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

by Henry Charles Lea

In 1335, one of the earliest cares of Benedict XII. after his accession was the repression of these Fratres de paupere Vita, as they styled themselves. They still in many places publicly displayed their contumacy by wearing the short and narrow gowns of the Spirituals. They still held Michele to be their general, insulted the memory of John XXII., and were earnestly and successfully engaged in proselytism. Moreover, they were openly protected by men of rank and power. All the inquisitors, from Treviso and Lombardy to Sicily, were commanded to free the Church from these impious hypocrites by vigorous action, and directions were sent to the prelates to lend efficient assistance. There were some, at least, of the latter who did not respond, for in 1336 Francesco, Bishop of Camerino, and Giacopo, Bishop of Firmo, were summoned to answer for favoring the sectaries and permitting them to live in their dioceses. The whole Order, in fact, was still infected with these dangerous doctrines, and could not be brought to view the dissidents with proper abhorrence. Benedict complained that in the kingdom of Naples many Franciscan convents gave shelter to these perverse brethren, and in a bull regulating the Order issued this same year he alludes to those among them who wear peculiar vestments and, under a pretended exterior of sanctity, maintain heresies condemned by the Church of Rome; all such, together with those who protect them, are to be imprisoned until they submit. It was not always easy to enforce obedience to these mandates. The Bishop of Camerino was stubborn, and the next year, 1337, Frà Giovanni di Borgo, the inquisitor of the Mark of Ancona, was instructed to proceed severely against him and other fautors of these heretics. By his active operations Frà Giovanni incurred the ill-will of the nobles of his district, who had sufficient influence with the general, Gerard Odo, to procure his replacement by his associate Giacomo and subsequently by Simone da Ancona, but the Cardinal Legate Bertrand intervened, and Benedict restored him with high encomiums on his efficiency. Although persecution was thus active, it is probable that few of the sectaries had the spirit of martyrdom, and that they recanted under pressure, but there was no hesitation in inflicting the full punishment of heresy on those who were persistent. June 3, 1337, at Venice, Frà Francesco da Pistoia was burned for pertinaciously asserting the poverty of Christ in contempt of the definitions of John XXII., nor was he the only victim.[170]

The test of heresy, as I have said, was the assertion that Christ and the apostles held no property. This appears from the abjuration of Frà Francesco d’ Ascoli in 1344, who recants that belief and declares that in accordance with the bulls of John XXII. he holds it to be heretical. That such continued to be the customary formula appears from Eymerich, who instructs his inquisitor to make the penitent declare under oath, “I swear that I believe in my heart and profess that our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles while in this mortal life held in common the things which Scripture declares them to have had, and that they had the right of giving, selling, and alienating them.”[171]

The heresy was thus so purely an artificial one, created by the Holy See, that perhaps it is not difficult to understand the sympathy excited by these poor and self-denying ascetics, who bore all the external marks of what the Church had for ages taught to be exceeding holiness. Camerino continued to be a place of refuge. In 1343 Clement VI. ordered the Bishops of Ancona and Osimo to cite before him within three months Gentile, Lord of Camerino, for various offences, among which was protecting the Fraticelli, impeding the inquisitors in the prosecution of their duties, and despising for several years the excommunication which they had pronounced against him. Even the inquisitors themselves, especially in Franciscan districts, were not always earnest in the work, possibly because there was little prospect of profitable confiscations to be procured from those who regarded the possession of property as a sin, and in 1346 Clement found himself obliged to reprove them sharply for their tepidity. In such districts the Fraticelli showed themselves with little concealment. When, in 1348, Cola di Rienzo fled from Rome after his first tribuneship, he betook himself to the Fraticelli of Monte Maiella; he was charmed with their holiness and poverty, entered the Order as a Tertiary, and deplored that men so exemplary should be persecuted by the pope and the Inquisition. Tuscany was full of them. It was in vain that about this period Florence adopted severe laws for their repression, placing them under the ban, empowering any one to capture them, and deliver them to the Inquisition, and imposing a fine of five hundred lire on any official declining, when summoned by the inquisitors, to assist in their arrest. The very necessity of enacting such laws shows how difficult it was to stimulate the people to join the persecution. Even this appears to have been ineffectual. There is extant a letter from Giovanni delle Celle of Vallombrosa to Tommaso di Neri, a Fraticello of Florence, in which the former attacks the fatuity of the latter in making an idol of poverty; the letter was answered and led to a controversy which seems to have been conducted openly.[172]

