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

by Henry Charles Lea

The question of poverty evidently was one incapable of permanent and satisfactory settlement. Dissension in the Order could not be healed. In vain Gregory X., about 1275, was appealed to, and decided that the injunction of the Rule against the possession of property, individually or in common, was to be strictly observed. The worldly party continued to point out the incompatibility of this with the necessities of human nature; they declared it to be a tempting of God and a suicide of the individual; the quarrel continually grew more bitterly envenomed, and in 1279 Nicholas III. undertook to settle it with a formal declaration which should forever close the mouths of all cavillers. For two months he secretly labored at it in consultation with the two Franciscan cardinals, Palestrina and Albano, the general, Bonagrazia, and some of the provincials. Then it was submitted to a commission in which was Benedetto Caietano, afterwards Boniface VIII. Finally it was read and adopted in full consistory, and it was included, twenty years later, in the additions to the canon law compiled and published by order of Boniface. No utterance of the Holy See could have more careful consideration and more solemn authority than the bull known as Exiit qui seminat, which was thus ushered into the world, and which subsequently became the subject of such deadly controversy.[33]

It declares the Franciscan Rule to be the inspiration of the Holy Ghost through St. Francis. The renunciation of property, not only individual but in common, is meritorious and holy. Such absolute renunciation of possession had been practised by Christ and the apostles, and had been taught by them to their disciples; it is not only meritorious and perfect, but lawful and possible, for there is a distinction between use, which is permitted, and ownership, which is forbidden. Following the example of Innocent IV. and Alexander IV., the proprietorship of all that the Franciscans use is declared to be vested, now and hereafter, in the Roman Church and pontiff, which concede to the friars the usufruct thereof. The prohibition to receive and handle money is to be enforced, and borrowing is especially deprecated; but, when necessity obliges, this may be effected through third parties, although the brethren must abstain from handling the money or administering or expending it. As for legacies, they must not be left directly to the friars, but only for their use; and minute regulations are drawn up for exchanging or selling books and utensils. The bull concludes with instructions that it is to be read and taught in the schools, but no one, under pain of excommunication and loss of office and benefice, shall do anything but expound it literally—it is not to be glossed or commented upon, or discussed, or explained away. All doubts and questions shall be submitted directly to the Holy See, and any one disputing or commenting on the Franciscan Rule or the definitions of the bull shall undergo excommunication, removable only by the pope.

Had the question been capable of permanent settlement in this sense, this solemn utterance would have put an end to further trouble. Unluckily, human nature did not cease to be human nature, with its passions and necessities, on crossing the threshold of a Franciscan convent. Unluckily, papal constitutions were as cobwebs when they sought to control the ineradicable vices and weakness of man; Unluckily, moreover, there were consciences too sensitive to be satisfied with fine-drawn distinctions and subtleties ingeniously devised to evade the truth. Yet the bull Exiit qui seminat for a while relieved the papacy from further discussion, although it could not quiet the intestine dissensions of the Order. There was still a body of recalcitrants, not numerous, it is true, but eminent for the piety and virtue of its members, which could not be reconciled by these subterfuges. These recalcitrants gradually formed themselves into two distinct bodies, one in Italy, and the other in southern France. At first there is little to distinguish them apart, and for a long while they acted in unison, but there gradually arose a divergence between them, which in the end became decisively marked, owing to the greater influence exercised in Languedoc and Provence by the traditions of Joachim and the Everlasting Gospel.

We have seen how the thirst for ascetic poverty, coupled in many cases, doubtless, with the desire to escape from the sordid cares of daily life, led thousands to embrace a career of wandering mendicancy. Sarabites and circumcelliones—vagrant monks, subjected to no rule—had been the curse of the Church ever since the invention of cenobitism; and the exaltation of poverty in the thirteenth century had given a new impulse to the crowds who preferred the idleness of the road or of the hermitage to the restraints and labor of civilized existence. It was in vain that the Lateran Council had prohibited the formation of new and unauthorized Orders. The splendid success of the Mendicants had proved too alluring, and others were formed on the same basis, without the requisite preliminary of the papal approval. The multitudes of holy beggars were becoming a serious nuisance, oppressive to the people and disgraceful to the Church. When Gregory X. summoned the General Council of Lyons, in 1274, this was one of the evils to be remedied. The Lateran canon prohibiting the formation of unauthorized Orders was renewed. Gregory proposed to suppress all the congregations of hermits, but, at the instance of Cardinal Richard, the Carmelites and Augustinians were allowed to exist on sufferance until further order, while the audacity of other associations, not as yet approved, was condemned, especially that of the mendicants, whose multitude was declared to exceed all bounds. Such mendicant Orders as had been confirmed since the Council of Lateran were permitted to continue, but they were instructed to admit no new members, to acquire no new houses, and not to sell what they possessed without special license from the Holy See. Evidently it was felt that the time had come for decisive measures to check the tide of saintly mendicancy.[34]

