A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION

Vol. hi.
 A HISTORY OF

THE INQUISITION
OP

THE MIDDLE AGES.

BY

HENEY CHAELES LEA,

AUTHOR OF
"an historical sketch of sacerdotal celibacy," "superstition and force,"
"studies in church history."

IN THREE VOLUMES.

Vol. III.

NEW YORK:
HAMPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE.
18 8 8.
•
Copyright, 18SY, by Harper & Brothers.

All TiphU reserved.

 ——

CONTENTS.

BOOK III.— SPECIAL FIELDS OF INQUISITORIAL ACTIVITY.

Chapter I.: The Spiritual Franciscans.

Dissensions in the Franciscan Order from Elias to Jolm of Parma . . 1

Joacbim of Flora. — His Reputation as a Prophet 10

His Apocalyptic Speculations as to the Third Era 14
Adopted by the Spiritual Franciscans 18
—
The Everlasting Gospel. Its Condemnation 20
—
The Spirituals Compromised. John of Parma Removed 23
Persistence of the Joachites 25
Increasing Strife over Poverty 27
Bull Exiit qui seminat 30
Persecution of Italian Spirituals 32
The French Spirituals.-^Jean Pierre Olivi 42
Arnaldo de Vilanova 52
Disputation before Clement V. — Decision of Council of Yienne ... 57
Renewed Persecution of the Spirituals 61
—
Commencement of Rebellion. Dissensions among Them 62
^llection of John XXII. —
His Character 66
He Enforces Obedience and Creates a Heresy 69
Bloody Persecution of the Olivists 73
They Form a New Church 79
Their Fanaticism.— Naprous Boneta 81
Suppression the
of — Career
Sect. Its in xVragon 84
Jean de Rochetaillade. —Remains
la of Joachitism 86

Chapter II. Guglielma axd Dolcino.

Incarnation ofHoly Ghost in Guglielma 90
The Guglielmites Form a New Church 94
Prosecuted by the Inquisition 98
 —

yi CONTENTS.
Page

Fate of the Sectaries 100

The Order of Apostles. — Spiritual Tendencies 103
Gherardo Segarelli.—Burned in 1300 104
Dolcino Assumes the Leadership 109
His Open Revolt. — Suppressed after Four Crusades 113
Continuance and Character of the Heresy 120

Chapter III. The Fkaticelli.

Question Raised as to the Poverty of Christ 129

Reaction against the Holiness of Poverty 130
Doctrine of the Poverty of Christ Declared a Heresy 134
It Complicates the Quarrel with Louis of Bavaria 135
Marsiglio of Padua and William of Ockham 139
Gradual Estrangement of the Franciscans 142
Louis Deposes John XXH. as a Heretic 145
Michele da Cesena Revolts 147
Utility of the Inquisition. — Submission of the Antipope .... 149
Struggle in Germany.—The Franciscans Support Louis 153
Louis gradually Gains Strength. — His Death 15G
Dissident Franciscans Known as Fraticelli 158
Sympathy for them under Persecution 160
Their Tenets 162
Fraticelli in France and Spain 167
Orthodox Ascetism. — Jesuats. —Obscrvantines l7l
The Obscrvantines Replace and Suppress the Fraticelli 174

Chapter IY. —Political Heresy Utilized by the Church.

Denial of Papal Claims Pronounced Heresy 181
The Stedingers. —Tithes Enforced by Crusades 182
Crusades to Support Italian Interests of Papacy 189,
Importance of Inquisition as a Political Agency 190
Advantage of the Charge of Heresy 191
Manfred of Naples. —The Colonnas. — Ferrara 193
John XXH. and the Visconti 196
Cola di Rienzo.— The Maffredi 203
Use of Inquisition in the Great Schism 204
Case of Thomas Connecte 208
Girolamo Savonarola 209
 — —

CONTENTS. Yii

Chapter V. Political Heresy Utilized by the State.

Pago

Use of Inquisition by Secular Potentates 238

—
The Templars. Growth and Relations of the Order 238
—
Causes of its Downfall. Facilities Furnished by the Inquisition 249
—
Papal Complicity Sought. Use made of Inquisition , . . . 257
Errors Charged against the Templars 263
The Question of their Guilt . 264
—The Assembly of Tours
Vacillation of Clement. 277
Bargain between King and Pope. — Clement Joins the Prosecu-
tion 281
Prosecution throughout Europe. — Its Methods in France . . . 284
—
The Papal Commission. Its Proceedings 289
Defence Prevented by Burning those who Retract 295
—
Proceedings in England. The Inquisition Necessary . . . . 298
Action in Lorraine and Germany 301
In Italy and the East 304
In Spain and Majorca 310
Torture in Preparation for the Council of Yienne 317
Arbitrary Proceedings Required at the Council 319
Disposition of Property and Persons of the Order 322
Fate of de Molay 325
Popular Sympathies 326
Distribution of the Property of the Order 329
Case of Doctor Jean Petit 334
—Condition of the French Monarchy ....
Case of Joan of Arc. 338
Career Joan up
of her Capture
to 340
The Inquisition Claims — Delivered the Bishop of Beau-
her. to
vais 357
Her Trial 360
Her Condemnation and Execution 372
Her Imitators and her Rehabilitation 376

Chapter VI. Sorcery and Occult Arts.

Satan and the Spirit World 379
Incubi and Succubi 383
Human Ministers of Satan. — Sorcerers 385
Penalties under the Roman Law 392
Struggle between Pagan and Christian Theurgy 393
Repression of Sorcery by the Early Church 395
 — —

Yiii CONTENTS^
Pago

Masfic Practices of the Barbarians 400

Leniency of Barbarian Legislation 408
Legislation of Churcb and State in Carlovingian Period 412
Practical Toleration in Early Mediaeval Period 416
Indifierence of Secular Legislation 427
The Assumes Jurisdiction
Inquisition 434
All Magic Becomes Heretical 435
Astrology. —Pietro di Abano. — Cccco d'Ascoli 437
Divination by Dreams 446
Comminatory Church Services 447
The Inquisition Stimulates Sorcery by Persecution 448
Unfortunate Influence of John XXII 452
Growth of Sorcery in the Fourteenth Century 454
Increase in the Fifteenth Century 464
Case of the Marechal de Rais 468
Enrique de Villena 489

Chapter VII. -Witchcraft.

Its Origin in the Fifteenth Century 492
—
The Sabbat. -Regarded at first as a Diabolic Illusion 493
Adopted by the Church as a Reality 497
Its Ceremonies . . . ... . 500
Power and Malignity of the Witch . . . . 501
The Church Helpless to Counteract her Spells 506
Belief Stimulated by Persecution 508
Witches Lose Power when Arrested 509
Secular and -Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over Witchcraft 511
Inquisitorial Process as Applied to Witchcraft . . c 513
Case of the Witches of the Canavese . . 518
Case of the Vaudois of Arras 519
Slow Development of the Witchcraft Craze 534
Stimulated by the Inquisition and the Church . 538
Influence of the Malleus Maleficarum 543
Opposition to the Inquisition. —France. —Cornelius Agrippa . . . 544
Opposition of Venice. —The Witches of Brescia 546
Terrible Development in the Sixteenth Century 549

Chapter VIII. Intellect and Faith,

Intellectual Aberrations not Dangerous 550
Theological Tendencies and Development 651
 CONTENTS. ix
pRce
Roger Bacon 552
Nominalism and Realism 555
Rivalry between Philosophy and Theology 557
Averrhoism 558
Toleration in Italy in the Fifteenth Century 5G5
Modified Averrhoism. —Pomponazio. — Nifo 574
Raymond Lully 578
Evolution of Dogma. —The Beatific Vision 590
The Immaculate Conception 596
Censorship of the Press 612

ChAPTEU IX. — COXCLXJSION.

Omissions of the Inquisition. —The Greek Heretics 616
Quffistuari, or Pardoners G21
Simony 624
Demoralization of the Church 627
Morals of the Laity 641
Materials for the Improvement of Humanity 645
The Reformation Inevitable 647
Encouraging Advance of Humanity 649

Appendix of Documents ^ 651

Index 665
 1

THE INQUISITION.
BOOK III.

SPECIAL FIELDS OF INQUISITORIAL ACTIVITY.

CHAPTER I.

THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

In a former chapter we considered the Mendicants as an active
agency in the suppression of heresy. One of the Orders, how-
ever, by no means restricted itself to this function, and we have
now to examine the career of the Franciscans as the subjects of
the spirit of persecuting uniformity which they did so much to
render dominant.
While the mission of both Orders was to redeem the Church
from the depth of degradation into which it had sunk, the Domin-
icans were more especially trained to take part in the active busi-
ness of life. They therefore attracted the more restless and
aggressive spirits they accommodated themselves to the world,
;

like the Jesuits of later days, and the worldliness which necessa-
rily came with success awakened little antagonism within the
organization. Power and luxury were welcomed and enjoyed.
Even Thomas Aquinas, who, as we have seen, eloquently defend-
ed, against William of Saint- Amour, the superlative holiness of
absolute poverty, subsequently admitted that poverty should be
proportioned to the object which an Order was fitted to at-
tain.*

* Tb. Aquin. Summ. Sec. Sec. Q. clxxxviii. art. 7. ad 1.

III.—
2 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
It was otherwise with the Franciscans. Though, as we have
seen, the founders determined not to render the Order a simply
contemplative one, the salvation of the individual through re-
treat from the world and its temptations bore a much larger part
in their motives than in those of Dominic and his followers.'^-'
Absolute poverty and self-abnegation were its primal principles,
and it inevitably drew to itself the intellects which sought a ref-
uge from the temptations of life in self-absorbing contemplation,
in dreamy speculation, and in the renunciation of all that renders
life attractive to average human nature. As the organization
grew in wealth and power there were necessarily developed within
its bosom antagonisms in two directions. On the one hand, it
nourished a spirit of mysticism, which, though recognized in its

favorite appellation of the Seraphic Order, sometimes found the

trammels of orthodoxy oppressive. On the other, the men who
continued to cherish the views of the founders as to the supreme
obligation of absolute poverty could not reconcile their consciences
to the accumulation of wealth and its display in splendor, and
they rejected the ingenious devices which sought to accommo-
date the possession of riches with the abnegation of all posses-
sion.
In fact, the three vows, of poverty, obedience, and chastity,
were aU equally impossible of absolute observance. The first
was irreconcilable with human necessities, the others with human
passions. As for chastity, the whole history of the Church shows
the impracticability of its enforcement. As for obedience, in the

* Even the great Franciscan preacher, Berthold of Ratisbon (who died in

1372) "will concede only qualified merit to those who labor to save the souls of
and such labors can easily be carried to excess. The duty
their fellow-creatures,
which a man owes to his own soul, in prayer and devotion, is of much greater
moment. —
Beati Fr. Bertholdi a Ratisbona Sermones (Monachii, 1882, p. 29).
See also his comparison of the contemplative with the active life. The former
is Rachacl, the latter is Leah, and is most perilous when wholly devoted to good
works (lb. pp. 44-5).
—
So the great Spiritual Franciscan, Pierre Jean Olivi "Est igitur totius ra-
tionis summa, quod contemplatio est ex suo genere perfectior omni alia actione,"
though he admits that a lesser portion of time may allowably be devoted to the
salvation of fellow-creatures. — Franz Ehrle, Archiv fiir Litteratur-und Kirchen-
geschichtc, 1887, p, 503.
 THE QUESTION OF POVERTY. 3

sense attached to it of absolute renunciation of the will, its in-

compatibility with the conduct of human affairs was shown at an
early period, when Friar Haymo of Feversham overthrew Gregory,
the Provincial of Paris, and, not long afterwards, withstood the
general Elias, and procured his deposition. As for poverty, we
shall see to what inextricable complications it led, despite the
imperious will and resolute
efforts of successive popes, until the
common-sense of John XXII. brought the Order from its seraphic
heights down to the every-day necessities of human life —at the
cost, it must be confessed, of a schism. The trouble was increased
by the fact that St. Francis, foreseeing the efforts which would be
made to evade the spirit of the Kule, had, in his Testament, strictly
forbidden all alterations, glosses, and explanations, and had com-
manded that these instructions should be read in all chapters
of the Order. "With the growth of the Franciscan legend,
moreover, the Kule was held' to be a special divine revelation,
equal in authority to the gospel, and St. Francis was glorified until
he became a being rather divine than human.*
Even before the death of the founder, in 1226, a Franciscan is
—
found in Paris openly teaching heresies of what nature we are
not told, but probably the mystic reveries of an overwrought
brain. As yet there was no Inquisition, and, as he was not sub-
ject to episcopal jurisdiction, he was brought before the papal
legate, where he asserted many things contrary to the orthodox
faith, and was imprisoned for life. This foreshadowed much that
was to follow, though there is a long interval before we hear
again of similar examples.f
The more serious trouble concerning poverty was not long in
developing itself. IS'ext to St. Francis himself in the Order stood
Elias. Before Francis went on his mission to convert the Soldan
he had sent Ehas as provincial beyond the sea, and on his return
from the adventure he brought Elias home with him. At the
first general chapter, held in 1221, Francis being too much en-

* Thorn, de Eccleston de Adventu Minorum Coll. v.— S. Francis. Testament.

(0pp. 1849, p. 48). —Nicolai. PP. III. Bull. Exiitqui seminal (Lib. v. Sexto xii. 3).

—Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 301, 303.

tChron. Turonens. ann. 1326 (D. Bouquet, XVIII. 319). — Alberic. Trium
Font. Chron. ann. 1238.
4: THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
feebled to preside, Elias acted as spokesman and Francis sat at
his feet, pulling liisgown when he wanted anything said. In
1223 we hear of Caesarius, the German provincial, going to Italy
" to the blessed Francis or the Friar Elias." When, through in-

firmity or inability to maintain discipline, Francis retired from

the generalate, Elias was vicar-general of the Order, to whom
Francis submitted himself as humbly as the meanest brother, and
on the death of the saint, in October, 1226, it was Ehas who noti-

fied the brethren throughout Europe of the event, and informed

them of the Stigmata, which the humihty of Francis had always
concealed. Although in February, 1227, Giovanni Parenti of Flor-
ence was elected general, Elias seems practically to have retained
control. Parties were rapidly forming themselves in the Order,
and the lines between them were ever more sharply drawn. Elias
was worldly and ambitious he had the reputation of being one
;

of the ablest men of affairs in Italy he could foresee the power ;

attaching to the command of the Order, and he had not much

scruple as to the means of attaining it. He undertook the erec-
tion of a magnificent church at Assisi to receive the bones of the
humble Francis, and he was unsparing in his demands for money
to aid in its construction. The very handling of money was an'
abomination in the eyes of all true brethren, yet all the prov-
inces were called upon to contribute, and a marble coffer was
placed in front of the building to receive the gifts of the pious.
This was unendurable, and Friar Leo went to Perugia to consult
with the blessed Gilio, who had been the third associate to join
St. Francis, who said it was contrary to the precepts of the found-
er. break it, then ?" inquired Leo. " Yes," replied Gilio,
" Shall I
" if you are dead, but if you are alive, let it alone, for you will

not be able to endure the persecution of Elias." Notwithstand-

ing this warning, Leo went to Assisi, and with the assistance of
some comrades broke the coffer Elias filled all Assisi with his
;

"wrath, and Leo took refuge in a hermitage.*

* Frat. Jordani Chron. c. 9, 14, 17, 31, 50 (Analecta Franciscana, Quaracclii,

1885, 4-G, 11, 16).— S. Francis. Testament. (0pp. p. 47); Ejusd. Epistt.
—Amoni Legenda Francisci, 106 (Roma, 1880). —"Wad-
I. vi.,

vii., viii. (lb. 10-11). S. p.

ding, ann. 1239, No. — Chron. Glassberger ann. 1237 (Analect. Franciscana
2. II.

p. 45).
 ELIAS GENERAL MINISTER. 5

When the edifice was sufiiciently advanced, a general chapter

was held in 1230 to solemnize the translation of the saintly corpse.
Elias sought to utilize the occasion for his own election to the
generalate by summoning only those brethren on whose
to it

support he could reckon, but Giovanni got wind of this and made
the summons general. Elias then caused the translation to be ef-
fected before the brethren had assembled his faction endeavored
;

to forestall the action of the chapterby carrying him from his

cell, breaking open the doors, and placing him in the general's
seat. Giovanni appeared, and after tumultuous proceedings his
friends obtained the upper hand the disturbers were scattered
;

among the provinces, and Elias retreated to a hermitage, where

he allowed his hair and beard to grow, and through this show of
sanctity obtained reconciliation to the Order. Finally, in the
chapter of 1232, his ambition was rewarded. Giovanni was de-
posed and he was elected general.*
These turbulent intrigues were not the only evidence of the
rapid degeneracy of the Order. Before Francis's Testament was
five years old his commands against evasions of the Eule by cun-
ning interpretations had been disregarded. The chapter of 1231
had applied to Gregory IX. to know whether the Testament was
binding upon them in this respect, and he replied in the negative,
for Francis could not bind his successors. They also asked about
the prohibition to hold money and property, and Gregory ingen-
iously suggested that this could be effected through third par-
who could hold money and pay debts for them, arguing that
ties,

such persons should not be regarded as their agents, but as the

agents of those who gave the money or of those to whom it was
to be paid. These elusory glosses of the Eule were not accepted
without an energetic opposition which threatened a schism, and it
is easy to imagine the bitterness with which the sincere members

of the Order watched its nor was this bitterness

rapid degeneracy ;

diminished by the use which Elias made His car-

of his position.
nality and cruelty, we are told, convulsed the whole Order. His
rule was arbitrary, and for seven years, in defiance of the regula-
tions, he held no general chapter. He levied exactions on all the

* Thomse de Eccleston Collat. xii.— Jordan! Chrou. c. Gl (Analecta Franc. I.

19).— Cbron. Anon. (lb. I. 289).

6 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
provinces to complete the great structure at Assisi. Those who
resistedhim were relegated to distant places. Even while yet only
vicar he had caused St. Anthony of Padua, who had come to As-
sisi to worship at the tomb of Francis, to be scourged to the blood,
when Anthony only expostulated with, " May the blessed God for-
give you, brethren !" "Worse was the fate of Caesarius of Speier,
who had been appointed Provincial of Germany in 1221 by St.
Francis himself, and had built up the Order to the north of the
Alps. He was the leader of the puritan malcontents, who were
known as Ceesarians, and he felt the full wrath of Elias. Thrown
into prison, he lay there in chains for two ^^ears. At length the
fetters his jailer having left the
were removed, and, early in 1239,
door he ventured
of his cell open, forth to stretch his cramped
limbs in the wintry sun. The jailer returned and thought that he
was attempting to escape. Fearing the pitiless anger of Ehas, he
rushed after the prisoner and dealt him a mortal blow with a
cudgel. Caesarius was the first, but by no means the last, martyr
who shed his blood for the strict observance of a Rule breathing
nothing but love and charity.*
The cup at last was full to overflowing. In 1237 Elias had
sent visitors to the different provinces whose conduct caused
general exasperation. The brethren of Saxony appealed to Mm
from their visitor, and, finding this fruitless, they carried their com-
plaint to Gregory. The pope at length was roused to intervene.
A general chapter was convened in 1239, when, after a stormy
scene in presence of Gregory and nine cardinals, the pope finally
announced to Elias that his resignation would be received. Pos-
sibly in this there may have been political as well as ascetic mo-
tives. Ehas was a skilful negotiator, and was looked upon with a
friendly eye by Frederic IL, who forthwith declared that the dis-

* Gregor. PP. IX. Bull. Quo elongati (Pet. Rodulpliii Hist. Seraph. Relig. Lib. ii.

fol. 164-5).—Rodulphii op. cit. Lib. ii. fol. 177. — Chron. Glassberger, ami. 1230,
1231 (Analecta II. 50, 56).— Frat. Jordani Chron. c. 18, 19, 61 (Analecta I. 7, 8,

19).—Franz Ehrle (Archiv fiir Litt.- u. Kirchengeschichte, 1886, p. 123).— Wad-

ding, ann. 1239, No. 5.

Tlic ingenious casuistry with which the Conventuals satisfied themselves that
tlie device of Gregory IX. enabled them to grow rich without transgressing the
Rule is seen in their defence before Clement VI., in 1311, as printed by Franz
Ehrle (Archiv fur Litt.- u. Kircheugescliichte, 1887, pp. 107-8).
 —

TWO PARTIES FORMED. 7

missal was done in his despite, for Elias was at the time engaged
in an effort to heal the irremediable breach between the papacy
and the empire. Certain it is that Elias at once took refuge with
Frederic and became his intimate companion. Gregory made an
effort to capture him by inviting him to a conference. Failing in
this, a charge was brought against him of visiting poor women at

Cortona without permission, and on refusing to obey a summons

he was excommunicated.*
Thus already in the Franciscan Order there were established
two weU-defined parties, which came to be known as the Spirituals
and the Conventuals, the one adhering to the strict letter of the
Rule, the other willing to find excuses for its relaxation in obedi-
ence to the wants of human
nature and the demands of worldli-
ness. After the fall of Elias the former had the supremacv dur-
ing the brief generalates of Alberto of Pisa, and Haymo of Fever-
sham. In 1244 the Conventuals triumphed in the election of Cres-
cenzio Grizzi da Jesi, under whom occurred what the Spirituals
reckoned as the " Third Tribulation," for, in accordance with their
apocalyptic speculations, they were to undergo seven tribulations
before the reign of the Holy Ghost should usher in the Millennium.
Crescenzio followed in the footsteps of Elias. Under Haymo, in
1242, there had been an attempt to reconcile with the Eule Greg-
ory's declaration of 1231. Four leading doctors of the Order, with
Alexander Hales at their head, had issued the Dedaratio Quatuor
Magistrorum, but even their logical subtlety had failed. The Or-
der was constantly growing, it was constantly acquiring property,

* Jordani Chron. c. 62, 03 (Analecta I. 18-19).— Tbomoe de Eccleston CoUat.

XII.— Chron. Glassberger, ann. 1239 (Analecta II. CO-1). Huillard-Breholles, —

Introd. p. Dm. ; lb. VI. 69-70.
still managed to excite disturbance in the Order; he died excommuni-
Elias
cate,and a zealous Franciscan guardian had his remains dug up and cast upon
a dunghill. Fra Salimbene gives full details of his evil ways, and the tyran-
nous maladministration which precijiitated his downfall. After his secession to
Frederic II. a popular rhyme was current throughout Italy

" Hor attorna fratt Helya,

Ke pres' ha la mala via."
Salimbene Chronica, Parma, 1857, pp. 401-13.

Affd, he was absolved on his death-bed.— Vita del Beato

however, asserts tliat

Gioanni di Parma, Parma, 1777, p. 31. Cf. Chron, Glassberger ann. 1243-4,
8 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
and needs were constantly increasing.
its bull of Gregory IX. A
in 1239, authorizing the Franciscans of Paris to acquire additional
land with which to enlarge their monastery of Saint-Germain-des-
Pres, is an example of what was going on all over Europe. In
1244, at the chapter which elected Crescenzio, the Englishman,
John Kethene, succeeded, against the opposition of nearly the
whole body of the assembly, in obtaining the rejection of Greg-
ory's definition, but the triumph of the Puritans was short-lived.
Crescenzio sympathized with the laxer party, and applied to In-
nocent lY. for relief. In 1245 the pope responded with a decla-
ration inwhich he not only repeated the device of Gregory IX.
by authorizing deposits of money with parties who were to be re-
garded as the agents of donors and creditors, but ingeniously as-
sumed that houses and lands, the ownership of which was forbid-
den to the Order, should be regarded as belonging to the Holy
See, which granted their use to the friars. Even papal authority
could not render these transparent subterfuges satisfying to the
consciences of the Spirituals, and the growing worldUness of the
Order provoked continuous agitation. Crescenzio before taking
the vows had been a jurist and physician, and there was further
complaint that he encouraged the brethren in acquiring the vain
and sterile science of Aristotle rather than in studying divine wis-
dom. Under Simone da Assisi, Giacopo Manfredo, Matteo da Monte
Rubiano, and Lucido, seventy-two earnest brethren, finding Cres-
cenzio deaf to their remonstrances, prepared to appeal to Innocent.
He anticipated them, and obtained from the pope in advance a
decision under which he scattered the recalcitrants in couples
.

throughout the provinces for punishment. Fortunately his reign

was short. Tempted by the bishopric of Jesi, he resigned, and
in 1248 was succeeded by Giovanni Borelli, better known as
John of Parma, who at the time was professor of theology in
the University of Paris.*

* ThomjE de Ecclest. Collat. viir., xii.— Wadding, aim, 1242, No. 2; ann.
1245, No. 16.— Potthast No. 10825.— Angeli Claiinens. Epist. Excusator (Franz
Ehrlc, Arcliiv fiir Litt.- u. Kircliengeschichtc, 1885, p. 535; 1886, pp. 113, 117,
120).— Hist. Tribulation. (lb. 1886, pp. 256 sqq.).
The nistoria Tribulationvm reflects the contempt of the Spirituals for human
learning. Adam was led to disobedience by a thirst for knowledge, and returned
to grace by faitli and not by dialectics, or geometry or astrology. The evil in-
 ;

JOHN OF PARMA. 9

The election ofJohn of Parma marked a reaction in favor of

strict observance. The new general was inspired with a hoi}'-
zeal to realize the ideal of St. Francis. The exiled Spirituals were
recalled and allowed to select their own domiciles. During the
first three years John visited on foot the whole Order, sometimes

"with two, and sometimes with only one companion, in the most
humble guise, so that he was unrecognized, and could remain in a
convent for several days, observing its character, when he would
reveal himself and reform its abuses. In the ardor of his zeal he
spared the feehngs of no one. A lector of the Mark of Ancona,
returning home from Kome, described the excessive severity of a
sermon preached by him, saying that the brethren of the Mark
would never have allowed any one to say such things to them
and when asked why the masters who were present had not in-
terfered, he replied, " How could they ? It Avas a river of fire
which flowed from his lips." He suspended the declaration of In-
nocent IV. until the pontiff, better informed, could be consulted.
It was, however, impossible for him to control the tendencies to
relaxation of the Eule, which were ever growing stronger, and his
efforts to that end only served to strengthen disaffection which
finallygrew to determined opposition. After consultation between
some members of the Order it was resolved to brinfr
influential
before Alexander TV. formal accusations against him and the
friends who surrounded him. The attitude of the Spirituals, in
fact, fairly invited attack.*
To understand the position of the Spirituals at this time, and

dustry of the arts of Aristotle, and the seductive sweetness of Phito's eloquence
are Egyptian plagues in the Church (lb. 264-5). It was an early tradition
of the Order that Francis had predicted its ruin through overmuch learning
(Amoni, Legenda S. Francisci, App. cap. xi.).

Karl Miiller (Die Anfiinge des Minoritenordens, Freiburg, 1885, p. 180) as-
serts that the election of Crescenzio was a triumph of the Puritans, and that he

was known for his flaming zeal for the rigid observance of the Rule. So far from
this being the case, on the very night of his election he scolded the zealots (Th.
Eccleston Collat. xii.),and the history of his generalate confirms the view taken
of him by the Hist. Tribulationum.Affo (Vita di Gioanni di Parma, pp. 31-2) as-
sumes that he endeavored to follow a middle course, and ended by persecuting
the irreconcilables.
* Hist. Tribulat. (loc. cit. 1886, pp. 267-8, 274).— Affo, pp. 38-9, 54, 97-8.—
Wadding, aun. 1256, No. 2.
10 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
subsequently, necessary to cast a glance at one of the most
it is

remarkable spiritual developments of the thirteenth century. Its

opening years had witnessed the death of Joachim of Flora, a
man ttIio may be regarded as the founder of modern mysticism.
Sprung from a richand noble family, and trained for the life of a
courtier under Koger the Norman Duke of Apuha, a sudden de-
sire to see the holy j>laces took him, while yet a youth, to the
East, with a retinue of servitors. A pestilence was raging when
he reached Constantinople, Avhich so impressed him with the mis-
eries and vanities of life that he dismissed his suite and continued
his voyage as an humble pilgrim with a single companion. His
legend relates that he fell in the desert overcome with thirst, and
had a vision of a man standing by a river of oil, and saying to
him, " Drink of this stream," which he did to satiety, and when
he awoke, although previously illiterate, he had a knowledge of
all Scripture. The following Lent he passed in an old well on
Mount Tabor in the night of the Resurrection a great splendor
;

appeared to him, he was filled with divine light to understand the

concordance of the Old and Kew Laws, and every difficulty and
every obscurity vanished. These tales, repeated until the seven-
teenth century, show the profound and lasting impression which
he left upon the minds ofmen.*
Thenceforth his life was dedicated to the service of God. Re-
turning home, he avoided his father's house, and commenced preach-
ing to the people but this was not permissible to a layman, so he
;

entered the priesthood and the severe Cistercian Order. Chosen

Abbot of Corazzo, he fl.ed, but was brought back and forced to as-
sume the duties of the ofiice, till he visited Rome, in 1181, and ob-
tained from Lucius HI. permission to lay it down. Even the severe
Cistercian discipline did not satisfy his thirst for austerity, and
he retired to a hermitage tit Pietralata, where his reputation for
saiictity drew disciples around him, and in spite of his yearning
for solitude he found himself at the head of a new Order, of which
the Rule, anticipating the Mendicants in itsurgency of poverty,
was approved by Celestin III. in 1196. Already it had spread
from the mother-house of San Giovanni in Fiore, and numbered
several other monasteries, f

* Tocco, L'Ercsia uel Medio Evo, Fiieuze, 1884, pp. 265-70. — Piofctie dell'

Abate Gioachino, Vcnezia, 1646, p. 8.

+ Tocco, op. cit. pp. 371-81.— Ccelestin. PP. III. Epist. 279.
 JOACHIM OF FLORA. H
Joachim considered himself inspired, and though in 1200 he
submitted his works unreservedly to the Holy See, he had no hesi-
tation in speaking of them as divinely revealed. During his life-
time he enjoyed the reputation of a prophet. When Kichard of
England and Philip Augustus were at Messina, they sent for him
to inquire as to the outcome of their crusade, and he is said to
have foretold to them that the hour had not yet come for the de-
liverance of Jerusalem. Others of his fulfilled prophecies are also
related, and the mystical character of the apocalyptic speculations
which he left behind him served to increase, after his death, his
reputation as a seer. His name became one customarily employed
for centuries when any dreamer or sharper desired to attract at-
tention, and quite a hterature of forgeries grew up which were
ascribed to him. Somewhat more than a century after his death
we find the Dominican Pipino enumerating a long catalogue of
his works with the utmost respect for his predictions. In 1319
Bernard Dehcieux places unhmited confidence in a prophetical
book of Joachim's in which there were representations of all fut-
ure popes with inscriptions and symbols under them. Bernard
points out the different pontiffs of his own period, predicts the
fate of John XXII., and two hundred years there
declares that for
had been no mortal to whom so much was revealed as to Joachim.
Cola di Rienzo found in the pseudo-prophecies of Joachim the en-
couragement that inspired his second attempt to govern Rome.
The Franciscan tract De ultima ^tate Ecclesice, written in 1356,
and long ascribed to "Wickliff, expresses the utmost reverence for
Joachim, and frequently cites his prophecies. The Z/5t'r Con-
formitatum,^ in 1385, quotes repeatedly the prediction ascribed to
Joachim as to the foundation of the two Mendicant Orders, sym-
bolized in those of the Dove and of the Crow, and the tribulations
to which the former was to be exposed. IS^ot long afterwards the
hermit Telesforo da Cosenza drew from the same source prophe-
cies as to the course and termination of the Great Schism, and the
line of future popes until the coming of Antichrist —
prophecies
which attracted sufficient attention to call for a refutation from
Henry of Hesse, one of the leading theologians of the day. Car-
dinal Peter d'Ailly speaks with respect of Joachim's prophecies
concerning Antichrist, and couples him with the prophetess St.
Hildegarda, while the rationalistic Cornelius Agrippa endeavors
 —

12 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

to explain his predictions by the occult powers of numbers. Hu-
man credulity preserved his reputation as a prophet to modern
times, and until at least as late as the seventeenth century prophe-
cies under his name were published, containing series of popes
with symbolical figures, inscriptions, and explanations, apparently
similar to the Vaticinia Pontificum which so completely possessed
the confidence of Bernard Delicieux. Even in the seventeenth
century the Carmelites printed the Oraculxun Angelicum of Cyril,
with its pseudo-Joachitic commentary, as a proof of the antiquity
of their Order.*
Joachim's immense and durable reputation as a prophet was
due not so much to his genuine works as to the spurious ones cir-
culated under his name. These were numerous Prophecies of —
Cyril, and of the Erythrasan Sybil, Commentaries on Jeremiah, the
Vaticinia Pontificum, the Pe Oneribus Ecclesias, and De Sejptem
Tempo7'ihu8 Ecclesice. In some of these, reference to Frederic II.
would seem to indicate a period of composition about the year
1250, when the strife between the papacy and empire was at the
hottest, and the current prophecies of Merlin were freely drawn
upon in framing their exegesis. There can be little doubt that
their authors were Franciscans of the Puritan party, and their
fearless denunciations of existing evils show how impatient had
grown the spirit of dissatisfaction. The apocalyptic prophecies

* Lib. ConcordiaB Praef. (Venet. 1519). —Fr. Francisci Pipini Chron. (Muratori
S. R. I. IX. 498-500).— Rog. Hovedens. ann. 1190.—MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds
latin, No.

4270, 260-2.— Comba, La Riforma iu Italia, I. 388.— Lechler's Wickliffe, Lori-

fol.

mer's Trauslation, II. 321.— Lib. Conformitat. Lib. i. Fruct. i. P. 3; Fruct. ix. P. 3
(fol. 12, 91). —
Telcsphori de magnis Tribulationilnis Proeem. Henric. de Hassia —
contra Vaticiu. Telesphori c. xi. (Pez Thesaur. I. ii. 521). — Franz Ehrle (Archiv
fiirLit.-u. Kirchengeschichte, 1886, p. 331). — P. d'Ailly Concord. Astron.Veritat.
c. lix. (August. Vindel. 1490). — H. Cornel. Agripp. de Occult. Philosoph. Lib. ii.

c. ii.

The Vaticinia P&ntijicum of tlie pseudo-Joachim long remained a popular

oracle. I have met with editions of Venice issued in 1589, 1600, 1605, and 1646,
of Ferrara in 1591, of Frankfort in 1608, of Padua in 1635, and of Naples in 1660,
and there are doubtless numerous others.
Dante represents Bonaventura as pointing out the saints

" Raban fe quivi, e luccmi dallato

II Calavrese abate Giovacchino
Di spirito profetico dotato." — (Paradiso xii.).
 THE PSEUDO-JOACHIM.—HIS GENUINE WRITINGS. 13

were freely interpreted as referring to the carnal worldliness which

pervaded all orders in the Church all are reprobate, none are
;

elect Rome is the Whore of Babylon, and the papal curia the
;

most venal and extortionate of all courts ; the Eoman Church is

the barren fig-tree, accursed by Christ, which shall be abandoned

to the nations to be stripped. It would be difficult to exaggerate
the bitterness of antagonism displayed in these writings, even to
the point of recognizing the empire as the instrument of God
which is to overthrow the pride of the Church. These outspoken
utterances of rebellion excited no little interest, especially within

the Order Adam

de Marisco, the leading Franciscan of
itself.

England, sends to his friend Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, some

extracts from these works which have been brought to him from
Italy. He speaks of Joachim as one justly credited with divine
insight into prophetic mysteries ; he asks to have the fragments
returned to him after copying, and meanwhile commends to the
bishop's consideration the impending judgments of Providence
which are invited by the abounding wickedness of the time.*
Of Joacliim's genuine writings the one which, perhaps, at-
tracted the most attention in his own day was a tract on the
nature of the Trinity, attacking the definition of Peter Lombard,
and asserting that it attributed a Quaternity to God. The subtle-
ties of theology were dangerous, and in place of proving the Mas-

ter of Sentences a heretic, Joachim himself narrowly escaped.

