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A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION
VOL III.
A HISTORY OF
THE INQUISITION
OF
THE MIDDLE AGES.
BY
HENRY CHARLES LEA,
AUTHOR OF
"AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF SACERDOTAL CELIBACY," "SUPERSTITION AND FORCE,"
"STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY."
_IN THREE VOLUMES_.
VOL. III.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1901
Copyright, 1887, by HARPER & BROTHERS
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS.
BOOK III.--SPECIAL FIELDS OF INQUISITORIAL ACTIVITY.
CHAPTER I.--THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
Page
Dissensions in the Franciscan Order from Elias to John of Parma 1
Joachim of Flora.--His Reputation as a Prophet 10
His Apocalyptic Speculations as to the Third Era 14
Adopted by the Spiritual Franciscans 18
The Everlasting Gospel.--Its Condemnation 20
The Spirituals Compromised.--John of Parma Removed 23
Persistence of the Joachites 25
Increasing Strife over Poverty 27
Bull _Exiit qui seminat_ 30
Persecution of Italian Spirituals 32
The French Spirituals.--Jean Pierre Olivi 42
Arnaldo de Vilanova 52
Disputation before Clement V.--Decision of Council of Vienne 57
Renewed Persecution of the Spirituals 61
Commencement of Rebellion.--Dissensions among Them 62
Election of John XXII.--His Character 66
He Enforces Obedience and Creates a Heresy 69
Bloody Persecution of the Olivists 73
They Form a New Church 79
Their Fanaticism.--Naprous Boneta 81
Suppression of the Sect.--Its Career in Aragon 84
Jean de la Rochetaillade.--Remains of Joachitism 86
CHAPTER II.--GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO.
Incarnation of Holy Ghost in Guglielma 90
The Guglielmites Form a New Church 94
Prosecuted by the Inquisition 98
Fate of the Sectaries 100
The Order of Apostles.--Spiritual Tendencies 103
Gherardo Segarelli.--Burned in 1300 104
Dolcino Assumes the Leadership 109
His Open Revolt.--Suppressed after Four Crusades 113
Continuance and Character of the Heresy 120
CHAPTER III.--THE FRATICELLI.
Question Raised as to the Poverty of Christ 129
Reaction against the Holiness of Poverty 130
Doctrine of the Poverty of Christ Declared a Heresy 134
It Complicates the Quarrel with Louis of Bavaria 135
Marsiglio of Padua and William of Ockham 139
Gradual Estrangement of the Franciscans 142
Louis Deposes John XXII. as a Heretic 145
Michele da Cesena Revolts 147
Utility of the Inquisition.--Submission of the Antipope 149
Struggle in Germany.--The Franciscans Support Louis 153
Louis gradually Gains Strength.--His Death 156
Dissident Franciscans Known as Fraticelli 158
Sympathy for them under Persecution 160
Their Tenets 162
Fraticelli in France and Spain 167
Orthodox Ascetism.--Jesuats.--Observantines 171
The Observantines Replace and Suppress the Fraticelli 174
CHAPTER IV.--POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE CHURCH.
Denial of Papal Claims Pronounced Heresy 181
The Stedingers.--Tithes Enforced by Crusades 182
Crusades to Support Italian Interests of Papacy 189
Importance of Inquisition as a Political Agency 190
Advantage of the Charge of Heresy 191
Manfred of Naples.--The Colonnas.--Ferrara 193
John XXII. and the Visconti 196
Cola di Rienzo.--The Maffredi 203
Use of Inquisition in the Great Schism 204
Case of Thomas Connecte 208
Girolamo Savonarola 209
CHAPTER V.--POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE STATE.
Use of Inquisition by Secular Potentates 238
The Templars.--Growth and Relations of the Order 238
Causes of its Downfall.--Facilities Furnished by the Inquisition 249
Papal Complicity Sought.--Use made of Inquisition 257
Errors Charged against the Templars 263
The Question of their Guilt 264
Vacillation of Clement.--The Assembly of Tours 277
Bargain between King and Pope.--Clement Joins the Prosecution 281
Prosecution throughout Europe.--Its Methods in France 284
The Papal Commission.--Its Proceedings 289
Defence Prevented by Burning those who Retract 295
Proceedings in England.--The Inquisition Necessary 298
Action in Lorraine and Germany 301
In Italy and the East 304
In Spain and Majorca 310
Torture in Preparation for the Council of Vienne 317
Arbitrary Proceedings Required at the Council 319
Disposition of Property and Persons of the Order 322
Fate of de Molay 325
Popular Sympathies 326
Distribution of the Property of the Order 329
Case of Doctor Jean Petit 334
Case of Joan of Arc.--Condition of the French Monarchy 338
Career of Joan up to her Capture 340
The Inquisition Claims her.--Delivered to the Bishop of Beauvais 357
Her Trial 360
Her Condemnation and Execution 372
Her Imitators and her Rehabilitation 376
CHAPTER VI.--SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS.
Satan and the Spirit World 379
Incubi and Succubi 383
Human Ministers of Satan.--Sorcerers 385
Penalties under the Roman Law 392
Struggle between Pagan and Christian Theurgy 393
Repression of Sorcery by the Early Church 395
Magic Practices of the Barbarians 400
Leniency of Barbarian Legislation 408
Legislation of Church and State in Carlovingian Period 412
Practical Toleration in Early Mediæval Period 416
Indifference of Secular Legislation 427
The Inquisition Assumes Jurisdiction 434
All Magic Becomes Heretical 435
Astrology.--Pietro di Abano.--Cecco d'Ascoli 437
Divination by Dreams 446
Comminatory Church Services 447
The Inquisition Stimulates Sorcery by Persecution 448
Unfortunate Influence of John XXII 452
Growth of Sorcery in the Fourteenth Century 454
Increase in the Fifteenth Century 464
Case of the Maréchal de Rais 468
Enrique de Villena 489
CHAPTER VII.--WITCHCRAFT.
Its Origin in the Fifteenth Century 492
The Sabbat.--Regarded at first as a Diabolic Illusion 493
Adopted by the Church as a Reality 497
Its Ceremonies 500
Power and Malignity of the Witch 501
The Church Helpless to Counteract her Spells 506
Belief Stimulated by Persecution 508
Witches Lose Power when Arrested 509
Secular and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over Witchcraft 511
Inquisitorial Process as Applied to Witchcraft 513
Case of the Witches of the Canavese 518
Case of the Vaudois of Arras 519
Slow Development of the Witchcraft Craze 534
Stimulated by the Inquisition and the Church 538
Influence of the _Malleus Maleficarum_ 543
Opposition to the Inquisition.--France.--Cornelius Agrippa 544
Opposition of Venice.--The Witches of Brescia 546
Terrible Development in the Sixteenth Century 549
CHAPTER VIII.--INTELLECT AND FAITH.
Intellectual Aberrations not Dangerous 550
Theological Tendencies and Development 551
Roger Bacon 552
Nominalism and Realism 555
Rivalry between Philosophy and Theology 557
Averrhoism 558
Toleration in Italy in the Fifteenth Century 565
Modified Averrhoism.--Pomponazio.--Nifo 574
Raymond Lully 578
Evolution of Dogma.--The Beatific Vision 590
The Immaculate Conception 596
Censorship of the Press 612
CHAPTER IX.--CONCLUSION.
Omissions of the Inquisition.--The Greek Heretics 616
Quæstuari, or Pardoners 621
Simony 624
Demoralization of the Church 627
Morals of the Laity 641
Materials for the Improvement of Humanity 645
The Reformation Inevitable 647
Encouraging Advance of Humanity 649
APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS 651
INDEX 665
THE INQUISITION.
BOOK III.
SPECIAL FIELDS OF INQUISITORIAL ACTIVITY.
CHAPTER I.
THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS.
In a former chapter we considered the Mendicants as an active agency in
the suppression of heresy. One of the Orders, however, by no means
restricted itself to this function, and we have now to examine the
career of the Franciscans as the subjects of the spirit of persecuting
uniformity which they did so much to render dominant.
