A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages Volume III Part 4

For three years after his epistle of August, 1300, we know nothing of Dolcino's movements, except that he is heard of in Milan, Brescia, Bergamo, and Como, but they were busy years of propagandism and organization. The time of promised liberation came and pa.s.sed, and the Church was neither shattered nor amended. Yet the capture of Boniface VIII. at Anagni, in September, 1303, followed by his death, might well seem to be the beginning of the end, and the fulfilment of the prophecy.

In December, 1303, therefore, Dolcino issued a second epistle, in which he announced as a revelation from G.o.d that the first year of the tribulations 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 all prelates 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 would endure to the end. Meanwhile he announced himself as the ruler of the Apostolic Congregation, consisting of four thousand souls, living without external obedience, but in the obedience of the Spirit. About a hundred, of either s.e.x, were organized in control of the brethren, and he had four princ.i.p.al lieutenants, Longino Cattaneo da Bergamo, Federigo da Novara, Alberto da Otranto, and Valderigo da Brescia. Superior to these was his dearly-loved sister in Christ, Margherita. Margherita di Trank is described to us as a woman of n.o.ble birth, considerable fortune, and surpa.s.sing beauty, who had been educated in the convent of St. Catharine at Trent. Dolcino had been the agent of the convent, and had thus made her acquaintance. Infatuated with him, she fled with him, and remained constant to the last. He always maintained that their relations were purely spiritual, but this was naturally doubted, and the churchmen a.s.serted that she bore him a child whose birth was represented to the faithful as the operation of the Holy Ghost.[122]

Although in this letter of December, 1303, Dolcino recognizes the necessity of concealment, perhaps the expected approaching fruition of his hopes may have encouraged him to relax his precautions. Returning in 1304 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, two villages of the Valsesia, a few leagues above Vercelli. The Inquisition was soon upon the track, and, failing 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 a.s.sistance 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 Rosa, 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 several months he remained there undisturbed, making converts and receiving his disciples, whom he seems to have summoned from distant parts, as though resolved to make a stand and take advantage of the development of his apocalyptic 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 pa.s.sed the year 1304. Their numbers were not inconsiderable--some fourteen hundred of both s.e.xes--inflamed with religious zeal, regarding Dolcino as a prophet whose lightest word was law. Thus contumaciously a.s.sembled in defiance of the summons of the Inquisition, they were in open rebellion against the Church. The State also soon became their enemy, for as the year 1305 opened, their slender stock of provisions was exhausted and they replenished their stores by raids upon the lower valleys.[123]

The Church could not afford to brook this open defiance, to say nothing of the complaints of rapine and sacrilege which filled the land, yet it shows 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 V. after his election, June 5, 1305, was to issue bulls for this purpose, and the next step was to hold an a.s.sembly, August 24, where a league was formed and an agreement signed pledging the a.s.sembled n.o.bles to shed the last drop of their blood to destroy the Gazzari, who had been driven out of Sesia and Biandrate, but had not ceased to trouble the land. Armed with the papal commissions, Rainerio, Bishop of Vercelli, and the inquisitors raised a considerable force and advanced to the mountain refuge of the Apostles. Dolcino, seeing the futility of resistance, decamped by night and established 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 resistance, and since the Church was resolved on war, he and his followers 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 a.s.sembled the men of the Valsesia to dislodge 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 while longer. Their depredations continued till all the land within striking distance was reduced to a desert, the churches despoiled, and the inhabitants driven off.[124]

The winter of 1305-6 put to the test the endurance of the heretics on their bare mountain-top. As Lent came on they were reduced 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, they left the Parete Calvo, and, building paths which seemed impossible over high mountains and through deep snows, they established themselves on Monte Rubello, overlooking the village of Triverio, in the diocese of Vercelli. 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 sc.r.a.ps 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. We 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 Vercelli raised a second force of crusaders, who bravely advanced to Monte Rubello. 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.[125]

The heretic encampment was now organized for permanent occupation.

