ing century, abounds with instances of this deplorable cruelty.

of the Fran

against the

xxx. The zealous pontiff pursued this affair with great warmth for several years successively; and as the attempts this contest seemed to have taken its rise from the ciscans books of Pierre d'Olive, he branded with infamy, Pope. in the year 1325, the Postilla, and the other writings of that author as pernicious and heretical. The next step he took was to summon to Avignon some of the more learned and eminent brethren of the Franciscan order, of whose writings and eloquence he was the most apprehensive, and to detain them at his court; and then, to arm himself against the resentment and indignation of this exasperated society, and to prevent their attempting any thing to his prejudice, he kept a strict guard over them in all places, by means of his friends, the Dominicans. Michael de Cæsenas, who resided in Italy, and was the head of the order, could but ill dissemble the hatred he had conceived against the pope, who therefore ordered him to repair to Avignon, in the year 1327, and there deprived him of his office. But prudent as this violent measure might appear at first sight, it served only to inflame the enraged Franciscans more than ever, and to confirm them in their attachment to the scheme of absolute poverty. For no sooner did the bitter and well-known contest between John XXII. and the emperor Lewis, of Bavaria, break out, than the principal champions of the Franciscan cause, such as Marsilius of Padua, and Jo. de Janduno, or Genoa, fled to the emperor, and under his protection published the most virulent pieces imaginable, in which they not only attacked John personally, but also levelled their satires at the power and authority of the popes in general.' This example was soon followed by others, particularly by Mich. Cæsenas, and William Occam, who excelled most men of his time in subtilty and acuteness of genius, and also by F. Bonagratia of Bergamo. They made their

d Waddingi Annal. tom. vii. p. 47. Jo. Georg. Eccardi Corpus Histor. medii avi, tom. i. p. 592, and 1491.

e Waddingi Annal. tom. vii. p. 69,174.

f Luc. Dacherii Spicilegium, tom. iii. p. 85, s. Bullar. Roman. tom. vi. p. 167. Edm. Martene, Thesaur. Anecdotor. tom. ii. p. 695, 704. Boulay, Histor. Acad. Paris. tom. iv. p. 216. There is a very noted piece on this subject written by Marsilius of Padua, who was professor at Vienna, which was published in 8vo. at Francfort, by Franc. Gomarus, 1592, and is entitled, Defensor pro Ludovico Bavaro adversus usurpatum Romani Pontificis jurisdictionem.

escape by sea from Avignon, in the year 1327, went first to the emperor, who was at that time in Italy, and from thence proceeded to Munich. They were soon joined by many others, such as Berengarius, Francis de Esculo, and Henry de Halem, who were highly and deservedly esteemed on account of their eminent parts and extensive learning. All these learned fugitives defended the institute of their founder in long and laboured treatises, in which they reduced the papal dignity and authority within a very narrow compass, and loaded the pontiffs with reproaches and invectives. Occam surpassed them all in the keenness and spirit of his satire; and hence his Dialogues, together with his other productions, which were perused with avidity, and transmitted down to succeeding generations, gave, as it were, a mortal blow to the ambition and majesty of the Roman pontiffs.

varia be

tron of

pa

XXXI. On the other hand, the emperor, Lewis of Bavaria, to express his gratitude to these his defenders, Lewis of Ba- not only made the cause of the Franciscans his comes the own, but also adopted their favourite sentiment Franciscans. concerning the poverty of Christ and his apostles. For among the heresies and errors of which he publicly accused John XXII. and for which he deprived him of the pontificate, the principal and most pernicious one, in the opinion of the emperor, was his maintaining that the poverty of Christ did not exclude all right and property in what he used as a subsistence. The Fratricelli, Beghards, Beguines, and Spirituals, then at variance with the pope, were effectually protected by the emperor, in Germany, against the attempts of the inquisitors; so that during his reign that country was overrun with shoals of mendicant friars. There was scarce a province or city in the empire that did not abound with Beghards and Beguines; that is, monks professing the third rule of St. Francis, and who placed the chief excellence of the Christian life in a voluntary and absolute poverty. The Dominicans, on the other

