Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/91

 POPULAR SYMPATHY. 75 but who recanted ere the fagots were lighted and was received to penance. To silence discussion, John assembled a commission of thirteen prelates and doctors, including Michele da Cesena, who after due consideration solemnly condemned as heretical the prop- ositions that the pope had no authority to issue the bull, and that obedience was not due to prelates who commanded the laying aside of short and narrow vestments and the storing up of corn and wine. All this was rapidly creating a schism, and the bull Sancta Romana, December 30, 1317, and Gloriosam ecclesiam, Jan- uary 23, 1318, were directed against those who under the names of Fraticelli, Beguines, Bizochi, and Fratres de paupere vita, in Sicily, Italy, and the south of France, were organizing an independent Order under the pretence of observing strictly the Kule of Francis, receiving multitudes into their sect, building or receiving houses in gift, begging in public, and electing superiors. All such are de- clared excommunicate ipso facto, and all prelates are commanded to see that the sect is speedily extirpated.* Among the people, the cooler heads argued that if the Francis- can vow rendered all possession sinful it was not a vow of holi- ness, for in things in which use was consumption, such as bread and cheese, use passed into possession. He who took such a vow, therefore, by the mere fact of living broke that vow, and could not be in a state of grace. The supreme holiness of poverty, however, had been so assiduously preached for a hundred years that a large portion of the population sympathized with the persecuted Spir- ituals ; many laymen, married and unmarried, joined them as Ter- tiaries, and even priests embraced their doctrines. There speedily grew up a sect, by no means confined to Franciscans, to replace the fast-vanishing Cathari as an object for the energies of the In- quisition. It is the old story over again, of persecuted saints with the familiars ever at their heels, but always finding refuge and hiding-place at the hands of friendly sympathizers. Pierre Tren- cavel, a priest of Beziers, may be taken as an example. His name recurs frequently in the examinations before the Inquisition as that of one of the principal leaders of the sect. Caught at last, he was thrown into the prison of Carcassonne, but managed to escape, Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 193.
 * Baluz. et Mansi II. 270-1, 274-6.— Extravagant. Joann. XXII. Tit. vn.