Fortifications were thrown up, houses built, and a well dug. Thus rendered inexpugnable, the hunted Apostles were 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 ambush, and dispersed them, capturing many prisoners, who, as before, were exchanged for provisions. The bishop's resources were exhausted. Again he appealed to Clement V., who graciously 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 published 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 demolished their huts. A desperate struggle took place for the possession of one commanding eminence, where mutual slaughter so deeply tinged the waters of the Riccio that its name became changed to that of Rio Carnaschio, and so strong was the impression 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.[126]

This third crusade was as fruitless as its predecessors. The a.s.sailants were repulsed and fell back to Mosso, Triverio, and Crevacore, while Dolcino, profiting by experience, fortified and 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, Ca.s.sato, 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 desperation, the ancient loving-kindness of their creed gave place to the cruelty which they learned from their a.s.sailants. 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 we are indebted 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 his own 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 faces of these dogs, of whom we are told a few 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.[127]

Dolcino's fanaticism and military skill had thus triumphed in the field, but the fatal weakness of his position lay in his inability to support his followers. This was clearly apprehended by the Bishop of Vercelli, who built five new forts around the heretic position; and when we are told that all the roads and pa.s.ses 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 still had friends among the population.

This policy was 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 gra.s.s and leaves, when they were fortunate enough to find them. Cannibalism was resorted to; the bodies of their enemies who fell in successful sorties were devoured, and even those of their comrades who succ.u.mbed 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.[128]

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 fourth crusade. A large army was raised to deal with the gaunt and haggard survivors; hot fighting occurred during Pa.s.sion 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 thousand 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 G.o.d 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." Strict orders had been given by the bishop to capture alive Dolcino and his two chief subordinates, Margherita and Longino Cattaneo, and great were the rejoicings when they were brought to him on Sat.u.r.day, at the castle of Biella.[129]

No 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 opportunity which it afforded of begging a.s.sistance for his ruined diocese and exhausted treasury. Clement's avarice responded in a n.i.g.g.ardly fashion, though the extravagant paean of triumph in which the pope hastened to announce the glad tidings to Philippe 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 Vercelli, Novara, and Pavia, and the Abbot of Lucedio were granted the first fruits of all benefices becoming vacant during the next three years in their respective territories, and the former, in addition, was exempted during life 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 Vercelli, with numerous guards posted to prevent a rescue, indicating a knowledge 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, when all the infidels would be converted. About two months pa.s.sed away before Clement's orders were received, that they should be tried and punished at the scene of their crimes. The customary a.s.sembly of experts was convened in Vercelli: there could be no doubt as to their guilt, and they were abandoned to 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 compa.s.sion, and this, coupled with the reports of her wealth, led many n.o.bles 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 torment 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 lingering 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.[130]

Complete as was Dolcino's failure, his character and his fate left an ineffaceable impression on the population. The Parete Calvo, his first mountain refuge, was considered to be haunted by 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 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sembled to gain the pardons granted by the pope, and to share in a distribution of bread provided by a special levy made on the parishes of Triverio and Portola. This custom lasted till the French invasion under Napoleon. Renewed in 1815, it was discontinued on account of the disorders which attended it. Again resumed in 1839, it was accompanied with a hurricane which is still in the Valsesia 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 tyranny.[131]

Dolcino and his immediate band of followers were thus exterminated, 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 antisacerdotal heresy, antagonistic to Rome, precisely as we have seen the same result with 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 Church of Rome on account of its wickedness; it was the Wh.o.r.e of Babylon, and all spiritual power was transferred to the Spiritual Congregation, or Order of Apostles, as they styled themselves. As time pa.s.sed on without the fulfilment of the apocalyptic promises, as Frederic of Trinacria did not develop into a deliverer, and as Antichrist delayed his appearance, they seem to have abandoned 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 community. Antisacerdotalism was thus developed to the fullest extent. There seems to have been no organization in the Order. Reception 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 live 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d was as effective in a pigsty as in a consecrated building. Priests and prelates and monks were a detriment to the faith. t.i.thes 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 all prelates, from the time of Silvester, had been seducers and prevaricators, excepting only Fra Pier di Morrone (Celestin V.). 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.[132]

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. Whatever was spontaneously set before them they ate with thankfulness, and when appet.i.te 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.[133]

