. A number of biblical passages use the term (e.g. Judges 8:22, James 2:23, Exodus 33:11, Psalm 138:17, Wisdom 7:27, Luke 12:4, and John 15:15). The concept of friendship with God had also been applied by various medieval authors, and particularly among Meister Eckhart and his followers. The movement grew out of the preaching and teaching of Meister Eckhart , and especially his Dominican spiritual heirs,

248-525: A Country Path," Martin Heidegger develops his concept of Gelassenheit, or releasement, from Meister Eckhart. Ian Moore argues "that Heidegger consulted Eckhart again and again throughout his career to develop or support his own thought.". The French philosopher Jacques Derrida distinguishes Eckhart's Negative Theology from his own concept of différance although John D. Caputo in his influential The Tears and Prayers of Jacques Derrida emphasises

372-677: A competitive court to the Bishop's courts. Historians use the term "Medieval Inquisition" to describe the various inquisitions that started around 1184, including the Episcopal Inquisitions (1184–1230s) and later the Papal Inquisitions (1230s). These inquisitions responded to large popular movements throughout Europe considered apostate or heretical to Christianity , in particular the Cathars in southern France and

496-484: A correspondent of Radcliffe, wrote in a defence of Eckhart to Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI ), stating: Only 28 propositions were censured, but they were taken out of their context and impossible to verify, since there were no manuscripts in Avignon. Eckhart was schooled in medieval scholasticism and was well-acquainted with Aristotelianism and Augustinianism . The Neo-Platonism of Pseudo-Dionysius

620-412: A forced baptism was not a valid sacrament, but confined this to cases where it was literally administered by physical force. A person who had consented to baptism under threat of death or serious injury was still regarded as a voluntary convert, and accordingly forbidden to revert to Judaism. After the public violence, many of the converted "felt it safer to remain in their new religion". Thus, after 1391,

744-672: A full understanding of Eckhart. In 1923, Eckhart's Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises and Defense (also known as the Rechtsfertigung , or "vindicatory document") was re-published. The Defense recorded Eckhart's responses against two of the Inquisitional proceedings brought against him at Cologne, and details of the circumstances of Eckhart's trial. The excerpts in the Defense from vernacular sermons and treatises described by Eckhart as his own, served to authenticate

868-659: A guide to the spiritual life like St Bonaventure’s Itinerarium – the Journey of the Soul," but that his ideas on this have to be condensed from his "couple of very short books on suffering and detachment" and sermons. According to Mills, Eckhart's comments on prayer are only about contemplative prayer and "detachment." According to Reiner Schürmann, four stages can be discerned in Eckhart's understanding mystical development: dissimilarity, similarity, identity, breakthrough. Eckhart

992-510: A judicial technique known as inquisitio , which could be translated as "inquiry" or "inquest".' In this process, which was already widely used by secular rulers ( Henry II used it extensively in England in the 12th century), an official inquirer called for information on a specific subject from anyone who felt he or she had something to offer." "The Inquisition" usually refers to specific regional tribunals authorized to concern themselves with

1116-413: A man should be empty of self and all things; and secondly, that he should be reconstructed in the simple good that God is; and thirdly, that he should consider the great aristocracy which God has set up in the soul, such that by means of it man may wonderfully attain to God; and fourthly, of the purity of the divine nature. As Eckhart said in his trial defence, his sermons were meant to inspire in listeners

1240-402: A man who has wine in his cellar but has never tasted it, he does not know that it is good. (Sermon 10, DW I 164.5–8) Whoever does not understand what I say, let him not burden his heart with it. For as long as a man is not like this truth, he will not understand what I say. For this is a truth beyond thought that comes immediately from the heart of God. (Sermon 52, DW II 506.1–3) Kurt Flasch ,

1364-478: A member of the so-called Bochum-school of mediaeval philosophy, strongly reacted against the influence of New Age mysticism and "all kinds of emotional subjective mysticism", arguing for the need to free Eckhart from "the Mystical Flood". He sees Eckhart strictly as a philosopher. Flasch argues that the opposition between "mystic" and "scholastic" is not relevant because this mysticism (in Eckhart's context)

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1488-518: A mystical path in line with established Catholic doctrine, following Thomas Aquinas. Rulman Merswin, under the guidance of The Friend of God from the Oberland, wanted to purify the Church. This stress on reform brought The Friends of God into conflict with the Church and not long after Merswin’s death in 1382, they were condemned. After Merswin's death, some sources claim that Nicholas of Basel became

1612-571: A nascent institutional form in 1367 when wealthy layman Rulman Merswin purchased and restored a derelict monastery in Strasbourg known as the grünenwörth ('Green Isle'). Grünenwörth served as a refuge for study for the Friends of God and as a “school of prophets” which produced a number of mystical texts. Merswin is suspected of being the anonymous author The Friend of God from the Oberland . The Friends of God, as led by Tauler and Suso, sought

1736-406: A new social group appeared and were referred to as conversos or New Christians . Over the centuries that it lasted, several procedure manuals for inquisitors were produced for dealing with different types of heresy. The primordial text was Pope Innocent IV's bull, Ad Extirpanda , from 1252, which in its thirty-eight laws details in detail what must be done and authorizes the use of torture. Of

1860-435: A number of sermons found in old editions of Johann Tauler 's sermons, published by Kachelouen (Leipzig, 1498) and by Adam Petri (Basel, 1521 and 1522). Interest in Eckhart's works was revived in the early nineteenth century, especially by German Romantics and Idealist philosophers. Franz Pfeiffer 's publication in 1857 of Eckhart's German sermons and treatises added greatly to this interest. Another important figure in

1984-505: A number of the vernacular works. Although questions remain about the authenticity of some vernacular works, there is no dispute about the genuine character of the Latin texts presented in the critical edition. Since the 1960s scholars have debated whether Eckhart should be called a "mystic". The philosopher Karl Albert had already argued that Eckhart had to be placed in the tradition of philosophical mysticism of Parmenides and Plato and

