Evidently these poor folk would have been harmless enough if let alone, and their persecution could only be justified by the 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 probably 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 ferocious 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 were doubtless of Spirituals. One of them was of Jean Roger, a priest who had stood in high consideration at Béziers; he had been an associate of Pierre Trencavel in his wanderings, and the slight penance imposed on him would seem to indicate that the ardor of persecution 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 February, 1331, he reissued his bull Sancta Romana, with a preface addressed to bishops and inquisitors in which he assumes that the sect is flourishing as vigorously as ever, and orders the most active measures taken for its suppression. Doubtless there were subsequent prosecutions, but the sect as a distinctive one faded out of sight.[86]
During the period of its active existence it had spread across the Pyrenees into Aragon. Even before the Council of Béziers, 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 throughout the kingdom, and all Franciscan Tertiaries were subjected to supervision. Their books in the vulgar 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 influence 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 Bonato. They were obstinate, and were handed over to the secular arm, when all were burned except Bonato, who 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 Cistercians, who condemned the apocalyptic and spiritualistic writings of Arnaldo, which were ordered to be surrendered within ten days under pain of excommunication. The persecution continued. Durán de Baldach was burned as a Spiritual, with a disciple, in 1325. About the same time John XXII. issued several bulls commanding strict inquisition to be made for them throughout Aragon, Valencia, and the Balearic Isles, and subjecting them to the jurisdiction 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 Spanish 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 received from Christ the power which he held on earth.[87]
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 Rochetaillade. 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 Vilanova, 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. Perhaps 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 Spirituals he looked fondly back to the primitive days before Constantine, when in holy poverty the foundations of the faith were laid. He seems to have steered clear of the express heresy as to the poverty of Christ, and when he came to Avignon, 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 dangerous a man to be at large, and he was kept in confinement. When he was finally liberated is not stated, but if Pelayo is correct in saying that he returned home at the age of ninety he must have been released after a long incarceration.[88]
The ostensible cause of his punishment was his Joachitic speculation as to Antichrist, though, as Wadding observes, many holy men did the same without animadversion, like St. Vicente Ferrer, who in 1412 not only predicted Antichrist, but asserted that he was already nine years old, and who was canonized, not persecuted. Miliez 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 Antichrist 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 possess the world, all would be Tertiaries of St. Francis, and the Franciscans would be models of holiness and poverty. The heretics would take refuge in inaccessible mountains and the islands of the sea, whence they would emerge at the close of the Millennium; 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.[89]
Meditation in prison seems to have modified somewhat his prophetic vision, and in 1356 he wrote his Vade mecum in Tribulatione, 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 apostolical poverty, and by 1370 would commence the process of recuperation which would bring all mankind under the domination of Christ and of his earthly representative. During the interval there would be a succession of the direst calamities. From 1360 to 1365 the worms of the earth would arise and 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 be 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 society. 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 nympholepsy was deemed worthy of severe repression.[90]
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 commissioned envoy sent to announce it, when his mission was humanely cut short by confining him as a madman. Singularly identical in all but the result was the career of Nicholas of Buldesdorf, 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 the state of primal innocence; and that he was the Son of God deputed to spread the glad tidings. To the council still sitting at Basle he sent various tracts containing these doctrines, and he finally had the audacity to appear before it in person. His writings were promptly consigned to the flames and he was 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 1446.[91]
A last echo of the Everlasting Gospel is heard in the teaching of two brothers, John and Lewin of Würzburg, 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 anointed 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 Ratisbon. The measures taken for its suppression 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.[92]
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 in even more irregular fashion in the little group of sectaries known as Guglielmites, and in the more formidable demonstration of the Dolcinists, or Apostolic Brethren.
About the year 1260 there came to Milan a woman calling herself Guglielma. That she brought with her a son shows that she had lived in the world, and was doubtless tried with its vicissitudes, 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 King of Bohemia. Her royal extraction is questionable, but the matter is scarce worth the discussion which it has provoked.[93] She was a woman of pre-eminent piety, who devoted herself to good works, without practising 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. They adopted the style of plain brown garment which she habitually wore, and seem to have formed a kind of unorganized congregation, bound together only by common devotion to her.[94]