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 lives of the clergy. When the Brethren of the Free Spirit were condemned in 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 exaggerations customary in such matters, but about this time a Dolcinist named Jacopo da Querio was discovered and burned in Avignon. 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 extermination, which resulted, as mentioned in a former chapter, in the apprehension of five of the heretics at far off Compostella, doubtless the remnants of the disciples of the Apostle Richard. Possibly this may have driven some of them back to France for safety, for in the _auto_ of September, 1322, at Toulouse, there figures the Galician already referred to named Pedro de Lugo, who had been strenuously labored with for a year in prison, and on his abjuration was incarcerated for life on bread and water. In the same _auto_ there was another culprit whose fate ill.u.s.trates the horror and terror inspired by the doctrines of the Dolcinists. Guillem Ruffi had been previously forced to abjuration as a Beguine, and subsequently had betrayed two of his former a.s.sociates, 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 Fraticelli 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 anything further against him he was incontinently burned as a relapsed heretic.[134]

In spite of Bernard Gui's exaggerated apprehensions, the sect, although it continued to exist for some time, gave no further serious trouble.

The Council of Cologne in 1306 and that of Treves in 1310 allude to the Apostles, showing that they were not unknown in Germany. Yet about 1335 so well-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 numerous converts, especially among the women. Attention being called to it, Fra Simone Filippi, inquisitor of the Roman province, hastened thither, seized Zoppio, and after examining him delivered him to the authorities for safe-keeping. When he desired to proceed with the trial the magistrates refused to surrender the prisoner, and abused the inquisitor. Benedict XII. was appealed to, who scolded roundly the recalcitrant officials for defending a heresy so horrible that decency forbids his describing it; he threatened them with exemplary punishment for continued contumacy, and promised that, if they were afraid of damage to the reputation of their women, the latter should be mildly treated and spared humiliating penance on giving information as to their a.s.sociates.[135]

After a long interval we hear of the Apostles again in Languedoc, 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 external 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 s.p.a.ce inspired so wide a terror.[136]

Closely allied 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 dangerous 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d. There is no eternal punishment, but souls not sufficiently purified in this life undergo purgation until admitted to heaven.[137]

We first hear of these sectaries as appearing among the Franciscans of a.s.sisi, where, under active proceedings, seven of the friars confessed, abjured, and were sentenced to perpetual prison. When, in 1309, Clement V. sought to settle the points in dispute between the Spirituals and Conventuals, the first of the four preliminary 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 reference to them is in April, 1311, when they were said to be multiplying rapidly in Spoleto, among both ecclesiastics and laymen, and Clement sent thither Raimundo, Bishop of Cremona, to stamp out the new heresy. The effort was unavailing, for in 1327, at Florence, Donna Lapina, belonging to the sect "of the Spirit" 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 inquisition to be made of the province of a.s.sisi, 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 Ascoli, who was regarded as a man of the most exemplary piety.

In 1337 he abandoned wife and children for a hermit's life, 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 disseminate 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, however, were too strong to allow him to remain orthodox. He relapsed, was tried a second time, appealed to the pope, and was finally condemned by the Holy See in 1344, when he was handed over to the secular arm and burned at Ascoli. As nothing is said about the fate of his disciples it may be a.s.sumed that they escaped by abjuration. He is usually cla.s.sed with the Fraticelli, but the errors attributed to him bear no resemblance to those of that sect, and are evidently exaggerations of the doctrines of the Spirit of Liberty.[138]

Before dismissing the career of Dolcino, it may be worth while to cast a pa.s.sing glance at that of a modern prophet which, like the cases of the modern Guglielmites, 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 progress 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 southern 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 G.o.d. 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 (O+C) in attestation of his mission. He was by no means consistent in his successive stages of development. A patriot volunteer in 1860, he subsequently upheld the cause of the Church against the a.s.saults of heretic Germany, but in 1876 his book, "My Struggle with G.o.d," reveals his aspirations towards the headship of a new faith, and describes him as carried to heaven and discoursing with G.o.d, though he still professed himself faithful to Rome and to the papacy. The Church disdained his aid and condemned his errors, and he became a heresiarch. In the spring of 1878 he urged the adoption of sacerdotal marriage, he disregarded fast-days, administered communion to his disciples in a 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 without a worshipper. David founded a "Society of the Holy League, or Christian Brotherhood," and proclaimed the coming Republic or Kingdom of G.o.d, when all property should be equally divided. Even this communism did not frighten off the small proprietors who const.i.tuted 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 peacefully to inaugurate his theocratic republic, the whole population gathered on Monte Labbro. After four days spent in religious exercises the extraordinary crusade set forth, consisting of all ages and both s.e.xes, arrayed in a fantastic uniform of red and blue, and bearing banners and garlands of flowers with which to revolutionize society. Its triumphal march was short. At the village of Arcidosso its progress was disputed by a squad of nine carabineers, 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.[139] Whether he was enthusiast or impostor may remain an open question. Travel and study had brought him training; he was no longer a rude mountain peasant, but could estimate the social forces against which he raised the standard of revolt, and could recognize that they were insuperable save to an envoy of G.o.d. Possibly on the slopes of Monte Amiata his memory may linger like that of Dolcino in the Valsesia; certain it is that many of his disciples long expected his resurrection.