2108-468: A prior Eckhart at Frankfurt who was suspected of heresy, and some historians have linked this to Meister Eckhart. In late 1323 or early 1324, Eckhart left Strasbourg for the Dominican house at Cologne. It is not clear exactly what he did there, though part of his time may have been spent teaching at the prestigious Studium in the city. Eckhart also continued to preach, addressing his sermons during

2232-410: A series of talks delivered to Dominican novices, dates from this time (c. 1295–1298). In 1302, he was sent to Paris to take up the external Dominican chair of theology. He remained there until 1303. The short Parisian Questions date from this time. In late 1303, Eckhart returned to Erfurt and was given the position of Provincial superior for Saxony , a province which reached at that time from

2356-463: A special socio-political basis as well as more fundamental religious motives. In some parts of Spain towards the end of the 14th century, there was a wave of violent anti-Judaism , encouraged by the preaching of Ferrand Martínez , Archdeacon of Écija . In the pogroms of June 1391 in Seville , hundreds of Jews were killed, and the synagogue was completely destroyed. The number of people killed

2480-508: A surviving collection of Eckhart's Latin works. As Eckhart was the only medieval theologian tried before the Inquisition as a heretic, the subsequent (1329) condemnation of excerpts from his works cast a shadow over his reputation for some, but followers of Eckhart in the lay group Friends of God existed in communities across the region and carried on his ideas under the leadership of such priests as John Tauler and Henry Suso . Eckhart

2604-702: A time of disarray among the clergy and monastic orders, rapid growth of numerous pious lay groups, and the Inquisition 's continuing concerns over heretical movements throughout Europe. It appears that some of the Dominican authorities already had concerns about Eckhart's teaching. The Dominican General Chapter held in Venice in the spring of 1325 had spoken out against "friars in Teutonia who say things in their sermons that can easily lead simple and uneducated people into error". This concern (or perhaps concerns held by

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2728-471: A total of four people in various Baltic cities in 1402–1403. In the last decade of the 14th century, episcopal inquisitors carried out large-scale operations against heretics in eastern Germany, Pomerania, Austria, and Hungary. In Pomerania, of 443 sentenced in the years 1392–1394 by the inquisitor Peter Zwicker, the provincial of the Celestinians, none went to the stake, because they all submitted to

2852-695: Is at stake. Between 1237 and 1279, at least 507 convictions were passed in Toulouse (most in absentia or posthumously) resulting in the confiscation of property; in Albi between 1240 and 1252 there were 60 sentences of this type. The activities of Bernard Gui, inquisitor of Toulouse from 1307 to 1323, are better documented, as a complete record of his trials has been preserved. During the entire period of his inquisitorial activity, he handed down 633 sentences against 602 people (31 repeat offenders), including: In addition, Bernard Gui issued 274 more sentences involving

2976-538: Is considered by some to have been the inspirational " layman " referred to in Johannes Tauler 's and Rulman Merswin 's later writings in Strasbourg where he is known to have spent time (although it is doubtful that he authored the simplistic Book of the Nine Rocks published by Merswin and attributed to The Friend of God from the Oberland ). On the other hand, most scholars consider The Friend of God from

3100-734: Is generated, and which is yet the source and fountain of all the divine. The Trinity is, for Eckhart, the revealed God and the mysterious origin of the Trinity is the Godhead, the absolute God. Matthew Fox (born 1940) is an American theologian . Formerly a priest and a member of the Dominican Order within the Roman Catholic Church , Fox was an early and influential exponent of a movement that came to be known as Creation Spirituality . The movement draws inspiration from

3224-441: Is holding converse with time and the creatures; then must the right eye be hindered in its working; that is, in its contemplation. Therefore, whosoever will have the one must let the other go; for "no man can serve two masters". Eckhart was largely forgotten from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, barring occasional interest from thinkers such as Angelus Silesius (1627–1677). For centuries, his writings were known only from

3348-584: Is not known how many of them were actually carried out, only six people captured in 1382 are confirmed to be executed. In the 15th and 16th centuries, major trials took place only sporadically, e.g. against the Waldensians in Delphinate in 1430–1432 (no numerical data) and 1532–1533 (7 executed out of about 150 tried) or the aforementioned trial in Arras 1459–1460 . In the 16th century, the jurisdiction of

3472-437: Is penetrated by the spirit of the university , in which it occurred. According to Hackett, Eckhart is to be understood as an "original hermeneutical thinker in the Latin tradition". To understand Eckhart, he has to be properly placed within the western philosophical tradition of which he was a part. Josiah Royce , an objective idealist , saw Eckhart as a representative example of 13th and 14th century Catholic mystics "on

3596-487: Is possible that the Pope's unusual decision to issue the bull, despite the death of Eckhart (and the fact that Eckhart was not being personally condemned as a heretic), was due to the pope's fear of the growing problem of mystical heresy, and pressure from his ally Henry of Virneburg to bring the case to a definite conclusion. Eckhart's status in the contemporary Catholic Church has been uncertain. The Dominican Order pressed in

3720-632: Is thin. However, it is known that the commissions reduced the 150 suspect articles down to 28; the document known as the Votum Avenionense gives, in scholastic fashion, the twenty-eight articles, Eckhart's defence of each, and the rebuttal of the commissioners. On 30 April 1328, the pope wrote to Archbishop Henry of Virneburg that the case against Eckhart was moving ahead, but added that Eckhart had already died (modern scholarship suggests he may have died on 28 January 1328). The papal commission eventually confirmed (albeit in modified form)

3844-570: The Marranos (people who were forced to abandon Judaism against their will by violence and threats of expulsion) and on Muslim converts to Catholicism , as a result of suspicions that they had secretly reverted to their previous religions, as well as the fear of possible rebellions and armed uprisings , as had occurred in previous times. Spain and Portugal also operated inquisitorial courts not only in Europe , but also throughout their empires:

