-^.x' 
 
 /• 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The lines of Dante which have been taken as an 
 epigraph to the present work, first directed my at- 
 tention to the subject. 
 
 The vague but unanimous statement of the poet's 
 commentators that Dolcino's main error consisted of 
 a " community of goods and community of wives," 
 made me anxious to ascertain to what extent an 
 identity might be established betw^een the Italian 
 heresiarch of the thirteenth century, and the St. 
 Simonians, and other agitators of the nineteenth. 
 
 As it always happens in historical studies, the 
 subject widened on a closer acquaintance, and its 
 interest deepened. I was surprised to find so many 
 of the great social and moral questions which have 
 stirred up mankind for the last eighteen hundred 
 years, involved in what I had at first too hastily 
 looked upon as a partial and local movement. That 
 dark and sad, but to all appearance merely episodical, 
 page of Italian history, furnished a clue to the know- 
 ledge of a vast conspiracy against the Church of 
 A 2
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 Rome — a conspiracy spreading over all European 
 lands as far as the Church itself extended — fraught 
 with ruin to it, and, but for the interference of 
 extraneous political causes, pointing to a thorough 
 and violent reformation — full two hundred years ere 
 Luther was bom. 
 
 Nor were the historical documents bearing upon 
 the subject totally disproportionate to its importance. 
 Together with many other names otherwise doomed 
 to oblivion, Dante had embalmed Dolcino's memory, 
 and that was sure, sooner or later, to awaken the 
 curiosity of after generations. It was little more 
 than the name that endured, truly ; and that was 
 seldom uttered without that indefinable awe, that 
 prestige of horror, which has power to fascinate 
 imagination in proportion to our defect of positive 
 knowledge. Dolcino's history was, for many ages 
 and in many countries, a forbidden subject; and 
 when Muratori, Httle more than one hundred years 
 ago, brought into light two historical documents, 
 purporting to be, one a history of Dolcino and of his 
 two years' war on the Alps, and the other an expo- 
 sition of his errors and heresies, and an examination 
 of his writings — both by contemporaneous anony- 
 mous writers — he did so with many a profession of 
 his heartfelt detestation of this and of all other 
 heresies, and with all due submission, even against
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 his own good common sense, to the decrees by which 
 Rome had proscribed the memory of Dolcino and of 
 his sect to all eternity.* 
 
 Some important particulars respecting both the 
 heretic and his heresy were, however, previously to 
 be gathered from some of the works on the Inquisi- 
 tion, particularly from the gloomy and bloody pages 
 of Nicholas Eymeric, from Limborch's work, and the 
 annexed Collection of Sentences pronounced by the 
 Inquisitorial tribunal of Toulouse daring the term of 
 nineteen years.f 
 
 Some information could also be gleaned by the 
 perusal of two out of the six lives of Pope Clement 
 v., published by Baluze, in his biographical work on 
 the Pontiffs of Avignon J, and also in some passages 
 
 * Historia Dulcini, hasresiarchse Novariensis, ab a. c. 1304 
 usque ad a. 1307; auctore anonyrao synchrono ; ex codice 
 Bibliothecae Ambrosianae, edita cum nonnullis animadver- 
 sionibus Joseph. Anton. Saxii in Muratori, L. A. Scriptor. 
 Rer. Itulicar. torn, ix p. 475. Mediol. 1726. fol. — Additamen- 
 tum ad Historiam fratris Dulcini, h^eretici, ab auctore coaevo 
 scriptum, ex INIS. Codice Bibliotliecae Ambrosianae. Muratori, 
 Rer. Ital. Script., torn. ix. p. 443. 
 
 -|- Eymerici, Nichol. Directorium Inquisitorura cum com- 
 mentariis Francisci Pegnae. &c- Venet 1595. fol. — Lira- 
 borch, Philipp. A. Historia Inquisitionis, cui subjungitur liber 
 sententiarum Inquisitionis Tholosanae, ab a. m.ccc.vii. ad a. 
 M.ccc.xxiii. Amstelod. 1692. fol. 
 
 I Baluzii, Steph. VitsB Paparum Avenionensium, hoc est 
 Historia Pontificum Romanorum qui in Gallia sederunt ab a.c 
 A 3
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 in the annalists of the Chui'ch, or in the very nume- 
 rous chronicles of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
 turies, most of whom lie amongst that ponderous 
 mass of historical erudition which Muratori pro- 
 vided for the illustration of Italian records. Finally 
 Dolcino's history was briefly told by the earliest com- 
 mentators of the Divine Comedy, and by none more 
 minutely than by Benvenuto da Imola, who wrote 
 about seventy years after Dolcino's death, and derived 
 his knowledge from a personal interview with a 
 nephew or grandson of one of the arch-heretic's 
 associates.* 
 
 All these historical authorities I had already dili- 
 gently consulted, when by a note to Mosheim's In- 
 stitutes of Ecclesiastical History, I was made aware 
 of a work entitled " Histoiy of the Order of the 
 Apostles," written by the same German scholar, and 
 published at Helmstadt, in 1748. f That was the 
 
 M.ccc.v. usque ad ann. m.ccc.xciv., cum notis ; Paris. 1715. 2 
 vols. fol. : particularly, dementis V. Vita secunda, auct. Pto- 
 lomseo Lucense ; and Vita quarta, auct. Bernhardo Guidone. 
 
 * Excerpta historica ex Commentariis MS.ptis. Benvenuti 
 de Iraola, in Comoediam Dantis, ab eo circiter annum Christi 
 M.ccc.LXx.vi. corapositis, et in Estensi Bibliotheca adservatis, in 
 Muratori, Antiquitat. Italic. Medii yEvi, torn. i. Mediol. 1741. 
 
 -j- Mosheim, Johann Lorenz von. Versuch einer unpartei- 
 sclien und griindlichen Ketzergescbicbte. Zweite Auflage. 
 Helmstaedt, 1748. 2 vols. 4to. — Gescbicbte des Apostel-Or- 
 dens, in dreien Buchern, in vol. i. pag. 193 — 397.
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 first attempt ever made towards a complete history of 
 Dolcino and his apostolical fraternity. There is no 
 English translation of that work of Mosheim ; and 
 the original itself is not easily F oimd in this country. 
 It leaves but little to desire in the way of minute 
 research ; but, to say nothing of its prolixity, it be- 
 trays on the part of the author an insufficient ac- 
 quaintance with Italian political history, and gives 
 rather an unfavourable impression of his power of 
 generalisation of ideas, and of his ability to draw the 
 most obvious conclusions from facts collected by him 
 with so signal an industry, and so palpably, so in- 
 evitably leading thereto. 
 
 Another German work, bearing Dolcino's name on 
 its title page, I deemed it necessary to procure. It 
 is by Schlosser, the historian of " Europe in the 
 Eighteenth Century ;" and its object is to contrast 
 Dolcino — a fanatic, with Abelard — a philosopher. * 
 The part which concerns the Italian dissenter, merely 
 intended as a set-off for the French divine, is suffi- 
 ciently flimsy and barren. Nor has the whole work, 
 perhaps, all the weight that the author's name would 
 naturally lead the reader to expect. 
 ,. In England or France, hardly as much as the 
 
 * Schlosser, Friedr. Christopli. Abalard und Dolcino, oder 
 Leben und Meinungen eines Schwarmers und eines Philosophen. 
 Gotha, 1807. 8vo.
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 mention of Dolcino's name occurs — even in works 
 professing to embrace the whole subject of ecclesias- 
 tical history. 
 
 More recent writings on the history of Fra Dolcino 
 have appeared both in Italy and in Germany.* They 
 have been made the subject of some remarks in the 
 Appendix at the close of this volume. 
 
 L. MARIOTTL 
 
 Kensington Gate, 
 December 31. 1852. 
 
 * Baggiolini (Professore). Dolcino e i Patareni, Notizie 
 Storiche. Novara, 1838. — Krone (Dr. Julius). Fra Dolcino 
 und die Patarener, historische Episode a us den Piemontesischen 
 Religionskriegen. Leipzig, 1844.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I. Importance of the Subject. — 2. Heresy in Italy. — Lombard 
 Arianism. — 3. The Italian Diocese. — 4. Iconolcasm.— Claude of 
 Turin. — 5. Marriage of Priests. — 6. Manichgeism — imported from 
 
 Italy into France. — 7. Heretics of Orleans. — 8. Of Monforte 
 
 9. Other Errors. — Leutard. — 10. Berenger. — 11. Fanaticism of 
 Sovereigns — of the People — of the Heretics themselres. — 12. 
 Leniency of some of the Clergy. — Gregory VII. — 13. Causes which 
 retarded the spread of Heresy. — Wars of Investitures. — 14. Causes 
 of spread of Heresy in Southern France. — The Albigenses in 
 Languedoc. — The Paterini and Cathari in Italy. — 15. Other 
 Sects — Petrobrusians, Henricians. — 16. Waldenses. — 17. Apos- 
 tolic Sects. — Beghards and Beguins. — 18. Enmity of Rome against 
 these Sects — 19. Calumnies against them. — 20. Heretic villany 
 and madness. — Tanquelin, — 21. Eon de I'Etoile. — 22. White- 
 hoods. — Terrius. — 23. — Confusion of Sects. — 24. Persecution. 
 Crusade against the Albigenses. — 25. Outbreak of Fanaticism in 
 France. — Philip Augustus. — St. Louis. — 26. Cnisades in Ger- 
 many. — The Stedinger. — 27- Later rise of Fanaticism in Italy. — 
 Its causes. — General bent of Italian mind on religious subjects. — 
 28. Peculiarly circumstanced in the IMiddle Ages. — Hostility of 
 Italy to Rome. — Tlie one anti-heretic Crusade in Italy. — 29. 
 Italian Indifference — its causes. — 30. Infidelity and Bigotry. — 
 31. The Italians averse to Persecution. — St. Galdino. — 32. Real 
 
 Italian Heresy Arnold of Brescia. — 33. Final Submission of 
 
 Italy to Rome — its causes. — 34. Persecution in Italy. —35. Re- 
 sisted by Governments. — 36. By the People. — Fate of earliest In- 
 quisitors. — 37. Triumph of Intolerance. — Blind hon-or of Heresy. 
 — 38. Its intangibility — 39. Hermann Pungilupus. — 40. Amaury 
 
 . of Chartres. — Brethren of the Free Spirit. — Beghai-ds. — Turlupins. 
 — Dissenting Franciscans. — Expectation of a new Era. — Joachim 
 of Calabria. — ^. Expected confusion to the Church. — Precm-sors. 
 — New Messiahs. -U^2. Wilhelmina. — $3. The Order of the 
 Apostles - - - - ' - - Page 1
 
 C0NTENT8. 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 1. Sect of the Apostles. — Sagarelli 2. His early Success. — 3. 
 
 Character of the Sect. — 4. The Heretic and the Saint. — Sagarelli 
 
 and Francis of Assisi 5. Kise of Mendicant Orders. — 6. Their 
 
 Object 7. Heretic and Orthodox Beggars. — 8. Dominicans and 
 
 Franciscans — their Origin — their Success. — 9. Popularity of the 
 Monks of St. Francis. — 10. Their Dissensions. — Conventual and 
 Spiritual Franciscans. — Fraticelli. — Tertiarii. — 11. Franciscan 
 Sects, Schisms, and Heretics. — 12. Expectation of violent Reforms 
 in the Church. — Joachim. — The Everlasting Gospel, and the 
 Introduction to the Everlasting Gospel. — 13. Sagarelli and the 
 Franciscans. — 14. Progress of the Sect — Apostles in Spain, 
 France, Germany, and England. — 15. Vicissitudes of the Sect in 
 Parma. — The Bishop of Parma. — The Popes. — Sagarelli's Exe- 
 cution. — 16. Difficulty of ascertaining the extent of his Guilt. — 
 His Duplicity. — Falsehood of the whole Sect — of all Heretics. — 
 1 7. What is to be thought of theu* alleged Confessions. — Fatal 
 
 power of the Inquisition 18. First start of Fra Dolcino. — 
 
 19. His early Career. — 20. Margaret of Trent. — 21. Dolcino's 
 Vicissitudes. — 22. His frequent Escapes. — 23. His Character. — 
 24. His Influence. — 25. Difficulty of his Position. — State of Italy. 
 — French Influence. — 26. Dolcino flies to the Mountains. — 27. 
 State of the Alpine Districts. — 28. Dolcino's Intentions - Page 57 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 
 1. Definition of Heresy. — Literal and rational Christianity. — 2. 
 Heresy of the Ascetics. — 3. Of the Doctors. — 4. Errors of the 
 Sect of the Apostles. — 5. Their Brethren all over the world. — 
 Popularity of Anti-papal Doctrines in Italy. — Arnold of Brescia, 
 Frederic II., and Dante. — 6. The Poet and the Heresiarch. — 7. 
 Dangers of the Church. — 8. Anti-papal Prophets. — Joachim. — 9. 
 Effects of the Terrors of the Church. — Celestine V. — 10. The 
 Church on her last struggle — Boniface VIII. — 11. Defeat of the 
 Church — Benedict XI. — The Popes of Avignon. — 12. The coming 
 Avenger, Frederic HI. — 13. Mendicant Heresy. — 14. Dolcino's 
 Prophecies: Dolcino, Dante, and Joachim. — 15. Dolcino's consis- 
 tency. — 16. Failure of his Prophecies. — 17. The Church's dread 
 of Prophecies. — Heresy and Sorceiy. — Cecco d'Ascoli. — 18. 
 Dogmatic Errors of Dolcino's Sect — Manichaeism. — 19. Its ancient 
 Dogma. — 20. How far traceable to the Sect of the Apostles — 21. 
 Manichaian Practices — Celibacy — Abelites and Shakers. — 22. 
 Manicha;ism in the Church — The earhest PaterinL — 23. Morals 
 of Dolcino's Disciples — Their " Sisters." — 24. Prevalence of 
 similar practices in all times — Promiscuous Monasteries. — 25.
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 Tests of Chastity. —26. Graver Manichaean errors — What may 
 be thought of them all. — 27. As results from the instance of 
 Dolcino's Apostles. — 28. Summing up of evidence respecting these. 
 
 — 29. Authorities in their favour.— 30. Their Communism, how- 
 it should be understood . - . . Page 131 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1. Dolcino's real Views. — 2. Sagarelli and Dolcino. — 3. The Heretic 
 and the Patriot. — 4. Dolcino's Plans. — 5, His Battle-field. — 6. 
 Persecutions against him. — 7. Dolcino's Enemies. — The Bishop 
 of Vercelli. — The Avogadro Family. — Guelphs and Ghibelines. — 
 8. Crusade against the Apostles. — 9. Dolcino's first Escape. — 
 his first Success. — 10. Excesses committed by the Heretics — their 
 Causes — their real Nature. — 11. Their Distress. — 12. Dolcino 
 shifts his Camp. — 13. Attack upon Trivero. — 14. Forces raised 
 against him. — 15. Dolcino's Genius — his Stratagems. — 16. New 
 Efforts of his Adversaries. — 17. Character of Mediaeval Warfare. 
 — 18. New and signal Victory of Dolcino. — 19. Dolcino Master 
 of the Battle-field — his Situation. — Position of his Enemies. — 
 20. New Distress of Dolcino — his Conduct examined — his Sacri- 
 leges. — 21. His Cruelties. — Nature of the Evidence against him — 
 his real Motives of Action. — 22. Ferocity of the Age. — 23. The 
 Apostles driven to extremities. — 24. Renewal of Hostilities. — 
 Last Encounter. — Defeat and Extermination of Dolcino's Sect. — 
 Capture of the Leaders. — 25. Character of Alpine Warfare. — 
 
 26. Spanish and Italian Guerillas. — Dolcino and Garibaldi. — 
 
 27. The real Strength of Italy - - - - 209 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1. Rejoicings at Vercelli at Dolcino's Downfall — State of the Dio- 
 cese : it turns to the Pope for Indemnities. — 2. Joy of Clement V. 
 at the Tidings of the Defeat of his Enemies. — 3. Papal Munifi- 
 cence. — 4. Papal Resolutions as to the Fate of the" Heretics. — 
 Their Trial and Execution. — 5. Their Guilt. — Estimate of its 
 Enormity on the part of their Judges. — 6. Test of their Firmness. 
 
 — 7, With Margaret. — 8. With Dolcino 9. Nature of Dolcino's 
 
 Guilt in the opinion of his own Age. — 10. His Heresy eminently 
 national. — 11. Motives imputed to Dolcino. — Incontinence im- 
 
 '■ puted to him — to his Followers. — 12. Dolcino's Ambition 13. 
 
 Chances of Dolcino's Success. — 14. Religious and Political Re- 
 sources. — 15. Contingencies. — Papacy and Providence — in old 
 and recent Times. — Melancholy Reflections. — 16. Relics of Dol- 
 cino's Sect — in Italy — in France. — 17. Peter of Lugo — his Cha- 
 racter. — Importance of his Confessions. — 18. The Sect in Germany.
 
 Xil CONTENTS. 
 
 — 19. The Spirit of the Sect survives its final Extinction. — Dol- 
 cino and the Waldenses. — Present Position of the latter Sect in 
 Piedmont — their Influence in Italy — 20. The Ideas of Dolcino 
 perpetuated among the Beghards and Lolhards in Germany, 
 England, and the Low Countries. — 21. Heretics and Reformers. — 
 Italian and Transalpine Reformers. — 22. Dolcino and Luther. — 
 23. Ancient and modem Communism. — 24. The real Truth of 
 Communism. — How Dolcino's Apostles understood it. — 25. Dol- 
 cino's Memory in ancient and modem Times — amongst Catholics. 
 — 26. Amongst Protestants. — 27. Tenrors of Dolcino's Name in 
 the Land of his Exploits. — 28. How finally overcome. 
 
 Page 284 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Recent Writers on the Subject of Fra Dolcino — Professor Baggiolini 
 — Dr. Krone — Father Rimella. — A, Sagarelli's Son. — B. Dolcino's 
 Portraits. — Paiticulars about him and Margaret of Trent. — C. Dol- 
 cino's Companions. — Ambrogio Salamone — D. First Hostilities — 
 at Gattinara— at Campertogno. — Leaders of the Cmsade — The Mar- 
 quises of Montferrat and Saluzzo. — Nicholas Trivet, the English 
 Dominican. — Anecdotes of Theodolind Queen of the Lombards. — 
 E. The Rector of Serravalle. — F. Milano Sola. — G. ISIissionaries 
 to Dolcino. — H. Marco Miretti. — I. The Thirty Amazons. — 
 J. Heretic and Catholic Atrocities. — K. The Last Conflict. — L. Si- 
 mone da Colobiano. — M. James de Quaregna, — N. Papal Munifi- 
 cence. — O. The Execution. — P. Campo Dolcino. 337 
 
 A. Sagarelli's Son --.--. 343 
 
 B. DoLcixo's Portraits . . . - . 345 
 
 C. Dolcino's Companions. — A31BR0G10 Salamone - - 348 
 
 D. First Hostilities. — Nicholas Trivet - - - 348 
 
 E. The Rector of Serravalle - - - - 351 
 
 F. ISIiLANO Sola ------ 364 
 
 G. Missionaries to Dolcino - - - - 365 
 
 H. Marco Miretti ------ 366 
 
 I. The Thirty Amazons ----- 359 
 
 J. Heretic and Catholic Atrocities - - - 369 
 
 K. The Last Conflict ----- 372 
 
 L. SiMONE DA Colobiano ----- 373 
 
 ^L James de Qcaregna - - - - - 374 
 
 N. Papal Munificence ----- 375 
 
 O. The Execution ------ 375 
 
 P. Ca3ipo Dolcino ------ 376
 
 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1. Importance of the subject. — 2. Heresy in Italy. — Lombard 
 Arianism. — 3. The Italian Diocese. — 4. Iconoclasm. — Claude of 
 Turin. — 5. Marriage of Priests. — 6. ManichKi'sm — imported from 
 Italy into France. — 7. Heretics of Orleans. — 8. Of Monforte. — 
 9. Other errors. — Leutard. — 10. Berenger. — 11. Fanaticism of 
 Sovereigns — of the People — of the Heretics themselves. — 12. 
 Leniency of some of the Clergy. — Gregory VII. — 13. Causes which 
 retarded the spread of Heresy. — "Wars of Investitures. — 14. Causes 
 of spread of Heresy in Southern France. — The Albigenses in 
 Languccloc. — The Paterini and Cathari in Italy. — 15. Other 
 Sects — Petrobrusians, Henricians. — 16. "Waldenses. — 17. Apos- 
 tolic Sects. — Beghards and Beguins. — 18. Enmity of Rome against 
 these Sects. — 19. Calumnies against them. — 20. Heretic villany 
 and madness. — Tanquelin. — 21. Eon de I'Etoile. — 22. White- 
 hoods. — Terrius. — 23. Confusion of Sects. — 24. Persecution. — 
 Crusade against the Albigenses. — 25. Outbreak of Fanaticism in 
 France. — Philip Augustus. — St. Louis. — 26. Crusades in Ger- 
 many. — The Stedinger. — 27. Later rise of Fanaticism in Italy. — 
 Its causes. — General bent of Italian mind on religious subjects. — 
 28. Peculiarly circumstanced in the Middle Ages. — Hostility of 
 Italy to Rome. — The one anti-heretic Crusade in Italy. — 29. 
 
 Italian Indifference — its causes 30. Infidelity and Bigotry 
 
 31. The Italians averse to persecution. — St. Galdino. — 32. Real 
 Italian Heresy. — Arnold of Brescia. — 33. Final Submission of 
 Italy to Rome — its causes. — 34. Persecution in Italy. — 35. Re- 
 sisted by Governments. — 36. By the People. — Fate of earliest In- 
 quisitors. — 37. Triumph of Intolerance. — Blind hon*or of Heresy. 
 — 38. Its intangibility. — 39. Hermann Pungilupus.— 40. Amaury 
 
 . of Chartres.— Brethren of the Free Spirit. —Beghards.— Turluping. 
 —Dissenting Franciscans. — Expectation of a new Era. — Joachim 
 of Calabria. -^1. Expected confusion to the Church. — Precursors. 
 -^New Messiahs. -^^2. Wilhelniina. — 53. The Order of the 
 Apostles. / 
 
 § 1. In the year 1307, on the first day of June, 
 there was a burning of heretics at Vercelli. 
 
 B
 
 2 FEA DOLCINO. 
 
 It was neither a new nor a rare occurrence ; for, 
 since the pontificate of Gregory IX. (a. d. 1227 — 
 1241), hardly a year elapsed without the offering up 
 of a similar holocaust ia almost every city of Italy. 
 
 But in the present instance — that of Fra Dolcino 
 and his accomplices — the event is set down with 
 such minute accuracy in contemporaiy records ; it 
 stands forth in such bold relief in the midst of the 
 great vicissitudes of that age of dawning light — the 
 age of Dante, — that it is impossible not to look upon 
 it as the most striking episode in that long tragedy of 
 mediagval heresy ; so that a clear exposition of its 
 particulars, a summing up of its evidence, cannot fail 
 to throw light, not merely on the individual case 
 itself, but on the general subject, as well as on the 
 country and period of time to which it belongs. 
 
 § 2. From the first spread of Christianity there 
 had always been heresy in Italy. The Ostrogoths of 
 Theodoric, and the Lombards of Alboin, together 
 with most of the other northern nations that re- 
 stocked the exhausted provinces of the Western 
 Empire, were Arians on their first settlement ; and, 
 although the kings of the latter nation, owing espe- 
 cially to the piety of their great queen, Theodolind, 
 were won over to Latin orthodoxy, towards the close 
 of the sixth century, yet it seems very clear that 
 sheer habit or ignorance perpetuated some of their
 
 ITALY AND ROME. 3 
 
 tenets among their subjects and descendants; since 
 Arianism was still rife in the regions of Padua, 
 Verona, andVicenza, in the tenth century * ; and no- 
 tions at variance with the common doctrine of the 
 Trinity were entertained both by private individuals 
 and by whole sects, throughout the twelfth and thir- 
 teenth. These notions, it may be safely presumed, 
 continued latent in the country till they burst forth 
 afresh at the general outbreak of the Reformation of 
 the sixteenth century, under Laslius and Faustus 
 Socini. t 
 
 § 3. But so far as mere dissent from the Church of 
 Rome might be stigmatised as heresy, there were 
 infinite causes at work, both to promote and to keep 
 it alive, especially in Northern Italy. Tiie ninth 
 and tenth centuries were said to be the age of 
 bishops, as the eleventh and twelfth constituted the 
 palmy era of the popes. Notwithstanding some 
 claims established by Gregory I., at the end of the 
 sixth century, the so called ^' Diocese of Italy," ex- 
 tending over Lombardy and Piedmont, with Milan 
 at its head, was governed by princely prelates jealous 
 of spiritual as well as temporal independence. Not 
 
 * Muratori, Antlquitates Italicas Medii ^vi, Dissertatio Ix. 
 torn. V. p. 82. Ughelli, Italia Sacra, torn. v. p. 429 — 433, 
 
 t Bock, Fred. Sam, Historia Anti-trinitariorum, torn. ii. 
 p. 418. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 to be brought to bow to the authority of the Roman 
 See, they were glad of any good subject of disagree- 
 ment, and, in very frequent instances, they loudly 
 disclaimed all connexion and rejected all communion 
 with it. They scrupled not to charge it, and with 
 too great a justice in the age of Marozia and Theo- 
 dora, with utter corruption and venality, and attri- 
 buted to it all the calamities of the country and of 
 the Church itself. 
 
 Eager in their negation of hierarchical supremacy, 
 they encouraged and professed several dogmas at 
 variance with those of Rome. Some of them sided 
 with the Greeks in their war against images, and 
 extended their objections equally to the worship of 
 relics and shrines, discountenanced pilgrimages, and 
 contended that Christ had taught us " to bear his 
 cross, and not to bow down to it." Others admitted 
 the use of the vulgar tongues for church liturgy ; and 
 others, again, denounced war as unchristian, and 
 equally opposed capital punishment and the ad- 
 ministration of oaths under any pretence ; whilst not 
 a few proscribed auricular confession, and directed 
 the faithful to look up to Christ alone for the remis- 
 sion of sins.* 
 
 * Bert, I Valdesi, osslano, I Cristiani Primitivi, &c. 
 Turin, 1849. cap. i., and the authorities quoted in Note A his.
 
 ICOXOCLASM IN ITALY. 5 
 
 § 4. During the best part of the eighth century, 
 there was war in the East and West respecting the 
 worship of images. The Italians of the sea-ports, of 
 Romagna and of Rome itself, all subjects of the 
 Eastern Emperors, warmly espoused the cause of the 
 Pontiffs ; as, independent of the bent of their minds 
 on the religious question itself, they were too glad 
 of any opportunity to shake off the yoke of their dis 
 tant rulers ; but the Lombard kings, notwithstanding 
 their orthodoxy, were not only less ardent in their 
 zeal for the Popes, but thought they could take ad- 
 vantage of the contest, to follow up their great scheme 
 of the conquest of all Italy, and extend their sway 
 over those provinces which were thus escaping from 
 the grasp of their Grecian rivals : they thus en- 
 gaged in those hostilities with Rome which led to 
 the extinction of their dynasty, and to the conquest 
 of Italy by Pepin and Charlemagne. The question 
 of the worship of images was settled at Constanti- 
 nople by the bigoted Empress Irene in 787, but it 
 remained an open one in the West, till Charlemagne 
 referred it to the Council of Frankfort, in 794. 
 Three hundred bishops there assembled, amongst 
 whom those of the Italian dioceses proposed, it is 
 well known, a compromise, which would have ren- 
 dered the presence of images in the churches suf- 
 ficiently harmless. But the proneness of the vulgar 
 
 B 3
 
 6 TEA DOLCINO. 
 
 mind to superstition was not to be checked by the 
 wisest synodal prescriptions. Notwithstanding the 
 decrees by that and the subsequent Council of Paris, 
 in 825, the ancient idolatry crept in throughout the 
 West. At Turin, however, the Bishop, Claudius, by 
 birth a Spaniard, a man too vastly in advance of his 
 age, strong by the favour of the Emperor Louis the 
 Pious, and of his son Lothaire the First, whose 
 chaplain the Bishop was, continued boldly in his op- 
 position against Rom.e, and thundered against her 
 corrupt practices, from the year 823 to 84^, and that 
 with such effect, that " long after his death, there 
 was less superstition in the region about Turin than 
 in any other part of Europe." * 
 
 § 5. The independence of these North-Italian dio- 
 ceses, against which all the omnipotence of Charle- 
 magne himself could not prevail, was chiefly displayed 
 in a most important question of discipline, the marriage 
 of the priests; a practice in defence of which the 
 clergy of Milan thought they could plead the au- 
 thority of their great primate Ambrosius, in the 
 fourth century, and which frequent contact with the 
 Greeks contributed to render very prevalent in 
 Lombardy, down to the apostolate of the famous 
 
 * Mosheim, Institut. of Ecclesiastical History. London, 
 1841, vol. ii. p. 232.
 