While the mission of both Orders was to redeem the Church from the depth
of degradation into which it had sunk, the Dominicans were more
especially trained to take part in the active business of life. They
therefore attracted the more restless and aggressive spirits; they
accommodated themselves to the world, like the Jesuits of later days,
and the worldliness which necessarily came with success awakened little
antagonism within the organization. Power and luxury were welcomed and
enjoyed. Even Thomas Aquinas, who, as we have seen, eloquently defended,
against William of Saint-Amour, the superlative holiness of absolute
poverty, subsequently admitted that poverty should be proportioned to
the object which an Order was fitted to attain.[1]
It was otherwise with the Franciscans. Though, as we have seen, the
founders determined not to render the Order a simply contemplative one,
the salvation of the individual through retreat from the world and its
temptations bore a much larger part in their motives than in those of
Dominic and his followers.[2] Absolute poverty and self-abnegation were
its primal principles, and it inevitably drew to itself the intellects
which sought a refuge from the temptations of life in self-absorbing
contemplation, in dreamy speculation, and in the renunciation of all
that renders life attractive to average human nature. As the
organization grew in wealth and power there were necessarily developed
within its bosom antagonisms in two directions. On the one hand, it
nourished a spirit of mysticism, which, though recognized in its
favorite appellation of the Seraphic Order, sometimes found the trammels
of orthodoxy oppressive. On the other, the men who continued to cherish
the views of the founders as to the supreme obligation of absolute
poverty could not reconcile their consciences to the accumulation of
wealth and its display in splendor, and they rejected the ingenious
devices which sought to accommodate the possession of riches with the
abnegation of all possession.
In fact, the three vows, of poverty, obedience, and chastity, were all
equally impossible of absolute observance. The first was irreconcilable
with human necessities, the others with human passions. As for chastity,
the whole history of the Church shows the impracticability of its
enforcement. As for obedience, in the sense attached to it of absolute
renunciation of the will, its incompatibility with the conduct of human
affairs was shown at an early period, when Friar Haymo of Feversham
overthrew Gregory, the Provincial of Paris, and, not long afterwards,
withstood the general Elias, and procured his deposition. As for
poverty, we shall see to what inextricable complications it led, despite
the efforts of successive popes, until the imperious will and resolute
common-sense of John XXII. brought the Order from its seraphic heights
down to the every-day necessities of human life--at the cost, it must be
confessed, of a schism. The trouble was increased by the fact that St.
Francis, foreseeing the efforts which would be made to evade the spirit
of the Rule, had, in his Testament, strictly forbidden all alterations,
glosses, and explanations, and had commanded that these instructions
should be read in all chapters of the Order. With the growth of the
Franciscan legend, moreover, the Rule was held to be a special divine
revelation, equal in authority to the gospel, and St. Francis was
glorified until he became a being rather divine than human.[3]
Even before the death of the founder, in 1226, a Franciscan is found in
Paris openly teaching heresies--of what nature we are not told, but
probably the mystic reveries of an overwrought brain. As yet there was
no Inquisition, and, as he was not subject to episcopal jurisdiction, he
was brought before the papal legate, where he asserted many things
contrary to the orthodox faith, and was imprisoned for life. This
foreshadowed much that was to follow, though there is a long interval
before we hear again of similar examples.[4]
The more serious trouble concerning poverty was not long in developing
itself. Next to St. Francis himself in the Order stood Elias. Before
Francis went on his mission to convert the Soldan he had sent Elias as
provincial beyond the sea, and on his return from the adventure he
brought Elias home with him. At the first general chapter, held in 1221,
Francis being too much enfeebled to preside, Elias acted as spokesman
and Francis sat at his feet, pulling his gown when he wanted anything
said. In 1223 we hear of Cæsarius, the German provincial, going to Italy
"to the blessed Francis or the Friar Elias." When, through infirmity or
inability to maintain discipline, Francis retired from the generalate,
Elias was vicar-general of the Order, to whom Francis submitted himself
as humbly as the meanest brother, and on the death of the saint, in
October, 1226, it was Elias who notified the brethren throughout Europe
of the event, and informed them of the Stigmata, which the humility of
Francis had always concealed. Although in February, 1227, Giovanni
Parenti of Florence was elected general, Elias seems practically to have
retained control. Parties were rapidly forming themselves in the Order,
and the lines between them were ever more sharply drawn. Elias was
worldly and ambitious; he had the reputation of being one of the ablest
men of affairs in Italy; he could foresee the power attaching to the
command of the Order, and he had not much scruple as to the means of
attaining it. He undertook the erection of a magnificent church at
Assisi to receive the bones of the humble Francis, and he was unsparing
in his demands for money to aid in its construction. The very handling
of money was an abomination in the eyes of all true brethren, yet all
the provinces were called upon to contribute, and a marble coffer was
placed in front of the building to receive the gifts of the pious. This
was unendurable, and Friar Leo went to Perugia to consult with the
blessed Gilio, who had been the third associate to join St. Francis, who
said it was contrary to the precepts of the founder. "Shall I break it,
then?" inquired Leo. "Yes," replied Gilio, "if you are dead, but if you
are alive, let it alone, for you will not be able to endure the
persecution of Elias." Notwithstanding this warning, Leo went to Assisi,
and with the assistance of some comrades broke the coffer; Elias filled
all Assisi with his wrath, and Leo took refuge in a hermitage.[5]
When the edifice was sufficiently advanced, a general chapter was held
in 1230 to solemnize the translation of the saintly corpse. Elias sought
to utilize the occasion for his own election to the generalate by
summoning to it only those brethren on whose support he could reckon,
but Giovanni got wind of this and made the summons general. Elias then
caused the translation to be effected before the brethren had assembled;
his faction endeavored to forestall the action of the chapter by
carrying him from his cell, breaking open the doors, and placing him in
the general's seat. Giovanni appeared, and after tumultuous proceedings
his friends obtained the upper hand; the disturbers were scattered among
the provinces, and Elias retreated to a hermitage, where he allowed his
hair and beard to grow, and through this show of sanctity obtained
reconciliation to the Order. Finally, in the chapter of 1232, his
ambition was rewarded. Giovanni was deposed and he was elected
general.[6]
These turbulent intrigues were not the only evidence of the rapid
degeneracy of the Order. Before Francis's Testament was five years old
his commands against evasions of the Rule by cunning interpretations had
been disregarded. The chapter of 1231 had applied to Gregory IX. to know
whether the Testament was binding upon them in this respect, and he
replied in the negative, for Francis could not bind his successors. They
also asked about the prohibition to hold money and property, and Gregory
ingeniously suggested that this could be effected through third parties,
who could hold money and pay debts for them, arguing that such persons
should not be regarded as their agents, but as the agents of those who
gave the money or of those to whom it was to be paid. These elusory
glosses of the Rule were not accepted without an energetic opposition
which threatened a schism, and it is easy to imagine the bitterness with
which the sincere members of the Order watched its rapid degeneracy; nor
was this bitterness diminished by the use which Elias made of his
position. His carnality and cruelty, we are told, convulsed the whole
Order. His rule was arbitrary, and for seven years, in defiance of the
regulations, he held no general chapter. He levied exactions on all the
provinces to complete the great structure at Assisi. Those who resisted
him were relegated to distant places. Even while yet only vicar he had
caused St. Anthony of Padua, who had come to Assisi to worship at the
tomb of Francis, to be scourged to the blood, when Anthony only
expostulated with, "May the blessed God forgive you, brethren!" Worse
was the fate of Cæsarius of Speier, who had been appointed Provincial of
Germany in 1221 by St. Francis himself, and had built up the Order to
the north of the Alps. He was the leader of the puritan malcontents, who
were known as Cæsarians, and he felt the full wrath of Elias. Thrown
into prison, he lay there in chains for two years. At length the fetters
were removed, and, early in 1239, his jailer having left the door of his
cell open, he ventured forth to stretch his cramped limbs in the wintry
sun. The jailer returned and thought that he was attempting to escape.
Fearing the pitiless anger of Elias, he rushed after the prisoner and
dealt him a mortal blow with a cudgel. Cæsarius was the first, but by no
means the last, martyr who shed his blood for the strict observance of a
Rule breathing nothing but love and charity.[7]
The cup at last was full to overflowing. In 1237 Elias had sent visitors
to the different provinces whose conduct caused general exasperation.
