A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume III

by Henry Charles Lea

At that period it was not easy to set bounds to veneration; the spiritual world was felt to be in the closest relation with the material, and the development of Joachitism shows how readily received 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 prepared 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 mankind into unity of faith. At last, about 1276, some of the more enthusiastic disciples began to whisper that she was the incarnation 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 Visconti. There is no probability that Guglielma countenanced these absurd stories. Andrea Saramita was the only witness 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. When 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 indignantly 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 uttering such words they would be condemned to hell. Yet to minds familiar with the promises of the Everlasting Gospel, it might well seem that the era of the Holy Ghost would be ushered in with such an incarnation.[95]

Guglielma died August 24, 1381, leaving her property to the great Cistercian house of Chiaravalle, near Milan, where she desired 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 Montferrat to ask for an escort of troops to accompany the cortége. The translation of the body took place in October, and was conducted with great splendor. The Cistercians welcomed the opportunity to add to the attractions and revenues of their establishment. 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 Salimbene declares that the canons forbade the veneration of any one, or picturing him as a saint, until the Roman Church had authoritatively passed upon his claims. In this Salimbene was mistaken. Zanghino Ugolini, a much better authority, assures us that the worship of uncanonized saints was not heretical, if it were believed 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 long as a saint was uncanonized his cult was at the discretion of the bishop, who could at any time command its cessation, and the mere fact that miracles were performed was no evidence, as they are frequently the work of demons to deceive the faithful.[96]

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. Maria 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 in the nunnery of Biassono. In all this the good monks of Chiaravalle were not remiss. They kept lighted lamps before her altar. Two feast-days were assigned to her—the anniversaries 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 forbade the profanation of a woman’s presence within the sacred enclosure—and some of the monks 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 worshippers would offer. Nor was this the only gain to the abbey. Giacobbe de’ Novati, one of the believers, belonged to one of the noblest families of Milan, and at his castle the Guglielmites were wont to assemble. When he died he instituted the abbey as his heir, and the inheritance could not have been inconsiderable. There were, doubtless, other instances of similar liberality of which the evidences have not reached us.[97]

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 Rome would give place to a new and higher organization. It was not difficult, therefore, for the Guglielmites to persuade themselves that they had enjoyed the society of the Paraclete, who was shortly to appear, when the Holy Spirit would be received in tongues of flame by the disciples, the heathen and the Jew would be converted, and there would be a new church ushering 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 credulity of the disciples. The Archangel Raphael had announced to the blessed Constance the incarnation 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 occasion, 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 communion. 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 faithful was stimulated by stories of her being in communication with her representatives, both in her own form and in that of a dove. How slight was the evidence required for believers was seen in an incident which gave them great comfort in 1293. At a banquet in the house of Giacobbe da Ferno, a warm discussion arose between those who doubted and those whose convictions were decided. Carabella, wife of Amizzone Toscano, one of the earnest believers, was sitting on her mantle, and when she arose she found three knots in the cords which had not been there before. This was at once pronounced a great miracle, and was evidently regarded as a full confirmation of the truth.[98]

If it were not for the tragedy which followed there would be nothing to render Guglielmitism 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 Andrea, of which 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 Nations,” and an account of Guglielma’s teachings commencing, “In that time the Holy Ghost said to his disciples.” Maifreda also composed 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 hell, 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 when before the Inquisition, and the terms of contempt in which she is alluded to by some of the sect, was a worthy representative of the whole 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 probably the spiritual excitement caused by the jubilee proclaimed by Boniface VIII., attracting pilgrims to Rome 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, the worshippers prepared splendid garments for the adornment of the expected God—a purple mantle with a silver clasp costing thirty pounds of terzioli, gold-embroidered silks and gilt slippers—while Pietra de’ Alzate contributed forty-two dozen pearls, and Catella de’ Giori 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 already prepared for this, on an extravagant scale, costing more than two hundred lire.[99]

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 intelligence, showing the spirit of unrest 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 Ghibellines 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 Visconti 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 Francesco Garbagnate, who had been sentenced to wear crosses for his participation in the Guglielmite heresy; and when John XXII., in 1324, confirmed the sentence, he added that Matteo had terrorized the inquisitors to save his son Galeazzo, who was also a Guglielmite.[100]

When the heresy became known popular rumor of course attributed to it the customary practices of indiscriminate sexual indulgence 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 believer.[101] 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. The inquisitors wasted 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 mentioned that on one occasion, at a banquet in honor of Guglielma, 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 initiated was apparently much smaller. The names of those inculpated in the confessions before the Inquisition amount only to about thirty, and it is fair to assume that the number of the sectaries at no time exceeded thirty-five or forty.[102]

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 Guglielma’s death, two of the disciples, Allegranza and Carabella, incautiously revealed the mysteries of their faith to Belfiore, mother of Frà Enrico di Nova, who at once conveyed it to the inquisitor, Frà Manfredo di Donavia. Andrea was forthwith summoned, with his wife Riccadona, his sister, Migliore, and his daughter, Fiordebellina; also Maifreda, Bellacara de’ Carentani, Giacobba dei Bassani, and possibly some others. They readily abjured and were treated with exceptional mildness, for Frà 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 little 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 Frà Tommaso di Como, of which no details have reached us, but which evidently left the leaders unharmed.[103]

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 expected 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, Giacobba 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 effectively. On July 18 a certain Frà Ghirardo presented himself to Lanfranco de’ Amizzoni and revealed the whole affair, with the names of the principal disciples. Andrea sought him out and endeavored 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 orders to return the next day and meanwhile to preserve absolute secrecy.[104]