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 granaries 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 all dissidence of opinion. Having once undertaken to silence the discussions 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 _Quorumdam, Sancta Romana_, and _Gloriosam Ecclesiam_, while his thorough worldliness rendered him incapable of antic.i.p.ating 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 poverty 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 orthodox Franciscans had a narrow and dangerous path to tread. The Spirituals were burned as heretics because they insisted on following their own conception of the Rule of Francis, and the distinction 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 doctrines of the Franciscan Order within the definition of the new 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 proscribed sect. To pa.s.s judgment he summoned an a.s.sembly of experts, among whom was the Franciscan Berenger Talon, teacher in the convent of Narbonne. One of the errors which he represented the culprit as entertaining was that Christ and the apostles, following the way of perfection, had held no possessions, individually or in common. As this was the universal Franciscan doctrine, we can only regard it as a challenge when he summoned Frere Berenger 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 Berenger, 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 everywhere 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 p.r.o.nounced in _Exiit qui seminat_. 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 a.s.sertion that Christ and the apostles possessed nothing individually or in common was a heresy.[140]

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 conscientiously trained in the belief that the abnegation of property 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 Hilarion 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 doubtless 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 ill.u.s.trious 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). Better than a life 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 creation. It is a sin for the able-bodied to live on charity, and thus 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, William of Saint-Amour?[141]

It was inevitable that the replies to the question submitted by John should be adverse to the poverty of Christ and the apostles. The bishops were universally a.s.sumed to be the representatives of the latter, and could not be expected to relish the a.s.sertion that their prototypes had been commanded by Christ to own no property. The Spirituals had made a point of this. Olivi had proved not only that Franciscans promoted to the episcopate were even more bound than their brethren to observe the Rule in all its strictures, but that bishops in general were under obligation to live in deeper poverty than the members of the most perfect Order. Now that there was a chance of justifying their worldliness and luxury, it was not likely to be lost. Yet John himself for a while held his own opinion suspended. In a debate before the consistory, Ubertino da Casale, the former leader of the orthodox Spirituals, was summoned to present the Franciscan view of the poverty of Christ, in answer to the Dominicans, and we are told that John was greatly pleased with his argument. Unluckily, at the General Chapter held at Perugia, May 30, 1322, the Franciscans appealed to Christendom at large by a definition addressed to all the faithful, in which they proved that the absolute poverty of Christ was the accepted doctrine of the Church, as set forth in the bulls _Exiit_ and _Exivi de Paradiso_, and that John himself had approved of these in his bull _Quorumdum_.

Another and more comprehensive utterance to the same effect received the signatures of all the Franciscan masters and bachelors of theology in France and England. With a disputant such as John this was an act of more zeal than discretion. His pa.s.sions were fairly aroused, and he proceeded to treat the Franciscans as antagonists. In December of the same year he dealt them a heavy blow in the bull _Ad conditorem_, wherein with remorseless logic he pointed out the fallacy of the device of Innocent IV. for eluding the provisions of the Rule by vesting the ownership of property in the Holy See and its use in the Friars. It had not made them less eager in acquisitiveness, while it had led them to a senseless pride in their own a.s.serted superiority of poverty. He showed that use and consumption as conceded to them were tantamount to ownership, and that pretended ownership subject to such usufruct was illusory, while it was absurd to speak of Rome as owning an egg or a piece of cheese given to a friar to be consumed on the spot. Moreover, it was humiliating to the Roman Church to appear as plaintiff or defendant in the countless litigations in which the Order was involved, and the procurators who thus appeared in its name were said to abuse their position to the injury of many who were defrauded of their rights.