The brethren of Saxony appealed to him from their visitor, and, finding
this fruitless, they carried their complaint to Gregory. The pope at
length was roused to intervene. A general chapter was convened in 1239,
when, after a stormy scene in presence of Gregory and nine cardinals,
the pope finally announced to Elias that his resignation would be
received. Possibly in this there may have been political as well as
ascetic motives. Elias was a skilful negotiator, and was looked upon
with a friendly eye by Frederic II., who forthwith declared that the
dismissal was done in his despite, for Elias was at the time engaged in
an effort to heal the irremediable breach between the papacy and the
empire. Certain it is that Elias at once took refuge with Frederic and
became his intimate companion. Gregory made an effort to capture him by
inviting him to a conference. Failing in this, a charge was brought
against him of visiting poor women at Cortona without permission, and on
refusing to obey a summons he was excommunicated.[8]
Thus already in the Franciscan Order there were established two
well-defined parties, which came to be known as the Spirituals and the
Conventuals, the one adhering to the strict letter of the Rule, the
other willing to find excuses for its relaxation in obedience to the
wants of human nature and the demands of worldliness. After the fall of
Elias the former had the supremacy during the brief generalates of
Alberto of Pisa, and Haymo of Feversham. In 1244 the Conventuals
triumphed in the election of Crescenzio Grizzi da Jesi, under whom
occurred what the Spirituals reckoned as the "Third Tribulation," for,
in accordance with their apocalyptic speculations, they were to undergo
seven tribulations before the reign of the Holy Ghost should usher in
the Millennium. Crescenzio followed in the footsteps of Elias. Under
Haymo, in 1242, there had been an attempt to reconcile with the Rule
Gregory's declaration of 1231. Four leading doctors of the Order, with
Alexander Hales at their head, had issued the _Declaratio Quatuor
Magistrorum_, but even their logical subtlety had failed. The Order was
constantly growing, it was constantly acquiring property, and its needs
were constantly increasing. A bull of Gregory IX. in 1239, authorizing
the Franciscans of Paris to acquire additional land with which to
enlarge their monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Près, is an example of what
was going on all over Europe. In 1244, at the chapter which elected
Crescenzio, the Englishman, John Kethene, succeeded, against the
opposition of nearly the whole body of the assembly, in obtaining the
rejection of Gregory's definition, but the triumph of the Puritans was
short-lived. Crescenzio sympathized with the laxer party, and applied to
Innocent IV. for relief. In 1245 the pope responded with a declaration
in which he not only repeated the device of Gregory IX. by authorizing
deposits of money with parties who were to be regarded as the agents of
donors and creditors, but ingeniously assumed that houses and lands, the
ownership of which was forbidden to the Order, should be regarded as
belonging to the Holy See, which granted their use to the friars. Even
papal authority could not render these transparent subterfuges
satisfying to the consciences of the Spirituals, and the growing
worldliness of the Order provoked continuous agitation. Crescenzio
before taking the vows had been a jurist and physician, and there was
further complaint that he encouraged the brethren in acquiring the vain
and sterile science of Aristotle rather than in studying divine wisdom.
Under Simone da Assisi, Giacopo Manfredo, Matteo da Monte Rubiano, and
Lucido, seventy-two earnest brethren, finding Crescenzio deaf to their
remonstrances, prepared to appeal to Innocent. He anticipated them, and
obtained from the pope in advance a decision under which he scattered
the recalcitrants in couples throughout the provinces for punishment.
Fortunately his reign was short. Tempted by the bishopric of Jesi, he
resigned, and in 1248 was succeeded by Giovanni Borelli, better known as
John of Parma, who at the time was professor of theology in the
University of Paris.[9]
The election of John of Parma marked a reaction in favor of strict
observance. The new general was inspired with a holy zeal to realize the
ideal of St. Francis. The exiled Spirituals were recalled and allowed to
select their own domiciles. During the first three years John visited on
foot the whole Order, sometimes with two, and sometimes with only one
companion, in the most humble guise, so that he was unrecognized, and
could remain in a convent for several days, observing its character,
when he would reveal himself and reform its abuses. In the ardor of his
zeal he spared the feelings of no one. A lector of the Mark of Ancona,
returning home from Rome, described the excessive severity of a sermon
preached by him, saying that the brethren of the Mark would never have
allowed any one to say such things to them; and when asked why the
masters who were present had not interfered, he replied, "How could
they? It was a river of fire which flowed from his lips." He suspended
the declaration of Innocent IV. until the pontiff, better informed,
could be consulted. It was, however, impossible for him to control the
tendencies to relaxation of the Rule, which were ever growing stronger,
and his efforts to that end only served to strengthen disaffection which
finally grew to determined opposition. After consultation between some
influential members of the Order it was resolved to bring before
Alexander IV. formal accusations against him and the friends who
surrounded him. The attitude of the Spirituals, in fact, fairly invited
attack.[10]
To understand the position of the Spirituals at this time, and
subsequently, it is necessary to cast a glance at one of the most
remarkable spiritual developments of the thirteenth century. Its opening
years had witnessed the death of Joachim of Flora, a man who may be
regarded as the founder of modern mysticism. Sprung from a rich and
noble family, and trained for the life of a courtier under Roger the
Norman Duke of Apulia, a sudden desire to see the holy places took him,
while yet a youth, to the East, with a retinue of servitors. A
pestilence was raging when he reached Constantinople, which so impressed
him with the miseries and vanities of life that he dismissed his suite
and continued his voyage as an humble pilgrim with a single companion.
His legend relates that he fell in the desert overcome with thirst, and
had a vision of a man standing by a river of oil, and saying to him,
"Drink of this stream," which he did to satiety, and when he awoke,
although previously illiterate, he had a knowledge of all Scripture. The
following Lent he passed in an old well on Mount Tabor; in the night of
the Resurrection a great splendor appeared to him, he was filled with
divine light to understand the concordance of the Old and New Laws, and
every difficulty and every obscurity vanished. These tales, repeated
until the seventeenth century, show the profound and lasting impression
which he left upon the minds of men.[11]
Thenceforth his life was dedicated to the service of God. Returning
home, he avoided his father's house, and commenced preaching to the
people; but this was not permissible to a layman, so he entered the
priesthood and the severe Cistercian Order. Chosen Abbot of Corazzo, he
fled, but was brought back and forced to assume the duties of the
office, till he visited Rome, in 1181, and obtained from Lucius III.
permission to lay it down. Even the severe Cistercian discipline did not
satisfy his thirst for austerity, and he retired to a hermitage at
Pietralata, where his reputation for sanctity drew disciples around him,
and in spite of his yearning for solitude he found himself at the head
of a new Order, of which the Rule, anticipating the Mendicants in its
urgency of poverty, was approved by Celestin III. in 1196. Already it
had spread from the mother-house of San Giovanni in Fiore, and numbered
several other monasteries.[12]
Joachim considered himself inspired, and though in 1200 he submitted his
works unreservedly to the Holy See, he had no hesitation in speaking of
them as divinely revealed. During his lifetime he enjoyed the reputation
of a prophet. When Richard of England and Philip Augustus were at
Messina, they sent for him to inquire as to the outcome of their
crusade, and he is said to have foretold to them that the hour had not
yet come for the deliverance of Jerusalem. Others of his fulfilled
prophecies are also related, and the mystical character of the
apocalyptic speculations which he left behind him served to increase,
after his death, his reputation as a seer. His name became one
customarily employed for centuries when any dreamer or sharper desired
to attract attention, and quite a literature of forgeries grew up which
were ascribed to him. Somewhat more than a century after his death we
find the Dominican Pipino enumerating a long catalogue of his works with
the utmost respect for his predictions. In 1319 Bernard Délicieux places
unlimited confidence in a prophetical book of Joachim's in which there
were representations of all future popes with inscriptions and symbols
under them. Bernard points out the different pontiffs of his own period,
predicts the fate of John XXII., and declares that for two hundred years
there had been no mortal to whom so much was revealed as to Joachim.
Cola di Rienzo found in the pseudo-prophecies of Joachim the
encouragement that inspired his second attempt to govern Rome. The
Franciscan tract _De ultima, Ætate Ecclesiæ_, written in 1356, and long
ascribed to Wickliff, expresses the utmost reverence for Joachim, and
frequently cites his prophecies. The _Liber Conformitatum_, in 1385,
quotes repeatedly the prediction ascribed to Joachim as to the
foundation of the two Mendicant Orders, symbolized in those of the Dove
and of the Crow, and the tribulations to which the former was to be
exposed. Not long afterwards the hermit Telesforo da Cosenza drew from
the same source prophecies as to the course and termination of the Great
Schism, and the line of future popes until the coming of
Antichrist--prophecies which attracted sufficient attention to call for
a refutation from Henry of Hesse, one of the leading theologians of the
day. Cardinal Peter d'Ailly speaks with respect of Joachim's prophecies
concerning Antichrist, and couples him with the prophetess St.