Yet, trivial as was apparently the point at issue, it was impossible that men could remain contentedly under the ban of the Church without being forced to adopt principles destructive of the whole ecclesiastical organization. They could only justify themselves by holding that they were the true Church, that the papacy was heretical and had forfeited its claim of obedience, and could no longer guide the faithful to salvation. It is an interesting proof of the state of public opinion in Italy, that in spite of the thoroughly organized machinery of persecution, men who held these doctrines were able to disseminate them almost publicly and to make numerous proselytes. About the middle of the century they circulated throughout Italy a document written in the vernacular, “so that it can be understood by every one,” giving their reasons for separating themselves from pope and prelate. It is singularly temperate in tone and logical in structure. The argument is drawn strictly from Scripture and from the utterances of the Church itself, and from even the standpoint of a canonist it is unanswerable. There are no apocalyptic hysterics, no looking forward to Antichrist or to new ages of the world, no mysticism. There is not even any reference to St. Francis, nor any claim that his Rule is inspired and inviolable. Yet none the less the whole body of the Church is declared to be heretic, and all the faithful are summoned to cut loose from it.

The reasons alleged for this are three—First, heresy; second, simony; third, fornication. As to the first, John XXII. is proved to be a heretic by the bulls pronouncing heretical the doctrine that Christ and the apostles possessed nothing. This is easily done by reason of the definitions of the previous popes confirmed by the Council of Vienne. The corollary of course follows that all his successors and their cardinals are heretics. As regards simony, the canons of the Decretum and the utterances of the doctors are quoted to show that it is heresy. As regards fornication, it was easy to cite the canons embodying the Hildebrandine doctrine that the sacraments of fornicating priests are not to be received. It is true that there are many priests who are not fornicators, but there are none who are not simonists—who have not given or received money for the sacraments. Even if he could be found who is innocent on all these heads, it would be necessary for him to separate himself from the rest, for, as Raymond of Pennaforte shows in his Summa, those are guilty of mortal sin and idolatry who receive the sacraments of heretics. The Fraticelli, therefore, have been obliged to withdraw from a heretical church, and they issue this manifesto to justify their course. If in any way it is erroneous, they ask to have the error pointed out; and if it is correct, the faithful are bound to join them, because, after the facts are known, association with prelates and clergy thus heretical and excommunicate will involve in heresy all who are guilty of it.[173]

All the Fraticelli, however, were not uniformly agreed upon all points. In the above document a leading argument is drawn from the assumed vitiation of the sacraments in polluted hands—a dangerous tenet, constantly recurring to plague the successors of Hildebrand—which we do not find in other utterances of the sectaries. In fact, we find them, in 1362, divided into two branches, one of which recognized as its leader Tommaso, ex-Bishop of Aquino, and held that as John XXII. and his successors were heretics, the sacrament of ordination derived from them was void, and reordination was required of all ecclesiastics entering the sect. The other, which took its name from Felipe of Majorca, was regularly organized under a general minister, and, while equally regarding the popes as heretics, recognized the ordinations of the establishment. All branches of the sect, however, drew ample store of reasons from the venality and corruption of the Church, which was doubtless their most convincing argument with the people. There is extant a letter in the vulgar tongue from a frate to two female devotees, arguing, like the more formal manifesto, that they are bound to withdraw from the communion of the heretical church. This is the beast with seven horns, which are: 1, supreme pride; 2, supreme cruelty; 3, supreme folly or wrath; 4, supreme deceit and inimitable falsehood; 5, supreme carnality or lust; 6, supreme cupidity or avarice; 7, supreme hatred of truth, or malice. The ministers of this heretic church have no shame in publicly keeping concubines, and in selling Christ for money in the sacraments. This letter further indicates the legitimate descent of the Fraticelli from the Spirituals by a quotation from Joachim to show that St. Francis is Noah, and the faithful few of his children are those who are saved with him in the Ark.[174]