 PAPISM AND PATEIOTISM. 7 
 
 St. Peter Damianus, in 1059, and which gave rise to 
 the most dreadful commotions throughout that 
 century. 
 
 The efforts of that zealous man, St. Peter Damia- 
 nus, and the influence of Hildebrand, the great maker 
 and ruler of popes from 1049 to 1073, and himself a 
 pope, under the dread name of Gregory VII., from 
 the latter year to 1086, achieved not a little towards 
 the establishment of pontifical supremacy. But the 
 seventh Gregory and his successors, from 1075 to 
 1122, had a far higher game on hand than even the 
 subjugation of bishops. Their first attacks were 
 directed against lay potentates. They had to fight 
 those battles of Church against State with Henry IV. 
 and Henry V. of Germany, that went by the name oi' 
 *' war of investitures ; " and during that contest they 
 alm^ost invariably met the Lombard bishops and their 
 *' concubinarian " clergy in the ranks of their oppo- 
 nents. The close of that quarrel was the almost 
 immediate signal for another still greater strife, in 
 which the Italian cities stood up for their municipal 
 freedom against Frederic I., Barbarossa (from 1152 
 to 1183), and Frederic II. (1212—1250). Here the 
 c^use of the country and that of the Papacy were 
 made identical; and the Italians had hardly laid the 
 Empire prostrate under their feet, when they per- 
 ceived that they lay themselves at the mercy of the 
 
 B 4
 
 8 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Church. Alexander III. and Innocent III. exacted 
 spiritual submission in return for that political eman- 
 cipation which their very questionable "patriotism" 
 boasted of having promoted. Papal legates, the 
 precursors of Dominican inquisitors, reared up their 
 dreaded tribunals, and tried the efficiency of fire and 
 the sword towards the promotion of uniformity of 
 creed. 
 
 § 6. There was, therefore, no lack of native heresy in 
 Italy from the earliest times. But more lately, and 
 especially on the first awakening of the European 
 mind after that chaotic year 1000, new doctrines were 
 said to have crept in from the East. These were 
 especially the dogmas of the Paulicians, which, tainted 
 with ancient Gnosticism or Manichaeism, had travelled 
 over Bulgaria and Hungary, and spread all over 
 Germany, France, and Italy.* These broke out 
 almost simultaneously in various parts of Europe, at 
 the very dawn of the eleventh century ; but owing, 
 perhaps, to a more uninterrupted intercourse of 
 Italy with all parts of the East by sea, it would 
 still seem that the error liad its chief seat in that 
 country, and was hence communicated to the neigh- 
 bouring regions beyond the mountains. 
 
 § 7. Thus the eleven or thirteen persons, amongst 
 
 * Gibbon, Fall of tlie Roman Empire, chap. liv.
 
 ITALIAN MANICH^ISM. 9 
 
 whom several canons and other conspicuous characters, 
 who perished by fire at Orleans, under the orders of 
 King Robert, in 1017, or 102^, were represented as 
 having received the infection by an Italian woman, 
 who wandered about the country perverting the 
 people's minds. Other Italians, amongst them, one 
 Gandolfo, spread errors of a similar description at 
 Arras, amongst men of the lower orders, in 1030: 
 these, however, had the good fortune to be reclaimed 
 by the admonitions of Gerhard, Bishop of Cambray 
 and Arras, and escaped the doom of their Orleanese 
 brethren : for a long course of years, in short, these 
 various denominations of heretics, of France and 
 Germany, looked up to Lombardy as their common 
 centre, and sent their ministers to that country for 
 ordination and instruction.* 
 
 § 8. In Italy itself, the remedy of capital punish- 
 ment was first tried against one of these same heretics, 
 by name Wilgard of Ravenna, and some of his fol- 
 lowers, about the year lOOOf ; but in 1034, we are 
 more distinctly told, Heribert, Archbishop of Milan, 
 a restless ambitious spirit, whose game it was to set 
 
 ,, * Mosheim, Eccleslast. Histor., vol. ii. p. 391., note. Mean- 
 der's General History of the Christian Religion and Church. 
 Bohn's edit. ; London, 1852, vol. vi. p. 348, &c. 
 
 f Glabri Radulphi, Hist, sui Temp., lib. iii. cap. xii. ap. 
 Duchesne, Hist. Francor. Script, torn. iv. p. 23.
 
 10 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 up monarchs and to pull them down, on his return 
 from his expedition to Burgundy, where he had 
 helped the Emperor Conrad II. the Salic to that 
 kingdom, as he had previously bestowed that of Italy 
 on him, — happened during his stay at Turin to hear 
 of a heresy which had sprung up at Monforte, a 
 castle on the Tanaro in a district of the county of 
 Alba, called le Langhe, belonging then to the diocese 
 of Asti. Heribert had one of the sect, apparently a 
 teacher, Gherardo by name, brought before him. The 
 man underwent a strict examination, and despite 
 many quibbles and subterfuges, betrayed the unsound 
 doctrines which he secretly entertained, and which he 
 now boldly declared, offering himself to uphold them 
 against any manner of torture and death : whereupon 
 the archbishop, by the help, or at least with the con- 
 sent of Manfred Count of Turin and Marquis of Susa, 
 and of his brother Alric, Bishop of Asti, possessed 
 himself of Monforte, and conveyed all its inhabitants 
 to Milan, together with the countess herself of the 
 castle, who had drunk the poison of heresy with the 
 rest. 
 
 At Milan the archbishop tried all the might of 
 his eloquence upon those hardened misbelievers. But 
 instead of being convinced, these managed to bring 
 to their own views as many of the lower orders as 
 visited them in their confinement : till, at last, the
 
 A KING AND AN ARCHBISHOP. 11 
 
 most conspicuous laymen at Milan, in high indig- 
 nation, heaped up a great pile of wood at their prison 
 door, and set fire to it ; then, planting a crucifix op- 
 posite to it, offered their captives the alternative be- 
 tween bowing to that sign of redemption and abjuring 
 their errors, or perishing in the flames. A few of 
 the unfortunate heretics waxed faint in sight of so 
 cruel a death and recanted, but by far the greatest 
 number, covering their faces with both hands, flung 
 themselves into the burning mass.* 
 
 All this, it further appears, was done against the 
 wish of the archbishop — nolente Heriherio — for that 
 prelate was, perhaps, brave and high-minded, and did 
 not think, with King Robert of France, that " the 
 torch of the Catholic faith would burn any brighter" 
 for being fed with such a fuel ; but mighty prince and 
 stout warrior as he was, and a ruler of princes abroad, 
 the archbishop was at the greatest pains to keep his 
 seat at home ; from which he was indeed repeatedly 
 driven by popular outbreaks. The Italian cities, 
 even at that early period, had already attained too 
 high a degree of turbulent independence for any 
 supreme magistrate, were he clerk or layman, to 
 venture to put a check on their passions. 
 
 * LandulphI Senior!?, Histor. IMedlolanens., lib. ii. cap. xvii. 
 ap. Muratori, Rer. Italic. Script., torn. iv. p. 88.
 
 12 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Thus early had the inquisitiveness of a daring, 
 enterprising generation been turned upon the dread 
 topics of religious controversy. The faggots of Or- 
 leans and Milan had aroused general curiosity as to 
 the real import of those so-called Manichasan doctrines, 
 which, for a long course of time, seemed to be re- 
 garded as the heresy, par excellence, to which the 
 most heinous offences were vaguely imputed, but 
 which, even after the conviction, punishment, last 
 speeches and confessions of their promoters, remained 
 still involved in so provoking a mystery. Sectarians 
 charged with Manichaeism were in the meanwhile 
 hunted out all over the West. Four of them, it results 
 from the general history of Languedoc*, were immo- 
 lated at Toulouse, and under their ashes those smoul- 
 dering embers lay perhaps concealed, which were to 
 break out into so vast a conflagration, more than a 
 century later, at the time of the tragedy of the Al- 
 bigenses. Other unfortunate beings were put to 
 death in various parts of France about 1046, and 
 others hanged at Gotzlar, by order of Henry III. of 
 Germany, in 1052. These suffered, it is said, upon 
 the simple evidence of their own pale faces ; for that 
 paleness was ascribed to excessive austerity, particu- 
 larly to total abstinence from animal food or from 
 
 ♦ Sismondi, Hist, des Frangals, torn. ii. p. 376.
 
 FASTING A HERESY. 13 
 
 any thing else that had lived; and this Pytha- 
 gorean frugality — this strict vegetarianism — was 
 numbered amongst the characteristic abominations 
 of the sect ; so that the offenders were often convicted 
 upon their mere refusal to kill a chicken and eat it.* 
 
 § 9. But besides these tenebrous doctrines, which 
 men were fain to trace to ancient Eastern errors, 
 other heresies of more recent and spontaneous growth 
 were often blended with, and mistaken for them. 
 The Church was at this epoch grounding its sway 
 on popular enthusiasm ; it ministered to it by the 
 daily production of relics, by the canonization of new 
 saints ; it overawed it by all the prestige of art, by 
 the erection of stupendous cathedral and monastic 
 edifices, and laboured hard at the same time to bring 
 about a strict definition of its tenets, to establish a 
 universal permanent creed. 
 
 This illiberal and somewhat novel limitation of 
 belief could not fail to meet with opposition at every 
 step. Iconoclasm, for instance, was still rampant. 
 One Leutard, a native of Vertus, near Chalons in 
 Champagne, signalised himself by enmity against 
 crosses and images, towards the year 1000. As he 
 aidded to it some strong objection to the payment of 
 tithes, he was soon silenced by Gibuin, the bishop of 
 
 * Sismondi, Hist, des Fran9ais, torn. ii. p. 448.
 
 14 FKA DOLCINO. 
 
 his diocese, who shut him up for the purpose of con- 
 vincing him of his mistake, and so plied him with 
 cogent arguments, as to drive liim, in sheer despair, 
 to drown himself in a well — if, indeed, the prelate 
 himself did not deem it expedient to send him to 
 look for truth, where it is said to lie — at the bottom 
 of it.* Yet Leutard's ideas were still in the ascend- 
 ant thirty years after his death, since a detestation of 
 idolatry was amongst the chief errors of those heretics 
 of Arras, to whom allusion has already been made.f 
 § 10. But far fiercer disputes arose throughout 
 this century with respect to the awful theory of 
 transubstantiation. It seems that Leuteric, Arch- 
 bishop of Sens, entertained some doubts as to the 
 real presence of the body of Christ in the Eucharist, 
 towards the year 1004; but about forty years later, 
 a more strenuous champion entered the lists against 
 the orthodox theory. This was Berenger, Arch- 
 deacon of Angers, a rare man, distinguished no less 
 for talents and learning than for that happy temper 
 of strength and dexterity of mind which enabled him 
 to fight the battles of truth without falling a victim 
 to it. Again and again he had to appear before 
 councils, there to meet a formidable array of his 
 
 * Glabri Radulphi, Hist., lib. ii. cap. xi. Hist. Franc, torn. iv. 
 p. 23 
 
 t Ante, § 7.
 
 A LIBERAL POPE. 15 
 
 adversaries ; he had to bow before their decision, to 
 give up his own doctrines, to subscribe to their 
 articles, to swallow one after another four different 
 formulas, by which the inscrutable mystery was 
 subsequently bodied forth, and always stepped back, 
 a kind of theological Galileo, with an Eppur-si-muove 
 air of defiance, and always protested that his recanta- 
 tion was the result of compulsion, always revindicated 
 the soundness of his tenets, won his own bishops and 
 almost the Pope Gregory VII. himself, over to them, 
 and resting on their support, he renewed the battle, 
 and agitated all Europe and filled it with his name, 
 from the year 1045 to 1079. By similar shifts and 
 a rare good luck, he managed, nevertheless, to die a 
 natural death, in his place of retirement, in a convent 
 of the Isle of St. Come near Tours, in 1088. 
 
 § 1 1. But, notwithstanding this immense stir in men's 
 minds, there occurs an apparent lull, during all the 
 rest of the eleventh and part of the following century, 
 if not in the progress of heterodox heresies, at least 
 in the sanguinary measures which marked and un- 
 doubtedly promoted it. Persecution was not as yet 
 organised and reduced to system. The mass of the 
 people was at a loss what to think of these sectarians, 
 and how to deal with them. At Milan, as we have 
 seen*, the lower classes lent a wiUing ear to the 
 .* Ante, §7.
 
 16 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 heretics of Monforte. At Orleans, on the contrary, 
 the populace had been fanaticised by false repre- 
 sentations, by calumnies, which would appear as 
 atrocious to them as they are egregiously absurd in 
 our eyes. King Robert, who scrupled not to resort 
 to the tricks of the meanest espionage to bring their 
 guilt into light, and was seconded in his base 
 intrigues by Richard II., Duke of Normandy, had 
 no slight trouble to save his victims from the in- 
 censed multitude, who would have rent those mis- 
 believers to pieces, even before conviction. His queen, 
 Constance, whose spiritual adviser, Stephen the 
 Canon, was amongst those criminals, had to rescue 
 them by personal interference. At the same time, 
 when their guilt was satisfactorily proved, the Queen 
 was either herself so much indignant at their dupli- 
 city and hypocrisy, or else so fain to give in to 
 popular resentment, that, as the unfortunate men 
 were being led to execution, she stood before them 
 with a stick in her hand, and struck with it her 
 former confessor, dashing out one of his eyes. 
 
 Nor, it is well to observe, were the victims them- 
 selves, in this instance, free from that fanaticism 
 which brought them to their doom : for these men 
 of Orleans, who by the evidence of their very 
 enemies, were so highly distinguished by learning, 
 virtue, and true piety, were yet so infatuated as to
 
 LIBERAL CHURCHMEN. 17 
 
 expect that the hand of God would be made visible 
 in their behalf: they waited not for the sword of the 
 executioner, but eagerly plunged into the flames, in 
 full belief, if contemporary records can be trusted, 
 that innocence and the righteousness of their cause 
 would miraculously carry them through the ordeal, 
 and convince the by-standers of the iniquity of their 
 judgment.* 
 
 § 12. On the other hand, the clergy, although 
 they were at the bottom of all the mischief, although 
 they appealed to the worst passions of the blind 
 multitude, were not, as yet, quite unanimous as to 
 the most efficacious means of extirpating the evil 
 seed. We have already seen f the Archbishop of 
 Milan and him of Cambrai, to their eternal honour, 
 refusing their countenance to any effusion of blood. 
 In the same manner Waso, Bishop of Liege, recom- 
 mended moderation in the name, and in words not 
 unworthy of the Founder himself, of Christianity. 
 What more ! Gregory VII. himself, that personifica- 
 tion of priestly harshness and arrogance, repeatedly, 
 as we have said, came out in support of that versatile 
 Berenger of Angers, either because the Pope enter- 
 
 * Glab. Radulph. lib. iii. cap. vlil. Harduin, Coiicll. torn. vi. 
 part I. p, 821. 
 t Ante, § 7, 8, 
 
 C
 
 18 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 tained views not averse to the theories of the Arch- 
 deacon, or because he would allow him the benefit 
 of the doubt, or, at last, out of personal regard for 
 the genius and character of that daring dissenter. 
 
 § 13. So long also as the great drama of the War 
 of Investitures was acting on the European stage, it 
 was but too natural, both that the whole attention of 
 the masses should be absorbed by it, to the utter 
 disregard of minor topics of controversy, and that 
 the Church, who was then grappling with all the might 
 of empire, should look, in silence at least, if not with 
 forbearance, on the opposition of obscure sectarians, 
 whom she knew she could always bring to order in 
 the end, provided she came off victorious from the 
 present death struggle. 
 
 § 14. This may account for the fact that, although 
 heresy, and especially Eastern heresy, must in the 
 natural course of things, and can actually be proved 
 to have made its way into France either through 
 Germany or Italy, it yet seemed for a long time to 
 have struck deeper roots, and certainly broke out 
 with greater violence, in the. former country : because 
 the land of the Kaiser and that of the Pontiff were 
 more immediately interested in the issue of a contest 
 that was to decide on the ascendancy of the one over 
 the other ; whilst France, at that epoch a country in 
 a state of helpless feudal anarchy, without any but a
 
 HERESr IN SOUTHERN FRANCE. [ 19 
 
 nominal sovereign, without a united national ex- 
 istence, was left a comparatively passive spectator of 
 the great strife, and some of its provinces, especially 
 in the south, — such as Languedoc, Provence and 
 Dauphiny, as well as Savoy and part of Piedmont, — 
 enjoyed under their feudal lords a long period of 
 ease and prosperity, allowing full scope for the deve- 
 lopment of intellectual activity, a great part of which 
 was turned upon theological speculation. But 
 when at length Gregory Yll.'s scheme was mature, 
 and his successors Alexander III. and Innocent III., 
 backed by popular support, had been able to tread upon 
 the anointed heads of the monarchs of the earth, they 
 found themselves able to do battle with those heretics, 
 wiio were now the only enemies still standing up 
 against them, and even to make the humbled sove- 
 reigns themselves instrumental in the work of perse- 
 cution ; and their first attacks were precisely di- 
 rected against that thriving region between the Alps 
 and the Pyrenees, not only because there the infection 
 was supposed to have made the greatest ravages, but 
 also because that country could be said to belong to 
 no masters, and the dissension of its lords pointed it 
 out as an easy prey to the covetousness of unscru- 
 pulous neighbours, when the pretexts of pious zeal 
 afforded a convenient cloak to the designs of ambition. 
 § 15. Truly the state of religion in those provinces 
 c 2
 
 20 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 of Southern France, towards tlie latter end of the 
 twelfth century, must have come near to a veiy 
 Babel of sects. The original heretics, the successors 
 of the sufferers of Orleans and Monforte, supposed 
 to be of Manicb^ean descent, and to have still their 
 main seat in Bulgaria, went by a variety of names, 
 the most common of which were those of Boulgres 
 (Bulgarians), and Publicans (probably a corruption 
 of Paulicians), appellations which are considered 
 conclusive towards establishing the Oriental deri- 
 vation of these sects. To all these and other deno- 
 minations of Bons-hommes (Bos-homos), Picards, 
 Sec, the more general name of Albigenses was sub- 
 stituted, when their tenets were solemnly condemned 
 by a council held at Lombers, in the diocese of Alby 
 (Albigea), in the month of May, 1165. 
 
 In Italy, men supposed to hold the same belief 
 went by the name of Paterini, a word of uncertain 
 derivation, perhaps arising from their willingness 
 meekly to submit to all sufferings for Christ's sake 
 (pati), perhaps from a quarter in the city of Milan 
 named Pataria ; and more lately by that of Cathari 
 (the Pure, Puritans), which v.as soon corrupted into 
 Gazari, whence the German Ketzer, the general 
 word for a heretic* 
 
 * Moslieim (Ketzergescblclite, partn., GescLichte des Apostel- 
 ordens, note 7.), has a long dissertation on the v.- or J Gazari,
 
 PIEKRE DE BRUYS. 21 
 
 In France itself, meanwhile, the Albigensian doc- 
 trines were blended with every possible shade of 
 opinion. The Church itself, in the fulness of its 
 power, never hesitated to declare every one who 
 dissented from her on any subject as a heretic or 
 Albigeois ; and, on the other hand, all dissenters, no 
 matter how wddely otherwise asunder in their creed, 
 found a point of contact in their hatred of the Church, 
 and joined in one unanimous outcry against her cor- 
 ruption. 
 
 Thus the heretic, who, for above twenty years, 
 attempted a restoration of a simple religion in South' 
 ern France, the well-known Pierre de Bruys, a native 
 of Gap or Embrun, was guilty of no worse opinions 
 than those started by Leutard or Berenger in the 
 previous century. He warred against images and all 
 other visible emblems of worship, he questioned the 
 expediency of infant baptism, the soundness of the 
 doctrine of transubstantiation, and opposed prayers 
 for the dead ; but he professed poverty for himself, 
 and would have equally enforced it upon all the 
 ministers of the altar. He protested against the 
 
 whi^h he derives from Chazavia or Gazaria, the name in the 
 middle ages for the ancient Taurica Chersonesus, now Little 
 Tartary, the province whence the Paulicians are supposed to 
 have come into Italy ; but he does not prove the derivation 
 even to his own satisfaction. 
 
 C 3
 
 22 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 payment of tithes ; and it was, most probably, owing 
 to this last, the most heinous of all offences, that he 
 was, towards 1130, burnt with slow fire by a populace 
 maddened by the priests, at St. Gilles, on the Rhone, 
 —passing thus, as a charitable advocate of the orthodox 
 Church boldly asserts, from one fire into another, but 
 from a transitory into an unquenchable one.* 
 
 His followers rallied, notwithstanding, and changed 
 their name of Petrobrusians into that of Henricians, 
 when the mantle of their first master rested on the 
 shoulders of Henry, supposed by Mosheimf to have 
 been an Italian Eremite monk ; a man of far greater 
 gifts of eloquence and enthusiasm, whose inspired lan- 
 guage sounded in the ears of the multitude like the 
 voice of prophecy. Barefooted, worn out with fast and 
 hardships, this man for several years preached with 
 success at Lausanne, Mans, Poitiers, and Bordeaux. 
 He fell in, at last, in 1 147, at Toulouse, with no less 
 formidable an antagonist than St. Bernard, who had 
 it in his power to refute mere arguments by miracles, 
 and before whom the heresiarch had soon to decamp. 
 He was, however, apprehended in his flight, and 
 brought before Pope Eugene III., who was then 
 (1148) holding a council at Rheims, for the confusion 
 
 * Petri Venerabills, contra Petrobmsianos, lib. in Bibl. 
 Cluniac, p. 1117. 
 
 f Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 501.
 
 WALDENSES. 23 
 
 of all heresy. Henry himself met with no worse 
 fate than an obscure death in prison, but his doctrines 
 were condemned, and his followers either joined or 
 were confounded with the Albigensian sectarians, and 
 were soon, at any rate, involved in their fate. 
 
 § 16. But a far more numerous, more enduring, 
 more interesting communion, was that of the Wal- 
 denses, equally belonging to France and Italy ; a sect 
 fond of ascribing its origin to tlie purest Christianity 
 of primitive times, and whose tenets were and are, in 
 fact, the same as we have seen held at different periods 
 by the different pastors of the Italian dioceses, 
 previous to their submission to Roman authority, 
 and by no one more distinctly than by the famous 
 Claude of Turin in the ninth century * — but whose 
 name, at least, has been traced to Peter of Waldo or 
 Vaud, a rich merchant of Lyons, who distributed his 
 wealth among the poor, and dedicated himself to a 
 truly evangelical mission, from 1160 to 1180. 
 
 The Waldenses, limited at the present day to two 
 or three poor but verdant valleys of Piedmont, spread 
 at first with amazing rapidity, both throughout France 
 and Italy, under the various names of Leonists or 
 
 * See Bert (I Valdesi, &c. chap. i. — iii.), who has ably 
 summed up the arguments of Leger, Turner, &c. See also 
 ante^ 3, 4. 
 
 c 4
 
 24 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 Poor ;Men of Lyons, Sabatati or Insabatati (wearers 
 of sandals or wooden shoes), &c. &c. Their doctrines 
 were, on the whole, greatly akin to the little we know 
 of those of the Petrobrusians and Henricians. 
 Besides their dread of idolatry, and strong objections 
 to some of the sacraments as administered by the 
 Church ; besides a rigid condemnation of auricular 
 confession, and of some of the new contrivances of 
 purgatory and indulgences, they took a very literal 
 view of the poverty enjoined by Christ upon his fol- 
 lowers and of the precepts of the Gospel respecting 
 war, oaths, and capital punishment : they chose their 
 elders and deacons rather out of consideration for the 
 " gifts of grace " and moral character, than for their 
 literary attainments ; they wished them to be plain 
 men, poor, laborious ; in every thing conformable to 
 the strictest pattern of evangelical or '' apostolical" 
 life. 
 
 §17. This anxious desire to bring back the world, 
 and especially the Church, to apostolical innocence 
 and discipline, was the great leading thought of nearly 
 all these sects ; and especially of those which actually 
 assumed the name of ** apostolical;" which were about 
 the same time flourishing in Burgundy, inGuienne and 
 elsewhere ; some of which, indeed were severely taken 
 to task by Eugene III., at the above-mentioned Coun- 
 cil of Rheims.* The brother Weavers of Flanders, 
 * Aiiie, § 15.
 
 BEGUINS. 25 
 
 and some of the better varieties of those Beghards 
 and Beguins of Germany, France and Belgium, which 
 became so strong in the thirteenth century, may be 
 considered to have sprung from these first apostolical 
 associations. Mosheim has laboured hard to assign 
 a different origin and ascribe peculiar characters and 
 tendencies to these sects.* The line of demarkation 
 might perhaps be drawn, by distinguishing the lazy, 
 profligate, disorderly rabble, who lived indifferently 
 upon alms or plunder for God's sake, from those 
 whose calling it was to work as well as pray ; who 
 asked nothing from the world they shrunk from and 
 abjured. Some of the Beguins, especially in Belgium, 
 were so very harmless and exemplary as to pass un- 
 disturbed through all subsequent centuries, tolerated 
 though indeed never actually countenanced by Rome. 
 § 18. But the Waldenses, and all those who, not 
 satisfied with literal compliance with evangelical 
 precepts for themselves, wished to impose their ob- 
 servance on the clergy, — those who interfered with 
 their wealth, and exposed the recent practices con- 
 trived to add to their revenues, — met with the virulent 
 attacks of the Church and all its saints. It was to 
 little purpose that Peter of Waldo himself and his 
 Italian followers, evinced some repugnance to absolute 
 
 * Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 578.
 
 26 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 separation from the Church of Rome, the only true 
 church of Christ in their estimation even in spite of 
 its corruption ; they were nevertheless cast out of its 
 bosom by a bull of Lucius III., in 1183 ; and then it 
 was perhaps, that, especially the Ultramontane or 
 French Waldenses, proclaimed that tlie spirit of God 
 Lad departed from that Church, and threw out the 
 first hints about its being typified by the " Scarlet 
 Lady" in the Book of Revelations. 
 
 § 19. With all the purity of their dogmas, and ir- 
 reproachable life, the Waldenses and other apostolical 
 associations thus found themselves in the ranks of the 
 most determined enemies of Rome, and were invari- 
 ably named by orthodox writers in the same breath 
 with the x\lbigenses of Languedoc, and the Cathari 
 ofLombardy; they were therefore made partakers of 
 all the odium of the abominable errors and still more 
 abominable morals imputed to these latter denomi- 
 nations. 
 
 A certain looseness of principle, deliberate lewdness 
 and debauchery, was for a long time considered as the 
 invariable consequence of the least deviation from the 
 incontrovertible truth, that is, of the slightest dissent 
 from the Established Church. The priests were 
 aware that the passions of the multitude could hardly 
 be aroused in detestation of mere abstract theories. 
 The most startling, most revolting, most absurd and
 
 HERESY RUN MAD. 2« 
 
 pitiful stories were therefore got up by the zealous 
 denouncers of heresy : from mere disregard of fast- 
 days to cannibalism, no sins were too atrocious 
 for them, said the priests ; and as either from fear or 
 other reasons, the most prudent of those dissenters 
 met in secret, and involved their transactions in 
 mystery, the darkest suspicions, the most obvious 
 calumnies, gained an easy credit ; and that terrible 
 word ** heretic," soon came to be associated, in the 
 people's mind, with the worst outrages that either 
 abandoned villany or ranting madness could perpe- 
 trate in defiance of all the laws of God and men. 
 
 § 20. Truly, there may have been, among those 
 heresiarchs, individuals whose honesty of purpose or 
 soundness of understanding the most impartial critic 
 may feel inclined to question. There was, for in- 
 stance, one Tanquelm or Tanquelin, who for above 
 ten years (1115 — 1125), turned so many heads in 
 the Low Countries, as to be able to march triumph- 
 antly from Utrecht to Antwerp at the head of 3000 
 well armed votaries ; and who yet (if we may be- 
 lieve the testimony of his contemporary, Abailard, 
 who was not himself above the suspicion of heresy, 
 whose whole life was agitated, whose memory is still 
 open to attacks on that account)*, professed to be 
 God, or the Son of God, — at any rate looked upon 
 
 * Abailard, Introdiict. ap. Theologiam, lib. ii. oper. p. 1066.
 