Hildegarda, while the rationalistic Cornelius Agrippa endeavors to
explain his predictions by the occult powers of numbers. Human credulity
preserved his reputation as a prophet to modern times, and until at
least as late as the seventeenth century prophecies under his name were
published, containing series of popes with symbolical figures,
inscriptions, and explanations, apparently similar to the _Vaticinia
Pontificum_ which so completely possessed the confidence of Bernard
Délicieux. Even in the seventeenth century the Carmelites printed the
_Oraculum Angelicum_ of Cyril, with its pseudo-Joachitic commentary, as
a proof of the antiquity of their Order.[13]
Joachim's immense and durable reputation as a prophet was due not so
much to his genuine works as to the spurious ones circulated under his
name. These were numerous--Prophecies of Cyril, and of the Erythræan
Sybil, Commentaries on Jeremiah, the _Vaticinia Pontificum_, the _De
Oneribus Ecclesiæ_ and _De Septem Temporibus Ecclesiæ_. In some of
these, reference to Frederic II. would seem to indicate a period of
composition about the year 1250, when the strife between the papacy and
empire was at the hottest, and the current prophecies of Merlin were
freely drawn upon in framing their exegesis. There can be little doubt
that their authors were Franciscans of the Puritan party, and their
fearless denunciations of existing evils show how impatient had grown
the spirit of dissatisfaction. The apocalyptic prophecies were freely
interpreted as referring to the carnal worldliness which pervaded all
orders in the Church; all are reprobate, none are elect; Rome is the
Whore of Babylon, and the papal curia the most venal and extortionate of
all courts; the Roman Church is the barren fig-tree, accursed by Christ,
which shall be abandoned to the nations to be stripped. It would be
difficult to exaggerate the bitterness of antagonism displayed in these
writings, even to the point of recognizing the empire as the instrument
of God which is to overthrow the pride of the Church. These outspoken
utterances of rebellion excited no little interest, especially within
the Order itself. Adam de Marisco, the leading Franciscan of England,
sends to his friend Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, some extracts from
these works which have been brought to him from Italy. He speaks of
Joachim as one justly credited with divine insight into prophetic
mysteries; he asks to have the fragments returned to him after copying,
and meanwhile commends to the bishop's consideration the impending
judgments of Providence which are invited by the abounding wickedness of
the time.[14]
Of Joachim's genuine writings the one which, perhaps, attracted the most
attention in his own day was a tract on the nature of the Trinity,
attacking the definition of Peter Lombard, and asserting that it
attributed a Quaternity to God. The subtleties of theology were
dangerous, and in place of proving the Master of Sentences a heretic,
Joachim himself narrowly escaped. Thirteen years after his death, the
great Council of Lateran, in 1215, thought his speculation sufficiently
important to condemn it as erroneous in an elaborate refutation, which
was carried into the canon law, and Innocent III. preached a sermon on
the subject to the assembled fathers. Fortunately Joachim, in 1200, had
expressly submitted all his writings to the judgment of the Holy See and
had declared that he held the same faith as that of Rome. The council,
therefore, refrained from condemning him personally and expressed its
approbation of his Order of Flora; but notwithstanding this the monks
found themselves derided and insulted as the followers of a heretic,
until, in 1220, they procured from Honorius III. a bull expressly
declaring that he was a good Catholic, and forbidding all detraction of
his disciples.[15]
His most important writings, however, were his expositions of Scripture
composed at the request of Lucius III., Urban III., and Clement III. Of
these there were three--the Concordia, the Decachordon, or _Psalterium
decem Cordarum_, and the _Expositio in Apocalypsin_. In these his system
of exegesis is to find in every incident under the Old Law the
prefiguration of a corresponding fact in chronological order under the
New Dispensation, and by an arbitrary parallelism of dates to reach
forward and ascertain what is yet to come. He thus determines that
mankind is destined to live through three states--the first under the
rule of the Father, which ended at the birth of Christ, the second under
that of the Son, and the third under the Holy Ghost. The reign of the
Son, or of the New Testament, he ascertains by varied apocalyptic
speculations is to last through forty-two generations, or 1260
years--for instance, Judith remained in widowhood three years and a
half, or forty-two months, which is 1260 days, the great number
representing the years through which the New Testament is to endure, so
that in the year 1260 the domination of the Holy Ghost is to replace it.
In the forty-second generation there will be a purgation which will
separate the wheat from the chaff--such tribulations as man has never
yet endured: fortunately they will be short, or all flesh would perish
utterly. After this, religion will be renewed; man will live in peace
and justice and joy, as in the Sabbath which closed the labors of
creation; all shall know God, from sea to sea, to the utmost confines of
the earth, and the glory of the Holy Ghost shall be perfect. In that
final abundance of spiritual grace the observances of religion will be
no longer requisite. As the paschal lamb was superseded by the
Eucharist, so the sacrifice of the altar will become superfluous. A new
monastic Order is to arise which will convert the world; contemplative
monachism is the highest development of humanity, and the world will
become, as it were, one vast monastery.[16]
In this scheme of the future elevation of man, Joachim recognized fully
the evils of his time. The Church he describes as thoroughly given over
to avarice and greed; wholly abandoned to the lusts of the flesh, it
neglects its children, who are carried off by zealous heretics. The
Church of the second state, he says, is Hagar, but that of the third
state will be Sarah. With endless amplitude he illustrates the
progressive character of the relations between God and man in the
successive eras. The first state, under God, was of the circumcision;
the second, under Christ, is of the crucifixion; the third, under the
Holy Ghost, will be of quietude and peace. Under the first was the order
of the married; under the second, that of the priesthood; under the
third will be that of monachism, which has already had its precursor in
St. Benedict. The first was the reign of Saul, the second that of David,
the third will be that of Solomon enjoying the plenitude of peace. In
the first, man was under the law, in the second under grace, in the
third he will be under ampler grace. The people of the first state are
symbolized by Zachariah the priest, those of the second by John the
Baptist, those of the third by Christ himself. In the first state there
was knowledge, in the second piety, in the third will be plenitude of
knowledge; the first state was servitude, the second was filial
obedience, the third will be liberty; the first state was passed in
scourging, the second in action, the third will be in contemplation; the
first was in fear, the second in faith, the third will be in love; the
first was of slaves, the second of freemen, the third will be of
friends; the first was of old men, the second of youths, the third will
be of children; the first was starlight, the second dawn, the third will
be perfect day; the first was winter, the second opening spring, the
third will be summer; the first brought forth nettles, the second roses,
the third will bear lilies; the first was grass, the second grain in
the ear, the third will be the ripened wheat; the first was water, the
second wine, the third will be oil. Finally, the first belongs to the
Father, creator of all things, the second to the Son, who assumed our
mortal clay, the third will belong to the pure Holy Spirit.[17]
It is a very curious fact that while Joachim's metaphysical subtleties
respecting the Trinity were ostentatiously condemned as a dangerous
heresy, no one seems at the time to have recognized the far more
perilous conclusions to be drawn from these apocalyptic reveries. So far
from being burned as heretical, they were prized by popes, and Joachim
was honored as a prophet until his audacious imitators and followers
developed the revolutionary doctrines to which they necessarily led. To
us, for the moment, their chief significance lies in the proof which
they afford that the most pious minds confessed that Christianity was
practically a failure. Mankind had scarce grown better under the New
Law. Vices and passions were as unchecked as they had been before the
coming of the Redeemer. The Church itself was worldly and carnal; in
place of elevating man it had been dragged down to his level; it had
proved false to its trust and was the exemplar of evil rather than the
pattern of good. To such men as Joachim it was impossible that crime and
misery should be the ultimate and irremediable condition of human life,
and yet the Atonement had thus far done little to bring it nearer to the
ideal. Christianity, therefore, could not be a finality in man's
existence upon earth; it was merely an intermediate condition, to be
followed by a further development, in which, under the rule of the Holy
Ghost, the law of love, fruitlessly inculcated by the gospel, should at
last become the dominant principle, and men, released from carnal
passions, should realize the glad promises so constantly held out
before them and so miserably withheld in the performance. Joachim
himself might seek to evade these deductions from his premises, yet
others could not fail to make them, and nothing could be more
audaciously subversive of the established spiritual and temporal order
of the Church.
Yet for a time his speculations attracted little attention and no
animadversion. It is possible that the condemnation of his theory of the
Trinity may have cast a shadow over his exegetical works and prevented
their general dissemination, but they were treasured by kindred spirits,
and copies of them were carried into various lands and carefully
preserved. Curiously enough, the first response which they elicited was
from the bold heretics known as the Amaurians, whose ruthless
suppression in Paris, about the year 1210, we have already considered.
Among their errors was enumerated that of the three Eras, which was
evidently derived from Joachim, with the difference that the third Era
had already commenced. The power of the Father only lasted under the
Mosaic Law; with the advent of Christ all the sacraments of the Old
Testament were superseded. The reign of Christ has lasted till the
present time, but now commences the sovereignty of the Holy Ghost; the
sacraments of the New Testament--baptism, the Eucharist, penitence, and
the rest--are obsolete and to be discarded, and the power of the Holy
Ghost will operate through the persons in whom it is incarnated. The
Amaurians, as we have seen, promptly disappeared, and the derivative
sects--the Ortlibenses, and the Brethren of the Free Spirit--seem to
have omitted this feature of the heresy. At all events, we hear nothing
more of it in that quarter.[18]
Gradually, however, the writings of Joachim obtained currency, and with
the ascription to him of the false prophecies which appeared towards the
middle of the century his name became more widely known and of greater
authority. In Provence and Languedoc, especially, his teachings found
eager reception. Harried successively by the crusades and the
Inquisition, and scarce as yet fairly reunited with the Church, those
regions furnished an ample harvest of earnest minds which might well
seek in the hoped-for speedy realization of Joachim's dreams
compensation for the miseries of the present. Nor did those dreams lack
an apostle of unquestionable orthodoxy. Hugues de Digne, a hermit of
Hyères, had a wide reputation for learning, eloquence, and sanctity. He
had been Franciscan Provincial of Provence, but had laid down that
dignity to gratify his passion for austerity, and his sister, St.
