3 - John of Schwenkenfeld OP and the Interrogations of Świdnica Beguines

Summary

Relatively little is known about the reception of the legal codification of the Council of Vienne in Polish lands. In Silesia the bishop of Wrocław, Heinrich von Würben (d. 23 September 1319), set about implementing the constitutions against the beguines and beghards. He had taken part in the sessions of the Council of Vienne, and soon after his return to Silesia he set about an intense struggle against heresy. He enlisted Franciscan and Dominican lectors in his anti-heretical campaign, whom he entrusted with inquisition tasks in 1315. The outcome of these inquisitions was heresy trials in Wrocław, Nysa (Neissen), and Świdnica, as a result of which several dozen heretics were burned at the stake. Surviving fragments of the trial proceedings in Świdnica reveal that the chief victims of this persecution were the Waldensians. In line with the decrees of the Council of Vienne, Heinrich von Würben attempted to extend his control over the groups of beguines that existed in most Silesian towns. Two undated documents survive in the formulary of Arnold von Protzan; these were drafted at the request of the bishop of Wrocław and were based faithfully on the constitution of the Council of Vienne, Cum de quibusdam. In the first document, citing the contents of the Council constitution, the bishop of Wrocław drew attention to ‘the grave and worthy condemnation of the crimes of certain women known generally as beguines, whom John XXII commanded be cut off from the Church and forbade anyone to live in such a state and wear the beguine habit’. In the final part of this decree, as in Cum de quibusdam, a clause was added which permitted some women under certain conditions to continue their communal religious life. The octave of the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord (probably 8 June 1318) was set as the date for implementing this decree. The bishop of Wrocław's decree was to be read publicly in all parish churches, and Arnold von Protzan included in his formulary a letter to this effect, addressed to parish priests within the see of Wrocław.