 28 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 himself as a fit abode for God's Spirit, and upon the 
 strength of that conviction, celebrated his betrothal 
 with an image of the Virgin Mary, making the bridal 
 ceremony the occasion for a feast, in which, as in all 
 orgies of this description, full license was given to 
 his " innumerable " followers to yield to the impulse 
 of their passions. The enthusiasm of these people 
 for tlieir inspired chief was so great that they drank, 
 as a sacrament, the water used by him in his ablu- 
 tions. But Tanquelm, we are told in the same 
 breath, was very loud in his invectives against the 
 vices of the clerical order ; the inveteracy of these 
 latter against him, the name of Antichrist by which 
 they designated him, the fury with which one of them 
 finally slew him at Antwerp in the midst of his suc- 
 cessful career, may be in some measure accounted 
 for. *^ He declared himself to be God; ordered 
 daughters to be deflowered in the presence of their 
 mothers; fathers and husbands considered them- 
 selves highly honoured when the Messiah chose their 
 daughters or wives for the gratification of his lust ; 
 and he set himself against the payment of tithes." 
 Thus runs, in this and in many similar cases, the 
 climax of heretical enormities.* 
 
 * Dictionnaire des Heresies, 2 vols. Paris, 1762 ; or the 
 German Translation, Ketzer lexicon, 3 vols. 8vo. AVurtzburg, 
 1838. art. Tanchelm.
 
 EON DE l'eTOILE. 29 
 
 §21. Equal, if not greater commotion was about 
 the same time created "by a wealthy knight of Brit- 
 tany, by name Eon de I'Etoile, who also fancied he 
 was acting under godly inspiration, or believed him- 
 self appointed to a supreme mission. This strange 
 conceit had come upon him from some words used by 
 the priests in exorcising evil spirits: — "Per eum qui 
 venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos." The nasal 
 French pronunciation of the word ewii: made him 
 believe that it was by him, eon, that the quick and 
 the dead were to be judged. The oddity found its 
 partisans, as everything monstrous never failed to do 
 in those unhappy times, and the madman was deemed 
 worthy of being dragged before Eugene III. at the 
 council of Rheims, in 1148, together with Henry 
 and other originators of more sane opinions. There, 
 like Henry, Eon died in prison ; but great numbers 
 of his followers were brought to the stake, especially 
 by the watchful activity of the bishop of St. Malo, 
 who won at this juncture the nickname of Jean de 
 la Grille (John the Gridiron, or Jack the Broiler), 
 an appellation with which the zealous prelate was 
 highly flattered.* The Eonites, who had been taught 
 by their leader that faith would give them a command 
 over the elements, leaped gladly into the flames, as 
 
 * Hist, de Bretagne, des Benedictins, Hv. v. p. 210.
 
 30 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 we have seen the Manicbseans of Orleans*, — in full 
 expectation that they could walk scatheless through 
 them. They declared themselves cheated in their 
 dying 'breath, and ended thus, disenchanted at least, 
 if not repentant. t 
 
 § 22. Almost every religious fever, in that singular 
 age, assumed, or was supposed to assume, a heretic 
 character. It was so with the Caputiati, or Capu- 
 chons, or White Hoods, a sect originating with a 
 woodcutter of Auvergne, by name Durand, about 
 the year 1182. Their primary object was the main- 
 tenance of peace, and the extermination of the dis- 
 banded soldiery, whom the English kings had spread 
 over tlie south of France, and were now ravaging the 
 country under the name of Routiers or Cotereaux. 
 The members of this religious association were bound 
 by no vow, and made no profession of any particular 
 faith ; they were only distinguished by the white 
 head-gear that gave them their name, and wore a 
 little leaden image of the Virgin on their breast. 
 They found favour at first with the bishops, especially 
 in Burgundy and the Berri, and were even, from the 
 best political causes, countenanced by Philip Au- 
 gustus. They thus rose to such a degree of power, 
 
 * Ante, § 11. 
 
 f Baron. Annal. Eccles. ad ann. 1148.
 
 TERRIUS. 31 
 
 that on the 20th of July, 1183, they surrounded a 
 body of seven thousand of the marauding party, and 
 suffered not one man to escape. They were, however, 
 soon intoxicated with success, and threw out some 
 hints about restoring the primasval liberty of mortals 
 and universal equality ; thereby incurring the dis- 
 pleasure of Hugo Bishop of Auxerre, who took arms 
 against them, and put an end to the sect by the 
 might of the sword in 1186.* 
 
 It is not unlikely that some of the Apostolical sects 
 now numerous in France had joined the White 
 Hoods and spread their notions among them ; though 
 most of these sects, like the Waldenses, were rigid 
 observers of non-resistance principles, and could, 
 therefore, take no share in the warlike exploits of 
 the Capuchons. The great doctrine of the " Apostles" 
 consisted in flying before or yielding to persecution ; 
 in deceiving rather than confronting their foes. One 
 of them, called Terrius, for a long time provided for 
 his safety, about this same epoch, by hiding in the 
 woods near Corbigni, in the diocese of Nevers. He had 
 two old women among his disciples, one of whom he 
 called "Mary," and the other "the Church," and he 
 hadinstructed his followers, whenever brought before 
 
 * Chroniq. de S. Denis, ap. Script. Rev. Franc, torn. xvli. 
 p, 354.
 
 32 YRX DOLCIXO. 
 
 ecclesiastical courts, to swear by "Holy Mary" that 
 they had no other creed than that of "_Holy Church."* 
 
 § 23. If we dwell on these worst features of the 
 sorry vagaries of mediasval heresy, it is merely 
 because every one of these particulars will be found 
 to have a distinct bearins^ on the individual case we 
 have on hand. Nothing is more striking in the 
 accounts of these melancholy events than the frequent 
 repetition of the same phenomena, the reproduction 
 of the same charges, notwithstanding distance of age 
 and locality, in spite of difference of mind and 
 purpose of the various sectarians. The same strange 
 mixture of absurdity and iniquity, of duplicity and 
 infamy, was equally imputed to the simplest and 
 holi^t, and to the weakest and most fiendish of 
 them ; so as to render it next to impossible to dis- 
 criminate between what may have been the result of 
 ignorance or wilful malignity, and what may be 
 stated as positive fact. 
 
 Hallam asserts, very justly!, that the tenets of 
 the Albigenses, Cathari, &c., are only to be collected 
 from the mouths of their adversaries, as no apology 
 of their own survives ; also, that almost every shade 
 of heterodoxy was found among those dissidents, till 
 
 * Dictionnaire des Heresies, art. Terrius. 
 •j- Hallam, A View of Europe in the Middle Ages, chap. iv. 
 part n. London, 1846, vol. ii. p. 438—449., and notes.
 
 GOOD AND BAD HERETICS. 33 
 
 it vanishes in a simple protestation against the tyranny 
 and wealth of the clergy. He next proceeds to 
 exonerate the "VValdenses, the only sect that can at 
 the present day give a good account of itself, from 
 any heresy that could disqualify them for com- 
 munion with the reformed churches of the sixteenth 
 century. Whether the line of demarkation which 
 distinguished their tenets from those of the Albi- 
 genses originally existed, or whether the most ob- 
 jectionable of these latter were repudiated by the 
 brethren of the Alpine congregations, when they 
 deemed it expedient to associate their cause with 
 that of the followers of Luther and Calvin, may yet 
 be matter of discussion. The animosity of the 
 Church of Rome against those guileless " poor men," 
 was always, at any rate, as implacable as that which 
 led to the crusade against the Albigenses ; notwith- 
 standing the candour with which some blundering 
 monks were induced to admit that the disciples of 
 Waldo were less irreclaimably perverted, and less 
 irreconcilably sundered from Rome. 
 
 § 24. In the meanwhile the twelfth century had 
 raised throughout Europe, and especially in the 
 south of France, a most luxuriant crop of heretic 
 weeds, just at the time that the Church was whetting 
 its scythe for the bloody harvest. One half of the 
 population of Toulouse and other Languedocian and 
 
 D
 
 34 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Proven9al cities, was tainted with either the one or 
 the other of the manifold errors prevailing. These 
 gained ground, especially among the lower orders; 
 but men of high station, ana even the feudal lords of 
 "the country, lent a willing ear to the obnoxious 
 teachers, and the *' apparent sanctity" of their lives 
 inclined them to favour their proceedings. It is not 
 a little remarkable that this same twelfth century 
 was an age of religious commotion all the world over. 
 The Mahometans were never more fiercely distracted 
 by heretic and even by unbelieving sects : and out of 
 four and twenty Messiahs who have created a stir 
 among the Jews, since the crucifixion of the one in 
 whom Christians believe, no less than ten belong to 
 this century alone. * 
 
 A description of the war against the Albigenses 
 cannot enter into our present plan. How the popes, 
 in the well-tried inefficiency of frequent councils, in 
 their dissatisfaction with the slackness and luke- 
 warmness of worldly-minded bishops, trusted the 
 Cistercian monks with the promulgation of a crusade ; 
 how these acquitted themselves of their task with a 
 zeal which made Innocent III. himself shudder at 
 his own work : how the ardour of the French knights, 
 whom neither exhortations nor indulgences could any 
 
 * Buck's Theological Dictionary, art. Messiah.
 
 CRUSADE IN LANGUEDOC. 35 
 
 longer engage in the distant expeditions of Palestine, 
 burst out afresh at the prospect of an easier and 
 more profitable enterprise, so near home ; what base 
 views of worldly aggrandisement were blended with 
 the furtherance of the so-called cause of heaven ; 
 how castle after castle was stormed, women and 
 infants, the guilty and the innocent, were put to the 
 sword, in compliance with the famous words of 
 Arnaud Amalric, Abbot of Citeaux and Legate of 
 the Pope, to the soldiers, who showed some perplexity 
 as to the means of distinguishing the orthodox from 
 the heretics at the Storming of Bezieres : " Kill 
 them all ; the Lord will know his own ! "* how from 
 15,000 to 60,000 victims perished in that town 
 alone, and how many thousand more at Carcassonne, 
 Miner ve, Lavaur, and other places ; how many were 
 slain in cold blood, horridly mutilated, burnt by 
 wholesale in the churches where they took shelter ; 
 how the territory of Toulouse was deliberately turned 
 into a wilderness, and the sun of Provence set for 
 ever, and its early civilisation, its troubadour poetry, 
 was stifled in blood — all has been too faithfully told 
 
 * "Tuez-les tous: Dieu connait ceux qui sont k lui."— . 
 "Cedite eos, novit enim Dominus qui sunt ejus." Raynald, 
 Annales Ecclesiast. ad ann. 1209 ; Caesar. Heisterbac. lib. v. 
 c. 21., in Bibl. Pair. Cisterc. torn. ii. p. 139.; Hist, du Lan- 
 guedoc, liv. xxi. ch. 57. p. 169. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 TKA DOLCINO. 
 
 by Sismondi, with a glaring vividness, a harrowing 
 minuteness, which render the third and fourth volumes 
 of this history of the French all that is most horrible 
 in the records, even of the country of the St. 
 Barthelemi and of the September massacres. 
 
 § 25, The din of that war was over ( 1 207 — 1 229) ; 
 the fires of Languedoc were subsiding only to burst 
 up here and there in all parts of Europe. The mere 
 recital of those sanguinary deeds roused the tiger, 
 which always lies latent in some corner of the humati 
 heart. The guilt of the misbelievers was by the 
 ignorant multitude estimated with the measure of its 
 atrocious punishment. The heretic was put out of 
 the pale of common humanity. The Church of 
 Rome, in the arrogance of that first success, gave 
 rule and method to popular ferocity. The inquisition 
 Stepped in to consume the relics of the crusade* 
 Every where it found ready auxiliaries either in de- 
 signing princes, such as Philip Augustus, who had 
 too many reasons to humour Innocent III., in- 
 dependent of that zeal which made him boast that 
 " throughout his whole realm, he did not sufier a 
 dissenter to live," * or else in more upright and 
 generous rulers, such as St. Louis, a king not open 
 to many reproaches in other matters, but who knew 
 
 * Guillelm. Britonis, Philippidos, lib. i.
 
 SPREAD OF FANATICISM. 37 
 
 not how otherwise to deal with heretics *' except 
 with his sword, which every honest layman should 
 thrust into their entrails as far as it would go."* 
 
 Thus the Albigensian crusade had scarcely begun, 
 when a great number of the disciples of Amaury of 
 Chartres, whose offence, independent of some very 
 harmless quibbles belonging to their craft (they were 
 all teachers of divinity), which we shall have to revert 
 to, consisted in opposing the claims of the clergy to 
 the receipt of tithes, perished in the flames, under 
 the first-named of those monarchs, in 1209; and the 
 war in Languedoc was hardly at an end, when 
 Gregory IX. stirred the sovereign Bishops of Ger- 
 many to preach a crusade against other heretics, 
 whom their enemies were at a loss how otherwise to 
 designate than by the name of the place where they 
 mustered in the greatest numbers, and called them 
 Stedingers, from Steding, a district in ancient Fries- 
 land, in the modern provinces of Oldenburg and 
 Delmenhorst f, or else Hallseans, from the town of 
 Hallae in Swabia. 
 
 * " Mais que de son epee, de quoi il doit donner parmi le 
 ventre dedans, tant avant comme elle y peut entrer." — 
 Joinville, Hist, de S. Louis, 1761, p. 12. 
 
 -|- Sismondi (Hist, des Frang. vol. ii. p. 238.) confounds this 
 Steding with Stettin in Pomerania. Comp. with Mosheim, 
 Eccl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 610. note. 
 
 D 3
 
 38 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 § 26. There is something so singular in the origin 
 of these German sects, as given by anti-heretical 
 writers *, that we feel tempted to write down their 
 own legend, in their own language, as the very best 
 illustration of the spirit of the age. 
 
 A lady, they say, the wife of a military officer, had 
 gone to church to partake of the sacrament, and 
 handed over to the priest the customary offering. 
 Her *^ mite " was found insufficient, and the priest 
 bethought himself of a strange trick to recall the 
 penitent to a sense of her meanness. He waited for 
 the solemn hour of communion ; and as the lady put 
 forth her tongue to receive the holy wafer, he laid 
 upon it, instead of the host, the very piece of coin 
 of her oblation. Absorbed in her devotional feelings, 
 she did not perceive the change at the moment ; but 
 when she came to swallow the coin, and was nearly 
 choked by it, a sudden terror came over her. She 
 thought that the transmutation of bread into copper 
 was the result of miraculous agency, and that Heaven 
 wished thus to give her a sign of its displeasure at her 
 avarice. Her agitation betrayed itself on her coun- 
 tenance ; it was perceived by the husband, who was 
 kneeling by her side, and the cause of it was soon 
 made manifest to the whole congregation. The of- 
 
 * Ketzer-lexicon, art. Stadhings
 
 CRUSADE IN GERMANY. 39 
 
 ficer appealed to the bishop, that the offender should 
 be brought to condign punishment, and, unable to 
 obtain redress, he took the law in his own hand and 
 slew the sacrilegious priest. A thundering decree of 
 excommunication was the consequence of his rashness; 
 but the pride and avarice of the German clergy had 
 already prepared the ground for a general protest. 
 The device of the priest of Steding was so base and 
 cunning; it evinced so utter a contempt for what was 
 held up to the multitude as the most awful of religious 
 mysteries, that indignation broke through all res- 
 traints : " Down with the priests ! " was the cry, and, 
 unable to distinguish between the true and false 
 ministers of God — it is always the Catholic authorities 
 we quote from, — the incensed populace turned against 
 religion itself, they declared Christianity to be the 
 work of the Spirit of Evil, and set up the Devil 
 against it. To him they paid worship under the ap- 
 pearance of a hideous toad and other monsters ; and 
 as the crusaders were at the very moment butchering 
 ** the Saints" in Languedoc, so they deemed them- 
 selves entitled to reprisals, by massacring as many of 
 the priests as fell into their hands. The Reformation 
 might thus have been effected in Germany three 
 centuries before the time appointed ; but the bishops 
 of Lubeck, Bremen, and Minden, as well as those of 
 Styria and other parts of South Germany, assembled 
 
 D 4
 
 40 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 a host of 40,000 men, under the standard of the 
 cross, and gave the heretics a pitched battle, where 
 6,000 of the combatants of these latter fell : the rest 
 was exterminated by a series of direful executions 
 throughout the country, ad. 1234. 
 
 Besides a refusal to pay tithes, and wish to be free 
 from the rapacity of the clergy, it is utterly impos- 
 sible to substantiate any serious charge against these 
 people. They were a free, manly, earnest race ; and 
 nothing but the perverseness and malignity of the too 
 famous fanatic, Conrad of Marburg, the legate of 
 Gregory IX., could have dreamed of attributing 
 Manichaean subtleties to so a simple a set of be- 
 lievers.* 
 
 § 27. In Italy heresy might equally be said to be 
 everywhere and nowhere. Tliat country has always 
 been the land of heresiarchs rather than heretics. It 
 seems easier to find there the bold speculator capable 
 of giving birth to a new doctrine, than a multitude 
 ready to adopt it, to run to desperate extremes, and 
 risk life and limb in its vindication. It was thus 
 that in the sixteenth century, the Italian reformers 
 so soon overstepped the mark that their sober 
 brethren of Germany and Switzerland were anxious 
 to set for themselves ; so that men like Paul Yergerio, 
 
 * Scharling, De Stedingis, Copenhagen, 1828.
 
 HERESY IN ITALY. 41 
 
 Bernardino Ochino, the Socini, &c. See, could find 
 no rest at Zurich or Geneva any more than at Rome * ; 
 and Peter Martyr Vermigli had a narrow escape of 
 being mobbed in England, where he had the ill- 
 fortune to displease both the old and new churches, 
 between which the country was yet wavering (a. d. 
 1550 — 1552), and where fanaticism, baffled of itg 
 prey, wreaked its blind rage against the remains of 
 his wife, which were unburied and burnt at Oxford. 
 
 It is easy to account for a similar phenomenon in 
 modern ages, by contrasting that natural keenness 
 and boldness of individual intellect, (that "vain 
 curiosity and insatiable desire of novelty," with which 
 Calvin reproaches especially the Italians, attribut- 
 ing it to their " rarum acumen "f) — with the general 
 prostration of the masses, the result not so much of 
 the crushing weight of domestic and foreign tyranny 
 as of native want of veneration, of the apathy, indo- 
 lence, and frivolousness of a southern race. 
 
 § 28. In the middle ages, at any rate, the despotic 
 powers which could stifle religious opinions in blood 
 were not yet solidly constituted, and orthodoxy es- 
 tablished itself on the mere indifference of the Italians. 
 We have already seen J apostles of heresy, old women 
 
 * Mac Crie, History of the Reformation in Italy, chap. iv. 
 -|- Calvin. Oper. torn. vlil. p. 510. 
 I Ante, § 7.
 
 42 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 and monks, first propagating their doctrines beyond 
 the Alps, in the eleventh century. Their tenets, and 
 those of every sect which might happen to spring up 
 any where, were matter of free discussion in the 
 newly emancipated cities of Lombardy, during that 
 and part of the following century. We hear of 
 Waldenses, Petrobrusians, &c., making proselytes 
 and founding congregations throughout the country. 
 To these may be added the Passaggini — the name of 
 whom, as well as that of Montani, some would derive 
 from the highlands and passes of the Alps, where they 
 were mostly to be met with ; others, more plausibly, 
 from Tras oiyioi (thorough saints) — the main subject 
 of dissent among whom seems to have been that 
 Anti-trinitarianism, towards which Italian theologians 
 in all ages evinced a decided tendency.* 
 
 The Church of Rome had not obtained any very 
 strong hold over the republics of Lombardy, until 
 about the middle of the twelfth century, when 
 gratitude for the countenance afforded by Alexander 
 III. to their cause against Frederic Barbarossa, at- 
 
 * Bert (I Valdesi, p. 21.), on the testimony of Gilly's Wal- 
 densian researches, states that Subalpini, Montani^ Passaging 
 and other similar denominations, were synonymous with Vullesi^ 
 or men of the valleys, the original appellation of the AValdenses. 
 Comp. Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 510. note; Bock. Hist. 
 Anti-trinit. torn. ii. p. 418.
 
 ITALY AND THE POPES. 43 
 
 tached them to the interests of the Roman See. Even 
 long after that period, many of the cities, especially 
 those who followed the Ghibeline party, repeatedly 
 found themselves in the ranks of opposition to the 
 Popes, during the reign of Otho IV. and Frederic II. 
 It was only after the death of the latter, in 1250, and 
 the fall of his dreaded partisan, Ezzelino da Romano, 
 in 1259, and the extinction of the House of Swabia, 
 by the tragic fate of Manfred of Apulia, in 1266, 
 and of Conradin in 1268 ; when a long interregnum, 
 and a universal disorder in the Empire had given the 
 upper hand to Guelphism throughout Italy — that 
 the Popes, relying on the support of the Houses of 
 Provence and France, began to lord it over the 
 Lombard free States, and enforced their intolerant 
 decrees by the means of their legates. 
 
 Strange to say, when persecution began in good 
 earnest, and every government lent the Pope a 
 willing hand towards the crushing of heresy, this 
 was found to be rather the error of individuals than 
 of the masses. Heterodoxy nowhere rose in open 
 rebellion south of the Alps ; and we are aware of no 
 occurrence in which recourse need be had to the 
 extremity of a crusade for the sake of faith in Italy, 
 except in the very instance of Fra Dolcino and his 
 followers ; a circumstance which seemed to us to 
 render that event worthy of particular attention.
 
 44 FKA DOLCINO. 
 
 It may be too early, at the present stage of our 
 researches, to state, that to a very great extent it 
 was persecution alone that created heresy ; but there 
 is no doubt that after the thorough establishment of 
 the inquisition in Languedoc, " the number of real 
 offenders did not, at first, by any means, come up to 
 the expectation of the orthodox." * 
 
 § 29. But in Italy the spirit of the age was equally 
 unfavourable to the success of heresy, and to the 
 adoption of violent measures to check . it. The 
 Italians had something worthier to occupy their minds 
 than the mere squabbles of cavilling divines. They 
 had just won the first battle of freedom ever fought 
 in Europe since the pressure of northern invasions 
 had substituted might for right. They were now 
 striving to organise and govern themselves. Their 
 energies were turned to trade and maritime enter- 
 prise ; to legislation and the framing of their re- 
 publican statutes. Much of that exuberance of 
 youthful strength was also too fatally wasted in 
 endless domestic and municipal quarrels. Still, in 
 the midst of that stirring, sanguine, laborious 
 existence, no room could be left for very earnest 
 religious speculation. The Italians have been in- 
 different theologians in the best of times. But in 
 
 ♦ Slsmondi, Hist, des FranQ., tome iv. p. 285.
 
 ITALIAN TOLERATION. 45 
 
 this epoch especially, Bologna taught law, Salerno 
 busied itself with physics ; and such of the Italians 
 as had a taste for scholastic divinity, such as Peter 
 Lombard or Thomas Aquinas, must go to Paris or 
 Oxford for their pursuits. Eager as they were to 
 unbury the institutions of ancient Rome, so as to 
 apply them to the necessities of public life, the Lom- 
 bard lawgivers could not fail to find there that wise 
 tolerant spirit which made the eternal city the refuge 
 of all the gods of antiquity, the " sink of all earthly 
 abominations."* Italian merchants had already 
 long since made their way to the schismatic. Pagan, 
 or Mahometan East. The Greek and the Turk 
 walked unmolested among the motley crowds of 
 Venice and Pisa. Saracen colonies flourished in 
 Sicily, and were imported into Apulia, as loyal and 
 industrious subjects, under imperial patronage. The 
 same latitude was even extended to the Israelite, 
 who had at this epoch to choose between " his ducats 
 and his teeth" in England and elsewhere in the 
 north, but who met with nothing but fair compe- 
 tition in Lombardy, where the money-lenders of 
 Milan or Asti contented themselves with out-bidding 
 him in his usurious transactions, out- Jewing the Jew 
 in all European markets. 
 
 * Tacit. Annal. lib. xv. cap. xllv.
 
 46 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 § 30. Indeed, the liberty enjoyed by the Italians 
 in religious matters was but too early pushed to the 
 verge of dangerous licentiousness. A tendency to 
 infidelity by the side of abject superstition, has 
 been unfailingly evinced by the Italian mind at all 
 times. We find it developing itself in the age of In- 
 nocent III. himself, when people could listen with a 
 smile to the ribald anecdote of the " Three Rings," 
 which their story-tellers had recently imported, to- 
 gether with crosses and relics, from the East ; a story 
 which Boccaccio borrowed from them one hundred 
 years later, and a German philosopher did not dis- 
 dain to dramatise in our own times*, and a story 
 which could not take a more liberal view of all reve- 
 lation, and makes the law of Jew, Christian, and 
 Moslem of equal value in the eyes of a common 
 father; when an emperor and his high chancellor, 
 Frederic II. and Pier delle Vigne, were loudly ac- 
 cused by a pope, — not, perhaps, without good reason, 
 of having denounced those " three notable impostors 
 (barata tores), Moses, Christ, and Mahomet," who 
 successively managed to "juggle the world ;"f when 
 
 * Le Ciento Novelle Antlke, Bologna, 1525, p. 30. Boc- 
 caccio, Decameron, Giorn. i. Nov. iii. Lessing's Nathan der 
 Weise. 
 
 -f- Gregor. IX. Epist. in Raynald. Annal. Ecclesiast. ad ann. 
 1239.
 
 CONTRASTS OF THE AGE. 47 
 
 the citizens of Florence familiarised themselves with 
 the sight of such men as Farinata degli Uberti, Ca- 
 valcanti and his son, musing about their streets with 
 downcast heads, busy, if report spoke truth, with the 
 solution of that arduous problem, " If, peradventure, 
 it could be satisfactorily made out that God was 
 not."* 
 
 All this, be it observed, in the thirteenth century, 
 at the time, that is, that Dominic of Gusman and 
 Francis of Assisi inundated Europe with their cowled 
 beggars (1208—1216) ; at the time that the " Sacro 
 Volto " imprinted on the kerchief of St. Veronica 
 was first exhibited in the west (1250), and, by a rare 
 gift of ubiquity, was at the same time to be seen at 
 Rome, at Milan, and at Jaen in Spain ; at the 
 time that the House of the Virgin was wafted by 
 angels from Nazareth to the west, travelling by 
 easy stages from Palestine to Dalmatia, and hence to 
 various parts of the Roman states, till, after four 
 years' wandering (1291 — 1295), it at least reached 
 its ultimate destination at Loretto; at a time that 
 a fit of flogging seized the people of Florence (1260), 
 and hence infected Italy and Europe, and the bare 
 backs of flagellants of both sexes, and the sound of 
 their smart lashes, amazed the multitude ; in a cen- 
 
 * Dante, Inf., canto x., and Boccaccio's Comment, to the same ; 
 also Decameron, Giorn. vi. Nov. ix.
 
 48 FKA DOLCINO. 
 
 tury to wliich we are probably indebted for the 
 " Rosary and Crown of the Virgin Mary" (in 1244), 
 for the Stahat Mater and Salve Regina ; 2l century 
 which invented the Corpus Domini, paraded, that 
 is, the sacrament, with all the awful meaning the 
 Catholic Church attached to it, as a raree-show about 
 streets and market-places (1246 — 1311); a century 
 in which the zeal for the wars of Palestine reached 
 its climax in the crusade of children, which led so 
 many innocent victims to death by drowning or life- 
 long slavery at Algiers and Tunis (1204) ; and the 
 rage for pilgrimages suggested the idea of the grand 
 jubilee of Boniface VIII., in 1300, with its two 
 millions of chaunting, ranting, barefooted palmers, 
 crowding to Rome, eager to kiss off the marble toe 
 of the apostle. 
 