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3968-762: The Sentences of Peter Lombard , a post to which he had presumably been appointed in 1293 (he had been ordained to the priesthood by that time), he preached the Easter Sermon (the Sermo Paschalis ) at the Dominican convent of St. Jacques in Paris. In late 1294, Eckhart was made Prior at Erfurt and Dominican Provincial of Thuringia in Germany. His earliest vernacular work, Reden der Unterweisung ( The Talks of Instructions / Counsels on Discernment ),

4092-774: The 12th-century Kingdom of France , particularly among the Cathars and the Waldensians . The inquisitorial courts from this time until the mid-15th century are together known as the Medieval Inquisition . Other banned groups investigated by medieval inquisitions, which primarily took place in France and Italy , include the Spiritual Franciscans , the Hussites , and the Beguines . Beginning in

4216-708: The Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229). The Inquisition was permanently established in 1229 ( Council of Toulouse ), run largely by the Dominicans in Rome and later at Carcassonne in Languedoc. In 1252, the Papal Bull Ad extirpanda , following another assassination by Cathars, charged the head of state with funding and selecting inquisitors from monastic orders; this caused friction by establishing

4340-612: The Bishop of Brescia , Paolo Zane, sent some 70 witches from Val Camonica to the stake. The Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) a crusade proclaimed by the Catholic Church against heresy, mainly Catharism , with many thousands of victims (men, women and children, some of them Catholics), had already paved the way for the later Inquisition. France has the best preserved archives of medieval inquisitions (13th–14th centuries), although they are still very incomplete. The activity of

4464-474: The Book of the Nine Rocks . Many of the works were attributed to The Friend of God from the Oberland , although probably written by Rulman Merswin himself. Meister Eckhart Eckhart von Hochheim OP ( c.  1260 – c.  1328 ), commonly known as Meister Eckhart ( pronounced [ˈmaɪstɐ ʔˈɛkaʁt] ), Master Eckhart or Eckehart , claimed original name Johannes Eckhart ,

4588-1047: The Goa Inquisition , the Peruvian Inquisition , and the Mexican Inquisition , among others. Inquisitions conducted in the Papal States were known as the Roman Inquisition . With the exception of the Papal States, ecclessiastical inquisition courts were abolished in the early 19th century, after the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the Spanish American wars of independence in the Americas. The scope of

4712-436: The Waldensians in both southern France and northern Italy. Other inquisitions followed after these first inquisition movements. The legal basis for some inquisitorial activity came from Pope Innocent IV 's papal bull Ad extirpanda of 1252, which authorized the use of tortures in certain circumstances by inquisitors for eliciting confessions and denunciations from heretics. By 1256 Alexander IV's Ut negotium allowed

4836-608: The canon law of the Catholic Church . Although the term "Inquisition" is usually applied to ecclesiastical courts of the Catholic Church, in the Middle Ages it properly referred to a judicial process, not any organization. The term "Inquisition" comes from the Medieval Latin word inquisitio , which described a court process based on Roman law , which came back into use during the Late Middle Ages . It

4960-538: The neo-Platonist thinkers Plotinus , Porphyry and Proclus . Heribert Fischer argued in the 1960s that Eckhart was a mediaeval theologian. Most recently, Clint Johnson agreed with D. T. Suzuki and argued on the basis of Eckhart's appeals to experience that he is a mystic in the tradition of Augustine and Dionysius . Passages like the following, Johnson contends, point to experience beyond intellectual speculation and philosophizing: Those who have never been familiar with inward things do not know what God is. Like

5084-429: The "infamy" of the defendant (rather than a formal denunciation or accusation) to prevent fishing, or charging for private opinions. However, such inquisitions could proceed with minimal distraction by lawyers, the identity of witnesses was protected, tainted witness were allowed, and once found guilty of heresy there was no right to a lawyer. However, many inquisitors did not followed these rules scrupulously, notably from

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5208-428: The "secular arm", would then determine the penalty based on local law. Those local laws included proscriptions against certain religious crimes, and the punishments included death by burning in regions where the secular law equated persistent heresy with sedition, although the penalty was more usually banishment or imprisonment for life, which was generally commuted after a few years. Thus the inquisitors generally knew

5332-680: The 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order , replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges. Inquisitions also expanded to other European countries, resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition . The Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions often focused on the New Christians or Conversos (the former Jews who converted to Christianity to avoid antisemitic regulations and persecution),

5456-557: The 15th to 18th centuries. Portugal and Spain in the late Middle Ages consisted largely of multicultural territories of Muslim and Jewish influence, reconquered from Islamic control , and the new Christian authorities could not assume that all their subjects would suddenly become and remain orthodox Catholics. So the Inquisition in Iberia , in the lands of the Reconquista counties and kingdoms like León , Castile , and Aragon , had

5580-652: The Areopagite asserted a great influence on him, as reflected in his notions on the Gottheit beyond the God who can be named. Although he was an accomplished academic theologian, Eckhart's best-remembered works are his highly unusual sermons in the vernacular. Eckhart as a preaching friar attempted to guide his flock, as well as monks and nuns under his jurisdiction, with practical sermons on spiritual/psychological transformation and New Testament metaphorical content related to

5704-514: The Church. Bloodier were the trials of the Waldensians in Austria in 1397, where more than a hundred Waldensians were burned at the stake. However, it seems that in these trials the death sentences represented only a small percentage of all the sentences, because according to the account of one of the inquisitors involved in these repressions, the number of heretics reconciled with the Church from Thuringia to Hungary amounted to about 2,000. In 1414,

5828-666: The Cologne Dominican convent after the promulgation of the bull condemning Eckhart's writings, as notations from the bull are inserted into the manuscript. The manuscript came into the possession of the Carthusians in Basel, demonstrating that some Dominicans and Carthusians had continued to read Eckhart's work. It is also clear that Nicholas of Cusa , Archbishop of Cologne in the 1430s and 1440s, engaged in extensive study of Eckhart. He assembled, and carefully annotated,