Douceline, lived in a succession of ecstasies in which she was lifted
from the ground. Hugues was intimate with the leading men of the Order;
Alexander Hales, Adam de Marisco, and the general, John of Parma, are
named as among his close friends. With the latter, especially, he had
the common bond that both were earnest Joachites. He possessed all the
works of Joachim, genuine and spurious, he had the utmost confidence in
their prophecies, which he regarded as divine inspiration, and he did
much to extend the knowledge of them, which was not difficult, as he
himself had the reputation of a prophet.[19]
The Spiritual section of the Franciscans was rapidly becoming leavened
with these ideas. To minds inclined to mysticism, filled with unrest,
dissatisfied with the existing unfulfilment of their ideal, and longing
earnestly for its realization, there might well be an irresistible
fascination in the promises of the Calabrian abbot, of which the term
was now so rapidly approaching. If these Joachitic Franciscans developed
the ideas of their teacher with greater boldness and definiteness, their
ardor had ample excuse. They were living witnesses of the moral failure
of an effort from which everything had been expected for the
regeneration of humanity. They had seen how the saintly teachings of
Francis and the new revelation of which he had been the medium were
perverted by worldly men to purposes of ambition and greed; how the
Order, which should have been the germ of human redemption, was growing
more and more carnal, and how its saints were martyred by their fellows.
Unless the universe were a failure, and the promises of God were lies,
there must be a term to human wickedness; and as the Gospel of Christ
and the Rule of Francis had not accomplished the salvation of mankind, a
new gospel was indispensable. Besides, Joachim had predicted that there
would arise a new religious Order which would rule the world and the
Church in the halcyon age of the Holy Ghost. They could not doubt that
this referred to the Franciscans as represented by the Spiritual group,
which was striving to uphold in all its strictness the Rule of the
venerated founder.[20]
Such, we may presume, were the ideas which were troubling the hearts of
the earnest Spirituals as they pondered over the prophecies of Joachim.
In their exaltation many of them were themselves given to ecstasies and
visions full of prophetic insight. Prominent members of the Order had
openly embraced the Joachitic doctrines, and his prophecies, genuine and
spurious, were applied to all events as they occurred. In 1248
Salimbene, the chronicler, who was already a warm believer, met at the
Franciscan convent of Provins (Champagne) two ardent condisciples,
Gherardo da Borgo San Donnino and Bartolommeo Ghiscolo of Parma. St.
Louis was just setting forth on his ill-starred Egyptian crusade. The
Joachites had recourse to the pseudo-Joachim on Jeremiah, and foretold
that the expedition would be a failure, that the king would be taken
prisoner, and that pestilence would decimate the host. This was not
calculated to render them popular; the peace of the good brethren was
sadly broken by quarrels, and the Joachites found it advisable to
depart. Salimbene went to Auxerre, Ghiscolo to Sens, and Gherardo to
Paris, where his learning secured for him admission to the university as
the representative of Sicily, and he obtained a chair in theology. Here
for four years he pursued his apocalyptic studies.[21]
Suddenly, in 1254, Paris was startled with the appearance of a book
under the title of "The Everlasting Gospel"--a name derived from the
Apocalypse--"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having
the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and
to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" (Rev. xiv. 6). It
consisted of Joachim's three undoubted works, with explanatory glosses,
preceded by a long Introduction, in which the hardy author developed the
ideas of the prophet audaciously and uncompromisingly. The daring
venture had an immediate and immense popular success, which shows how
profoundly the conviction which prompted it was shared among all
classes. The rhymes of Jean de Meung indicate that the demand for it
came from the laity rather than the clergy, and that it was sought by
women as well as by men--
"Ung livre de par le grant diable
Dit l'Évangile pardurable ...
A Paris n'eust home ne feme
Au parvis devant Nostre-Dame
Qui lors avoir ne le péust
A transcrire, s'il li pléust."[22]
Nothing more revolutionary in spirit, more subversive of the established
order of the Church, can be conceived than the assertions which thus
aroused popular sympathy and applause. Joachim's computations were
accepted, and it was assumed absolutely that in six years, in 1260, the
reign of Christ would end and the reign of the Holy Ghost begin.
Already, in 1200, the spirit of life had abandoned the Old and New
Testaments in order to give place to the Everlasting Gospel, consisting
of the Concordia, the Expositio, and the Decachordon--the development
and spiritualization of all that had preceded it. Even as Joachim had
dwelt on the ascending scale of the three Eras, so the author of the
Introduction characterized the progressive methods of the three
Scriptures. The Old Testament is the first heaven, the New Testament the
second heaven, the Everlasting Gospel the third heaven. The first is
like the light of the stars, the second like that of the moon, and the
third like that of the sun; the first is the porch, the second the holy
place, and the third the Holy of Holies; the first is the rind, the
second the nut, the third the kernel; the first is earth, the second
water, the third fire; the first is literal, the second spiritual, and
the third is the law promised in Jeremiah XXXI. The preaching and
dissemination of this supreme and eternal law of God is committed to the
barefooted Order (the Franciscans). At the threshold of the Old Law were
three men, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: at that of the New Law were three
others, Zachariah, John the Baptist, and Christ: and at that of the
coming age are three, the man in linen (Joachim), the Angel with the
sharp sickle, and the Angel with the sign of the living God (Francis).
In the blessed coming reign of the Holy Ghost men will live under the
law of love, as in the first Era they lived in fear, and in the second
in grace. Joachim had argued against the continuance of the sacraments;
Gherardo regarded them as symbols and enigmas, from which man would be
liberated in the time to come, for love would replace all the
observances founded upon the second Dispensation. This was destructive
of the whole sacerdotal system, which was to be swept away and relegated
to the limbo of the forgotten past; and scarce less revolutionary was
his bold declaration that the Abomination of Desolation would be a pope
tainted with simony, who, towards the end of the sixth age, now at hand,
would obtain the papacy.[23]
The authorship of this bold challenge to an infallible Church was long
attributed to John of Parma himself, but there would seem little doubt
that it was the work of Gherardo--the outcome of his studies and
reveries during the four years spent in the University of Paris,
although John of Parma possibly had a hand in it. Certainly, as Tocco
well points out, he at least sympathized with it, for he never punished
the author, in spite of the scandal which it brought upon the Order, and
Bernard Gui tells us that at the time it was commonly ascribed to him. I
have already related with what joy William of Saint Amour seized upon it
in the quarrel between the University and the Mendicants, and the
advantage it momentarily gave the former. Under existing circumstances
it could have no friends or defenders. It was too reckless an onslaught
on all existing institutions, temporal and spiritual. The only thing to
be done with it was to suppress it as quietly as possible. Consideration
for the Franciscan Order demanded this, as well as the prudence which
counselled that attention should not be unduly called to it, although
hundreds of victims had been burned for heresies far less dangerous. The
commission which sat at Anagni in July, 1255, for its condemnation had a
task over which there could be no debate, but I have already pointed out
the contrast between the reserve with which it was suppressed and the
vindictive clamor with which Saint Amour's book against the Mendicants
was ordered to be burned.[24]
The Spiritual section of the Franciscans was fatally compromised, and
the worldly party, which had impatiently borne the strict rule of John
of Parma, saw its opportunity of gaining the ascendency. Led by Bernardo
da Bessa, the companion of Bonaventura, formal articles of accusation
were presented to Alexander IV. against the general. He was accused of
listening to no explanations of the Rule and Testament, holding that the
privileges and declarations of the popes were of no moment in
comparison. It was not hinted that he was implicated in the Everlasting
Gospel, but it was alleged that he pretended to enjoy the spirit of
prophecy and that he predicted a division of the Order between those who
procured papal relaxations and those who adhered to the Rule, the latter
of whom would flourish under the dew of heaven and the benediction of
God. Moreover, he was not orthodox, but defended the errors of Joachim
concerning the Trinity, and his immediate comrades had not hesitated, in
sermons and tracts, to praise Joachim immoderately and to assail the
leading men of the Order. In this, as in the rest of the proceedings,
the studied silence preserved as to the Everlasting Gospel shows how
dangerous was the subject, and how even the fierce passions of the
strife shrank from compromising the Order by admitting that any of its
members were responsible for that incendiary production.[25]
Alexander was easily persuaded, and a general chapter was held in the
Aracoeli, February 2, 1257, over which he personally presided. John of
Parma was warned to resign, and did so, pleading age, weariness, and
disability. After a decent show of resistance his resignation was
accepted and he was asked to nominate a successor. His choice fell upon
Bonaventura, then only thirty-four years of age, whose participation in
the struggle with the University of Paris had marked him as the most
promising man in the Order, while he was not identified with either
faction. He was duly elected, and the leaders of the movement required
him to proceed against John and his adherents. Bonaventura for a while
hesitated, but at length consented. Gherardo refused to recant, and
Bonaventura sent for him to come to Paris. In passing through Modena he
met Salimbene, who had cowered before the storm and had renounced
Joachitism as a folly. The two friends had a long colloquy, in which
Gherardo offered to prove that Antichrist was already at hand in the
person of Alonso the Wise of Castile. He was learned, pure-minded,
temperate, modest, amiable--in a word, a most admirable and lovable
character; but nothing could wean him from his Joachitic convictions,
though in his trial discreet silence, as usual, was observed about the
Everlasting Gospel, and he was condemned as an upholder of Joachim's
Trinitarian speculations. Had he not been a Franciscan he would have
been burned. It was a doubtful mercy which consigned him to a dungeon in
chains and fed him on bread and water for eighteen years, until his
weary life came to an end. He never wavered to the last, and his remains
were thrust into a corner of the garden of the convent where he died.