A still closer connection may be inferred from a bull of Urban V., issued about 1365, instructing inquisitors to be active in exterminating heretics, and describing for their information the different heresies. The Fraticelli are represented as indulging in gluttony and lasciviousness under the cover of strict external sanctity, pretending to be Franciscan Tertiaries, and begging publicly or living in their own houses. It is possible, however, that his description of their holding assemblies in which they read Olivi’s “Postil on the Apocalypse” and his other works, but chiefly the account of his death, is rather borrowed from Bernard Gui’s account of the Spirituals of Languedoc, than a correct statement of the customs of the Fraticelli of his time.[175]

Of the final shape which the heresy assumed we have an authoritative account from its ruthless exterminator, the Inquisitor Giacomo della Marca. In his “Dialogue with a Fraticello,” written about 1450, there is no word about the follies of the Spirituals, or any extraneous dogmas. The question turns wholly on the poverty of Christ and the heresy of John’s definitions of the doctrine. The Fraticelli stigmatize the orthodox as Joannistæ, and in turn are called Michaelistæ, showing that by this time the extravagances of the Spirituals had been forgotten, and that the heretics were the direct descendants of the schismatic Franciscans who followed Michele da Cesena. The disorders and immorality of the clergy still afforded them their most effective arguments in their active missionary work. Giacomo complains that they abused the minds of the simple by representing the priests as simonists and concubinarians, and that the people, imbued with this poison, lost faith in the clergy, refused to confess to them, to attend their masses, to receive their sacraments, and to pay their tithes, thus becoming heretics and pagans and children of the devil, while fancying themselves children of God.[176]

The Fraticelli thus formed one or more separate organizations, each of which asserted itself to be the only true Church. In the scanty information which we possess, it is impossible to trace in detail the history of the fragmentary parts into which they split, and we can only say in general terms that the sect did not consist simply of anchorites and friars, but had its regular clergy and laity, its bishops and their supreme head or pope, known as the Bishop of Philadelphia, that being the name assigned to the community. In 1357 this position was filled by Tommaso, the ex-Bishop of Aquino; chance led to the discovery of such a pope in Perugia in 1374; in 1429 we happen to know that a certain Rainaldo filled the position, and shortly after a frate named Gabriel. There is even talk of a chief of the laity who styled himself Emperor of the Christians.[177]

It was in vain that successive popes ordered the Inquisition to take the most active measures for the suppression of the sect, and that occasional holocausts rewarded their exertions, as when, under Urban V. nine were burned at Viterbo, and in 1389 Frà Michele Berti de Calci suffered the same fate at Florence. This last case reveals in its details the popular sympathy which favored the labors of the Fraticelli. Frà Michele had been sent to Florence as a missionary by a congregation of the sect which met in a cavern in the Mark of Ancona. He preached in Florence and made many converts, and was about leaving the city, April 19, when he was betrayed by five female zealots, who sent for him pretending to seek conversion. His trial was short. A colleague saved his life by recantation, but Michele was firm. When brought up in judgment to be degraded from the priesthood he refused to kneel before the bishop, saying that heretics are not to be knelt to. In walking to the place of execution many of the crowd exchanged words of cheer with him, leading to considerable disturbance, and when tied to a stake in a sort of cabin which was to be set on fire, a number put their heads inside to beg him to recant. The place was several times filled with smoke to frighten him, but he was unyielding, and after his incremation there were many people, we are told, who regarded him as a saint.[178]