Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/48

 32 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS. preferred the idleness of the road or of the hermitage to the re- straints and labor of civilized existence. It was in vain that the Lateran Council had prohibited the formation of new and unau- thorized Orders. The splendid success of the Mendicants had proved too alluring, and others were formed on the same basis, without the requisite preliminary of the papal approval. The multitudes of holy beggars were becoming a serious nuisance, op- pressive to the people and disgraceful to the Church. When Greg- orv X. summoned the General Council of Lyons, in 1274. this was one of the evils to be remedied. The Lateran canon prohibiting the formation of unauthorized Orders was renewed. Gregory pro- posed to suppress all the congregations of hermits, but, at the in- stance of Cardinal Eichard, the Carmelites and Augustinians were allowed to exist on sufferance until further order, while the au- dacity of other associations, not as yet approved, was condemned, especially that of the mendicants, whose multitude was declared to exceed all bounds. Such mendicant Orders as had been con- firmed since the Council of Lateran were permitted to continue, but they were instructed to admit no new members, to acquire no new houses, and not to sell what they possessed without special license from the Holy See. Evidently it was felt that the time had come for decisive measures to check the tide of saintly men- dicancy."- Some vague and incorrect rumors of this legislation penetrat- ing to Italy, led to an explosion which started one of the most extraordinary series of persecutions which the history of human perversity affords. On the one hand there is the marvellous con- stancy which endured lifelong martyrdom for an idea almost un- intelligible to the modern mind ; on the other there is the seem- ingly causeless ferocity, which appears to persecute for the mere pleasure of persecution, only to be explained by the bitterness of the feuds existing within the Order, and the savage determination to enforce submission at every cost. It was reported that the Council of Lyons had decreed that the Mendicants could hold property. Most of the brethren ac- quiesced readily enough, but those who regarded the Rule as divine revelation, not to be tampered with by any earthly authority, de-
 * Concil. Lugdunens. II. c. 23 (Harduiu. VII. 715).— Salimbene, pp. 110-11.