Thirteen years after his death, the great Council of Lateran, in
1215, thought his speculation sufficiently important to condemn
it an elaborate refutation, which was carried into
as erroneous in
the canon law, and Innocent III. preached a sermon on the sub-
ject to the assembled fathers. Fortunately Joachim, in 1200, had
expressly submitted all his writings to the judgment of the Holy
See and had declared that he held the same faith as that of Eome.
The council, therefore, refrained from condemning him personally

Pseudo-Joachim de Oneribus Ecclesiaj c. iii., xv., xvi., xvii., xx., xxi., xxii.,
*

—
XXX. ^Ejusd. super Hieremiam c. i., ii.,iii., etc.— Salimbene p. 107. Mon-
xxiii., —
umenta Franciscaua p. 147 (M. R. Series).
tlie Commentary ou Jeremiah had probably been disciplined
Tlie author of
for freedom of speech iu the pulpit, for (cap. i.) he denounces as bestial a license
to preach which restricts the liberty of the spirit, and only permits the preacher
to dispute on carnal vices.
 —

14 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

and expressed its approbation of his Order of Flora but notwith-
;

standing this the monks found themselves derided and insulted

as the followers of a heretic, until, in 1220, they procured from
Honorius III. a bull expressly declaring that he was a good Cath-
olic,and forbidding all detraction of his disciples.*
His most important writings, however, were his expositions of
Scripture composed at the request of Lucius III., Urban III., and
Clement III. Of these there were three the Concordia, the De- —
cachordon, or Psalterium decern Cordarum^ and the Expositio in
Apocalypsin. In these his system of exegesis is to find in every
incident under the Old Law the prefiguration of a corresponding
fact in chronological order under the New Disj)ensation, and by
an arbitrary parallelism of dates to reach forward and ascertain
what is yet to come. He thus determines that mankind is des-
tined to live through three states —the
under the rule of the
first

Father, which ended at the birth of Christ, the second under that
of the Son, and the third under the Holy Ghost. The reign of
the Son, or of the New Testament, he ascertains by varied apoca-
l}^tic speculations is to last through forty-two generations, or 1260
—
years for instance, Judith remained in widowhood three years
and a half, or forty-two months, which is 1260 days, the great
number representing the years through which the New Testament
is to endure, so that in the year 1260 the domination of the Holy

Ghost is to replace it. In the forty-second generation there will

be a purgation which will separate the wheat from the chaff such —
tribulations as man has never yet endured fortunately they will
:

be short, or all flesh would perish utterly. After this, religion

wiU be renewed man will live in peace and justice and joy, as in
;

the Sabbath which closed the labors of creation all shall know ;

God, from sea to sea, to the utmost confines of the earth, and the
glory of the Holy Ghost shall be perfect. In that final abundance
of spiritual grace the observances of religion will be no longer

• Concil. Lateran, IV. c. 2. —Theiner Monument Slavor. Meridional. 63. I.

Lib. I. Sexto, 1, 2 (Cap. Damnamus). — Wadding, ann. 1256, No. — Salim-

8, 9.

bcne Chron. p. 103.

Nearly half a century later Thomas Aquinas still considered Joachim's specu-
lations on the Trinity worthy of elaborate refutation, and near the close of the
fourteenth century Eyraerich reproduces the whole controversy. —Direct. Inqui-
sit. pp. 4-6, 15-17.
 ;;

JOACHIM'S THIRD ERA. 15

requisite. As the paschal lamb was superseded by the Eucharist,

so the sacrifice of the altar will become superfluous. A new mo-
nastic Order is to arise which world contempla-
will convert the ;

tive monachism is the highest development of humanity, and the

world will become, as it were, one vast monastery.*
In this scheme of the future elevation of man, Joachim recog-
nized fuUy the evils of his time. The Church he describes as
thoroughly given over to avarice and greed wholly abandoned
;

to the lusts of the flesh, it neglects its children, who are carried
off by zealous heretics. The Church of the second state, he says,
is Hagar, but that of the third state wiU be Sarah. With endless
ampUtude he illustrates the progressive character of the relations
between God and man in the successive eras. The first state,
under God, was of the circumcision the second, under Christ, is ;

of the crucifixion the third, under the Holy Ghost, will be of

;

quietude and peace. Under the first was the order of the married
under the second, that of the priesthood under the third will be ;

that of monachism, which has already precursor in St. Ben- had its

edict. The first was the reign of Saul, the second that of David,
the third wiU be that of Solomon enjoying the plenitude of peace.
In the first, man was under the law, in the second under grace, in
the third he will be under ampler grace. The people of the first
state are symbolized by Zachariah the priest, those of the second
by John the Baptist, those of the third by Christ himself. In the
first state there was knowledge, in the second piety, in the third
will be plenitude of knowledge ; the first state was servitude, the
second was filial obedience, the third will be hberty ; the first state

was passed in scourging, the second in action, the third will be in

contemplation ; the first was in fear, the second in faith, the third
will be in love ; the first was of slaves, the second of freemen, the
third wiU be of friends ; the first was of old men, the second of
youths, the third will be of children the first was starhght, the ;

second dawn, the third will be perfect day the first was winter, ;

the second opening spring, the third will be summer; the first
brought forth nettles, the second roses, the third will bear lihes

* Joachimi Concordise Lib. iv. c. 31, 34, 38; Lib. v. c. 58, 63, G5, 67, 68, 74,
78, 89, 118.
Joachim was held to have predicted the rise of the Mendicants (v. 43), but
his anticipations looked wholly to contemplative monachism.
 ;

16 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

the was grass, the second grain in the ear, the third will be
first

the ripened wheat the first was water, the second wine, the third
;

will be oil. Finally, the first belongs to the Father, creator of all
things, the second to the Son, who assumed our mortal clay, the
third will belong to the pure Holy Spirit.*
It is a very curious fact that while Joachim's metaphysical
subtleties respecting the Trinity were ostentatiously condemned
as a dangerous heresy, no one seems at the time to have recognized
the far more perilous conclusions to be drawn from these apoca-
lyptic reveries. So far from being burned as heretical, they were
prized by popes, and Joachim was honored as a prophet until his
audacious imitators and followers developed the revolutionary doc-
trines to which they necessarily led. To us, for the moment, their
chief significance lies in the proof which they afford that the most
pious minds confessed that Christianity was practically a failure.
Mankind had scarce grown better under the New Law. Yices
and passions were as unchecked as they had been before the com-
ing of the Redeemer. The Church itself was worldly and carnal
in place of elevating man it had been dragged down to his level
it had proved false to its trust and was the exemplar of evil rather

than the pattern of good. To such men as Joachim it was impos-

sible that crime and misery should be the ultimate and irremedi-
able condition of human life, and yet the Atonement had thus far
done little to bring it nearer to the ideal. Christianity, therefore,
could not be a finality in man's existence upon earth it was ;

merely an intermediate condition, to be followed by a further de-

velopment, in which, under the rule of the Holy Ghost, the law
of love, fruitlessly inculcated by the gospel, should at last become
the dominant principle, and men, released from carnal passions,

* Joachimi Concordioe Lib. i. Tract, ii. c. 6 ; rv. 25, 2G, 33; v. 2, 21, 60, 65,

66, 84.
The Commission of Anagni in 1255 by a strained interpretation of a passage
in the Concordia (ii. i. 7) accused Joachim of having justified the schism of the
Greeks (Denifle, Archiv f. Litt.- u. K. 1885, p. 120). So for was he from this
that he never loses an occasion of decrying the Oriental Church, especially for
the marriage of Yet when he asserted that Antichrist
its priests (e. ^., v. 70, 72).

was already born in Rome, and it was objected to him that Babylon was assigned
as the birthplace, he had no hesitation in saying that Rome was the mystical
Babylon.— Rad. de Coggeshall Chrou. (Bouquet, XVIIL 76).
 2

SPREAD OF JOACHITIC IDEAS. 17

should realize the glad promises so constantly held out before them
and so miserably withheld in the performance. Joachim himself
might seek to evade these deductions from his premises, yet others
could not fail to make them, and nothmg could be more auda-
ciously subversive of the established spiritual and temporal order
of the Church.
Yet for a time his speculations attracted Uttle attention and
no animadversion. It is possible that the condemnation of his
theory of the Trinity may have cast a shadow over his exegetical
works and prevented their general dissemination, but they were
treasured by kindred spirits, and copies of them were carried into
various lands and carefully preserved. Curiously enough, the first
response which they elicited was from the bold heretics known
as the Amaurians, whose ruthless suppression in Paris, about the
year 1210, we have already considered. Among their erroi^ was
enumerated that of the three Eras, which was evidently derived
from Joachim, with the difference that the third Era had already
commenced. The power of the Father only lasted under the Mo-
saic Law with the advent of Christ all the sacraments of the Old
;

Testament were superseded. The reign of Christ has lasted till

the present time, but now commences the sovereignty of the Holy
Ghost the sacraments of the New Testament baptism, the Eu-
; —
charist, penitence, and the rest —
are obsolete and to be discarded,
and the power of the Holy Ghost will operate through the per-
sons in whom it is incarnated. The Amaurians, as we have seen,
promptly disappeared, and the derivative sects the Ortlibenses, —
—
and the Brethren of the Free Spirit seem to have omitted this
feature of the heresy. At all events, we hear nothing more of it
in that quarter.*
Gradually, however, the writings of Joachim obtained currency,
and with the ascription to him of the which ap-
false prophecies
peared towards the middle of the century his name became more
widely known and of greater authority. In Provence and Lan-
guedoc, especially, his teachings found eager reception. Harried
successively by the crusades and the Inquisition, and scarce as
yet fairly reunited with the Church, those regions furnished an

* Rigord. de Gest. Phil. Aug. ann. 1310. — Guillel. Nangiac. ann. 1210. — Caesar,
Heisterb. dist. v. c. xxii.

III.—
 ;

18 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

ample harvest of earnest minds which might well seek in the
hoped-for speedy realization of Joachim's dreams compensation for
the miseries of the present. Nor did those dreams lack an apostle
of unquestionable orthodoxy. Hugues de Digne, a hermit of
Hyeres, had a wide reputation for learning, eloquence, and sanctity.
He had been Franciscan Provincial of Provence, but had laid down
that dignity to gratify his passion for austerity, and his sister,
St. Douceline, lived in a succession of ecstasies in which she was
lifted from the ground. Hugues was intimate with the leading
men of the Order Alexander Hales, Adam de Marisco, and the
;

general, John of Parma, are named as among his close friends.

With the latter, especially, he had the common bond that both
were earnest Joachites. He possessed all the works of Joachim,
genuine and spurious, he had the utmost confidence in their proph-
ecies, which he regarded as divine inspiration, and he did much

to extend the knowledge of them, which was not difiicult, as he

himself had the reputation of a prophet.*
The Spiritual section of the Franciscans was rapidly becoming
leavened with these ideas. To minds inchned to mysticism, filled
with unrest, dissatisfied with the existing unfulfilment of their
ideal, and longing earnestly for its realization, there might well
be an irresistible fascination in the promises of the Calabrian ab-
bot, of which the term was now so rapidly approaching. If these
Joachitic Franciscans developed the ideas of their teacher with
greater boldpess and definiteness, their ardor had ample excuse.
They were living witnesses of the moral failure of an effort from
which everything had been expected for the regeneration of hu-
manity. They had seen how the saintly teachings of Francis
and the new revelation of which he had been the medium were
perverted by worldly men to purposes of ambition and greed
how the Order, which should have been the germ of human re-
demption, was growing more and more carnal, and how its saints
were martyred by their fellows. Unless the universe were a fail-
ure, and the promises of God were lies, there must be a term to

* Salimbene Chron. pp. 97-109, 134, 318-20.— Cbron. Glassberger ann. 1286.
—Vie de Douceline (Meyer, Rccucil d'anciens Textes, pp. 142-4G).
Salimbene, in enumerating the special intimates of John of Parma, charactcr-
izes several of tliera as "great Joachites."
 THE JOACHITES. 19

human wickedness and as the Gospel of Christ and the Eule of

;

Francis had not accomplished the salvation of mankind, a new

gospel was indispensable. Besides, Joachim had predicted that
there would arise a new rehgious Order which would rule the
world and the Church in the halcj^on age of the Holy Ghost.
They could not doubt that this referred to the Franciscans as rep-
resented by the Spiritual group, which was striving to uphold in
aU its strictness the Rule of the venerated founder.*
Such, we may presume, were the ideas which were troubling
the hearts of the earnest Spirituals as they pondered over the
prophecies of Joachim. In their exaltation many of them were
themselves given to ecstasies and visions full of prophetic insight.
Prominent members of the Order had openly embraced the Joa-
chitic doctrines,and his prophecies, genuine and spurious, were
applied to all events as they occurred. In 1248 Salimbene, the
chronicler, who was already a Avarm believer, met at the Francis-
can convent of Provins (Champagne) two ardent condisciples,
Gherardo da Borgo San Donnino and Bartolommeo Ghiscolo of
Parma. St. Louis was just setting forth on his ill-starred Egvp-
tian crusade. The Joachites had recourse to the pseudo-Joachim
on Jeremiah, and foretold that the expedition would be a failure,
that the king would be taken prisoner, and that pestilence would
decimate the host. This was not calculated to render them popu-
lar ; the peace of the good brethren was sadly broken by quarrels,
and the Joachites found it advisable to depart. Salimbene went
to Auxerre, Ghiscolo to Sens, and Gherardo to Paris, where his
learning secured for him admission to the university as the repre-
sentative of Sicily, and he obtained a chair in theology. Here for
four years he pursued his apocalyptic studies.f

* Protocoll. Commiss. Anagniae (Denifle, Archiv fiir Litteratur- und Kirchen-

geschichte, 1885, pp. 111-12).

pp. 178-9).— Salimbene, pp. 103, 233.

t Hist. Tribulat. (ubi sup.
According to the exegesis of the Joachites, Frederic H. was to attain the age
of seventy. When he died, in 1250, Salimbene refused to believe it, and remained
incredulous until Innocent IV., in his triumphal progress from Lyons, came to
Ferrara, nearly ten months afterwards, and exchanged congratulations upon it.
Salimbene was present, and Fra Gherardiuo of Parma turned to him and said,
"You know it now ; leave your Joachim and apply yourself to wisdom " (lb. pp.
107, 227).
 —

20 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

Suddenly, in 1254, Paris was startled with the appearance of a
book under the title of " The Everlasting Gospel " —
a name derived
from the Apocalypse —" And I saw another angel fly in the midst
of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that
dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue,
and people" (Kev, xiv. 6). It consisted of Joachim's three un-
doubted works, with explanatory glosses, preceded by a long In-
troduction, in which the hardy author developed the ideas of the
prophet audaciously and uncompromisingly. The daring vent-
ure had an immediate and immense popular success, which shows
how profoundly the conviction which prompted it was shared
among all classes. The rhymes of Jean de Meung indicate that
the demand for it came from the laity rather than the clergy, and
that it was sought by women as well as by men
" Ung livre de par le grant diable
Dit rfivangile pardurable ...
A Paris n'eust home ne feme
Au parvis devant Nostre-Dame
Qui lors avoir ne le pgust
A transcrire, s'il li plSust." *

]S"othing more revolutionary in spirit, more subversive of the

established order of the Church, can be conceived than the asser-
tions which thus aroused popular sympathy and applause. Joa-
chim's computations were accepted, and it was assumed absolute-
ly that in six years, in 1260, the reign of Christ would end and
the reign of the Holy Ghost begin. Already, in 1200, the spirit
of hfe had abandoned the Old and New Testaments in order to
give place to the Everlasting Gospel, consisting of the Concordia,

* Renan, Nouvelles fetudes, p. 296.

Joachim bad already used the term Everlasting Gospel to designate the
spiritual interpretation of the Evangelists, which was henceforth to rule the
•world. His disciple naturally considered Joachim's commentaries to be this
sjiiritual interpretation, and that they constituted the Everlasting Gospel to
winch he furnished a Gloss and Introduction. Tlic Franciscans were necessarily
the contemplative Order intrusted witli its dissemination. (See Denifle, Archiv
far Litteratur- etc., 1885, pp. 54-59, 61.) According to Denifle (pp. 67-70) the
publication of Gherardo consisted only of the Introduction and the Concordia.
Tlie Apocalypse and the Decachordon were to follow, but the venturesome en-
terprise was cut short.
 THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL, 21

the Expositio, and the Decachordon — the developmeiit and spir-

ituaUzation of all that had preceded it. Even as Joachim had
dwelt on the ascending scale of the three Eras, so the author
of the Introduction characterized the progressive methods of the
three Scriptures. The Old Testament is the first heaven, the
New Testament the second heaven, the Everlasting Gospel the
third heaven. The first is like the light of the stars, the second
like that of the moon, and the third like that of the sun ; the first

is the porch, the second the holy place, and the third the Holy of
Holies ; the first is the rind, the second the nut, the third the ker-
nel ; the first is earth, the second water, the third fire ; the first

is literal, the second spiritual, and the third is the law promised in
Jeremiah xxxi. The preaching and dissemination of this supreme
and eternal law of God is committed to the barefooted Order (the
Franciscans). At the threshold of the Old Law were three men,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at that of the ]N"ew Law were three
:

others, Zachariah, John the Baptist, and Christ and at that of :

the coming age are three, the man in hnen (Joachim), the Angel
with the sharp sickle, and the Angel with the sign of the living God
(Francis). In the blessed coming i^ign of the Holy Ghost men
will live under the law of love, as in the first Era they lived in fear,
and in the second in grace. Joachim had argued against the con-
tinuance, of the sacraments; Gherardo regarded them as sjnnbols
and enigmas, from which man would be liberated in the time to
come, for love would replace all the observances founded upon the
second Dispensation. This was destructive of the whole sacerdo-
tal system, which was to be swept away and relegated to the limbo
of the forgotten past and scarce less revolutionary was his bold
;

declaration that the Abomination of Desolation would be a pope

tainted with simony, who, towards the end of the sixth age, now
at hand, would obtain the papacy.*

* Protocol. Comraiss. Anagniae (H. Denifle Archiv fiir Litt.- etc., 1885, pp.
99-103, 109, 136, 135-6).
It appears to me that Father Denifle's laborious research has sufEcicntly
proved that the errors commonly ascribed to the Everlasting Gospel (D'.\j-gentre
I. I. 163-5 ; Eymeric. Direct luq. P. ir. Q. 9 ; Hermann. Korneri Chix)n. ap.
Eccard. Corp. Hist. Med. ^vi. II. 849-51) are the strongly partisan accusations
sent to Rome by William of St. Amour (ubi sup. pp. 76-86) which have led to
22 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
The authorship of this bold challenge to an inf aUible Church
was long attributed to John of Parma himself, but there would
seem little doubt that it was the work of Gherardo the outcome —
of his studies and reveries during the four years spent in the Uni-
versity of Paris, although John of Parma possibly had a hand in
it. Certainly, as Tocco well points out, he at least sympathized
with it, for he never punished the author, in spite of the scandal
which brought upon the Order, and Bernard Gui tells us that at
it

the time it was commonly ascribed to him. I have already re-

lated with what joy William of Saint Amour seized upon it in the
quarrel between the University and the Mendicants, and the ad-
vantage it momentarily gave the former. Under existing circum-
stances it could have no friends or defenders. It was too reckless
an onslaught on all existing institutions, temporal and sj)iritual.
The only thing to be done with it was to suppress it as quietly as
possible. Consideration for the Franciscan Order demanded this,
as well as the prudence which counselled that attention should
not be unduly called to it, although hundreds of victims had been
burned for heresies farless dangerous. The commission- which sat

at Anagni in July, 1255, for its condemnation had a task over

which there could be no debate, but I have already pointed out
the contrast between the reserve with which it was suppressed and
the vindictive clamor with which Saint Amour's book against
the Mendicants was ordered to be burned.*

exaggerated misconceptions of its Father Denifle, how-

rebellious tendencies.
commission of Anagni (July, 1255)
ever, proceeds to state that the result of the
was merely the condemnation of the views of Gherardo, and that the works of
Joachim (except his tract against Peter Lombard) have never been condemned
by the Church. Yet even when the exaggerations of William of St. Amour are
thrown aside, there is in reality little in principle to distinguish Joachim from
Gherardo and if the former was not condemned it was not the fault of the Com-
;

mission of Anagni, which classed both together and energetically endeavored to

prove Joachim a heretic, even to showing that he never abandoned his heresy on
the Trinity (ubi sup. pp. 137-41).
Yet if there was little difference in the letter, there was a marked divergence
in spirit between Joachim and his commentator — the former being constructive
and the latter destructive as regards the existing Church. See Tocco, Archivio
Storico Italiano, 1886.
* Matt Paris ann. 1256 (Ed. 1644, p. G33).— Salimbenc, p. 103.— Bern. Guidon.
 RESIGNATION OF JOHN OF PARMA. 23

The Spiritual section of the Franciscans was fatally compro-

mised, and the worldly party, which had impatiently borne the
strict rule of John of Parma, saw its opportunity of gaining the
ascendency. Led by Bernardo da Bessa, the companion of Bona-
ventura, formal articles of accusation were presented to Alexander
IV. against the general. He was accused of listening to no ex-
planations of the Kule and Testament, holding that the privileges
and declarations of the popes were of no moment in comparison.
It Avas not hinted that he was implicated in the Everlasting Gos-
pel, but it was alleged that he pretended to enjoy the spirit of
prophecy and that he predicted a division of the Order between
those who procured papal relaxations and those who adhered to
the Eule, the latter of whom would flourish under the dew of
heaven and the benediction of God. Moreover, he was not ortho-
dox, but defended the errors of Joachim concerning the Trinity,
and his immediate comrades had not hesitated, in sermons and
tracts, to praise Joachim immoderately and to assail the leading
men of the Order. In this, as in the rest of the proceedings, the
studied silence preserved as to the Everlasting Gospel shows how
dangerous was the subject, and how even the fierce passions of the
strife shrank from compromising the Order by admitting that any
of its members were responsible for that incendiary production.*

Vit. Alex. PP. IV. (Muratori S. R. I. III. i. 593). Cf. Anialr. Auger. Vit. Alex. PP.
IV. (lb. III. II. 404).

For the authorship of the Everlasting Gospel, see Tocco, L'Heresia nel Medio
Evo, pp. 473-4, and his review of Denifle and Haupt, Archivio Storico Italiano,
1886; Renan,pp. 248, 277; and Denifle, ubi sup. pp. 57-8.
One of the accusations brought against William of Saint Amour was that he
complained of the delay in condemning the Everlasting Gospel, to which he re-
plied with an allusion to the influence of those who defended the errors of
Joachim. — Dupin, Bib. des Auteurs ficcles. T. X. ch. vii.

Thomas of CantimprC assures us that Saint Amour would have won the day
against the Mendicant Orders but for the learning and eloquence of Albertus
Magnus. — Bonum Universale, Lib. ii. c. ix.

—
Wadding, ann. 1256, No. 2. Affo (Lib. ii. c. ir.) argues that Jolin of Parma's
*

resignation was wholly spontaneous, that there were no accusations against him,
and that both the pope and the Franciscans were with difficulty persuaded to let
him retire. He quotes Salim.bene (Chronica p. 137) as to the reluctance of the
chapter to accept his resignation, but does not allude to the assertion of the same
authority that John was obnoxious to Alexander and to many of the ministers
of the Order by reason of his too zealous belief in Joachim (lb. p. 131).
2$ . THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
Alexander was easily persuaded, and a general chapter was
held in the Aracoeli, February 2, 1257, over which he personally
presided. John of Parma was warned to resign, and did so,
pleading age, weariness, and disability. After a decent show of
resistance his resignation was accepted and he was asked to nom-
inate a successor. His choice fell upon Bonaventura, then only
thirty -four years of age, whose participation in the struggle with
the University of Paris had marked him as the most promising
man in the Order, while he was not identified with either faction.
He was duly elected, and the leaders of the movement required
him to proceed against John and his adherents. Bonaventura for
a while hesitated, but at length consented. Gherardo refused to
recant, and Bonaventura sent for him to come to Paris. In pass-
ing through Modena he met Salimbene, who had cowered before
the storm and had renounced Joachitism as a folly. The two
friends had a long colloquy, in which Gherardo offered to prove
that Antichrist was already at hand in the person of Alonso the
Wise of Castile. He was learned, pure-minded, temperate, modest,
amiable —in a word, a most admirable and lovable character ; but
nothing could wean him from his Joachitic convictions, though in
his trial discreet silence, as usual, was observed about the Everlast-
ing Gospel, and he was condemned as an upholder of Joachim's
Trinitarian speculations. Had he not been a Franciscan he would
.

have been burned. It was a doubtful mercy which consigned him

to a dungeon in chains and fed him on bread and water for eigh-
teen years, until his weary life came to an end. He never wavered
to the last, and his remains were thrust into a corner of the gar-
den of the convent where he died. The same fate awaited his
comrade Leonardo, and also another friar named Piero de' Nubili,
who refused to surrender a tract of John of Parma's.*

* Wadding, ann. 125G, No. 3-5.— Salimbene, pp. 102, 233-0.— Hist. Tribulat.
(Arcliiv fiir L. u. K. 1886, p. 285). — Although Salimbene prudently abandoned
Joachitism, lie never outgrew his belief in Joachim's prophetic powers. Many-
years later he gives as a reason for suspecting the Segarellists, that if they were
of God, Joachim would have predicted them as he did the Mendicants (lb.
123-4).
Tlie silence of the Historia Tribulationum with respect to the Everlasting
Gospel is noteworthy. By common consent that dangerous work seems to be
ignored by all jmrties.
 PERSISTENCE OF THE JOACHITES. 25

Then John himself was tried by a special court, to preside over

which Alexander appointed Cardinal Caietano, afterwards Nicho-
las III. The accused readily retracted his advocacy of Joachim,
but his bearing irritated the judges, and, with Bonaventura's con-
sent, he would have shared the fate of his associates but for the
strenuous intercession of Ottoboni, Cardinal of S. Adrian, after-
wards Adrian V. Bonaventura gave him the option of selecting a
place of retreat, and he chose a little convent near Kieti. There
he is said to have lived for thirty-two years the life of an angel,
without abandoning his Joachitic beliefs. John XXI., who greatly
loved him, thought of making him a cardinal in 1277, but was
prevented by death. Nicholas III., who had presided at his trial,
a few years later offered him the cardinalate, so as to be able to
enjoy his advice, but he quietly answered, " I could give whole-
some counsel if there were any one to listen to me, but in the
Roman court there is little discussed but wars and triumphs, and
not the salvation of souls." In 12S9, however, notwithstanding
his extreme age, he accepted from Nicholas lY. a mission to the
Greek Church, but he died at Camerino soon after setting out.
Buried there, he speedily shone in miracles he became the object
;

of a lasting cult, and in 1777 he was formally beatified, in spite

of the opposition arising from his alleged authorship of the Intro-
duction to the Everlasting Gospel.*
The was by no means broken by these
faith of the Joachites
reverses. William of Saint Amour thought it necessary to return
to the charge with another bitter tract directed against them. He
shares their belief in the impending change, but declares that in
place of being the reign of love under the Holy Ghost, it will be
the reign of Antichrist, whom he identifies with the Friars. Per-
secution, he says, had put an end to the open defence of the pes-
tiferous doctrine of the Everlasting Gospel, but it still had many
believers in secret. The south of France was the headquarters of
the sect. Florent, Bishop of Acre, had been the official prosecutor
before the Commission of Anagni in 1255. He was rewarded with
the archbishopric of Aries in 1262, and in 12G5 he held a provin-

* WaddiDg. ann. 1256, No. 6; ano. 1289, No. 26.— Hist. Tribulat. (loc. cit.

p. 285).— Salimbene Chron. pp. 131-33, 317.— Tocco, pp. 476-77.— P. Rodulphii
Hist. Seraph. Relig. Lib. i. fol. 117.— Affo, Lib. in. c. x.
 —

26 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

cialsynod Avitli the object of condemning the Joachites, who were
stillnumerous in his province. An elaborate refutation of the
errors of the Everlasting Gospel was deemed necessary it was ;

deplored that many learned men still suffered themselves to be

misled by and that books containing it were written and eagerly
it,

passed from hand to hand. The anathema was decreed against

this, but no measures of active persecution seem to have been
adopted, nor do we hear of any steps taken by the Inquisition to
sup23ress the heresy. As we shall see hereafter, the leaven long
remained in Languedoc and Provence, and gave a decided impress
to the Spiritual Franciscanism of those regions. It mattered little

that the hoped-for year 1260 came and passed away without the
fulfilment of the prophecy. Earnest believers can always find ex-
cuses for such errors in computation, and the period of the advent
of the Holy Ghost could be put off from time to time, so as always
to stimulate hope with the prospect of emancipation in the near
future.*

Although the removal of John of Parma from the generalate

had been the victory of the Conventuals, the choice of Bonaven-
tura might well seem to give to the Spirituals assurance of con-
tinued supremacy. In his controversy with William of Saint
Amour he had taken the most advanced ground in denying that
Christ and the apostles held property of any kind, and in identify-
ing poverty with perfection. " Deep poverty is laudable this is ;

true of itself therefore deeper poverty is more laudable, and the

:

deepest, the most laudable. But this is the jDOverty of him who
neither in private nor in common keeps anything for himself. . . .

To renounce all things, in private or in common, is Christian per-

fection, not only sufficient but abundant it is the principal coun-
:

sel of evangelical perfection, its fundamental principle and subUme

foundation." Not only this, but he was deeply imbued Avith mys-
ticism and was the first to give authoritative expression to the
Illuminism which subsequently gave the Church so much trouble.

* Lib. de Anticliiisto P. i. c. x., xiii., xiv. (Martene Ampl. Coll. IX. 1273,
1313, 1325-35). —Thoina; Aquinat. Opusc. contra Impugn. Relig. c. xxiv. 5, 6.

Concil. Arelatens. ann. 12C0 (1265) c. 1 (Harduin. VIL 509-12).— Fisquet, La

France Pontificale, Mfitropole d'Aix, p. 577.— Rcnun, p. 254.
 INCREASING DISCORD. 27

His Mystica Theologia is in sharp contrast to the arid scholas-

tic theology of the day as represented by Thomas Aquinas, The
soul is brought face to face with God its sins are to be repented
;

of in the silent watches of the night, and it is to seek God through

its own efforts. It is not to look to others for aid or leader-
ship, but,depending on itself, strive for the vision of the Divine.
Through this Path of Purgation it ascends to the Path of Illumi-
nation, and is prepared for the reception of the Divine Kadiance.
Finally it reaches the Third Path, which leads to union with the
Godhead and participation in Divine Wisdom. Molinos and Ma-
dame Guyon indulged in no more dangerous speculations and ;

the mystic tendencies of the Spirituals received a powerful stimu-

lus from such teachings,*
was inevitable that the strife within the Order between
It
property and poverty should grow increasingly bitter. Questions
were constantly arising which showed the incompatibility of the
vows as laid down by St, Francis with the functions of an organ-
ization which had grown to be one of the leading factors of a
wealthy and worldly Church. In 1255 we find the sisters of the
monastery of St, Elizabeth complaining to Alexander TV. that
when property was given or bequeathed to them the ecclesiastical
authorities enforced on them the observance of the Rule, by com-
peUing them to part with it within a year by sale or gift, and the
pope graciously promised that no such custom should be enforced
in future. About the same time John of Parma complained that
when his friars were promoted to the episcopate they carried away
with them books and other things of which they had properly
only the use, being unable to own anything under peril of their
souls. Again Alexander graciously replied that friars, on promo-
tion, must dehver to the provincial everything which they had in
their hands. Such troubles must have been of almost daily occur-
rence, and it was inevitable that the increasing friction should
result in schism. When the blessed Gilio, the third disciple who
joined St. Francis, was taken to Assisi to view the splendid build-
ings erected in honor of the humble Francis, and was carried
through three magnificent churches, connected with a vast refec-

* S. Bonavent. de Paui^. Christi Art. i. No. i., ii. —Ejusd. Mystic, Tbeol, cap. i.

Partic. 2; cap, n. Partic. 1, 3; Cap. in. Partic. 1.

28 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
tory, a spacious dormitory, and other offices and cloisters, adorned
with lofty arches and spacious portals, he kept silent until one of
his guides pressed him for an expression of admiration. " Breth-
ren," he then said, " there is nothing lacking except your wives."
This seemed somewhat irrelevant, till he explained that the vows
of poverty and chastity were equally binding, and now that one
was set aside the other might as Avell foUow. Salimbene relates
that in the convent of Pisa he met Fra Boncampagno di Prato,
who, in place of the two new tunics per year distributed to each
of the brethren, would only accept one old one, and who declared
that he could scarce satisfy God for taking that one. Such exag-
gerated conscientious sensitiveness could not but be pecuMarly
exasperating to the more worldly members.*
The Conventuals had lost no time in securing the results of
their victory over John of Parma. Scarce had his resignation been
"

secured, and before Bonaventura could arrive from Paris they

obtained from Alexander, February 20, 1257, a repetition of the
declaration of Innocent TV. which enabled the Order to handle
money and hold property through the transparent device of agents
and the Holy See. The disgust of the Puritan party was great,
and even the implicit reverence prescribed for the papacy could
not prevent ominous mutterings of disobedience, raising questions
as to the extent of the papal power to bind and to loose, which in
time were to ripen into open rebellion. The Rule had been pro-
claimed a revelation equal in authority to the gospel, and it might
well be asked whether even the successor of St. Peter could set it

aside. It was probably about this time that Berthold of Ratisbon,

the most celebrated Franciscan preacher of his day, in discoursing
to his brethren on the monastic state, boldly declared that the
vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity were so binding that
even the pope could not dispense for them. This, in fact, was
admitted on all sides as a. truism. About 1290 the Dominican
Provincial of Germany, Hermann of Minden, in an encyclical, al-
ludes to it as a matter of course, but in little more than a quarter
of a century we shall see that such ultterances were treated as her-
esy, and were sternly suppressed with the stake.f

* Wadding. Regest. Alex. PP. IV. No. 39-41 ; Annal. ann. 1263, No. 36.—
Salimbene, p. 123.
t Wadding, aun. 125G, No. 4; Regest. Alex. PP. IV. No. GO.— Bertholdi a
 ;

BONAVENTURA'S EFFORTS. '29

Bona Ventura, as we have seen, honestly sought to restrain the

growing laxity of the Order, Before leaving Paris he addressed,
April 23, 1257, an encyclical letter to the provincials, calling their
attention to the prevalent vices of the brethren and the contempt
to which they exposed the whole Order. Again, some ten years
later, at the instance of Clement IV., he issued another similar
epistle, in which he strongly expressed his horror at the neglect of
the Kule shown in the shameless greed of so many members, the
importunate striving for gain, the ceaseless Utigation caused by
their grasping after legacies and burials, and the splendor and lux-
ury of their buildings. The provincials were instructed to put
an end to these disorders by penance, imprisonment, or expulsion
but however earnest in his zeal Bonaventura may have been, and
however self-denying in his own life, he lacked the fiery energy
which enabled John of Parma to give effect to his convictions.
How utter was the prevailing degeneracy is seen in the complaint
presented in 1265 to Clement TV., that in many places the eccle-
siastical authorities held that the friars, being dead to the world,
were incapable of inheritance. Rehef was prayed from this, and
Clement issued a bull declaring them competent to inherit and
free to hold their inheritances, or to sell them, and to use the prop-
erty or its price as might to them seem best.*
The question of poverty evidently was one incapable of per-

Ratispona Sermones, Monachii, 1882, p. 68. — H. Deuifle, Arcbiv filr Litt.- u.

Kirchengeschichte, 1886, p. 649.

To the true Franciscan the Rule and the gospel were one and the same. Ac-
cording to Thomas of Celano, "II perfetto amatore dell' osservanza del santo
vangelio e della professione della nostra regola, che non h altro che pcrfetta
osservanza del vangelio, questo [Francesco] ardentissimamente amava, e quelli
che sono e saranno veri amatori, dono a essi singular benedizione. Veramente,
dicea, questa nostra professione a quelli che la seguitano, esser libro di vita,
speranza di salute, arra di gloria, raelodia del vangelio, via di croce, stato di
perfezione, chiave di paradiso, e patto di eterna pace." —Amoni, Legenda S. Fran-
cisci, App. c. xxix.
* S. Bonavent. 0pp. I. 485-6 (Ed. 1584).— Wadding, ann. 1357, No. 9; Re-
gest. Clem. PP. IV. No. I.

Pieri'e Jean Olivi states that he himself heard Bonaventura declare in a chap-
ter held in Paris that he would, at any moment, submit to be ground to jjowder
if it would bring the Order back to the condition designed by St. Francis.—

Franz Ehrle, Archiv fur L. u. K. 1887, p. 517.