Some vague and incorrect rumors of this legislation penetrating to Italy, led to an explosion which started one of the most extraordinary series of persecutions which the history of human perversity affords. On the one hand there is the marvellous constancy which endured lifelong martyrdom for an idea almost unintelligible to the modern mind; on the other there is the seemingly causeless ferocity, which appears to persecute for the mere pleasure of persecution, only to be explained by the bitterness of the feuds existing within the Order, and the savage determination to enforce submission at every cost.

It was reported that the Council of Lyons had decreed that the Mendicants could hold property. Most of the brethren acquiesced readily enough, but those who regarded the Rule as divine revelation, not to be tampered with by any earthly authority, declared that it would be apostasy, and a thing not to be admitted under any circumstances. Several disputations were held which only confirmed each side in its views. One point which gave rise to peculiar animosity was the refusal of the Spirituals to take their turns in the daily rounds in quest of moneyed alms, which had grown to be the custom in most places; and it is easy to imagine the bitter antagonism to which this disobedience must have led. It shows how strained were the relations between the factions that proceedings for heresy were forthwith commenced against these zealots. The rumor proved false, the excitement died away, and the prosecutions were allowed to slumber for a few years, when they were revived through fear that these extreme opinions, if left unpunished, might win over the majority. Liberato da Macerata, Angelo da Cingoli (il Clareno), Traymondo, Tommaso da Tollentino, and one or two others whose names have not reached us were the obdurate ones who would make no concession, even in theory. Angelo, to whom we owe an account of the matter, declared that they were ready to render implicit obedience, that no offence was proved against them, but that nevertheless they were condemned, as schismatics and heretics, to perpetual imprisonment in chains. The sentence was inhumanly harsh. They were to be deprived of the sacraments, even upon the death-bed, thus killing soul as well as body; during life no one was to speak with them, not even the jailer who brought the daily pittance of bread and water to their cells, and examined their fetters to see that they were attempting no escape. As a warning, moreover, the sentence was ordered to be read weekly in all the chapters, and no one was to presume to criticise it as unjust. This was no idle threat, for when Friar Tommaso da Casteldemilio heard it read and said it was displeasing to God, he was cast into a similar prison, where he rotted to death in a few months. The fierce spirits in control of the Order were evidently determined that at least the vow of obedience should be maintained.[35]

The prisoners seem to have lain in jail until after the election to the generalate of Raymond Gaufridi, at Easter, 1289. Visiting the Mark of Ancona, where they were incarcerated, he investigated the case, blamed severely the perpetrators of the injustice, and set the martyrs free in 1290. The Order had been growing more lax in its observance than ever, in spite of the bull Exiit qui seminat. Matteo d’Acquasparta, who was general from 1287 to 1289, was easy and kindly, well-intentioned but given to self-indulgence, and by no means inclined to the effort requisite to enforce the Rule. Respect for it, indeed, was daily diminishing. Coffers were placed in the churches to receive offerings; bargains were made as to the price of masses and for the absolution of sinners; boys were stationed at the church-doors to sell wax tapers in honor of saints; the Friars habitually begged money in the streets, accompanied by boys to receive and carry it; the sepulture of the rich was eagerly sought for, leading to disgraceful quarrels with the heirs and with the secular clergy. Everywhere there was self-seeking and desire for the enjoyment of an idle and luxurious life. It is true that lapses of the flesh were still rigidly punished, but these cases were sufficiently frequent to show that ample cause for scandal arose from the forbidden familiarity with women which the brethren permitted themselves. So utter was the general demoralization that Nicholas, the Provincial of France, even dared to write a tract calling in question the bull Exiit qui seminat and its exposition of the Rule. As this was in direct contravention of the bull itself, Acquasparta felt compelled to condemn the work and to punish its author and his supporters, but the evil continued to work. In the Mark of Ancona and in some other places the reaction against asceticism was so strong that the Testament of the revered Francis was officially ordered to be burned. It was the main bulwark of the Spirituals against relaxation of the Rule, and in one instance it was actually burned on the head of a friar, N. de Recanate, who presumably had made himself obnoxious by insisting on its authority.[36]

