Note 71 — Chapter III · THE CATHARI.
Reading edition
Rainerii Saccon. Summa.—Lib. Confess. Inquis. Albiens. (MSS. Bib. Nat. fonds latin, 11847).—Coll. Doat, XXII. 208, 209; XXIV. 174; XXVI. 197, 259, 272.—Lib. Sentt. Inquis. Tolosan. pp. 10, 33, 37, 70, 71, 76, 84, 94, 125, 126, 137-139, 143, 160, 173, 179, 199.—Bern. Guidon. Practica P. IV. V. (MSS. Bib. Nat. Collect. Doat. T. XXX.).—Landulf. Senior Hist. Mediolan. ii. 27.—Anon. Passaviens. contra Waldens. cap. 7.—Processus contra Valdenses (Archivio Storico Italiano, 1865, No. 39, p. 57). The description in the text of the form of heretication, by Rainerio Saccone, is confirmed in its details by the depositions of witnesses before the Inquisition of Toulouse, showing that the form was essentially the same throughout the churches.—Doat, XXII. 224, 237 sqq.; XXIII. 272, 344; XXIV. 71. See also Vaissette III. Preuves, 386, and Cunitz, Beiträge zu den theolog. Wissenschaften, 1852, B. IV. pp. 12-14, 21-28, 33, 60.
The practice of the Endura among the Cathari of Languedoc has been investigated with his customary thoroughness by M. Charles Molinier (Annales de la Faculté des Lettres de Bordeaux, 1881, No. 3). It was not always limited to three days, and its rigor may be guessed by a single example. Blanche, the mother of Vital Gilbert, caused her infant grandchild to be “consoled” while sick, and then prevented the mother, Guillelma, from giving it milk till it died (Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. p. 104). Molinier’s theory that the custom was of comparatively late introduction is confirmed by the absence of any allusion to it in the ritual published by Cunitz (loc. cit.), but that it was not confined to Languedoc is shown by the Anon. Passaviens. and the evidence in the Piedmontese trials of 1388 (Arch. Storico, ubi sup.).
A case in which the Consolamentum was administered to an insensible patient who subsequently recovered is recorded in the sentences of Pierre Cella (Doat, XXI. 295), and also several instances in which young girls were “perfected” at a very early age, and wore the vestments for limited periods of two or three years (ibid. 241. 244).