to this extreme remedy of enforcing obedience. They had some basis for it in the custom of the
barbarians to hold the family or tribe responsible for crimes committed by individual members.
The first conspicuous examples of inflicting the Interdict occurred in France. Bishop
Leudovald of Bayeux, after consulting with his brother bishops, closed in 586 all the churches of
Rouen and deprived the people of the consolations of religion until the murderer of Pretextatus,
Bishop of Rouen, who was slain at the altar by a hireling of the savage queen Fredegunda, should
be discovered.^400 Hincmar of Laon inflicted the interdict on his diocese (869), but Hincmar of
Rheims disapproved of it and removed it. The synod of Limoges (Limoisin), in 1031, enforced the
Peace of God by the interdict in these words which were read in the church: "We excommunicate
all those noblemen (milites) in the bishopric of Limoges who disobey the exhortations of their
bishop to hold the Peace. Let them and their helpers be accursed, and let their weapons and horses
be accursed! Let their lot be with Cain, Dathan, and Abiram! And as now the lights are extinguished,
so their joy in the presence of angels shall be destroyed, unless they repent and make satisfaction
before dying." The Synod ordered that public worship be closed, the altars laid bare, crosses and
ornaments removed, marriages forbidden; only clergymen, beggars, strangers and children under
two years could be buried, and only the dying receive the communion; no clergyman or layman
should be shaved till the nobles submit. A signal in the church on the third hour of the day should
call all to fall on their knees to pray. All should be dressed in mourning. The whole period of the
interdict should be observed as a continued fast and humiliation.^401
The popes employed this fearful weapon against disobedient kings, and sacrificed the
spiritual comforts of whole nations to their hierarchical ambition. Gregory VII. laid the province
of Gnesen under the interdict, because King Bolislaw II. had murdered bishop Stanislaus of Cracow
with his own hand. Alexander II. applied it to Scotland (1180), because the king refused a papal
bishop and expelled him from the country. Innocent III. suspended it over France (1200), because
king Philip Augustus had cast off his lawful wife and lived with a concubine.^402 The same pope
inflicted this punishment upon England (March 23, 1208), hoping to bring King John (Lackland)
to terms. The English interdict lasted over six years during which all religious rites were forbidden
except baptism, confession, and the viaticum.
Interdicts were only possible in the middle ages when the church had unlimited power.
Their frequency and the impossibility of full execution diminished their power until they fell into
contempt and were swept out of existence as the nations of Europe outgrew the discipline of
priestcraft and awoke to a sense of manhood.
§ 87. Penance and Indulgence.
Nath. Marshall (Canon of Windsor and translator of Cyprian, d. 1729): The Penitential Discipline
of the Primitive Church for the first 400 years after Christ, together with its declension from
(^400) Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc. VIII. 31.
(^401) Conc. Lemovicense II. See Mansi XIX. 541; Harduin VI. p. 1, 885; Hefele IV. 693-695; Gieseler II. 199 note 12.
(^402) See the graphic description of the effects of this interdict upon the state of society, in Hurter’s Innocenz III., vol. I.
372-386.