Raymond Gaufridi was earnestly desirous of restoring discipline, but the relaxation of the Order had grown past curing. His release of the Spirituals at Ancona caused much murmuring; he was ridiculed as a patron of fantastic and superstitious men, and conspiracies were set on foot which never ceased till his removal was effected in 1295. It was perhaps to conjure these attempts that he sent Liberato, Angelo, Tommaso, and two kindred spirits named Marco and Piero to Armenia, where they induced King Haito II. to enter the Franciscan Order, and won from him the warmest eulogies. Even in the East, however, the hatred of their fellow-missionaries was so earnest and so demonstrative that they were forced to return in 1293. On their arrival in Italy the provincial, Monaldo, refused to receive them or to allow them to remain until they could communicate with Raymond, declaring that he would rather entertain fornicators.[37]

The unreasoning wrath which insisted on these votaries of poverty violating their convictions received a check when, in 1294, the choice of the exhausted conclave fell by chance on the hermit Pier Morrone, who suddenly found his mountain burrow transformed into the papal palace. Celestin V. preserved in St. Peter’s chair the predilection for solitude and maceration which had led him to the life of the anchorite. To him Raymond referred the Spirituals, whom he seemed unable to protect. Celestin listened to them kindly and invited them to enter his special Order—the Celestinian Benedictines—but they explained to him the difference of their vows, and how their brethren detested the observance of the Rule. Then in public audience he ordered them to observe strictly the Rule and Testament of Francis; he released them from obedience to all except himself and to Liberato, whom he made their chief; Cardinal Napoleone Orsini was declared their protector, and the abbot of the Celestinians was ordered to provide them with hermitages. Thus they were fairly out of the Order; they were not even to call themselves Minorites or Franciscans, and it might be supposed that their brethren would be as glad to get rid of them and their assumption of superior sanctity as they were to escape from oppression.[38]

Yet the hatred provoked by the quarrel was too deep and bitter to spare its victims, and the breathing-space which they enjoyed was short. Celestin’s pontificate came to an abrupt termination. Utterly unfitted for his position, speedily made the tool of designing men, and growing weary of the load which he felt himself unable to endure, after less than six months he was persuaded to abdicate, in December, 1294, and was promptly thrown into prison by his successor, Boniface VIII., for fear that he might be led to reconsider an abdication the legality of which might be questioned. All of Celestin’s acts and grants were forthwith annulled, and so complete was the obliteration of everything that he had done, that even the appointment of a notary is found to require confirmation and a fresh commission. Boniface’s contempt for the unworldly enthusiasm of asceticism did not lead him to make any exception in favor of the Spirituals. To him the Franciscan Order was merely an instrument for the furtherance of his ambitious schemes, and its worldliness was rather to be stimulated than repressed. Though he placed in his Sixth Book of Decretals the bull Exiit qui seminat, his practical exposition of its provisions is seen in two bulls issued July 17, 1296, by one of which he assigns to the Franciscans of Paris one thousand marks, to be taken from the legacies for pious uses, and by the other he converts to them a legacy of three hundred livres bequeathed by Ada, lady of Pernes, for the benefit of the Holy Land. Under such auspices the degradation of the Order could not but be rapid. Before his first year was out, Boniface had determined upon the removal of the general, Raymond. October 29, 1295, he offered the latter the bishopric of Pavia, and on his protesting that he had not strength for the burden, Boniface said that he could not be fit for the heavier load of the generalate, of which he relieved him on the spot. We can understand the insolence which led a party of the Conventual faction to visit Celestin in his prison and taunt and insult him for the favor which he had shown to the Spirituals. A prosecution for heresy which Boniface ordered, in March, 1295, against Frà Pagano di Pietra-Santa was doubtless instigated by the same spirit.[39]