For these reasons he annulled the provisions of Nicholas III., and declared that henceforth no ownership in the possessions of the Order should inhere in the Roman Church and no procurator act in its name.[142]

The blow was shrewdly dealt, for though the question of the poverty of Christ was not alluded to, the Order was deprived of its subterfuge, and was forced to admit practically that ownership of property was a necessary condition of its existence. Its members, however, had too long nursed the delusion to recognize its fallacy now, and in January, 1323, Bonagrazia, as procurator specially commissioned for the purpose, presented to the pope in full consistory a written protest against his action. If Bonagrazia had not arguments to adduce he had at least ample precedents to cite in the long line of popes since Gregory IX., including John himself. He wound up by audaciously appealing to the pope, to Holy Mother Church, and to the apostles, and though he concluded by submitting himself to the decisions of the Church, he could not escape the wrath which he had provoked. It was not many years since Clement V. had confined him for resisting too bitterly the extravagance of the Spirituals: he still consistently occupied the same position, and now John cast him into a foul and dismal dungeon because he had not moved with the world, while the only answer to his protest was taking down from the church doors the bull _Ad conditorem_ and replacing it with a revised edition, more decided and argumentative than its predecessor.[143]

All this did not conduce to a favorable decision of the question as to the poverty of Christ. John was now fairly enlisted against the Franciscans, and their enemies lost no opportunity of inflaming his pa.s.sions. He would listen to no defence of the decision of the Chapter of Perugia. In consistory a Franciscan cardinal and some bishops timidly ventured to suggest that possibly there might be some truth in it, when he angrily silenced them--"You are talking heresy"--and forced them to recant on the spot. When he heard that the greatest Franciscan schoolman of the day, William of Ockham, had preached that it was heretical to affirm that Christ and the apostles owned property, he promptly wrote to the Bishops of Bologna and Ferrara to investigate the truth of the report, and if it was correct to cite Ockham to appear before him at Avignon within a month. Ockham obeyed, and we shall hereafter see what came of it.[144]

The papal decision on the momentous question was at last put forth, November 12, 1323, in the bull _c.u.m inter nonnullos_. In this there was no wavering or hesitation. The a.s.sertion that Christ and the apostles possessed no property was flatly declared to be a perversion of Scripture; it was denounced for the future as erroneous and heretical, and its obstinate a.s.sertion by the Franciscan chapter was formally condemned. To the believers in the supereminent holiness of poverty, it was stunning to find themselves cast out as heretics for holding a doctrine which for generations had pa.s.sed as an incontrovertible truth, and had repeatedly received the sanction of the Holy See in its most solemn form of ratification. Yet there was no help for it, and unless they were prepared to shift their belief with the pope, they could only expect to be delivered in this world to the Inquisition and in the next to Satan.[145]

Suddenly there appeared a new factor in the quarrel, which speedily gave it importance as a political question of the first magnitude. The sempiternal antagonism between the papacy and the empire had been recently a.s.suming a more virulent aspect than usual under the imperious management of John XXII. Henry VII. had died in 1313, and in October, 1314, there had been a disputed election. Louis of Bavaria and Frederic of Austria both claimed the kaisership. Since Leo III., in the year 800, had renewed the line of Roman emperors by crowning Charlemagne, the ministration of the pope in an imperial coronation had been held essential, and had gradually enabled the Holy See to put forward undefined claims of a right to confirm the vote of the German electors.

For the enforcement of such claims a disputed election gave abundant opportunity, nor were there lacking other elements to complicate the position. The Angevine papalist King of Naples, Robert the Good, had dreams of founding a great Italian Guelf monarchy, to which John XXII.

lent a not unfavorable ear; especially as his quarrel with the Ghibelline Visconti of Lombardy was becoming unappeasable. The traditional enmity between France and Germany, moreover, rendered the former eager in everything that could cripple the empire, and French influence was necessarily dominant in Avignon. It would be foreign to our purpose to penetrate into the labyrinth of diplomatic intrigue which speedily formed itself around these momentous questions. An alliance between Robert and Frederic, with the a.s.sent of the pope, seemed to give the latter a.s.surance of recognition, when the battle of Muhldorf, September 28, 1322, decided the question. Frederic was a prisoner in the hands of his rival, and there could be no further doubt as to which of them should reign in Germany. It did not follow, however, that John would consent to place the imperial crown on the head of Louis.[146]