5952-623: The Dominican inquisitor Andrew reconciled many heretics with the Church in the town of Skradin, but precise figures are unknown. The border areas with Bohemia and Austria were under major inquisitorial action against the Waldensians in the early 15th century. In addition, in the years 1436–1440 in the Kingdom of Hungary, the Franciscan Jacobo de la Marcha acted as an inquisitor... his mission was mixed, preaching and inquisitorial. The correspondence preserved between James, his collaborators,

6076-399: The Dominicans and recipient of the letter, summarized the contents as follows: We tried to have the censure lifted on Eckhart ... and were told that there was really no need since he had never been condemned by name, just some propositions which he was supposed to have held, and so we are perfectly free to say that he is a good and orthodox theologian. Professor Winfried Trusen of Würzburg,

6200-502: The Empire. The inquisitorial tribunal in papal Avignon, established in 1541, passed 855 death sentences, almost all of them (818) in the years 1566–1574, but the vast majority of them were pronounced in absentia. The Rhineland and Thuringia in the years 1231–1233 were the field of activity of the notorious inquisitor Konrad of Marburg. Unfortunately, the documentation of his trials has not been preserved, making it impossible to determine

6324-524: The Hungarian bishops and Pope Eugene IV shows that he reconciled up to 25,000 people with the Church. This correspondence also shows that he punished recalcitrant heretics with death, and in 1437 numerous executions were carried out in the diocese of Sirmium, although the number of those executed is also unknown. In Bohemia and Poland, the inquisition was established permanently in 1318, although anti-heretical repressions were carried out as early as 1315 in

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6448-590: The Jesuits. "Shall I put you to the torture until you confess, my friends?" One of the Jesuits was Friedrich Spee , who thanked God he had been led to this insight by a friend, not an enemy. Very little is known about the activities of inquisitors in Hungary and the countries under its influence (Bosnia, Croatia), as there are few sources about this activity. Numerous conversions and executions of Bosnian Cathars are known to have taken place around 1239/40, and in 1268

6572-553: The Netherlands to Livonia . Thereby, he had responsibility for forty-seven convents in the region. Complaints made against the Provincial superior of Teutonia and him at the Dominican general chapter held in Paris in 1306, concerning irregularities among the ternaries, must have been trivial, because the general, Aymeric of Piacenza , appointed him in the following year as his vicar-general for Bohemia with full power to set

6696-414: The Oberland to be a pure fiction invented by Merswin to hide his authorship because of the intimidating tactics of the Inquisition at the time. It has been suspected that his practical communication of the mystical path is behind the influential 14th-century "anonymous" Theologia Germanica , which was disseminated after his disappearance. According to the medieval introduction of the document, its author

6820-652: The One that cannot hold back its abundance of Being. Eckhart had imagined the creation not as a "compulsory" overflowing (a metaphor based on a common hydrodynamic picture), but as the free act of will of the triune nature of Deity (refer Trinitarianism ). Another bold assertion is Eckhart's distinction between God and Godhead ( Gottheit in German, meaning Godhood or Godhead, state of being God). These notions had been present in Pseudo-Dionysius 's writings and John

6944-568: The Scot 's De divisione naturae , but Eckhart, with characteristic vigor and audacity, reshaped the germinal metaphors into profound images of polarity between the Unmanifest and Manifest Absolute. Eckhart taught that "it is not in God to destroy anything which has being, but he perfects all things" leading some scholars to conclude that he may have held to some form of universal salvation . John Orme Mills notes that Eckhart did not "leave us

7068-510: The adult inhabitants (5,471 people) were questioned, of whom 207 were found guilty of heresy. Of these 207, no one was sentenced to death, 23 were sentenced to prison and 184 to penance. Between 1246 and 1248, the inquisitors Bernard de Caux and Jean de Saint-Pierre handed down 192 sentences in Toulouse, of which 43 were sentences in absentia and 149 were prison sentences. In Pamiers in 1246/1247 there were 7 prison sentences [201] and in Limoux in

7192-545: The archbishop in 1326 ordered an inquisitorial trial. At this point Eckhart issued a Vindicatory Document , providing chapter and verse of what he had been taught. Throughout the difficult months of late 1326, Eckhart had the full support of the local Dominican authorities, as evident in Nicholas of Strasbourg's three official protests against the actions of the inquisitors in January 1327. On 13 February 1327, before

7316-523: The archbishop of Cologne, Henry of Virneburg ) may have been why Nicholas of Strasburg , to whom the Pope had given the temporary charge of the Dominican convents in Germany in 1325, conducted an investigation into Eckhart's orthodoxy. Nicholas presented a list of suspect passages from the Book of Consolation to Eckhart, who responded sometime between August 1325 and January 1326 with the treatise Requisitus , now lost, which convinced his immediate superiors of his orthodoxy. Despite this assurance, however,

7440-421: The archbishop's inquisitors pronounced their sentence on Eckhart, Eckhart preached a sermon in the Dominican church at Cologne, and then had his secretary read out a public protestation of his innocence. He stated in his protest that he had always detested everything wrong, and should anything of the kind be found in his writings, he now retracts. Eckhart himself translated the text into German, so that his audience,

7564-465: The armed assistance of local secular authorities (e.g. military expeditions in 1338–1339 and 1366). In the years 1375–1393 (with some breaks), the Dauphiné was the scene of the activities of the inquisitor Francois Borel, who gained an extremely gloomy reputation among the locals. It is known that on July 1, 1380, he pronounced death sentences in absentia against 169 people, including 108 from the Valpute valley, 32 from Argentiere and 29 from Freyssiniere. It