g Waddingi Annal. tom. vii. p. 81. Martene, Thesaur. Anecdotor. tom. iii. p. 749, 757, s. 781. Trithemii Annal. Hirsaug. tom. ii. p. 167. Boulay, Hist. Acad. Paris. tom. iv. p. 217. Eccardi Corpus Hist. medii ævi, tom. ii. p. 1034. Baluzii Miscellan. tom. i. p. 293, 315. The reader may also consult those writers who have compiled Indexes and Collections of Ecclesiastical Historians."

h See Processus Ludovici contra Johannem A. 1328, d. 12. Miscellaneis, tom. ii. p. 522, and also his Appellatio, p. 494.

Dec. datus, in Baluzi

i I have many pieces upon this subject that were never published.

hand, as enemies to the Franciscans, and friends to the pope, were treated with great severity by his imperial majesty, who banished them with ignominy out of several cities.

Franciscans

XXXII. The rage of the contending parties subsided greatly from the year 1329. The pope caused a Peace is made diet of the Franciscans to be held that year at between the Paris, where, by means of cardinal Bertrand, and the popes who was president of the assembly, and the Parisian doctors, who were attached to his interests, he so far softened the resentment of the greatest part of the brethren, that they ceased to defend the conduct of Michael Cæsenas, and his associates, and permitted another president, Gerard Oddo, to be substituted in his room. They also acknowledged John to be a true and lawful pope; and then terminated the dispute concerning the poverty of Christ in such an ambiguous manner, that the constitutions and edicts of Nicolas III. and John XXII. however contradictory, maintained their authority. But notwithstanding these pacific and mutual concessions, there were great numbers of the Franciscans in Germany, Spain, and Italy, who would by no means consent to this reconciliation. After the death of John, Benedict XII. and Clement VI. took great pains to close the breach, and showed great clemency and tenderness toward such of the order as thought the institute of their founder more sacred than the papal bulls. This lenity had some good effects. Many who had withdrawn themselves from the society, were hereby induced to return to it, in which number were Francis de Esculo, and others, who had been some of John's most inveterate enemies. Even those who would not be prevailed on to return to their order, ceased to insult the popes, observed the rules of their founder in a quiet and inoffensive manner, and would have no sort of connexion with those Fratricelli and Tertiaries in Italy, Spain, and Germany, who contemned the papal authority,"

m

XXXIII. The German Franciscans, who were protected by the emperor Lewis, held out their opposition The distresses

k Mart. Diefenbach. De mortis genere, quo Henricus VII. obiit, p. 145, and others, Eccardi Corpus Hist. medii avi, tom. i. p. 2103. Boulay, Hist. Acad. Paris. tom. iv. p.

220.

I Waddingi Annales, tom. vii. p. 94. Dacherii Spicilegium, tom. iii. p. 91.

m Argentre, Collectio judicior. de novis erroribus, tom. i. p. 343. Boulay, Hist. Acgd Paris. tom. iv. p. 281. Waddingi Annal. tom. vii. p. 313.

n Waddingi Annal. tom. vii. p. 116, 126. Argentre, l. c. tom. i. p. 343, &c.

of the Spiri

tuals, Beghards,

ke. in Germa

ny.

