Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/159

 IMPENDING RUPTURE. 143 less secretly felt by both sides to be inevitable. Still there was a little skirmishing for position. In 1325 Michele had summoned the general chapter to assemble at Paris, but he feared that an ef- fort would be made to annul the declarations of Perugia, and that John would exercise a pressure by means of King Charles le Bel, whose influence was great through the number of benefices at his disposal. Suddenly, therefore, he transferred the call to Lyons, where considerable trouble was experienced through the efforts of Gerard Odo, a creature of the pope, and subsequently the suc- cessor of Michele, to obtain relaxations of the Pule as regarded poverty. Still the brethren stood firm, and these attempts were defeated, while a constitution threatening with imprisonment all who should speak indiscreetly and disrespectfully of John XXII. and his decretals indicates the passions which were seething under the surface» Not long after this we hear of a prosecution suddenly commenced against our old acquaintance Ubertino da Casale, in spite of his Benedictine habit and his quiet residence in Italy. He seems to have been suspected of having furnished the argu- ments on the subject of the poverty of Christ in the Protest of Sachsenhausen, and, September 16, 1325, an order was sent for his arrest, but he got wind of it and escaped to Germany — the first of the illustrious band of refugees who gathered around Louis of Bavaria, though he appears to have made his peace in 1330. John seems to have at last grown restive at the tacit insubordination of the Franciscans, who did not openly deny his definitions as to the poverty of Christ, but whom he knew to be secretly cherishing in their hearts the condemned doctrine. In 1326 Michele issued de- crees subjecting to a strict censorship all writings by the brethren and enforcing one of the rules which prohibited the discussion of doubtful opinions, thus muzzling the Order in the hope of averting dissension ; but it was not in John's nature to rest satisfied with silence which covered opposition, and in August, 1327, he advanced to the attack. In the bull Quia nonnunquam, addressed to arch- bishops and inquisitors, he declared that many still believed in the poverty of Christ in spite of his having pronounced such belief a heresy, and that those who entertained it should be treated as heretics. He therefore now orders the prelates and inquisitors to prosecute them vigorously, and though the Franciscans are not specially named, the clause which deprives the accused of all papal