So far was he from contemplating any such action that he still insisted on deciding between the claims of the compet.i.tors. Louis contemptuously left his pretensions unanswered and proceeded to settle matters by concluding a treaty with his prisoner and setting him free. Moreover, he intervened effectually in the affairs of Lombardy, rescued the Visconti from the Guelf league which was about to overwhelm them, and ruined the plans of the cardinal legate, Bertrand de Poyet, John's nephew or son, who was carving out a princ.i.p.ality for himself. It would have required less than this to awaken the implacable hostility of such a man as John, whose only hope for the success of his Italian policy now lay in dethroning Louis and replacing him with the French king, Charles le Bel.

He rushed precipitately to the conflict and proclaimed no quarter.

October 8, 1323, in the presence of a vast mult.i.tude, a bull was read and affixed to the portal of the cathedral of Avignon, which declared not only that no one could act as King of the Romans until his person had been approved by the pope, but repeated a claim, already made in 1317, that until such approval the empire was vacant, and its government during the interregnum belonged to the Holy See. All of Louis's acts were p.r.o.nounced null and void; he was summoned within three months to lay down his power and submit his person to the pope for approval, under pain of the punishments which he had incurred by his rebellious pretence of being emperor; all oaths of allegiance taken to him were declared annulled; all prelates were threatened with suspension, and all cities and states with excommunication and interdict if they should continue to obey him. Louis at first received this portentous missive with singular humility. November 12 he sent to Avignon envoys, who did not arrive until January 2, 1324, to ask whether the reports which he had heard of the papal action were true, and if so to request a delay of six months in which to prove his innocence. To this John, on January 7, gave answer extending the term only two months from that day. Meanwhile Louis had taken heart, possibly encouraged by the outbreak of the quarrel between John and the Franciscans, for the date of the credentials of the envoys, November 12, was the same as that of the bull _c.u.m inter nonnullos_. On December 18, he issued the Nuremberg Protest, a spirited vindication of the rights of the German nation and empire against the new pretensions of the papacy; he demanded the a.s.sembling of a general council before which he would make good his claims; it was his duty, as the head of the empire, to maintain the purity of the faith against a pope who was a fautor of heretics. It shows how little he yet understood about the questions at issue that to sustain this last charge he accused John of unduly protecting the Franciscans against universal complaints that they habitually violated the secrecy of the confessional, this being apparently his version of the papal condemnation of John of Poilly's thesis that confession to a Mendicant friar was insufficient.[147]

If Louis at first thought to gain strength by thus utilizing the jealousy and dislike felt by the secular clergy towards the Mendicants, he soon realized that a surer source of support was to be found in espousing the side of the Franciscans in the quarrel forced upon them by John. The two months' delay granted by John expired March 7 without Louis making an appearance, and on March 25 the pope promulgated against him a sentence of excommunication, with a threat that he should be deprived of all rights if he did not submit within three months. To this Louis speedily rejoined in a doc.u.ment known as the Protest of Sachsenhausen, which shows that since December he had put himself in communication with the disaffected Franciscans, had entered into alliance with them, and had recognized how great was the advantage of posing as the defender of the faith and a.s.sailing the pope with the charge of heresy. After paying due attention to John's a.s.saults on the rights of the empire, the Protest takes up the question of his recent bulls respecting poverty and argues them in much detail. John had declared before Franciscans of high standing that for forty years he had regarded the Rule of Francis as fantastic and impossible. As the Rule was revealed by Christ, this alone proves him to be a heretic. Moreover, as the Church is infallible in its definitions of faith, and as it has repeatedly, through Honorius III., Innocent IV., Alexander IV., Innocent V., Nicholas III., and Nicholas IV., p.r.o.nounced in favor of the poverty of Christ and the apostles, John's condemnation of this tenet abundantly shows him to be a heretic. His two const.i.tutions, _Ad conditorem_ and _c.u.m inter nonnullos_, therefore, have cut him off from the Church as a manifest heretic teaching a condemned heresy, and have disabled him from the papacy; all of which Louis swore to prove before a general council to be a.s.sembled in some place of safety.[148]

John proceeded with his prosecution of Louis by a further declaration, issued July 11, in which, without deigning to notice the Protest of Sachsenhausen, he p.r.o.nounced Louis to have forfeited by his contumacy all claim to the empire; further obstinacy would deprive him of his ancestral dukedom of Bavaria and other possessions, and he was summoned to appear October 1, to receive final sentence. Yet John could not leave unanswered the a.s.sault upon his doctrinal position, and on November 10 he issued the bull _Quia quorumdam_, in which he argued that he had exercised no undue power in contradicting the decisions of his predecessors: he declared it a condemned heresy to a.s.sert that Christ and the apostles had only simple usufruct, without legal possession, in the things which Scripture declared them to have possessed, for if this were true it would follow that Christ was unjust, which is blasphemy.