The same fate awaited his comrade Leonardo, and also another friar named
Piero de' Nubili, who refused to surrender a tract of John of
Parma's.[26]
Then John himself was tried by a special court, to preside over which
Alexander appointed Cardinal Caietano, afterwards Nicholas III. The
accused readily retracted his advocacy of Joachim, but his bearing
irritated the judges, and, with Bonaventura's consent, he would have
shared the fate of his associates but for the strenuous intercession of
Ottoboni, Cardinal of S. Adrian, afterwards Adrian V. Bonaventura gave
him the option of selecting a place of retreat, and he chose a little
convent near Rieti. There he is said to have lived for thirty-two years
the life of an angel, without abandoning his Joachitic beliefs. John
XXI., who greatly loved him, thought of making him a cardinal in 1277,
but was prevented by death. Nicholas III., who had presided at his
trial, a few years later offered him the cardinalate, so as to be able
to enjoy his advice, but he quietly answered, "I could give wholesome
counsel if there were any one to listen to me, but in the Roman court
there is little discussed but wars and triumphs, and not the salvation
of souls." In 1289, however, notwithstanding his extreme age, he
accepted from Nicholas IV. a mission to the Greek Church, but he died at
Camerino soon after setting out. Buried there, he speedily shone in
miracles; he became the object of a lasting cult, and in 1777 he was
formally beatified, in spite of the opposition arising from his alleged
authorship of the Introduction to the Everlasting Gospel.[27]
The faith of the Joachites was by no means broken by these reverses.
William of Saint Amour thought it necessary to return to the charge with
another bitter tract directed against them. He shares their belief in
the impending change, but declares that in place of being the reign of
love under the Holy Ghost, it will be the reign of Antichrist, whom he
identifies with the Friars. Persecution, he says, had put an end to the
open defence of the pestiferous doctrine of the Everlasting Gospel, but
it still had many believers in secret. The south of France was the
headquarters of the sect. Florent, Bishop of Acre, had been the official
prosecutor before the Commission of Anagni in 1255. He was rewarded with
the archbishopric of Arles in 1262, and in 1265 he held a provincial
synod with the object of condemning the Joachites, who were still
numerous in his province. An elaborate refutation of the errors of the
Everlasting Gospel was deemed necessary; it was deplored that many
learned men still suffered themselves to be misled by it, and that books
containing it were written and eagerly passed from hand to hand. The
anathema was decreed against this, but no measures of active persecution
seem to have been adopted, nor do we hear of any steps taken by the
Inquisition to suppress the heresy. As we shall see hereafter, the
leaven long remained in Languedoc and Provence, and gave a decided
impress to the Spiritual Franciscanism of those regions. It mattered
little that the hoped-for year 1260 came and passed away without the
fulfilment of the prophecy. Earnest believers can always find excuses
for such errors in computation, and the period of the advent of the Holy
Ghost could be put off from time to time, so as always to stimulate hope
with the prospect of emancipation in the near future.[28]
* * * * *
Although the removal of John of Parma from the generalate had been the
victory of the Conventuals, the choice of Bonaventura might well seem to
give to the Spirituals assurance of continued supremacy. In his
controversy with William of Saint Amour he had taken the most advanced
ground in denying that Christ and the apostles held property of any
kind, and in identifying poverty with perfection. "Deep poverty is
laudable; this is true of itself: therefore deeper poverty is more
laudable, and the deepest, the most laudable. But this is the poverty of
him who neither in private nor in common keeps anything for himself....
To renounce all things, in private or in common, is Christian
perfection, not only sufficient but abundant: it is the principal
counsel of evangelical perfection, its fundamental principle and sublime
foundation." Not only this, but he was deeply imbued with mysticism and
was the first to give authoritative expression to the Illuminism which
subsequently gave the Church so much trouble. His _Mystica Theologia_
is in sharp contrast to the arid scholastic theology of the day as
represented by Thomas Aquinas. The soul is brought face to face with
God; its sins are to be repented of in the silent watches of the night,
and it is to seek God through its own efforts. It is not to look to
others for aid or leadership, but, depending on itself, strive for the
vision of the Divine. Through this Path of Purgation it ascends to the
Path of Illumination, and is prepared for the reception of the Divine
Radiance. Finally it reaches the Third Path, which leads to union with
the Godhead and participation in Divine Wisdom. Molinos and Madame Guyon
indulged in no more dangerous speculations; and the mystic tendencies of
the Spirituals received a powerful stimulus from such teachings.[29]
It was inevitable that the strife within the Order between property and
poverty should grow increasingly bitter. Questions were constantly
arising which showed the incompatibility of the vows as laid down by St.
Francis with the functions of an organization which had grown to be one
of the leading factors of a wealthy and worldly Church. In 1255 we find
the sisters of the monastery of St. Elizabeth complaining to Alexander
IV. that when property was given or bequeathed to them the
ecclesiastical authorities enforced on them the observance of the Rule,
by compelling them to part with it within a year by sale or gift, and
the pope graciously promised that no such custom should be enforced in
future. About the same time John of Parma complained that when his
friars were promoted to the episcopate they carried away with them books
and other things of which they had properly only the use, being unable
to own anything under peril of their souls. Again Alexander graciously
replied that friars, on promotion, must deliver to the provincial
everything which they had in their hands. Such troubles must have been
of almost daily occurrence, and it was inevitable that the increasing
friction should result in schism. When the blessed Gilio, the third
disciple who joined St. Francis, was taken to Assisi to view the
splendid buildings erected in honor of the humble Francis, and was
carried through three magnificent churches, connected with a vast
refectory, a spacious dormitory, and other offices and cloisters,
adorned with lofty arches and spacious portals, he kept silent until one
of his guides pressed him for an expression of admiration. "Brethren,"
he then said, "there is nothing lacking except your wives." This seemed
somewhat irrelevant, till he explained that the vows of poverty and
chastity were equally binding, and now that one was set aside the other
might as well follow. Salimbene relates that in the convent of Pisa he
met Frà Boncampagno di Prato, who, in place of the two new tunics per
year distributed to each of the brethren, would only accept one old one,
and who declared that he could scarce satisfy God for taking that one.
Such exaggerated conscientious sensitiveness could not but be peculiarly
exasperating to the more worldly members.[30]
The Conventuals had lost no time in securing the results of their
victory over John of Parma. Scarce had his resignation been secured, and
before Bonaventura could arrive from Paris they obtained from Alexander,
February 20, 1257, a repetition of the declaration of Innocent IV. which
enabled the Order to handle money and hold property through the
transparent device of agents and the Holy See. The disgust of the
Puritan party was great, and even the implicit reverence prescribed for
the papacy could not prevent ominous mutterings of disobedience, raising
questions as to the extent of the papal power to bind and to loose,
which in time were to ripen into open rebellion. The Rule had been
proclaimed a revelation equal in authority to the gospel, and it might
well be asked whether even the successor of St. Peter could set it
aside. It was probably about this time that Berthold of Ratisbon, the
most celebrated Franciscan preacher of his day, in discoursing to his
brethren on the monastic state, boldly declared that the vows of
poverty, obedience, and chastity were so binding that even the pope
could not dispense for them. This, in fact, was admitted on all sides as
a truism. About 1290 the Dominican Provincial of Germany, Hermann of
Minden, in an encyclical, alludes to it as a matter of course, but in
little more than a quarter of a century we shall see that such
utterances were treated as heresy, and were sternly suppressed with the
stake.[31]
Bonaventura, as we have seen, honestly sought to restrain the growing
laxity of the Order. Before leaving Paris he addressed, April 23, 1257,
an encyclical letter to the provincials, calling their attention to the
prevalent vices of the brethren and the contempt to which they exposed
the whole Order. Again, some ten years later, at the instance of Clement
IV., he issued another similar epistle, in which he strongly expressed
his horror at the neglect of the Rule shown in the shameless greed of so
many members, the importunate striving for gain, the ceaseless
litigation caused by their grasping after legacies and burials, and the
splendor and luxury of their buildings. The provincials were instructed
to put an end to these disorders by penance, imprisonment, or expulsion;
but however earnest in his zeal Bonaventura may have been, and however
self-denying in his own life, he lacked the fiery energy which enabled
John of Parma to give effect to his convictions. How utter was the
prevailing degeneracy is seen in the complaint presented in 1265 to
Clement IV., that in many places the ecclesiastical authorities held
that the friars, being dead to the world, were incapable of inheritance.
