Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/163

 MICHELE IN OPPOSITION. 147 John had manifested no abatement of cordiality until April 9, when, on being summoned to an audience, the pope attacked him on the subject of the Chapter of Perugia, which six years before had asserted the poverty of Christ and the apostles. Michele stoutly defended the utterances of the chapter, saying that if they were heretical then Nicholas IV. and the other popes who had affirmed the doctrine were heretics. Then the papal wrath exploded. Michele was a headstrong fool, a fautor of heretics, a serpent nour- ished in the bosom of the Church ; and when the stream of invective had exhausted itself he was placed under constructive arrest, and ordered not to leave Avignon without permission, under pain of excommunication, of forfeiture of office, and of future disability. A few days later, on April 14, in the secrecy of the Franciscan con- vent, he relieved his feelings by executing a solemn notarial pro- test, in the presence of William of Ockham, Bonagrazia, and other trusty adherents, in which he recited the circumstances, argued that the pope either was a heretic or no pope, for either his present utterances were erroneous or else Nicholas IV. had been a heretic ; in the latter case Boniface VIII. and Clement V., who had approved the Bull Exiit qui seminat, were likewise heretics, their nominations of cardinals were void, and the conclave which elected John was illegal. He protested against whatever might be done m deroga- tion of the rights of the Order, that he was in durance and in just fear, and that what he might be forced to do would be null and void. The whole document is a melancholy illustration of the subterfuges rendered necessary by an age of violence.* Michele was detained in Avignon while the general chapter of the Order was held at Bologna, to which John sent Bertrand, Bishop of Ostia, with instructions to have another general chosen. The Order, however, was stubborn. It sent a somewhat defiant message to the pope and re-elected Michele, requesting him more- over to indicate Paris as the next place of assemblage, to be held, according to rule, in three years, to which he assented. In view of the drama which was developing in Rome he might reasonably fear for liberty or life. Preparations were made for his escape. A galley, furnished, according to John, by the Emperor Louis, but according to other and more trustworthy accounts, by Genoese Nicholaus Minorita (Bal. et Mansi III. 238-40).