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7688-524: The bull Ad Abolendam (1184), which condemned heresy as contumacy toward ecclesiastical authority. The bull Vergentis in Senium in 1199 stipulated that heresy would be considered, in terms of punishment, equal to treason ( Lèse-majesté ) , and the punishment would be imposed also on the descendants of the condemned. The first Inquisition was temporarily established in Languedoc (south of France) in 1184. The murder of Pope Innocent III's papal legate Pierre de Castelnau by Cathars in 1208 sparked

7812-425: The corruption of Catholicism : they believed that there would soon be judgment from God on the church. The group was a democratic lay movement, and they held holiness, love, piety and devotion as important. The movement was a mysticist movement and they held great importance in rescuing other peoples' souls. A number of mystical texts are associated with The Friends of God, most notably the Theologia Germanica and

7936-462: The county of Foix 156 people were sentenced to carry crosses. Between 1249 and 1257, in Toulouse, the inquisitors handed down 306 sentences, without counting the penitential sentences imposed during "times of grace". 21 people were sentenced to death, 239 to prison, in addition, 30 people were sentenced in absentia and 11 posthumously; In another five cases the type of sanction is unknown, but since they all involve repeat offenders, only prison or burning

8060-404: The creative power inherent in disinterest (dispassion or detachment). The central theme of Eckhart's German sermons is the presence of God in the individual soul, and the dignity of the soul of the just man. Although he elaborated on this theme, he rarely departed from it. In one sermon, Eckhart gives the following summary of his message: When I preach, I usually speak of detachment and say that

8184-422: The decision of the Cologne commission against Eckhart. Pope John XXII issued a bull ( In agro dominico ), 27 March 1329, in which a series of statements from Eckhart is characterized as heretical, another as suspected of heresy. At the close, it is stated that Eckhart recanted before his death everything which he had falsely taught, by subjecting himself and his writing to the decision of the Apostolic see . It

8308-434: The demoralised monasteries there in order. Eckhart was Provincial for Saxony until 1311, during which time he founded three convents for women there. On 14 May 1311 Eckhart was appointed by the general chapter held at Naples as teacher at Paris. To be invited back to Paris for a second stint as magister was a rare privilege, previously granted only to Thomas Aquinas . Eckhart stayed in Paris for two academic years, until

8432-446: The desire above all to do some good. In this, he frequently used unusual language or seemed to stray from the path of orthodoxy, which made him suspect to the Church during the tense years of the Avignon Papacy. In Eckhart's vision, God is primarily fecund. Out of overabundance of love the fertile God gives birth to the Son , the Word in all of us. Clearly, this is rooted in the Neoplatonic notion of "ebullience; boiling over" of

8556-402: The divine essence and the divine persons. The very heart of Eckhart's speculative mysticism, according to Royce, is that if, through what is called in Christian terminology the procession of the Son, the divine omniscience gets a complete expression in eternal terms, still there is even at the centre of this omniscience the necessary mystery of the divine essence itself, which neither generates nor

8680-413: The episcopal inquisition, when more than 50 Waldensians were burned in various Silesian cities. The fragmentary surviving protocols of the investigations carried out by the Prague inquisitor Gallus de Neuhaus in the years 1335 to around 1353 mention 14 heretics burned out of almost 300 interrogated, but it is estimated that the actual number executed could have been even more than 200, and the entire process

8804-482: The evils they would commit"). Before the 12th century , the Catholic Church suppressed what they believed to be heresy , usually through a system of ecclesiastical proscription or imprisonment, but without using torture, and seldom resorting to executions. Such punishments were opposed by a number of clergymen and theologians, although some countries punished heresy with the death penalty . Pope Siricius , Ambrose of Milan , and Martin of Tours protested against

8928-694: The execution of Priscillian , largely as an undue interference in ecclesiastical discipline by a civil tribunal. Though widely viewed as a heretic, Priscillian was executed as a sorcerer. Ambrose refused to give any recognition to Ithacius of Ossonuba, "not wishing to have anything to do with bishops who had sent heretics to their death". In the 12th century, to counter the spread of Catharism , and other heresies, prosecution of heretics became more frequent. The Church charged councils composed of bishops and archbishops with establishing inquisitions (the Episcopal Inquisition ). Pope Lucius III issued

9052-511: The expected fate of anyone so remanded. The "secular arm" didn't have access to the trial record of the defendants, only declared and executed the sentences and was obliged to do so on pain of heresy and excommunication. While the notational purpose of the trial itself was for the salvation of the individual by persuasion, according to the 1578 edition of the Directorium Inquisitorum (a standard manual for inquisitions)

9176-487: The fall of Montsegur and the seizure of power in Toulouse by Count Alfonso de Poitiers , the percentage of death sentences increased to around 7% and remained at this level until the end of the Languedoc Inquisition around from 1330. Between 1245 and 1246, the inquisitor Bernard de Caux carried out a large-scale investigation in the area of Lauragais and Lavaur . He covered 39 villages, and probably all

9300-793: The fall of the fortress of Montsegur (1244), probably accounted for no more than 1% of all sentences. In addition to the cremation of the remains of the dead, a large percentage were also sentences in absentia and penances imposed on heretics who voluntarily confessed their faults (for example, in the years 1241–1242 the inquisitor Pierre Ceila reconciled 724 heretics with the Church). Inquisitor Ferrier of Catalonia, investigating Montauban between 1242 and 1244, questioned about 800 people, of whom he sentenced 6 to death and 20 to prison. Between 1243 and 1245, Bernard de Caux handed down 25 sentences of imprisonment and confiscation of property in Agen and Cahors. After

9424-476: The first few years, it was not very intense. France's first Dominican inquisitor, Robert le Bougre , working in the years 1233–1244, earned a particularly grim reputation. In 1236, Robert burned about 50 people in the area of Champagne and Flanders, and on May 13, 1239, in Montwimer, he burned 183 Cathars. Following Robert's removal from office, Inquisition activity in northern France remained very low. One of