 That daring spirit of inquiry, so strangely con- 
 trasting with the idolatry of the grovelling multitude, 
 and which was fostered especially by the study of 
 what they called Aristotelian philosophy, kept pace 
 with the advance of learning and the revival of clas- 
 sical literature, till it reached its climax at the close 
 of the fifteenth century, when such earnest men as 
 Erasmus or Luther heard hardly anything but blas- 
 phemies at the court of Leo X., when " it was con- 
 sidered the mark of high breeding in Rome to call 
 the principles of Christianity in question, and hardly
 
 SAN GALDINO. 49 
 
 the principles of Christianity in question, and hardly 
 a priest came back from saying mass without uttering 
 outrageous words in denial of its reality." * 
 
 § 31. It is in the very nature of things, therefore, 
 that in so restless an age, and with so light-minded a 
 people, heresy should spread very wide wdthout sink- 
 ing very deep. So long as governments allowed of an 
 unbounded freedom of inquiry, there was hardly a 
 sect unrepresented in Italy. They all had their own 
 time, were stared at, laughed at, perhaps, a mere nine 
 days' wonder. For a century and a half, the clergy 
 could do no more than preach themselves hoarse 
 against them. Of Galdino, Archbishop of Milan, for 
 instance, we hear that he burst a blood-vessel in the 
 vehemence of his onset against the Cathari : he was 
 struck with sudden death on the pulpit, or immedi- 
 ately on his removal from it, and, as a martyr to his 
 zeal, he was numbered among the Saints of the ca- 
 lendar, f This happened on the ITtli of April of the 
 very year of the battle of Legnano. It was not easy 
 at the time to prevail on the Milanese, flushed with 
 the certainty of that success which was to regenerate 
 them as a nation, to allow any other means than 
 arguments to be employed in the refutation of mere 
 errors of opinion. Consequently, we hear from the 
 
 * Ranke's History of the Popes, cliap. ii. § 3. 
 f Muratori, Annali d'ltalia ad ann. 1176; Ughelli, Ital. 
 Sacra, torn. iv. p. 159. 
 
 E
 
 50 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 same historian, that the Cathari increased in number 
 both at ^lilan itself and at Brescia, Modena, and else- 
 where.* 
 
 § 32. There was only one heresy which might be 
 said to be of genuine Italian growth, and which 
 therefore carried the whole country along with it; it 
 was that of Arnold of Brescia, a man who filled the 
 world with his name from 1134 to 1155. 
 
 Arnold could be a divine in the land of divinity. 
 In France no man better knew how to beat theo- 
 logians at their own weapons. He had stood by the 
 side of Abailard during his conflict with St. Bernard, 
 a more dreaded, uncompromising champion than his 
 highly gifted, but somewhat too amiable, master him- 
 self. Arnold left him to retract his doctrines and 
 make his peace with the monks as he best could. In 
 Italy Arnold preached no other than a " political " 
 — that is, a practical heresy. In early youth he 
 had already battled with the Bishop of Brescia and 
 other North-Italian prelates. Driven from home, he 
 had sought refuge in the diocese of Constance, and 
 taught the people of Zurich how to resist priestly 
 encroachment, and constitute themselves on true 
 liberal principles. But now he took up his ground in 
 Rome itself, and there gave full development to his 
 one idea, — that temporal power, wealth, and greatness 
 were incompatible with the mission of a true Chris- 
 * Muratori, ad ann. 1192.
 
 AENOLD OF BRESCIA. 51 
 
 tian ministry. At no time has such a language been 
 lost upon the children of Italy, From the days of 
 Crescentius to those of Rienzi and Mazzini, a foe to 
 the Papacy has ever been a hero to the Romans. 
 But no man ever made his appearance at a more op- 
 portune moment, none was ever so near complete 
 success as that high-souled Arnold of Brescia. The 
 Romans had already stoned one of their popes, 
 Lucius II., to death, in 1145; they by turns ad- 
 mitted on their own terms, or drove away, his suc- 
 cessor, Eugene III. During the whole of the pon- 
 tificate of this latter (1145 — 1153), Arnold was the 
 soul of the emancipated people. He founded a free 
 state in Rome, against w^hich the pontiffs, by their 
 unaided efforts, would never have prevailed. But the 
 evil star of Ital}^ brought about a good understand- 
 ing between the English pope (Adrian IV.) and the 
 Emperor Frederic I. The reconciliation between 
 Church and State was unnatural, hollow, and epheme- 
 ral, but it was not the less fraught with the fate of 
 Arnold and Rome. Blind to his own real interests, the 
 Emperor thought he could gratify the Pope by the 
 sacrifice of that "heretic" who had equally declared 
 against both. He possessed himself of tlie person of 
 Arnold, and even this was accomplished by treachery 
 rather than force. Arnold was delivered to the 
 priests, who, backed as they were by a whole Ger- 
 
 E 2
 
 52 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 man host, did not venture to execute him in sight 
 of the mutinous Romans, but hurried through their 
 murderous job at daybreak, and were thus before- 
 hand with the people ah'ead}' rising to their leader's 
 rescue.* 
 
 § 33. Arnold of Brescia had nevertheless given 
 the tone to all heresy in Italy, and the " Arnoldists" 
 figured among the most daring sectarians, especially 
 in his native city.f All dissent there might be re- 
 duced to sheer anti-papism. A spirit of opposition 
 to priestly tyranny was but too consonant with the 
 democratic freedom established on the broadest basis 
 throughout Lombardy and Tuscany. Even whilst 
 the German bishops, as princes or electors, profited 
 by the unsettled state of the empire to usurp sove- 
 reign power, — and we see them leading the armies of 
 Germany in the crusade against the Stedingers, — those 
 of Northern Italy either altogether abdicated, or were 
 too happy to share their sway with consuls, podestas, 
 and other magistrates more immediately emanating 
 from popular election. In Rome alone, after the 
 death of Arnold, the archpriest strove to keep his 
 seat, and Innocent III., especially, substituted his 
 own authority for that of the Senate, and accustomed 
 
 * Sisraondi, Hist, des Republ. Italien., torn. i. p. 283. 
 t Muratori, Antiquitates Italiae Medii iEvi, Dissertatio lx., 
 1o.li. V. p. 90.
 
 PAPISM AND GUELPHISM. 53 
 
 the Romans to the temporal government of the 
 priests, towards the end of the 12th century. His 
 successors found their seat any thing but firmly 
 established nevertheless, and were again and again 
 driven from Rome, either by the people or by the 
 factious nobles of that city, till they had to quit 
 it altogether during the long " captivity of the 
 Church" at Avignon, in 1305. 
 
 Yet the authority of the pontiffs over the rest of 
 Italy was decidedly in the ascendant. They had it in 
 their power to persuade the republicans of the North, 
 that the Church had titles to their gratitude, that it 
 had always lent the most signal services to the national 
 cause. It was not merely because Alexander III. had 
 declared himself the chief and patron of the Lombard 
 League in 1167, and Innocent III. had rallied its 
 scattered njembers around him in 1197, aud Gre- 
 gory IX. had renewed its compact in 1226, But 
 some of those popes, it is impossible to deny it, had the 
 interests of the country truly at heart, and cared for 
 something besides the aggrandisement of their own 
 power. Innocent III., with all his hardness of heart, 
 was a patriot, and as anxious to drive the "Barbarians" 
 otrt of the country as ever Julius II. may be said to 
 have been after him. When Frederic II. had, by his 
 death, in 1250, relieved the Popes from all apprehen- 
 sion, Alexander IV. was not unmindful of his Italian
 
 54 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 allies, now Lard pressed by that last champion of 
 Ghibelinism, Ezzelino III. da Romano, whose unheard 
 of cruelties had spread dismay through the Venetian 
 cities. His legates headed a crusade against the 
 monster (1255 — 1259), and the country was thus rid 
 of its worst terrors. But the Italians had to contend 
 with a still greater enemy than either foreign or do- 
 mestic tyranny : and that was their own frantic spirit 
 of dissension and municipal jealousy. In the midst 
 of their evil passions, the pontifical messengers 
 stepped in as angels of heaven. Again and again the 
 *' Truce of God" averted the most dreadful calamities 
 of civil bloodshed ; and a Dominican monk had it in 
 his power to bring the inhabitants of the twelve prin- 
 cipal cities of Lombardy, on the plain of Paquara, 
 in 12S3j there to abjure their unnatural feuds and to 
 join in a Christian embrace. It was on similar deeds 
 of justice and humanity that a new Power was 
 being founded at Rome. In the midst of their raving 
 anarchy, in their utter, helpless disorganisation, the 
 result of very strength and prosperity, the Italians 
 were both unwilling to acknowledge a sovereign ruler, 
 and unable to govern themselves without one. They 
 turned to the Pope as a moderator and peace-maker : 
 they submitted to a moral influence in the fond con- 
 ceit that it could never be converted into political op- 
 pression. They flattered themselves they had found a
 
 PERSECUTION IN ITALY. 55 
 
 master who had it in his power to do good, and whom 
 they could, however, always prevent from doing evil. 
 § 34. As a return for patronage and arbitration, 
 the popes exacted nothing, at first, but spiritual sub- 
 mission. They demanded from the free states of 
 Italy what they had already obtained from the 
 greatest potentates. At the suggestion of the bishop 
 of Ferrara, a first decree against the heretics was 
 issued by Otho IV. in 1210.* Two other edicts of 
 the same nature were at different periods (1220, 1231) 
 extorted from Frederic II. during those short inter- 
 vals of truce, to which either inexperience in early 
 youth, or necessity in later times, bowed him. It 
 was the enforcement of these decrees that the popes 
 earnestly solicited from the Lombard free cities : but 
 even on that point they met with long, constant opr 
 position, especially on the part of those cities which 
 obeyed the influence of Ezzelino da Romano, a man 
 who, independent of his strong Ghibeline preposses- 
 sions, would hardly, for the sake of pleasing the pope, 
 inveigh against religious opinions, which his father, 
 Ezzelino II., notwithstanding his title of '*the Monk," 
 and his life of ascetic retirement, was suspected of 
 entertaining to his dying day.f 
 
 * Raynald, Annal. Ecclesiast. ad annos 1210, 1220, 1231. 
 
 f Kolandini, De Factis in Marchia Tarvis, lib. ii. cap. vi. ; Rer. 
 Ital. torn. viii. p. 186. ; Francisci Pipini, Chronicon, cap. xxi. : 
 Rer. Ital. torn. ix. p. 697. 
 
 E 4
 
 56 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 § 35. The first and second of those imperial edicts 
 did not authorise the use of fire and sword to the ex- 
 tirpation of heresy. The penalty was limited to 
 banishment and confiscation ; and the Lombard go- 
 vernment admitted even that with reluctance, and 
 gave the law the most lenient interpretation. Upon 
 the more urgent entreaties of Honorius III., in 1225, 
 the cities of Modena, Brescia, and Rimini applied to 
 misbelievers the rule followed by those Guelph and 
 Ghibeline partisans in their political proscriptions ; 
 that is, they demolished the houses of the ofienders, 
 and involved their families in their ruin. Yet even so 
 far the magistrates, and even the bishops, incurred the 
 Pope's displeasure, in consequence of their softness 
 of heart and lukewarmness in the cause of heaven. 
 It was only after the close of the Albigensian war, 
 when, as we have seen, the very skies seemed red 
 with the blood of so many victims, that Gregory IX. 
 obtained more cogent decrees from Frederic II. and 
 Louis IX. of France, and extended to Lombardy the 
 jurisdiction of those inquisitorial tribunals which 
 were now terrorising the earth. The Inquisition 
 itself was introduced by progressive stages. It 
 was at first composed of one priest and three laymen 
 (1229); but four years later, the Dominicans were ex- 
 clusively trusted with its proceedings, and sat as accu- 
 sers and judges, only applying to the *^ secular arm,"
 
 FIRST STEPS OF THE INQUISITION. 57 
 
 at the last hour, for the execution of the sentence. 
 Then it was, indeed, that the Paterini seemed to 
 spring up as it were from the ground. Gregory IX. 
 himself gave the first example, by burning a great 
 many of them at Rome, in 1231 : many more were 
 by him thrown into dungeons, or submitted to the 
 strictest discipline in the monasteries. In the year 
 12S3, the flames rose high in the market-place of 
 every Italian town : the important fact that nothing 
 but fire could purge the earth of heresy was tri- 
 umphantly established ; and the people became 
 familiar with the celebration of what the French 
 called " sermons," the same horrid performance to 
 which the Portuguese in later times gave their own 
 name of " auto da fe." Then it was that a podesta of 
 Milan, — Oldnado da Tresseno, a native of Lodi — 
 could boastingly indite his famous inscription, under 
 a monument which represented him on horseback, on 
 the main entrance of the town hall, erected under 
 his auspices : — 
 
 " Qui solium struxit, Catliaros, lit debuit, uxit." 
 
 Muratori, who reports that line *, was more 
 shocked at the barbarism which could thus murder 
 the preterit of a Latin verb — uxit instead of ussit — 
 than at the barbarity which seemed to exult at the 
 
 ♦ Antlq. Italicae, torn. v. p. 89, 90.
 
 58 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 massacre of men whose guilt he who punished had 
 no means to comprehend. 
 
 § 36. The people, however, by that unerring 
 instinct which so readily enlists its sympathies in 
 behalf of all suflferers, did not so soon acquiesce in 
 those odious measures of bigotry as prelates and 
 magistrates had done. There is that in the nature 
 of an Italian multitude, notwithstanding its southern 
 fierceness and vindictiveness, which recoils from 
 cold-blooded infliction of pain. All the might of 
 Charles V., in the sixteenth century, failed to establish 
 the '' Spanish " inquisition in all its severity, in his 
 provinces of Milan and Naples. In the same manner, 
 two centuries before, the Papal legates, and the 
 preaching friars or Dominicans, came into frequent 
 collision with the Lombard people, not yet thoroughly 
 convinced of the utter perverseness of the doctrines 
 of those religious innovators. 
 
 The first champions of intolerance had fared but 
 indifferently in other parts of Europe. One of In- 
 nocent III.'s legates in Languedoc, Pierre de Cas- 
 telnau, had, on account of his unbearable arrogance, 
 been stabbed at St. Gilles by one of the knights of 
 Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse, in 1208 ; and 
 his deatl), indeed, was the spark that kindled the 
 great conflagration in Southern France. Another 
 fanatic, the same who so ominously distinguished him-
 
 POPULAR EE ACTION. 59 
 
 self at the crusade against the Stedingers*, Conrad 
 of Marburg, was, in spite of the support of his 
 penitent, St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, and of all the 
 potentates of Germany, murdered by some noble- 
 men near Marburg, in 1233. But in Italy, out of 
 three legates sent out by Gregory IX. on the same 
 sanguinary errand, one — Roland of Cremona — was, 
 with another monk, stoned to death by the populace 
 at Piacenza in 1233; a second, Peter of Verona, 
 fell by the hand of an assassin, hired, it is said, by 
 the Cathari, near Barlassina, on the road from Milan 
 to Como, in 1252.* 
 
 § 37. Blind ferocity, however, was sure of success 
 in the end. The taste of blood, we repeat it, creates 
 bloodthirstiness. Persecution gave heresy an im- 
 portance which it might otherwise never have ac- 
 quired in the eyes of a heedless multitude. They 
 began to think that there must be in those heretics 
 more than met the eye. As, in the insane outcry 
 against witchcraft in later times, there was hardly 
 anything that might not be proved against the 
 accused, even on his own confession. The subtle, 
 harassing proceeding of those preaching friars, the 
 liiaze of their suggestive questions, by which they 
 practised on the ignorance, on the perplexity and 
 
 ♦ Ante, § 26. 
 
 t Muratori, Ann. d'ltalia, ad annos 1233-1252.
 
 60 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 sheer terror of their victims, — those iniquitous 
 tactics improved and refined upon, year after year, 
 till they became an omnipotent engine of torture in 
 themselves — and were, as such, applied to the worst 
 purposes of remorseless statecraft, down almost to 
 our own times, — finally the rack itself, tlie com- 
 plicate ordeal of torments to which the very in- 
 genuity of fiends could hardly have added, — all, all 
 was contributing to render heresy a terrible reality 
 in the people's eyes, even had it had no existence in 
 itself. A shrinking horror seized the masses. They 
 dreaded inquiry, and accepted without comment all 
 the worst rumours that 2:)riestly malice could get up. 
 The *' heretic " was signalised by mere report, con- 
 victed on mere presumption. 
 
 § 38. A fatal impression had gone abroad, that 
 heresy was a subtle, invisible poison, escaping the 
 attention of careless observers, and only to be de- 
 tected by the application of such powerful tests as the 
 inquisitors had at their command. Men of the most 
 unblemished conduct, of the most rigid austerity and 
 expansive charity, were found to have entertained 
 the most damnable notions, sometimes with utter 
 unconsciousness on their own part. Indeed, holiness 
 of life afforded in itself dangerous ground for sus- 
 picion. Nothing more common than to find the 
 purest virtue co-existent with unsoundness of belief.
 
 HERETICS IN DISGUISE. 61 
 
 § 39. There died thus, in the year 1269, at Fer- 
 rara, a man named Armanno, or Hermann Pungi- 
 lupus, who had lived in the practice of the most 
 active Christian charity, and left the odour of sanctity 
 behind him. He was magnificently entombed in the 
 main church at Ferrara, and heaven seemed to bear 
 witness to his election by the performance of signal 
 miracles. The blind, the lame, and the sick of the 
 palsy were made whole by mere contact with the 
 hallowed marble of his tomb. Documents authen- 
 ticating a great many of these facts, drawn up by 
 notary public, signed and sealed by conspicuous 
 citizens, by the canons of the cathedral, and the 
 very bishop of the diocese, fill up seventeen columns 
 in Muratori's Dissertation on Mediaeval Heresy in 
 Italy.* On such ample evidence the canonisation of 
 Pungilupus would have followed as a matter of 
 course, and the friends of his memory were already 
 pressing forward their suit with the apostolical 
 chamber, when, all at once, and after twenty years' 
 success, it was found out that all the alleged portents 
 were either the contrivance of secret partisans, or a 
 delusion of the foul fiend; inasmuch as the said 
 Hermann had once, in 1254, been traduced before 
 the inquisition, on account of some errors which he 
 had indeed pretended to abjure, but in wliich it was 
 * Muratori, Antlq. Ital., torn. v. p. 98-115.
 
 62 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 now proved he had persevered to the last, secretly 
 upholding and spreading the doctrines of the " Poor 
 men of Lyons," and keeping up an active corre- 
 spondence with other heretics of the deepest dye. 
 The contradictory evidence of friends and foes, sup- 
 ported, in our judgment, by authorities of equal 
 weight, was at last brought before the Papal court, 
 under Boniface VIII., who, in 1300, uttered sentence 
 against the memory of the dead, ordered his monu- 
 ment to be thrown open, and his relics consigned to 
 those flames which the living man should never have 
 been suffered to escape. 
 
 So far Muratori, who goes on quoting other in- 
 stances of similar wolves walking about in sheep's 
 clothing, practising not merely on the credulity of 
 the people at large, but on the clergy also, and on 
 the very bishops trusted with their charge.* 
 
 § 40. This posthumous condemnation of men who 
 had died, either in the very best terms, or after full 
 reconciliation, with the Church, was becoming matter 
 of frequent occurrence. It was applied to Amaury 
 or Amalric of Chartres, in 1209, at a time in which, 
 as we have saidf, many of his followers, yet living, 
 were doomed to mix their ashes with his. The 
 errors of this Amaury, of his sect, and of David de 
 Dinant, who rose to a considerable notoriety after 
 
 * Muratori, Antiq. Ital., torn. v. p. 96. f ^"^^j § 25.
 
 A PROPHET IN ITALY. 63 
 
 him, consisted in a kind of pantheism, harmless 
 enough in theory, but capable of dangerous applica- 
 tion in practice. They shared some of the mystical 
 opinions of the " Brethren and Sisters of the Free 
 Spirit," who became numerous, in the fourteenth 
 century, under the names of Beghards in Belgium 
 and Germany, and Turlupins in France. Their 
 tenets are explained at full length by Mosheim*, 
 who does not hesitate to give all these sects an 
 Italian origin. What, however, is more relevant 
 to our present purpose, is, that these sectarians, or 
 most of them, entertained peculiar expectations of 
 the forthcoming ''Kingdom of the Holy Ghost;" 
 expectations which owed their rise to the true or 
 supposed prophecies of an Italian, Joachim, Abbot 
 of Flora, in Calabria, who taught that the world 
 had successively been under the law of the Father 
 and the Son, and announced a new era, which should 
 take its name from the third person in the Trinity. 
 His views about the Holy Ghost and the Trinity in 
 general were, it would seem, not the most correct, 
 since they underwent a solemn condemnation by a 
 council held at the Lateran, under Innocent III., in 
 1215, as being infected with Arianism ; " f but his 
 
 * Eccles. Hist. vol. li. p. 622. 628. 
 
 f Bock, Anti-trinitar. Hist., torn. il. p. 122. ; INIosheim, Eccl.
 
 64 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 views respecting some great catastrophe in the Pro- 
 vidential government of the world, and especially a 
 ** Purification of the Church by the sword," were 
 found consonant with the feelings of the multitude, 
 so unanimous in its detestation of the clergy, and 
 circulated very freely, not merely among the mystics 
 of the school of Amaury and the Brethren of the 
 Free Spirit, but amongst all sorts of dissenters, and 
 chiefly among a very extensive sect which had 
 sprung out of the Franciscan order, almost at its 
 foundation, who called themselves the " Spirituals," 
 and went in Italy by the more familiar name of Fra- 
 ticelli," or "humbler brethren," of an order which 
 had aspired to the very ideal of humility. 
 
 § 41. Any prediction fraught with ruin and con- 
 fusion to the popes and priesthood must needs, at all 
 times, have the greatest significance in Italy. From 
 the time that mankind had been tremblingly awaiting 
 the dissolution of the world, or the Millenium, at the 
 close of the 10th century, their imagination had 
 always been on the stretch, anticipating great uni- 
 versal convulsions. The promulgation of a new law, 
 the issue of a third religious dispensation, or at least 
 the creation of a new Church, of the true Church of 
 God, was the theme of daily discourse. Many were 
 
 Hist, ii. 630. ; F. Francisci Pipini, Chronicon, lib. i. cap. xv. ; 
 Rer. Italic. Script, torn. ix. p. 598.
 
 A FEMALE MESSIAH. 65 
 
 the seers that foreshadowed, many the apostles that 
 announced, the fuhiess of the times. And vvith God's 
 messengers, God himself came at last ; not the pre- 
 cursors, merely, but the very Messiahs were seen, 
 walking upon the earth. 
 
 § 4<2, Men beset with the Spiiit of God were as 
 easily found as men possessed with the Evil One. The 
 crowd wlio attended the daily exorcism of incarnate 
 fiends, might well fall prostrate before incarnate 
 deities. 
 
 A Bohemian — or, as some would have it, an English 
 — woman appeared, indeed, in the latter capacity at 
 Milan. For several years she obtained credit to her 
 assertions, — that the Holy Ghost had taken flesh and 
 assumed human nature in her person. Her name 
 was Wilhelmina ; she gave herself out as the daughter 
 of Constance, wife of Ottocar II., King of Bohemia. 
 Her mother, she said, had received from the arch- 
 angel Raphael the same intimation conveyed by 
 Gabriel to Mary. As the Son was made flesh in 
 Christ, so had the Spirit been made a sharer of hu- 
 manity in her ; that the work of Christ might be 
 completed, and the redemption, which was partial in 
 the Christian dispensation, should now be extended 
 to the Jew, the Saracen, and the Gentile. She an- 
 nounced her own passion, death, and resurrection; 
 promised her re-appearance before the Judgment day.
 
 G6 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 It is possible, indeed, — and there is the testimony 
 of some historians to that effect, — that some notions 
 of the emancipation of woman entered into her 
 scheme : at any rate, a female Messiah could only be 
 heralded to the world through the instrumentality of 
 a female priesthood. Wilhelmina began by the or- 
 dination of a female pope, and made choice of a run- 
 away nun, called Mayfreda, whom she appointed her 
 chief apostle and vicegerent upon earth. It was for 
 her to say mass at the sanctuary, which her mistress 
 designed for herself at the monastery of Chiaravalle, 
 about three miles from Milan. And the day was not 
 far, when the same arch-priestess should, at the head 
 of a female hierarchy, officiate in St. Peter's at Rome ; 
 when popes and cardinals should have filled the mea- 
 sure of wrath, and a new Church should rise on the 
 ruins of the old. 
 
 In spite of her own predictions, Wilhelmina died 
 quietly in her bed in 1281. She was, by her own 
 directions, sumptuously buried at Chiaravalle, and 
 her tomb became a shrine, not to her disciples merely, 
 but to the populace at large ; nor was it, till 1300, 
 that the inquisitors brought to bear against her that 
 lynx eye which had, exactly at the same epoch, seen 
 through the devices of Hermann Pungilupus, and 
 proceeded against her in the same summary manner. 
 Her splendid tomb was also desecrated and destroyed,
 
 THE APOSTLES. bi 
 
 and her ashes scattered to the winds. The Papessa 
 Mayfredaa, with one of her principal disciples, Andrea 
 Saramita, perished at the stake.* 
 
 § 43. We have at length come to the end of our 
 long enumeration of the principal errors that dis- 
 tracted Christianity in the middle ages, — errors, 
 most of them, it will be perceived, exhibiting the 
 stark madness rather than the impiety of mankind ; 
 and we have deemed it necessary to mention all or 
 most of them, at least by name, because they seem 
 to us, to some extent, all complicated with, and de- 
 pendent upon, one another ; so that a minute exami- 
 nation of any of them may necessitate frequent refer- 
 ence to the others. 
 
 It was precisely at this period, that is, towards 
 the latter part of the 13th century, that one of these 
 sects arose at Parma, and spread widely all over Italy 
 and abroad. It was called the sect or order of the 
 Apostles, and successively acknowledged as its chiefs, 
 Gherardo Sagarelli, and Fra Dolcino. 
 
 * jNIuratori, Antlq. Ital., torn. v. p. 91 — 93.
 
 68 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 1. Sect of the Apostles. — Sagarelli. — 2. His early Success. — 3. 
 Character of the Sect. — 4. The Heretic and the Saint, — Sagarelli 
 
 and Francis of Assisi 5. Kise of Mendicant Orders. — 6. Their 
 
 Object. — 7. Heretic and Orthodox Beggars. — 8. Dominicans and 
 Franciscans — their Origin — their Success — 9. Popularity of the 
 Monks of St. Francis. — 10. Their Dissensions. — Conventual and 
 
 Spiritual Franciscans. — Fraticelli. — Tertiarii 11. Franciscan 
 
 Sects, Schisms, and Heresies. — 12. Expectation of violent Reforms 
 in the Church. — Joachim. — The Everlasting Gospel, and the 
 Introduction to the Everlasting Gospel. — 13. Sagarelli and the 
 Franciscans. — 14. Progress of the Sect. — Apostles in Spain, 
 France, Germany, and England. — 15. Vicissitudes of the Sect in 
 Parma. — The Bishop of Parma. — The Popes. — Sagarelh's Exe- 
 cution 16, Difficulty of ascertaining the extent of his Guilt. — 
 
 His Duplicity. — Falsehood of the whole Sect — of all Heretics.— 
 
 17. What is to be thought of their alleged Confessions Fatal 
 
 power of the Inquisition 18. First start of Fra Dolcino. — 
 
 19. His early Career. — 20. Margaret of Trent. — 21. Dolcino's 
 Vicissitudes.— 22. His frequent Escapes. — 23. His Character. — 
 24. His Influence. — 25. Difficulty of his Position. — State of Italy. 
 — French Influence. — 26. Dolcino flies to the Mountains. — 27. 
 State of the Alpine Districts. — 28. Dolcino's Intentions. 
 
 § 1. The sect of the Apostles or Apostolic Brethren 
 had its beginning about the year 1260, at Parma. 
 
 Towards that epoch a youth applied for admission 
 into a monastery of the Franciscan order in that 
 city. Contemporary chronicles name him Gherardo 
 Sagarelli, or Segarello, and describe him as a native 
 of Alzano — probably Albazzano, a small market- 
 town or village, away in the mountains, twenty miles
 
 SAGARELLl'S EARLY CAREER. 69 
 
 south of Parma. He was little known in the town ; 
 a layman, of low birth, illiterate, and an idiot. On 
 the ground of this last infirmity, we are told, his suit 
 was rejected by the Franciscan brethren. 
 
 Sagarelli was not, however, discouraged by a first 
 rebuke : he lingered about the precincts of the 
 convent, and in the church, where he would tarry as 
 long as he was allowed, sitting or kneeling, wrapt in 
 deep meditation. Before the altar of the Brother- 
 hood of St. Francis a lamp hung; and over it a 
 shade, upon which were represented the Twelve 
 Apostles, in the garb that tradition or the fancy of 
 a mediaeval artist assigned to them. In his long 
 hours of musing the half-witted enthusiast dwelt 
 with eyes riveted on those figures; till, at last, — we 
 know not after how many months or years, — a great 
 thought seemed to have struck him, which soon 
 manifested itself in his actions. 
 
