Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/97

 SUBDIVISION OF THE SECTARIES. 81 saints needed no oblations, and if a man had vowed a candle to one of them or to the Virgin, or a pilgrimage to Compostella, it would be better to give to the poor the money that it would cost.* The Ghurch composed of these enthusiastic fanatics broke off all relations with the Italian Spirituals, whose more regulated zeal seemed lukewarmness and backsliding. The prisoners who were tried by Bernard Gui in 1322 at Toulouse described the Franciscan Order as divided into three fragments — the Conventuals, who insisted on having granaries and cellars, the Fraticelli under Henry da Ceva in Sicily, and the Spirituals, or Beguines, then under per- secution. The two former groups they said did not observe the Kule and would be destroyed, while their own sect would endure to the end of the world. Even the saintly and long-suffering Angelo da Clarino was denounced as an apostate, and there were hot-headed zealots who declared that he would prove to be the mystical Antichrist. Others were disposed to assign this doubt- ful honor, or even the position of the greater Antichrist, to Felipe of Majorca, brother of that Ferrand whom we have seen offered the sovereignty of Carcassonne. Felipe's thirst for asceticism had led him to abandon his brother's court and become a Tertiary of St. Francis. Angelo alludes to him repeatedly, with great admi- ration, as worthy to rank with the ancient perfected saints. In the stormy discussions soon after John's accession he had inter- vened in favor of the Spirituals, petitioning that they be allowed to form a separate Order. After taking the full vows, he renewed this supplication in 1328, but it was refused in full consistory, after which we hear of him wandering over Europe and living on beg- gary. In 1341, with the support of Robert of Naples, he made a third application, which Benedict XII. rejected for the reason that he was a supporter and defender of the Beguines, whom he had justified after their condemnation by publicly asserting many enormous heretical lies about the Holy See. Such were the men whose self-devotion seemed to these fiery bigots so tepid as to ren- der them objects of detestation.f Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v. t Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 303, 309, 326, 330.— Bern. Guidon. Practica P. v.— Franz Ehrle (op. cit. 1885, pp. 540, 543, 557),— Ray in. de Fronciacho (lb. III.— 6
 * Doat, XXVII. 7 sqq.— Lib; Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 305, 307, 310, 383-5.-^-