much longer than any of the rest. But in the year 1347, their imperial patron being dead, the halcyon days of the Franciscan Spirituals, as also of their associates the Beghards, or Tertiaries, were at an end in Germany. For in the year 1345, his successor, Charles IV. having been raised to the imperial throne by the interest of the pope, was ready, in his turn, to gratify the desires of the court of Rome, and accordingly supported, both by his edicts and by his arms, the inquisitors who were sent by the Roman pontiff against his enemies, and suffered them to apprehend and put to death all of these enemies that came within their reach. These ministers of papal vengeance exerted their power chiefly in the districts of Magdeburg and Bremen, Thuringia, Saxony, and Hesse, where they extirpated all the Beghards, as well as the Beguines or Tertiaries, the associates of those Franciscans, who held that Christ and his apostles had no property in any thing. These severe measures were approved by Charles IV. who then resided in Italy, at Lucca, from whence, in the year 1369, he issued out severe edicts, commanding all the German princes to extirpate out of their dominions the Beghards and Beguines, or, as he himself interpreted the name, the voluntary beggars, as enemies of the church and of the Roman empire, and to assist the inquisitors in their proceedings against them. By another edict, published not long after, he gave the houses of the Beghards to the tribunal of the inquisition, ordering them to be converted into prisons for heretics; and at the same time ordered all the effects of the Beguines to be sold publicly, and the profits arising from thence to be equally divided between the inquisitors, the magistrates, and the poor of those towns and cities where such sale shall be made. The Beghards, being reduced to great straits by this and other mandates of the emperor, and by the

o In High Dutch, Die wilgen Armen.

p I have in my possession this edict, with other laws of Charles IV. enacted on this occasion, as also many of the papal constitutions, and other records which illustrate this affair, and which undoubtedly deserve to see the light. It is certain, that Charles IV. himself, in his edicts and mandates, clearly characterizes those people, whom he there styles Beghards and Beguines, as Franciscan tertiaries, belonging to that party o the order then at variance with the pope. 66 They are," to use the emperor's own words, in his edict, issued out at Lucca, and bearing date the 16th of June, 1369, "a pernicious sect, who pretended to a sacrilegious and heretical poverty, and who are under a Yow that they neither ought to have, nor will have any property, whether special or common, in the goods they use," this is the poverty of the Franciscan institute, which John XXII. so strenuously opposed, "which they extend even to their wretched habits." For so the spirituals and their associates used to do.

being extinthese proceed

guished by ings, that the der is split into

Franciscan or

two considerable parties.

constitutions of the popes, sought a refuge in those provinces of Switzerland that border upon the Rhine, and also in Holland, Brabant, and Pomerania. But the edicts and mandates of the emperor, together with the papal bulls and inquisitors, followed them wherever they went, and distressed them in their most distant retreats; so, that, during the reign of Charles IV. the greatest part of Germany, Switzerland, and those provinces that are contiguous to it excepted, was thoroughly purged of the Beghards, or rebellious Franciscans, both perfect and imperfect. XXXIV. But neither edicts, bulls, nor inquisitors, could entirely pluck up the roots of this inveterate dis- Their divisions cord. For so ardently were many of the brethren so far from bent upon observing, in the most perfect and rigorous manner, the institute of St. Francis, that numbers were be be found in all places, who either withstood the president of the society, or at least, obeyed him with reluctance. At once therefore to satisfy both the laxer and more rigid party, after various methods had been tried to no purpose, a division of the order was agreed to. Accordingly, in the year 1368, the president consented that Paulutius Fulginas, who was the chief of the more rigid Franciscans in Italy, together with his associates, who were pretty numerous, should live separately from the rest of the brethren, according to the rules and customs they had adopted, and follow the institute of their founder in the strictest and most rigorous manner. The spirituals, and the followers of Olive, whose scattered remains were yet observable in several places, joined themselves gradually and imperceptibly to this party. And as the number of those who were fond of the severer discipline continually increased in many provinces, the popes thought proper to approve that institute, and to give it the solemn sanction of their authority. In consequence of this, the Franciscan order was divided into two large bodies, which subsist to this day, viz. the conventual brethren, and the brethren of the observation. Those who gave up the strict sense of the expressions in which the institute of their founder was conceived, and adopted the modifications that were given of them by the pontiffs, were called by

q Sec Odor. "Raynaldus, Annal. Eccles. ad A. 1372, § xxxiv. p. 513. See also the books of Felix Malleolus, written in the following century against the Beghards in Switzerland.