 He turned all his attention to the imitation of that 
 apostolic costume. He allowed his hair and beard to 
 grow ; discarded all manner of covering for the head ; 
 he went barefooted, or borrowed the soles or sandals 
 of the Franciscans ; he also girt his loins with the 
 cord of that order ; for the rest, he put on a frock or 
 tunic after what he conceived to be the apostolic cut, 
 and put over it a cloak or mantle which went over 
 the shoulders, and was clasped over the breast. In 
 
 F 3
 
 70 FEA DOLCINO. 
 
 imitation of the primitive Christians he eschewed all 
 colours but white: he made choice of the coarsest 
 sack and sail-cloth for his habiliments ; and gave 
 himself as unkempt and dingy an appearance as ever 
 anchorite of the Thebais gloried in. 
 
 The man was most likel}^ a labourer, and lived by 
 his handiwork : but he also owned a small house in 
 Parma : this he sold, and putting his money in a 
 leathern bag, he made his appearance on the market- 
 square, habited in full costume, anxious to qualify 
 himself for his mission. He stepped upon a high 
 stone, the same from which the Podesta, or chief 
 magistrate of the to^^^l, was wont to address the 
 multitude, and hence opening his purse, and calling 
 out to the idlers and rogues of the neighbouring 
 lanes and alleys, he flung his little treasure in 
 handfuls amongst them., crying : " Let such as have 
 a wish for the dross pick it up ! " There was an 
 uproar and a scramble among the rabble. The 
 scattered pieces were greedily snatched up by men, 
 who squatted down on the very spot, and tossed up 
 the coins for wager, enlivening their games \vith 
 many a rude oath and ribald jeers at the donor. 
 
 § 2. Having thus by this abnegation of all earthly 
 goods, no less than by his outward apparel, made 
 himself as like unto the Apostles as he deemed 
 necessary, Sagarelli next aspired to bring himself to
 
 FIRST START OF HIS SECT. 71 
 
 a close resemblance with tlie Master himself of the 
 Twelve. He had the ceremony of Circumcision per- 
 formed upon him — conformably, perhaps, to a sect 
 of the Passaggini, called the Circumcised, because 
 they restored that amongst many other Jewish rites * ; 
 and wishing to be born again or regenerated, he laid 
 himself in a cradle, had himself wrapped up in 
 swaddling clothes, and suckled by a mad or idiotic 
 woman. 
 
 At length he lifted up his voice : rambling about 
 the streets, calling the people to repentance, an- 
 nouncing that the kingdom of Heaven was at hand : 
 begging his bread for Christ's sake. He disdained 
 to lay up provisions for the morrow, but ate what 
 was given him, on the very spot, scrupulously sharing 
 it with the humblest passer-by. 
 
 An Italian free town, at that period of the middle 
 ages, was not altogether the fittest stage for that kind 
 of exhibition. The citizens of Parma, busy at their 
 work, allowed the cracked prophet to croak to his 
 heart's content; throwing him a crust of bread from 
 time to time, half in pity, half in derision. This went on 
 for nearly three years. At last, about the year 1263, 
 one Robert, who had been a servant, or lay-brother 
 of the Franciscans, joined him. These two raised 
 
 * Muratori, Antiq. Ital., torn. v. p. 151. 
 
 F 4
 
 72 ERA DOLCINO. 
 
 their voices to so high a pitch ; they showed them- 
 selves in such terrible earnest, that, before the end 
 of that year, about thirty individuals, of the very 
 dregs of the people, marched in their suite. 
 
 Their success at Parma might, perhaps, have gone 
 no farther; but, aware that a prophet has no honour 
 in his own country, they moved eastward into the 
 territory of Modena and Romagna, and were seen 
 in a more flourishing condition at Faenza. In this 
 latter town they seem to have become so numerous, 
 as to feel the want of organisation : and because 
 Sagarelli was either too modest or else too incom- 
 petent to take the lead amongst them, they elected 
 one Guido Putaggi, a native of Parma, to be the 
 chief amongst them. It was, however, a contested 
 election, and the minority set up another man, by 
 name Matthew, against him. The order was thus 
 distracted by schism at a very early epoch (1275); 
 but the breach was healed up by Sagarelli himself, 
 who now consented to take the supreme authority 
 upon himself, and ruled over the order in peace and 
 charity to the day of liis death, in 1300. 
 
 § 3. The tenor of life of these poor people could 
 not have been more harmless. They promenaded 
 the streets of the towns chaunting church-hymns, 
 especially those in honour of the Virgin (the " Ave 
 Maria," and " Salve Regina) ; " this latter was a
 
 SAGAEELLl'S IDIOTCY. 73 
 
 recent eiFusion of the Church: they recited the Creed 
 of the Apostles, probably, with a view to prove their 
 orthodoxy ; for the rest they preached to those who 
 would listen ; and ate when people would give them 
 to eat. Their enemies, however, rated them, that 
 they should dare to style themselves apostolic, when 
 they " neither said mass nor confessed, but strolled 
 madly about, ogling the women and misleading such 
 of them as would hear them, whom they associated 
 to themselves as their sisters." 
 
 This, and all other statements respecting this 
 Gherardo Sagarelli, are made, as we said, by bitter 
 adversaries, and rest, therefore, on the most ques- 
 tionable authority. Almost all the particulars are 
 supplied by one Salimbenus de Adam, one of the 
 brethren of that very Franciscan convent which had 
 rejected the advances of the young devotee.* 
 
 § 4. This repulse, we are told, was grounded 
 upon the symptoms of unsound mind exhibited by 
 Sagarelli. Those monks, however, could not have 
 forgotten that the very saint who had founded their 
 order, about half a century before (1208), Francis 
 of Assisi was, according to the irrefragable testimony 
 
 * Ap, Pegnam, in Comment, in Emerici DIrectorium Inquisi- 
 torum. Venice, 159o, p. 271, &c. ; Mosheim, Ketzergeschichte, 
 2 vols. Ilelmstadt, 1748, vol. i. part ii.; Geschichte des Apostel- 
 ordens, book i. § 3.
 
 74 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 of his biographers and panegyrists, not only grossly 
 ignorant, but labouring under an affection of the 
 brain, brought about by the disorders and de- 
 bauchery of his previous life ; that he was " a man 
 of vanity, a buffoon." Mental alienation has ever, 
 in superstitious ages, been set down as a mark of 
 religious '* enlightenment." The new apostle, at any 
 rate, started on the same terms as the saint of Assisi ; 
 that is, by the distribution of his property among 
 the poor ; with this difference, merely, that Sagarelli 
 parted with what was indisputably his own, whilst 
 Francis made ducks and drakes of his father's mer- 
 chandise, a piece of impertinence with which the 
 latter was so sore displeased that he had him shut 
 up and flogged as a downright madman, and his 
 townspeople hooted and pelted him with mud as a 
 deranged person. The strange whim attributed to 
 Sagarelli of making himself like unto a child by put- 
 ting himself out to nurse is very near the acme of ab- 
 surdity, indeed; but what are we to think of a saint like 
 Francis, who stripped himself stark naked to clothe 
 the poor, had himself publicly flogged as an abomin- 
 able glutton for having partaken of a chicken ; built 
 up a stable like that in which our Saviour was born, 
 with the ox, and the ass, and the hay; where he 
 "bleated like a sheep, pronouncing the word Beth- 
 lehem, and licked his lips from very sweetness every
 
 FRANCIS OF ASSIST. 75 
 
 time he uttered the name of Jesus?" Sagarelli's 
 wish to conform to the great Master's example by 
 circumcision was scarcely so bold as that of Francis 
 himself, who had himself carried about with the 
 blood flowing from his hands and feet, on which, 
 as well as on his side, he had scars or fungus-flesh 
 formed so as to represent the five wounds of the 
 Crucifix; — those five signs or stigmata which, the 
 monks of Francis's order did not scruple to afiirm, had 
 been marked into the body of the saint by a seraph, 
 if not by the Redeemer himself in that disguise, 
 who had come down to him from heaven on the heights 
 of Mount Alverno, where Francis had prepared 
 himself for such an interview by a forty days' fast.* 
 
 § 5. It is not without purpose that we have alluded 
 to Francis of Assisi and the order founded by him. 
 The rise and progress of the so-called Mendicant 
 Fraternities, and especially of the Franciscans, at 
 the commencement of the thirteenth century, is in- 
 dissolubly connected with the subject on our hands. 
 Sagarelli's apostles were little else than dissenting 
 Franciscans. 
 
 A devout and sincere reverence for absolute 
 
 * Bonaventura, Vita St. Patris Francisci, cap. xiii. ; Thomas 
 Cellano, Vita St. Francisci, Act. SS. torn. ii. p. 685, &c. ; Lucas 
 Wadding, Annales Minorum, torn, viii., ix. ; Helyot, Ilistoire 
 des Ordres Monastiques, torn. vii. chap. i.
 
 76 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 poverty, a literal compliance with the precepts of 
 the Gospel, especially with respect to those words, 
 '^ Provide neither gold nor silver," &c.,* had always 
 been the test of all Christian holiness. The wealth 
 of the Church, and the arrogance and corruption 
 springing therefrom, was the eternal theme of re- 
 proach against her, and constituted her vulnerable 
 side. The heretics of the eleventh and twelfth 
 centuries, the Petrobrusians or Henricians, needed 
 scarcely any verbal argument. They took the field 
 clad in that very panoply of rags which was intended 
 to be the uniform of all Christians. They all styled 
 themselves ** the Poor of the Lord." Henry walked 
 barefooted, clad in the meanest attire, bearing a 
 heavy cross ; and Peter de Waldo, struck with the 
 sudden death of a friend, in the midst of the joys 
 of a genial banquet, went home, sold all he had, and 
 made the poor partakers of his considerable patri- 
 mony. These were no new achievements ; no new 
 doctrines. They were the deeds of those *' saints" 
 whom the Church held out as objects of worship. 
 The ** poor men of Lyons," or poor men of any sect, 
 thought the best homage to be paid to the memory 
 of those holy men was — imitation ; and in the con- 
 sciousness of the rectitude of their views, they beheld 
 
 ♦ Matthew, x. 10.
 
 BEGGARS IN AND OUT OF THE CHURCH. 77 
 
 with wrath and disdain the pomp and luxury of the 
 princely prelates and pontiffs of their time. They 
 were a reproach to the Church, and spared her not 
 their censure and upbraiding. They went past their 
 priests with feelings akin to that mixture of pride 
 and resentment with which the poor Methodist or 
 Independent of our own times, on his way to his 
 Ebenezer or Zion Chapel, may view the grand glitter- 
 ing chariot wafting my lord bishop to his splendid 
 cathedral, and splashing the poor dissenter with the 
 mud from its wheels, even if he escapes being trodden 
 under the horses' hoofs — my lord bishop, who five 
 minutes later will be reading his own condemnation 
 in every line of the sermon on the mount. 
 
 § 6. The Church of the middle ages was aware of 
 the glaring inconsistency. She could not, would not, 
 mend her ways truly ; but she strove to moderate, to 
 counteract an evil which admitted of no radical cure. 
 She enlisted the votaries of poverty in her own ranks. 
 Against sectarian enthusiasm she set up monastic 
 fanaticism. 
 
 The monks were to be *' the poor of the Pope.'* 
 Poverty was with most of them the first of sacred 
 vows. Yet, somehow the holiest engagements had 
 been invariably set aside, the strictest rule tampered 
 with and evaded ; the intentions of all archiman- 
 drites shamelessly frustrated. Yain were the example
 
 78 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 and prescription of Benedict of Norcia, in the sixth 
 century, vain the repeated reforms of Clugny, Citeaux, 
 and Clairvaux in the eleventh and twelfth. White, 
 brown or black, all friars were alike : they started 
 fair enough ; but when, like the Cistertians in the 
 twelfth century, they could boast of eighteen hundred 
 religious houses for monks, and fourteen hundred for 
 women*, they felt all the plenitude of their power 
 and insisted upon the enjoyment of its fruits. They 
 began as beggars, ended as princes ; they went to the 
 very height of absurdity in their aristocratic exclu- 
 siveness : there were brotherhoods every member 
 of which must prove noble descent of at least two 
 hundred years ; sisterhoods to which none were ad- 
 mitted but those who could show " their four 
 quarters " on the side of both parents.f 
 
 It was to little purpose that some of the brethren 
 were confined to the barren solitudes of the Alpine 
 passes, at La Novalaise, or on Mount St. Bernard, or 
 were secreted among the leafy God-haunted recesses 
 of the Apennines, at Camaldoli or Vallombrosa : in 
 vain were they bound to rules of perpetual silence, 
 or left to solace themselves with the daily task of 
 digging their own graves. All monks had a down- 
 
 * !Miclielet, Histoire de France, livre iv. cbap. viL 
 f Ibid, livre ir.
 
 PERVERSITY OF THE MONKS. 79 
 
 ward tendency ; somehow or other they soon found 
 their way to the plains; they settled on the fat 
 of the land ; on it they wallowed, a swinish herd, 
 after the lapse of one or two generations. 
 
 The immense stir created by the thousand and one 
 sects of dissenters towards the latter part of the 
 twelfth century, rendered the continuance of such a 
 state of things an utter impossibility : and Innocent 
 III., who had at the Council of Lateran, in 1215, 
 forbidden the erection of new " Religions," that is, 
 monastic orders*, was, however, obliged to modify, if 
 not to rescind, his own decree, by countenancing the 
 formation of several fraternities, which received the 
 formal sanction of his successors. f He, however, only 
 admitted of " monks that were monks," — that would 
 go begging for thePope's sake. All were distinguished 
 by the name of " Mendicants," and the principal of 
 them were the " Preaching Friars " or Dominicans, 
 and the " Minor Friars " or Franciscans. 
 
 § 7. Their aim and office was sufficiently obvious. 
 Dominic himself, on his first appearance in the South 
 of France, in the suite of the Bishop of Osma, had 
 made the Cistertian monks aware that *' they did not 
 go to work in the right way, if their object was the 
 conversion of heretics." He bade them alight from 
 
 * Harduin, Concilia, torn. vii. p. 31. 
 
 f Under Honorius IV., in 1216 and 1213.
 
 80 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 their richly- capai'isoned mules, to lay aside their fine 
 clothes, and, in short, beat the Albigensian doctors at 
 their own weapons, by as strict a practice of the pre- 
 cepts of the Gospel as the latter " affected." Another 
 earnest believer, like Dominic, also a native of 
 Spain, by name Durando d'Huesca, who had been 
 one of the Waldenses, proposed to institute a brother- 
 hood of '^ poor Catholics," with whom the " poor 
 men of Lyons," would, he doubted not, willingly asso- 
 ciate. The good man, however, imitated the " appa- 
 rent " virtues of the Waldenses so well, that he was 
 suspected of a relapse into their errors, and a stop 
 was put to his conciliatory mission.* 
 
 At any rate, however, it was everywhere "Heresy 
 teaching orthodoxy the w^ay that it should go." Francis 
 of Assisi himself, though a native of Italy, spent the 
 best part of his youth in the South of France ; so 
 that, indeed, on his return home, he could hardly 
 speak anything else than French ; hence the name 
 Franciscus given him by his countrymen instead of his 
 baptismal appellation of Giovanni Bernardone. We 
 suspect that he picked up something besides the 
 idiom of that country of his early training. That he 
 had been edified by the poverty of the Waldenses 
 and other sects, and that some of their notions were 
 
 ♦ Gesta Innocentii, iii. lib. xi. cap. 196.
 
 POPES AND SAINTS. 81 
 
 running through his mind, when he at last stepped 
 before Innocent III., in 1208, and offered — as that 
 more than half-Franciscan Dante beautifully ex- 
 pressed it, — to wed that real Bride of Christ, who 
 
 " bereaved 
 
 Of her First Husband, slighted and obscure, 
 Thousand and hundred years, and more, remained 
 Without a single suitor, till he came."* 
 
 § 8. It is perhaps not unimportant to observe that 
 Rome and Italy had, to a great extent, those monkish 
 beggars forced upon them. The Church of Rome 
 was then, as well as at all times, so utterly destitute 
 of " grace," as not only to be unable to originate any 
 measure for her own good, but even to hesitate in 
 taking ads^antage of such instruments as Providence 
 raised up in her behalf. Innocent III. and his car- 
 dinals were at first only startled at the fiery zeal of 
 the Spanish Dominic, and all but disgusted at the 
 vulgar antics of the half-Gallicised Francis. f In the 
 same manner, three centuries later, another fanatic, 
 also from Spain, met with very equivocal sympathy 
 at the court of Paul III. And the permission to 
 enlist the formidable army of the Jesuits was almost 
 
 * " Questa, privata del primo marito, 
 
 Mllle e cent' anni e piu dispetta e scura, 
 Sino a costui si stette senza invito. 
 
 Dante, Paradiso, canto xi. Gary's Trans, 
 f Michelet, Hist, de France, livre iv. chap. viii. 
 G
 
 82 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 extorted from the bewildered and half-reluctant 
 pontiff.* 
 
 Nor were the people of Italy the best material for 
 those mendicant enthusiasts to work upon, at least, 
 on their first start. Dominic, indeed, sought his 
 recruits among the hot-headed natives of Southern 
 France ; hot-headed by nature, and now kept in a 
 state of preternatural ferment by the bloody scenes 
 of the wars of Languedoc. Francis, who tried his 
 fortune in Italy, met, at first, with nothing but con- 
 tumely among his countrymen of Umbria. As if 
 to bear us out in the parallel which we have drawn 
 between him and Sagarelli, he, too, was allowed to 
 preach for years, before a single person — and that 
 a poor idiot of Assisi — could be prevailed upon to 
 join him in 11 OS, and in 1210 he had but eleven 
 followers. 
 
 The wonder-working seed was no less sown. The 
 Roman prelates were too good politicians not to 
 see, after a moment's reflection, all they could ex- 
 pect from those madmen's services ; and the people 
 felt, almost instinctively, that they had found men 
 after their own heart. Only nine years later, five 
 thousand Franciscans, all Italians, attended the gene- 
 ral chapter of the order; and the Dominicans, on 
 their side, had so prospered on the same soil, that 
 * Ranke, Hist, of the Popes, book ii. § 4.
 
 SPREAD OF MENDICANT ORDERS. 83 
 
 the number of their communities in a single Italian 
 province, such as Tuscany or Lombardy, equalled 
 that of the same establishments in any of the great 
 European monarchies.* This, perhaps, not so much 
 owing to great proneness on the part of the Italians 
 to plunge deeply into any new madness as soon as it 
 has received the sanction of fashion, as to the well- 
 being and great means of those Lombard and Tuscan 
 cities, which enabled them to provide for the endow- 
 ment of religious no less than of all other civil or social 
 institutions. 
 
 The admiration and idolatry both of the multitude 
 and of the great for these shavelings, who had been 
 sent out to do " the begging work of the Church," 
 exceeded all bounds. In less than half a century 
 they alone were the Church. All other places of 
 worship were deserted; they alone confessed and ad- 
 ministered the sacraments ; their preachers alone 
 were sure of crowded audiences. Popes hardly chose 
 their messengers — monarchs their councillors, — any 
 where else.f Princes and nobles, men of valour oi 
 genius, St. Louis, Blanche of Castile, Dante, Boccaccio, 
 a thousand persons of equal note, sued for the privi- 
 
 * In 1278, the Dominicans had 417 cloisters : 32 in Tuscany ; 
 46 in Lombardy ; 3o in Spain ; 40 in England ; 52 in France ; 
 53 in Germany, &c. 
 
 f Matthew Paris, Historia Major, p. 634. seep ; and at the 
 years 1236, 1239, pp. 354. 465. 607 
 
 G 2
 
 84 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 lege of wearing the habit, at least, as lay brethren or 
 sisters, of one of these orders. Hardly a Christian 
 died without having his body wrapped in some sordid 
 Dominican or Franciscan frock, under conviction that 
 he could wear no better comforter in the last hour of 
 agony ; confident that St. Peter would hardly think 
 of shutting the gate of Paradise in the face of any 
 one who presented himself under covering of that 
 privileged gear. 
 
 " They all, 
 Dying put on the weeds of Dominic, 
 Or as Franciscans hoped to pass disguised." 
 
 The main object and chief boast of both these and 
 other orders of the same period, was in their vow of 
 absolute poverty ; but the efficiency of the Domini- 
 cans was soon directed to other purposes. They 
 became the " Preaching Friars," and were sent to 
 convert the enemies of the faith, and soon sat in 
 judgment against tliose misbelievers they were unable 
 to convince. They were trusted with the manage- 
 ment of the Inquisition ; constituted, that is, into a 
 vast commission De hceretico comhurendo. 
 
 § 9. The Franciscans made poverty more exclu- 
 sively their business ; they monopolised it. All pre- 
 vious orders had made the vow of poverty personal, 
 allowing, however, the whole brotherhood the pos- 
 session of such estates and revenues as they deemed 
 sufficient for their maintenance. But Francis inter-
 
 BEAUTIES OF BEGGAliY. 85 
 
 dieted both individual and collective possession. 
 "Let them go a begging," vadant pro eleemosynas, 
 were the words of the rule.* His disciples were to 
 have neither house nor home ; they could lay no 
 claim to the very frock they wore, to the mass-book 
 they read, to the basket in which they received the 
 bread that charity awarded them. Like the cynic of 
 old, they were to throw off their wooden bowl so 
 soon as experience taught them that they could drink 
 water with the hollow of their hand. 
 
 The Dominicans had it in their power to inspire 
 terror; but the Franciscans alone soon were the 
 darlings of tlie multitude. No long time elapsed 
 ere the popes charged them with the sale of indul- 
 gences, and the extreme liberality with which they 
 dealt out God's pardon made these pedlars most 
 welcome amongst a generation that had in all pro- 
 bability not a little to compound for. 
 
 § 10. Excessive popularity could hardly fail to 
 render them insolent and overbearing. Independent 
 of the bishops and of all other ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
 tion, at war with all the rest of the clergy, with all 
 other monks, with their mendicant brethren especially, 
 and with none more bitterly than the Dominicans, 
 — whom they affected to call " Fratrcs majores," to 
 
 * Rule of St. Francis, cap. vi. 
 
 G 3
 
 86 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 enhance the more perfect lowlmess of the " Minores " 
 — these cowled intriguers caused the Church and its 
 head quite as much trouble as would counterbalance 
 any good that might be expected from them. Nor 
 was their hand only raised against every priest or 
 monk, and every priest or monk's against them ; for 
 more than two centuries the most violent dissensions 
 raged in their own bosom ; and their annals, compiled 
 by the Irish Lucas Wadding, one of their order, fill 
 lip eighteen folio volumes, with little more than their 
 schisms and heresies, their factions and secessions.* 
 
 The chief subject of dispute rested precisely on 
 the observance of their rule, especially on the very 
 score of that " sublime " poverty, in the name of 
 which, in expectation of the kingdom of heaven, 
 they claimed little less than the empire of the earth, j- 
 Even during the lifetime of their founder, at the 
 time of his mission to Egypt, in 1219, the deputy- 
 general Elias, trusted by him with the charge of the 
 fraternity, had suffered some abuses to creep in, and 
 Francis, on his return, had no slight trouble in 
 bringing back his disciples to their original discipline. 
 But after the death of the saint (in the year 1226 j 
 
 ♦ Edit, of Kome, 1731. 
 
 f " Ilia celsitudo altissimae paupertatis, quae vos fratres meos 
 ha^redes et reges regni ccelorum instituit." — Rule of Francis, 
 cap. vi.
 
 BEGGARY MADE EASY. 87 
 
 the 44th of his age), not only did the monks depart 
 from the most irksome precepts of their master, but 
 obtained from Gregory IX., in 1231, what was called 
 an «' interpretation," that is, relaxation of the rule. 
 Similar, more or less convenient, constructions were 
 put by almost every succeeding pontiff on the 
 inexorable letter of the text ; and it came to this at 
 last that the monks were allowed *' the simple use of 
 things necessary," whilst the right of property, the 
 legal possession and ownership, should belong to 
 St. Peter, that is, to the pope himself. This last 
 clause was abandoned in later times, and by dint of 
 " explanations," of those words " free use " and 
 '^ necessary things," these *^ thorough beggars " came 
 in the end to be no worse off than the fattest of their 
 brethren. 
 
 This flagrant deviation of the institution from its 
 original aim could not, however, be effected without 
 strong opposition. Some of the brethren, and these 
 originally the most honest and conscientious, rebelled 
 against the papal decision ; and from its very found- 
 ation there was thus a split in the order, which only 
 widened with time, and gave rise at last to two 
 distinct factions, — that of the ** Conventual" Francis- 
 cans, who abided by each successive decree of either 
 pope, or council, or chapter of their order ; and the 
 Zealous or Spiritual Franciscans, who persisted in a 
 
 G 4
 
 88 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 literal compliance with the fundamental principles of 
 their institutions, and did so, in frequent instances, 
 in sheer defiance both of their own " generals," and 
 of the head itself of the Church. These latter were 
 sometimes called " Fraterculi " or ** Fraticelli," a 
 title which ought properly to have belonged to the 
 whole order, since it was only another termination of 
 their original appellation of " Fratres Minores," but 
 which the Spirituals fondly usurped for themselves, 
 as expressive of the greater perfection of their lives ; 
 and which their adversaries, the Conventuals, allowed 
 them by way of contempt.* 
 
 Besides the brethren who bore his own name, and 
 the Clarissian nuns, or Sisters of St. Clara, instituted, 
 the first in 1208 — 1216, the latter in 1212, St. 
 Francis had also, in 1224, established a third order, 
 into which any lay person could enter, by merely 
 conforming to certain religious practices, without 
 otherwise quitting the world, their family, property, 
 or avocation. These la3'-associates were called 
 " Tertiarii," or brethren and sisters of the Third 
 Order, and went also by the name of *^ Penitentiary 
 brethren." As we have seen, there was hardly a man, 
 from the prince to the boor, who was not, at some 
 time or other of his life, seized with a whim to don 
 
 * Mosheim, Ecclesiast. Hist., vol. ii p. 674, &c.
 
 MONKISH SQUABBLES. 89 
 
 the sackcloth or gird on the cord — the distinctive 
 marks that qualified a follower of the saint. 
 
 These Tertiarii embraced, of course, some of them 
 the views of the Conventuals, some of the Spirituals, 
 but, as these latter, notwithstanding their mad 
 vagaries, so often verging on sheer blasphemy and 
 impiety, were, after all, the true Franciscans ; as they 
 followed the Rule, the whole Rule, and nothing but 
 the Rule, — they of course came in for the largest 
 share of the honour awarded by mankind to the ideas 
 of their founder, and had a far greater suite among 
 the brethren of the Third Order, who viewed the 
 " Beauties of Beggary " only in theory, whilst on 
 themselves the Rule sat easy enough. 
 
 These monkish squabbles were for some time 
 carried on within the bosom of the community ; now 
 the one party, now the other, obtaining the upper 
 hand, and forcing its opponents to conformity with 
 its peculiar views; but not unfrequently also, they 
 came to open rupture ; the worsted party went 
 asunder, or was cast out of the fraternity, and filled 
 the world with its grievances. 
 
 § 11. It soon became evident, nevertheless, that 
 the Lax or Conventual party would secure a per- 
 manent advantage : it put itself under the patronage 
 of the Court of Rome, and was consequently entitled 
 to the appellation of orthodox. The other party, on
 
 90 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 the contrary, that of the Spirituals, and especially 
 those amongst them who were known as Fraticelli 
 (little imps of monks), had to withstand the dis- 
 pleasure of the whole Church, and was charged with 
 heresy, not only on account of its peculiar views 
 respecting the perfection of the Rule, which was held 
 as little else than an improvement on the Gospel 
 and of the interpretation of the poverty professed by 
 Christ and the Apostles — but also in consequence of 
 Manichaean and other unsound doctrines, so readily, 
 so invariably imputed to any person who presumed 
 to be at variance with the Church of Rome. 
 
 These poor Fraticelli were therefore, from sheer 
 necessity, driven into the ranks of opposition. They 
 were "licensed" beggars, from whom the Papal badge 
 had been taken. Conformity of views, no less than 
 community of interests, made them seek their allies 
 among those swarms of Beghards or Beguins, among 
 those *' Apostles," who professed to follow the letter 
 of the Gospel, especially by a state of total destitu- 
 tion, squalor, and wretchedness. The regular 
 brethren themselves were, perhaps, sufficiently well 
 informed and moderate to avoid the worst errors of 
 their new associates ; they were at least distin- 
 guishable by their habit, and might be closely 
 watched in case of need, and taken to task. But all 
 the ignorant, fanatic, loose rabble of the Tertiarii,
 
 THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 91 
 
 bound by no vow, were at liberty to consort with 
 every description of dissenters, and many of them, no 
 doubt, went to swell the ranks of the worst enemies 
 of Rome. 
 