9548-419: The heretical behaviour of Catholic adherents or converts (including forced converts). As with sedition inquisitions, heresy inquisitions were supposed to use the standard inquisition procedures: these included that the defendant must be informed of the charges, has a right to a lawyer, and a right of appeal (to the Pope.) The inquisitor could only start a heresy proceeding if there was some broad public opinion of

9672-425: The importance of that tradition for this thought. Inquisition The Inquisition was a medieval Catholic judicial procedure where the ecclesiastical judges could initiate, investigate and try cases, and later a name for various State-organized tribunals whose aim was to combat heresy , apostasy , blasphemy , witchcraft , and other dangers, using this procedure. Studies of the records have found that

9796-578: The initiative of bishops. In the years 1311–1315, numerous trials were held against the Waldensians in Austria, resulting in the burning of at least 39 people, according to incomplete records. In 1336, in Angermünde , in the diocese of Brandenburg, another 14 heretics were burned. The number of those convicted by the papal inquisitors was smaller. Walter Kerlinger burned 10 begards in Erfurt and Nordhausen in 1368–1369. In turn, Eylard Schöneveld burned

9920-491: The inquisition in this country was very diverse, both in terms of time and territory. In the first period (1233 to c. 1330), the courts of Languedoc ( Toulouse , Carcassonne ) are the most active. After 1330 the center of the persecution of heretics shifted to the Alpine regions , while in Languedoc they ceased almost entirely. In northern France, the activity of the inquisitors was irregular throughout this period and, except for

10044-765: The inquisitions grew significantly in response to the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation . In 1542, a putative governing institution, the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition was created. The papal institution survived as part of the Roman Curia , although it underwent a series of name and focus changes. The opening of Spanish and Roman archives over

10168-527: The inquisitor Heinrich von Schöneveld arrested 84 flagellants in Sangerhausen , of whom he burned 3 leaders, and imposed penitential sentences on the rest. However, since this sect was associated with the peasant revolts in Thuringia from 1412, after the departure of the inquisitor, the local authorities organized a mass hunt for flagellants and, regardless of their previous verdicts, sent at least 168 to

10292-492: The inquisitors in the kingdom of France was effectively limited to clergymen, while local parliaments took over the jurisdiction of the laity. Between 1500 and 1560, 62 people were burned for heresy in the Languedoc, all of whom were convicted by the Parliament of Toulouse. Between 1657 and 1659, twenty-two alleged witches were burned on the orders of the inquisitor Pierre Symard in the province of Franche-Comté, then part of

10416-419: The inquisitors to absolve each other if they used instruments of torture. In the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX (reigned 1227–1241) assigned the duty of carrying out inquisitions to the Dominican Order and Franciscan Order . By the end of the Middle Ages, England and Castile were the only large western nations without a papal inquisition. Most inquisitors were friars who taught theology and/or law in

10540-532: The instructions of the office of the Holy Inquisitio n). Later additions would be made, based on experience, many by the canonist Francisco Peña. With the sharpening of debate and of conflict between the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation , Protestant societies came to see/use the Inquisition as a terrifying " other ", while staunch Catholics regarded the Holy Office as

10664-490: The largest trials in the area took place in 1459–1460 at Arras ; 34 people were then accused of witchcraft and satanism, 12 of them were burned at the stake. The main center of the medieval inquisition was undoubtedly the Languedoc. The first inquisitors were appointed there in 1233, but due to strong resistance from local communities in the early years, most sentences concerned dead heretics, whose bodies were exhumed and burned. Actual executions occurred sporadically and, until

10788-505: The last 50 years has caused historians to substantially revise their understanding of the Inquisition, some to the extent of viewing previous views as "a body of legends and myths". Many famous instruments of torture are now considered fakes and propaganda. Today, the English term "Inquisition" is popularly applied to any one of the regional tribunals or later national institutions that worked against heretics or other offenders against

10912-549: The last decade of the 20th century for his full rehabilitation and confirmation of his theological orthodoxy. Pope John Paul II voiced favorable opinion on this initiative, even going as far as quoting from Eckhart's writings, but the outcome was confined to the corridors of the Vatican . In the spring of 2010, it was revealed that there had been a response from the Vatican in a letter dated 1992. Timothy Radcliffe , then Master of

11036-443: The late 1300s: many inquisitors had theological not legal training. The overwhelming majority of guilty sentences with repentance seem to have consisted of penances like wearing a cross sewn on one's clothes or going on pilgrimage . When a suspect was convicted of major, wilful, unrepentant heresy, canon law required the inquisitorial tribunal to hand the person over to secular authorities for final sentencing. A secular magistrate,

11160-521: The later nineteenth century for the recovery of Eckhart's works was Henry Denifle , who was the first to recover Eckhart's Latin works, from 1886 onwards. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, much Catholic interest in Eckhart was concerned with the consistency of his thought in relation to Neoscholastic thought – in other words, to see whether Eckhart's thought could be seen to be essentially in conformity with orthodoxy as represented by his fellow Dominican Thomas Aquinas . Since

11284-413: The leader. He was eventually burned at the stake with two of his followers for heresy at Vienna around 1395. The relationship of Nicholas of Basel to the Friends of God is unclear as he was condemned as a Beghard . Another prominent member, Martin of Mainz, a follower of Nicholas of Basel, was also burned for heresy in 1393. Many leaders of the group were executed for heresy because they criticized

11408-530: The mid 19th century. Only fragmentary data is available for the period before the Roman Inquisition of 1542. In 1276, some 170 Cathars were captured in Sirmione , who were then imprisoned in Verona , and there, after a two-year trial, on February 13 from 1278, more than a hundred of them were burned. In Orvieto , at the end of 1268/1269, 85 heretics were sentenced, none of whom were executed, but in 18 cases

11532-481: The mid-nineteenth century scholars have questioned which of the many pieces attributed to Eckhart should be considered genuine, and whether greater weight should be given to works written in the vernacular, or Latin. Although the vernacular works survive today in over 200 manuscripts, the Latin writings are found only in a handful of manuscripts. Denifle and others have proposed that the Latin treatises, which Eckhart prepared for publication very carefully, were essential to

