One of the most famous heretics of the twelfth century was Peter of Bruys. His hostility toward the clergy helped his propaganda in Gascony. To show his contempt for the Catholic religion, he burned a great number of crosses one Good Friday, and roasted meat in the flames. This angered the people against him. He was seized and burned at St. Giles about the year 1126.[1]
Henry of Lausanne was his most illustrious disciple. We have told the story of his life elsewhere.[1] St. Bernard opposed him vigorously, and succeeded in driving him from the chief cities of Toulouse and the Albigeois, where he carried on his harmful propaganda. He was arrested a short time afterwards (1145 or 1146), and sentenced to life imprisonment, either in one of the prisons of the Archbishop, or in some monastery of Toulouse.
[1] _Vie de Saint Bernard_, 1st edit., Paris, 1895, vol. ii, pp. 218-233.
Arnold of Brescia busied himself more with questions of discipline than with dogma; the only reforms he advocated were social reforms.[1] He taught that the clergy should not hold temporal possessions, and he endeavored to drive the papacy frown Rome. In this conflict, which involved the property of ecclesiastics and the temporal power of the Church, he was, although successful for a time, finally vanquished.[2] St. Bernard invoked the aid of the secular arm to rid France of him. Later on Pope Eugenius III excommunicated him. He was executed during the pontificate of Adrian IV, in 1155. He was arrested in the city of Rome after a riot which was quelled by the Emperor Frederic, now the ally of the Pope, and condemned to be strangled by the prefect of the city. His body was then burned, and his ashes thrown into the Tiber, "for fear," says a writer of the time, "the people would gather them up, and honor them as the ashes of a martyr."[3]
[1] For details concerning Arnold of Brescia, cf. Vacandard, _Vie de Saint Bernard_, vol. ii, pp. 235-258, 465-469.
[2] Otto Frising, _Gesta Friderici_, lib. ii. cap. xx. Cf. _Historia Pontificalis_, in the _Mon. Germ. SS_., vol. xx, p. 538.
[3] Boso, _Vita Hadriani_, in Watterich, _Romanorum pontificum Vitæ_, vol. ii. pp. 326, 330.
In 1148, the Council of Rheims judged the case of the famous Éon de l'Etoile (Eudo de Stella). This strange individual had acquired a reputation for sanctity while living a hermit's life. One day, struck by the words of the liturgy, _Per Eum qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos_, he conceived the idea that he was the Son of God. He made some converts among the lowest classes, who, not content with denying the faith, soon began to pillage the churches. Éon was arrested for causing these disturbances, and was brought before Pope Eugenius III, then presiding over the Council of Rheims. He was judged insane, and in all kindness was placed under the charge of Suger, the Abbot of St. Denis. He was confined to a monastery, where he died soon after.