 § 12. At the time that Sagarelli applied for ad- 
 mission into the convent at Parma, the Lax or 
 Conventual party had obtained a signal success, and 
 the Spirituals, now mustering, especially in Southern 
 France, under the famous Peter John Oliva, had 
 thrown off all allegiance, and rose in open rebellion 
 against the Church of Rome, upon which they 
 lavished that commonplace and yet ever-galling name 
 of the "Scarlet Lady of Babylon."* We have al- 
 ready alluded f to the prophecies of that gifted 
 Joachim, Abbot of Corazzo, and afterwards of 
 Flora in Calabria, founder of several convents. The 
 soothsayer had died long since (he lived from 1130 
 to 1202); but his predictions had now obtained a 
 wide circulation, and assumed a greater significance 
 from extraneous circumstances. A book, attributed 
 to him, and entitled " The Everlasting Gospel," 
 had lately been published (1254), together with 
 another work professing to be " An Introduction to 
 the Everlasting Gospel," which had also, without 
 good ground, been attributed to John of Parma, one 
 of the few " Generals " of the Franciscan order who 
 
 * Wadding, Annales Minorum, torn. v. p. 51. 
 f Ajite, chap. i. § 40.
 
 92 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 ever embraced the views of the Zealous or Spiritual 
 party, but which might more probably be traced 
 to one Gherard, a friend and follower of his, pos- 
 sibly also from Parma (that town has always been 
 famous for heretics and antipopes) who had warmly 
 embraced the views attributed to the abbot Joachim, 
 and lay for more than eighteen years in a dungeon 
 rather than abandon them.* 
 
 The substance of these books, wdioever the authors 
 really were, was simply, that the Gospel of Christ 
 was merely intended for a transitory purpose ; that it 
 was now worn out, and another should be substituted 
 in its stead. The book of Joachim stated that the 
 world had hitherto gone through two imperfect ages 
 or dispensations ; that the Father and the Son had 
 successively held their sway ; but that the era of the 
 Spirit was now at hand — the era of love and charity, 
 of true holiness and perfection. The prophecy was 
 to be fulfilled at a stated time, namely, six years after 
 its promulgation, or about the year 1260, — the 
 reader should not forget that this date coincides with 
 the beginning of Sagarelli's apostolate, — and was 
 to be effected by barefooted brethren, hallowed by the 
 practice of true apostolical poverty and humility. 
 This epoch was fraught with utter ruin to the Pope, 
 to his whole hierarchy, to all priests and monks 
 
 * Mosheim, Ecclesiast. Hist., vol. ii. p. 569. ; and Geschichte 
 des Apostelordens, note i.
 
 HERESY IN THE CHURCH. 93 
 
 without exception. These tracts, which were most 
 undoubtedly the work of some Franciscan, and not 
 unlikely of some of the schismatic Fraticelli, gave 
 rise to the most insane, tumultuous expectations. 
 Every set of vagrants who gave sanctity a preference 
 over industry as a means of making their livelihood, 
 — men who deemed themselves exempt from that 
 very first and most just and provident of God's 
 laws, that of " earning our bread in the sweat of our 
 brow," — by far the most damnable of all heresies in 
 our own estimation, — every one of those sects, we 
 repeat, conceived itself chosen and set apart to work 
 out the designs of Providence, to usher in the new 
 era of Joachim, to wreak heaven's vengeance on that 
 Church which had done so much towards rendering 
 Christ's Gospel a dead letter. 
 
 § 13. Nothing, therefore, may be said to have 
 more strongly contributed to spread and strengthen 
 heresy, than that very Franciscan institution, which 
 the founder had intended as the main prop of the 
 Papacy, on which he had enjoined the blindest 
 obedience to the Roman see. The seceding men- 
 dicants were amongst the most violent of those 
 various sectarians to whom the Germans applied the 
 vague but most appropriate name of Beghards or 
 beggars. 
 
 We have already alluded to Mosheim's definition
 
 94 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 of that word*, which leaves nothing to wish for. He 
 derives it from the old German word beggen or 
 beggeren, now begehren, to long for, or to crave. 
 It was used at first to designate both those who 
 prayed earnestly to God, and those who asked for 
 alms in God's name, — hard-praying men, — persons 
 of extraordinary piety or devotion, whether sincere 
 or affected, and hard beggars, living at the expense of 
 far better men than themselves. To the first deno- 
 mination might belong the Waldenses, the Belgian 
 Beguins, all those who chose to be poor but la- 
 borious ; to the latter the " Brethren of the Free 
 Spirit," Turlupins, Apostles, and so many other mad- 
 men or rascals who followed no occupation, under the 
 very good pretence that " they had God's work to 
 do." 
 
 There is no doubt, in our mind, but Sagarelli ap- 
 proached the convent of the Franciscans under the 
 influence of the views of the Fraticelli or Spirituals. 
 He was, in all probability, a single-minded man, 
 and would not admit of two interpretations of the 
 same words. He spoke to the Franciscans in the 
 name of Francis ; and as he stood firm against all 
 sophistry, nothing more natural than that the monks 
 
 * Mosheim, Eccl. Hist., vol. ii. p. 578., note. See also ante^ 
 chap. i. § 40.
 
 SAGARELLI'S REAL MOTIVES. 95 
 
 should set him down as an obstinate fool, an illiterate 
 idiot. 
 
 This seems all the more probable, as the first 
 person who ever joined him in his apostolate was 
 that Robert whom Salimbenus de Adam describes as 
 having been a servant of the Minor Brethren.* 
 The mere mention of domestic service amongst the 
 disciples of St. Francis is sufficiently striking. That 
 Robert, however, in all probability, was merely one 
 of those poor lay brethren employed in menial offices 
 in all monastic establishments. He had, perhaps, 
 entered the order with different views and inten- 
 tions, and was inclined to grumble at the odd notions 
 of fraternal equality entertained by his patrons : 
 nothing more natural, in that case, than that he 
 should turn from them in a huff, and go over to the 
 ranter in the streets, whose beggary was at least 
 tangible, and therefore came up to his idea of a true 
 Franciscan. 
 
 That Sagarelli started nothing very new, and, 
 openly at least, professed nothing that his enemies 
 could lay hold of, may result from the fact, that for 
 a term of twenty years the sect met with no serious 
 check or hindrance. They were looked upon as 
 mere " opposition beggars," as one of the many new 
 brotherhoods of " saints," under a variety of hoods, 
 
 * Ap. Pegnam, in Eymeric, p. 271.
 
 96 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 cowls, cloaks, and other guises, to which the secession 
 of the strictest Franciscans successively gave rise. 
 As such they might of course be presumed to he in 
 hostility with the Church ; but this latter did not 
 yet deem it expedient to proceed to the worst ex- 
 tremities against them. These were no longer the 
 days of Innocent III. or Gregory IX. ; men, with all 
 their faults of harshness and intemperance, who had 
 the interests of religion, such as they understood it, 
 truly at heart, and who were earnestly bent on the 
 preservation of unity of faith. The popes who 
 reigned during the latter part of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, such men as Nicholas III. and Nicholas IV., 
 Martin IV., &c., were worldlings, all intent upon 
 the final success of the Guelph party, meddling in 
 all the feuds of the lawless Roman barons, and only 
 anxious to promote the advantage of their Orsini 
 or Colonna families. They were the very men who 
 introduced or improved that shameless favouritism 
 that went by the name of " Papal Nepotism." 
 Heresy of all kind had, therefore, a respite for a few 
 years ; and it was precisely at this epoch (1260 — 
 1280) that we have seen such deep deceivers as 
 Hermann Pungilupus at Ferrara, or Wilhelmina at 
 Milan, practising on popular credulity with utter 
 impunity.* 
 
 * See ante, chap. i. § 39. and 52.
 
 SPREAD OF THE APOSTLES. 97 
 
 § 14. Together with these, Sa^relli also managed 
 to thrive. The Order of the Apostles is said, even at 
 this early epoch, to have spread abroad ; not only in 
 most parts of Lombardy, but even in Germany, 
 England, and Spain. These assertions must, however, 
 be taken with some discrimination. The mere ap- 
 pellation of Apostles, or Apostolic brethren, was no 
 novelty. We have seen * some of these in Burgundy, 
 and other parts of France, in the previous century. 
 Some of those " brethren of the Free Spirit," who 
 were named " Schwestrones," or Sisterers, in Ger- 
 many, because they went about accompanied by 
 women called by them Sisters, had also, in very many 
 points, affinity with our sectarians. Some " Apostles" 
 were, in 1287, traduced before a council held at 
 Wurtzburg, under Rudolf of Habsburg ; when a decree 
 was issued by which they were forbidden to preach 
 and to beg, and the people were warned against en- 
 couraging such vagabonds by their liberalities of 
 meat and drink.f In Germany these Apostles were 
 called " Lekker," an old word, equivalent to the 
 English ** lecherous," on account of the loose morals 
 attributed to them, as invariably to all men of the 
 same class. Another set of pseudo-Apostles was also 
 
 * Ante, chap. i. §§ 17. 22.^ 
 
 t Harduini, Concilia, torn. viL p. 1141. 
 
 H
 
 98 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 proscribed in England, at a council held at Chichester, 
 in 1289*: but Mosheim thinks f these could have 
 no connexion with Sagarelli's brethren, inasmuch as 
 the English Apostles shaved their heads, preached in 
 churches, and admitted confession, practices all these 
 wholly at variance ^^'ith those of the Italian Apostles : 
 it is more than probable, nevertheless, that all these 
 sects sprung up in obedience to the same leading 
 idea, — that is, a conformation to the example of 
 apostolic life, — and assumed different habits and 
 practices, according to the peculiar construction each 
 of them put on the words of the New Testament. 
 But at a much later period (1300), some Apostles, 
 tracing their origin to the school of Sagarelli at 
 Parma, seem to have been found in Spain and 
 Southern France : one Richard, a native of Alessan- 
 dria, had travelled into those regions, and had been 
 especially successful in Gallicia. All this, however, 
 rests wholly on the testimony of Peter of Lugo, one 
 of the Apostles, who was apprehended and brought 
 before the Inquisition at Toulouse in 1320, and in 
 his recantation stated, amongst other things, that he 
 had been perverted by that same Richard of Aless- 
 andria twenty years before. ;}: 
 
 * Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Britann, torn. ii. p. 173. 
 "I" Mosheim, Geschichte des Apostelordens, book i. § ix. 
 X Limborch, Philip, Hist. Inquisitionis, Liber Sententianim, 
 p. 361. : Amsterdam, 1692, fol.
 
 THE BISHOP OF PARMA. 99 
 
 § 15. In Lombardy, however, the disciples of 
 Sagarelli may have met with decided success ere 
 1280, the first epoch in which they began to attract 
 the attention of their foes. 
 
 The Bishop of Parma, from 1258 to 1295, was 
 Obizzo Sanvitale, a son of Margarita de Fieschi, sister 
 of Innocent IV. and aunt of Adrian V. Obizzo, no 
 less than his elder brother Alberto, who occupied the 
 same see from 1244 to 1257, had been somewhat 
 forced upon the diocese by the interest of the Fieschi 
 family, at that time all-powerful at Rome.* The 
 Sanvitale, one of the most conspicuous families of 
 Parma, were then rising into distinction : they have 
 in all ages evinced great liberality and benevolence of 
 disposition ; several of that name have played a leading 
 part in all the national movements of recent times. 
 The Bishop Obizzo, like so many of the prelates of 
 that epoch, was rather a statesman than a priest : 
 he meddled in the quarrels of Guelphs and Ghibe- 
 lines, till he managed, in 1295, to get himself and 
 family violently driven from Parma. A very strict 
 care of the flock could not be expected from such 
 a shepherd : and the mastiffs of the Inquisition 
 were for a long period (1279 — 1287) providentially 
 put out of the way. By one of those tumultuous 
 
 * Litla, Famiglie Celebri di Italia, Sanvitale di Parma. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 scenes frequent in the Italian cities at that age, the 
 people of Parma had fallen upon those misnamed 
 Preaching Friars, as they were roasting one of their 
 victims (a woman, and the disciple of another woman) ; 
 they had fallen on them with curses and hard blows, 
 had killed one and wounded several of them, and had 
 even burst into their house, and carried ravage and 
 destruction every where.* The city, of course, was 
 put under the interdict, and made to sue for a recon- 
 ciliation with and re-admission of those cowled fiends; 
 but that was matter for several years' negotiation, and 
 in the interval heresy was allowed to run riot. The 
 bishop, however, in 1280, heard, for the first time, 
 that Sagarelli had been heard uttering invectives 
 against the Holy Church. He had him immediately 
 apprehended, and, after some examination coming to 
 the conclusion that the man was no worse than a poor 
 demented visionary, released him from durance, and 
 allowed him the run of his own episcopal palace, 
 where he was sent to keep company with the court 
 fools and other idlers and parasites of that princely 
 establishment, f 
 
 In this kind of easy seclusion the Apostle continued 
 for six years. In 1286, however, not improbably 
 
 * Chronicon Parmense, Rer. Ital. Script, torn. ix. p. 792-811. 
 Memoriale Potestatum Eegienslum, Rer. Ital. torn. viii. p. 1146. 
 f Salimbenus de Adam, ap Pegnam. p. 171.
 
 SAGARELLl'S CAREER. 101 
 
 because the inquisitors were then urged to return, 
 and the bishop shrunk from the responsibility of 
 abetting a misbeliever, Sagarelli was deemed un- 
 worthy of the shelter hitherto enjoyed, and banished 
 from the town and diocese under Obizzo's juris- 
 diction. Little or nothing is known of his sayings 
 and doings in the land of exile; but, in 1294, he 
 appears to have broken the ban, and to have clandes- 
 tinely come back to his native state. He was again 
 brought before the bishop, who condemned him to 
 perpetual imprisonment. Even then he was dealt 
 with with singular favour and indulgence ; as four 
 of his disciples, two men and two women, all coming 
 under the denomination of Apostles, were burnt alive, 
 probably by the Dominicans, at the same juncture.* 
 In the year 1300, Sagarelli was once more in 
 trouble. That was, we may remember f, a terrible 
 year — the year of the Jubilee, in which the Church 
 seemed to rake up all heretic grievances, sparing 
 neither the quick nor the dead, digging up the graves 
 of Pungilupus and Wilhelmina, and putting to death 
 all who bore witness to their election. It is not quite 
 clear whether the unfortunate Apostle had broken 
 loose from confinement, and had afterwards once more 
 
 * Chronic. Parmens. p. 826. 
 t Ante, chap. i. §§ 39. 52. 
 u 3
 
 102 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 fallen into his enemies' hands, or if these thought 
 proper to revise his sentence, merely with a view to 
 make an example of him, and treat the people of 
 Parma to one of their horrid feasts : but the fact is, 
 that he was submitted to a more severe interrogatory 
 by Father Manfred, the Grand Inquisitor at Parma, 
 who so plied him with the instruments of his terrible 
 craft, as to convict him of a relapse into errors for- 
 merly abjured, and thus, as an impenitent and per- 
 jured heretic, to " deliver him over to the secular 
 arm," — the technical phrase for sending a wretch to 
 the stake.* 
 
 This happened on the 18th of July, 1300; and 
 Father Manfred, now fully on the scent of these 
 Apostolical abominations, allowed himself no rest till, 
 by fire and the sword, and a variety of other punish- 
 ments, he had cleared the town and country of the 
 sect, and "purged the air" of their pestilential doc- 
 trines. | 
 
 Further particulars about Sagarelli's execution 
 occur in the Chronicle of a contemporary J, a Domi- 
 
 * See the Appendix at the end of this volume: A. Sagarelli's 
 son. 
 
 f Eymeric, Directorium Inquisitorum, p. 268. Addita- 
 mentum ad Historiam F. Dulcini, Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script, 
 torn. ix. p. 450. 
 
 J Fr. Jacobi ab Aquis, Chronicon Imaginis Mundi, in Mon- 
 ument. Hist. Patriae {Sabaudice) torn. iii. p. 1607.
 
 HERETICS AT THE STAKE. 103 
 
 nican, and a man of considerable learning for his age. 
 He informs us that a great heresy had broken out at 
 Parma, and that its sectarians held a very bold ir- 
 reverent language with respect to the Christian faith ; 
 that one of these, Gherardo Sagarelli, and one of his 
 associates, who was under the control of the Evil 
 One, were led to the stake. " Being in the fire," 
 says the chronicler, " he called out * Help, Asmo- 
 deus ! ' and forthwith the flames were extinguished. 
 This happened three times. At length the Inqui- 
 sitor bethought himself of bringing the * Body of 
 Jesus Christ' under his cloak, to the place of execu- 
 tion ; when the heretic was once more placed on the 
 burning pile, and this set on fire. The heretic again 
 cried out * Asmodeus, to the rescue!' But the 
 demons were heard in the air, answering, * Alas ! 
 we cannot; for He who is now come forward is 
 stronger than we are.' And thus the heretic was 
 consumed." The people of Parma, we learn further, 
 were, as usual, roused into fury by this atrocious 
 sight. They broke into the house of the Inquisition, 
 and did great damage there, — a damage for which 
 the city afterwards, by the Pope's order, had to 
 make ample amends. 
 
 What the real errors and other heinous offences 
 that brought these unfortunate wretches to their 
 doom could be, it is not yet in our power to declare ; 
 
 H 4
 
 104 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 for we cannot take the evidence of their enemies 
 against them, — not at least without sifting and con- 
 trasting it with itself. 
 
 Till 1280, that is, for at least twenty years, they 
 seem to have committed themselves to no impeachable 
 act. Only six years later, when the town was bent 
 upon propitiating the court of Rome and the Domi- 
 nicans, it seems that some ultra-zealous person called 
 the attention of Pope Honorius IV. upon their 
 doings. In his bull of the 11th of March, 1286, 
 that pontiff, referring to an enactment of his prede- 
 cessor, Gregory X., who, at the Council of Lyons, in 
 1274, had forbidden all religious brotherhoods not 
 belonging to the orders approved by the Church, 
 reminds his bishops and other ecclesiastical authorities 
 that a sect called " of the Apostles " had now sprung 
 up, which did not appertain to any of the acknow- 
 ledged monastic communities. He orders, therefore, 
 that all these sectarians should be stripped of their 
 Apostolic garb, and forbidden to continue in their 
 unlawful association. But such of them as had a 
 vocation for a life of penitence should he admonished 
 to betake themselves to any of the fraternities living 
 under the protection of the Church ; adding, that such 
 of these brethren as proved refractory should be 
 proceeded against with all the rigour of ecclesiastical 
 discipline, even calling in, in case of need, the inter-
 
 INFRACTION OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE. 105 
 
 ference of the secular arm. It is almost incidentally 
 stated in the bull, that one of the dangers to be ap- 
 prehended from the continuance of such abuses, lies 
 in the liability of such ignorant fanatics to fall into 
 erroneous and even heretic notions, as the Pope has 
 heard, to his infinite regret, that some of the impious 
 doctrines which the Church was so hard striving to 
 eradicate, were supjwsed to have crept in among these 
 incautious sectarians.* 
 
 Hitherto all the guilt of the Apostles is, therefore, 
 mere infraction of Church discipline. Their heresy 
 either remains yet to be proved, or is the result of 
 mere venial inadvertency, since Honorius would 
 hardly have dreamt of recommending confirmed here- 
 tics as fit candidates for any of the monastic flocks 
 flourishing under shelter of the Papal sheepfold. 
 
 In the same words and to the same eflfect, we are 
 informed, another bull was issued in 1290, three 
 years after the restoration of those sharp-sighted in- 
 quisitors at Parma. The bull is no longer extant, 
 but allusion occurs to it in Eymericf, who describes 
 it as a mere iteration of the former decree. 
 
 § 16. The vicissitudes of the sect for the ten re- 
 maining years of the century are involved in con- 
 
 * See the bull in Ejmeric, Direct. Inquisit. p. 270. Addit. 
 ad Dulcini Historiam, p. 448. 
 f Direct. Inquisit. p. 271.
 
 106 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 siderable mystery. The leniency shown to Sagarelli 
 on his first conviction, in 1294, may be explained by 
 a partiality of the bishop in his favour, who may 
 either have been deceived by the real or assumed 
 insanity of his prisoner, or, from feelings of humanity, 
 may have been fain to urge that plea to save him 
 from a fate which he could not avert from his accom- 
 plices. Six years later, Obizzo was no longer there 
 to screen him, and then his " many heresies and enor- 
 mous crimes," for which others had suffered, were at 
 last visited on his own head. If we were to admit 
 the evidence of his enemies against him, however, it 
 was not only to the consummate skill with which he 
 played the part of a fool or madman whenever it 
 suited his purposes, that Sagarelli for so long a time 
 owed his safety, but also to his great readiness to 
 swear and forswear ; to renounce any tenet that was 
 pointed out to him as heterodox ; in point of fact, to 
 subscribe — with that amiable facility on which Theo- 
 dore Hook prided himself — "not to thirty -nine 
 articles merely, but to forty, if required." 
 
 This dexterity of compromise and tergiversation, 
 by which he contrived to escape from the clutches of 
 the various inquisitorial courts of Lombardy which 
 laid hold of him in repeated instances during his ex- 
 patriation from 1^86 to 1294, must not be considered 
 as peculiar to Sagarelli alone. It was also laid to
 
 CUNNING FENCE OF HERETICS. 107 
 
 the charge of all his sect, and even of his successor, 
 Pra Dolcino*, whom no man, however, ever dreamt 
 of characterising as an idiot or a craven ; it was 
 equally represented as the cunning fence of heretics 
 of all ages and countries, none of whom, it is urged, 
 ever scrupled to add duplicity and equivocation, nay, 
 arrant falsehood and perjury, to the many outrages 
 by which they provoked Heaven's wrath. 
 
 This charge of deliberate insincerity has been espe- 
 cially preferred against those dissenters who were sup- 
 posed to entertain Gnostic or Manichaean views, — es- 
 pecially against the Albigenses of France, and Cathari 
 of Italy. It was numbered amongst the heaviest out- 
 rages for which Priscillian, Bishop of Avila, in Spain, 
 and his disciples suffered at Treves in 385. It was 
 one of the most heinous sins of those early Manichae- 
 ans of Orleans and Monforte, to whom allusion has 
 already been madej, and who, as we have said, in 
 the same manner succeeded for a long time in foiling 
 their accusers. We have seen Gherardo, who was 
 one of the elders or teachers of the latter sect, 
 puzzle and perplex the good archbishop Heribert of 
 Milan, shifting his ground like a very Proteus, never 
 Swerving from any of the essential tenets of orthodox 
 
 * Hist. Dulcini Haeresiarchae, in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum 
 Scriptores, torn. ix. p. 435. 
 f Ante, chap. i. §§ 7. and 8.
 
 108 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 belief, till the no less dextrous prelate plied him 
 with cross-questions which admitted of no further 
 evasion. Not long after that time the great im- 
 pugner of the doctrine of transubstantiation, Beren- 
 ger of Angers*, gave a signal example of the manner 
 in which a dissenter should bow before persecution 
 like a reed before the storm-blast. Always profess- 
 ing to believe as he was bidden, yet always with a 
 mental reservation that he would believe as he deemed 
 reasonable, he avoided his fate by a series of dodges, 
 which showed certainly rather the discretion of a 
 wary tactician than the dignity of an earnest divine ; 
 and Terriusf, the leader of an Apostolical sect at 
 Nevers, by that clumsy trick of "Holy Mary" and 
 ** Holy Church," had provided his disciples with a 
 shibboleth, by which they could slip through the 
 fingers of many a searching judge. 
 
 Upon the same principle, the Apostles of Sagarelli 
 and Dolcino were authorised to bajffle their adver- 
 saries by every de\4ce in their power. Like the 
 Waldenses before, and the Quakers after them, they 
 disapproved of oaths altogether : yet they might use 
 and abuse them most unsparingly, whenever they 
 were required for the interest of their faith, — an 
 interest which they, naturally enough, identified 
 
 * Ante, chap. i. § 10. 
 
 ■f Ante, chap. i. § 22. _
 
 WHITE LIES. 109 
 
 with the safety of its propagators. To this faith they 
 were bound to adhere under the worst circumstances, 
 regardless of danger or of any other mortal considera- 
 tion ; they were cheerfully to lay down their life for it, 
 if ever brought to a test that admitted of no escape : 
 yet they should shrink from no quibble or deceit to 
 frustrate the craft of their persecutors ; they should 
 beguile them by ambiguous answers, and, so long as 
 they stood on tenable ground, they should make it 
 good by any solemn asseveration, or even oath, that 
 necessity dictated.* 
 
 In one word, they were allowed the free use of 
 " white lies " in self-defence. Honest men, it is true, 
 hold that gentle mode of tampering with truth as by 
 far more abject and cowardly than a bold, direct 
 falsehood of the blackest dye ; but we must observe 
 that subterfuge and prevarication were no new expe- 
 dient in the history of Christianity or of the orthodox 
 church. It was practised by some of the guileless 
 and devoted, though less heroic amongst the Primitive 
 Christians f : it was positively recommended, and 
 actually enjoined, no doubt from very good motives, 
 by some of the most respectable fathers of the Church, 
 
 * See the tenets of tlie Apostles as given by Eymeric, Di- 
 rectonum Inquisitorum, p. 273. ISTo. 20. Also Additamentum 
 ad Historiam Dulcini, pp. 457. 460. 
 
 f Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xvi.
 
 110 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 such as Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Sec, as we 
 learn from Mosheim, an honest German, who is 
 driven to the admission of the fact, not without great 
 scandal and regret.* 
 
 § 17. But is it, indeed, easy to sit down satisfied 
 with any amount of evidence that those implacable 
 Dominican monks may have contrived to accumulate 
 against the memory of their victims? 
 
 We may, on the main, acquit them of any charge 
 of gross misstatement or positive calumny. We will 
 even grant that in most occurrences they acted and 
 wrote in good faith. But their own savage bigotry 
 blinded them, they went to work with preconceived 
 notions, never for a moment doubting any thing that 
 was said of that subtle, all-pervading poison of heresy. 
 Convinced of its existence, they deemed almost any 
 means justifiable to bring it into light. Denial only 
 irritated them ; hesitation only increased their sus- 
 picion. Plain ingenuousness might be the mask of 
 deepest hypocrisy : the very idiot was in their eyes an 
 arch-deceiver. What confession the subtlety of their 
 questions, the vehemence of their threats, the con- 
 sciousness of their power, all the terror and mystery 
 that encompassed them, may have extorted from the 
 helpless, trembling beings, whom mere vulgar rumour 
 
 * Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. vol. i. p. 358.
 
 THAT TEERIBLE INQUISITION. Ill 
 
 often brought before them — is known to all-seeing 
 Heaven alone : but it was on such confessions, merely, 
 that the great edifice of mediaeval heresy was reared 
 by them. We will not push our scepticism so far as 
 to reject that heresy altogether as a mere fable ; but 
 we may safely contend that, had no such thing really 
 existed, the rack and the San Benito alone would 
 have had power to create it. The Inquisition was an 
 engine of power which utterly defeated its purpose. 
 What was there that it could not prove ? What 
 ** Yea and Nay " could it not draw from the same 
 mouth at the same breath ? 
 