Relief was prayed from this, and Clement issued a bull declaring them
competent to inherit and free to hold their inheritances, or to sell
them, and to use the property or its price as might to them seem
best.[32]
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]
More than this. To Boniface's worldly, practical mind the hordes of
wandering mendicants, subjected to no authority, were an intolerable
nuisance, whether it arose from ill-regulated asceticism or idle
vagabondage. The decree of the Council of Lyons had failed to suppress
the evil, and, in 1496 and 1497, Boniface issued instructions to all
bishops to compel such wanderers or hermits, popularly known as Bizochi,
either to lay aside their fictitious religious habits and give up their
mode of life, or to betake themselves to some authorized Order. The
inquisitors were instructed to denounce to the bishops all suspected
persons, and if the prelates were remiss, to report them to the Holy
See. One remarkable clause gives special authority to the inquisitors to
prosecute such of these Bizochi as may be members of their own Orders,
thus showing that there was no heresy involved, as otherwise the
inquisitors would have required no additional powers.[40]
The following year Boniface proceeded to more active measures. He
ordered the Franciscan, Matteo da Chieti, Inquisitor of Assisi, to visit
personally the mountains of the Abruzzi and Mark of Ancona and to drive
from their lurking-places the apostates from various religious Orders
and the Bizochi who infested those regions. His previous steps had
probably been ineffective, and possibly also he may have been moved to
more decisive action by the rebellious attitude of the Spirituals and
proscribed mendicants. Not only did they question the papal authority,
but they were beginning to argue that the papacy itself was vacant. So
far from being content with the bull _Exiit qui seminat_, they held that
its author, Nicholas III., had been deprived by God of the papal
functions, and consequently that he had had no legitimate successors.
Thereafter there had been no true ordinations of priest and prelate, and
the real Church consisted in themselves alone. To remedy this, Frère
Matthieu de Bodici came from Provence, bringing with him the books of
Pierre Jean Olivi, and in the Church of St. Peter in Rome he was elected
pope by five Spirituals and thirteen women. Boniface promptly put the
Inquisition on their track, but they fled to Sicily, which, as we shall
see, subsequently became the headquarters of the sect.[41]
Friar Jordan, to whom we are indebted for these details, assumes that
Liberato and his associates were concerned in this movement. The dates
and order of events are hopelessly confused, but it would rather seem
that the section of the Spirituals represented by Liberato kept
themselves aloof from all such revolutionary projects. Their sufferings
were real and prolonged, but had they been guilty of participating in
the election of an antipope they would have had but the choice between
perpetual imprisonment and the stake. They were accused of holding that
Boniface was not a lawful pope, that the authority of the Church was
vested in themselves alone, and that the Greek Church was preferable to
the Latin--in other words of Joachitism--but Angelo declares
emphatically that all this was untrue, and his constancy of endurance
during fifty years of persecution and suffering entitles his assertion
to respect. He relates that after their authorization by Celestin V.
they lived as hermits in accordance with the papal concession,
sojourning as paupers and strangers wherever they could find a place of
retreat, and strictly abstaining from preaching and hearing confessions,
except when ordered to do so by bishops to whom they owed obedience.
Even before the resignation of Celestin, the Franciscan authorities,
irritated at the escape of their victims, disregarded the papal
authority and endeavored with an armed force to capture them. Celestin
himself seems to have given them warning of this, and the zealots,
recognizing that there was no peace for them in Italy, resolved to
expatriate themselves and seek some remote spot where they could gratify
their ascetic longings and worship God without human interference. They
crossed the Adriatic and settled on a desert island off the Achaian
coast. Here, lost to view, they for two years enjoyed the only period of
peace in their agitated lives; but at length news of their place of
retreat reached home, and forthwith letters were despatched to the
nobles and bishops of the mainland accusing them of being Cathari, while
Boniface was informed that they did not regard him as pope, but held
themselves to be the only true Church. In 1299 he commissioned Peter,
Patriarch of Constantinople, to try them, when they were condemned
without a hearing, and he ordered Charles II. of Naples, who was
overlord of the Morea, to have them expelled, an order which Charles
transmitted to Isabelle de Villehardouin, Princess of Achaia. Meanwhile
the local authorities had recognized the falsity of the accusations, for
the refugees celebrated mass daily and prayed for Boniface as pope, and
were willing to eat meat, but this did not relieve them from
surveillance and annoyance, one of their principal persecutors being a
certain Geronimo, who came to them with some books of Olivi's, and whom
they were forced to eject for immorality, after which he turned accuser
and was rewarded with the episcopate.[42]
The pressure became too strong, and the little community gradually broke
up. An intention to accompany Frà Giovanni da Monte on a mission to
Tartary had to be abandoned on account of the excommunication consequent
upon the sentence uttered by the Patriarch of Constantinople. Liberato
sent two brethren to appeal to Boniface, and then two more, but they
were all seized and prevented from reaching him. Then Liberato himself
departed secretly and reached Perugia, but the sudden death of Boniface
(October 11, 1303) frustrated his object. The rest returned at various
times, Angelo being the last to reach Italy, in 1305. He found his
brethren in evil plight. They had been cited by the Dominican
inquisitor, Tommaso di Aversa, and had obediently presented themselves.
At first the result was favorable. After an examination lasting several
days, Tommaso pronounced them orthodox, and dismissed them, saying
publicly, "Frà Liberato, I swear by Him who created me that never the
flesh of a poor man could be sold for such a price as I could get for
yours. Your brethren would drink your blood if they could." He even
conducted them in safety back to their hermitages, and when the rage of
the Conventuals was found to be unappeasable he gave them the advice
that they should leave the kingdom of Naples that night and travel by
hidden ways to the pope; if they could bring letters from the latter, or
from a cardinal, he would defend them as long as he held the office. The
advice was taken; Liberato left Naples that night, but fell sick on the
road and died after a lingering illness of two years. Meanwhile, as we
shall see hereafter, the exploits of Dolcino in Lombardy were exciting
general terror, which rendered all irregular fraternities the object of
suspicion and dread. The Conventuals took advantage of this and incited
Frà Tommaso to summon before him all who wore unauthorized religious
habits. The Spirituals were cited again, to the number of forty-two, and
this time they did not escape so easily. They were condemned as
heretics, and when Andrea da Segna, under whose protection they had
lived, interposed in their favor, Tommaso carried them to Trivento,
where they were tortured for five days. This excited the compassion of
the bishop and nobles of the town, so they were transferred to Castro
Mainardo, a solitary spot, where for five months they were afflicted
with the sharpest torments. Two of the younger brethren yielded and
accused themselves and their comrades, but revoked when released. Some
of them died, and finally the survivors were ordered to be scourged
naked through the streets of Naples and were banished the kingdom,
although no specific heresy was alleged against them in the sentence.
Through all this the resolution of the little band never faltered.
Convinced that they alone were on the path of salvation, they would not
be forced back into the Order. On the death of Liberato, Angelo was
chosen as their leader, and amid persecution and obloquy they formed a
congregation in the Mark of Ancona, known as the Clareni, from the
surname of their chief, and under the protection of the cardinal,
Napoleone Orsini.[43]
This group had not been by any means alone in opposing the laxity of the
Conventuals, although it was the only one which succeeded in throwing
off the yoke of its opponents. The Spirituals were numerous in the
Order, but the policy of Boniface VIII. led him to support the efforts
of the Conventuals to keep them in subjection. Jacopone da Todi, the
author of the Stabat Mater, was perhaps the most prominent of these, and
his savage verses directed against the pope did not tend to harmonize
the troubles. After the capture of Palestrina, in 1298, Boniface threw
him into a foul dungeon, where he solaced his captivity with canticles
full of the mystic ardor of divine love. It is related that Boniface
once, passing the grating of his cell, jeeringly called to him, "Jacopo,
when will you get out?" and was promptly answered, "When you come in."
