Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/148

 132 THE FRATICELLI. It was inevitable that the replies to the question submitted by John should be adverse to the poverty of Christ and the apostles. The bishops were universally assumed to be the representatives of the latter, and could not be expected to relish the assertion that their prototypes had been commanded by Christ to own no prop- erty. The Spirituals had made a point of this. Olivi had proved not only that Franciscans promoted to the episcopate were even more bound than their brethren to observe the Kule in all its strictures, but that bishops in general were under obligation to live in deeper poverty than the members of the most perfect Or- der. !Now that there was a chance of justifying their worldliness and luxury, it was not likely to be lost. Yet John himself for a while held his own opinion suspended. In a debate before the consistory, Ubertino da Casale, the former leader of the orthodox Spirituals, was summoned to present the Franciscan view of the poverty of Christ, in answer to the Dominicans, and we are told that John was greatly pleased with his argument. Unluckily, at the General Chapter held at Perugia, May 30, 1322, the Francis- cans appealed to Christendom at large by a definition addressed to all the faithful, in which they proved that the absolute poverty of Christ was the accepted doctrine of the Church, as set forth in the bulls Exi'it and Exivi de Paradiso, and that John himself had approved of these in his bull Quorumdam. Another and more comprehensive utterance to the same effect received the signatures of all the Franciscan masters and bachelors of theology in France and England. AVith a disputant such as John this was an act of apostles. They are significant of the general reaction against the previously pre- vailing dogma, and of the eagerness with which, as soon as the free expression of opinion was safe, the prelates repudiated a doctrine condemnatory of the tem- poralities so industriously accumulated by all classes of ecclesiastics. There were but eight replies affirming the poverty of Christ, and these were all from Franciscans — the Cardinals of Albano and San Vitale, the Archbishop of Salerno, the Bishops of CafTa, Lisbon. Riga, and Badajoz. and an unknown master of the Order. On the other side there were fourteen cardinals, including even Xapoleone Orsini, the protector of the Spirituals, and a large number of archbishops, bishops, abbots, and doctors of theology. It is doubtless true, however, that the fear of offending the pope was a factor in producing this virtual unanimity — a fear not unreasonable, as was shown by the disgrace and persecution of those who maintained the poverty of Christ. — (Tocco, ubi sup. p. 35).