 Mere presumption, if very strong and stubborn, and 
 unscrupulous as to the means of inquiry, may arrive 
 at almost any conviction of guilt. It was not to that 
 great bugbear of heresy alone that the same engine 
 gave body and substance in the dark ages. In subser- 
 viency to the grasping avarice of a false tyrant, Philip 
 the Fair of France, about the very epoch we are now 
 approaching, in 1307, it equally proved any thing 
 that might be wished against the Templars : it proved 
 against the whole order, and exaggerated to absurdity, 
 what might at the utmost have been the offence of a 
 f6'w members. In obedience to the vindictive ran- 
 cour of the same monarch, it proved the most puerile 
 and ludicrous charges against the memory of Boni- 
 face VIII., proved all the "fashionable" offences of
 
 112 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 the time against him — as if that wrathful, ambitious, 
 unprincipled pontiff had not solid crimes enough to 
 answer for. Not many years later, in 1 32 1 , it detected 
 a vast conspiracy of " Jews and Lepers" to poison all 
 the fountains and streams in Christendom ; it sent hun- 
 dreds of victims to the scaffold or the stake, " although 
 not a drop of water infected with venomous substances 
 was ever produced, although not a single instance of a 
 death by poison was proved."* Heresy, at any rate, 
 stands on no better foundation than sorcery : it was 
 at the same stake that a multitude of crazy old 
 women were consumed by slow fire, convicted " upon 
 their own confession " of flying through the air on a 
 broom-stick, and holding their Sabbath with fiends 
 under the great walnut-tree at Benevento. Nor was 
 it merely the terrible ordeal of bodily torture that 
 wrenched such avowals. Even in more enlightened 
 ages, in countries boasting of the abolition of the 
 rack, what fabric of guilt is it not in the power of a 
 State-Inquisitor to build up ? At Venice or Milan, 
 even at the present day, the ruler has only to say 
 "Let there be a plot!" and the mere moral torture 
 of harass and worry will hatch one for him on the 
 shortest notice, f 
 
 * Sismondi, Hist, des Fran^ais, torn. v. p. 381. 
 
 f Pellico, Le Mie Prigioni, and the more particular accounts 
 of Austrian State Trials, in Andryane's Memoirs of a Prisoner 
 of State, London, 1840.
 
 DOLCINO'S EARLIEST CAREER. 113 
 
 § 18. Meanwhile the ashes of Sagarelli were hardly 
 cold on their hearth, the Apostolical congregation at 
 Parma had scarcely been annihilated or dispersed, 
 when the same sect was heard of as flourishing in 
 the northernmost provinces of Lombardy, and in 
 Dalmatia, under the guidance of Fra Dolcino. 
 
 At the time of his final apprehension and con- 
 viction, in 1307, Fra Dolcino himself declared* that 
 he had embraced the faith of the Apostles, and 
 stedfastly held it for the last sixteen years ; also, 
 that he looked upon himself as the immediate suc- 
 cessor of Sagarelli, and had in fact shared the su- 
 preme power as a chief of the order, even during the 
 lifetime of its founder. 
 
 He would, in that supposition, have made his ap- 
 pearance towards the year 1291 ; and the first serious 
 persecution to which the sect exposed itself soon 
 after that date, in 1294, would thus be ascribed to 
 the rash and headlong character of its new member 
 and leader, who departed from the line of policy 
 traced out by the either very timid or very wary Sa- 
 garelli, and seemed rather to court than to shun open 
 hostility with the Church. f 
 
 * Hist. Dulcini Hseresiarchas, in Muratori, Rerum Italicarum 
 Scriptores, torn. ix. pp. 436, 437. 
 
 t Mosheim, Geschichte des Apostelordens, book i. § 13. 
 
 I
 
 114 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 We shall soon have occasion to see what import- 
 ance may be attached to Fra Dolcino's assertions, as 
 they have come down to us, and to test the sound- 
 ness of the hypothesis that has been built upon them. 
 In the mean time, it is fortunate that the character of 
 this heresiarch, as it is so much more interesting than 
 that of his weak-minded predecessor, so it should 
 be more satisfactorily known to us. Mention of 
 Dolcino's name occurs in the lines of Dante, which 
 we have taken as an epigraph to the present essay. 
 The scenes of the dismal drama of the apostle's 
 glorious struggle and fatal end were acted under the 
 eyes of that poet, who had, as we shall see, a great 
 variety of reasons to w^atch such events with breath- 
 less interest. Dante has, of course, dealt with the 
 subject in that curt, summary, and yet mightily im- 
 pressive manner of his own, which, while it secured 
 it against oblivion, conveyed rather a vague hint than 
 a clear mention of the facts, and prepared ample 
 matter to task the diligence and ingenuity of future 
 inquirers. The earliest commentators of the Divine 
 comedy, and especially Benvenuto da Imola, who 
 wrote about 1376, have done all in their power to 
 throw light upon those historical allusions, which were 
 then already so great a puzzle to the readers of the 
 poet. Benvenuto's notes of this description were 
 considered of so great importance as to be treasured
 
 BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 115 
 
 up as historical documents in one of Muratori's col- 
 lection. A few facts concerning Dolcino's earliest 
 career have thus been sent down to us through Ben- 
 venuto alone, who had obtained them from tolerably 
 authentic sources, as he happened to be brought 
 into contact with a grandson of one Master Raynald 
 of Bergamo, who had been about the person of the 
 great heretic in the capacity of a physician.* 
 
 § 19. Dolcino, then, was a native of the diocese of 
 Novara, probably of Prato, a village on the Sesia, 
 near Romagnano. His father was a priest, and a 
 resident of Taracontano, now Trontano, a place near 
 Domo d'Ossola, in the vale that bears that name, at 
 the foot of the Simplon. The name of this priest 
 is given, Julius ; and some Milanese historians of 
 later times, have asserted that he sprung from the 
 Tornielli, a distinguished Milanese family ; several 
 branches of which are still flourishing all over Italy, 
 and one especially, bearing the title of Count, at 
 Romagnano itself.f As these historians wrote at a 
 period in which the territory of Novara belonged to 
 the Duchy of Milan, Fra Dolcino has, with no great 
 propriety, been described by them as a Milanese. 
 
 * Benvenuti Imolensis, Comment, in Dantis Comoediam, 
 Inferno, Cant, xxviii. in Muratori, Antiquitates Italicag Medii 
 iEvi, torn. i. pp. 1020—1022. 
 
 t Merula, Antiquit. Gall. Cisalpln. p. 17., lib. i. cap. vii, 
 Ripamonti, Hist. Mediolanens., part ii. p. 217.
 
 116 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 The appellation, " son of a priest," has at the pre- 
 sent time rather an awkward sound in Catholic Italy ; 
 oddly enough, as in itself it implies no illegitimacy, 
 since a widower with a family is allowed to take holy 
 orders, and to run through every degree of clerical 
 preferment. But in the case of Fra Dolcino nothing 
 is more likely than that he was the offspring of one 
 of those somewhat uncanonical connexions, which the 
 Church of Rome loudly denounced as concubinate, 
 but to which still many of the priests of Lombardy, 
 especially in remote country districts, attached all the 
 importance of lawful wedlock, and to which they ad- 
 hered with unshaken firmness for full two centuries 
 after Gregory VII. and Peter Damianus flattered 
 themselves they had set the question at rest.* 
 
 In very tender age Dolcino was sent to Vercelli, 
 under the care of another priest, by name Augustus, 
 apparently with a view to bring him up to the Church. 
 Besides such education as the priest could confer, he 
 procured him the advantage of a good master of a 
 Latin grammar school in the same city. The lad 
 gave early evidence of a bright and active intel- 
 ligence ; he was of small staturef , but had a lively 
 
 * See Synodus Provinclalis Pergami habita &c. &c., anno 
 Mcccxi. in Muratori, Rer. Italic. Script., torn. ix. p. 539. 
 t See the Appendix B., Dolcino's Portrait.
 
 HIS FATAL SLIP. 117 
 
 countenance and prepossessing manners, which gifts, 
 added to his rapid proficiency in all his pursuits, won 
 him the affection of his tutor, Augustus, and of all 
 about him. 
 
 A fatal slip, the gravity of which could only be 
 rightly judged if we knew the precise time of life at 
 which it took place, cut short a career which had thus 
 begun under favourable auspices. The good priest 
 who harboured him under his roof, missed a piece of 
 coin, and imputed his loss to an intimate friend of 
 the house, or more probably a domestic servant, by 
 name Patras. The latter, anxious to exculpate him- 
 self, and entertaining suspicions against Dolcino, 
 secured his person, and, by the threat of severe chas- 
 tisement, compelled him to avow himself the author 
 of the theft. Not satisfied with this private justi- 
 fication, Patras insisted on publicly redeeming his 
 character by a legal prosecution against Dolcino. 
 The good priest, who foresaw in this the utter ruin 
 of his ward, for a criminal conviction would have 
 disqualified him for any advancement in the 
 priesthood, did all in his power to hush the matter 
 up ; but the alarmed and perhaps remorseful Dolcino, 
 anxious to avoid the worst consequences of his 
 misdeed, secretly quitted the roof of his benefactor, 
 and was heard of no more for some time. 
 
 § 20. He next appears, no one can say after how 
 
 I 3
 
 118 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 long a time, or at what period of his life, in the town 
 or bishopric of Trent. There is all probability that 
 there he began his apostolate. During his sojourn in 
 that region, he must also have fallen in with that 
 Margaret of Trent, whom he called his sister dearly 
 beloved above all his disciples. That she was a 
 native of Trent, and associated with Dolcino in 1300, 
 results from all authorities. Some add that she was 
 endowed with rare beauty, and possessed of consider- 
 able wealth * ; that she had left that, and anything 
 else she held dearest, and rejected the oflfers of 
 numerous and distinguished suitors, to embrace the 
 doctrines of the apostle and follow his fortunes. 
 
 § 21. These bore at no time a very favourable 
 aspect. The Bishop of Trent, from 1289 to 1303, was 
 Philip, of the famous Bonaccolsi family of Mantua, 
 a Franciscan, though for several years an Inquisitor 
 at Yerona, and a reputed saint.f He was neverthe- 
 less one of the lax Franciscans, since he did not dis- 
 dain the honours and emoluments of that princely 
 see, and like all the relaxed or conventual party of 
 that Order, he bore no good will towards a man who 
 
 * Benvenuti Imolens. Comment, in Dant. Comoed. Inf. Canto 
 xxix. Christoph. Landin. ibid. See also the Appendix B., 
 Further Particulars about Dolcino and Margaret. 
 
 t Ughelli, Italia Sacra, tom. v. p. 609. Litta, Famiglie 
 Celebri, art. Bonaccolsi.
 
 DOLCINO AT THE HEAD OF THE SECT. 119 
 
 declared himself a champion of apostolical or true 
 Franciscan humility. The hishop himself, however, 
 could do the sectarians no very serious harm, since, 
 like other bishops of that time, he had worldly matters 
 sufficient to engross his attention. He had to con- 
 tend for temporal power over his diocese with 
 Maynard Count of Goritz and his sons, who put 
 forth claims to the feudal dominion of that country, 
 as heirs to the old Counts of Tyrol. These contests, 
 which kept Bonaccolsi out of his see during nearly 
 the whole of his episcopate, might have aflforded 
 Dolcino a precarious security in those districts. The 
 Inquisitors, however, were on the watch if bishops 
 slumbered, and by these the heretic seems to have 
 been driven first to the mountains, then out of the 
 whole diocese of Trent ; hence away from one valley 
 into another, through the territories of Brescia, 
 Bergamo, and Como (some assert even to Milan 
 itself*), unable to find anywhere a permanent abode, 
 and compelled at last to take refuge beyond all the 
 confines of Italy, in some parts of Dalmatia. 
 
 In some parts of Dalmatia, for we know not 
 precisely in what district of that very extensive 
 region, and we are consequently at a loss to say 
 whether it was of his own accord that, after a brief 
 
 * Bernard. Corio, Hist. Medlolanens. ad ann. 1307. 
 I 4
 
 120 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 sojourn there, he chose to run again the same risks 
 before which he had fled, or whether finding the 
 ground as hot on the eastern shore of the Adriatic as 
 in any Italian province, his return to the scenes of 
 his former struggles was with him a matter of 
 necessity, and if it was with the instinct of the 
 hunted hare, making straight for the lair it was 
 originally flurried from, that Dolcino re-appeared at 
 last, towards 1 304, in his native haunts of the valley 
 of the Sesia, on the borders of the dioceses of 
 Vercelli and No vara. 
 
 § 22. It is possible, however, that this last fatal 
 step was occasioned by the tragical end of Sagarelli 
 (July 1300), which threw upon him alone the supreme 
 management of the affairs of the Order, and made 
 him aware that the post of honour was henceforth in 
 the midst of his flock, in the very jaws of danger. 
 
 The career of Fra Dolcino, up to the time that he 
 determined to stand at bay on his native mountains 
 of Val di Sesia, is involved in hopeless obscurity. 
 We find from his own words in his last confession, 
 that he fell thrice into the hands of the merciless 
 enemies who sought his life, and that in all these 
 instances he allayed or deluded their fury, either by 
 a flat retraction of all obnoxious doctrines, or more 
 probably by that adroit skirmishing of amphibological 
 phrases by which, like so many other heretics, he
 
 DOLCINO'S GENIUS. 121 
 
 hid his guilty meaning under a cunning tissue of un- 
 exceptionable words. 
 
 The man, it may be urged, fancied himself trusted 
 with an all-important mission from God himself; he 
 would ill have acquitted himself of his task, had he, 
 from mere punctiliousness of worldly honour, afforded 
 his enemies the satisfaction of cutting him off in mid- 
 career. He might have been free to throw away his 
 life, but not to swerve from the sacred purpose to 
 which it was dedicated. 
 
 But the time came at last, evidently when he 
 could or would no longer think of flight or evasion ; 
 a day came in which either the world no longer 
 afforded an asylum for him, or in which he considered 
 his mission as all but fulfilled, and thought that 
 nothing remained but to hallow it with his blood. 
 From whatever cause it might arise, the day arose — 
 and it was little more than three years after his 
 predecessor's death — when Dolcino turned round 
 and faced his pursuers : and then no man could 
 better have stood his own ground; no man could 
 more heroically have fought and suffered — no one 
 ever sold his life at a dearer rate. 
 
 § 23. No poor illiterate fanatic was Dolcino. 
 Nothing more different than his character from that 
 of his ill-starred precursor. Wherever he went, his 
 presence was soon — too soon — made manifest by its
 
 122 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 prodigious eflfects. His fiery speech was omnipotent 
 with the uneducated classes, but neither was it lost 
 upon men of high birth and considerable literary 
 attainments. One of his elders, Longino of Bergamo, 
 belonged to the noble family of the Cattaneo* ; nor 
 was he the only one of that rank. Dolcino — we have 
 it from the authority of his own enemies — was con- 
 versant with the Scriptures, which he could quote 
 familiarly and by heart — those Scriptures which 
 Innocent III. had about one hundred years before 
 strictly and formally withdrawn from the multitude. 
 It was from that source mainly that the apostle 
 drew his arguments ; and the inspired tone which 
 gave his language all its impressive power, was 
 borrowed from the strains of Biblical phraseology. 
 
 His followers gave him credit for prophetic gifts, 
 we are told ; and he stood up in fact, if not as a seer, 
 at least as an authorised interpreter of prophecy. 
 He boasted that God's mind was revealed to him, 
 with an assurance that could only be prompted by 
 a constant direct intercourse with the Powers of 
 heaven. Even this prodigious conceit on his own 
 part, however, we may have good reason to doubt. His 
 
 * Hist. Dulcini, p. 439. Baluzii, vitae Papar. Avenionens. 
 torn. i. p. 605 — " Habuit ultra tria millia hominum, robustsB 
 juventutis ; inter quos erant aliqui nobiles et divites." Benven. 
 Imolens. p. 1121. See also Appendix C, Dolcino's Companions.
 
 HIS ENTHUSIASM. 123 
 
 earnest expectation of great events may have been 
 construed into an assumption of supernatural fatidical 
 faculties, either by the superstitious veneration of his 
 followers, or by perverse misrepresentation of his 
 adversaries. That he announced great changes is 
 indeed unquestionable. But he read them out of the 
 Book of Revelation, which it was in those days the 
 fashion for every man to hold up and explain as his 
 own fancy dictated. For above three hundred years 
 before Dolcino, and for more than two centuries after 
 him, the world was all agog with wild millennarian 
 speculations. Dolcino, as we shall see, started nothing 
 new; he only announced the speedy fulfilment of 
 predictions that were current in every man's mouth. 
 
 That credit was given him for supernatural powers 
 to which he never laid any claim, results from very 
 good collateral evidence. Peter of Lugo, the same, 
 as we have seen*, who was made to abjure the 
 tenets of the Apostles before the inquisition of Tou- 
 louse in 1320, expressed his conviction that the Order 
 established by Sagarelli and Dolcino was approved by 
 God, who, " he had heard it said, operated miracles 
 in their behalf," t whilst, however, in the words of 
 
 * Ante, § 14. 
 
 t Limborch, Hist. Inquisit. — Liber Sententiar. p 361.
 
 124 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Dolcino himself, or in the words attributed to him, 
 no mention occurs of similar prodigies. 
 
 To what extent Dolcino imposed upon himself or 
 upon others, what point he occupied in that very nar- 
 row line which separates the hypocrite from the 
 fanatic, it will not be easy to determine ; whether for 
 religious purposes, or in mere worldly matters, nothing 
 has ever been achieved without that inward con- 
 sciousness of the Deus in nobis, which lies equally at 
 the bottom of all heroism and all poetry. No world 
 was ever discovered, no nation enfranchised, no great 
 truth revealed except by this same God-haunted 
 self-reliance. Mazzini and Kossuth announce the 
 forthcoming dehverance of their respective countries, 
 " for next spring," with as strong an assurance as if 
 they had seen the fiat written in the book of fate. 
 Nothing less positive, they knew full well, would go 
 down with their believers. The confidence is here 
 reciprocal : faith becomes a matter of action and re- 
 action. The enthusiast himself feels his own earnest- 
 ness increase in proportion with the hold it gives him 
 upon his hearers. 
 
 § 2i. The hold, at any rate, that Dolcino had 
 acquired upon his sectarians, was in itself a portent. 
 It is everywhere avowed by his opponents, and it too 
 clearly results from the blind fidelity with which they 
 followed his hard destinies. They were all of them
 
 HIS SUPERIOR GENIUS. 125 
 
 fully as good as their word ; " that they would forego 
 all worldly advantages, brave all dangers, encounter 
 the most cruel death, rather than desert their chief, 
 or abandon a tittle of his doctrines, or transgress his 
 commands," was in truth no idle boast.* 
 
 That command, be it observed, was defined by no 
 title or statute. The apostles had no permanent 
 hierarchy, no established form of Church discipline. 
 Like some of the Manichsean sect, like the Brethren 
 of the Free Spirit, and other mystic communities, 
 which set up *' grace against law," they held to- 
 gether by no other bond of obedience than that of a 
 voluntary inward devotion to a man on whom su- 
 perior grace shone.-f It was, again, the almost mag- 
 netic ascendancy of superior genius. No political 
 or religious contrivance ever grounded power on a 
 more unshaken foundation. 
 
 We hear from the same enemies of Dolcino's 
 memory, that this ascendancy, in his case, was owing 
 to the might of his inspired language ; they add, 
 however, that it partly resulted from the full licence 
 
 * " Frater Dulcinus erat intelHgens et eloquentissimus, eo quod 
 suavissima facundia sua ita ligabat auditores, quod nullus acce- 
 dens ad eum semel, poterat unquam recedere." Benven. Imol. 
 p. 1121. 
 
 f " Sine vinculo obedientiae exterioris, sed interioris tantum." 
 Additam. at Dulcini Hist. Rer. Ital. torn. ix. p. 454.
 
 126 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 he allowed his followers to follow the brunt of all 
 their passions.* But its effects were especially 
 manifest at a time and under circumstances which 
 not only admitted of no indulgence, but in which 
 the constancy of the apostles was tried by hardships 
 and sufferings, of which the history of mankind has 
 hardly any instance. 
 
 § 25. With a suite of such determined and de- 
 voted men, numbering at some time or other from 
 3000 to 6000, and with the peculiar bent of the 
 civil and ecclesiastical authorities against heresy, 
 about that time, in Italy, Fra Dolcino might well be 
 at a loss what to do. 
 
 The liberal disposition of the government and 
 people of Lombardy, and especially of Milan, which 
 for a long time had made it the abode of all heresy, 
 was by this time at an end. The extinction of the 
 House of Swabia, a long interregnum ensuing, and 
 the accession of the Emperors of Hapsburg and 
 Austria, who seldom visited Italy, and never meddled 
 with her politics, had brought about the annihilation 
 of the Imperial or Ghibeline party, and given the 
 Church a most formidable ascendancy. The few 
 remaining houses of feudal descent hastened to de- 
 
 * "Nee mirum tamen, quia voluptates sectabantur (Dulcini 
 sequaces) quarum erat ibidem officina plena." Benv. Imol. 
 p. 1121.
 
 THE CHURCH UNDER FRENCH CONTROL. 127 
 
 clare themselves Guelph ; and that party had of 
 late derived an overbearing strength by the per- 
 manent establishment of the House of Anjou in the 
 south of Italy, and the frequent interference of the 
 French monarchs in Italian, and especially in eccle- 
 siastical matters. France, indeed, in the exultation 
 of her rising power, gave herself no rest till she had 
 brought the Church entirely under her control, by 
 removing the see itself of Christendom to Avignon, 
 about this very period, in 1305. Whatever sub- 
 mission to their own good pleasure the kings of 
 France might exact in return, they were no less 
 anxious to secure the triumph of the Church over 
 all other adversaries. Opposition to the Pope, or to 
 the cowled fiends who came in his name under the 
 name of Inquisitors, was tantamount to a declaration 
 of war to France. "Wherever the thunder of the 
 Vatican was void of effect — Frederic of Swabia and 
 Manfred of Apulia were signal and recent instances 
 of the fact — there the sword of Anjou or of France 
 lent its irresistible aid. It w^as easy for a vast muU 
 titude, as we have seen at Parma* in Sagarelli's »wn 
 times, to fall upon the Dominicans, and drive them 
 from the walls of a free town. But it could enter 
 into the plans of no cool statesman to brave the 
 
 * Ante, § 15.
 
 128 FEA DOLCINO. 
 
 consequences of a Roman interdict. The fatal monks 
 had no sooner turned their backs on the refractory 
 city, than the magistrates hastened to disavow the 
 violence of their hare-brained fellow-citizens: they 
 sued for reconciliation ; and this never failed to lead 
 to the aggravation of those evils which blind popular 
 fury had, in a fit of momentary ebullition, vainly 
 hoped to put an end to. 
 
 § 26. Era Dolcino saw too clearly that there 
 could be no rest for him amongst the haunts of man. 
 Happily, beyond the boundaries of civilised Italian 
 hfe, away in the valleys of the Alps, there were 
 districts in which he might either escape observation, 
 or, offer such a resistance as would weary out any but 
 the most determined and inveterate pursuit. 
 
 § 27. The valley of the Sesia, like most Alpine 
 regions at that period, presented a far difierent 
 aspect to what it exhibits in our own days. Italian 
 life in the middle ages had flown vigorously towards 
 the towns. Within the walls of each city, and on its 
 immediate environs, society was strongly, compactly 
 organised. Over all such parts of their rural territory 
 as were deemed favourable to agricultural enterprise, 
 the cities had manfully asserted their dominion, and 
 overcome all resistance on the part of the feudal 
 aristocracy, either by utterly crushing, or forcibly 
 adopting the last scions of noble families, compelling
 
 PEACEFUL INTENTIONS OF DOLCINO. 129 
 
 them to remove their residence within the city walls, 
 and to inscribe their name in the rolls of their towns- 
 people. But beyond the limits of the fertile plain, 
 yet within the jurisdiction of the county or diocese, 
 nominally belonging to the city, there were districts 
 either too rugged or too barren to tempt the 
 covetousness or to dread the attacks of republican 
 ambition ; there a few remnants of the scattered 
 nobility still held their ground; and thither, as it 
 was too natural, all men whom the frequent vicissi- 
 tudes of that tempestuous city-life cast out of its 
 bosom — outlaws of every description — found a ready 
 refuge — a refuge which was, however, only of avail 
 to those who either knew how to escape pursuit by 
 concealment, or how to baffle it by such resistance as 
 rendered all aggression a matter of serious difficulty 
 and of doubtful issue. 
 
 In one of these comparatively lawless districts, in 
 the back-grounds of the dioceses of Vercelli and 
 Novara, Fra Dolcino hoped to be allowed to shelter 
 his head ; and he went there, not improbably with- 
 out a well settled purpose, whether he should merely 
 play at hide and seek, or boldly grapple with his 
 adversaries. That he first and voluntarily sought a 
 collision seems by no means likely *, both because, 
 
 * See Appendix D., First Hostilities at Gattinara. 
 K
 
 130 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 with all tlie odds that those impervious mountains 
 could afford in his behalf, the game was too hazardous 
 and too desperate in the long 4'un, and also because 
 the principles of this sect, however necessarily dis- 
 regarded in the end, admitted of no appeal to the 
 sword, and condemned all war and violence even in 
 self-defence. That the Apostles departed from this 
 article of their belief, and had recourse to carnal 
 •weapons in their last extremities, will not greatly 
 surprise us, if we recollect that the Waldenses, who 
 were equally bound to the same quaker-like non- 
 resistance principles, scrupled not to come to blows 
 with French and Savoyard troops, and that, not 
 merely to ward off their own fate, but to fight their 
 way into their beloved valleys, out of which home- 
 sickness was rapidly consuming them.* But for 
 what concerns Dolcino and his Apostles our pre- 
 sumption, that they would never have dreamt of 
 provoking hostilities, is borne out by the little we 
 can collect from the pages of that anonymous writer, 
 to whom we are indebted for nearly all the particulars 
 of the closing catastrophe f, who informs us that for 
 more than one year Fra Dolcino lay quiet, under 
 shelter of a friendly roof, first at Serravalle and 
 
 * See Beattie, The Waldenses, London, 1836, especially the 
 chapter headed, " Return of the Exiles," p. 124-171. 
 
 f Historia Dulcini Hseresiarchfe, auctore anonymo synchr^o 
 in Mur. Eer. Ital. Script, torn. ix. p. 429.
 
 HERESIES. 131 
 
 Gattinara*, on the Sesia, and then at Campertollio, 
 near Yarallo ; and that he only betook himself to the 
 mountains, when he was assured that the relentless 
 inquisitors would allow him rest nowhere, and that 
 his only chance of safety lay in the choice of a 
 position which might set his head at a higher value 
 than the most implacable enemy would attach to it. 
 
 Dolcino contemplated little else than the formation 
 of something like a Mormon camp. There was, 
 perhaps, hurry and improvidence in the choice of a 
 site. Anxious above all things for security, all in- 
 tent upon procuring means of defence, it is possible 
 that he little thought whence he should derive his 
 maintenance and support ; and that the consequent 
 want and distress compelled him to the first acts of 
 that aggression which it was his interest, and most 
 probably his intention, to shun. 
 
 That a collision was unavoidable, and that a 
 collision took place, is all that we may consider as 
 certain. But before we enter into the details of this 
 truly epic struggle, it may be advisable for us to 
 enter somewhat more minutely into the tenets of 
 these Apostolic heretics, that we may the better be 
 enabled to estimate the extent of their offence, and 
 to explain the real motives of the ruthless warfare 
 that was waged against them. 
 
 * * Appendix D. First Hostilities. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 1. Definition of Heresjr. — Literal and rational Christianity. — 2. 
 Heresy of the Ascetics. — 3. Of the Doctors. — 4. Errors of the 
 Sect of the Apostles. — 5. Their Brethren all over the world. — 
 Popularity of Anti-papal Doctrines in Italy. — Arnold of Brescia, 
 Trederic IL, and Dante. — 6. The Poet and the Heresiarch. — 7 . 
 Dangers of the Church. — 8. Anti-papal Prophets. — Joachim. — 9. 
 Effects of the Terrors of the Chui-ch. — Celestine V. — 10. The 
 Church on her last struggle — Boniface VIII. — 11. Defeat of the 
 Church — Benedict XI. — The Popes of Avignon. — 12. The coming 
 Avenger, Frederic HI. — 13. Mendicant Heresy. — 14. Dolcmo's 
 Prophecies: Dolcino, Dante, and Joachim. — 15. Dolcino's consis- 
 tency.— 16. Failm-e of his Prophecies. — 17. The Church's dread 
 of Prophecies. — Heresy and Sorcery. — Cecco d'AscoU. — 18. 
 Dogmatic Errors of Dolcino's Sect — Manichseism. — 19. Its ancient 
 Dogma. — 20. How far traceable to the Sect of the Apostles — 21. 
 Manichgean Practices — Celibacy — AbeKtes and Shakers. — 22. 
 Manichseism in the Church — The earhest Paterini. — 23. Morals 
 of Dolcmo's Disciples — Then* " Sisters." — 24. Prevalence of 
 similar practices in all times — Promiscuous Monasteries. — 25. 
 Tests of Chastity. — 26. Graver Manichsean errors — What may 
 be thought of them alL — 27. As results from the instance of 
 Dolcino's Apostles. — 28. Summing up of evidence respecting these. 
 — 29. Authorities in thek favour.— 30. Thek Communism, how 
 it should be understood. 
 