 ;

30 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

manent and satisfactory settlement. Dissension in the Order
could not be healed. In vain Gregory X., about 1275, was ap-
pealed to, and decided that the injunction of the Eule against the
possession of property, individually or in common, was to be strict-
ly observed. The worldly party continued to point out the in-
compatibility of this with the necessities of human nature ; they
declared it to be a tempting of God and a suicide of the individ-
ual ; the quarrel continually grew more bitterly envenomed, and
in 1279 Nicholas III. undertook to settle it with a formal declara-
tion which should forever close the mouths of all cavillers. For
two months he secretly labored at it in consultation "with the two
Franciscan cardinals, Palestrina and Albano, the general, Bona-
grazia, and some of the provincials. Then it was submitted to a
commission in which was Benedetto Caietano, afterwards Boni-
face VIII. Finally it was read and adopted in full consistory,
and it was included, twenty years later, in the additions to the
canon law compiled and published by order of Boniface. !N"o ut-
terance of the Holy See could have more careful consideration
and more solemn authority than the bull known as Exiit qui semi-
nat, which was thus ushered into the world, and which subsequent-
ly became the subject of such deadly controversy.*
It declares the Franciscan Eule to be the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost through St. Francis. The renunciation of property,
not only individual but in common, is meritorious and holy. Such
absolute renunciation of possession had been practised by Christ
and the apostles, and had been taught by them to their disciples
it is not only meritorious and perfect, but lawful and possible, for

there is a distinction between use, which is permitted, and owner-

ship, which is forbidden. Following the example of Innocent lY.
and Alexander IV., the proprietorship of all that the Franciscans
use is declared to be vested, now and hereafter, in the Koman
Church and pontiff, which concede to the friars the usufruct
thereof. The prohibition to receive and handle money is to be
enforced, and borrowing is especially deprecated but, when neces- ;

sity obliges, this may be effected through third parties, although

the brethren must abstain from handling the money or adminis-
tering or expending it. As for legacies, they must not be left

• Liv. V. Sexto xii. 3.—Wadding, ann. 1279, No. 11.

 FRUITLESS SETTLEMENTS. 31

and minute regulations

directly to the friars, but only for their use ;

are drawn up and utensils. The

for exchanging or selling books
bull concludes with instructions that it is to be read and taught
in the schools, but no one, under pain of excommunication and
loss of office and benefice, shall do anything but expound it liter-
ally — it is not to be glossed or commented upon, or discussed, or
explained away. All doubts and questions shall be submitted di-
rectl}'^ to the Holy
and any one disputing or commenting on
See,
the Franciscan Kule or the definitions of the bull shail undergo
excommunication, removable only by the pope.
Had the question been capable of permanent settlement in this
sense, this solemn utterance would have put an end to further
trouble. Unluckily, human nature did not cease to be human
nature, with its passions and on crossing the threshold
necessities,
of a Franciscan convent. Unluckily, papal constitutions were as
cobwebs when they sought to control the ineradicable vices and
weakness of man. Unluckily, moreover, there were consciences
too sensitive to be satisfied with fine-drawn distinctions and sub-
tleties ingeniously devised to evade the truth. Yet the bull Exiit
qtci seminal for a while relieved the papacy from further discus-

sion, although it could not quiet the intestine dissensions of the

Order. There was still a body of recalcitrants, not nimierous,
it is true, but eminent for the piety and virtue of its members,

which could not be reconciled by these subterfuges. These re-

calcitrants gradually formed themselves into two distinct bodies,
one in Italy, and the other in southern France. At first there is
little to distinguish them apart, and for a long while they acted

in unison, but there gradually arose a divergence between them,

which in the end became decisively marked, owing to the greater
influence exercised in Languedoc and Provence by the traditions
of Joachim and the Everlasting Gospel.

"We have seen how the thirst for ascetic poverty, coupled in
many with the desire to escape from the sordid
cases, doubtless,
cares of daily life, led thousands to embrace a career of wander-
ing mendicancy, Sarabites and circumcellio'nes vagrant monks, —
—
subjected to no rule had been the curse of the Church ever since
the invention of cenobitism and the exaltation of poverty in the
;

thirteenth century had given a new impulse to the crowds who

32 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
preferred the idleness of the road or of the hermitage to the re-
straints and labor of civilized existence. It was in vain that the

Lateran Council had prohibited the formation of new and unau-

thorized Orders. The splendid success of the Mendicants had
proved too alluring, and others were formed on the same basis,
without the requisite preliminary of the papal approval. The
multitudes of holy beggars were becoming a serious nuisance, op-
pressive to the people and disgraceful to the Church. "When Greg-
ory X. summoned the General Council of Lyons, in 1274, this was
one of the evils to be remedied. The Lateran canon prohibiting
the formation of unauthorized Orders was renewed. Gregory pro-
posed to suppress all the congregations of hermits, but, at the in-
stance of Cardinal Kichard, the Carmelites and Augustinians were
allowed to exist on sufferance until further order, while the au-
dacity of other associations, not as yet approved, was condemned,
especially that of the mendicants,whose multitude was declared
to exceed all bounds. Such mendicant Orders as had been con-
firmed since the Council of Lateran were permitted to continue,
but they were instructed to admit no new members, to acquire no
new houses, and not to sell what they possessed without special
hcense from the Holy See. Evidently it was felt that the time
had come for decisive measures to check the tide of saintly men-
dicancy.*
Some vague and incorrect rumors of this legislation penetrat-
ing an
to Italy, led toexplosion which started one of the most
extraordinary series of persecutions which the histor}^ of human
perversity affords. On the one hand there is the marvellous con-
stancy which endured lifelong martyrdom for an idea almost un-
intelligible to the modern mind on the other there is the seem-
;

ingly causeless ferocity, which appears to persecute for the mere

pleasure of persecution, only to be explained by the bitterness of
the feuds existing within the Order, and the savage determination
to enforce submission at every cost.
It was reported that the Council of Lyons had decreed that
the Mendicants could hold property. Most of the brethren ac-
quiesced readily enough, but those who regarded the Rule as divine
revelation, not to be tampered with by any earthly authority, de-

• Concil. Lugduncns. II. c. 23 (Harduiu. VII. 715).— Salijnbene, pp. 110-11.

 3

PERSECUTION COMMENCED. 33

Glared that would be apostasy, and a thing not to be admitted un-

it

der any circumstances. Several disputations were held which only

confirmed each side in its views. One point which gave rise to
pecuhar animosity was the refusal of the Spirituals to take their
turns in the daily rounds in quest of moneyed alms, which had
grown to be the custom in most places and it is easy to imagine ;

the bitter antagonism to which this disobedience must have led.

It shows how strained were the relations between the factions
that proceedings for heresy were forthwith commenced against
these zealots. The rumor proved false, the excitement died away,
and the prosecutions were allowed to slumber for a few years,
when they were revived through fear that these extreme opinions,
if left unpunished, might win over the majority. Liberate da
Macerata, Angelo da Cingoli (il Clareno), Traymondo, Tommaso da
Tollentino, and one or two others whose names have not reached
us were the obdurate ones who would make no concession, even
m theory. Angelo, to whom we owe an account of the matter,
declared that they were ready to render implicit obedience, that
no offence was proved against them, but that nevertheless they
were condemned, as schismatics and heretics, to perpetual impris-
onment in chains. The sentence was inhumanly harsh. They
were to be deprived of the sacraments, even upon the death-bed,
thus killing soul as well as body during Ufe no one was to speak
;

with them, not even the jailer who brought the daily pittance of
bread and water to their cells, and examined their fetters to see
that they were attempting no escape. As a warning, moreover, the
sentence was ordered to be read weekly in all the chapters, and
no one was to presume to criticise it as unjust. This was no idle
threat, for when Friar Tommaso da Casteldemiho heard
it read and

said was displeasing to God, he was cast into a similar prison,

it

where he rotted to death in a few months. The fierce spirits in

control of the Order were evidently determined that at least the
vow of obedience should be maintained,^^

* Angel. Clarinens. Epist. Excusat. (Archiv fiir Litt.- u. Kirclicngescliichte,

1885, pp. 523-4).— Histor. Tribulation. (Ibid. 1886, pp. 302-4).— rbeitini Re-
sponsio (Ibid. 1887, p. 68). — Cf. Rodulphii Hist. Seraph. Relig. Lib. ii. fol.

180.
For the first time the development and liistory of the Spiritual Franciscans
can now be traced with some accuracy, thanks to Franz Ehrle, S. J., who has
III.—
34 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
The prisoners seem to have laid in jail until after the election
to the generalate of Raymond Gaufridi, at Easter, 12S9. Visit-
ing the Mark of Ancona, where they were incarcerated, he inves-
tigated the case, blamed severely the perpetrators of the injustice,
and martyrs free in 1290. The Order had been growing
set the
more lax than ever, in spite of the bull Exiit qui
in its observance
seminal. Matteo d'Acquasparta, who was general from 1287 to
1289, was easy and kindly, well-intentioned but given to self-in-
dulgence, and by no means inclined to the effort requisite to en-
force the Exile. Eespect for it, indeed, was daily diminishing.
Coffers were placed in the churches to receive offerings bargains ;

were made as to the price of masses and for the absolution of sin-
ners boys were stationed at the church-doors to sell wax tapers
;

in honor of saints the Friars habitually begged money in the

;

streets, accompanied by boys to receive and carry it the sepulture ;

of the rich was eagerly sought for, leading to disgraceful quarrels

with the heirs and with the secular clergy. Everj^where there
was self-seeking and desire for the enjoyment of an idle and luxu-
rious life. It is true that lapses of the flesh were still rigidly pun-
ished, but these cases were sufficiently frequent to show that ample
cause for scandal arose from the forbidden familiarity with women
which the brethren permitted themselves. So utter was the gen-
eral demorahzation that Nicholas, the Provincial of France, even
dared to write a tract calling in question the bull ExiH qui semi-
nat and its exposition of the Eule. As this was in direct contra-
vention of the bull Acquasparta felt compelled to condemn
itself,

the work and to punish its author and his supporters, but the evil
continued to work. In the Mark of Ancona and in some other
places the reaction against asceticism was so strong that the Testa-
ment of the revered Francis was officially ordered to be burned.
It was the main bulwark of the Spirituals against relaxation of
the Eule, and in one instance it was actually burned on the head
of a friar, N. de Eecanate, who presumably had made himself ob-
noxious by insisting on its authority.*

lirinted tlie most important documents relating to this scliism in the Order, elu-
cidated with all the resources of exact research. My numerous references to his
papers show the extent of my indebtedness to his labors.
* Ilistor. Tribulat. (loc. cit. 1886, p. 305). — Ubertini Rcsponsio (Ibid. 1887,
pp. CO, 77). — Articuli Trausgressionum (Ibid. 1887, pp. 105-7). — Wadding, aun.
 —

PROTECTED BY CELESTIN Y. 35

EajTnond Gaufridi was earnestly desirous of restoring disci-

pline,but the relaxation of the Order had grown past curing. His
release of the Spirituals at Ancona caused much murmuring he ;

was ridiculed as a patron of fantastic and superstitious men, and

conspiracies were set on foot which never ceased till his removal
was effected in 1295. It was perhaps to conjure these attempts that
he sent Liberato, Angelo, Tommaso, and two kindred spirits named
Marco and Piero to Armenia, where they induced King Haito II.
to enter the Franciscan Order, and won from him the warmest
eulogies. Even in the East, however, the hatred of their fellow-
missionaries was so earnest and so demonstrative that they were
forced to return in 1293. On their arrival in Italy the provincial,
Monaldo, refused to receive them or to allow them to remain until
they could communicate with Eaymond, declaring that he would
rather entertain fornicators.*
The unreasoning wrath which insisted on these votaries of pov-
erty violating their convictions received a check when, in 1294, the
choice of the exhausted conclave fell by chance on the hermit
Pier Morrone, who suddenly found his mountain burrow trans-
formed into the papal palace. Celestin V. preserved in St. Peter's
and maceration which had led
chair the predilection for solitude
him to the life of the anchorite. To him Eaymond referred the
Spirituals, whom he seemed unable to protect. Celestin hstened
to them kindly and invited them to enter his special Order— the
Celestinian Benedictines —but they explained to him the difference
of their vows, and how their brethren detested the observance of
the Eule. in public audience he ordered them to observe
Then
strictly the Eule and Testament of Francis he released them from
;

obedience to all except himself and to Liberato, whom he made

their chief; Cardinal Napoleone Orsini was declared their pro-
tector, and the abbot of the Celestinians was ordered to provide

1289, No. 22-3.— Ubertini Declaratio (Arcbiv, 1887, pp. 168-9).— Dante contrasts
Acquasparta -witli Ubertino da Casale, of whom -we shall see more presently

" Ma non sia da Casal ne d'Acquasparta

La onde vegnon tali alia Scrittura

Ch' uno la fugge e Taltro la coarta." — (Paradiso xri.).

pp. 306-8).— Angel. Clarinens. Epist.

* Hist. Tribulat. (loc. cit. 1886, (Ibid.

1885, pp. 524-5).— Wadding, ann. 1292, No. 14.

 ;

36 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

them with hermitages. Thus they were fairly out of the Order
they were not even to call themselves Minorites or Franciscans,
and it might be supposed that their brethren would be as glad to
get rid of them and their assumption of superior sanctity as they
were to escape from oppression,*
Yet the hatred provoked by the quarrel was too deep and bit-
ter to spare its victims, and the breathing-space which they en-
joyed was short. Celestin's pontificate came to an abrupt termi-
nation. Utterly unfitted for his position, speedily made the tool of
designing men, and growing weary of the load which he felt him-

self unable to endure, after than six months he was persuaded

less

to abdicate, in December, 1294, and was promptly thrown into pris-

on by his successor, Boniface YIII., for fear that he might be led
to reconsider an abdication the legality of which might be ques-
tioned. All of Celestin's acts and grants were forthwith annulled,
and so complete was the obliteration of everything that he had
done, that even the appointment of a notary is found to require
confirmation and a fresh commission. Boniface's contempt for the
unworldly enthusiasm of asceticism did not lead him to make any
exception in favor of the Spirituals. To him the Franciscan Or-
der Avas merely an instrument for the furtherance of his ambitious
schemes, and its worldliness was rather to be stimulated than re-
pressed. Though he placed in his Sixth Book of Decretals the
bull Exiit qui semmat, his practical exposition of its provisions is
seen in two bulls issued July 17, 1296, by one of which he as-
signs to the Franciscans of Paris one thousand marks, to be taken
from the legacies for pious uses, and by the other he converts to
them a legacy of three hundred livres bequeathed by Ada, lady of
Pernes, for the benefit of the Holy Land. Under such auspices
the degradation of the Order could not but be rapid. Before his
first year was out, Boniface had determined upon the removal of

the general, Raymond. October 29, 1295, he offered the latter the
bishopric of Pa via, and on his protesting that he had not strength
for the burden, Boniface said that he could not be fit for the
heavier load of the generalate, of Avhich he relieved him on the
spot. We can understand the insolence which led a party of the
• Angel. Clarin. Epist. (op. cit. 1885, p. 526); Hist. Tribulationum (lb. 1886,
PP. 808-9).
 BONIFACE VIII. 37

Conventual faction to prison and taunt and

visit Celestin in his
insult him which he had shown to the Spirituals. A
for the favor
prosecution for heresy -s^^hich Boniface ordered, in March, 1295,
against Fra Pagano di Pietra-Santa was doubtless instigated by
the same spirit.*
More than this. To Boniface's worldly, practical mind the
hordes of wandering mendicants, subjected to no authority, were an
intolerable nuisance, whether it arose from ill-regulated asceticism
or idle vagabondage. The decree of the Council of Lyons, had
failed to suppress the evil, and, in 1-196 and 1497, Boniface issued
instructions to all bishops to compel such wanderers or hermits,
popularly known as Bizochi, either to lay aside their fictitious re-
and give up their mode of life, or to betake themselves
ligious habits
tosome authorized Order. The inquisitors were instructed to de-
nounce to the bishops all suspected persons, and if the prelates
were remiss, to report them to the Holy See. One remarkable
clause gives special authority to the inquisitors to prosecute such
of these Bizochi as may be members of their own Orders, thus
showing that there was no heresy involved, as otherwise the in-

quisitors would have required no additional powers.f

The following year Boniface proceeded to more active meas-
ures. He ordered the Franciscan, Matteo da Chieti, Inquisitor of
x\ssisi, to visit personally the mountains of the Abruzzi and Mark
of Ancona and to drive from their lurking-places the apostates
from various religious Orders and the Bizochi who infested those
regions. His previous steps had probably been ineffective, and
possibly also he may have been moved to more decisive action by
the rebellious attitude of the Spirituals and proscribed mendicants.
Not only did they question the papal authority, but they were be-
ginning to argue that the papacy itself was vacant. So far from
being content with the bull Exiit qui seminat, they held that its
author, Nicholas III., had been deprived by God of the papal func-
tions,and consequently that he had had no legitimate successors.
Thereafter there had been no true ordinations of priest and prel-
ate, and the real Church consisted in themselves alone. To rem-

* Hist. Tribulat. (loc. cit. 18S6, pp. 309-10).— Faiicon et Thomas, Registres de
Boniface VIII. No. 37, 1233, 1233, 1293, 1825.— Wadding, ann. 1295, No. 14.
t Franz Ehrle, Archiv fur L. u. K. 1886, pp. 157-8.

yr * < ~ <
l^j
1
38 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
edy this, Frere Matthieu de Bodici came from Provence, bringing
with him the books of Pierre Jean Olivi, and in the Church of St.
Peter in Eome he was elected pope by five Spirituals and thirteen
women, Boniface promptly put the Inquisition on their track,
but they fled to Sicily, which, as we shall see, subsequently be-
came the headquarters of the sect.*
Friar Jordan, to whom we are indebted for these details, as-
sumes that Liberato and his associates were concerned in this
movement. The dates and order of events are hopelessly con-
fused, but would rather seem that the section of the Spirituals
it

represented by Liberato kept themselves aloof from all such revo-

lutionary projects. Their sufferings were real and prolonged, but
had they been guilty of participating in the election of an anti-
pope they would have had but the choice between perpetual im-
prisonment and the stake. They were accused of holding that
Boniface was not a lawful pope, that the authority of the Church
was vested in themselves alone, and that the Greek Church was
—
preferable to the Latin in other words of Joachitism but Angelo —
declares emphatically that all this was untrue, and his constancy
of endurance during fifty years of persecution and suffering en-
titles his assertion to respect. He relates that after their authori-
zation by Celestin Y. they lived as hermits in accordance with the
papal concession, sojourning as paupers and strangers wherever
they could find a place of retreat, and strictly abstaining from
preaching and hearing confessions, except when ordered to do so
by bishops to whom
they owed obedience. Even before the resig-
nation of Celestin, the Franciscan authorities, irritated at the es-
cape of their victims, disregarded the papal authority and endeav-
ored with an armed force to capture them. Celestin himself
seems to have given them warning of this, and the zealots, recog-
nizing that there was no peace for them in Italy, resolved to ex-
patriate themselves and seek some remote spot where they could
gratify their ascetic longings and worship God without human

* Raynald. ann. 1297, No. 55.— Jordan! Chron. cap. 236, Partic. 3 (Muratori,
Antiq. XI. 7G6).
So far was Pierre Jean Olivi from participating in these rebellious movements
that he wrote a tract to prove the legality of Celestin's abdication and Boniface's
succession (Franz Ehrle, Archiv f L. u. K. 1887, p. 535).
 PERSECUTED BY THE INQUISITION. 39

interference. They crossed the Adriatic and settled on a desert

island off the coast. Here, lost to view, they for two years
Achaian
enjoyed the only period of peace in their agitated lives but at ;

length news of their place of retreat reached home, and forthwith

letters were despatched to the nobles and bishops of the mainland
accusing them of being Cathari, while Boniface was informed that
they did not regard him as pope, but held themselves to be the
only true Church. In 1299 he commissioned Peter, Patriarch of
Constantinople, to try them, when they were condemned without
a hearing, and he ordered Charles II. of Naples, who was overlord
of the Morea, to have them expelled, an order which Charles trans-
mitted to Isabelle de Villehardouin, Princess of Achaia. Mean-
while the local authorities had recognized the falsity of the accu-
sations, for the refugees celebrated mass daily and prayed for
Boniface as pope, and were willing to eat meat, but this did not
relieve them from and annoyance, one of their princi-
surveillance
who came to them with
pal persecutors being a certain Geronimo,
some books of Olivi's, and whom they were forced to eject for im-
moraUty, after which he turned accuser and was rewarded with
the episcopate.*
The pressure became too and the little community grad-
strong,
ually broke up. An accompany Fra Giovanni da
intention to
Monte on a mission to Tartary had to be abandoned on account of
the excommunication consequent upon the sentence uttered bj''
the Patriarch of Constantinople. Liberato sent two brethren to
appeal to Boniface, and then two more, but they were all seized

and prevented from reaching him. Then Liberato himself de-

parted secretly and reached Perugia, but the sudden death of
Boniface (October 11, 1303) frustrated his object. The rest re-
turned at various times, Angelo being the last to reach Italy, in
1305. He found his brethren in evil plight. They had been cited
by the Dominican inquisitor, Tommaso di Aversa, and had obedient-
ly presented themselves. At first the result was favorable. After
an examination lasting several days, Tommaso pronounced them

* Angel. Clarin. Epist. (Archiv fiir Litt.- u. Kirchengeschichte, 1885, pp. 522-3,
527-9).— Hist. Tribulat. (Ibid. 1886, pp. 314-18).— Fmuz Ehrle (Ibid. 188G, p. 335.
Franz Ehrle identifies the refuge of the Spirituals -n'ith the island of Trixonia
in the Gulf of Corinth (Ibid. 1886, pp. 313-14).
4:0 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
orthodox, and dismissed them, saying publicly, " Fra Liberate, I
swear by Him who created me that never the flesh of a poor man
could be sold for such a price as I could get for yours. Your
brethren would drink your blood if they could." He even con-
ducted them in safety back to their hermitages, and when the rage
of the Conventuals was found to be unappeasable he gave them
the advice that they should leave the kingdom of Naples that night
and travel by hidden ways to the pope if they could bring letters
;

from the latter, or from a cardinal, he would defend them as long

as he held the office. The advice was taken
Liberato left Naples
;

that night, but on the road and died after a lingering ill-
fell sick

ness of two years. Meanwhile, as we shall see hereafter, the ex-

ploits of Dolcino in Lombardy were exciting general terror, which
rendered all irregular fraternities the object of suspicion and dread.
The Conventuals took advantage of this and incited Fra Tommaso
to summon before him all who wore unauthorized religious habits.
The Spirituals were cited again, to the number of forty-two, and
this time they did not escape so easily. They were condemned as
heretics, and when Andrea da Segna, under whose protection they
had lived, interposed in their favor, Tommaso carried them to Tri-
vento, where they were tortured for five days. This excited the
compassion of the bishop and nobles of the town, so they were
transferred to Castro Mainardo, a solitary spot, where for five
months they were afflicted with the sharpest torments. Two of
the younger brethren yielded and accused themselves and their
comrades, but revoked when released. Some of them died, and
finally the survivors w^ere ordered to be scourged naked through
the streets of Naples and were banished the kingdom, although
no specific heresy was alleged against them in the sentence.
Through all this the resolution of the little band never faltered.
Convinced that they alone were on the path of salvation, they
would not be forced back into the Order. On the death of Liber-
ato, Angelo was chosen as their leader, and amid persecution and
obloquy they formed a congregation in the Mark of Ancona,
known as the Clareni, from the surname of their chief, and under
the protection of the cardinal, Napoleons Orsini.^*

* Angel. ClariH. Epist. (op. cit. 1SS5, 529-31).— Hist. Tribulat. (lb. 1886,320-
G)._Wadding. auu. 1302, No. 8; 1307, No. 3-4.
 —

JACOPONE DA TODI. 41

This group had not been by any means alone in opposing the
laxity of the Conventuals, although it was the only one which suc-
ceeded in throwing off the yoke of its opponents. The Spirituals
were numerous in the Order, but the policy of Boniface VIII. led
him to support the efforts of the Conventuals to keep them in sub-
jection. Jacopone da Todi, the author of the Stabat Mater, was
perhaps the most prominent of these, and his savage verses directed
against the pope did not tend to harmonize the troubles. After
the capture of Palestrina, in 1298, Boniface threw him into a foul
dungeon, where he solaced his captivity with canticles fuU of the
mystic ardor of divine love. It is related that Boniface once, pass-
ing the grating of his cell, jeeringly called to him, " Jacopo, when
will you get out V and was promptly answered, " When you come
in." In a sense the prophecy proved true, for one of the first acts
of Benedict XI., in December, 1303, was to release Jacopone from
both prison and excommunication.*
Fra Corrado da Offida was another prominent member of the
Spiritual group. He had been a friend of John of Parma for fifty- ;

five years he wore but a single gown, patched and repatched as

necessity required, and this with his rope girdle constituted his
sole worldly possessions. In the mystic exaltation which charac-
terized the sect hehad frequent visions and ecstasies, in which he
was lifted from the ground after the fashion of the saints. When
Liberato and his companions were in their Achaian refuge he
designed joining them with Jacopo de' Monti and others, but the
execution of the project was in some way prevented.f

* Cantu, Eretici d' Italia, 1. 129.— Comba, La Riforma in Italia, I. 314.

A specimen of Jacopone's attacks on Boniface will show tbc temper of the
times
"Ponesti la tua lingua O pessinia avarizia
Contra religione Sete induplicata,
A dir blasfemia Bever tanta pecunia
Senza niuu cagione. E nou esser saziata !"
(Comba, op, cit. 312.)

There is doubtless foundation for the story related by Savonarola in a sermon,

that Jacopone was once brought into the consistory of cardinals and requested to
preach, when he solemnly re^jeated thrice, " I wonder that in consequence of
your sins the earth does not oj^en and swallow you." — Yillari, Fra Savonarola,
II. Ed. T. II. p. 3.

t Hist. Tribulat. (loc. cit. pp. 311-13).

 ;

42 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

Such men, filled with the profoundest conviction of their holy-
calling, were not to be controlled by either kindness or severity.
It was in vain that the general, Giovanni di Murro, at the chapter
of 1302, held in Genoa, issued a precept deploring the abandonment,
by the Order, of holy poverty, as shown by the possession of lands
and farms and vineyards, and the assumption by friars of duties
which involved them in worldly cares and strife and litigation.
He ordered the sale of all property, and forbade the members of
the Order from appearing in any court. Yet Avhile he was thus
rigid as to the ownership of property, he was lax as to its use, and
condemned as pernicious the doctrine that the voav of poverty in-
volved restriction in its enjoyment. He was, moreover, resolved on
extinguishing the schism in the Order, and his influence with Boni-
face was one of the impelling causes of the continued persecution
of the Spirituals. They stubbornly rejected all attempts at recon-
and placed a true estimate on these efforts of reform.
ciliation,

Before the year was out Giovanni was created Cardinal Bishop of
Porto, and was allowed to govern the Order through a vicar the ;

reforms were partially enforced in some provinces for a short time

then they fell into desuetude, and matters went on as before.*

In France, where the influence of Joachim and the Everlasting

Gospel was much more lasting and pronounced than in Italy, the
career of the Spirituals revolves around one of the most remark-
—
able personages of the period Pierre Jean Olivi. Born in 1247,
he vfas placed in the Franciscan Order at the age of twelve, and
was trained in the University of Paris, where he obtained the
baccalaureate. His grave demeanor, seasoned with a lively wit, his
irreproachable morals, his fervid eloquence, and the extent of his
learning won for him universal respect, while his piety, gentleness,
humility, and zeal for holy poverty gained for him a reputation
for sanctity which assigned to him the gift of prophecy. That
such a man should attach himself to the Spirituals was a matter of
course, and equally so was the enmity which he excited by un-
sparing reproof of the laxity of observance into which the Order
had declined. In his voluminous writings he taught that absolute

* Wadding, ann. 1302, No. 1-3, 7 ; ann. 1310, No. 9.— Franz Ehile (Arcbiv fiir

Litt.- U.K. 1886, p. 385).

 ;

PIERRE JEAN OLIVI. 43

poverty is the source of all the virtues and of a saintly hf e ; that

the Eule prohibited all proprietorship, whether individual or in com-
mon, and that the vow bound the members to the most sparing use
of all necessaries, the meanest garments, the absence of shoes, etc.,
while the pope had no power to dispense or absolve, and much less
to order anything contrary to the Rule. The convent of Beziers,
to which he belonged, became the centre of the Spiritual sect, and
the devotion which he excited was shared by the population at
large, as well as by his brethren. The temper of the man Avas
shoA\Ti when he underwent his first rebuke. In 12T8 some writings
of his in praise of the Virgin were considered to trench too close-
ly on Mariolatry. The Order had not yet committed itself to
this, and complaint was made to the general, Geronimo d'Ascoli,
afterwards Nicholas IV., who read the tracts and condemned him
to burn them with his own hands. Olivi at once obeyed without
any sign of perturbation, and when his wondering brethren asked
how he could endure such mortification so tranquilly, he replied
that he had performed the sacrifice with a thoroughly placid mind
he had not felt more pleasure in writing the tracts than in burn-
ing them at the command of his superior, and the loss was noth-
ing, for if necessary he could easily write them again in better
shape. A man so self-centred and imperturbable could not fail to
impress his convictions on those who surrounded him.-
"What his convictions reaUy were is a problem not easily solved
at the present day. The fierce antagonisms which he excited by
his fiery onslaughts on individuals as well as on the general laxity
of the Order at large, caused his later years to be passed in a series
of investigations for heresy. At the general chapter of Strass-
burg, in 1282, his writings were ordered to be examined. In 1283
Bonagrazia di S. Giovanni, the general, came to France, collected
and placed them aU in the hands of seven of the leading members of
the Order, who found in them propositions which they variously

* Wadding, ann. 1278, No. 27-8.— Franz Ehrle, Archiv f. L. u. K. 1887, pp.
505-11, 528-9.
When Geronimo d'Ascoli attained the papacy he was urged to prosecute Olivi,
but refused, expressing the highest consideration for his talents and piety, and
declaring that his rebuke had been merely intended as a warning (Hist. Trib.
loc. cit. 1886, p. 289).
 ;

44 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

characterized as false, heretical, presumptuous, and dangerous, and
ordered the tracts containing them to be surrendered by all pos-
sessing them. Olivi subscribed to the judgment in 1284, although
he complained that he had not been permitted to appear in person
before his judges and explain the censured passages, to which
distorted meanings had been applied. With some difficulty he
procured copies of his inculpated writings and proceeded to justi-
fy himself. Still the circle of his disciples continued to increase
incapable of the self-restraint of their master, and secretly imbued
with Joachitic doctrines, they were not content with the quiet
propagation of their principles, but excited tumults and seditions.
Olivi was held responsible. The chapter held at Milan in 1285
elected as general minister Arlotto di Prato, one of the seven who
had condemned him, and issued a decree ordering a strict perqui-
sition and seizure of his writings. The new general, moreover,
summoned him to Paris for another inquisition into his faith,
of which the promoters were two of the members of the previous
commission, Richard Middleton and Giovanni di Murro, the future
general. The matter was prolonged until 1286, when Arlotto
died, and nothing was done. Matteo d'Acquasparta vouched for
his orthodoxy in appointing him teacher in the general school of
the Order at Florence. Eaymond Gaufridi, who succeeded Matteo
d'Acquasparta in 1290, was a friend and admirer of Olivi, but could
not prevent fresh proceedings, though he appointed him teacher
at Montpellier. Excitement in Languedoc had reached a point
which led Nicholas lY., in 1290, to order Ea3anond to suppress
the disturbers of the peace. He
commissioned Bertrand de Cigo-
tier. Inquisitor of the Comtat Venaissin, to investigate and report,

in order that the matter might be brought before the next gen-
eral chapter, to be held in Paris. In 1292, accordingly, Olivi ap-
peared before the chapter, professed his acceptance of the bull
Exiit qui seminat, asserted that he had never intentionally taught
or written otherwise, and revoked and abjured anything that he
might inadvertently have said in contradiction of it. He was dis-

missed in peace, but twenty-nine of his zealous and headstrong

followers, whom Bertrand de Cigotier had found guilty, were duly
punished. His few remaining years seem to have passed in com-
parative peace. Two letters written in 1295, one to Corrado da
Offida and the other to the sons of Charles II. of Naples, then
 PIERRE JEAN OLIVI. 45

held as hostages in Catalonia, who had asked him to visit them,

show that he was held in high esteem, that he desired to curb the
fanatic zeal of the more advanced Spirituals, and that he could not
restrain himself from apocalyptic speculation. On his deathbed,
in 129S, he uttered a confession of faith in which he professed abso-
lute submission to the Koman Church and to Boniface as its head.
He also submitted all his works to the Holy See, and made a
declaration of principles as to the matters in dispute within the
Order, which contained nothing that Bonaventura would not have
signed, or Nicholas IH. would have impugned as contrary to the
bull Exiit, although it sharpl}^ rebuked the money-getting prac-

ticesand relaxation of the Order.*

He was honorably buried at Narbonne, and then the contro-
versy over his memory became more lively than ever, rendering it
almost impossible to determine his responsibility for the opinions
which were ascribed to him by both friends and foes. That his
bones became the object of assiduous cult, in spite of repeated
prohibitions, that innumerable miracles were worked at his tomb,
that crowds of pilgrims flocked to it, that his feast-day became one
of the great solemnities of the year, and that he was regarded as
one of the most efficient saints in the calendar, only shows the
popular estimate of his virtues and the zeal of those who regarded

* Waddiug. ann. 1282, No. 2 ; aun. 1283, No. 1 ; aim. 1285, No. 5 ; ann. 1290,
No. 11 ; aun. 1292, No. 13 ; ann. 1297, No. 33-4.— Chron. Glassberger ann. 1283.—
Hist. Tribulat. (loc. cit. pp. 294-5).—Franz Ehrle, Archiv, 1886, pp. 383, 389 ; 1887,
pp. 417-27,429,433,438, 534.— Raym. de Fronciaclio (Archiv, 1887, p. 15).
Olivi's death is commonly assigned to 1297, but the Irausitus Saudi Patris,

which was one of the books most in vogue among his disciples, states that it
occurred on Friday, March 14, 1297 (Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. v.) Friday ;

fell on March 14 in 1298, and the common habit of commencing the year with

Easter explains the substitution of 1297 for 1298.

His bones are generally said to have been dug up and burned a few months
after interment, by order of the general, Giovanni di Murro (Tocco, o]). cit. p.
503). Wadding, indeed, asserts that they were twice exhumed (ann. 1297, No.
06). Eymerich mentions a tradition that they were carried to Avignon and thrown
by night into the Rhone (Eymerici Direct. Inquis. p. 313). The cult of which
they were the olyect shows that this could not have been the case, and Bernard
Gui, the best possible authority, in commenting on the Transitus states that
they were abstracted in 1318 and hidden no one knows where doubtless by dis- —
ciples to prevent the impending profanation of exhumation.
 —

46 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

themselves as his disciples. Certain it is that the Council of Yienne,
in 1312, treated his memory with great gentleness. While it con-
demned with merciless severity the mystic extravagances of the
Brethren of the Free Spirit, it found only four errors to note in
—
the voluminous writings of Olivi errors of merely speculative in-
terest, such as are frequent among the schoolmen of the period
and these it pointed out without attributing them to him or even
mentioning his name. These his immediate followers denied his
holding, although eventually one of them, curiously enough, be-
came a sort of shibboleth among the Olivists. It was that Christ
was still alive on the cross when pierced by the lance, and was
based on the assertion that the relation in Matthew originally dif-
fered in this respect from that in John, and had been altered to
secure harmony. All other questions relating to the teachings of
Olivi the council referred to the Franciscans for settlement, show-
ing that they Avere deemed of minor importance, after they had
been exhaustively debated before it by Bonagrazia da Bergamo in
attack and Ubertino da Casale in defence. Thus the council con-
demned neither his person nor his Avritings ; that the result was
held as vindicating his orthodoxy w^as seen when, in 1313, his feast-
day was celebrated with unexampled enthusiasm at Narbonne, and
was attended by a concourse equal to that which assembled at the
anniversary of the Portiuncula. Moreover, after the heat of the
controversy had passed away, the subsequent condemnation of his
writings by John XXII. was removed by Sixtus TV., towards the
end of the fifteenth centur}-. Olivi's teachings may therefore fairly
be concluded to have contained no very revolutionary doctrines.
In fact, shortly after his death all the Franciscans of Provence
were required to sign an abjuration of his errors, among which
was enumerated the one respecting the wound of Christ, but noth-
ing was said respecting the graver aberrations subsequently at-

tributed to him.*

•Wadding, ann. 1291, No. 13; 1297, No. 35; 1312, No. 4.— Lib. Sententt.

Inq. Tolos. pp. 306, 319.— Coll. Doat. XXVII. fol. 7 sqq.— Lib. i. Clement. 1. 1.—
Tocco, op. cit. pp. 509-10.— MSS. Bib. Nat. No. 4270, fol. 168.— Franz Ehrle
(ubisup. 1885, p. 544; 1886, pp. 389-98, 402-5; 1887, pp. 449,491).— Raymond rle
Fronciacho (Archiv, 1887, p. 17).

