by Ronnie Pontiac and Tamra Lucid.
In 1312 A.D. Vestilius Corinthius wrote his list of forbidden words. Lists of forbidden words have existed since the beginning of human society but they have mostly been limited to treason, slander, and profanity. Vestilius examined the Latin lexicon for what he called Semina Periculo, in English “dangerous seeds.”
Vestilius identified three species of dangerous seeds, or as he called them Radix Mali Arbores, “the roots of evil trees.”
The first root of evil trees, according to Vestilius, are words that normalize injustice. Vestilius gave the example of the Romans dismissing all foreigners as barbarians. Vestilius called the first root Radix Negando Quod Deus Creavit “The root of denying the right to exist to what God has created.” According to Vestilius when the Romans labeled all outsiders inferior they were sinning against the holiness of Creation.
The second root of evil trees, according to Vestilius, are words that allow sinners to speak of sin. Here Vestilius debates a paradox in his perspective. To have words that indicate sin makes it possible to give warnings. However Vestilius argues that the words for sin incite curiosity and excitement. Those who speak them use them to corrupt those who have not heard them. And so despite the fact that they are part of creation such words are not sacred. They are therefore the work of the Devil. Vestilius calls this second root: Radix Temptatione, the root of temptations or trials.
The third root of evil trees, according to Vestilius, are words that carry rebellion. Such words are Satanic, or as Vestilius calls them Maluit Instrumenta Diaboli, “the preferred instruments of the Devil.” This category presented problems for Vestilius. Even holy words could be made profane if used to ridicule or abuse. Must they too be forbidden? Vestilius proposes the Hebrew practice of symbolizing the sacred with secret words known only to the elect.
Vestilius removes all words that indicate rebellion. Curiously, Vestilius uses the example of transvestites, or as he calls them Histriones qui fingunt esse mulieres. that is “actors or comedians who pretend to be women.” He says that they are ennobled by being given a name. The name makes it seem that they are part of the creation Adam named, but they are not. They are inventions of evil, spawn of Eve.
Pagans, homosexuals, atheists, Jews, heretics, Muslims, the excommunicated, women and anyone else outside the hierarchy of the Catholic church are to be stripped not only of the names that indicate what they are but also of personal names. Vestilius called this root Radix Falsa Nomina: “The Root of False Names.”
While initially no one implemented Vestilius’s prohibitions his ideas were widely discussed and praised. Then a Franciscan order adopted his rules in rural Spain. The idea caught on with a local population. Magistrates and priests found themselves shouted down and ostracized for using words that no one had ever objected to before.
At first Pope Clement V tolerated the popularity of the Purity Movement, as they called themselves. Factions were useful for preserving his centralized power. As other parishes joined this experiment in language leaders arose both to defend Vestilius and others to vindicate traditions in danger of being usurped.
Demagogues gained prominence. These learned men craftily gained wealth by pretending to educate their impressionable devotees while indulging their hubris. To their followers these men became heroic figures appointed to save the virtuous while exposing the wicked. Though they believed in opposite things the opponents behaved in the same way.
Those who defended Vestilius understood purity of language as the way to get a step closer to God, and a way to help end Earth as the place of exile by reestablishing the Garden of Eden. Words, with a power divine, when abused create all the evil in the world. Every soul is responsible for restoring the purity of the wordless. The most extreme cult among them advocated giving up all language not only in speech but thought. They called any and all words: pluvia nubibus claudebant sol, “clouds that block the sun.” As victims of the language they were born into they argued that their pure selves had been denied the right to exist.
Those who opposed Vestilius called his followers deluded fanatics who had mistaken words for reality. They were hypocrites exercising powers of exclusion while claiming to fight their own exclusion. They attempted to fight oppression while oppressing. Since the very creation depended on the Word. to attempt to deny language was an offense against the Creator.
Pope Clement had little interest in the brewing schism. He had eyes not on Europe but the east. For greater security he moved the capitol of the church to Avignon in what is now France. Meanwhile in Rome aristocrats and their militias continued their ruthless battle for political power. Their war burned the Cathedral of the Lost Holy Savior and of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in the Lateran. The Pope’s safety could not be guaranteed in the city the Holy Roman Empire was named after.