11656-474: The mitigation of sentences already served to convicted heretics; in 139 cases he exchanged prison for carrying crosses, and in 135 cases, carrying crosses for pilgrimage. To the full statistics, there are 22 orders to demolish houses used by heretics as meeting places and one condemnation and burning of Jewish writings (including commentaries on the Torah). The episcopal inquisition was also active in Languedoc. In

11780-505: The number of his victims. The chronicles only mention "many" heretics that he burned. The only concrete information is about the burning of four people in Erfurt in May 1232. After the murder of Konrad of Marburg, burning at the stake in Germany was virtually unknown for the next 80 years. It was not until the early fourteenth century that stronger measures were taken against heretics, largely at

11904-476: The overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances , but convictions of unrepentant heresy were handed over to the secular courts for the application of local law, which generally resulted in execution or life imprisonment . If the accused was known to be lying, a single short application of non-maiming torture was allowed, to corroborate evidence. Inquisitions with the aim of combating religious sedition (e.g. apostasy or heresy ) had their start in

12028-454: The penalties themselves were preventative not retributive: ... quoniam punitio non refertur primo & per se in correctionem & bonum eius qui punitur, sed in bonum publicum ut alij terreantur, & a malis committendis avocentur (translation: "... for punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from

12152-565: The preacher John Tauler and the writer Henry Suso . An influence on the Friends of God, although remaining in the background, was the secular priest Henry of Nördlingen , from the Bavarian Oberland , who met Tauler and Suso in Basel in 1339. Henry had a great deal of interaction with other Bavarian and German mystics and introduced the Friends of God to The Flowing Light of the Deity by Mechthild of Magdeburg . The group achieved

12276-420: The rack and asked her, "You are a confessed witch. I suspect these two men of being warlocks. What do you say? Another turn of the rack, executioners." "No, no!" screamed the woman. "You are quite right. I have often seen .. . They can turn themselves into goats, wolves, and other animals. ... Several witches have had children by them. ... The children had heads like toads and legs like spiders." The Duke then asked

12400-530: The sentence concerned people who had already died. In Tuscany , the inquisitor Ruggiero burned at least 11 people in about a year (1244/1245). Excluding the executions of the heretics at Sirmione in 1278, 36 Inquisition executions are documented in the March of Treviso between 1260 and 1308. Ten people were executed in Bologna between 1291 and 1310. In Piedmont , 22 heretics (mainly Waldensians ) were burned in

12524-590: The stake (possibly up to 300) people. Inquisitor Friedrich Müller (d. 1460) sentenced to death 12 of the 13 heretics he had tried in 1446 at Nordhausen. In 1453 the same inquisitor burned 2 heretics in Göttingen . Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer , author of the Malleus Maleficarum , in his own words, sentenced 48 people to the stake in five years (1481–1486). Jacob Hoogstraten, inquisitor of Cologne from 1508 to 1527, sentenced four people to be burned at

12648-450: The stake. A duke of Brunswick in German was so shocked by the methods used by Inquisitors in his realm that he asked two famous Jesuit scholars to supervise. After careful study, the two 'told the Duke, "The Inquisitors are doing their duty. They are arresting only people who have been implicated by the confession of other witches."' The Duke then led the Jesuits to a woman being stretched on

12772-530: The subsequent Protestant Reformation . The following quote from the Theologia Germanica depicts the conflict between worldly and ecclesiastical affairs: The two eyes of the soul of man cannot both perform their work at once: but if the soul shall see with the right eye into eternity, then the left eye must close itself and refrain from working, and be as though it were dead. For if the left eye be fulfilling its office toward outward things, that

12896-469: The summer of 1313, living in the same house as inquistor William of Paris . After that follows a long period of which it is known only that Eckhart spent part of the time at Strasbourg . It is unclear what specific office he held there: he seems chiefly to have been concerned with spiritual direction and with preaching in convents of Dominicans. A passage in a chronicle of the year 1320, extant in manuscript (cf. Wilhelm Preger , i. 352–399), speaks of

13020-486: The universities. They used inquisitorial procedures , a common legal practice adapted from the earlier Ancient Roman court procedures. They judged heresy along with bishops and groups of "assessors" (clergy serving in a role that was roughly analogous to a jury or legal advisers), using the local authorities to establish a tribunal and to prosecute heretics. After 1200, a Grand Inquisitor headed but did not control each regional Inquisition. Grand Inquisitions persisted until

13144-745: The use of the inquisitors, the first in 1552 at the behest of the inquisitor Cardinal D. Henrique and the last in 1774, this sponsored by the Marquis of Pombal . The Portuguese 1640 Regiment determined that each court of the Holy Office should have a Bible, a compendium of canon and civil law, Eymerich's Directorium Inquisitorum, and Diego de Simancas ' Catholicis institutionibus . In 1484, Spanish inquisitor Torquemada, based in Nicholas Eymerich's Directorium Inquisitorum , wrote his twenty eight articles code, Compilación de las instrucciones del oficio de la Santa Inquisición (i.e. Compilation of

13268-422: The various manuals produced later, some stand out: by Nicholas Eymerich, Directorium Inquisitorum, written in 1376; by Bernardo Gui, Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis, written between 1319 and 1323. Witches were not forgotten: the book Malleus Maleficarum ("the witches' hammer"), written in 1486, by Heinrich Kramer, deals with the subject. In Portugal, several "Regimentos" (four) were written for

13392-413: The verge of pronounced heresy" but without original philosophical opinions. Royce attributes Eckhart's reputation for originality to the fact that he translated scholastic philosophy from Latin into German, and that Eckhart wrote about his speculations in German instead of Latin. Eckhart generally followed Thomas Aquinas 's doctrine of the Trinity, but Eckhart exaggerated the scholastic distinction between