The traditional wrath of the Conventuals was still strong enough in the year
1500 to lead the general chapter held at Terni to forbid, under pain of imprison-
 OLIVI'S WORKS CONDEMNED. 47

On the other hand hewas unquestionably the heresiarch of the

Spirituals, Ital}^, regarded by them as the di-
both of France and
rect successor of Joachim and Francis. The Historia Tribiilationwni
finds in the pseud o-Joachitic prophecies a clear account of all the
events in his career. Enthusiastic Spirituals, who held the revolu-
tionary doctrines of the Everlasting Gospel, testified before the
Inquisition that the third age of the Church had its beginning in
Olivi, who thus supplanted St. Francis himself. He was inspired
of heaven ; had been revealed to him in Paris, some
his doctrine
said, while he was washing his hands others that the illumination
;

came to him from Christ while in church, at the third hour of

the day. Thus his utterances were of equal authority with those
of St. Paul, and were to be obeyed by the Church without the
change of a letter. It is no wonder that he was held account-
able for the extravagances of those who regarded him with such
veneration and recognized him as their leader and teacher.*
When Olivi died, his former prosecutor, Giovanni di Murro,
was general of the Order, and, strong as were his own ascetic
convictions, he lost no time in completing the work which he had
previously failed to accomplish. Olivi's memory was condemned
as that of a heretic, and an order was issued for the surrender
of all his writings, which was enforced with unsparing rigor, and
continued by his successor, Gonsalvo de Balboa. Pons Botugati,
a friar eminent for piety and eloquence, refused to surrender for
burning some of the prohibited tracts, and was chained closely to
the wall in a damp and fetid dungeon, where bread and water
were sparingly flung to him, and where he soon rotted to death
in filth, so that when his body was hastily thrust into an uncon-
secrated grave it was found that already the flesh was burrowed
through by worms. A number of other recalcitrants were also
imprisoned with almost equal harshness, and in the next general
chapter the reading of all of Olivi's works was formally prohibited.
That much incendiary matter was in circulation, attributed cUrect-
ly or indirectly to him, is shown by a catalogue of Olivist tracts,
treating of such dangerous questions as the power of the pope to

ment, any member of the Order from possessing any of Olivi's writings. —Franz
Ehrle (ubi sup. 1887, pp. 457-8).
* Hist. Tribulat. (loc. cit.
pp. 288-9).— Coll. Doat, XXVII. fol. 7 sqq.— Lib.
Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 306, 308.— Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. v.
48 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
dispense from vows, his right to claim. impUcit obedience in mat-
ters concerning faith and morals, and other similar mutterings of
rebellion.*
The work of Olivi which called forth the greatest discussion,
and as to which the evidences are peculiarly irreconcilable, was
his Postil on the Apocalypse. It was from this that the chief
arguments were drawn for his condemnation. In an inquisitorial
sentence of 1318 we learn that his writings were then again under
examination by order of John XXII. that they were held to be
;

the source of all the errors which the sectaries were then expiating
at the stake, and that principal among them was his work on the
Apocalypse, so that, until the papal decision, no one was to hold
him as a saint or a Catholic. When the condemnatory report of
eight masters of theology came, in 1319, the Spirituals held that
the outrage thus committed on the faith deprived of all virtue the
sacrament of the altar. No formal judgment was rendered, how-
ever, until February 8, 1326, when John XXII. finally condemned
the Postil on the Apocalypse after a careful scrutiny in the Con-
sistory, and the general chapter of the Order forbade any one to
read or possess it. One of the reports of the experts upon it has
reached us. It is impossible to suppose that they deliberately
manufactured the extracts on which their conclusions are based,
and these extracts are quite sufficient to show that the work was
an echo of the most dangerous doctrines of the Everlasting Gos-
pel. The fifth age is drawing to an end, and, under the figure of
the mystical Antichrist, there are prophecies about the pseudo-pope,
pseudo-Christs, and pseudo-prophets in terms which clearly allude
to the existing hierarchy. The pseudo-pope will be known by his
heresies concerning the perfection of evangelical poverty (as we
shall see was the case with John XXII.), and the pseudo-Joachim's
prophecies concerning Frederic II. are quoted to show how prel-
ates and clergy who defend the Eule will be ejected. The carnal
church is the Great Whore of Babylon it makes drunken and ;

* Hist. Tribulat. (loc. cit. pp. 300-1).— Tocco, pp. 489-91, 503-4.
Wadding (aim. 1297, No. 33-5) ideutifies Pons Botugati with St. Pons Car-
bonelh, the illustrious teacher of St. Louis of Toulouse. Franz Ehrle (Archiv
fiir L. u. K. 188G, p. 300) says he cau find no evidence of this, and the author
of the Hist. Tribulat., in his detailed account of tlie affair, would hardly have
omitted a fact so serviceable to his cause.
 4

OPINIONS ATTRIBUTED TO OLIVI. 49

corrupts the nations with its carnaHties, and oppresses the few
remaining righteous, as under Paganism it did with its idolatries.

In forty generations from the harvest of the apostles there will

be a new harv^est of the Jews and of the whole world, to be gar-
nered by the Evangelical Order, to which all power and authority
will be transferred. There are to be a sixth and a seventh age,
after which comes the Day of Judgment. The date of this latter
cannot be computed, but at the end of the thirteenth century the
sixth age is to open. The carnal church, or Babylon, will expire,
and the triumph of the spiritual church will commence."'"
It has been customary for historians to assume that this resur-
rection of the Everlasting Gospel was Ohvi's work, though it is
evident from the closing years of his career that he could not have
been guilty of uttering such inflammatory doctrines, and this is
confirmed by the silence of the Council of Yienne concerning
them, although it condemned his other trifling errors after a thor-
ough debate on the subject by his enemies and friends. In fact,
Bonagrazia, in the name of the Conventuals, bitterly attacked his
memory and adduced a long list of his errors, including cursorily
certain false and fantastic prophecies in the Postil on the Apoca-
lypse and his stigmatizing the Church as the Great Whore. Had
such passages as the above existed they would have been set forth
at length and defence would have been impossible, Ubertino in
reply, however, boldly characterized the assertion asmost menda-
cious and impious Olivi, he declared, had always spoken most
;

reverently of the Church and Holy See the Postil itself closed;

with a submission to the Roman Church as the universal mistress,

and in the body of the work the Holy See was repeatedly alluded
to as the seat of God and of Christ the Church Militant and the
;

Church Triumphant are spoken of as the seats of God w^hich will

last to the end, while the reprobate are Babylon and the Great
Whore. It is impossible that Ubertino can have quoted these pas-
sages falsely, for Bonagrazia would have readily overwhelmed him
with confusion, and the Council of Yienne would have rendered a
far different judgment. We know from undoubted sources that
* Baluz. et MansiII. 249-50.— Bern. Guidon. Pract. P. v.— Doat, XXVII.

fol. 7 sqq.—Bern. Guidon. Vit. Joliann. PP. XXII. (Muratori S. R. I. III. ii.
491). —Wadding, ann. 1325, No. 4.— Alvar. Pelag. de Planctu Eccles. Lib. ii. art.
59.— Baluz. et Mansi II. 266-70.
Ill—
50 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
the revolutionary doctrines commonly attributed to Olivi were
entertained by those who considered themselves and were consid-
ered to be his disciples, andwe can only assume that in their mis-
guided zeal they interpolated his Postil, and gave to their own
mystic dreams the authority of his great name.*
After the death of Olivi the Franciscan officials seem to have
felt themselves unable to suppress the sect which was spreading

and organizing throughout Languedoc. For some reason not ap-

parent, unless it may have been jealousy of the Dominicans, the
aid of the Inquisition was not called in, and the inquisitors with-
held their hands from offenders of the rival Order. The regular
church authorities, however, were appealed to, and in 1299 Gilles,
Archbishop of Narbonne, held at Beziers a provincial synod, in
which were condemned the Beguines of both sexes who under the
lead of learned men of an honorable Order (the Franciscans) en-
gaged in religious exercises not prescribed by the Church, wore
vestments distinguishing them from other folk, performed novel
penances and abstinences, administered vows of chastity, often
not observed, held nocturnal conventicles, frequented heretics, and
proclaimed that the end of the world was at hand, and that already
the reign of Antichrist had begun. From them many scandals
had already arisen, and there was danger of more and greater
troubles. The bishops were therefore ordered, in their several
dioceses, to investigate these sectaries closely and to suppress them.
We see from this that there was rapidly growing up a new heresy
based upon the Everlasting Gospel, with the stricter Franciscans
as a nucleus, but extending among the people. For this popular
propaganda the Tertiary Order afforded peculiar faciUties, and
we shall find hereafter that the Beguines, as they were generally
called,were to a great extent Tertiaries, when not full members
of the Order. There was nothing, however, to tempt the cupidity

* Franz Ehrle (Archiv f. L. u. K. 1886, pp. 368-70, 407--9).— Wadding, aun.

1397, No. 36-47.— Baluz. ct Mansi II. 376.
Tocco (Archivio Storico Italiano, T. XVII. No. 3.— Cf. Franz Ehrle, Archiv
fiir L. u. K. 1887, j). 493) has recently found in the Laurentian Library a MS. of
on the Apocalypse. It contains all the passages cited in the con-
Olivi's Postil
demnation, showing that the commission which sat in judgment did not invent
them, but as it is of the fifteenth century it does not invalidate the suggestion
that his followers interpolated his work after his death.
 RESULTS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 51

of the episcopal officials to the prosecution of those "whose princi-

pal belief consisted in the renunciation of all worldly goods, and
it is not likely that they showed themselves more diligent in their
duties than we have seen them when greater interests were at
stake. The action of the council may therefore be safely assumed
as wasted, except as justifying persecution within the Order. The
lay Beguines doubtless enjoyed practical immunity, while the
Spiritual Friars continued to endure the miseries at the hands of
their superiors for which monastic life afforded such abundant
opportunities. Thus, at Villefranche, when Raymond Auriole
and Jean Prime refused to admit that their vows permitted a
liberal use of the things of the world, they were imprisoned in
chains and starved till Raymond died, deprived of the sacraments
as a heretic, and Jean barely escaped with his life.*

Thus passed away the unfortunate thirteenth century .that —

age of lofty aspirations unfulfilled, of brilliant dreams unsubstan-
tial as visions, of hopes ever looking to fruition and ever ili sap-

pointed. The human intellect had awakened, but as yet the hu-
man conscience slumbered, save in a few rare souls who mostly
paid in disgrace or death the penalty of their precocious sensitive-
ness. That wonderful century passed away and left as its legacy
to its successor vast progress, indeed, in intellectual activit}^ but
on the spiritual side of the inheritance a dreary void. All efforts
to elevate the ideals of man had miserably failed. Society was
harder and coarser, more carnal and more worldly than ever, and
it is not too much to say that the Inquisition had done its fuU
share to bring this about by punishing aspirations, and by teach-
ing that the only safety lay in mechanical conformity, regardless
of abuses and unmindful of corruption. The results of that hun-
dred years of effort and suffering are well symbolized in the two
popes with whom it began and ended Innocent III. and that —
pinchbeck Innocent, Boniface VIII., who, in the popular phrase
of the time, came in like a fox, ruled like a lion, and died like
a dog. In intellect and learning Boniface was superior to his
model, in imperious pride his equal, in earnestness, in self-devo-

* Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1299 c. 4 (Martene Thesaur. IV. 226).— Ubertini

Declaratio (Archiv f. Litt.- u. K. 1887, pp. 183-4).
52 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
immeasura-
tion, in loftiness of aim, in all that dignifies ambition,
bly his inferior. It no wonder that the apocalyptic specula-
is

tions of Joachim should acquire fresh hold on the minds of those

who could not reconcile the spiritual desert in which they lived
with their conception of the merciful providence of God. To such
men it seemed unpossible that he could permit a continuance of
the cruel wickedness which pervaded the Church, and through it
infected society at large. This was plainly beyond the power of
a few earnest zealots to cure, or even to mitigate, so the divine
interposition was requisite to create a new earth, inhabited only
by the few virtuous Elect, under a reign of ascetic poverty and
all-embracing love.
One most energetic and impetuous missionaries of these
of the
beliefs was Arnaldo de Vilanova, in some respects, perhaps, the
most remarkable man of his time, whom we have only of late
learned to know thoroughly, from the researches of Seiior Pelayo.
As a physician he stood unrivalled. Kings and popes disputed
his services, and his voluminous writings on medicine and hygiene
were reprinted m collective editions six times during the sixteenth
century, besides numerous issues of special treatises. As a chem-
ist he is more doubtfully said to have left his mark in several

useful discoveries. As an alchemist he had the repute of pro-

ducing ingots of gold in the court of Robert of ISTaples, a great
patron of the science, and his treatises on the subject were in-
cluded in collections of such works printed as lately as the eight-
eenth century. A student of both Arabic and Hebrew, he trans-
lated from Costa ben Luca treatises on incantations, ligatures, and
other magic devices. He wrote on astronomy and on oneiro-
mancy, for he was an expert expounder of dreams, and also on
surveying and wine-making. He draughted laws for Frederic of
Trinacria which that enlightened monarch promulgated-and en-
forced, and his advice to Frederic and his brother Jayme II. of
Aragon on their duties as monarchs stamps him as a conscientious
statesman. "When Jayme applied to him for the explanation of a
mysterious dream he not only satisfied the king with his exposi-
tion, but proceeded to warn him that his chief duty lay in admin-
istering justice, first to the poor, and then to the rich. When
asked how often he gave audience to the poor, Jayme answered,
once a week, and also when he rode out for pleasure. Arnaldo
 — —

ARNALDO DE VILANOVA. 53

sternly reproved him; he was earning damnation; the rich had

access to him every day, morning, noon, and night, the poor but
seldom he made of God the hog of St. Anthony, which received
;
j

only the refuse rejected by all. If he wished to earn salvation he

must devote himself to the welfare of the poor, without which, in
spite of the teachings of the Church, neither psalms, nor masses,
nor fasting, nor even alms would suiRce. To Jayme he was not
only physician but counsellor, venerable and much beloved, and
|

he was repeatedly employed on diplomatic missions by the kings

of both Aragon and Sicily.*
Multifarious as were these occupations, they consumed but a
portion of his restless activity. In dedicating to Eobert of Naples
his treatise on surveying, he describes himself
" Yeu, Arnant de Vilanova . . .

Doctor en leyset en decrets,

Et en siensa de strolomia,
Et en Tart de medicina,
Et en la santa teulogia "

and, although a layman, married, and a father, his favorite field of

labor was theology, which he had studied with the Dominicans of
Montpellier. In 1292 he commenced with a work on the Tetra-
grammaton, or ineffable name of Jehovah, in which he sought to
explain by natural reasons the mystery of the Trinity. Embarked
in such speculations he soon became a confirmed Joachite. To a
man of his lofty spiritual tendencies and tender compassion for his
feUows, the wickedness and cruelty of mankind were appalling, and
especially the crimes of the clergy, among whom he reckoned the
Mendicants as the worst. Their vices he lashed unsparingly, and
he naturally fell in with the speculations of the pseudo-Joachitic
writings, anticipating the speedy advent of Antichrist and the Day /
of Judgment. In numberless works composed in both Latin and
the vernacular he commented upon and popularized the Joachitic
books, even going so far as to declare that the revelation of Cyril
was more precious than all Scripture. Such a man naturally
sympathized with the persecuted Spirituals. He boldly undertook
their defence in sundry tracts, and when, in 1309, Frederic of Tri-.

* Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espauoles, I. 450-61, 475, 590-1, 726-7, 772.— M. Flac.

lUyr. Cat. Test. Veiitatis, pp. 1732 sqq. (Ed. 1603).
 54 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
nacria applied to liiin to expound his dream,lie seized the opportunity
to invoke the monarch's commiseration for tlieir sufferings, by ex-
plaining to him how, when they sought to ajDpeal to the Holy See,
their brethren persecuted and slew them, and how evangelical pov-
erty was treated as the gravest of crimes. He used his influence
similarly at the court of l^aples, thus providing for them, as we
shall see, a place of refuge in their necessity.*
With his impulsive temperament it was impossible for him to
hold aloof from the bitter strife then raging. Before the thir-
teenth century was out he addressed letters to the Dominicans and
Franciscans of Paris and MontpelUer, to the Kings of France and
Aragon, and even to the Sacred College, announcing the approach-
ing end of the world the wicked Catholics, and especially the
;

clergy, were the members of the coming Antichrist. This aroused

an active controversy, in which neither party spared the other.
After a war of tracts the Catalan Dominicans formally accused
him before the Bishop of Girona, and he responded that they had
no standing in court, as they were heretics and madmen, dogs and
jugglers, and he cited them to appear before the pope by the fol-
lowing Lent. It could only have been the royal favor which pre-
served him from the fate at the stake of many a less audacious
controversialist and when, in 1300, King Jayme sent him on a mis-
;

sion to Philippe le Bel, he boldly laid his work on the advent of

Antichrist before the University of Paris. The theologians looked
askance on it, and, in spite of his ambassadorial immunity, on the
eve of his return he was arrested without warning by the episco-
pal Official. The Archbishop of T^arbonne interposed in vain, and
he was bailed out on security of three thousand livres, furnished by
the Yiscount of Narbonne and other friends. Brought before the
masters of theology, he was forced by threats of imprisonment to
recant upon the spot, without being allowed to defend himself,
and one can well believe his statement that one of his most eager
judges was a Franciscan, whose zeal was doubtless inflamed by the
portentous appearance of another Olivi from tlie prolific South, f
A formal appeal to Boniface was followed by a personal visit

;^ Pclayo, I, 454, 458, 4G4-G, 468-9, 730-1, 779.—Franz Ehrle, Archiv fur Litt.-
und Kirchengescliichte, 1886, 327-8.
t Pelayo, I. 460, 464-8, 739-45.
 ARNALDO DE VILANOVA. 55

to the papal court. Keceivecl at first with jeers, his obstinacy pro-
voked repression. As a relapsed, he might have been burned, but
he was only imprisoned and forced to a second recantation, in
spite of which Philippe le Bel, at the assembly of the Louvre in
1303, in his charges of heresy against Boniface asserted that the
pope had approved a book of Arnaldo's which had already been
burned by himself and by the University of Paris. Boniface, in
fact, in releasing him, imposed on him silence on theologic matters,
though appreciating his medical sldU and appointing him papal
physician. For a while he kept his peace, but a call from heaven
forced him to renewed activity, and he solemnly warned Boniface
of the divine vengeance if he remained insensible to the duty
of averting the wrath to come by a thorough reformation of the
Church. The catastrophe of Anagni soon followed, and Arnaldo,
vrlio had left the papal court, naturally regarded it as a confirma-

tion of his prophecy, and looked upon himself as an envoy of God.

With a fierce denunciation of clerical corruptions he repeated the
warning to Benedict XI., who responded by imposing a penance
on him and seizing all his apocalyptic tracts. In about a month
Benedict, too, was dead, and Arnaldo announced that a third mes-
sage would be sent to his successor, " though when and by whom
has not been revealed to me, but I know that if he heeds it divine
power will adorn him with its subhmest gifts if he rejects it, God ;

will visit him with a judgment so terrible that it wiU be a wonder

to all the earth." *
For some years we know nothing of his movements, although
his fertilepen was busily employed with httle intermission, and the
Church vainly endeavored to suppress his writings. In 1305 Fray
Guillermo, Inquisitor of Valencia, excommunicated and ejected
from Church Gambaldo de Pilis, a servant of King Jayme, for
possessing and circulating them. The king apphed to GuiUermo
for his reasons, and, on being refused, angrily wrote to Eymerich,
the Dominican general. He declared that Arnaldo's ^^itings were

* Pelayo, I. 470-4, 729, 734.— D'Aigentre I. ii. 417.— Du Puy, Histoire du

Differend, Pr. 103.
One of the charges against Bernard Dglicieux, iu 1319, was that of sending to
Arnaldo certain magic writings to encompass the death of Benedict. A witness
—
was found to swear that this was the cause of Benedict's death. MSS. Bib. Nat,
fonds latin, No. 4370, fol. 13, 50, 51, 61
56 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
eagerly read by himself, his queen and his children, by archbishops
and bishops, by the clergy and the laity. He demanded that the
sentence be revoked as uncanonical, else he would punish Fray
Guillermo severely and visit with his displeasure all the Domini-
cans of his dominions. It was probably this royal favor which
saved Arnaldo when he came near being burned at Santa Christina,
and escaped with no worse infliction than being stigmatized as a
necromancer and enchanter, a heretic and a pope of the heretics."
When the persecution of the Spirituals of Provence was at its
height, Arnaldo procured from Charles the Lame of Naples, who
was also Count of Provence, a letter to the general, Gerald, Avhich
for a time put a stop to it. In 1309 we find him at Avignon, on
a mission from Jayme II., well received by Clement V., who
prized highl}^ his skill as a physician. He used effectively this po-
sition by secretly persuading the pope to send for the leaders of
the Spirituals, in order to learn from them orally and in writing of
what they complained and what reformation they desired in their
Order. With regard to his own affairs he was not so fortunate.
At a public hearing before the pope and cardinals, in October,
1309, he predicted the end of the world within the century, and
the advent of Antichrist within its first forty years he dwelt at ;

much length on the depravity of clergy and laity, and complained

bitterly of the persecution of those who desired to live in evan-
gelical poverty. All this was to be expected of him, but he added
the incredible indiscretion of reading a detailed account of the
dreams of Jayme II. and Frederic of Trinacria, their doubts and
his explanations and exhortations —
matters, all of them, as sacredly
confidential as the confession of a penitent. Cardinal Napoleone
Orsini, the protector of the Spirituals, wrote to Jayme congratu-
lating him on his piety as revealed by that wise and illuminated
man, inflamed with the love of God, Master Arrmldo, but this ef-
fort to conjure the tempest was unavailing. The Cardinal of
Porto and Ramon Ortiz, Dominican Provincial of Aragon, promptly
reported to Jayme that he and his brother had been represented as
wavering in the faith and as believers in dreams, and advised him
no longer to employ as his envoy such a heretic as Arnaldo.
Jayme's pride was deeply wounded. It was in vain that Clement

* Pelayo, I. 481, 772.

 ;

CLEMENT GIVES THEM A HEARING. 57

assured him had paid no attention to Arnaldo's discourse

that he
the king wrote to the pope and cardinals and to his brother deny-
ing the story of his dream and treating Arnaldo as an impostor.
Frederic was less susceptible he wrote to Jayrae that the story
:

could do them no harm, and that the real infamy would lie in
abandoning Arnaldo in his hour of peril. Arnaldo took refuge
with him, and not long afterwards was sent by him again to Avi-
gnon on a mission, but perished during the voyage. The exact date,
of his death is unknown, but it was prior to February, 1311. For
selfish reasons Clement mourned his loss, and issued a bull an-
nouncing that Arnaldo had been his physician and had promised
him a most useful book which he had written he had died with- ;

out doing so, and now Clement summoned any one possessing the
precious volume to deliver it to him.*

The Arnaldo offered to the Spirituals an un-

interposition of
expected prospect of deliverance. From Languedoc to Yenice and
Florence they were enduring the bitterest persecution from their
superiors they were cast into dungeons where they starved to
;

death, and were exposed to the infinite trials for which monastic
life afforded such abundant opportunities, when Arnaldo persuaded

Clement to make an energetic effort to heal the schism in the Or-

der and to silence the accusations which the Conventuals brought
against their brethren. An occasion was found in an appeal from
the citizens of Narbonne setting forth that the books of Olivi had
been unjustly condemned, that the Rule of the Order was disre-
garded, and those who observed it were persecuted, and further
praying that a special cult of Olivi's remains might be permitted.
A commission of important personages was formed to investigate
the faith of Angelo da Clarino and his disciples, who still dwelt in
the neighborhood of Rome, and who were pronounced good Catho-
hcs. Such leading Spirituals as Raymond Gaufridi, the former
general, Ubertino da Casale, the intellectual leader of the sect,
Raymond de Giniac, former Provincial of Aragon, Gui do Mire-
poix, Bartolommeo Sicardi, and others were summoned to Avignon,

* Hist. Tribulationum (Arcliiv fiir Litt.- u. K. 188G, I. 129).— Pelayo, I. 481-

3, 773, 77G.— Wadding, aun. 1312, No. 7.— Cf. Trithem. Cbrou. Hirsaug. ann.
1310; P. Langii Chron. Citiceus. ann. 1320.
 —

58 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

where they were ordered to draw up in writing the points which
they deemed requisite for the reformation of the Order. To en-
able them to perform this duty in safety they were taken under
papal protection by a bull which shows in its minute specifications
how real were the perils incurred by those who sought to restore
the Order to its primitive purity. Apparently stimulated by these
warnings, the general, Gonsalvo, at the Chapter of Padua in 1310,
caused the adoption of many regulations to diminish the luxury
and remove the abuses which pervaded the Order, but the evil was
too deep-seated. He was resolved, moreover, on reducing the Spir-
ituals to obedience, and the hatred between the two parties grew
bitterer than ever.*
The articles of complaint, thirty-five in number, which the
Spirituals laid before Clement Y. in obedience to his commands
formed a terrible indictment of the laxity and corruption which
had crept into the Order. It was answered but feebly by the Con-
ventuals, partly by denying its allegations, partly by dialectical
subtleties to prove that the Kule did not mean what it said, and
partly by accusing the Spirituals of heresy, Clement appointed a
commission of cardinals and theologians to hear both sides. For
two years the contest raged with the utmost fury. During its con-
tinuance Raymond Gaufridi, Gui de Mirepoix, and Bartolommeo
—
Sicardi died poisoned by their adversaries, according to one ac-
count, worn out with iU-treatment and insult according to another.
Clement had temporarily released the delegates of the Spirituals
from the jurisdiction of their enemies, who had the audacity,
March 1, 1311, to enter a formal protest against his action, alleg-
ing that they were excommunicated heretics under trial, who
could not be thus protected. In this prolonged discussion the
opposing leaders were Ubertino da Casale and Bonagrazia (Bon-

* Franz Ehrle (Archiv fiir Litt.- u. K. 188G, pp. 380-1, 384, 386 1887, p. 36).—
;

Raym. de Fronciaclio (lb. 1887, p. 18). — —

Eymcricli p. 316. Angeli Clarini Litt.
Excus. (Archiv, 1885, pp. 531-3).— Wadding, ann. 1310, No. 6.— Regest. Clem-
ent. PP. V. T. V. pp. 379 sqq. Romfc, 1887).
At the same time tliat tlie was seeking to repress tlie ac-
general, Gonsalvo,
quisitiveness of the friars they were procuring from the Emperor Henry VII. a
decree annulling a local statute of Nuremberg which forbade any citizen from
giving them more than a single gold piece at a time, or a measure of corn.
Cliron. Glassberfjer ann. 1310.
 THEIR APPARENT VICTORY. 59

cortese) da Bergamo. The former, while absorbed in devotion on

Mont' Alverno, the scene of St. Francis's transfiguration, had been
anointed by Christ and raised to a lofty degree of spiritual insight.
His reputation is illustrated by the story that while laboring with
much success in Tuscany he had been summoned to Rome by
Benedict XI. to answer some accusations brought against him.
Soon afterwards the people of Perugia sent a solemn embassy to
—
the pope with two requests one that Ubertino be restored to
them, the other that the pope and cardinals would reside in their
—
city whereat Benedict smiled and said, " I see you love us but a
httle, since you prefer Fra Ubertino to us." He was a Joachite,
moreover, who did not hesitate to characterize the abdication of
Celestin as a horrible innovation,and the accession of Boniface as
a usurpation. Bonagrazia was perhaps superior to his opponent
in learning and not his inferior in steadfast devotion to what he
deemed the truth, though Ubertino characterized him as a lay
novice, skilled in the cunning tricks of the law. We shall see
hereafter his readiness to endure persecution in defence of his own
ideal of poverty and the antagonism of two such men upon the
;

points at issue between them is the most striking illustration of

the impracticable nature of the questions which raised so heated a
strife and cost so much blood.*
The Spirituals failed in their efforts to obtain a decree of sepa-
ration which should enable them, in peace, to hve according to their
interpretation of the Rule, but in other respects the decision of
the commission was wholly in their favor, in spite of the persist-
ent effort of the Conventuals to divert attention from the real
questions at issue to the assumed errors of Ohvi. Clement ac-
cepted the decision, and in full consistory, in presence of both
parties, ordered them to hve in mutual love and charity, to bury
the past in obhvion, and not to insult each other for past differ-
ences. Ubertino rephed, " Holy Father, they call us heretics and
defenders of heresy there are whole books full of this in your ar-
;

chives and those of the Order. They must either allege these things

* Arcbiv fur L. u. K. 1887, pp. 93 sqq.— Hist. Tribulat. (Ibid. 188G, pp. 130,
132-4).—Ehrle (Ibid. 1866, pp. 366, 380).— Wadding, ann. 1310, No. 1-5.— Chron.
Glassberger ann. 1310. — Ubertiui de Casali Tract, de septem Statibus Ecclesia^
c. iv.
60 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
and let us defend ourselves, or they must recall them. Otherwise
there can be no peace between us." To this Clement rejoined,
""We declare as pope, that from what has been stated on both
sides before us, no one ought to call you heretics and defenders
of heresy. What exists to that effect in our archives or elsewhere
we wholly erase and pronounce to be of no validity against you."
The result was seen in the Council of Vienne (1311-12), which
adopted the canon known as Exivi de Paradiso, designed to settle
forever the controversy which had lasted so long. Angelo da
Clarino declares that this was based wholly upon the propositions
of Ubertino that it was the crowning victory of the Spirituals,
;

and his heart overflows with joy w^hen he communicates the good
news to his brethren. It determined, he says, eighty questions
concerning the interpretation of the Rule hereafter those who ;

serve the Lord in hermitages and are obedient to their bishops

are secured against molestation by any person. The inquisitors,
he further stated, were placed under control of the bishops, which
he evidently regarded as a matter of special importance, for in
Provence and Tuscany the Inquisition w^as Franciscan, and thus
in the hands of the Conventuals. We have seen that Clement
delayed issuing the decrees of the council. He was on the point
of doing so, after careful revision, Avhen his death, in 1314, fol-
lowed by a long interregnum, caused a further postponement.
John XXII. was elected in August, 1316, but he, too, desired time
for further revision, and it w^as not until November, 1317, that the
canons were finally issued. That they underwent change in this
process is more than probable, and the canon Exivi de Paradiso
was on a subject peculiarly provocative of alteration. As it has
reached us it certainly does not justify Angelo's paean of tri-

umph. It is true that it insists on a more rigid compliance

with the Rule. It forbids the placing of coffers in churches for
the collection of money ; it pronounces the friars incapable of

enjoying inheritances it deprecates the building of magnificent

;

churches, and convents which are rather palaces it prohibits the ;

acquisition of extensive gardens and great vineyards, and even

the storing up of granaries of corn and cellars of wine where the
brethren can live from day to day by beggary it declares that ;

whatever is given to the Order belongs to the Church of Rome,

and that the friars have only the use of it, for they can hold noth-
 CLEMENT PROTECTS THEM. 61

ing, either individually or in common. In short, it fully justified

the complaints of the Spirituals and interpreted the Kule in ac-
cordance with their views, but it did not, as Angelo claimed, al-

low them to live by themselves in peace, and it subjected them to

their superiors. This was to remand them into slavery, as the
great majority of the Order were Conventuals, jealous of the as-
sumption of superior sanctity by the Spirituals, and irritated by
their defeat and by the threatened enforcement of the Eule in all
its rigidity. This spirit was still further inflamed by the action
of the general, Gonsalvo, who zealously set to work to carry out
the reforms prescribed by the canon Exim. He traversed the
various provinces, puUing down costly buildings and compelling
the return of gifts and legacies to donors and heirs. This excited
great indignation among the laxer brethren, and his speedy death,
in 1313, was attributed to foul play. The election of his succes-
sor,Alessandro da Alessandria, one of the most earnest of the
Conventuals, showed that the Order at large was not disposed to
submit quietly to pope and council.*
As might have been expected, the strife between the parties
became bitterer than ever. Clement's leaning in favor of asceti-
cism is shown by his canonization, in 1313, of Celestin Y., but when
the Spirituals applied to him for protection against their brethren
he contented himself with ordering them to return to their con-
vents and commanding them to be kindly treated. These com-
mands were disregarded. Mutual hatreds were too strong for
power not to be abused. Clement did his best to force the Con-
ventuals to submission; as early as July, 1311, he had ordered
Bonagrazia to betake himself to the convent of Valcabrere in
Comminges, and not to leave it without special papal license. At
the same time he summoned before him Guiraud Yallette, the
Provincial of Provence, and fifteen of the principal officials of the
Order throughout the south of France, who were regarded as the
leaders in the oppression of the Spirituals. In public consistory

* Ubertini Responsio (Archiv fiir L. u. K. 1887, p. 87). — Baluz. et Maiisi II.

278.—Fraiiz Elirle (Archiv fur L. u.

K. 1885, pp. 541-3, 545 1886, p. 362).— ;

Hist, Tribulat. (Ibid. 1886, pp. 138-41).— C. 1, Clement, v. 11.— Wadding, aun.
1312, No. 9 anu. 1313, No. 1.— Chron. Glassberger anu. 1313.— A-lvar. Pelag. de
;

Planet. Eccles, Lib. ii. art. 67.

 ;

62 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

he repeated his commands, scolded them for disobedience and re-

belhon, dismissed from office those who had positions, and declared
ineligible those who were not officials. Those whom he ejected he
replaced with suitable j^ersons whom he strictly commanded to
preserve the peace and show favor to the sorely afflicted minority.
In spite of this the scandals and complaints continued, until the
general, Alessandro, granted to the Spirituals the three convents
of Narbonne, Beziers, and Carcassonne, and ordered that the
superiors placed over them should be acceptable. The change
was not effected without the employment of force, in which the
Spirituals had the advantage of popular sympathy, and the con-
vents thus favored became houses of refuge for the discontented
brethren elsewhere. Then for a while there seems to have been
quiet, but with Clement's death, in 1314, the turmoil commenced
afresh. Bonagrazia, under pretext of sickness, hastened to leave
his place of confinement, and joined eagerly in the renewed dis-
turbance ; the dismissed officials again made their influence felt
the Spirituals complained that they were abused and defamed in
private and in public, pelted with mud and stones, deprived of
food and even of the sacraments, despoiled of their habits, and
scattered to distant places or imprisoned,*
It is possible that Clement might have found some means of
dissolving the bonds between these irreconcilable parties, but for
the insubordination of the Itahan Spirituals. These grew impa-
tient during the long conferences which preceded the Council
of Vienne. Subjected to daily afflictions and despairing of rest
within the Order, they eagerly listened to the advice of a wise and
holy man, Canon Martin of Siena, who assured them that, how-
ever few their numbers, they had a right to secede and elect their
own general. Under the lead of Giacopo di San Gemignano they
did so, and effected an independent organization. This was rank
rebellion and greatly prejudiced the case of the Spirituals at Avig-
non. Clement would not listen to anything that savored of con-
cessions to those who thus threw off their pledged obedience. He
promptly sent commissions for their trial, and they were duly ex-

* Jordan. Cliron. c. 326 Partic, iii. (Muratori Antiq. XI. 767).— Hist. Tribulat.
(Archiv, 1880, 1-40-1 ).-Franz Ehrle (Ibid. 1886, pp. 158-64 ; 1887, pp. 33, 40).— j

Raym. dc Froiiciucho (lb. 1887, p. 27).

 REBELLION IN ITALY. 63

communicated as schismatics and rebels, founders of a supersti-

tious sect,and disseminators of false and pestiferous doctrines.
Persecution against them raged more furiously than ever. In
some places, supported by the laity, they ejected the Conventuals
from their houses and defended themselves by force of arms, dis-
regarding the censures of the Church which were lavished on them.
Others made the best of their way to Sicil}^, and others again,
shortly before Clement's death, sent letters to him professing sub-
mission and obedience, but the friends of the Spirituals feared to
compromise themselves by even presenting them. After the ac-
cession of John XXII. they made another attempt to reach the
pope, but by that time the Conventuals were in full control and
threw the envoys into prison as excommunicated heretics. Such
of them as were able to do so escaped to Sicily. It is worth}^ of
note that everywhere the virtues and sanctity of these so-called
heretics won for them popular favor, and secured them protection
more or less efficient, and this was especially the case in Sicily.
King Frederic, mindful of the lessons taught him by Arnaldo de
Yilanova, received the fugitives graciously and allowed them to
establish themselves, in spite of repeated remonstrances on the
part of John XXII. There Henry da Ceva, whom we shall meet
again, had already sought refuge from the persecution of Boniface
VIII. and had prepared the way for those who w^ere to follow.
In 1313 there are allusions to a pope named Celestin whom the
" Poor Men" in Sicily had elected, with a college of cardinals, who
constituted the only true Church and who were entitled to the
obedience of the faithful. Insignificant as this movement may
have seemed at the time, it subsequently aided the foundation of
the sectknown as Fraticelli, who so long braved with marvellous
constancy the unsparing rigor of the Italian Inquisition.*
Into these dangerous paths of rebellion the original leaders of

* Hist. Tribulat. (loc. cit. pp. 139-40).— Lami, Antichita Toscanc, pp. 596-99.
—Franz Ehrle, Archiv, 1885, pp. 156-8.— Joann. S.Victor. Chron. aun. 1319
(Muratori S. R. L IIL ii. 479).—Wadding, ann. 1313, No. 4-7.— D'Argentrg L i.
297.—Arch, de I'luq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXVII. fol. 7 sqq.).— Rayni. de Frouci-

acho (Archiv, 1887, p. 31).