Clement sent John of Montecorvino to preach in Khanbaliq, now Beijing. John had been sent by Pope Nicholas IV to preach in the Near, Middle and Far East. Clement sent John to preach to the Great Khan and Emperor of China Kublai. On the way John witnessed to the Emperor of Ethiopa and the King of Armenia. But by the time he arrived in Khanbaliq Kublai had died. Whereas Kublai had requested this mission to China the Sixth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and Emperor of China Temür merely listened politely.
The Pope’s intentions were not entirely altruistic. He wished to build an alliance with the Mongol Empire against burgeoning Muslim power. Almost twenty years had passed since the Muslims had conquered Acre, the last fortress of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Pope preached a Crusade to surprising response, some of it unwanted.
The Crusade of the Poor, or as they called themselves, Brothers of the Cross, sewed crosses onto their clothes. They swept out from Rhineland, France and England, their ranks swelled with the unemployed. Unauthorized and without adequate leadership they left a trail of looting, rioting and massacred Jews. They marched to Avignon to join the Pope’s crusade they had heard about.
When they reached Avignon they were shocked to learn that there would be no crusade. The lower classes had responded but the great kings and powers of Christendom were not so eager.
The Knights Hospitalers of the Maltese Cross would defend Cyprus, stop smuggling, and assist in the conquest of Rhodes, where they would establish their new base. The disappointed Brothers of the Cross were granted indulgences for their sins and sent home. To fulfill their vows they tried to force their way onto the boats bound for Cyprus but the Hospitalers at sword point refused to allow them onboard.
Now we return to the story of Vestilius. When the Brothers of the Poor learned of the Purity Movement they found a new cause to serve by looting and murdering. Now not only Jews but anyone using forbidden words suffered at the hands of a self appointed purity police.
Vestilius, dismayed by the results of his campaign, to the disappointment of his followers retreated for prayer and meditation. The hermit pondered for one year while mobs rampaged through rural areas in his name. In urban centers any factions sympathetic to the Brothers of the Cross were viciously suppressed and their organizers and participants investigated and prosecuted. by the political authorities
After one year Vestilius the Hermit, as he was now called, had a revelation. He became the most virulent opponent of Vestilius Corinthius. He returned to preach that the Purity Movement was a tool of the Devil. He loudly condemned the violence done in its name as proof of sin. He argued that taking away the name of a thing did not include taking away its right to exist. He pleaded that he had committed the sins of pride and hubris when he had allowed himself to think he could improve God’s creation.
How did this revelation occur his skeptical followers wished to know. Vestilius claimed he had been taken up and shown a world of which our world was only the shadow. There he had seen how life is meant to teach us not only to love one another but also how to face any eventuality with the confidence arising from certainty of redemption.
When the soul leaves the body, Vestilius preached, we are like dreamers lost in the forgotten or ignored dimensions of our lives, a stream of revelations and reveries that leave us at the mercy of remorse. If instead of bliss we suffer in the afterlife, for Vestilius that is proof of damnation. To prevent such a fate true faith must meet everything in the world with appreciation of the eternal for the temporal.
This new revelation was greeted at first with skepticism and then with anger. Vestilius was driven out of the Purity Movement under threat of violence. But the mob went too far when it attacked a Jewish settlement on the lands of a Duke sworn to protect them. The Duke’s professional army, they say, had to be restrained from committing a massacre. Some survivors of the Brotherhood of the Cross stuck together as outlaw bands preying on the defenseless, but most scattered to return home, their vows to free Jerusalem unfulfilled.
As for the Purity Movement the church hierarchy easily suppressed the monasteries that supported it by replacing the abbots with the Pope’s most obedient allies. Vestilius resumed his life as a hermit and nothing is known of his life or death after the dissolution of the Purity Movement.
Why
did Clement have Vestilius and the Purity
Movement stricken from all historical records? The Doctrine of the
Purity of Language was too valuable a tool to be allowed
into just anyone’s hands. It would be used in less radical ways to
control certain factions of the Church. If anything,
Clement reasoned, Vestilius had proven that censorship and persecution
could be popular, a lesson that would not be forgotten by subsequent
Popes. And so Vestilius became nothing more than a fictional character
in an obscure short story by an unknown writer living during a time not
unlike his.