In a sense the prophecy proved true, for one of the first acts of
Benedict XI., in December, 1303, was to release Jacopone from both
prison and excommunication.[44]
Frà Corrado da Offida was another prominent member of the Spiritual
group. He had been a friend of John of Parma; for fifty-five years he
wore but a single gown, patched and repatched as necessity required, and
this with his rope girdle constituted his sole worldly possessions. In
the mystic exaltation which characterized the sect he had frequent
visions and ecstasies, in which he was lifted from the ground after the
fashion of the saints. When Liberato and his companions were in their
Achaian refuge he designed joining them with Jacopo de' Monti and
others, but the execution of the project was in some way prevented.[45]
Such men, filled with the profoundest conviction of their holy calling,
were not to be controlled by either kindness or severity. It was in vain
that the general, Giovanni di Murro, at the chapter of 1302, held in
Genoa, issued a precept deploring the abandonment, by the Order, of holy
poverty, as shown by the possession of lands and farms and vineyards,
and the assumption by friars of duties which involved them in worldly
cares and strife and litigation. He ordered the sale of all property,
and forbade the members of the Order from appearing in any court. Yet
while he was thus rigid as to the ownership of property, he was lax as
to its use, and condemned as pernicious the doctrine that the vow of
poverty involved restriction in its enjoyment. He was, moreover,
resolved on extinguishing the schism in the Order, and his influence
with Boniface was one of the impelling causes of the continued
persecution of the Spirituals. They stubbornly rejected all attempts at
reconciliation, and placed a true estimate on these efforts of reform.
Before the year was out Giovanni was created Cardinal Bishop of Porto,
and was allowed to govern the Order through a vicar; the reforms were
partially enforced in some provinces for a short time; then they fell
into desuetude, and matters went on as before.[46]
* * * * *
In France, where the influence of Joachim and the Everlasting Gospel was
much more lasting and pronounced than in Italy, the career of the
Spirituals revolves around one of the most remarkable personages of the
period--Pierre Jean Olivi. Born in 1247, he was placed in the Franciscan
Order at the age of twelve, and was trained in the University of Paris,
where he obtained the baccalaureate. His grave demeanor, seasoned with a
lively wit, his irreproachable morals, his fervid eloquence, and the
extent of his learning won for him universal respect, while his piety,
gentleness, humility, and zeal for holy poverty gained for him a
reputation for sanctity which assigned to him the gift of prophecy. That
such a man should attach himself to the Spirituals was a matter of
course, and equally so was the enmity which he excited by unsparing
reproof of the laxity of observance into which the Order had declined.
In his voluminous writings he taught that absolute poverty is the
source of all the virtues and of a saintly life; that the Rule
prohibited all proprietorship, whether individual or in common, and that
the vow bound the members to the most sparing use of all necessaries,
the meanest garments, the absence of shoes, etc., while the pope had no
power to dispense or absolve, and much less to order anything contrary
to the Rule. The convent of Béziers, to which he belonged, became the
centre of the Spiritual sect, and the devotion which he excited was
shared by the population at large, as well as by his brethren. The
temper of the man was shown when he underwent his first rebuke. In 1278
some writings of his in praise of the Virgin were considered to trench
too closely on Mariolatry. The Order had not yet committed itself to
this, and complaint was made to the general, Geronimo d'Ascoli,
afterwards Nicholas IV., who read the tracts and condemned him to burn
them with his own hands. Olivi at once obeyed without any sign of
perturbation, and when his wondering brethren asked how he could endure
such mortification so tranquilly, he replied that he had performed the
sacrifice with a thoroughly placid mind; he had not felt more pleasure
in writing the tracts than in burning them at the command of his
superior, and the loss was nothing, for if necessary he could easily
write them again in better shape. A man so self-centred and
imperturbable could not fail to impress his convictions on those who
surrounded him.[47]
What his convictions really were is a problem not easily solved at the
present day. The fierce antagonisms which he excited by his fiery
onslaughts on individuals as well as on the general laxity of the Order
at large, caused his later years to be passed in a series of
investigations for heresy. At the general chapter of Strassburg, in
1282, his writings were ordered to be examined. In 1283 Bonagrazia di S.
Giovanni, the general, came to France, collected and placed them all in
the hands of seven of the leading members of the Order, who found in
them propositions which they variously characterized as false,
heretical, presumptuous, and dangerous, and ordered the tracts
containing them to be surrendered by all possessing them. Olivi
subscribed to the judgment in 1284, although he complained that he had
not been permitted to appear in person before his judges and explain the
censured passages, to which distorted meanings had been applied. With
some difficulty he procured copies of his inculpated writings and
proceeded to justify himself. Still the circle of his disciples
continued to increase; incapable of the self-restraint of their master,
and secretly imbued with Joachitic doctrines, they were not content with
the quiet propagation of their principles, but excited tumults and
seditions. Olivi was held responsible. The chapter held at Milan in 1285
elected as general minister Arlotto di Prato, one of the seven who had
condemned him, and issued a decree ordering a strict perquisition and
seizure of his writings. The new general, moreover, summoned him to
Paris for another inquisition into his faith, of which the promoters
were two of the members of the previous commission, Richard Middleton
and Giovanni di Murro, the future general. The matter was prolonged
until 1286, when Arlotto died, and nothing was done. Matteo
d'Acquasparta vouched for his orthodoxy in appointing him teacher in the
general school of the Order at Florence. Raymond Gaufridi, who succeeded
Matteo d'Acquasparta in 1290, was a friend and admirer of Olivi, but
could not prevent fresh proceedings, though he appointed him teacher at
Montpellier. Excitement in Languedoc had reached a point which led
Nicholas IV., in 1290, to order Raymond to suppress the disturbers of
the peace. He commissioned Bertrand de Cigotier, Inquisitor of the
Comtat Venaissin, to investigate and report, in order that the matter
might be brought before the next general chapter, to be held in Paris.
In 1292, accordingly, Olivi appeared before the chapter, professed his
acceptance of the bull _Exiit qui seminat_, asserted that he had never
intentionally taught or written otherwise, and revoked and abjured
anything that he might inadvertently have said in contradiction of it.
He was dismissed in peace, but twenty-nine of his zealous and headstrong
followers, whom Bertrand de Cigotier had found guilty, were duly
punished. His few remaining years seem to have passed in comparative
peace. Two letters written in 1295, one to Corrado da Offida and the
other to the sons of Charles II. of Naples, then held as hostages in
Catalonia, who had asked him to visit them, show that he was held in
high esteem, that he desired to curb the fanatic zeal of the more
advanced Spirituals, and that he could not restrain himself from
apocalyptic speculation. On his death-bed, in 1298, he uttered a
confession of faith in which he professed absolute submission to the
Roman Church and to Boniface as its head. He also submitted all his
works to the Holy See, and made a declaration of principles as to the
matters in dispute within the Order, which contained nothing that
Bonaventura would not have signed, or Nicholas III. would have impugned
as contrary to the bull _Exiit_, although it sharply rebuked the
money-getting practices and relaxation of the Order.[48]
He was honorably buried at Narbonne, and then the controversy over his
memory became more lively than ever, rendering it almost impossible to
determine his responsibility for the opinions which were ascribed to him
by both friends and foes. That his bones became the object of assiduous
cult, in spite of repeated prohibitions, that innumerable miracles were
worked at his tomb, that crowds of pilgrims flocked to it, that his
feast-day became one of the great solemnities of the year, and that he
was regarded as one of the most efficient saints in the calendar, only
shows the popular estimate of his virtues and the zeal of those who
regarded themselves as his disciples. Certain it is that the Council of
Vienne, in 1312, treated his memory with great gentleness. While it
condemned with merciless severity the mystic extravagances of the
Brethren of the Free Spirit, it found only four errors to note in the
voluminous writings of Olivi--errors of merely speculative interest,
such as are frequent among the schoolmen of the period--and these it
pointed out without attributing them to him or even mentioning his name.
These his immediate followers denied his holding, although eventually
one of them, curiously enough, became a sort of shibboleth among the
Olivists. It was that Christ was still alive on the cross when pierced
by the lance, and was based on the assertion that the relation in
Matthew originally differed in this respect from that in John, and had
been altered to secure harmony. All other questions relating to the
teachings of Olivi the council referred to the Franciscans for
settlement, showing that they were deemed of minor importance, after
they had been exhaustively debated before it by Bonagrazia da Bergamo in
attack and Ubertino da Casale in defence. Thus the council condemned
neither his person nor his writings; that the result was held as
vindicating his orthodoxy was seen when, in 1313, his feast-day was
celebrated with unexampled enthusiasm at Narbonne, and was attended by a
concourse equal to that which assembled at the anniversary of the
Portiuncula. Moreover, after the heat of the controversy had passed
away, the subsequent condemnation of his writings by John XXII. was
removed by Sixtus IV., towards the end of the fifteenth century. Olivi's
teachings may therefore fairly be concluded to have contained no very
revolutionary doctrines. In fact, shortly after his death all the
Franciscans of Provence were required to sign an abjuration of his
errors, among which was enumerated the one respecting the wound of
Christ, but nothing was said respecting the graver aberrations
subsequently attributed to him.[49]