Fra Francesco del Borgo San Sepolcro, wlio was tried by the Inquisition at
Assisi in 1311 for assuming gifts of prophecy, was probably a Tuscan Joachite
who refused submission (Franz Ehrle, Archiv fiir L. u, K. 1887, p. 11).
 ;

64 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

the Italian Spirituals were not obliged to enter, as they were re-

leased from subjection to the Conventuals, and could afford to re-

main in obedience to Rome. Angelo da Clarino writes to his dis-

ciples that torment and death were preferable to separation from
the Church and its head the pope was the bishop of bishops, who
;

regulated all ecclesiastical dignities the power of the keys is from

;

Christ, and submission is due in spite of persecution. Yet, together

with these appeals are others which show how impracticable Avas
the position created by the belief in St. Francis as a new evan-
gelist whose E-ule was a revelation. If kings or prelates com-
mand what is contrary to the faith, then obedience is due to
God, and death is to be welcomed. Francis placed in the Eule
nothing but what Christ bade him write, and obedience is due to
it rather than to prelates. After the persecution under John
XXII. he even quotes a prophecy attributed to Francis, to the
effect that men would arise who would render the Order odious,
and corrupt the whole Church there would be a pope not canoni-
;

cally elected who would not believe rightly as to Christ and the
Eule there would be a split in the Order, and the wrath of God
;

would visit those who cleaved to error. With clear reference to

John, he says that if a pope condemns evangelical truth as an
error he is to be left to the judgment of Christ and the doctors
if he excommunicates as heresy the poverty of the Gospel, he is

excommunicate of God and is a heretic before Christ. Yet, though

his faith and obedience were thus sorely tried, Angelo and his fol-
lowers never attempted a schism. He died in 1337, worn out with
sixty years of tribulation —
and persecution a man of the firmest
and gentlest spirit, of the most saintly aspirations, who had faUen
on evil days and had exhausted himself in the hopeless effort to
reconcile the irreconcilable. Though John XXII. had permitted
him to assume the habit and Rule of the Celestins, he was obliged
to live in hiding, with his abode kno^vn only to a few faithful
friends and followers, of some of whom we hear as on trial before
the Inquisition as Fraticelli, in 133-i. It was in the desert hermit-
age of Santa Maria di Aspro in the Basilicata but three days
;

before his death a rumor spread that a saint was dying there, and
such multitudes assembled that it was necessary to place guards
at the entrance of his retreat, and admit the people two by two to
gaze on his dying agonies. lie shone in miracles, and was finally
 5

INSUBORDINATION IN PROVENCE. 65

beatified by the Church, which through the period of two genera-

tions had never ceased to trample on him, but his little congrega-
tion, though lost to sight in the more aggressive energy of the
Fraticelh, continued to exist, even after the tradition of self-abne-
gation was taken up under more fortunate auspices by the Obser-
vantines, until it was finally absorbed into the latter in the re-
organization of 1517 under Leo X.'^

In Provence, even before the death of Clement V., there were

ardent spirits, nursing the reveries of the Everlasting Gospel, who
were not with the victory won at the Council of Yienne.
satisfied
When, in 1311, the Conventuals assailed the memory of Olivi, one
of their accusations was that he had given rise to sects who
claimed that his doctrine was revealed by Christ, that it was of
equal authority with the gospel, that since Mcholas III. the papal
supremacy had been transferred to them, and they consequentl}^
had elected a pope of their own. This Ubertino did not deny,
but only argued that he knew nothing of it that if it were true ;

Olivi was not responsible, as it was wholly opposed to his teaching,

of which not a word could be cited in support of such insanity.
Yet, undoubtedly there were sectaries calling themselves disciples of
Ohvi among whom the revolutionary leaven was working, and they
could recognize no virtue or authority in the carnal and worldly
Church. In 1313 we hear of a Frere Raymond Jean, who, in a
pubhc sermon at Montreal, prophesied that they would suffer
persecution for the faith, and when, after the sermon, he was
asked Avhat he meant, boldly replied in the presence of several
persons, "The enemies among ourselves. The
of the faith are
Church which governs us isby the Great "Whore of the
sj^mbolled
Apocal}^3se, who persecutes the poor and the ministers of Christ.
You see we do not dare to walk openly before our brethren." He
added that the only true pope was Celestin, who had been elected
in Sicily, and his organization was the only true Church.f
Thtis the Spirituals were by no means a united body. When
* Franz Ehrle (Arcliiv f. L. u. K. 1885, pp. 534-9, 553-5, 558-9, 561, 563-4,
566-9; 1887, p. 406).— S. Fraucisci Prophet, xiv. (0pp. Ed. 1849, pp. 270-1).—

Chron. Glassberger ann. 1503, 1506, 1517.

t Franz Ehrle (Archiv fiir Litt.- u. K. 1886, pp. 371, 411).— Arch, de I'lnq.

de Carcassonne (Boat, XXVII. fol. 7 sqq.).

III.—
66 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
once the trammels of authority had been shaken off, there "was
among them too much individuahty and too ardent a fanaticism
for them same convictions, and they were
to reach precisely the
fractioned into groups and sects which neutralized what
little

slender ability they might otherwise have had to give serious

trouble to the powerful organization of the hierarchy. Yet,
whether their doctrines were submissive like those of Angelo, or
revolutionary like those of Raymond Jean, they were all guilty
of the unpardonable crime of independence, of thinking for them-
selves where thought was forbidden, and of believing in a higher
law than that of papal decretals. Their steadfastness was soon to
be put to the test. In 1314 the general, Alessandro, died, and
after an interval of twenty months Michele da Cesena was chosen
as his successor. To the chapter of Naples which elected him the
Spirituals of l^arbonne sent a long memorial reciting the wrongs
and afflictions which they had endured since the death of Clem-
ent had deprived them of papal protection. The nomination of
Michele might seem to be a victory over the Conventuals. He
was a distinguished theologian, of resolute and unbending temper,
and resolved on enforcing the strict observance of the Rule.
"Within three months of his election he issued a general precept
enjoining rigid obedience to it. The vestments to be worn were
minutely prescribed, money was not to be accepted except in case
of absolute necessity no fruits of the earth were to be sold no
; ;

splendid buildings to be erected meals vrere to be plain and

;

frugal the brethren were never to ride, nor even to wear shoes
;

except under written permission of their convents when exigency

required it. The Spirituals might hope that at last they had a
general after their own heart, but they had unconsciously drifted
away from obedience, and Michele was resolved that the Order
should be a unit, and that all wanderers should be driven back
into the fold.*
A fortnight before the issuing of this precept the long inter-
regnum of the papacy had been closed by the election of John
XXII. There have been few popes who have so completely em-
bodied the ruling tendencies of their time, and few who have
exerted so large an influence on the Church, for good or for evil.

* Franz Ehrle (loc. cit. 1880, pp. 160-4).— Wadding, anu. 1316, No. 5.
 JOHN XXII. 67

Sprung from the most humble origin, his abiUties and force of
character had carried him from one preferment to another, until
he reached the chair of St. Peter. He was short in stature but
robust in health, choleric and easily moved to wrath, while his
enmity once excited vfas durable, and his rejoicing when his foes
came to an evil end savored little of the Christian pastor. Per-
sistent and inflexible, a purpose once undertaken was pursued to
the end regardless of opposition from friend or enemy. He was
especially proud of his theologic attainments, ardent in disputa-
tion, and impatient of opposition. After the fashion of the time
he was pious, for he celebrated mass almost every day, and almost
every night he arose to recite the Office or to study. Among his
good works is enumerated a poetical description of the Passion of
Christ, concluding with a prayer, and he gratified his vanity as an
author by proclaiming many indulgences as a reward to all who
would read it through. His chief characteristics, however, were
ambition and avarice. To gratify the former he waged endless
wars with the Yisconti of Milan, in which, as we are assured by
a contemporary, the blood slied would have incarnadined the
waters of Lake Constance, and the bodies of the slain would have
bridged it from shore to shore. As for the latter, his quenchless
greed displayed an exhaustless fertility of resource in converting
the treasures of salvation into current coin. He it was who first

reduced to a system the "Taxes of the Penitentiary," which

offered absolution at fixed prices for every possible form of human
wickedness, from five grossi for homicide or incest, to thirty-three
grossi for ordination below the canonical age. Before he had been
two years in the papacy he arrogated to himself the presentation
to all the collegiate benefices in Christendom, under the convenient
pretext of repressing simony, and then from their sale we are told
that he accumulated an immense treasure. Another still more
remunerative device was the practice of not filling a vacant episco-
pate from the ranks, but establishing a system of promotion from
a poorfer see to a richer one, and thence to archbishoprics, so that
each vacancy gave him the opportunity of making numerous
changes and levying tribute on each. Besides these regular sources
of unhallowed gains he was fertile in special expedients, as when,
in 1326, needing money for his Lombard wars, he applied to Charles
le Bel for authority to levy a subsidy on the churches of France,
68 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
Germany being for the time cut off by his quarrel with Louis of
Bavaria. Charles at first refused, but finally agreed to divide the
spoils,and granted the power in consideration of a papal grant to
—
him of a tithe for two years as a contemporary remarks, " et ainsi
saincte yglise, quant Vun le tont, Vautre VescorcJier John pro-
ceeded to extort a large sum from some he got a full tithe, from
;

others a half, from others again as much as he could extract, while

all who held benefices under papal authority had to pay a full

year's revenue. His excuse for this insatiable acquisitiveness was

that he designed the money for a crusade, but as he lived to be
a nonagenary without executing that design, the contemporary
Yillani is perhaps justified in the cautious remark " Possiby he —
had such intention." Though for the most part parsimonious, he
spent immense sums in advancing the fortunes of his nephew or —
—
son the Cardinal-legate Poyet, who was endeavoring to found a
principality in the north of Italy. He lavished money in making
Avignon a permanent residence for the papacy, though it was re-
served for Benedict XII. to purchase and enlarge the enormous
palace-fortress of the popes. Yet after his death, when an inven-
came to be made, there was found in his treasury
tory of his effects
eighteen millions of gold florins, and jewels and vestments esti-
mated at seven millions more. Even in mercantile Florence, the
sum was so incomprehensible that ViUani, whose brother was one
of the appraisers, feels obliged to explain that each miUion is a

thousand thousands. When we reflect upon the comparative pov-

erty of the period and the scarcity of the precious metals, we can
estimate how amount of suffering was represented by
great an
such an accumulation, wrung as it was, in its ultimate source,
from the wretched peasantry, who gleaned at the best an insuf-
ficient subsistence from imperfect agriculture. "VVe can, perhaps,

moreover, imagine how, in its passage to the papal treasury, it

represented so much of simony, so much of justice sold or denied
to the "wretched litigants in the curia, so much of purgatory re-
mitted, and of pardons for sins to the innumerable applicants for
a share of the Church's treasury of salvation.*

* Villani, Chronica, Lib. xi. c. 20. — Chrou. Glassberger ann. 1334.— Vitoclurani*
Chron. (Eccard. Corp. Hist. Med. iEvi L 1806-8).— Friedrich, Statut. Synod.
Wratislav., Ilannoverae, 1827, pp. 37, 38, 41.— Grandes Chroniques, V. 300.—
Guillel. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1326. — The collection of papal briefs rekting to
 JOHN'S VIGOROUS ACTION. 69

The permanent which he wrought by his shameless traflBc

evil
in benefices, and the reputation which he left behind him, are visi-
ble in the bitter complaints which were made at the Council of
Siena, a century later, by the deputies of the Gallican nation.
They refer to his pontificate as that in which the Holy See re-
served all benefices to itself, when graces, expectatives, etc., were
publicly sold to the highest bidder, without regard to qualifica-
tion, so that in France many benefices were utterly ruined by
reason of the insupportable burdens laid upon them. It is no
wonder, therefore, that when Sweden was applied
St. Birgitta of
to, in the latter half of the fourteenth century, by some Francis-
cans to learn whether John's decretals on the subject of the pov-
erty of Christ were correct, and she was vouchsafed two visions
of the Virgin to satisfy their scruples, the Virgin reported that
his decretals were free from error, but discreetly announced that
she was not at hberty to sa}'' whether his soul was in heaven or
in hell. Such was the man to whom the cruel irony of fate com-
mitted the settlement of the delicate scruples which vexed the
souls of the Spirituals.*
John had been actively engaged in the proceedings of the
Council of Vienne, and was thoroughly familiar with aU the de-
tails of When, therefore, the general, Michele, short-
the question.
ly after his accession, applied to him to restore unity in the dis-
tracted Order, his imperious temper led him to take speedy and
vigorous action. King Frederic of Trinacria was ordered to seize
the refugees in his dominions, and deliver them to their superiors to
be disciplined. Bertrand de la Tour, the Provincial of Aquitaine,
was instructed to reduce to obedience the rebels of the convents

Saxony recently printed by Schmidt (Pabstliche Urkuuden und Regesten, pp.

87-295) will explain the immense sums raised by Jolin XXII. from the sale of
canonries. It is within bounds to say tliat more than half the letters issued dur-

ing his pontificate are appointments of this kind.

The accounts of the papal collector for Hungary in 1320 show the thorough-
ness with which the first-fruits of every petty benefice were looked after, and the
enormous proportion consumed in the process. The collector charges himself
with 1913 gold florins received, of which only 733 reached the papal treasury.
(Theiner, Monumenta Slavor. Meridional. I. 147).
* Jo. de Ragusio Init. et Prosecut. Basil. Coucil. (Monument. Concil. Saec. XV.
T. I. p. 33),—Revelat. S. Brigittse Lib. vii. c. viii.
70 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
and Carcassonne. Bertrand at first tried
of Beziers, ISTarbonne,
persuasion. The outward sign of the Spirituals was the habit.
They wore smaller hoods, and gowns shorter, narrower, and coarser
than the Conventuals ; and, holding this to be in accordance with
the precedent set by Francis, it was as much an article of faith

with them as the absence of granaries and wine-cellars and the

refusal to handle money. When he urged them to abandon these
vestments they therefore replied that this was one of the matters
in which they could not render obedience. Then he assumed a
tone of authority under the papal rescript, and they rejoined by
an appeal to the pope better informed, signed by forty-five friars
of Narbonne, and fifteen of Beziers. On receipt of the appeal,
John peremptorily ordered, April 27, 1317, all the appellants to
present themselves before him within ten days, under pain of ex-
communication. They set forth, seventy -four in number, with
Bernard Delicieux at their head, and on reaching Avignon did not
venture to lodge in the Franciscan convent, but bivouacked for
the night on the pubhc place in front of the papal doors.*
They were regarded as much more dangerous rebels than the
Italian Spirituals, The latter had already had a hearing in which
Ubertino da Casale confuted the charges brought against them,
and he, Goffrido da Cornone, and Philippe de Caux, while express-
ing sympathy and readiness to defend Olivi and his disciples, had
plainly let it be seen that they regarded themselves as not per-
sonally concerned with them. John drew the same distinction;
and though Angelo da Clarino was for a while imprisoned on the
strength of an old condeitmation by Boniface YIII., he was soon
released and permitted to adopt the Celestin habit and Rule.
Ubertino was told that if he would return for a few days to the
Franciscan convent proper provision would be made for his fut-
ure. To this he significantly replied, "After staying with the
friars for a single day I will not require any provision in this
world from you or any one else,"and he was permitted to trans-
fer himself to the Benedictine Order, as were likewise several
others of his comrades. He had but a temporary respite, how-

* Wadding, ann. 1317, No. 9-14. — Hist. Tribulation. (Archiv fur L. u. K.

188G, p. 142).— Joann. S.Victor. Cliron. ann. 1311, 1316 (Muratori S. R. I. III.ii.
4G0, 478).
 THE OLIVISTS PREJUDGED. Yl

ever, and we shall see hereafter that in 1325 he was obliged to

take refuge with Louis of Bavaria.*
The were not to escape so easily. The day after their
Olivists
arrival they were admitted to audience. Bernard Delicieux ar-
gued their case so ably that he could only be answered by accus-
ing him of having impeded the Inquisition, and John ordered his
arrest. Then Frangois Sanche took up the argument, and was ac-
cused of having vilified the Order publicly, when John delivered
him to the Conventuals, who promptly imprisoned him in a cell
next to the latrines. Then Guillaume de Saint-Amand assumed
the defence, but the friars accused him of dilapidation and of de-
serting the Convent of Karbonne, and John ordered his arrest.
Then Geoffroi attempted it, but John interrupted him, saying,
" We wonder greatly that you demand the strict observance of
the Rule, and yet you wear five gowns." Geoffroi replied, " Holy
Father, you are deceived, for, saving your reverence, it is not true
that I wear five gowns." John answered hotly, " Then we lie,"
and ordered Geoffroi to be seized until it could be determined how
many gowns he wore. The terrified brethren, seeing that their
case was prejudged, fell on their knees, crying, " Holy Father, jus-
tice, justice !" and the pope ordered them all to go to the Francis-

can convent, to be guarded till he should determine Avhat to do

with them. Bernard, Guillaume, and Geoffroi, and some of their
comrades were subjected to harsh imprisonment in chains by or-
der of the pope. Bernard's fate "we have already seen. As to
the others, an inquisition was held on them, when all but twenty-
five submitted, and were rigorously penanced by the triumphant
Conventuals.f
The twenty-five were handed over to the Inquisi-
recalcitrants
tion of Marseilles, under whose jurisdiction they were arrested.
The inquisitor was Frere Michel le Moine, one of those who had
been degraded and imprisoned by Clement Y. on account of their
zeal in persecuting the Spirituals. Xow he was able to glut his
revenge. He had ample warrant for whatever he might please to
do, for John had not waited to hear the Spirituals before condemn-
ing them. As early as February IT, he had ordered the inquisi-

* Hist. Tribulat. (ubi sup. pp. 142-44, 151-2).— Franz Elnle, Archiv, 1887, p.
546.
t Hist. Tribulat. (Ibid. pp. 145-C).— Raym. tie Fronciacbo (lb. 1887, p. 29).
72 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
tors of Languedoc to denounce as heretics all who styled them-
selves FraticelH or Fratres de paupers vita. Then, April 13, he
had issued the constitution Quorumdam^ in which he had definite-
ly settled the two points which had become the burning questions
—
of the dispute the character of vestments to be worn, and the
legality of laying up stores of provisions in granaries, and cellars
of wine and oil. These questions he referred to the general of
the Order with absolute power to determine them. Under Mi-
chele's instructions, the ministers and guardians were to determine
for each convent what amount of provisions it required, what por-
tion might be stored up, and to what extent the friars were to beg
for it. Such decisions were to be implicitly followed without
thinking or asserting that they derogated from the Eule. The
bull wound up with the significant words, " Great is poverty,
but greater is blamelessness, and perfect obedience is the greatest
good." There was a hard common-sense about this which may
seem to us even commonplace, but it decided the case against the
Spirituals, and gave them the naked alternative of submission or
rebellion.*
This bull was the basis of the inquisitorial process against the
twenty-five recalcitrants. The case was perfectly clear under it,
and in fact all the proceedings of the Spirituals after its issue had
—
been flagrantly contumacious their refusal to change their vest-
ments, and their appeal to the pope better informed. Before
handing them over to the Inquisition they had been brought be-
fore Michele da Cesena, and their statements to him when read
before the consistory had been pronounced heretical and the au-
thors subject to the penalty of heresy. Efforts of course had been
made to secure their submission, but in vain, and it was not until
November 6, 1317, that letters were issued by John and by Michele
da Cesena to the Inquisitor Michel, directing him to proceed with
the trial. Of the details of the process we have no knowledge,
but it is not Hkely that the accused were spared any of the rigors
customary in such cases, when the desire was to break the spirit
and induce compliance. Tliis is shown, moreover, in the fact that
the proceedings were protracted for exactly six months, the sen-
tence being rendered on May 7, 1318, and by the further fact that

Coll. Doat, XXXIV. 147.— Extrav. Joaun. XXII. Tit. xiv. cap. 1.

1
 THE MARTYRS OF MARSEILLES. 73

most of the culprits were brought to repentance and abjuration.

Onl}^ four of them had the physical and mental endurance to per-
—
severe to the last Jean Barrani, Deodat Michel, Guillem Sainton,
—
and Pons Eocha and these were handed over the same day to the
secular authorities of Marseilles and duly burned. fifth, Ber- A
nard Aspa, who had said in prison that he repented, but who re-
fused to recant and abjure, was mercifully condemned to prison
for life, though under all inquisitorial rules he should have shared
the fate of his accomplices. The rest were forced to abjure pub-
licly and to accept the penances imposed by the inquisitor, with

the warning that if they failed to publish their abjuration wher-

ever they had pleached their errors they would be burned as re-
lapsed.*
Although in the sentence the heresy of the victims is said to
have been drawn from the poisoned doctrine of Olivi, and though
the inquisitor issued letters prohibiting any one from possessing
or reading his books, there is no allusion to any Joachite error.
It was simply a question of disobedience to the bull Quorumdam.
They affirmed that this was contrary to the Gospel of Christ, which
forbade them to wear garments of other fashion than that which
they had adopted, or to lay up stores of corn and wine. To this
the pope had no authority to compel them they would not obey;

him, and this they declared they would maintain until the Day of
Judgment. Frivolous as the questions at issue undoubtedly were,
it was on the one hand a case of conscience from which reason
had long since been banished by the bitterness of controversy,
and on the other the necessity of authority compelling obedience.
If private judgment were allowed to set aside the commands of a
papal decretal, the moral power of the papacy was gone, and with
it all temporal supremacy. Yet, underlying all this was the old
Joachitic leaven which taught that the Church of Rome had no
spiritual authority, and thus that its decrees were not binding on
the elect. When Bernard Delicieux was sent, in 1319, from A\d-
gnon to Castelnaudari for trial, on the road he talked freely with,
his escort and made no secret of his admiration for Joachim, even
going so far as to say that he had erased from his copy of the
Decretum the Lateran canon condemning Joachim's Trinitarian

* Baluz. et Mansi IL 248-51.— Hist. Tribulat. Ooc. cit. p. 147).

 74 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
error, he were pope he would abrogate it. The influ-
and that if

ence of the Everlasting Gospel is seen in the fact that of those

who recanted at Marseilles and were imprisoned, a number fled to
the Infidel, leaving behind them a paper in which they defiantly
professed their faith, and prophesied that they would return tri-
umphantly after the death of John XXII,*
Thus John, ere yet his pontificate was a year old, had succeed-
—
ed in creating a new heresy that which held it unlawful for
Franciscans to wear flowing gowns or to have granaries and cellars.
In the multiform development of human perversity there has been
perhaps none more deplorably ludicrous than this, that man should
burn his fellows on such a question, or that men should be found
dauntless enough to brave the flames for such a principle, and to
feel that they were martyrs in a high and holy cause. John proba-
bly, from the constitution of his mind and his training, could not
understand that men could be so enamoured of holy poverty as to
sacrifice themselves to it, and he could only regard them as obsti-
nate rebels, to be coerced into submission or to pay the penalty.
He had taken his stand in support of Michele da Cesena's author-
ity, and resistance, whether active or passive, only hardened him.
The bull Quorumdam had created no little stir. A defence of
it, written by an and Toulouse, probably
inquisitor of Carcassonne
Jean de Beaune, shows that its novel positions had excited grave
doubts in the minds of learned men, who were not convinced of its
orthodoxy, though not prepared to risk open dissent. There is also
an allusion to a priest who persisted in maintaining the errors
which it condemned and who was handed over to the secular arm,

* Raym. de Fronciacho (Archiv f. L. u. K. 1887, p. 31). — Baluz. et Mansi

II. 248-51, 271-2. — Joaun. S.Victor. Chron. ann. 1319 (Muratori S. R. I. III. ii.

478-9).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, No. 4270, fol. 188, 262. Bernard, however,
in his examination, denied these allegations as well as Olivi's tenet that Christ
was alive when lanced upon the Cross, although he said some MSS. of St. Mark
so represented him (fol. 167-8),
Of the remainder of those who were tried at Marseilles the fate is uncertain.
From the text it appears that at least some of them were imprisoned. Others
were probably let off with lighter penances, for in 1325 Blaise Boerii, a shoe-
maker of Narbonne, when on trial before the Inquisition of Carcassonne, con-
fessed thathe had visited, in houses at Marseilles, three of them at one time and
four at another, and had received them in his own house and had conducted
—
them on their way. Doat, XXVII. 7 sqq.

1
 POPULAR SYMPATHY. 75

but who recanted ere the fagots were Mghted and was received to
penance. To John assembled a commission of
silence discussion,
thirteen prelates and doctors, including Michele da Cesena, who
after due consideration solemnly condemned as heretical the prop-
ositions that the pope had no authority to issue the bull, and that
obedience was not due to prelates who commanded the laying
aside of short and narrow vestments and the storing up of corn
and vnne. All this M'as rapidly creating a schism, and the bull
Sancta JRomana, December 30, 1317, and Gloriosam ecclesicun, Jan-
uary 23, 1318, were directed against those who under the names of
Fraticelli, Beguines, Bizochi, and Fratres de ])Ciupere vita., in Sicily,
Italy, and the south of France, were organizing an independent
Order under the pretence of observing strictly the Rule of Francis,
receiving multitudes into their sect, building or receiving houses
in gift, begging in public, and electing superiors. AH such are de-
clared excommunicate i^so facto, and all prelates are commanded
to see that the sect is speedily extirpated.*
Among the people, the cooler heads argued that if the Francis-
can vow rendered all possession sinful it was not a vow of hoh-
ness, for in things in which use was consumption, such as bread
and cheese, use passed into possession. He who took such a vow,
therefore, by the mere fact of living broke that vow, and could not
be in a state of grace. The supreme holiness of poverty, however,
had been so assiduously preached for a hundred years that a large
portion of the population sympathized with the persecuted Spir-
ituals many laymen, married and unmarried, joined them as Ter-
;

tiaries, and even priests embraced their doctrines. There speedily

grew up a sect, by no means confined to Franciscans, to replace
the fast-vanishing Cathari as an object for the energies of the In-
quisition, It is the old story over again, of persecuted saints with
the famiUars ever at their heels, but always finding refuge and
hiding-place at the hands of friendly sympathizers. Pierre Tren-
may be taken as an example. His name
cavel, a priest of Beziers,
recurs frequently in the examinations before the Inquisition as that
of one of the principal leaders of the sect. Caught at last, he was
thrown into the prison of Carcassonne, but managed to escape,

* Baluz. et Mansi II. 270-1, 274:-6.—Extravagant. Joann. XXII. Tit. vii.—

Mas. Bull. Roman. I. 193.
76 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS. \
when he was condemned in an auto defe as a convicted heretic.
Then a purse was raised among the faithful to send him to the
East. After an absence of some years he returned and was as
active as ever, wandering in disguise throughout the south of
France and assiduously guarded by the devotees. "What was his
end does not appear, but he probably perished at length at the
stake as a relapsed heretic, for in 1327 we find him and his daugh-
ter Andree in the pitiless hands of Michel of Marseilles. Jean
du Prat, then Inquisitor of Carcassonne, wanted them, in order to
extort from them the names of their disciples and of those who
had sheltered them. Apparently Michel refused to surrender
them, and a peremptory order from John XXII. was requisite to
obtain their transfer. In 1325 Bernard CastiUon of MontpeUier
confesses to harboring a number of Beguines in his house, and then
to buying a dwelling for them in which he visited them. Another
culprit acknowledges to receiving many fugitives in his house at
MontpeUier. There was ample sympathy for them and am]3le
occasion for it.*

The burning of the four martyrs of Marseilles was the signal

for active inquisitorial work. Throughout all the infected region
the Holy Office bent its energies to the suppression of the new
heresy and as previously there had been no necessity for conceal-
;

ing opinions, the suspects were readily laid hold of. There was

* Guill.Nangiac.Contin.aim. 1317.— Coll. Boat, XXVII. 7 sqq.,170; XXXV.

18.—Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 301,313, 881.
The case of Raymond Jean illustrates the life of the persecuted Spirituals.

As early as 1313 he had commenced to denounce the Church as the Whore of

Babylon, and to prophesy his own fate. In 1317 he was one of the appellants
who were summoned to Avignon, where he submitted. Remitted to the obedi-
ence of his Order, he was sent by his superior to the convent of Anduse, where he
remained until he heard the fate of his stancher companions at Marseilles, when
he fled with a comrade. Reaching Beziers, they found refuge in a house where,
in company with some female apostates from the Order, they lay hid for three
years. After this Raymond led a wandering life, associating for a while with
Pierre Trencavel. At one time he went beyond seas ; then returning, he adopted
the habit of a secular priest and assumed the cure of souls, sometimes in Gascony
and again in Rodcz or east of the Rhone. Captured at last in 1335 and brought
before the Inquisition of Carcassonne, after considerable pressure he was induced
to recant. Ilis sentence is not given, but doubtless it was perpetual imi^rison-
ment.— Doat, XXVIL 7 sqq.
 ;

UNSPARING PERSECUTION. 77

thus an ample harvest, and the rigor of the inquisition set on foot
is shown by the order issued in February, 1322, by John XXII.,
that all Tertiaries in the suspected districts should be summoned
to appear and be closely examined. This caused general terror.
In the archives of Florence there are preserved numerous letters
to the papal curia, written in February, 1322, by the magistrates
and prelates of the Tuscan cities, interceding for the Tertiaries, and
begging that they shall not be confounded with the new sect of
Beguines. This is doubtless a sample of what was occurring
everywhere, and the aU-pervading fear was justified by the daily
increasing roll of martyrs. The test was simple. It was whether
the accused believed that the pope had power to dispense with
vows, especially those of poverty and chastity. As we have seen,
it was a commonplace of the schools, which Aquinas proved beyond

cavil, that he had no such power, and even as recently as 1311

the Conventuals, in arguing before Clement V., had admitted that
no Franciscan could hold property or take a wife under command
from the pope but things had changed in the interval, and now
;

those who adhered to the established doctrine had the alternative

of recantation or the stake. Of course but a small portion of the
culprits had the steadfastness to endure to the end against the per-
suasive methods which the Inquisition knew so well how to employ,
and the number of the victims who perished shows that the sect
must have been large. Our information is scanty and fragmen-
tary, but we know that at Narbonne, where the bishops at first
endeavored to protect the unfortunates, until frightened by the
threats of the inquisitors, there were three bm'ned in 1319, seventeen
in Lent, 1321, and several in 1322. At Montpelher, persecution
was already active in 1 319. At Lunel there were seventeen burned
at Beziers, two at one time and seven at another at Pezenas, sev-
;

eral, with Jean Formayron at their head ; in Gironde, a number in

1319 at Toulouse, four in 1322, and others at Cabestaing and Lo-
;

de ve. At Carcassonne there were burnings in 1319, 1320, and 1321,

and Henri de Chamay was active there between 1325 and 1330.
A portion of his trials are still extant, with very few cases of burn-
ing, but Mosheim had a list of one hundred and thirteen persons
executed at Carcassonne as Spirituals from 1318 to about 1350.
All these cases were under Dominican inquisitors, and the Fran-
ciscans were even more zealous, if we may believe "Wadding's boast
78 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
that in 1323 there were one hundred and fourteen burned by Fran-
ciscan inquisitoi'^ alone. The Inquisition at Marseilles, in fact,
which was in Franciscan hands, had the reputation of being exces-
sively severe with the recalcitrant brethren of the Order. In a
case occurring in 1329 Frere GuiUem de
Guardian of Salvelle, the
Beziers, states that their treatment there was very harsh and the
imprisonment of the most rigorous description. Doubtless Angelo
da Clarino has justification for the assertion that the Conventuals
improved their triumph over their antagonists like mad dogs and
wolves, torturing, slaying, and ransoming mthout mercy. Trivial
as may seem to us the cause of quarrel, we cannot but respect the
simple earnestness which led so many zealots to seal their convic-
tions with their blood. Many of them, we are told, courted mar-
tyrdom and eagerly sought the flames. Bernard Leon of Mon-
treal was burned for persistently declaring that, as he had vowed
poverty and chastity, he would not obey the pope if ordered to take
a wife or accept a prebend.*
Ferocious persecution such as this of course only intensified the
convictions of the sufferers and their antagonism to the Holy See.
So far as regards the ostensible subject of controversy, we learn
from Pierre Tort, when he was before the Inquisition of Toulouse
in 1322, that it was allovv^able to lay in stores of corn and wine
sufficient for eight or fifteen days, while of salt and oil there might
be provision for half a year. As to vestments, Michele da Cesena
had exercised the power conferred on him by the bull Quoritmdam
by issuing, in 1317, a precept requiring the gown to be made of
coarse stuff, reaching down to cover only half the foot, while the
cord was to be of hemp and not of flax. Although he seems to
have left the burning question of the hood untouched, this regula-

tion might have satisfied reasonable scruples, but it was a case of

conscience which admitted of no compromise. Tlie Spirituals de-
clared that they were not bound to abandon the still shorter and

* Raynald ann. 1323, No. 51. — Arcliivio di Firenze, Prov. del Couvento di
Santa Croce, Feb. 1323.— S. Th. Aquin. Summ. Sec. Sec. Q. lxxxviii. Art. xi. ; Q.
CLxxxvi. Art. viii. ad 3. —Franz Ehrle (Arcliiv fur Litt.- u. Kircbengescbichte,

1887, p. 15G).— Lib. Seutentt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 300, 313, 381-93.— Coll. Boat,
XXVII., XXVIIL—Mosbcim dc Begbardis pp. 499, G33.—Vaissette, IV. 182-3.—
Wadding, ann. 1317, No. 45.— Hist. Tribnlat. (loc. cit. p. 149).— Arcb. dc V Inq.
dc Carcass. (Doat, XXVIL 162).— Jobann. S. Victor. Cbrou. aun. 1316-19.
 REVIVAL OF JOACIIITISM. 79

more ungainly gowns which their tradition attributed to St. Fran-

cis, no matter what might be commanded by pope or general, and

so large was the importance attributed to the question that in the

popular belief the four martyrs of Marseilles were burned because
they wore the mean and tightly-fitting garments which distin-
guished the Spirituals.*
Technically they were right, we have seen above, it
for, as

had hitherto been generally admitted that the pope could not
dispense for vows and when Olivi developed this to the further
;

position that he could not order anything contrary to an evangeli-

cal vow, it was not reckoned among his errors condemned by the
Council of Vienne. While all this, however, had been admitted
as a theoretical postulate, when
came to be set up against the
it

commands of such a pope as John XXII. it was rebellious heresy,

to be crushed with the sternest measures. At the same time it
was impossible that the sufferers could recognize the authority
which was condemning them to the stake. Men who willingly
offered themselves to be burned because they asserted that thepope
had no power to dispense from the observance of vows who de- ;

clared that if there were but one woman in the world, and if she
had taken a vow of chastity, the pope could give her no valid dis-
pensation, even if it were to prevent the human race from coming
to an end who asserted that John XXII. had sinned against the
;

gospel of Christ when he had attempted to permit the Francis-

cans to have granaries and cellars who held that although the
;

pope might have power over other Orders he had none over that
of St. Francis, because his Rule was divine revelation, and not a
—
word in it could be altered or erased such men could only defend
themselves against the pope by denying the source of his author-
ity. AU the latent Joachitic notions which had been dormant were

vivified and became the leading principles of the sect. John

XXIL, when he issued the buU Quorumdam^ became the mystical
Antichrist, the forerunner of the true Antichrist. The Roman
Church was the carnal Church the Spirituals would form the new
;

Church, which would fight with Antichrist, and, under the guidance
of the Holy Ghost, would usher in the new age when man would

* Lib. Senteatt. Inq. Tolosau. pp. 320, 325.— Wadding, ann. 1317, No. 23.—
Coll. Doat, XXVII. 7 sqq.
 —

80 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.

be ruled by love and poverty be universal. Some of them placed
tbis in 1325, others in 1330, others again in fourteen years from
1321. Thus the scheme of the Everlasting Gospel was formally
adopted and brought to realization. There were two churches
one the carnal Church of Eome, the Whore of Babylon, the Syna-
gogue of Satan, drunk with the blood of the saints, over which
John XXII. pretended to preside, although he had forfeited his
station and become a heretic of heretics when he consented to the
death of the martyrs of Marseilles. The other was the true Church,
the Church of the Holy Ghost, which would speedily triumph
through the arms of Frederic of Trinacria. St. Francis would be
resurrected in the flesh, and then would commence the third age
and the seventh and last state of mankind. Meanwhile, the sacra-
ments were already obsolete and no longer requisite for salvation.
It is to this period of frenzied exaltation that we may doubtless
attribute the interpolations of Olivi's writings.*
This new Church had some sort of organization. In the trial of
Naprous Boneta at Carcassonne, in 1325, there is an allusion to a
Frere Guillem Giraud, who had been ordained by God as pope in
place of John XXIL, whose sin had been as great as Adam's, and
who had thus been deposed by the divine will. There were not
lacking saints and martyrs, besides Francis and Olivi. Fragments
of the bodies and bones of those who perished at the stake were
treasured up as relics, and even pieces of the stakes at which they
suffered. These were set before altars in their houses, or carried
about the person as amulets. In this cult, the four martyrs of
Marseilles were pre-eminently honored their suffrages with God
;

were as potent as those of St. Laurence or St. Yincent, and in them

Christ had been spiritually crucified on the four arms of the cross.
One poor wretch, who was burned at Toulouse in 1322, had in-
serted in his litany the names of seventy Spirituals who had suf-
fered he invoked them among the other saints, attaching equal
;

importance to their intervention and this was doubtless a cus-

;

tomary and recognized form of devotion. Yet this cult was sim-
pler than that of the orthodox Church, for it Avas held that the

* Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan. pp. 298-99, 302-G, 31G.—Bern. Guidon. Prac-
tica P. v.— Doat, XXVII. 7 sqq.—-Joliann. S. Victor. Chron. ann. 1316-19 (Mura-
tori S. R. I. III. 11. 478-9).
 6

SUBDIVISION OF THE SECTARIES. 81

saints needed no oblations, and if a man had vowed a candle to one

of them or to the Virgin, or a pilgrimage to Compostella, it would
be better to give to the poor the money that it would cost.*
The Church composed of these enthusiastic fanatics broke off
all relations with the Italian Spirituals, whose more regulated zeal
seem.ed lukewarmness and backsliding. The prisoners who were
tried by Bernard Gui in 1322 at Toulouse described the Franciscan
Order as divided into three fragments —
the Conventuals, who
insisted on having granaries and cellars, the Fraticelli under Henry
da Ceva in Sicily, and the Spirituals, or Beguines, then under per-
secution. The two former groups they said did not observe the
Kule and would be destroyed, while their own sect would endure
to the end of the world. Even the saintly and long-suffering
Angelo da Clarino was denounced as an apostate, and there were
hot-headed zealots who declared that he would prove to be the
mystical Antichrist. Others were disposed to assign this doubt-
ful honor, or even the position of the greater Antichrist, to Felipe
of Majorca, brother of that Ferrand whom we have seen offered
the sovereignty of Carcassonne. Felipe's thirst for asceticism had
led him to abandon his brother's court and become a Tertiary of
St. Francis. Angelo alludes to him repeatedly, with great admi-
ration, as worthy to rank with the ancient perfected saints. In
the stormy discussions soon after John's accession he had inter-
vened in favor of the Spirituals, petitioning that they be allov.^ed
to form a separate Order. After taking the full vows, he renewed
this supplication in 1328,but it was refused in full consistory, after
which we hear of him wandering over Europe and hving on beg-
gary. In 1311, with the support of Eobert of Naples, he made a
third application, which Benedict XII. rejected for the reason that
he was a supporter and defender of the Beguines, whom he had
justified after their condemnation by publicly asserting many
enormous heretical lies about the Holy See. Such were the men
whose self-devotion seemed to these fiery bigots so tepid as to ren-
der them objects of detestation.f

* Doat, XXVII. 7 sqq.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 305, 307, 310, 883-5.—
Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v.
t Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 303, 309, 326, 330.— Bern. Guidon. Practica
P. v.—Franz Ehrle (op. cit. 1885, pp. 540, 543, 557),— Rnym. de Fronciacho (lb.