13516-442: The vernacular public, could understand it. The verdict then seems to have gone against Eckhart. Eckhart denied competence and authority to the inquisitors and the archbishop, and appealed to the Pope against the verdict. He then, in the spring of 1327, set off for Avignon . In Avignon, Pope John XXII seems to have set up two tribunals to inquire into the case, one of theologians and the other of cardinals. Evidence of this process

13640-497: The wisdom traditions of Christian scriptures and from the philosophies of such medieval Catholic visionaries as Hildegard of Bingen , Thomas Aquinas , Francis of Assisi , Julian of Norwich , Dante Alighieri , Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa , and others. Fox has written a number of articles on Eckhart and a book titled Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart's Creation Spirituality in New Translation . In "Conversation on

13764-590: The years 1232–1234, the Bishop of Toulouse, Raymond, sentenced several dozen Cathars to death. In turn, Bishop Jacques Fournier of Pamiers (he was later Pope Benedict XII) in the years 1318–1325 conducted an investigation against 89 people, of whom 64 were found guilty and 5 were sentenced to death. After 1330, the center of activity of the French inquisitions moved east, to the Alpine regions, where there were numerous Waldensian communities. The repression against them

13888-548: The years 1312–1395 out of 213 convicted. 22 Waldensians were burned in Cuneo around 1440 and another five in the Marquisate of Saluzzo in 1510. There are also fragmentary records of a good number of executions of people suspected of witchcraft in northern Italy in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Wolfgang Behringer estimates that there could have been as many as two thousand executions. This large number of witches executed

14012-532: Was Eckhart ; his surname was von Hochheim . Probably around 1278, Eckhart joined the Dominican convent at Erfurt , when he was about eighteen. It is assumed he studied at Cologne before 1280. He may have also studied at the University of Paris , either before or after his time in Cologne. The first solid evidence we have for his life is when on 18 April 1294, as a baccalaureus (lecturer) on

14136-663: Was a German Catholic priest , theologian , philosopher and mystic . He was born near Gotha in the Landgraviate of Thuringia (now Thuringia in central Germany) in the Holy Roman Empire . Eckhart came into prominence during the Avignon Papacy at a time of increased tensions between monastic orders, diocesan clergy, the Franciscan Order, and Eckhart's Dominican Order . In later life, he

14260-420: Was a new, less arbitrary form of trial that replaced the denunciatio and accussatio process which required a denouncer or used an adversarial process, the most unjust being trial by ordeal and the secular Germanic trial by combat . These inquisitions, as church courts, had no jurisdiction over Muslims and Jews as such, to try or to protect them. Inquisitors 'were called such because they applied

14384-471: Was accused of heresy and brought up before the local Franciscan-led Inquisition , and tried as a heretic by Pope John XXII with the bull In Agro Dominico of March 27, 1329. In the trial, excerpts of his Book of Divine Consolation were used against Eckhart. He seems to have died before his verdict was received. He was well known for his work with pious lay groups such as the Friends of God and

14508-436: Was also high in other cities, such as Córdoba , Valencia , and Barcelona. One of the consequences of these pogroms was the mass conversion of thousands of surviving Jews. Forced baptism was contrary to the law of the Catholic Church, and theoretically anybody who had been forcibly baptized could legally return to Judaism. However, this was very narrowly interpreted. Legal definitions of the time theoretically acknowledged that

14632-626: Was an unnamed member of the Teutonic Order of Knights living in Frankfurt. The lack of imprimatur from the Church and anonymity of the author of the Theologia Germanica did not lessen its influence for the next two centuries – including Martin Luther at the peak of public and clerical resistance to Catholic indulgences  – and was viewed by some historians of the early 20th century as pivotal in provoking Luther's actions and

14756-541: Was covered to varying degrees by some 4,400 people. In the lands belonging to the Kingdom of Poland little is known of the activities of the Inquisition until the appearance of the Hussite heresy in the 15th century. Polish courts of the inquisition in the fight against this heresy issued at least 8 death sentences for some 200 trials carried out. There are 558 court cases finished with conviction researched in Poland from

14880-532: Was not continuous and was very ineffective. Data on sentences issued by inquisitors are fragmentary. In 1348, 12 Waldensians were burned in Embrun , and in 1353/1354 as many as 168 received penances. In general, however, few Waldensians fell into the hands of the inquisitors, for they took refuge in hard-to-reach mountainous regions, where they formed close-knit communities. Inquisitors operating in this region, in order to be able to conduct trials, often had to resort to

15004-418: Was one of the most influential 13th-century Christian Neoplatonists in his day, and remained widely read in the later Middle Ages. Some early twentieth-century writers believed that Eckhart's work was forgotten by his fellow Dominicans soon after his death. In 1960, however, a manuscript (" in agro dominico ") was discovered containing six hundred excerpts from Eckhart, clearly deriving from an original made in

15128-465: Was probably because some inquisitors took the view that the crime of witchcraft was exceptional, which meant that the usual rules for heresy trials did not apply to its perpetrators. Many alleged witches were executed even though they were first tried and pleaded guilty, which under normal rules would have meant only canonical sanctions, not death sentences. The episcopal inquisition was also active in suppressing alleged witches: in 1518, judges delegated by

15252-548: Was probably born around 1260 in the village of Tambach , near Gotha , in the Landgraviate of Thuringia , perhaps between 1250 and 1260. It was previously asserted that he was born to a noble family of landowners, but this originated in a misinterpretation of the archives of the period. In reality, little is known about his family and early life. There is no basis for giving him the Christian name of Johannes , which sometimes appears in biographical sketches: his Christian name

15376-404: Was succeeded by his more circumspect disciples Johannes Tauler and Henry Suso , the latter of whom was later beatified . Since the 19th century, he has received renewed attention. He has acquired a status as a great mystic within contemporary popular spirituality , as well as considerable interest from scholars situating him within the medieval scholastic and philosophical tradition. Eckhart

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