Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/79

 REBELLION IN ITALY. 63 communicated as schismatics and rebels, founders of a supersti- tious sect, and disseminators of false and pestiferous doctrines. Persecution against them raged more furiously than ever. In some places, supported by the laity, they ejected the Conventuals from their houses and defended themselves by force of arms, dis- regarding the censures of the Church which were lavished on them. Others made the best of their way to Sicily, and others again, shortly before Clement's death, sent letters to him professing sub- mission and obedience, but the friends of the Spirituals feared to compromise themselves by even presenting them. After the ac- cession of John XXII. they made another attempt to reach the pope, but by that time the Conventuals were in full control and threw the envoys into prison as excommunicated heretics. Such of them as were able to do so escaped to Sicily. It is worthy of note that everywhere the virtues and sanctity of these so-called heretics won for them popular favor, and secured them protection more or less efficient, and this was especially the case in Sicily. King Frederic, mindful of the lessons taught him by Arnaldo de Vilanova, received the fugitives graciously and allowed them to establish themselves, in spite of repeated remonstrances on the part of John XXII. There Henry da Ceva, whom we shall meet again, had already sought refuge from the persecution of Boniface VIII. and had prepared the way for those who were to follow. In 1313 there are allusions to a pope named Celestin whom the " Poor Men" in Sicily had elected, with a college of cardinals, who constituted the only true Church and who were entitled to the obedience of the faithful. Insignificant as this movement may have seemed at the time, it subsequently aided the foundation of the sect known as Fraticelli, who so long braved with marvellous constancy the unsparing rigor of the Italian Inquisition.* Into these dangerous paths of rebellion the original leaders of —Franz Ehrle, Archiv, 1885, pp. 156-8. — Joann. S.Victor. Chron. aim. 1319 (Muratori S. R. I. III. n. 479).— Wadding, ann. 1313, No. 4-7.— D'Argentre* I. i. 297.— Arch, de l'Inq. de Carcass. (Doat, XXVII. fol. 7 sqq.).— Raym. de Fronci- acho (Archiv, 1887, p. 31). Fra Francesco del Borgo San Sepolcro, who was tried by the Inquisition at Assisi in 1311 for assuming gifts of prophecy, was probably a Tuscan Joachite who refused submission (Franz Ehrle, Archiv fur L. u. K. 1887, p. 11).
 * Hist. Tribulat. (loc. cit. pp. 139-40).— Lami, Antichita Toscane, pp. 596-99.