III.—
82 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
The heights of exaltation reached in their religious delirium
are illustratedby the career of Naprous Boneta, who was rever-
enced in the sect as an inspired prophetess. As early as 1315 she
had fallen into the hands of the Inquisition at Montpellier, and had
been thrown into prison, to-be subsequently released. She and her
were warmly interested in the persecuted Spirituals,
sister Alissette
and gave refuge to many fugitives in their house. As persecution
grew hotter, her exaltation increased. In 1320 she commenced to
have visions and ecstasies, in which she was carried to heaven and
had interviews with Christ. Finally, on Holy Thursday, 1321,
Christ communicated to her the Divine Spirit as completely as it
had been given to the Virgin, saying, " The Blessed Virgin Mary
was the giver of the Son of God thou shalt be the giver of the
:

Holy Ghost." Thus the promises of the Everlasting Gospel were

on the point of fulfilment, and the Third Age was about to dawn.
Elijah, she said, was St. Francis, and Enoch was Olivi the power ;

granted to Christ lasted until God gave the Holy Spirit to Olivi,
and invested him with as much glory as had been granted to the
humanity of Christ. The papacy has ceased to exist, the sacra-
ments of the altar and of confession are superseded, but that of
matrimony remains. That of penitence, indeed, still exists, but it
is purely internal, for heartfelt contrition works forgiveness of

sins without sacerdotal intercession or the imposition of penance.

One remark, which she casually made when before her judges, is
noteworthy as manifesting the boundless love and charity of these
poor souls. The Spirituals and lepers, she said, who had been
burned were like the innocents massacred by Herod it was Satan —
who procured the burning of the Spirituals and lepers. This alludes
to the hideous cruelties which, as we have seen, were perpetrated
on the lepers in 1321 and 1322, when the whole of France went
mad with terror over a rumored poisoning of the wells by these
outcasts, and when, it seems, the Spirituals were wise enough and
humane enough to sympathize with them and condemn their mur-
der. Naprous, at length, was brought before Henri de Chamay,

1887, p. 29.— Guillel. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1330.— Wadding, ann. 1341, No.
21, 23.
A subdivision of the Italian FraticcUi took the name of Brethren of Fray
Felipe de Mallorca (Tocco, Archivio Storico Napoletano, 1887, Fasc. 1).
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SECT. 83

the Inquisitor of Carcassonne, in 1325. Sincere in the belief of

her divine mission, she spontaneously and fearlessly related her
history and stated her faith, and in her replies to her examiners
she was remarkably quick and intelligent. When her confession
was read over to her she confirmed it, and to all exhortations to

retract she quietly answered that she would live and die in it as
the truth. She was accordingly handed over to the secular arm
and sealed her convictions with her blood.*
Extravagances of belief such as this were not accompanied with
extravagance of conduct. Even Bernard Gui has no fault to find
with the heretics' mode of life, except that the school of Satan
imitated the school of Christ, as laymen imitate hke monkeys the
pastors of the Church. They all vowed poverty and led a life of
self-denial, some of them laboring with their hands and others beg-
ging by the wayside. In the towns and villages they had little
dwellings which they called Houses of Poverty, and where they
dwelt together. On Sundays and feast-days their friends would
assemble and aU would hsten to readings from the precepts and
articles of faith, the lives of the saints, and their own religious
—
books in the vulgar tongue mostly the writings of Olivi, which
they regarded as revelations from God, and the " Transitus Scmcti
Patris,-^ which was a legendar}^ account of his death. The only
external signs by which Bernard says they were to be recognized
were that on meeting one another, or entering a house, they would
sa}'', " Blessed be Jesus Christ," or " Blessed be the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ." When praying in church or elsewhere they

sat with hooded heads and faces turned to the wall, not standing
or kneeling, or striking their hands, as was customary with the
orthodox. At dinner, after asking a blessing, one of them would
kneel and recite Gloria in excelsis, and after supper, Salve Begina.
This was aU inoffensive enough, but they had one peculiarity to
which Bernard as an inquisitor took strong exceptions. When on
trialthey were ready enough to confess their own faith, but noth-
ing would induce them to betray their associates. In their sim-
plicity they held that this would be a violation of Christian charity
to which they could not lawfully be compelled, and the inquisitor
wasted infinite pains in the endeavor to show that it is charity to

Coll. Doat, XXVII. 7 sqq., 95.

84 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
one's neighbor, and not an injury, to give him a chance of con-
version.'^

Evidently these poor folk would have been harmless enough

if let and their persecution could only be justified by the
alone,
duty of the Church to preserve erring souls from perdition. A
sect based upon the absolute abnegation of property as its chief
principle, and the apocalyptic reveries of the Everlasting Gospel,
could never become dangerous, though it might be disagreeable,
— —
from its mute or perhaps vivacious protest against the luxury
and worldliness of the Church. Even if let alone it would prob-
ably soon have died out. Springing as it did in a region and at a
period in which the Inquisition was thoroughly organized, it had
no chance of survival, and it speedily succumbed under the fero-
cious energy of the proceedings brought to bear against it. Yet
we cannot fix with any precision the date of its extinction. The
records are imperfect, and those which we possess fail to draw a
distinction between the Spirituals and the orthodox Franciscans,
who, as we shall see, were driven to rebellion by John XXII. on the
question of the poverty of Christ. This latter dogma became one
of so much larger importance that the dreams of the Spirituals
were speedily lost to view, and in the later cases it is reasonable to
assume that the victims were Fraticelli. Still, there are several
prosecutions on record at Carcassonne in 1329, which Avere doubt-
less of Spirituals. One of them was of Jean Eoger, a priest who
had stood in high consideration at Beziers he had been an asso- ;

ciate of Pierre Trencavel in his wanderings, and the slight penance

imposed on him would seem to indicate that the ardor of persecu-
tion was abating, though we learn that the bones of the martyrs
of Marseilles were still handed around as relics. John XXII. was
not disposed to connive at any relaxation of rigor, and in Febru-
ary, 1331, he reissued his bull Janata liomana, with a preface ad-
dressed to bishops and inquisitors in which he assumes that the sect
is flourishing as vigorously as ever, and orders the most active meas-

ures taken for its suppression. Doubtless there Avere subsequent

prosecutions, but the sect as a distinctive one faded out of sight.f
During the period of its active existence it had spread across

* Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v. t Doat, XXVII. 15<5, 170, 178, 215 ; XXXII. 147.
 PERSECUTION IN ARAGON. 85

the Pyrenees into Aragon. Even before the Council of Beziers,

in 1299, took official cognizance of the nascent heresy, the bishops
of Aragon, assembled at Tarragona in 1297, instituted repressive
measures against the Beguines who were spreading errors through-
out the kingdom, and all Franciscan Tertiaries were subjected to
supervision. Their books in the ^iilgar tongue were especially
dreaded, and were ordered to be surrendered. These precautions
did not avert the evil. As we have seen, Arnaldo de Vilanova
became a warm advocate of the Spirituals his indefatigable pen
;

was at their service, his writings had wide circulation, and his in-
fluence with Jayme II. protected them, With his death and that
of Clement V. persecution commenced. Immediately after the
latter event, in 1314, the Inquisitor Bernardo de Puycerda, one of
Arnaldo's special antagonists, undertook their suppression. At
their head stood a certain Pedro Oler, of Majorca, and Fray Bo-
nato. They were obstinate, and were handed over to the secular
arm, when all were burned except Bonato, Avho recanted on being
scorched by the flames. He was dragged from the burning pile,
cured, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, but after some
twenty years he was found to be still secretly a Spiritual, and was
burned as a relapsed in 1335. Emboldened by the accession of
John XXII., in November, 1316, Juan de Llotger, the inquisitor,
and Jofre de Cruilles, provost of the vacant see of Tarragona,
called together an assembly of Dominicans, Franciscans, and Cis-
tercians, who condemned the apocalyptic and spiritualistic writ-
ing's of Arnaldo, which were ordered to be surrendered within ten

days under pain of excommunication. The persecution continued.

Dunin de Baldach was burned as a Spiritual, with a disciple, in 1325.
About the same time John XXII. issued several bulls command-
ing strict inquisition to be made for them throughout Aragon,
Valencia, and the Balearic Isles, and subjecting them to the juris-
diction of the bishops and inquisitors in spite of any privileges or
immunities which they might claim as Franciscans. The heresy,
however, seems never to have obtained any firm foothold on Span-
ish soil. Yet it penetrated even to Portugal, for Alvaro Pelayo
tells us that there were in Lisbon some pseudo-Franciscans who

applauded the doctrine that Peter and his successors had not re-
ceived from Christ the ])Ower which he held on earth.*
* Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1297 c 1-4 (Marteue Ampl. Coll, VII. 305-6),—
86 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
A somewhat different development of the Joachitic element is

seen in the Franciscan Juan de Pera-Tallada or de Rupescissa,

better known perhaps through Froissart as Jean de la Roche-
taillade. As a preacher and missionary he stood pre-eminent, and
his voice was heard from his native Catalonia to distant Moscow.
Somewhat given to occult science, various treatises on alchemy
have been attributed to him, among which Pelayo tells us that
it is difficult to distinguish the genuine from the doubtful. Not
only in this did he follow Arnaldo de Yilanova, but in mercilessly
lashing the corruptions of the Church, and in commenting on the
prophecies of the pseudo-Joachim. No man of this school seemed
able to refrain from indulging in prophecy himself, and Juan
gained wide reputation by predictions which were justified by the
event, such as the battle of Poitiers and the Great Schism. Per-
haps this might have been forgiven had he not also foretold that
the Church would be stripped of the superfluities which it had so
shockingly abused. One metaphor which he employed was largely
quoted. The Church, he said, was a bird born without feathers,
to which all other fowls contributed plumage, which they would
reclaim in consequence of its pride and tyranny. Like the Spirit-
uals he looked fondly back to the primitive days before Constan-
tine, when in holy poverty the foundations of the faith were laid.

He seems to have steered clear of the express heresy as to the pov-

erty of Christ, and when he came to A-vdgnon, in 1349, to proclaim
his views, although several attempts to burn him were ineffectual,
he was promptly thrown into jail. He was " durement grand clerc,^^
and his accusers were unable to convict him, but he was too dan-
gerous a man to be at large, and he was kept in confinement.
When he was Pelayo is cor-
finally hberated is not stated, but if
rect in saying thathe returned home at the age of ninety he must
have been released after a long incarceration.*

—
Eymeric. pp. 265-6.— Rayuakl. ann. 1325, No. 20. Mosheim de Begharclis p.
—
641.— Pelayo, Ileterodoxos Espafioles, I. 777-81, 783. For the fate of Arnaldo
de Vilanova's writings in the Index Expurgatorius, see Reuscli, Der Index der
verboteneu Biicher, I. 33-4. Two of the tracts coudemned in 1316 have been
found, translated into Italian, in a MS. of the Magliabecchian Library, by Prof.
Tocco, who describes them in the Archivio Storico Italiauo, 1886, No. 6, and in'

the Giornale Storico della Lett. Ital. VIII. 3.

* Pelayo, Ileterodoxos Espauoles, I. 500-2.— Jo. de Rupesciss. Vade mecum

 ;

JUAN DE PERA-TALLADA. 87

The ostensible cause of his punishment was his Joachitic spec-

ulation as to Antichrist, though, as Wadding observes, many holy
men did the same without animadversion, like St. Yicente Ferrer,
who in 1412 not only predicted Antichrist, but asserted that he
was already nine years old, and who was canonized, not persecuted.
Milicz of Cremsier also, as we have seen, though persecuted, was
acquitted. Fray Juan's reveries, however, trenched on the borders
of the Everlasting Gospel, although keeping within the bounds of
orthodoxy. In his prison, in November, 1349, he wrote out an
account of a miraculous vision vouchsafed him in 1345, in return
for continued prayer and maceration. Louis of Bavaria was the
Antichrist who would subjugate Europe and Africa in 1366, while
a similar tyrant would arise in Asia. Then would come a schism
with two popes Antichrist would lord it over the whole earth
;

and many heretical sects would arise. After the death of Anti-
christ would follow fifty-five years of war the Jews would be ;

converted, and with the destruction of the kingdom of Antichrist

the Millennium would open. Then the converted Jews would pos-
sess the world, all would be Tertiaries of St. Francis, and the
Franciscans would be models of holiness and poverty. The her-
etics would take refuge in inaccessible mountains and the islands
of the sea, whence they would emerge at the close of the Millen-
nium the second Antichrist would appear and bring a period of
;

great suffering, until fire would fall from heaven and destroy him
and his followers, after which would follow the end of the world
and the Day of Judgment.-
Meditation in prison seems to have modified somewhat his pro-
phetic vision, and in 1356 he wrote his Vade mecum in Trihula-
tlone, in which he foretold that the vices of the clergy would lead
to the speedy spoliation of the Church in six years it would be
;

reduced to a state of apostoHcal poverty, and by 13 TO would com-

mence the process of recuperation which would bring all mankind
under the domination of Christ and of his earthly representative.

(Fascic. Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend. II. 497).— Froissart, Liv. i. P. ii. cb. 124
Liv. III. ch. 27. — Rolewink Fascic. Temp. anu. 1364.— Mag. Cliron. Belgic. (Pis-
torii III. 336).— Meycri Annal. Flandr. ann. 1359. — Heur. Rebdorff. Anaal. aun.
1351.— Paul ^mylii de Reb. Gest. Francor. (Ed. 1569, pp. 491-2).— M. Flac,
Illyr. Cat. Test. Veritat. Lib. xviii. p. 178G (Ed. 1608).
* Wadding, anu. 1357, No. 17.— Pelayo, op. cit. I. 501-3.
88 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
During the interval there would be a succession of the direst calam-
ities. From 1360 to 1365 the worms would arise and
of the earth
destroy all beasts and birds tempest
; and deluge and earthquake,
famine and pestilence and war would sweep away the wicked in ;

1365 Antichrist would come, and such multitudes would apostatize

that but few faithful would be left. His reign would he short,
and in 1370 a pope canonically elected would bring mankind to
Christianity, after which all cardinals would be chosen from the
Greek Church. During these tribulations the Franciscans would
be nearly exterminated, in punishment for their relaxation of the
Rule, but the survivors would be reformed and the Order would
fill the earth, innumerable as the stars of heaven in fact, two ;

Franciscans of the most abject poverty were to be the Elias and

Enoch who would conduct the Church through that disastrous
time. Meanwhile he advised that ample store should be made in
mountain caves of beans and honey, salt meats, and dried fruits by
those who desired to live through the convulsions of nature and soci-
ety. After the death of Antichrist would come the Millennium for ;

seven hundred years, or until about a.d. 2000, mankind would be

virtuous and happy, but then would come a decline existing vices, ;

especially among the clergy, would be revived, preparatory to the

advent of Gog and Magog, to be followed by the final Antichrist.
It shows the sensitiveness of the hierarchy that this harmless
nj^rapholepsy was deemed worthy of severe repression.*
The influence of the Everlasting Gospel was not yet wholly
exhausted. I have alluded above to Thomas of Apulia, who in
1388 insisted on preaching to the Parisians that the reign of the
Holy Ghost had commenced, and that he was the divinely com-
missioned envoy sent to announce it, when his mission was hu-
manely cut short by confining him as a madman. Singularly
identical in all but the result was the career of Nicholas of Buldes-
dorf who, about 1445, proclaimed that God had commanded him to
,

announce that the time of the New Testament had passed away,
as that of the Old had done that the Third Era and Seventh Age
;

of the world had come, under the reign of the Holy Ghost, when
man would be restored to tlie state of primal innocence and that ;

he was the Son of God deputed to spread the glad tidings. To

* Fascic. Rer. Expetencl. et Fugiend. II. 494-508.

 ECHOES OF JOACHITISM. 89

the council still he sent various tracts containing

sitting at Basle
these doctrines, and he finally had the audacity to appear before
it in person. His writings were promptly consigned to the flames
and he Avas imprisoned. Every effort was made to induce him to
recant, but in vain. The Basilian fathers were less considerate of
insanity than the Paris doctors, and Nicholas perished at the stake
in IMG.*
A last echo of the Everlasting Gospel is heard in the teaching
of two brothers, John and Lewin of "Wiirzburg, who in 1466 taught
in Eger that all tribulations were caused by the wickedness of the
clergy. The pope was Antichrist, and the cardinals and prelates
were his members. Indulgences were useless and the ceremonies
of the Church were vanities, but the time of deliverance was at
hand. A man was already born of a virgin, who was the anoint-
ed of Christ and would speedily come with the third Evangel
and bring all the faithful into the fold. The heresy was rapidly
and secretly spreading among the people, when it was discovered
by Bishop Henry of Katisbon. The measures taken for its sup-
pression are not recorded, and the incident is only of interest as
showing how persistently the conviction reappeared that there
must be a final and higher revelation to secure the happiness of
man in this world and his salvation in the next.f

* Fiiesslius neue u. unpartheyische Kircbeu- u. Ketzerhistorie, Frankfurt,! 772,

II. 63-66.
t Chron. Glassberger ann. 1466 (Analecta Franciscana II. 422-6).
 CHAPTER II.

GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.

The spiritual exaltation which produced among the Franciscans

the developments described in the last chapter was by no means
confined to the recognized members of that Order. It manifested
itself ineven more irregular fashion in the little group of sectaries
known as Gughelmites, and in the more formidable demonstration
of the Dolcinists, or ApostoUc Brethren.
About the year 1260 there came to Milan a woman calhng
herself Guglielma. That she brought with her a son shows that
she had lived in the world, and was doubtless tried with its vicissi-
tudes, and as the child makes no further appearance in her history,
he probably died young. She had wealth, and was said to be the
daughter of Constance, queen and wife of the liing of Bohemia,
fler royal extraction is questionable, but the matter is scarce worth
the discussion which it has provoked.* She was a woman of pre-
eminent piety, who devoted herself to good works, mthout prac-
tising special austerities, and she gradually attracted around her a
little band of disciples, to whom such of her utterances as have

been recorded show that she gave wholesome ethical instruction.

* Constance, daughter of Bela III. of Hungary, was second wife of Ottokar I.

of Bohemia, who died in 1230 at the age of eighty. She died in 1240, leaving
three daughters, Agnes, who founded the Franciscan convent of St. Januarius
in Prague, which she entered May 18, 1236; Beatrice, who married Otho the
Pious, of Brandenburg, and Ludomilla, who married Louis I. of Bavaria. Gugli-
elma can scarce have been cither of these (Art de Ver. les Dates, VIIL 17).
Her disciple, Andrea Saramita, testified that after her death he journeyed to
Bohemia to obtain reimljurscment of certain expenses he failed in his errand,
;

but verified her relationship to the royal house of Bohemia (Andrea Ogniben, I
Gugliclmiti del Secolo XIII., Perugia, 1867, pp. 10-11). —On the other hand, a
German contemporary chronicler asserts that she came from England (Annal.
Dominican. Colmariens. aun. 1301 — Urstisii III. 33).
 THE GUGLIELMITES. 91

They adopted the style of plain brown garment which she habitu-
ally wore, and seem to have formed a kind of unorganized congre-
gation, bound together only by common devotion to her,-
At that period it was not easy to set bounds to veneration the ;

spiritual Avorld was felt to be in the closest relation with the ma-
terial, and the development of Joachitism shows how readily re-

ceived were suggestions that a great change was impending, and a

new era about to open for mankind. Guglielma's devotees came
to regard her as a saint, gifted with thaumaturgic power. Some
of her disciples claimed to be miraculously cured by her Dr. —
Giacobbe da Ferno of an ophthalmic trouble, and Albertono de'
Novati of a fistula. Then it was said that she had received the
supereminent honor of the Stigmata, and although those who pre-
pared her body for the grave could not see them, this was held to
be owing to their unworthiness. It was confidently predicted
that she would convert the Jews and Saracens, and bring all man-
kind into unity of faith. At last, about 1276, some of the more
enthusiastic disciples began to whisper that she was the incarna-
—
tion of the Holy Ghost, in female form the Third Person of the
Trinity, as Christ was of the Second, in the shape of a man. She
was very God and very man it was not alone the body of Christ
;

which suffered in the Passion, but also that of the Holy Ghost, so
that her flesh was the same as that of Christ. The originators of
this strange belief seem to have been Andrea Saramita, a man of
standing in Milan, and Suor Maifreda di Pirovano, an Umiliata of
the ancient convent of Biassono, and a cousin of Matteo Yisconti.
There is no probability that Gughelma countenanced these absurd
stories. Andrea Saramita was the only v/itness who asserted that
he had them from her direct, and he had a few days before testified
to the contrary. The other immediate disciples of Guglielma stated
that she made no pretensions to any supernatural character. AVhen
people would ask her to cure them or relieve them of trouble she
would say, " Go, I am not God." When told of the strange beliefs
entertained of her she strenuously asserted that she was only a
miserable woman and a vile worm. Marchisio Secco, a monk of
Chiaravalle, testified that he had had a dispute with Andrea on
the subject, and they agreed to refer it to her, when she indig-

Ogniben, op. cit. pp. 56, 73-5, 103-4.

92 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
nantly replied that she was flesh and bone, that she had brought
a son with her to Milan, and that if they did not do penance for
nttering such words they would be condemned to hell. Yet, to
minds familiar with the promises of the Everlasting Gospel, it
might weU seem that the era of the Holy Ghost would be ushered
in with such an incarnation.*
Guglielma died August 24, 1381, leaving her property to the
great Cistercian house of Chiaravalle, near Milan, where she de-
sired to be buried. There was war at the time between Milan and
Lodi the roads were not safe, and she was temporarily interred in
;

the city, while Andrea and Dionisio Cotta went to the Marquis of
Montf errat to ask for an escort of troops to accompany the cortege.
The translation of the body took place in October, and was con-
ducted with great splendor. The Cistercians welcomed the oppor-
tunity to add to the attractions and revenues of their establish-
ment. At that period the business of exploiting new saints was
exceedingly profitable, and was prosecuted with corresponding
energy. Salimbene complains bitterly of it in referring to a
speculation made in 1279, at Cremona, out of the remains of a
drunken vintner named Alberto, whose cult brought crowds of
devotees -with offerings, to the no small gain of all concerned.
Such things, as we have seen in the case of Armanno Pongilupo
and others, were constantly occurring, though Sahmbene declares
that the canons forbade the veneration of any one, or picturing
him as a saint, until the Koman Church had authoritatively passed
upon his claims. In this Salimbene was mistaken. Zanghino
Ugolini, a much better authority, assures us that the worshij) of
uncanonized saints was not heretical,if it were beheved that their

miracles were worked by God at their intercession, but if it were

believed that they were worked by the relics without the assent
of God, then the Inquisition could intervene and punish but so ;

lonir as a saint was uncanonized his cult was at the discretion of

the bishop, who could at any time command its cessation, and the

• Ognibcn, op. cit. pp. 12, 20-1, 35-7, 69, 70, 74, 76, 83, 84-6, 101, 104-6, 116.
Dr. Andrea Ogniben, to whom we are indebted for the publication of the
fragmentary remains of the trial of the Guglielmites, thinks that Maifreda di
Pirovano was a cousin of Matteo Visconti, through his mother, Anastasia di
Pirovano (op. cit. p. 23). The Continuation of Nangis calls her his half-sister
(Guillel. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1317).
 THE GUGLIELMITES. 93

mere fact that miracles were performed was no evidence, as they

are frequently the work of demons to deceive the faithful.'"'
In this case the Archbishop of Milan offered no interference,
and the worship of Guglielma was soon firmly established. A
month after the translation Andrea had the body exhumed and
carried into the church, where he washed it with wine and water
and arrayed it in a splendid embroidered robe. The washings
were carefully preserved, to be used as a chrism for the sick they ;

were placed on the altar of the nunnery of Biassono, and Maifreda

employed them in anointing the affected parts of those who came
to be healed. Presently a chapel with an altar arose over her
tomb, and tradition still points out at Chiaravalle the little oratory
where she is said to have lain, and a portrait on the wall over the
vacant tomb is asserted to be hers. It represents her as kneeling
before the Virgin, to whom she is presented by St. Bernard, the
patron of the abbey ; a crowd of other figures is around her, and
the whole indicates that those who dedicated it to her represented
her as merely a saint, and not as an incarnation of the Godhead.
Another picture of her was placed by Dionisio Cotta in the
Church of St. JMaria fuori di Porta Nuova, and two lamps were
kept burning before it to obtain her suffrage for the soul of his
brother interred there. Other pictures were hung in the Church
of S. Eufemia and nunnery of Biassono. In all this the good
in the
monks of Chiaravalle were not remiss. They kept lighted lamps
before her altar. Two feast-days were assigned to her the anni- —
versaries of her death and of her translation when the devotees —
would assemble at the abbey, and the monks would furnish a
simple banquet, outside of the walls —for the Cistercian rules for-
bade the profanation of a woman's presence within the sacred
—
enclosure and some of the monlvs would discourse eloquently upon
the saintliness of Guglielma, comparing her to other saints and to
the moon and stars, and receiving such oblations as the piety of
the worsliippers would offer. Nor was this the only gain to the
abbey. Giacobbe de' Novati, one of the beUevers, belonged to one
of the noblest famihes of Milan, and at his castle the Guglielmites

* Ogniben, op. cit. pp. 30,44, 115.— Saliinbeue Chronica, pp. 274-6.— Chron.
Parmens. ann. 1279 (Muratori S. R. I. IX. 791-2).— Zancliini Tract, de Ha^ret. c.
94 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
were wont to assemble. When he died he instituted the abbey
as his heir, and the inheritance could not have been inconsider-
able. There were, doubtless, other instances of similar liberality
of which the evidences have not reached us.*
All this was innocent enough, but within the circle of those
who worshipped Guglielma there was a little band of initiated
who believed in her as the incarnation of the Holy Ghost. The
history of the Joachites has shown us the readiness which existed
to look upon Christianity as a temporary phase of religion, to
be shortly succeeded by the reign of the Holy Ghost, when the
Church of Kome would give place to a new and higher organiza-
tion. It was not difficult, therefore, for the Guglielmites to per-
suade themselves that they had enjoyed the society of the Para-
clete, who was shortly to appear, when would be
the Holy Spirit
received in tongues of flame by the disciples, the heathen and the
Jew would be converted, and there would be a new church usher-
ing in the era of love and blessedness, for which man had been
sighing through the weary centuries. Of this doctrine Andrea
was chief apostle. He claimed to be the first and only spiritual
son of Guglielma, from whom he had received the revelation, and
he embroidered it to suit the creduhty of the disciples. The Arch-
angel Kaphael had announced to the blessed Constance the incar-
nation in her of the Holy Ghost a year afterwards, Guglielma
;

was born on the holy day of Pentecost she had chosen the form
;

of a woman, for if she had come as man she would have died like
Christ, and the whole world would have perished. On one occa-
sion, in her chamber, she had changed a chair into an ox, and had
told him to hold it if he could, but when he attempted to do so it
disappeared. The same indulgences were obtainable by visiting
her tomb at Chiaravalle as by a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre.
"Wafers which had been consecrated by laying them on the tomb
were eagerly partaken of by the disciples, as a new form of com-
munion. Besides the two regular feast-days, there was a third for
the initiated, significantly held on Pentecost, the day when she
was expected to reappear. Meanwhile, the devotion of the faith-
ful was stimulated by stories of her being in communication with

* O.n^niben, op. cit. pp. 20-1, 25-6, 31, 36, 49-50, 56-7, 61, 72-3, 74, 93-4, 104,
lie. — Tamburiui, Storia dell' luquisizione, II. 17-18.
 THE GUGLIELMITES. 95

her representatives, both in her own form and in that of a dove.

How was the evidence required for behevers was seen in an
slight
incident which gave them great comfort in 1293. At a banquet
in the house of Giacobbe da Ferno, a warm discussion arose be-
tween those who doubted and those whose convictions were
decided. Carabella, wife of Amizzone Toscano, one of the earnest
behevers, was sitting on her mantle, and when she arose she found
three knots in the cords which had not been there before. This
vras at once pronounced a great miracle, and was evidently re-
garded as a full confirmation of the truth.*
If it were not for the tragedy which followed there would be
nothing to render Gugliehnitism other than a jest, for the Church
which was to replace the massive structure of Latin Christianity
was as ludicrous in its conception as these details of its faith. The
Gospels were to be replaced by sacred writings produced by An-
drea, of w^iich he had already prepared several, in the names of
—
some of the initiated " The Epistle of Sibilia to the Novaresi,"
" The Prophecy of Carmeo the Prophet to all Cities and Kations,"
and an account of Guglielma's teachings commencing, " In that
time the Holy Ghost said to his disciples." Maifreda also com-
posed litanies of the Holy Ghost and prayers for the use of the
Church. When, on the second advent of Guglielma, the papacy
was to pass away, Maifreda was to become pope, the vicar of the
Holy Ghost, with the keys of heaven and heU, and baptize the
Jew and the Saracen. A new college of cardinals was to be formed,
of whom only one appears to have been selected a girl named —
Taria, who, to judge from her answers w^hen before the Inquisi-
tion, and the terms of contempt in which she is alluded to by some
of the sect, was a worthy representative of the w^hole absurd
scheme. While awaiting her exaltation to the papacy Maifreda
was the object of special veneration. The disciples kissed her
hands and feet, and she gave them her blessing. It was jDrobably
the spiritual excitement caused by the jubilee proclaimed hy Boni-
face YIII., attracting pilgrims to Eome by the hundred thousand
to gain the proffered indulgences, which led the Guglielmites to
name the Pentecost of 1300 for the advent of the Holy Ghost.
With a curious manifestation of materialism, tlie worshippers pre-

Ognibeu,op. cit. pp. 21,25,30,36,55,70^72,96,101,

 —
96 GUGLIELMA AJSTD DOLCINO.
pared splendid garments for the adornment of the expected God
a purple mantle with a silver clasp costing thirty pounds of ter-
zioh, gold-embroidered silks and gilt slippers —
while Pietra de' Al-
zate contributed forty -two dozen pearls, and Catella de' Giorgi
gave an ounce of pearls. In preparation for her new and holy
functions, Maifreda undertook to celebrate the mysteries of the
mass. During the solemnities of Easter, in sacerdotal vestments,
she consecrated the host, while Andrea in a dalmatic read the
Gospel, and she administered communion to those present. "When
should come the resurrection of Guglielma, she was to repeat the
ceremony in S. Maria Maggiore, and the sacred vessels were al-
ready prepared for this, on an extravagant scale, costing more
than two hundred lire.*
The sums thus lavished show that the devotees belonged to
the wealthy class. "What is most noteworthy, in fact, in the whole
story, is that a belief so absurd should have found acceptance
among men of culture and inteUigence, showing the spirit of un-
rest that was abroad, and the readiness to accept any promise,
however wild, of relief from existing evils. There were few more
prominent families in Milan than the Garbagnati, who were Ghibel-
lines and closely allied with the Visconti. Gasparo Garbagnate
filled many positions of importance, and though his name does not

appear among the sectaries, his wife Benvenuta was one of them,
as well as his two sons, Ottorino and Francesco, and Bella, the
wife of Giacobbe. Francesco was a man of mark as a diplomat
and a lawyer. Sent by Matteo Yisconti in 1309 on a mission to
the Emperor Henry "VII., he won high favor at the imperial court
and obtained the objects for which he had been despatched. He
ended his career as a professor of jurisprudence in the renowned
University of Padua. Yet this man, presumably learned and cool-
headed, was an ardent disciple, who purchased gold-embroidered
silks for the resurrection of Guglielma, and composed prayers in
her honor. One of the crimes for which Matteo was condemned
in 1323 by the Inquisition was retaining in his service this Fran-
cesco Garbagnate, who had been sentenced to wear crosses for his
participation in the Guglielmite heresy and when John XXIL, in
;

* Ognibcn, op. cit. pp. 17, 20, 23, 23, 30, 34, 37, 40, 42, 47, 54, 63, 72, 80, 90,
94. 96.
 7

THE GUGLIELMITES. 97

1324, confirmed the sentence, he added that Matteo had terrorized

the inquisitors to save his son Galeazzo, who was also a Gughel-
mite.*
When the heresy became known popular rumor of course at-
tributed to it the customary practices of indiscriminate sexual in-
dulgence which were ascribed to all deviations from the faith.
In the legend which was handed down by tradition there appears
the same story as to its discovery which we have seen told at
Cologne about the Brethren of the Free Spirit of the husband —
tracking his wife to the nocturnal rendezvous, and thus learning
the obscene practices of the sect. In this case the hero of the
tale is Corrado Coppa, whose wife Giacobba was an earnest be-
liever, f It is sufficient to say that the official reports of the trial,

in so far as they have reached us, contain no allusions whatever

to any licentious doctrines or practices. wasted The inquisitors
no time on inquiries in that direction, showing that they knew
there was nothing of the kind to reward investigation.
Numerically speaking, the sect was insignificant. It is men-
tioned that on one occasion, at a banquet in honor of Gugliehna,
given by the monks of Chiaravalle, there were one hundred and
twenty -nine persons present, but these doubtless included many
who only reverenced her as a saint. The inner circle of the ini-
tiated was apparently much smaller. The names of those incul-
pated in the confessions before the Inquisition amount only to
about thirty, and it is fair to assume that the number of the sec-
taries at no time exceeded thirty-five or forty.:}:
It is not to be supposed that this could go on for nearly twenty
years and wholly escape the vigilance of the Milanese inquisitors.
In 1284, but a few years after GugHelma's death, two of the dis-
ciples, Allegranza and Carabella, incautiously revealed the myste-
ries of their faith to Belfiore, mother of Fra Enrico di Nova, who

at once conveyed it to the inquisitor, Fra Manfredo di Donavia.

