600 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1617.
no distinct evidence. To the Beghards and Beguines likewise were ascribed pantheistic tenets.
To the general class of free thinkers belonged sucli individuals as Margaret of Henegouwen, usually known as Margaret of Porete, a Beguine, who wrote a book advocating the annihilation of the soul in God's love, and affirmed that, when this condition is reached, the individual ^nay, without qualm of conscience, yield to any indulgence the appetites of nature call for. After having several times relapsed from the faith, she was burnt, together with her books, in the Place de Greve, Paris, 1310. ^ Here belong also the Men of Reason, — homines intellig entice, — who appeared at Brussels early in the 14th century and were charged with teaching the final restoration of all men and of the devil. ^
The Fraticelli, also called the Fratricelli, — the Little Brothers, — represented the opposite tendency and went to an extravagant excess in insisting upon a rigid observance of the_ rule of poverty. Originally followers of the Franciscan Observants, Peter Olivi, Michael Cesena and Angelo Clareno, they offered violent resistance to the decrees of John XXII., which ascribed to Christ and the Apostles the possession of property. Some were given shelter in legitimate Franciscan convents, while others associated themselves in schismatic groups of their own. They were active in Italy and_Spjat,hernj'^ariGe, and were also represented in Holland and even in Egypt and Syria, as Gregory XL, 1375, declared ; but it would be an error to regard their number as large. In his bull, Sancta romana, issued in 1317, John XXII. spoke of "men of the profane multitude, popularly called Fraticelli, or brethren of the poor life, Bizochi or Beguines or known by other names." This was not the first use of the term in an offensive sense. Villani called two men Fraticelli, a mechanic of Parma, Sega-
1 Fredericq, I. 155-100, II. 0.3 .sqq. Another writer of the same chi-ss was Mary of Valenciennes, whose book was condemned by tiie Inquisition, about 1400, as a work of " incredible subtlety." It was mentioned by Gerson in his tract on false and true visions. Fredericq, II. 188.
2 For a li.st of their errors, see Fredericij, I. 207-270. A sect of free thinkers known as the Loists flourished in Antwerp in the 16th century. DoUinger, II. 664 sqq., gives one of their documents.
§ 58. HERETICAL AND UNCHURCHLY MOVEMENTS. 501
relli and his pupil Dolcinoof Novara,botli of whom were burnt, Sesrarelli in 1300 and Dolcino some time later. Friar Bonato, head of a small Spiritual house in Catalonia, after being roasted on one side, proffered repentance and was released, but afterwards, 1335, burnt alive. ^ Wherever the Fraticelli appeared, they were jpurgued^by the Inq^uisition. A number of bulls' of the 14th century attacked them for denying the papal edicts and condemned them to rigorous prosecution. A formula, which they were required to profess, ran as follows : " I swear that I believe in my heart and profess that our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles, while in mortal life, held in common the things the Scriptures describe them as having and that they had the right of giving, selling and alienating them."
In localities thev seem to have carried_tlieir OTJBOsitJQiLio the Church so far asJtg_seLlUi-aJiifirarchy of their o_Hii.2 The regular priests they denounced as simonists and adulterers. In places they were held in such esteem by the populace that the Inquisition and the civil courts found themselves powerless to bring them to trial. Nine were burnt under Urban V. at Viterbo, and in 1389 Fra Michaele Berti de Calci, who had been successful in making converts, met the same fate at Florence. In France also they yielded victims to the flames, among them, Giovanni da Castiglione and Francese d'Arquata at Montpellier, 1354, and Jean of Narbonne and Maurice at Avignon. These enthusiasts are represented as having met death cheerfully.
Early in the 15th century, we find the Fraticelli again the victims of the Inquisition. In 1424 and 1426, Martin V. ordered proceedings against certain of their number in Florence and in Spain. The vigorous propaganda of the papal preachers, John of Capistrano and James of the Mark, succeeded in securing the return of many of these heretics to the Church, but, as late as the reign of Paul II., 1466, they were represented in Rome, where six of their number were imprisoned and subjected to torture. The charges against them were the denial of the validity of papal decrees of indulgence
1 Lea: Span. Inq., III. 190.
2 Wetzer-Welte, IV. 1931, quoting Mansi-Miscell. IV. 595-610.