All who utter, write, or teach such doctrines fall into condemned heresy, and are to be avoided as heretics.[149]

Thus the poverty of Christ was fairly launched upon the world as a European question. It is a significant ill.u.s.tration of the intellectual condition of the fourteenth century that in the subsequent stages of the quarrel between the papacy and the empire, involving the most momentous principles of public law, those principles, in the manifestoes of either side, a.s.sume quite a subordinate position. The shrewd and able men who conducted the controversy evidently felt that public opinion was much more readily influenced by accusations of heresy, even upon a point so trivial and unsubstantial, than by appeals to reason upon the conflicting jurisdictions of Church and State.[150] Yet, as the quarrel widened and deepened, and as the stronger intellects antagonistic to papal pretensions gathered around Louis, they were able, in unwonted liberty of thought and speech, to investigate the theory of government and the claims of the papacy with unheard-of boldness. Unquestionably they aided Louis in his struggle, but the spirit of the age was against them. Spiritual authority was still too awful for successful rebellion, and when Louis pa.s.sed away affairs returned to the old routine, and the labors of the men who had waged his battle in the hope of elevating humanity disappeared, leaving but a doubtful trace upon the modes of thought of the time.

The most audacious of these champions was Marsiglio of Padua.

Interpenetrated with the principles of the imperial jurisprudence, in which the State was supreme and the Church wholly subordinated, he had seen in France how the influence of the Roman law was emanc.i.p.ating the civil power from servitude, and perhaps in the University of Paris had heard the echoes of the theories of Henry of Ghent, the celebrated Doctor Solemnis, who had taught the sovereignty of the people over their princes. He framed a conception of a political organization which should reproduce that of Rome under the Christian emperors, with a recognition of the people as the ultimate source of all civil authority. Aided by Jean de Jandum he developed these ideas with great hardihood and skill in his "_Defensor Pacis_", and in 1326, when the strife between John and Louis was at its hottest, the two authors left Paris to lay the result of their labors before the emperor. In a brief tract, moreover, "_De translatione imperii_," Marsiglio subsequently sketched the manner in which the Holy Roman Empire had arisen, showing the ancient subjection of the Holy See to the imperial power, and the baselessness of the papal claims to confirm the election of the emperors. John XXII. had no hesitation in condemning the daring authors as heretics, and the protection which Louis afforded them added another count to the indictment against him for heresy. Unable to wreak vengeance upon them, all who could be supposed to be their accomplices were sternly dealt with. A certain Francesco of Venice, who had been a student with Marsiglio at Paris, was seized and carried to Avignon on a charge of having aided in the preparation of the wicked book, and of having supplied the heresiarch with money. Tried before the Apostolic Chamber, he stoutly maintained that he was ignorant of the contents of the "_Defensor Pacis_," that he had deposited money with Marsiglio, as was customary with scholars, and that Marsiglio had left Paris owing him thirteen sols parisis. Jean de Jandun died in 1328, and Marsiglio not later than 1343, thus mercifully spared the disappointment of the failure of their theories. In so far as purely intellectual conceptions had weight in the conflict they were powerful allies for Louis. In the "_Defensor Pacis_" the power of the keys is argued away in the clearest dialectics. G.o.d alone has power to judge, to absolve, to condemn. The pope is no more than any other priest, and a priestly sentence may be the result of hatred, favor, or injustice, of no weight with G.o.d.

Excommunication, to be effective, must not proceed from the judgment of a single priest, but must be the sentence of the whole community, with full knowledge of all the facts. It is no wonder that when, in 1376, a French translation of the work appeared in Paris it created a profound sensation. A prolonged inquest was held, lasting from September to December, in which all the learned men in the city were made to swear before a notary as to their ignorance of the translator.[151]