Andrea was forthwith summoned, with his wife Riccadona, his
sister, Migliore, and his daughter, FiordebeUina also Maifreda, ;

* Ogniben, op. cit. pp. G5-7, 83-4, 90-1, 110.— Ughelli, T. IV. pp. 286-93 (Ed.
1652).— Raynald. ann. 1334, No. 7-11.
t Philip. Bergomat. Supplem. Chrou. ann. 1398. —Bern. Corio Hist. Milanes.
ann. 1300.

I Ogniben, op. cit. pp. 1, 2, 34, 74, 110.— Tamburini, op. cit. U. 67-8.
III.—
98 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
Bellacara de' Carentani, Giacobba dei Bassani, and possibly some
others. They and were treated with exceptional
readily abjured
mildness, for Fra Manfredo absolved them by striking them over
the shoulders with a stick, as a symbol of the scourging which as
penitents they had incurred. He seems to have attached httle
importance to the matter, and not to have compelled them to
reveal their accomplices. Again, in 1295 and 1296, there was an
investigation made by the Inquisitor Fra Tommaso di Como, of
which no details have reached us, but which evidently left the
leaders unharmed.*
We do not know what called the attention of the Inquisition to
the sect in the spring of 1300, but we may conjecture that the ex-
pected resurrection of Guglielma at the coming Pentecost, and the
preparations made for that event, caused an agitation among the
disciples leading possibly to incautious revelations. About Easter
(April 10) the inquisitors summoned and examined Maifreda, Gia-
cobba dei Bassani, and possibly some others, but without result.
Apparently, however, they were watched, secret information was
gathered, and in July the Holy Office was ready to strike effec-
tively. On July 18 a certain Fra Ghirardo presented himself to
Lanfranco de' Amizzoni and revealed the whole affair, with the
names of the principal disciples. Andrea sought him out and en-
deavored to learn what he had said, but was merely told to look
to himself, for the inquisitors were making many threats. On the
20th Andrea was summoned his assurances that he had never
;

heard that Guglielma was regarded as more than an ordinary

saint were apparently accepted, and he was dismissed with or-
ders to return the next day and meanwhile to preserve absolute
secrecy.f
Andrea and Maifreda were thoroughly frightened they begged ;

the disciples, if called before the inquisitors, to preserve silence

with regard to them, as otherwise they could not escape death.
It is a pecuhar illustration of the recognized hostility between the
two Mendicant Orders that the first impulse was to seek assist-
ance from the Franciscans. No sooner were the citations issued
than Andrea, with the Doctor Beltramo da Ferno, one of the ear-

• Ognibeu, pp. 14, 23, 33, 36, 39, 60, 72, 101, 110, 114.

t Ibid. pp. 13, 30-33, 39.

 —
THE GUGLIELMITES, 99

went to the Franciscan convent, where they learned

nest believers,
from Fra Daniele da Ferno that Fra Guidone de Cocchenato and
the rest of the inquisitors had no power to act, as their commis-
sions had been annulled by the pope, and that Fra Pagano di Pie-
tra Santa had a bull to that effect. Some intrigue would seem to
be behind this, which it would be interesting to disentangle, for
we meet here with old acquaintances. Fra Guidone is doubtless
the same inquisitor whom we have seen in 1279 participating in
the punishment of Corrado da Yenosta, and Fra Pagano has come
before us as the subject of a prosecution for heresy in 1295. Pos-
sibly it was this which now stimulated his zeal against the inquisi-
when the Guglielmites called upon him the next day he
tors, for
produced the bull and urged them to appear, and thus afford him
evidence that the inquisitors were discharging their functions
evidence for which he said that he would willingly give twenty-
five lire. It is a striking proof of the impenetrable secrecy in
which the operations of the Inquisition were veiled that he had
been anxiously and vainly seeking to obtain testimony as to who
were really discharging the duties of the tribunal when, latterly,
;

a heretic had been burned at Balsemo he had sent thither to find

out who had rendered the sentence, but was unable to do so.
Then the Guglielmites appHed to the Abbot of Chiaravalle and to
one of his monks, Marchisio di Veddano, himself suspected of Gug-
lielmitism. These asked to have a copy of the bull, and one was
duly made by a notary and given to them, which they took to the
Archbishop of Milan at Cassano, and asked him to place the in-
vestigation of the matter in their hands. He promised to inter-
vene, but if was probably met
he did so he with the information,
which had been speedily elicited from the culprits, that they held
Boniface VIII. not to be pope, and consequently that the arch-
bishop whom he had created was not archbishop. Either in this
or in some other way the prelate's zeal was refrigerated, and he
offered no opposition to the proceedings.*

* Ogniben, pp. 21, 40, 42, 78-9.

Dionese de' Novati deposed that Maifreda was in the habit of saying
(p. 93)
that Boniface was not and that another pontiff had been created.
truly pope,
We have seen that the Spiritual Franciscans had gone through the form of
electing a new pope. There was not much in common between them and the
Guglielmites, and yet this would point to some relations as existing.
100 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
The Inquisition was well manned, for, besides Fra Guidone,
whose age and experience seem to have rendered him the leading
actor in the tragedy, and Lanf ranco, who took little part in it, we
meet with a third and in their
inquisitor, Rainerio di Pirovano,
absence they are replaced with deputies, Niccolo di Como, Mccolo
di Yarenna, and Leonardo da Bergamo, They pushed the matter
with relentless energy. That torture was freely used there can
be no doubt. No conclusion to the contrary can be drawn from
the absence of allusion to it in the depositions of the accused, for
this is customary. Not only do the
historians of the affair speak
without reserve of its employment, but the character of the suc-
cessive examinations of the leading culprits indicates it unerring-
—
ly the confident asseverations at first of ignorance and innocence,
followed, after a greater or less interval, with unreserved confes-
sion. This is especially notable in the cases of those who had
abjured in 1284, such as Andrea, Maifreda, and Giacobba, who,
as relapsed, knew that by admitting their persistent heresy they
were condemning themselves to the flames Avithout hope of mercy,
and who therefore had nothing to gain by confession, except ex-
emption from repetition of torment.*
The documents are too imperfect for us to reconstruct the proc-
ess and ascertain the fate of all of those implicated. In Langue-
doc, after all the evidence had been taken, there would have been
an assembly held in which their sentences would have been deter-
mined, and at a solemn Sermo these would have been promul-
gated, and the stake would have received its victims. Much less
formal were the proceedings at Milan. The only sentence of which
we have a record was rendered August 23 in an assembly where
the archbishop sat with the inquisitors and Matteo Yisconti ap-
pears among the assessors and in this the only judgment was on
;

Suor Giacobba dei Bassani, who, as a relapsed, was necessarily

handed over to the secular arm for burning. It would seem that

* Compare Andrea's first examination, July 20 (Oguiben, op. cit. pp. 8-13),
and his second, Aug. 10 (pp. 5G-7), with his defiant assertion of his belief, Aug.
13 (pp. 68-72). So, Maifreda's first interrogatory, July 31 (pp. 23-6), with her
confession, Aug. 6, and revelation of the names of her worshippers (pp. 33-5).
Also, Giacobba dei Bassani's denial, Aug. 3, and confession, Aug. 11 (p. 39). It

is the same with those not relapsed. Sec Suor Agnese dei Montanari's flat de-
nial, Aug. 3, and her confession, Aug. 11 (pp. 37-8).
 THE GUGLIELMITES. 101
even before this Ser Mirano di Garbagnate, a priest deeply impli-
cated, had been burned. Andrea was executed probably between
September 1 and 9, and Maifreda about the same time but we —
know nothing about the date of the other executions, or of the
exhumation and cremation of Gughelma's bones while the exam- —
inations of other disciples continued until the middle of October.
Another remarkable peculiarity is that for the minor penalties
the inquisitors called in no experts and did not even consult the
archbishop, but acted wholly at their own discretion, a single
frate absolving or penancing each individual as he saw fit. The
Lombard Inquisition apparently had little deference for the epis-
copate, even of the Ambrosian Church.*
Yet the action was remarkable
of the Inquisition for its mild-
ness, especially when we consider the revolutionary character of
the heresy. The number of those absolutely burned cannot be
definitely stated, butit probably did not exceed four or five.

These were the survivors of those who had abjured in 1284, for
whom, as relapsed and obstinate heretics, there could be no mercy
The rest were allowed to escape with penalties remarkably fight.
Thus Sibiha Malcolzati had been one of the most zealous of the
sect ; in her early examinations she had resolutely perjured her-
self,and it had cost no little trouble to make her confess, j'-et
when, on October 6, she appeared before Fra Eainerio and begged
to be relieved from the excommunication which she had incurred,
he was moved by her prayers and assented, on the ordinary con-
ditions that she would stand to the orders of the Church and
Inquisition, and perform the obligations laid upon her. Still more
remarkable is the leniency with which two sisters, CateUa and
Pietra Oldegardi, were treated, for Fra Guidone absolved them on
their abjuring their heresy, contenting himself with simply refer-
ring them to their confessors for the penance which they vrere to
perform. The severest punishment recorded for any except the
relapsedwas the wearing of crosses, and these, imposed in Sep-
tember and October, were commuted in December for a fine of
twenty-five lire, paj^able in February —
showing that confiscation
was not a part of the penalty. Even Taria, the expectant cardinal
of the 'New Dispensation, was thus penanced and relieved. Im-

* Ogniben, pp. 19-20, 77, 91.

102 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
mediately after Andrea's execution an examination of his wife II
Riccadona, as to the furniture in her house and the wine in her
cellar,shows that the Inquisition was prompt in looking after the
confiscations of those condemned to death and the fragment of ;

an interrogatory, February 12, 1302, of Marchisio Secco, a monk

of Chiaravalle, indicates that it was involved in a struggle with
the abbey to compel the refunding of the bequest of Guglielma,
as the heresy for which she had been condemned, of course, ren-
dered void all dispositions of her property. How this resulted we
have no means of knowing, but we may feel assured that the ab-
bey was forced to submit indeed, the complicity of the monks
;

with the heretics was so clearly indicated that we may wonder

none of their names appear in the lists of those condemned.*
Thus ended this little episode of heresy, of no importance in
its origin or results, but curious from the gUmpse which it affords

into the spiritual aberrations of the time, and the procedure of

the Lombard Inquisition, and noteworthy as a rare instance of
inquisitorial clemency.f

Ognibcn, pp. 42^, 63, 67-8, 81-2, 91-2, 95-6, 97, 100, 110, 113, 115-16-.
*

such as those of the Guglielmites, are not to be

t Spiritual eccentricities,
re""ardecl as peculiar to any age or any condition of civilization. The story of
Joanna Southcote is well known, and the Southcottian Church maintained its

existence in London until the middle of the present century. In July, 1886, the
American journals reported the discovery, in Cincinnati, of a sect even more
closely approximating to the Guglielmites, and about as numerous, calling them-
selves Perfectionists, and believing in two married sisters —
a Mrs. IMartin as an
incarnation of God, and a Mrs. Brooke as that of Christ. Like their predeces-
sors in Milan the sect is by no means confined to the illiterate, but comprises
people of intelligence and culture who have abandoned all worldly occupation
in the expectation of the approaching Millennium —
the final era of the Ever-
lastinf Gospel. The exposure for a time broke up the
sect, of which some mem-

bers departed, while others, with the two sisters, joined a Methodist church.
Their faith was not shaken, however, and in June, 1887, the church expelled
them after an investigation. One of the charges against them was that they
held the Church of the present day to be Babylon and the abomination of the
earth. England has also recently liad a similar experience in a peasant woman
of not particularly moral life who for some fifteen years, until her death, Sep-
tember 18, 188G, was regarded by her followers as a new incarnation of Christ.
Iler own definition of herself was, " I am the second appearing and incarnation
of Jesus, the Christ of God, the Bride, the Lamb's Wife, the God-Mother and
Saviour, Life from Heaven," etc., etc. She signed herself "Jesus, First and
 GHERARDO SEGARELLI. 103

About the time when Guglielma settled in Milan, Parma wit-

nessed the commencement of another abnormal development of
the great Franciscan movement. The stimulus which monachism
had received from the success of the Mendicant Orders, the exal-
tation of poverty into the greatest of virtues, the recognition of
beggary as the holiest mode of life, render it difficult to apportion
between yearnings for spiritual perfection and the attractions of
idleness and vagabondage in a temperate climate the responsibil-
ity for the numerous associations which arose in imitation of the
Mendicants. The prohibition of unauthorized religious orders by
the Lateran Council was found impossible of enforcement. Men
would herd together with more or less of organization in caves
and hermitages, in the streets of cities, and in abandoned dwell-
ings and churches by the roadsides. The Carmelites and Augus-
tinian hermits won recognition after a long struggle, and became
established Orders, forming, with the Franciscans and Dominicans,
the four Mendicant rehgions. Others, less reputable, or more
independent in spirit, were condemned, and when they refused
to disband they were treated as rebels and heretics. In the ten-
sion of the spiritual atmosphere, any man who would devise and
put in practice a method of life assimilating him most nearly to
the brutes would not fail to find admirers and followers and, if ;

he possessed capacity for command and organization, he could

readily mould them into a confraternity and become an object of
veneration, with an abundant supply of offerings from the pious.
The year 1260 was that in which, according to Abbot Joachim,
the era of the Holy Ghost was to open. The spiritual excitement
Avhich pervaded the population was seen in the outbreak of the
Flagellants, which filled northern Italy with processions of peni-
tents scourging themselves, and in the mutual forgiveness of inju-
ries, which brought an interval of peace to a distracted land. In
such a condition of public feeUng, gregarious enthusiasm is easily
directed to whatever responds to the impulse of the moment, and

Last, Mary Ann Girling." At one time her sect numbered a hundred and sev-
enty-fivemembers, some of them rich enough to make it considerable donations,
but under the petty persecution of tlie populace it dwindled latterly to a few,
and finally dispersed. Aberrations of this nature belong to no special stage of
intellectual development. The only advance made in modem times is in the
method of dealing with them.
 ! !

104 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.

the self -mortification of a youth of Parma, called Gherardo Sega-
relli, found abundant imitators. Of low extraction, uncultured
and he had vainly applied for admission into the Franciscan
stupid,
Order. Denied this, he passed his days vacantly musing in the
Franciscan church. The beatitude of ecstatic abstraction, carried
to the point of the annihilation of consciousness, has not been con-
fined to the Tapas and Samadhi of the Brahman and Buddhist.
The monks of Mt. Athos, known as Umbilicani from their pious
contemplation of their navels, knew it well, and Jacopone da Todi
shows that its dangerous raptures were familiar to the zealots of
the tune.* Segarelli, however, was not so lost to external im-
pressions but that he remarked in the scriptural pictures which
adorned the walls the representations of the apostles in the habits
which art has assigned to them. The conception grew upon him
that the apostolic hf e and vestment would form the ideal religious
existence, superior even to that of the Franciscans which had been
denied to him. As a preliminary, he sold his little property then, ;

mounting the tribune in the Piazza, he scattered the proceeds among

the idlers sunning themselves there, who forthwith gambled it
away with ample floods of blasphemy. Imitating literally the
career of Christ, he had himself circumcised then, enveloped in ;

swaddUng clothes, he was rocked in a cradle and suckled by a

woman. His apprenticesliip thus completed, he embarked on the
career of an apostle, letting hair and beard grow, enveloped in a
white mantle, with the Franciscan cord around his waist, and san-
dals on his feet. Thus accoutred he wandered through the streets
of Parma crying at intervals " Penitenzagite^'' which was his igno-
rant rendering of Penitentiam agiteP^ the customar}^ call to
'•'
—
repentance.f
For a while he had no imitators. In search of disciples he wan-
dered to the neighboring village of Collechio, where, standing at
the roadside, he shouted " Enter my vineyard !" The passers-by
who knew his crazy ways paid no attention to him, but strangers
took his call to be an invitation to help themselves from the
* " O glorioso stare Annichilarsi bene
lu nihil quietato Non & potere bumano
!"
Lo' intelletto posato Anzi fe virtii divina
E Faflfetto dormire
(^omba, La Riforma in Italia, I. 310.)

^t Salimbene, pp. 112-13.

 THE APOSTOLIC BRETHREN. 105

ripening grapes of an adjacent vineyard, which they accordingly

stripped. At length he was joined by a certain Eobert, a servant
of the Franciscans, who, as Salimbene informs us, was a liar and
a thief, too lazy to work, who flourished for a while in the sect as
Fra Glutto, and who finally apostatized and married a female her-
mit. Gherardo and Glutto wandered through the streets of Parma
in their white mantles and sandals, calling the people to repent-
ance. They gathered associates, and the number rapidly grew to ^

three hundred. They obtained a house in which to eat and sleep,^

and lacked for nothing, for alms came pouring in upon them more \
hberally than on the regular Mendicants. These latter wondered J
greatly, for the self-styled Apostles gave nothing in return they —
could not preach, or hear confessions, or celebrate mass, and did
not even pray for their benefactors. They were mostly ignorant
peasants, swineherds and cowherds, attracted by an idle life which 1
was rewarded with ample victuals and popular veneration. When
gathered together in their assemblies they would gaze vacantly
on Segarelli and repeat at intervals in honor of him, "Father!
Father! Father!"*
When the Council of L3'ons, in 1274, endeavored to control the
pest of these unauthorized mendicant associations, it did not chs-
perse them, but contented itself with prohibiting the reception of \
future members, in the expectation that they would thus gradu- /
aUy become extinguished. This was easily eluded by the Apostles,
who, when a neophyte desired to join them, would lay before him
a habit and say, " We do not dare to receive you, as this is pro-
hibited to us, but it is not prohibited to you do as you think fit."
;

Thus, in spite of papal commands, the Order increased and mul-

tiphed, as we are told, beyond computation. In 1284 we hear of "N
seventy-two postulants in a body passing through Modena and '

Reggio to Parma to be adopted b}^ Segarelh, and a few days after- ;|

wards twelve young girls came on the same errand, wrapped in /
their mantles and styling themselves Apostolesses. Imitating I

Dominic and Francis, Segarelli sent his followers throughout Eu-/

rope and beyond seas to evangelize the world. They penetrated \
^
far, for already in 1287 we find the Council of Wiirzburg stigma-

tizing the wandering Apostles as tramps, and forbidding any one

Salimbene, pp. 114-16.

 106 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
to give them food on account of their religious aspect and unusual
dress. Pedro de Lugo (Galicia), who abjured before the Inquisition
of Toulouse in 1322, testified that he had been inducted in the sect
twenty years previous by Richard, an Apostle from Alessandria in
Lombardy, who was busily spreading the heresy beyond Compos-
tella.*
by the brethren for Sega-
IS'otwithstanding the veneration felt
rellihe steadily refused to assume the headship of the Order, say-
ing that each must bear his own burden. Had he been an active
organizer, with the material at his disposition, he might have given
the Church much trouble, but he was inert and indisposed to aban-
don his contemplative self-indulgence. He seems to have hesitated
somewhat form which the association should assume, and
as to the
consulted Alberto of Parma, one of the seven notaries of the curia,
whether they should select a superior. Alberto referred him to
the Cistercian Abbot of Fontanaviva, who advised that they should
not found houses, but should continue to wander over the land
wrapped in their mantles, and they would not fail of shelter by
the charitable. Segarelli was nothing loath to follow his counsel,
but a more energetic spirit was found in Guidone Putagi, brother
of the Podesta of Bologna, who entered the Order with his sister
TrijDia. Finding that Segarelli would not govern, he seized com-
mand and for many years conducted affairs, but he gave offence
by abandoning the poverty which was the essence of the associa-
y many
tion. He lived splendidly, we are told, with horses, lavish-
ing money like a cardinal or papal legate, till the brethren grew
tiredand elected Matteo of Ancona as his successor. This led to
a spht. Guidone retained possession of the person of Segarelli,
and carried him to Faenza. Matteo's followers came there and
endeavored to seize Segarelli by force the two parties came to
;

blows and the Anconitans were defeated. Guidone, however, was

so much alarmed for his safety that he left the Apostles and joined
the Templars.f
Bishop Opizo of Parma, a nephew of Innocent TV., had a liking

* Concil. Lugclun. ann. 1274 c. 23.— Salimbene^ pp. 117, 119, 329-30.— Cou-
ci.l. Ilerbipolens. anu. 1287 (Ilarcluin, VII. 1141).-|-Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolosan.
p. 360.;

t ^ilimbcne, pp. 114-16.

 THE APOSTLES PERSECUTED. 107
,' for Segarelli, and for his sake protected the Apostles, which serves
( to account for their uninterrupted growth. In 1286, however,
three of the brethren misbehaved flagrantly at Bologna, and were
summarily hanged by the podesta. This seems to have drawn at-
tention to the sectaries, for about the same time Honorius TV.

I
issued a bull especially directed against them. They were com-
manded abandon their pecuhar vestments and enter some recog-
to
nized order prelates were required to enforce obedience by im-
;

prisonment, with recourse, if necessary, to the secular arm, and the

faithful at large were ordered not to give them alms or hospitaUty.
The Order was thus formally proscribed. Bishop Opizo hastened
to obey. He banished the brethren from his diocese and impris-
oned SegarelU in chains, but subsequently relenting kept him in
his palace as a jester, for when filled with wine the Apostle could
be amusing.*
For some years we hear little of Segarelli and his disciples.
The papal condemnation discouraged them, but it received scant
obedience. Their numbers may have diminished, and public charity
may have been to some extent withdrawn, but they were still nu-
merous, they continued to wear the white mantle, and to be sup-
ported in their wandering life. The best evidence that the bull of
Honorius failed in its purpose is the fact that in 1291 JSTicholas IV.
I

^ deemed its reissue necessary. They were now in open antagonism

—
to the Holy See rebels and schismatics, rapidly ripening into her-
etics, and fair subjects of persecution. Accordingly, in 1494, we
— —
hear of four of them two men and two women burned at Parma,
and of Segarelli's condemnation to perpetual imprisonment by
Bishop Opizo. There is also an allusion to an earnest missionary
of the sect, named Stephen, dangerous on account of the eloquence
of his preaching, who was burned by the Inquisition. Segarelli had
saved his life by abjuration possibly after a few years he may
;

have been released, but he did not abandon his errors the Inquisi-;

tor of Parma, Fra Manf redo, convicted him as a relapsed heretic,

I

;
and he was burned in Parma in 1300. An active persecution fol-
lowed of his disciples. Many were apprehended by the Inquisition

* Salimbene, pp. 117, 371.— Mag. Bull. Rom. 1. 158.— At the same time Hono-
rius approved the Orders of the Carmelites and of St. William of the Desert
(Raynald. ann. 1286, No. 36, 37).
 108 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
and subjected to various punishments, until Parma congratulated
itseK that the heresy was fairly stamped out.*
Persecution, as usual, had the immediate effect of scattering
the heretics, of confirming them in the faith, and of developing
the heresy into a more decided antagonism towards the Church.
Segarelli's disciples were not all ignorant peasants. In Tuscany a
Franciscan of high reputation for sanctity and learning was in secret
an active missionary, and endeavored even to win over Ubertino
da Casale. Ubertino led him on and then betrayed him, and when
we are told that he was forced to reveal his followers, we may as-
sume that he Avas subjected to the customary inquisitorial proc-
esses. This points to relationship between the Apostles and the
disaffected Franciscans, and the indication is strengthened by the
anxiety of the Spirituals to disclaim all connection. The Apostles
were deeply tinged with Joachitism, and the Spirituals endeavor
to hide the fact by attributing their errors to Joachim's detested
Amaury. The Conventuals, in fact,
heretic imitator, the forgotten
did not omit this damaging method of attack, and in the contest
before Clement Y. the Spirituals were obhged to disavow all con-
nection with Dolcinism.f
We know nothing of any peculiar tenets taught by Segarelli.
From his character it is not likely that he indulged in any recondite
speculations, while the toleration which he enjoyed until near the
end of probably prevented him from formulating any
his career
revolutionary doctrines. To wear the habit of the association, to
live in absolute poverty, without labor and depending on daily
charity, to take no thought of the morrow, to wander without a
home, calling upon the people to repent, to preserve the strictest
chastity, was the sum of his teaching, so far as we know, and this
remained to the last the exterior observance of the Apostles. It
was rigidly enforced. Even the austerity of the Franciscans al-
lowed the friar two gowns, as a concession to health and comfort,
but the Apostle could have but one, and if he desired it washed he

* IVIag. Bull. Rom. I. 158.— Chron. Parmens. ami. 1294 (Muratori S. R. I. IX.
82G).— Hist. Tribulat. (Archiv fiir Litt.- n. Kii-chengeschiclite, 1886, p. 130).—
Addit. ad Hist. Frat. Dulcini (Muratori IX. 450).
t Hist. Tribulat. (ubi sup.).— Ubertiui Responsio (Arcliiv f. L. u. K. 1887, p.

51).
 DOLCINO'S DOCTRINES. 109

had to remain covered in bed until it was dried. Like the Wal-
denses and Cathari, the Apostles seem to have considered the use
of the oath as unlawful. They were accused, as usual, of incul-
cating promiscuous intercourse, and this charge seemed substan-
tiated by the mingUng of the sexes in their wandering life, and by
the crucial test of continence to which they habitually exposed
themselves, in imitation of the early Christians, of lying together
naked ; but the statement of their errors drawn up by the inquisi-
tors who knew them, shows
for the instruction of their colleagues,
that hcense formed no part of their creed, though would not be it

safe to say that men and women of evil life may not have been
attracted to join them by the idleness and freedom from care of
their wandering existence.*
By the time of Gherardo's death, however, persecution had been
sufficiently sharp and long-continued to drive the Apostles into \

denying the authority of the Holy See and formulating doctrines

of pronounced hostility to the Church. An epistle Tv^itten by
Fra Dolcino, about a month after Segarelli's execution, shows that
minds more powerful than that of the founder had been at work
framing a body of principles suited to zealots chafing under the
domination of a corrupt church, and eagerly yearning for a higher
theory of life than it could furnish. Joachim had promised that
the era of the Holy Ghost should open with the year 1260. That
prophecy had been fulfilled by the appearance of Segarelh, whose
mission had then commenced. Tacitly accepting this coincidence,
Dolcino proceeds to describe four successive states of the Church.
The first extends from the Creation to the time of Clirist the sec- ;

ond from Christ to Silvester and Constantine, during which the

Church was holy and poor the third from Silvester to Segarelli,
;

during which the Church declined, in spite of the reforms intro-

duced by Benedict, Dominic, and Francis, until it had whoUy lost

* Salimbene, pp. 113, 117, 131.— Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 3G0-1.— Mura-
tori S. R. I. IX. 455-7.— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v. —
Eymeric. P. ii. Q. 11.
The test of continence was regarded with horror by the inquisitors, and yet
when practised by St. Aldhelm it was considered as proof of supercminent
sanctity (Girald. Cambrens. Gemm. Eccles. Dist. ii. c. xv.). The coincidence, in
fact, is remarkable between the perilous follies of the Apostles and those of the
Christian zealots of the third century, as described and condemned by Cyprian
(Epist. IV. ad Pompon.).
 ;

no GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.

the charity of God. The fourth state was commenced by Sega-
reUi, and will last till the Day of Judgment. Then follow prophe-
cies which seem to be based on those of the Pseudo-Joachim's
Commentaries on Jeremiah. The Church now is honored, rich,
and wicked, and will so remain until all clerks, monks, and friars
are cut off with a cruel death, which will happen within three
years. Frederic, King of Trinacria, who had not yet made his
peac^ with the Holy See, was regarded as the coming avenger, in
/ consequence, doubtless, of his relations with the Spirituals and his
tendencies in their favor. The epistle concludes with a mass of
Apocaljrptical prophecies respecting the approaching advent of
Antichrist, the triumph of the saints, and the reign of holy pov-
erty and love, which is to follow under a saintly pope. The seven
angels of the churches are declared to be Benedict, of Ephesus
Silvester, of Pergamus Francis, of Sardis Dominic, of Laodicea
; ;

Segarelli, of Smyrna Dolcino himself, of Thyatira and the holy

; ;

pope to come, of Philadelphia. Dolcino announces himself as the

special envoy of God, sent to elucidate Scripture and the prophe-
cies, while the clergy and the friars are the ministers of Satan,

who persecute now, but who will shortly be consumed, when he

and his followers, with those who join them, will prevail till the
end.*
Segarellihad perished at the stake, July 18, and already in
August here was a man assuming with easy assurance the danger-
ous position of heresiarch, proclaiming himself the mouthpiece of
God, and promising his followers speedy triumph in reward for
what they might endure under his leadership. Whether or not
he believed his own prophecies, whether he was a wild fanatic or
a skilful charlatan, can never be absolutely determined, but the
balance of probability lies in his truthfulness. With all his gifts

as a born leader of men, it is he had not be-

safe to assert that if
lieved in his mission he could not have inspired his followers with
the devotion which led them to stand by him through sufferings
unendurable to ordinary human nature while the cool sagacity
;

which he disj)layed under the most pressing emergencies must

* Muratori IX. 449-53.— Guill. Nangiac. Contin. ami. 1306.— R. Fran. Piijini

Chron. cap. xv. (Muratori, IX. 599).— Cf. Lib. Scnteutt. Inq. Tolos. p. 360.—'
Pelayo, Ilcterodoxos Espanoles, I. 720.
 ; —

FRA DOLCINO. HI
have been inflamed by apocalyptic visions ere he could have em-
barked in an enterprise in which the means were so whoUy inade-
—
quate to the end ere he could have endeavored single-handed to
overthrow the whole majestic structure of the theocratic church and
organized feudahsm. Dante recognized the greatness of Dolcino
when he represents him as the only living man to whom Mahomet
from the depths of hell deigns to send a message, as to a kindred
spirit. The good Spiritual Franciscans, who endured endless per-
secution without resistance, could only explain his career by a
revelation made to a servant of God beyond the seas, that he was
possessed by a malignant angel named Furcio.*
The paternity of Dolcino is variously attributed to Giulio, a
priest of Trontano in the Yal d'Ossola, and to Giulio, a hermit of
Prato in the Yalsesia, near N'ovara. Brought as a child to Yer-
celli, he was bred in the church of St. Agnes by a priest named

Agosto, who had him carefully trained. Gifted with a brilliant

intellect, he soon became an excellent scholar, and, though small

of stature, he was pleasant to look upon and won the affection of

all. In after-times it was said that his eloquence and persuasive-
ness were such that no one who once listened to him could ever
throw off the spell. His connection with Yercelli came to a sud-
den end. The priest lost a sum of money and suspected his ser-
vant Patras. The man took the boy and by torturing him forced
him to confess the theft —rightly or wrongly. The priest inter-
fered to prevent the matter from becoming public, but shame and
and we lose sight of hun
terror caused Dolcino to depart in secret,
until we hear of him in Trent, at the head of a band of Apostles.
He had joined the sect in,i291 he must early have taken a promi-\
;

nent position in it, for he admitted in his final confession that he/
had thrice been in the hands of the Inquisition, and had thrice ab-
jured. This he could do without forfeiting his position, for it was
one of the principles of the sect, which greatly angered the in-
quisitors, that deceit was lawful when before the Inquisition that ;

» Hist. Tribulut. (ubi sup.).

Or di a Fra Dolcin duuque che s' armi,

Tu che forse vedrai il sole in breve,
S' egli non vuol qui tosto seguitarmi
Si di vivanda, che stretta di neve
Non rechi la vittoria al Noarese,
Ch' altrimenti acquistar non saria lieve. Inferno, xxviiji.
 — ;;

112 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.

oaths could then be taken with the lips and not with the heart
but that if death could not be escaped, then it was to be endured
cheerfully and patiently, without betraying accomplices.*
For three years after his epistle of August, 1300, we know noth-
ing of Dolcino's movements, except that he heard of in Milan, is
\y
Brescia, Bergamo, and Como, but they were busy years of ^g^-
agandism and organization. The time of promised liberation
came and and the Church was neither shattered nor
passed,
amended. Yet the capture of Boniface YIII. at Anagni, in Sep-
tember, 1303, followed by his death, might well seem to be the be-
ginning of the end, and the fulfilment of the prophecy. In Decem-
ber, 1303, therefore, Dolcino issued a second epistle, in which he an-
nounced as a revelation from God that the first year of the tribu-
lations of the Church had begun in the fall of Boniface. In 1304
Frederic of Trinacria would become emperor, and would destroy
the cardinals, with the new evil pope whom they had just elected
in 1305 he would carry desolation through the ranks of aU prel-
ates and ecclesiastics, whose wickedness was daily increasing.
Until that time the faithful must lie hid to escape persecution, but
then they would come forth, they would be joined by the Spirituals
of the other orders, they would receive the grace of the Holy Ghost,
and would form the new Church which Avould endure to the end.
Meanwhile he announced himself as the ruler of the AiwstoUc
Congregation, consisting of four thousand souls, hving without
external obedience, but in the obedience of the Spirit. About a
hundred, of either sex, were organized in control of the brethren,
and he had four principal lieutenants, Longino Cattaneo da Ber-
gamo, Federigo da Novara, Alberto da Otranto, and Yalderigo da
Brescia. Superior to these was his dearly-loved sister in Christ,
Margherita. Margherita di Trank is described to us as a woman
of noble birth, considerable fortune, and surpassing beauty, who had
been educated in the convent of St. Catharine at Trent. Dolcino
had been the agent and had thus made her ac-
of the convent,
quaintance. Infatuated with him, she fled with him, and remained
constant to the last. He always maintained that their relations

* Benvenuto da Imola (Muratori Antiq. III. 457-9). — BescapS, La Novara Sacra,

Novara, 1878, p. 157. —Baggiolini, Dolcino e i Patarini, Novara, 1838, pp. 35-G.
Hist. Dulcin. Ila^resiarch. (Muratori. S. R. I. IX. 43G-7).—xiddit. ad Hist. (Ibid.
457, 460).
 s

DOLCINO COLLECTS HIS FOLLOWERS. II3

were purely spiritual, but this was naturally doubted, and the
churchmen asserted that she bore him a child whose birth was
represented to the faithful as the operation of the Holy Ghost.*
Although in December, 1303, Dolcino recognizes
this letter of
the necessity of concealment, perhaps the expected approaching fru-
ition of his hopes may have encouraged him to relax his precautions.
Keturning in 1301 to the home of his youth with a few sectaries
clad in the white tunics and sandals of the Order, he commenced
making converts in the neighborhood of Gattinara and Serravalle,
t^vo villages of the Yalsesia, a fcAv leagues
above Vercelli. The In-
quisition was soon upon the track, and, faihng to catch him, made
the people of Serravalle pay dearly for the favor which they had
shown him. Deep-seated discontent, both with the Church and
their feudal lords, can alone explain the assistance which Dolcino
\
received from the hardy population of the foot-hills of the Alps, '

when he was forced to raise openly the standard of revolt. A

short distance above Serravalle, on the left bank of the Sesia, a
stream fed by the glaciers of Monte Eosa, lay Borgo di Sesia, in
the diocese of Novara. Thither a rich husbandman, much esteemed
by his neighbors, named Milano Sola, invited Dolcino, and for sev-
eral months he remained there undisturbed, making converts and
receiving his disciples, whom he seems to have summoned from dis-
tant parts, as though resolved to make a stand and take advantage
of the development of his apocalj^^Dtic prophecies. Preparations
made to dislodge him, however, convinced him that safety was
only to be found in the Alps, and under the guidance of Milano
Sola the Apostles moved up towards the head-waters of the Sesia,
and established themselves on a mountain crest, difficult of access,
where they built huts. Thus passed the year 1304. Their num--^
—
bers were not inconsiderable some fourteen hundred of both sexes '

— inflamed withrehgious zeal, regarding Dolcino as a prophet whose

lightest word was law. Thus contumaciously assembled in defiance
of the summons of the Inquisition, they were in open rebellion

* Corio, Hist. Milauesi, ann. 1307. —Benv. da Imola, loc. citT —Adtlitamentum ..3"
(Muratori IX. 454-55, 459). — Baggiolini, pp. 36-7.
Dolcino's two epistles were formally condemned by the Bishop of Parma and
Frsi Manfredo, the inquisitor, and must therefore have been circulated outside of
the sect (Eymeric. Direct. Inq. P. 11. Q. 29).
III.—
 114 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
j
against the Church. The State also soon became their enemy, for as
1 the year 1305 opened, their slender stock of provisions was exhausted
and they replenished their stores by raids upon the lower vaUeys."^
The Church could not aiford to brook this open defiance, to
say nothing of the complaints of rapine and sacrilege which filled
the land, yet itshows the dread which Dolcino already inspired
that recourse was had to the pope, under whose auspices a formal
crusade was preached, in order to raise a force deemed sufficient
to exterminate the heretics. One of the early acts of Clement Y.
\ after his election, June 5, 1305, was to issue bulls for this purpose,
and the next step was to hold an assembly, August 24, where a
league was formed and an agreement signed pledging the assem-
bled nobles to shed the last drop of their blood to destroy the Gaz-
zari, who had been driven out of Sesia and Biandrate, but had not

ceased to trouble the land. Armed with the papal commissions,

Kainerio, Bishop of Yercelli, and the inquisitors raised a consider-
able force and advanced to the mountain refuge of the Apostles.
Dolcino, seeing the futility of resistance, decamped by night and es-
tablished his little community on an almost inaccessible mountain,
and the crusaders, apparently thinking them dispersed, withdrew.
Dolcino was now fairly at bay the only hope of safety lay in re-
;

sistance, and since the Church was resolved on war, he and his fol-
lowers would at least sell their lives as dearly as they could. His
—
new retreat was on the Parete Calvo the Bare Wall whose —
name sufficiently describes its character, a mountain overlooking
the village of Campertogno. On this stronghold the Apostles
fortified themselves and constructed such habitations as they could,
and from it they ravaged the neighboring valleys for subsistence.
The Podesta of Varallo assembled the men of the Yalsesia to dis-
lodge them, but Dolcino laid an ambush for him, attacked him with
stones and such other weapons as the Apostles chanced to have,
and took him prisoner with most of his men, obtaining ransoms
which enabled the sectaries to support life for a Avhile longer.
Their depredations continued till all the land within striking dis-
tance was reduced to a desert, the churches despoiled, and the in-
habitants driven off.f

* Hist. Dulcin. (Muratori IX. 428-9). — BescaiJi), loc. cit.

fHist. Dulcin. (Muratori IX. 430-1).— Bescapb. loc. cit.

 ;

CRUSADES AGAINST DOLCINO. 115

The winter of 1305-6 put to the test the endurance of the her-
etics on their bare mountain-top. As Lent came on they were re-
duced to eating mice and other vermin, and hay cooked in grease.
The position became untenable, and on the night of March 10,
compelled by stern necessity to abandon their weaker companions,
tliey left the Parete Calvo, and^ building paths which seemed im-
possible over high mountains and through deep snows, they estab-
lished themselves on Monte Rubello, overlooking the village of
Triverio, in the diocese of Yercelli. By this time, through want
and exhaustion, their numbers were reduced to about a thousand,
and the sole provisions which they brought with them were a few
scraps of meat. With such secrecy and expedition had the move
been executed that the first intimation that the people of Triverio
had of the neighborhood of the dreaded heretics was a foray by
night, in which their town was ravaged. AYe do not hear that
any of the unresisting inhabitants were slain, but we are told that
thirty-four of the Apostles were cut off in their retreat and put to
death. The whole region was now alarmed, and the Bishop of
Yercelli raised a second force of crusaders, who bravely advanced
to Monte Kubello. Dolcino was rapidly learning the art of war
he made a sally from his stronghold, though again we learn that
some of his combatants were armed only with stones, and the
bishop's troops were beaten back with the loss of many prisoners
who were exchanged for food.*
The heretic encampment was now organized for permanent oc-
cupation. Fortifications were thrown up, houses built, and a well
dug. Thus rendered inexpugnable, the hunted Apostles Avere in
safety from external attack, and on their Alpine crag, with all
mankind for enemies, they calmly awaited in their isolation the
fulfilment of Dolcino's prophecies. Their immediate danger was
starvation. The mountain-tops furnished no food, and the remains
of the episcopal army stationed at Mosso maintained a strict
blockade. To relieve himself, early in May, Dolcino by a clever
stratagem lured them to an attack, set upon them from an am-
bush, and dispersed them, capturing many prisoners, who, as be-
fore,were exchanged for provisions. The bishop's resources were
exhausted. Again he appealed to Clement Y., who graciously

Hist. Dulcin. (Muratori IX. 430-3).

 116 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
anathematized the heretics, and offered plenary indulgence to all
who would serve in the army of the Lord for thirty days against
them, or pay a recruit for such service. The papal letters were
pubhshed far and wide, the Vercellese ardently supported their
aged bishop, who personally accompanied the crusade a large ;

. force was raised, neighboring heights were seized and machines

/ erected which threw stones into the heretic encampment and de-
{ moMshed their huts. A desperate struggle took place for the pos-
commanding eminence, where mutual slaughter so
session of one
i/deeply tinged the waters of the Kiccio that its name became
changed to that of Rio Carnaschio, and so strong was the impres-
sion made upon the popular mind that within the last century it
would have fared ill with any sceptical traveller who should aver
within hearing of a mountaineer of the district that its color was
the same as that of the neighboring torrents.''^

I
This third crusade was as fruitless as its predecessors. The
[ assailants were repulsed and back to Mosso, Triverio, and
fell

r- Crevacore, while Dolcino, profiting by experience, fortified and

v/ I
garrisoned six of the neighboring heights, from which he harried
the surrounding country and kept his people supplied with food.
To restrain them the crusaders built two forts and maintained a
heavy force within them, but to little purpose. Mosso, Triverio,
Cassato, Flecchia, and other towns were burned, and the accounts of
the wanton spoliation and desecration of the churches show how
thoroughly antisacerdotal the sect had become. Driven to des-
peration, the ancient loving-kindness of their creed gave place to
the cruelty which they learned from their assailants. To deprive
them of resources it was forbidden to exchange food with them
for prisoners, and their captives were mercilessly put to death.
According to the contemporary inquisitor to whom Ave are in-
debted for these details, since the days of Adam there had never
been a sect so execrable, so abominable, so horrible, or which in a
time so short accomplished so much evil. The worst of it was
that Dolcino infused into his followers hisown unconquerable
spirit. In male attire the women accompanied the men in their
expeditions. Fanaticism rendered them invincible, and so great
was the terror which they inspired that the faithful fled from the

Hist. Dulcin (Muratori IX. 432^.)—Baggiolini, p. 131.

 DOLCINO CAPTURED. 117

faces of these clogs, of whom we are told afew would put to flight
a host and utterly destroy them. The land was abandoned by the
inhabitants, and in December, seized with a sudden panic, the
crusaders evacuated one of the forts, and the garrison of the other,
amounting to seven hundred men, was rescued with difficulty.'^
Dolcino's fanaticism and military skiU had thus triumphed in
the but the fatal weakness of his position lay in his inability
field,

to support his followers. This was clearly apprehended by the

Bishop of Yercelh, who built five new forts around the heretic
position ; and when we are told that all the roads and passes were
strictly guarded so that no help should reach them, we may infer
that, in spite of the devastation to which they had been driven,
they had friends among the population. This policy was
still

successful. During the winter of 1306-7 the sufferings of the

Apostles on their snowy mountain-top were frightful. Hunger
and cold did their work. Many perished from exhaustion. Others
barely maintained life on grass and leaves, when they were fortu-
nate enough to find them. Canmbalism was resorted to the bodies ;
^

of their enemies who fell in successful sorties were devoured, and ) \^

even those of their comrades who succumbed to starvation. The
pious chronicler informs us that this misery was brought upon
them by the prayers and vows of the good bishop and his flock.f
To this there could be but one ending, and even the fervid
genius of Dolcino could not indefinitely postpone the inevitable.
As the dreary Alpine winter drew to an end, towards the close of
March, the bishop organized a fourthjorusade. A large army was
raised to deal with the gaunt and haggard survivors hot fighting ;

occurred during Passion Week, and on Holy Thursday (March

23, 1307) the last entrenchments were carried. The resistance
had been stubborn, and again the Rio Carnaschio ran red with
blood. No quarter was given. " On that day more than a thou-
sand of the heretics perished in the flames, or in the river, or by
the sword, in the cruellest of deaths. Thus they who made sport
of God the Eternal Father and of the Catholic faith came, on the
day of the Last Supper, through hunger, steel, fire, pestilence, and
all wretchedness, to shame and disgraceful death, as they deserved."

* Hist. Dulcin. (Murutori IX. 434, 437-8).

t Hist. Dulcin. (lb. 439-40).
 118 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
Strict orders had been given by the bishop to capture alive Dol-
cino and his two chief subordinates, Margherita and Longino Cat-
taneo, and great were the rejoicings when they were brought to
him on Saturday, at the castle of Biella.*
JSTo case could be clearer than theirs, and yet the bishop deemed

it necessary to consult Pope Clement —

a perfectly superfluous
ceremony, explicable perhaps, as Gallenga suggests, by the oppor-
tunity which it afforded of begging assistance for his ruined dio-
cese and exhausted treasury. Clement's avarice responded in a
niggardly fashion, though the extravagant paean of triumph in
which the pope hastened to announce the glad tidings to PhiUppe le
Bel on the same evening in which he received them shows how
deep was the anxiety caused by the audacious revolt of the handful
of Dolcinists. The Bishops of YerceUi, Novara, and Pavia, and the
Abbot of Lucedio were granted the first fruits of all benefices be-
coming vacant during the next three years in their respective ter-
ritories, and the former, in addition, was exempted during fife from

the exactions of papal legates, with some other privileges. While

/ awaiting this response the prisoners were kept, chained hand and
foot and neck, in the dungeon of the Inquisition at YerceUi, with
numerous guards posted to prevent a rescue, indicating a knowl-
edge that there existed deep popular sympathy for the rebels
against State and Church. The customary efforts were made to
procure confession and abjuration, but while the prisoners boldly
affirmed their faith they were deaf to all offers of reconciliation.
Dolcino even persisted in his prophecies that Antichrist would
appear in three years and a half, when he and his followers would
be translated to Paradise that after the death of Antichrist he
;

would return to the earth to be the holy pope of the new church,
-~ii when all the infidels would be converted. About two months
passed away before Clement's orders were received, that they
should be tried and punished at the scene of their crimes. The
customary assembly of experts was convened in YerceUi there ;

could be no doubt as to their guilt, and they were abandoned to

* Hist. Dulcin. (Muratoii IX. 439).

Ptolemy of Lucca, who is good contemporaneous authority, puts the number

of those captured ^vith Dolcino at one hundred and fifty, and of those who
perished through exposure and by the sword at only about three hundred.
—Hist. Ecclcs. Lib. xxiv. (Muratori XL 1227).
 DOLCINO'S PUNISHMENT. 119

the secular arm. For the superfluous cruelty which followed the
Church was not responsible it was the expression of the terror
;

of the secular authorities, leading them to repress by an awful

example the ever-present danger of a peasant revolt. On June
1, 1307, the prisoners were brought forth, Margherita's beauty
moved all hearts to compassion, and this, coupletl with the reports
of her wealth, led many nobles to offer her marriage and pardon
if she would abjure, but, constant to her faith and to Dolcino, she

preferred the stake. She was slowly burned to death before his
eyes, and then commenced his more prolonged torture. Mounted
on a cart, provided with braziers to keep the instruments of tor-
ment heated, he was slowly driven along the roads through that
long summer day and torn gradually to pieces with red-hot pincers.
The marvellous constancy of the man was shown by his enduring
it without rewarding his torturers with a single change of feature.

Only when his nose was wrenched off was observed a slight shiver
in the shoulders, and when a yet crueller pang was inflicted, a
single sigh escaped him. "While he was thus dying in linger-
ing torture Longino Cattaneo, at Biella, was similarly utilized to
afford a salutary warning to the people. Thus the enthusiasts
expiated their dreams of the regeneration of mankind.*
Complete as was Dolcino's faflure, his character and his fate
left an ineffaceable impression on the population. The Parete
Calvo, his first mountain refuge, was considered to be haunted b}"
evil spirits, whom he had left to guard a treasure buried in a
cave, and who excited such tempests when any one invaded their
domain that the people of Triverio were forced to maintain guards
to warn off persistent treasure -seekers. Still stronger was the

* Mariotti (A. Galenga), Fia Dolcino and his Times, London, 1853, pp. 287-
88.— Regest. Clement. PP. V. T. II. pp. 79-82, 88 (Ed. Benedictina,Romfe,1886).
—Moslieims Ketzergeschiclite I. 395.— Uglielli, Italia Sacra, Ed. 1G52,IV. 1104-
8.— Hist. Dulcin. (Muratori IX.^6^440).— Benv. da Imola (Muratori Antiq. IH.
460).— Bernard. Guidon. Vit. Clement. PP. V. (Muratori HI. i. 674).— BescapS,
loc. cit.

The punishment inflicted on Dolcino and Longino was not exceptional. By

a Milanese statute of 1393 all secret attempts upon the life of any member of a
family with whom the criminal lived were subject to a penalty precisely the
same in all details, except that it ended by attaching the offender to a wheel
—
and leaving him to perish in prolonged agony. Autiqua Ducum Mediolani
Decreta, p. 187 (Mediolani, 1654).
 120 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
influence which he exerted upon his fastness on Monte Rubello.
It became known as the Monte dei Gazzari, and to it, as to an
accursed spot, priests grew into the habit of consigning demons
whom they exorcised on account of hail-storms. The result of
this was that the congregated spirits caused such fearful tempests
that the neighboring lands were ruined, the harvests were yearly
destroyed, and the people reduced to beggary. Finally, as a cure,
the inhabitants of Triverio vowed to God and to St. Bernard that
if they were relieved they would build on the top of the mountain

a chapel to St, Bernard. This was done, and the mountain thus
acquired its modern name of Monte San Bernardo. Every year on
June 15, the feast of St. Bernard, one man from every hearth in
the surrounding parishes marched with their priests in solemn
procession, bearing crosses and banners, and celebrating solemn
services, in the presence of crowds assembled to gain the pardons
granted by the pope, and to share in a distribution of l)read pro-
vided by a special levy made on the parishes of Triverio and
Portola. This custom lasted till the French invasion under Na-
poleon. Renewed in 1815, it was discontinued on account of the
disorders which attended it. Again resumed in 1839, it was ac-
companied with a hurricane which is stiU in the Yalsesia attributed
to the heresiarch, and even to the present day the mountaineers
see on the mountain-crest a procession of Dolcinists during the
night before its celebration. Dolcino's name is still remembered
in the valleys as that of a great man who perished in the effort to
free the populations from temporal and spiritual t3'-ranny.*

\ Dolcino and his immediate band of followers were thus ex-

rterminated, but there remained the thousands of Apostles, scattered
throughout the land, who cherished their belief in secret. Under"
the skilful hand of the Inquisition, the harmless eccentricities of
Segarelli were hardened and converted into a strongly antisacer-
dotal heresy, antagonistic to Rome, precisely as we have seen the
same result Avith the exaggerated asceticism of the Olivists. There
was much in common between the sects, for both drew their
inspiration from the Everlasting Gospel. Like the Olivists, the
Apostles held that Christ had withdrawn his authority from the
* A. Artiaco (Rivista Cristiana, 1877, 145-51).— Hist. Dulcin. (Muratori IX.
441-2).— Baggioliui, pp. 1G5-71.
 THE ORDER OF APOSTLES. 121

Church of Kome on account of its wickedness was the "Whore

; it

of Babylon, and all spiritual power was transferred to the Spiritual

Congregation, or Order of Apostles, as they styled themselves.
As time passed on without the fulfihnent of the apocalyptic
promises, as Frederic of Trinacria did not develop into a deliverer,
and as Antichrist delayed his appearance, they seem to have aban-
doned these hopes, or at least to have repressed their expression,
but they continued to cherish the belief that they had attained
spiritual perfection, releasing them from all obedience to man, and
that there was no salvation outside of their communit}^. Anti-
sacerdotalism was thus developed to the fullest extent. There
seems to have been no organization in the Order. Eeception was
performed by the simplest of ceremonies, either in church before
the altar or in any other place. The postulant stripped himself
of all his garments, in sign of renunciation of all property and of
entering into the perfect state of evangelical poverty ; he uttered
no vows, but in his heart he promised to live henceforth in poverty.
After this he was never to receive or carry money, but was to hve
on alms spontaneously offered to him, and was never to reserve
anything for the morrow. He made no promise of obedience to
mortal man, but only to God, to whom alone he was subject, as
were the apostles to Christ. Thus all the externals of religion
were brushed aside. Churches were useless a man could better
;

worship Christ in the woods, and prayer to God was as effective

in a pigsty as in a consecrated building. Priests and prelates and
monks were a detriment to the faith. Tithes should only be given
to those whose voluntary poverty rendered it superfluous. Though
the sacrament of penitence was not expressly abrogated, yet the
power of the keys was virtually annulled by the principle that no
pope could absolve for sin unless he were as holy as St. Peter,
living in perfect poverty and humility, abstaining from war and
persecution, and permitting every one to dwell in liberty and, as ;

aU prelates, from the time of Silvester, had been seducers and

prevaricators, excepting only Era Pier di Morrone (Celestin Y.),
it followed that the indulgences and pardons so freely hawked

around Christendom were worthless. One error they shared with

the "Waldenses —the prohibition of oaths, even in a court of justice.*
Addit. ad Hist. Dulcin. (Muratori IX. 455-7).— Bern. Guidon. Pract. P. v.
122 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
The description which Bernard Gui gives of the Apostles, in
order to guide his brother inquisitors in their detection, shows how
fully they carried into practice the precepts of their simple creed.
They wore a special habit, closely approaching a conventual garb
— probably the white mantle and cord adopted by Segarelli.
They presented all the exterior signs of saintliness. As they
wandered along the roads and through the streets they sang
hymns, or uttered prayers and exhortations to repentance. What-
ever was spontaneously set before them they ate with thankful-
ness,and when appetite was satisfied they left what might remain
and carried nothing with them. In their humble fashion they
seem to have imitated the apostles as best they could, and to have
carried poverty to a pitch which Angelo da Clarino himself might
have envied. Bernard Gui, in addition, deplores their intractable
obstinacy, and adduces a case in which he had kept one of them
in prison for two years, subjecting him to frequent examination,
before he was brought to confession and repentance — by what
gentle persuasives we may readily guess.*
All this may seem to us the most harmless of heresies, and yet
the impression produced by the exploits of Dolcino caused it to
be regarded as one of the most formidable ; and the earnestness
of the sectaries in making converts was rendered dangerous by
their drawing their chief arguments from the evil hves of the
clergy. When the Brethren of the Free Spirit were condemned
m the Clementines, Bernard Gui wrote earnestly to John XXII.,
urging that a clause should be inserted including the Apostles,
whom he described as growing like weeds and spreading from
Italy to Languedoc and Spain. This is probably one of the exag-
gerations customary in such matters, but about this time a Dol-
cinist named Jacopo da Querio was discovered and burned in Avi-
gnon. In 1316 Bernard Gui found others within his own district,
when his energetic proceedings soon drove the poor wretches across
the Pyrenees, and he addressed urgent letters to all the prelates
of Spain, describing them and calling for their prompt extermina-
tion, which resulted, as mentioned in a former chapter, in the ap-
prehension of five of the heretics at far-off ComposteUa, doubtless
the remnants of the disciples of the Apostle Kichard. Possibly

* Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. v.

 PERSECUTION OF THE APOSTLES. 123

this may have driven some of them back to France for safety, for
in the auto of September, 1322, at Toulouse, there figures the Gali-
cian already referred to named Pedro de Lugo, who had been
strenuously labored with for a year in prison, and on his abjura-
tion was incarcerated for hfe on bread and water. In the same
auto there was another culprit whose fate illustrates the horror
and terror inspired by the doctrines of the Dolcinists. Guillem
Eufii had been previously forced to abjuration as a Beguine, and
subsequently had betrayed two of his former associates, one of
whom had been burned and the other imprisoned. This would
seem to be sufficient proof of his zeal for orthodoxy, and yet,
when he happened to state that in Italy there were FraticelU
who held that no one was perfect who could not endure the
test of continence above alluded to, adding that he had tried
the experiment himself with success, and had taught it to more
than one woman, this was considered sufficient, and without any-
thing further against him he was incontinently burned as a re-
lapsed heretic*
In spite of Bernard Gui's exaggerated apprehensions, the sect,
although it continued to exist for some time, gave no further seri-

ous trouble. The Council of Cologne in 1306 and that of Treves

in 1310 allude to the Apostles, showing that they were not un-
known in Germany.Yet about 1335 so weU-informed a writer as
Alvar Pelayo speaks of Dolcino as a Beghard, showing how soon
the memory of the distinctive characteristics of the sect had faded
away. At this very time, however, a certain Zoppio was secretly
spreading the heresy at Rieti, where it seems to have found nu-
merous converts, especially among the women. Attention being
called to it, Fra Simone Filippi, inquisitor of the Boman province,
hastened thither, seized Zoppio, and after examining him defivered
him to the authorities for safe-keeping. "When he desired to pro-
ceed with the trial the magistrates refused to surrender the pris-
oner, and abused the inquisitor. Benedict XII. was appealed to,
who scolded roundly the recalcitrant officials for defending a her-
esy so horrible that decency forbids his describing it ; he threat-

*Addit. ad Hist. Dulcin. (Muratori IX. 458). — Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. v.

—Bernard. Guidon. Gravam. (Doat, XXX. 120-4). —Raym. de Fronciacho (Archiv
fur Litt.- u. K. 1887, p. 10.—Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 360-3, 381.
124 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
ened them with exemplary punishment for continued contumacy,
and promised that, if they were afraid of damage to the repu-
tation of their women, the latter should he mildly treated and
spared humiliating penance on giving information as to their as-
sociates.*
After a long interval we hear of the Apostles again in Langue-
doc, where, in 1368, the Council of Lavaur calls attention to them
as wandering through the land in spite of the condemnation of the
Holy See, and disseminating errors under an appearance of exter-
nal piety, wherefore they are ordered to be arrested and punished
by the episcopal courts. In 1374 the Council of Narbonne deemed
it necessary to repeat this injunction and we have seen that in ;

1402 and 1403 the zeal of the Inquisitor Eylard was rewarded in
Lubec and Wismar by the capture and burning of two Apostles.
This is the last authentic record of a sect which a hundred years
before had for a brief space inspired so wide a terror.f

'I

Closely alUed with the Dolcinists, and forming a link between

them and the German Brethren of the Free Spirit, were some
Italian heretics known as followers of the Spirit of Liberty, of
whom a few scattered notices have reached us. They seem to
have avoided the pantheism of the Germans, and did not teach
the return of the soul to its Creator, but they adopted the danger-
ous tenet of the perfectibility of man, who in this life can become
as holy as Christ. This can be accomplished by sins as well as
by virtues, for both are the same in the eye of God, who directs
all things and allows no human free-will. The soul is purified by
sin, and the greater the pleasure in carnal indulgences the more
nearly they represent God. There is no eternal punishment, but

* Concil. Coloniens. ann. 1306 c. 1, 2 (Hartzheim IV. 100, 103).— Concil. Tre-
virens. aun. 1310 c. 50 (Martene Thesaur. IV. 250). — Alvar. Pelag. de Planctu Ec-
cles. Lib. ir. art. lii. (fol. 166, 172, Ed. 1517).— Wadding, anu. 1335, No. 8-9.— Ray-
nald. ann. 1335,No. 63.
t Concil. Vaurens. ann. 1368 c. 34 ; Concil. Narbonn. ann. 1374 c. 5 (Harduiu.
VII. 1818, 1880).— Herman. Corneri Chron. ann. 1260, 1403 (Eccard. Corp. Hist.
Med. iEvi II. 906,1185).
I have already referred (Vol. II. p. 439) to the persecution at Prague, iu 1315, of
some heretics whom Dubravius qualifies as Dolcinists, but who probably were
Waldenses and Luciferans.
 " ;

THE "SPIRIT OF LIBERTY." 125

souls not sufficiently purified in this life undergo purgation until

admitted to heaven.*
"We first hear of these sectaries as appearing among the Fran-
ciscans of Assisi, where, under active proceedings, seven of the
friars confessed, abjured,and were sentenced to perpetual prison.
When, Clement V. sought to settle the points in dispute
in 1309,
between the Spirituals and Conventuals, the first of the four pre-
hminary questions which he put to the contending factions related
to the connection between the Order and this heresy, of which
both sides promptly sought to clear themselves. The next refer-
ence to them is in April, 1311, when they were said to be multi-
plying rapidly in Spoleto, among both ecclesiastics and laymen,
and Clement sent thither Eaimundo, Bishop of Cremona, to stamp
out the new heresy. The effort was unavaihng, for in 1327, at
Donna Lapina, belonging to the sect " of the Spirit
Florence,
whose members believed themselves impeccable, was condemned
by Fra Accursio, the inquisitor, to confiscation and wearing crosses
and in 1329 Fra Bartolino da Perugia, in announcing a general in-
quisition to be made of the province of Assisi, enumerates the new
heresy of the Spirit of Liberty among those which he proposes to
suppress. More important was the case of Domenico Savi of As-
coli, who was regarded as a man of the most exemplary piety. In

1337 he abandoned wife and children for a hermit's hfe, and the
bishop built for him a cell and oratory. This gave him still greater
repute, and his influence was such that when he began to dissemi-
nate the doctrines of the Spirit of Liberty, which he undertook by
means of circulating written tracts, the number of his followers is
reckoned at ten thousand. It was not long before this attracted
the attention of the Inquisition. He was tried, and recanted, while
his writings were ordered to be burned. His convictions, how-
ever, were too strong to aUow him to remain orthodox. He re-
lapsed, was tried a second time, appealed to the pope, and was
finally condemned by the Holy See in 1314, when he was handed
over to the secular arm and burned at Ascoli. As nothins: is said

* MS, Bibl. Casanatense A. iv, 49. —I owe the communication of this docu-
ment to the kindness of M. Charles Molinier. See also Amati, Archivio Storico
Italiano, No. 38, p. 14.
For the connection between these heretics and the Dolcinists, comjiare Ar-
chiv fiir Lit.- u. Kirchengeschichte, 1886, p. 131, with 1887, pp. 133-1.
126 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
about the fate of his disciples it may be assumed that they escaped
by abjuration. He is usually classed with th6 Fraticelli, but the
him bear no resemblance to those of that sect,
errors attributed to
and are evidently exaggerations of the doctrines of the Spirit of
Liberty.*

Before dismissing the career of Dolcino, it may be worth while

to cast a passing glance at that of a modern prophet which, like
the cases of the modern Gugliehuites, teaches us that such spiritual
phenomena are common to all ages, and that even in our colder
and more rationalistic time the mysteries of human nature are the
same as in the thirteenth century.
Dolcino merely organized a movement which had been in prog-
ress for nearly half a century, and which was the expression of
a widely diffused sentiment. David Lazzaretti of Arcidosso was
both founder and martyr. A wagoner in the mountains of south-
ern Tuscany, his herculean strength and ready speech made him
widely known throughout his native region, when a somewhat
wild and dissipated youth was suddenly converted into an ascetic
of the severest type, dwelling in a hermitage on Monte Labbro, and
honored with revelations from God. His austerities, his visions,
and his prophecies soon brought him disciples, many of whom
adopted his mode of life, and the peasants of Arcidosso revered
him as a prophet. He claimed that, as early as 1848, he had been
called to the task of regenerating the world, and that his sudden
conversion was caused by a vision of St. Peter, who imprinted on
his forehead a mark (0-f-C) in attestation of his mission. He
was by no means consistent in his successive stages of develop-
ment. A patriot volunteer in 1860, he subsequently upheld the
cause of the Church against the assaults of heretic Germany, but
in 1876 his book, " My Struggle with God," reveals his aspirations
towards the headship of a new faith, and describes him as carried
to heaven and discoursing with God, though he still professed
himself faithful to Eome and to the papacy. The Church dis-
dained his aid and condemned his errors, and he became a lieresi-

* Archiv fiir Litt.- u. Kirchengeschichtc, 1887, pp. 51, 144-5. — Raj-nald. ann.
1311, No. GG-70 ; ann. 1318, No. 44.— Archiv. di Fircnze, Prov. S. Maria Novella,
1327, Ott. 31.— Franz Ehrle, Archiv fiir Lit.- u. Kirchengescbicbte, 1885, p. IGO.
— D'ArgentrC I. i. 336-7.— Cantil, Erctici d'ltalia, 1. 133..
 DAVID LAZZARETTI. 127

arch. In the spring of 1878 he urged the adoption of sacerdotal

marriage, he disregarded fast-days, administered communion to his
disciples ina rite of his own, and composed for them a creed of
which the twenty -fourth article was, " I believe that our founder,
David Lazzaretti, the anointed of the Lord, judged and condemned
by the Roman curia, is really Christ, the leader and the judge."
That the people accepted him is seen in the fact that for three
successive Sundays the priest of Arcidosso found his church with-
out a worshipper. David founded a " Society of the Holy League,
or Christian Brotherhood," and proclaimed the coming Republic
orKingdom of God, when all property should be equally divided.
Even this communism did not frighten off the small proprietors
who constituted the greater portion of his following. There was
general discontent, owing to a succession of unfortunate harvests
and the increasing pressure of taxation, and when, on August 14,
1878, he announced that he would set out with his disciples peace-
fully to inaugurate his theocratic republic, the whole population
gathered on ]\[onte Labbro. After four days spent in religious
exercises the extraordinary crusade set forth, consisting of all ages
and both sexes, arrayed in a fantastic uniform of red and blue,
and bearing banners and garlands of flowers with which to revolu-
tionize society. Its triumphal march was short. At the village
of Arcidosso its progress was disputed by a squad of nine cara-
bineers, who poured volleys into the defenceless crowd. Thirty-
four of the Lazzarettists fell, killed and wounded, and among them
David himself, with a bullet in his brain.* Whether he was en-
thusiast or impostor may remain an open question. Travel and
study had brought him training he was no longer a rude moun-
;

* Barzellotti, David Lazzaretti di Arcidosso detto il Santo. Bologna, 1885.

Somewhat similar is the career of an ex-sergeant of the Italian army named
Gabriele Donnici, who has founded in the Calabrian highlands a sect dignifying
itself with the title of the Saints. Gabriele is a prophet announcing the advent
of a new Messiah, who is to come not as a lamb, but as a lion breathing ven-
geance and armed with bloody scourges. He and his brother Abele were tried
for the murder of the wife of the latter, Grazia Funaro, who refused to submit to
the sexual abominations taught in the sect. They were condemned to hard labor
and imprisonment, but were discharged on appeal to the Superior Court of Co-
senza. Other misdeeds of the sectaries are at present occupying the attention of
the Italian tribunals. —Rivista Cristiana, 1887, p. 57.
128 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
which he
tain peasant, but could estimate the social forces against
and could recognize that they were
raised the standard of revolt,
insuperable save to an envoy of God. Possibly on the slopes of
Monte Amiata his memory may linger like that of Dolcino in the
Yalsesia ; certain it is that many of his disciples long expected his
resurrection.
 9

CHAPTER III.

THE FRATICELLI,
We have seen how John XXII. created and exterminated the
heresy of the Spiritual Franciscans, and how Michele da Cesena
enforced obedience within the Order as to the question of gran-
aries and cellars and the wearing of short and narrow gowns.
The settlement of the question, however, on so illogical a basis as
this was impossible, especially in view of the restless theological
dogmatism of the pope and his inflexible determination to crush aU
dissidence of opinion. Having once undertaken to silence the dis-
cussions over the rule of poverty which had caused so much trouble
for nearly a century, his logical intellect led him to carry to their
legitimate conclusions the principles involved in his bulls Quorum-
dam, Sancta Momana, and Gloriosam Ecclesiam, while his thorough
worldliness rendered him incapable of anticipating the storm
which he would provoke. A character such as his was unable to
comprehend the honest inconsistency of men like Michele and
Bonagrazia, who could burn their brethren for refusing to have
granaries and cellars, and who, at the same time, were ready to
endure the stake in vindication of the absolute ])overty of Christ
and the apostles, which had so long been a fundamental belief of
the Order, and had been proclaimed as irrefragable truth in the
bull Exiit qui seminat.
In fact, under a pope of the temperament of John, the ortho-
dox Franciscans had a narrow and dangerous path to tread. The
Spirituals were burned as heretics because they insisted on follow-
ing their own conception of the Eule af Francis, and the distinc-
tion between this and the official recognition of the obligation of
poverty was shadowy in the extreme. The Dominicans were not
slow to recognize the dubious position of their rivals, nor averse
to take advantage of it. If they could bring the received doc-
trines of the Franciscan Order within the definition of the new
III.—
130 THE FRATICELLI.
heresy they would win a triumph that might prove permanent.
The situation was so artificial and so untenable that a catastrophe
was inevitable, and it might be precipitated by the veriest trifle.
In 1321, when the persecution of the Spirituals was at its
height, the Dominican inquisitor, Jean de Beaune, whom we have
seen as the colleague of Bernard Gui and the jailer of Bernard
Delicieux, was engaged at Narbonne in the trial of one of the pro-
scribed sect. To pass judgment he summoned an assembly of ex-
perts, among whom was the Franciscan Berenger Talon, teacher
in the convent of Narbonne. One of the errors which he repre-
sented the culprit as entertaining was that Christ and the apostles,
following the way of perfection, had held no possessions, individu-
ally or in common. As this was the universal Franciscan doctrine,
we can only regard it as a challenge when he summoned Frere.
Berengor to give his opinion respecting it. Berenger thereupon
replied that it was not heretical, having been defined as orthodox
in the decretal Exiit, when the inquisitor hotly demanded that he
should recant on the spot. The position was critical, and Beren-
ger, to save himself from prosecution, interjected an appeal to the
pope. He hastened to Avignon, but found that Jean de Beaune
had been before him. He was arrested the Dominicans every-
;

where took up the question, and the pope allowed it to be clearly

seen that his sympathies were with them. Yet the subject was a
dangerous one for disputants, as the bull Exiit had anathematized
all who should attempt to gloss or discuss its decisions and, as a
;

preliminary to reopening the question, John was obliged, March

26, 1322, to issue a special bull, Quia nonnunquam, wherein he
suspended, during his pleasure, the censures pronounced in Exiit
qui seminal. Having thus intimated that the Church had erred
in its former definition, he proceeded to lay before his prelates
and doctors the significant question whether the pertinacious as-
sertion that Christ and the apostles possessed nothing individually
or in common was a heresy.*
The extravagances of the Spirituals had borne their fruit, and
there was a reaction against the absurd laudation of poverty which
had grown to be a fetich. This bore hard on those who had been

* Nicholaus Minorita (Baluz. et Mansi III. 207). —

Cliron. Glassberger ann.
1321.— Wadding, ann. 1321, No. 16-19; ann. 1322, No. 49-50.
 REACTION AGAINST DOCTRINE OF POVERTY. 131

conscientiously trained in the belief that the abnegation of prop-

erty was the surest path to salvation but the follies of the ascetics
;

had become uncomfortable, if not dangerous, and it was necessary

for the Church to go behind its teachings since the days of Antony
and Ililarion and Simeon Stylites, to recur to the common-sense of
the gospel, and to admit that, like the Sabbath, religion was made
for man and not man for religion. In a work written some ten
years after this time, Alvar Pelayo, papal penitentiary and himself
a Franciscan, treats the subject at considerable length, and doubt-
less represents the views which found favor with John. The
anchorite should be wholly dead to the world and should never
leave his hermitage memorable is the abbot who refused to open
;

his door to his mother for fear his eye should rest upon her, and
not less so the monk who, when his brother asked him to come a
little way and help him with a foundered ox, replied, " Why dost

thou not ask thy brother who is yet in the world ?" " But he has
been dead these fifteen years !" " And I have been dead to the
world these twenty years !" Short of this complete renunciation,
all men should earn their living by honest labor. In spite of the
illustrious example of the sleepless monks of Dios, the apostolic
command " Pray without ceasing " (Thessal. v. 17) is not to be
taken literally. The apostles had money and bought food (John
IV. 8), and Judas carried the purse of the Lord (John xii. 6). Bet-
ter than a hfe of beggary is one blessed by honest labor, as a
swineherd, a shepherd, a cowherd, a mason, a blacksmith, or a
charcoal-burner, for a man is thus fulfilling the purpose of his cre-
ation. a
It is on charity, and thus
sin for the able-bodied to live
usurp the alms due to the sick, the infirm, and the aged. All this
is a lucid interval of common-sense, but what would Aquinas or

Bonaventura have said to it, for it sounds like the echo of their
great antagonist, WiUiam of Saint-Amour ?*

* Alvar. Pelag. de Planctu Ecclesise Lib. i. Art. 51. fol. 165-9.

In fact, the advocates of poverty did not miss the easy opportunity of stigma-
tizing their antagonists as followers of William of Saint-Amour. See Tocco,
"Un Codice della Marciana," Venezia, 1887, pp. 12, 39 (Ateneo Veneto, 1886-

1887).
The MS. of which Professor Tocco has here printed the most important por-
tions, with elucidatory notes, is a collection of the responses made to the question
submitted for discussion by John XXII. as to the poverty of Christ and the
 a

132 THE FRATICELLI.

It "was inevitable that the replies to the question submitted by
John should be adverse