 § 1. If it were possible to reduce to intelligible 
 terms every variety of dissent which the Roman or 
 any other Church characterised as heresy, nothing 
 would seem more natural than to distinguish between 
 the opinions of the " Literal " and those of the 
 " Rational " Christians. The first guilty of errors of 
 Discipline, the second of errors of Dogma. 
 
 The former followed a straight, and what seemed
 
 DISCIPLINARIAN HERETICS. 133 
 
 to be a suiEciently safe, course. They read the 
 Scriptures and made it the study of their lives to 
 listen to the teachings of Christ and his apostles, 
 and to follow their examples. It ought to have 
 been difficult to find fault with such men. But the 
 Church deemed them — some of them, at least — re- 
 prehensible nevertheless. For the Church, in her 
 wisdom, had found that some of the precepts of 
 Christ and his disciples were incompatible with the 
 frailty and imperfection of human nature, and would, 
 if taken to the letter, prove inapplicable to social 
 purposes. She, therefore, made allowance for the 
 hyperbolical strain of Oriental language, and used 
 her own discretion in interpreting the spirit of the 
 Gospel, so as to accommodate it to the exigencies of 
 all circumstances she had to pass through. 
 
 Not but that she admitted and tolerated, even if 
 she did not actually encourage, asceticism : though 
 the observance of strict Christian virtues must always, 
 by contrast, have conveyed a reproach to the power, 
 splendour, and luxury with which she too early en- 
 compassed herself. But her forbearance was only 
 evinced in favour of those who were contented to 
 follow holiness in their own lives. Swarms of monks 
 and anchorites were at liberty to starve, scourge, and 
 otherwise make fools of themselves. Their penances 
 were intended for the glorification not only of God, 
 
 K 3
 
 134 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 but of his Church. The latter profited by their 
 austerities. She shone by their reflected light. These 
 ascetics performed, as it were, the " dirty work '* 
 of the Church. 
 
 § 2. But there were other more earnest and severe, 
 bigoted men, who did not think asceticism should be 
 optional merely and exceptional. They wished to 
 make the letter of the Gospel an inexorable iron 
 law, binding not on themselves alone, but, if not on 
 the whole Christian people, at least on all who laid 
 claim to apostolic succession, on all who assumed to 
 be the " salt of the world." Priesthood without 
 apostolic holiness — and that synonymous with utter 
 poverty and humility — was for them a monstrosity. 
 These either boldly professed themselves, or were 
 declared, the Church's foes — the heretics. 
 
 § 3. But, again, it was not merely a rule of life 
 that Christ and his apostles had prescribed. They 
 had also laid down a form of belief. Every religion, 
 whether natural or revealed, is matter of doubt and 
 controversy: and it was not certainly the wish of 
 the founders of Christianity, that all their meaning 
 should be bared before the gaze of mere mortals. 
 The Church undertook not so much to explain as to 
 sum up that abstruse and recondite belief: it aimed 
 less to the satisfaction than to the subjugation of the 
 human understanding. It laid down its dogma as
 
 DOGMATIC HERETICS. 135 
 
 absolute as it was awful, as peremptory as it was 
 unintelligible. She allowed of co-operation, indeed, 
 but sujQfered no contradiction. Free to the divine to 
 dive into those mysteries, to make as fearful a havoc 
 amongst them as his own subtlety suggested, so only 
 as he referred the ultimate judgment of the sound- 
 ness of his theories to the Infallible one. By sub- 
 mitting to authority, the orthodox theologian be- 
 came invested with it. He was inscribed with the 
 titles of ** admirable, seraphic, or angelic " amongst 
 the doctors of the Church : but rebellion against the 
 final degree of Pontiff or Council, independence of 
 reason and conscience, was set down as heterodoxy 
 — was branded as heresy. 
 
 The views of the mere disciplinarians could not 
 have been more simple and uniform. In the middle 
 ages, the disciples of Peter de Bruys, of Henry or 
 Peter de Waldo, the apostolical sects of the twelfth 
 century, the Beghards and Beguins of the two en- 
 suing ages, the Fraticelli or seceding Franciscans, &c. 
 were all under the dominion of one leading idea : 
 they aimed at a restoration of pure apostolical or 
 evangelical life, and wished to bring back the Church 
 to its discipline. The opinions of the dogmatic or 
 rational heretics were necessarily as various as the 
 subjects which tasked their ingenuity. They rested 
 on the doctrine of the Trinity, on that of transub- 
 
 K 4
 
 136 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 stantiation, &c. : but, in that period of the middle 
 ages to which we refer, the main topics of controversy 
 arose from a wish to reconcile God's infinite goodness 
 with his boundless power; a wish that had, from 
 earliest times, given birth to the manifold sects of 
 Gnostics and Manichasans. The tenets of these old 
 sects were supposed to have revived, though with 
 great modifications, amongst the Paulicians of the 
 east, to have been traced to the west among some of 
 the disciples of these in Italy and France in the 
 eleventh century, and to have at last broken forth 
 among the Albigenses of Languedoc and the Paterini 
 or Cathari of Lombardy. 
 
 § 4. The apostles of Sagarelli and Dolcino were 
 supposed to share both the errors of the literal and 
 those of the rational Christians. They were half 
 Waldenses, half Cathari ; that is, say their enemies, 
 supposing there existed any material difierence be- 
 tween the two denominations. 
 
 From the first of these imputations, no man would 
 certainly undertake to clear them. They professed 
 to believe all that the Church taught — they meant, 
 however, supposing the Church to be as it should be; 
 but there never were bitterer enemies of the Church 
 as it was. Their tenets on that score are amongst 
 the twenty articles constituting their creed ; as such 
 they are given with suflicient clearness and con-
 
 TENETS OF THE SECT. 137 
 
 sistency in the memorials of the inquisitors and 
 other writers hostile to them ; sufficient, we say, to 
 convince us that these tenets have not been greatly 
 tampered with or misrepresented.* 
 
 From these it very plainly results that, in their 
 opinion, the spirit of God had departed from the 
 Church, which was no loHger the Church of Christ, 
 but the wanton woman riding on the beast with the 
 seven heads and the ten horns, described in the 
 seventeenth chapter of the book of Revelations, f 
 
 That the authority which the Pope and his hier- 
 archy pretended to hold from the apostles was ab- 
 solutely void and null, unless they lived, like the 
 apostles, in utter poverty and humility, discounte- 
 nancing war and persecution, and allowing the faith- 
 ful to live according to the freedom of the Gospel. J 
 
 That as they — Sagarelli's disciples — strictly con- 
 formed to apostolical life, they were the true Church: 
 on them devolved the power conferred by Christ on 
 the apostles of old : and they might therefore con- 
 sider themselves independent of, and superior to, all 
 ecclesiastical authority. § 
 
 Like all or most Christian sects, they were said to 
 
 * Eymeric : Director. Inquisitor, p. 268. Addit. ad Dulc. 
 Hist. Rer. Ital. Script, torn. ix. p. 456. 
 f See the articles as above, No. 1 and 2. 
 t Art. 11, 12, 13. § Art. 3, 4, 5. 7.
 
 138 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 have exclusive ideas of salvation through their 
 communion alone. They could free from all obli- 
 gation, and even from the marriage tie, any person 
 willing to join them, and were, on the other hand, 
 forbidden from entering into any other order or sect ; 
 for with them alone was true perfection and holiness, 
 &c. &c* 
 
 They denied the Pope all right to interfere with 
 them, and denounced eternal condemnation to all 
 their enemies and persecutors, f 
 
 They contended that no tithes should be paid to 
 the clergy, unless they gave evidence of true apostolic 
 mission b^ their style of living: adding that they 
 themselves, as rigid imitators of apostolic examples, 
 were entitled to the bounties of the faithful; by 
 which we must understand, not the tithes as the 
 Church collected them, but their daily bread merely, 
 as not only property of any kind, but even provision 
 for the morrow, was strictly interdicted by the rule 
 of their founder. J 
 
 Finally, they dated the corruption of the Church 
 from the days of Sylvester, the Pope, or rather 
 Bishop of Rome, from 314 to 3S6; and from the 
 donation said to have been made to that Pontiff by 
 
 * Art. 7, 8, 9. t Art. 6. 10. J Art. 14.
 
 ITALIAN DREAD OF THE PAPACY. 139 
 
 the Emperor Constantine of that temporal power 
 and wealth which had been equally fatal to all 
 Sylvester's successors, with the single exception of 
 Peter of Morone, a hermit who had been raised to 
 the Popedom, and occupied it for a few months in 
 1294, under the name of Celestine V.* 
 
 § 5. If there is anything peculiarly striking in this 
 enumeration of the articles of belief of these apostles, 
 it is merely the total absence of any thing like a new 
 or original thought amongst them. 
 
 That power and wealth had been the bane of the 
 Church ; that she could only be reclaimed through a 
 renunciation, whether voluntary or compulsory, of 
 all worldly goods ; that there could be no holiness 
 without absolute indigence, without true Christian 
 meekness, was the theme of all earnest believers, 
 whether orthodox or otherwise. The Church itself 
 acknowledged the truth of such censures, whenever 
 they were not too pointedly aimed at herself; she 
 gave into the spirit of the times by encouraging 
 asceticism, wherever she found it associated with a 
 proper degree of deference and submissiveness. The 
 hundred and one sects throughout all Europe were 
 only eloquent on that inexhaustible subject. But, 
 in Italy, the circumstances of the country gave that 
 
 ♦ Art. 12.
 
 UO FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 religious tendency a peculiar political importance. 
 Ghibelinism liad been overcome, and Italian freedom 
 had now nothing to fear except from overwhelming 
 Papal ascendancy. Reassured from all apprehension 
 on the side of Germany, the Italians were made un- 
 easy by the rising power of France ; and saw with 
 dismay the alliance between the Church and that 
 formidable neighbour. With a prophetic instinct, 
 they felt that there was between them and the Pope a 
 question of life and death. They were still too good 
 Catholics to wish for the extinction of the Papacy, 
 but spoke very freely about the expediency of its 
 dethronement. 
 
 It was now more than one hundred and fifty years 
 since Arnold of Brescia had hurled defiance against 
 the temporal power of the clergy, and most distinctly 
 proclaimed that " neither bishop, nor priest, or monk, 
 could by any means be saved, if clogged, the former 
 with regal or lordly power, the latter with lands or 
 any other earthly goods."* Arnold's destroyer, 
 Frederic I., himself had acted upon that hint, and 
 still more pertinaciously Frederic II., his grandson. 
 The ashes of this latter monarch were hardly cold in 
 their grave, and the writings of his high chancellor 
 were in full circulation, in which the Emperor's in- 
 
 * Otto Frising. De Rebus Gestis Friderici I. cap. xxi. Rer. 
 Ital. Script, torn. vi. p. 719.
 
 DOLCINO AND DANTE. 141 
 
 tentions about " bringing back the Church to apos- 
 tolic life, and ridding the clergy of that fatal burden 
 of riches which sunk them to perdition," were made 
 manifest to the world.* 
 
 During the pontificate of the worldly-minded popes 
 of the Savelli and Orsini families, Italy resounded 
 with one unanimous outcry against them, and the 
 universally prevailing thought found at last utter- 
 ance through the inspired strains of the great poet of 
 the age, who, precisely at the time that Dolcino was 
 raised to the office left vacant by Sagarelli's death, 
 was uttering those famous invectives which might 
 seem borrowed from the Apostle's own epistles : — 
 
 " Ah Constantine ! to how much ill gave birth 
 Kot thy conversion, but that plenteous dower 
 Which the first wealthy father gained from Thee ! " 
 
 And, — 
 
 " Of shepherds like to you the Evangelist 
 Was ware, when her who sits upon the waves 
 With Kings in filthy whoredom he beheld ; 
 She who with seven heads towered at her birth, 
 And from ten horns her proof of glory drew. 
 Long as her spouse in virtue took delight." f 
 
 * Petri de Vineis, Epistolar. lib. i. Ep. ii. p. 97. 
 
 t " Ahi, Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre 
 Non la tua conversion ma quella dote 
 Che da te prese il primo ricco patre ! "
 
 142 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 § 6. Nor was mere detestation of Roman corrup- 
 tion the only point of contact between the heretic and 
 the poet. Dante shared Dolcino's hopes and aspi- 
 rations no less than his zeal and indignation. And 
 it would not be easy, otherwise, to see by what 
 peculiar interest those lines would have been dictated 
 which had so much effect towards screening Dolcino's 
 memory from oblivion. The verses we allude to 
 were, in all probability, written at the opening of 
 Dolcino's campaign. The epoch of Dante's vision, 
 as every reader knows, is by him referred to the holy 
 week of the year 1300 ; that is, of the year of Saga- 
 relli's death and commencement of Dolcino's aposto- 
 late. But the poem itself was written at a later 
 period ; indeed, Dante was busy at it from the year 
 of his banishment to that of his decease (1302 — 
 1321). That word of warning conveyed to the sec- 
 tarian chief, through the organ of a reprobate of 
 hell, — the word that the poet puts in the mouth of 
 Mahomet, — was, in all probability, spoken in 1304, at 
 
 ***** 
 " Di voi pastor s' accorse il Vangelista 
 Quando colei che siede sovra 1' acque 
 Puttaneggiar co' regi a lui fu vista : 
 Quella che con le sette teste nacque 
 E dalle diece coma ebbe argomento 
 Finche virtute al sue marito piacque." 
 
 Dante, Inferno^ canto xix.
 
 dante's mission. 143 
 
 the epoch in which the apostle-leader had taken up 
 his position in the mountains of Upper Val Sesia, 
 and a crusade was preached against him by the au- 
 thorities of the diocese of Novara. It was not the 
 prophet of Mecca, it was Dante himself, who might 
 almost contemplate joining Dolcino, at the time, 
 who sang out, from his fujl heart, — 
 
 " Thou, who perchance 
 Shalt shortly view the Sun, this warning thou 
 Bear to Dolcino ; bid him, if he wish not 
 Here soon to follow me, that with good store 
 Of food he arm him, lest imprisoning snows 
 Yield him a victim to Novara's power, 
 No easy conquest else."*^ 
 
 Dante was, though not in everything one of Saga- 
 relli's disciples, yet an apostle. f He looked upon 
 himself as one gifted with prophetic powers, trusted 
 with a heavenly mission, especially to work out the 
 restoration of universal monarchy by utter confusion 
 
 * " Or di a Fra Dolcin dunque che s' armi, 
 
 Tu che forse vedrai il sole in breve, 
 S' egli non vuol qui tosto seguitarmi, 
 Si di vivanda che stretta di neve 
 Non rechi la vittoria al Novarese, 
 Che altrimenti acquistar non saria lleve." 
 
 Dante, Inferno^ canto xxviii. 
 -f- Foscolo, Discorso sul Testo dellaDivina Commedia, London, 
 825, p. 77-90.
 
 144 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 to the Church. His journey through the eternal 
 realms had no other object than to fit hhn for this 
 apostolate ; and his purpose is clearly enough made 
 known at the close of that eventful pilgrimage, when 
 the apostle Peter all but consecrates him in the 
 highest heaven by the imposition of hands; — 
 
 " Thus benediction uttering with song, 
 Soon as my peace I held, compassed me thrice 
 The apostolic radiance, whose behest 
 Had oped my lips, so well their answer pleased." * 
 
 These theories about the subjection of Church to 
 State found a more thorough development in the 
 less known, but no less important, book " De Mo- 
 narchia." The Church of Rome well understood the 
 meaning of that work when it consigned it to the 
 flames; and to the flames she would equally have 
 doomed the author himself, had he not escaped his 
 fate by the sad solitude and obscurity of all his life- 
 time. Cardinal Bertrand du Poiet, the nephew or 
 son, at any rate the legate, of the French pope, John 
 XXII., would have shown no better mercy to the 
 poet's ashes, and would have dug up the grave where 
 
 * " Cosi benedicendomi cantando 
 
 Tre volte cinse me, si com' io tacqui, 
 L' apostolico lume, al cui comando 
 To avea detto, si nel dir gli piacqui." 
 
 Dante, Paradiso, canto xxiv., at the end.
 
 DANGER OF THE CHURCH. 145 
 
 they had been laid only two years before, had it not 
 been for the interference of Guido da Polenta, the 
 patron and friend of Dante, who had received his 
 dying breath.* 
 
 § 7. The apostles of Fra Dolcino were, therefore, 
 nothing more than the expression of the anti-papal 
 spirit universally prevalent •in that age. With this 
 wide-spread, deep-rooted animosity against her, Rome 
 had struggled till she waxed faint and weary in the 
 contention: she had now grown almost callous to 
 abuse. Mere attacks of words, even those uncour- 
 teous phrases of the Apocalypse, w^ould have fallen 
 unheeded against her shield of arrogance and assurance. 
 We have seen that the first steps of Sagarelli were 
 treated with a leniency akin to contempt. The 
 Church was standing upon a rock ; what could a few 
 croaking idiots and fanatics achieve to endanger the 
 firmness of its foundations ? 
 
 Events had, however, occurred of late that gave 
 Rome no trifling ground for uneasiness. The Church 
 was a house divided against itself. Rebellion had 
 spread among the ranks of that very Franciscan 
 militia which had been enlisted in her service. Those 
 cowled malcontents, those paltry brotherlets (Frati- 
 celli), so despicable in themselves, were, however, 
 
 * Foscolo, DIscorso sul Testo, p. 20. 
 L
 
 146 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 strong by the organisation that their founder had given 
 them. They were the apostles of the lower classes ; 
 they penetrated the mass of the people to a depth 
 which no other minister of the altar had ever reached 
 before. The Church had most incautiously given 
 the multitude into their hands. They could equally 
 hold it in her behalf, or turn it against her. 
 
 Formidable as such enemies must necessarily be, 
 they were also hidden enemies. The danger did not 
 altogether arise from the declared seceders, or 
 well-known schismatic Franciscans. The whole Order 
 was rotten at the core, and for a long time it was 
 impossible to determine how many thousands of the 
 conventual brethren might incline towards the views 
 of the Spirituals, or how soon they would throw off 
 their allegiance and join the bands of the rebels. 
 
 § 8. Nor was it merely a blind impotent rancour 
 that these runaway monks cherished in their bosom. 
 There was method in the war they waged. There 
 was a secret hope, nay, a good confidence, of victory. 
 They were all awaiting the fulness of the times ; the 
 accomplishment of a promised redemption. The 
 Fraticelli had their " Everlasting Gospel,'' and their 
 " Introduction to the Everlasting Gospel." Dante, 
 Fra Dolcino, every man in those days, was a prophet, 
 or had, at least, faith in prophecy. The abbot Jo- 
 achim of Flora, whom Dante eulogises as
 
 A BEGGAR-POPE. 147 
 
 " Endowed 
 With soul prophetic," * 
 
 had given the text for all these wonder-working pre- 
 dictions. A strong belief in coming events, if shared 
 bj a vast multitude, is sufficient to bring about their 
 realisation. This the Church well understood ; and 
 it was, we little doubt, th^ great stir created in men's 
 minds by the free circulation of the Everlasting 
 Gospel that at last aroused her from her slumbers, 
 and gave her that alarm which prompted persecution. 
 To what extent the rebelhous Franciscans and 
 other begging fraternities had shaken the rock-built 
 fabric of the Vatican, may be collected from the fact, 
 that they themselves for once sat on the Vatican, and 
 well-nigh secured the government of the Church into 
 their own hands. We have seen that Dolcino's 
 apostles accused the whole series of Roman pontiffs, 
 from Sylvester to Boniface VIII., of profligacy and 
 corruption, with the single exception of Celestine V. 
 This latter was the real Franciscan pope. We do 
 not mean by this that he was the only pope issuing 
 out of the order of St. Francis ; but he was a pontiff 
 according to the heart of Francis himself; his choice 
 was effected in obedience to the clamours of a vast 
 
 * " II Calavrese abate Giovacchino 
 Di spirit© profetico dotato." 
 
 Dante, Paradiso, canto xii. v. 131 
 * L 2
 
 148 FEA DOLCINO. 
 
 party, both within and without that order, who insisted 
 
 on making the rule of the saint of Assisi the only law 
 for the whole ecclesiastical body. 
 
 § 9. Pope Nicholas IV. died on the 4th of April, 
 1292. He was the last of a series of worldly-minded 
 pontiffs who had thrown the world, and especially 
 Italy, into confusion, out either of personal, family, 
 or party ambition. His fond partiality for the 
 Colonna family was but in keeping with the bold 
 7iepotism of Honorius IV. for the Savelli, of Ni- 
 cholas III. for the Orsini, &c. &c. The scandal 
 that the evil practices of these meddling pastors had 
 given, caused discord and perplexity among the 
 cardinals assembled for the election of Nicholas IV.'s 
 successor, and gave rise to an interregnum of more 
 than two years. At the close of this period (July 5. 
 1 294), a real fit of the Holy Ghost seemed to have 
 seized the Conclave ; or else the dictates of a ne- 
 cessary policy induced them to look out for a saint 
 to fill the chair of St. Peter. Their choice fell on 
 Pietro da Morone. He was originally a Benedictine 
 monk ; but he had retired to a life of more rigid 
 penance on a mountain near Salmona, in Abruzzo, 
 from which he took his name. He was born, we are 
 told, a full-clad monk, with a frock on, and a cowl 
 on his head. His solitude was haunted by the whole 
 host of heaven, and by the Holy of Holies — the
 
 CELESTINE V. 149 
 
 Saviour himself. It was consequently beset by a 
 throng of worshippers attracted by the fame of his 
 miracles. Here, deep in his devotional exercises, 
 an archbishop and two bishops, the bearers of the 
 result of the Conclave, found him. They threw the 
 Papal mantle over his tattered sackcloth ; they 
 mounted him on an ass (for even the Chinea or milk- 
 white ambling palfrey of the popes would have been 
 too" much of a steed for his nerves) ; they surrounded 
 him with all the pomp and glitter of a court ; they 
 placed two kings (Charles II. of Naples, and Charles 
 Martel of Hungary) at his stirrups, — and dwarfish, 
 squalid, and ugly, they promenaded the poor, re- 
 luctant, bewildered solitary through the streets of 
 Aquila, and hence conveyed him, by easy stages, to 
 Naples. 
 
 The weak-brained hermit felt giddy at his un- 
 wonted elevation. He shrank from that splendour 
 like an owl from noontide glare. The two kings, 
 his patrons, and a few crafty advisers, ruled under 
 his name. They obtained from him the nomination 
 of twelve cardinals, all French ; a measure which 
 soon afterwards completed the work of subjection of 
 the Church to France. His electors were soon ter- 
 rified at their own work. They had put forward a 
 holy man with a view to reconcile the multitude ; 
 but they expected him in the end to be reasonable. 
 
 L 3
 
 150 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Seeming saints had before that time made their way 
 to the Papacy ; mere wolves in sheep's clothes, who 
 had not been long in throwing off their disguise. 
 But this new pontiff was impracticable, a bond fide 
 saint, irreclaimable ; fit only to pray and to fast, and 
 fully com^inced that his pontifical duties were best 
 discharged by praying the louder and fasting the 
 harder. The cardinals had no vocation to go such 
 lengths hand-in-hand with him; nor could they 
 suffer him to proceed too far without them. One of 
 them, the profligate Caietani, afterwards his suc- 
 cessor, Boniface VIII., set himself at the Pope's side, 
 and literally scared his soul out of that meagre body. 
 By the means, they say, of a speaking-trumpet, he 
 conveyed to him Heaven's bidding that he should 
 resign. The ill-fated Celestine hardly required so 
 loud a summons. From the very outset he had 
 made frequent attempts to run away from his great- 
 ness. He now called together his cardinals, made 
 known his pious wdsh to give up the world for the 
 sake of his own precious soul. He obtained their 
 sanction to a decree empowering a pope to abdicate, 
 and signed the act of his deliverance on the 13th of 
 December, 1294, five months and eight days after 
 his election.* 
 
 * Vita Sancti Celestini, Rer. Ital. Script., torn. iii. part i. 
 p. 616, &c.
 
 FATE OF CELESTINE. 151 
 
 § 10. This sorry farce of a " Pope in spite of him- 
 self" had, however, more significance than has gene- 
 rally been attributed to it. His successor, Boniface, 
 was too crafty not to perceive that the saint was more 
 formidable after his deposition than in the plenitude 
 of a power he was so ill suited to wield. He had 
 seen the whole Neapolitan clergy kneeling at Celes- 
 tine's feet, in vain endeavours to shake his reso- 
 lution. A very large party of the Church denied 
 the validity of his abdication ; nay, the admiration of 
 the multitude for his merely passive virtues was still 
 so strong several years later as to compel Clement 
 v., as worldly-minded a man as ever sat on St. 
 Peter's chair, to give it the sanction of the Church 
 by a solemn act of canonisation. The whole begging 
 world, who had found the leader they had so long 
 been waiting for, were less disposed to resign the 
 power which tliey had secured through him. They 
 had ranged themselves under his immediate orders 
 by obtaining his consent to the foundation of a new 
 fraternity, to be called " The Celestine Eremites of 
 St. Francis." Thus organised, the mendicant rioters 
 were still storming at the threshold of the Church. 
 Boniface felt the necessity of cutting off the head of 
 the dangerous hydra. He threw the deposed pontiff 
 into a dungeon, where, after various romantic adven- 
 tures, he died a miserable death, on the 19th of 
 
 L 4
 
 152 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 May, 1296. He suppressed the order formed under 
 Celestine's auspices, annulled all his acts, and sum- 
 moning the Dominican heretic-burners around him, 
 he prepared to do battle against all who would dare 
 to regret Celestine's memory. 
 
 But the memory of Pietro da Morone was still 
 green in the minds of his worshippers. The great 
 era of which he had been hailed the harbinger was 
 no less surely approaching, though he would no 
 longer be there to inaugurate it. Even those who 
 had been disappointed in him, those who, like Dante, 
 anathematized the craven. 
 
 " who, to base fear 
 
 Yielding, abjured his high estate,"* 
 
 were no less convinced that none but godly men, 
 
 none but Apostles, should sit on the throne of 
 
 St. Peter. And Boniface, in the meanwhile, not 
 
 satisfied with treading on the footsteps of his worst 
 
 predecessor, outdid them all in arrogance and impe- 
 
 riousness, and added some glaring instances of almost 
 
 unexampled rapacity and perfidiousness. He thus 
 
 filled the measure of popular wrath, and, in Italy at 
 
 least, with purely Italian means, rendered the Papacy 
 
 an impossibility. He seemed aware of this for some 
 
 time, and grounded all his power on French support ; 
 
 * " Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto." 
 
 Da>'Te, Inferno^ iii. 57.
 
 BENEDICT XI. 153 
 
 but blinded by passion, he improvidently cut off the 
 very props he stood on, and engaged in that contest 
 with Philip the Fair, in which not only did himself 
 perish a victim, October 10th, 1303, but the Church 
 also only escaped destruction by submitting to an 
 ignominious captivity. 
 
 § 11. After the death of Boniface VIIT. an attempt 
 was made to elect, if not a saint, at least an honest 
 man, in his place. The Conclave was still under the 
 influence of popular opinion, and their choice fell on 
 the Cardinal d'Ostia, Benedict XL, the only man in 
 the sacred college who could be made acceptable to 
 the multitude. But the maxim that a Pope should 
 not be allowed to do good if he chose, had already 
 become the leading idea of Roman policy. Benedict 
 perceived that he was a prisoner in the Cardinal's 
 hands, and when, almost by a stratagem, he succeeded 
 in making good his escape, his death was immediately 
 resolved upon. He died " of a plate of figs" 
 (July 4th, 1304) ; and after nearly a year's disorders, 
 Philip the Fair, of France, carried an election in 
 favour of Bertrand de Gotte, Clement Y. (June 5th, 
 1305), the first of those Pontiffs of Avignon, none of 
 whom ever was known to be any better than his 
 Cardinals wished him, any better than a Pope 
 should be. 
 
 The disappointment occasioned by the faint-
 
 154 FEA DOLCINO. 
 
 heartedness of Celestine Y., and by the premature 
 fate of Benedict XL, was too much calculated to 
 exasperate the anger of that pious multitude who 
 were so anxious to evangelize the Church. Since it 
 was too evident that even a Pope's authority or 
 example were of no effect towards a reformation of 
 deep-rooted abuse, since a reformation could be the 
 work of no intrinsic change, they laid all their hopes 
 on the interference of extrinsic agencies. They 
 looked out for a chastiser of the Church, an avenger. 
 It was for the sword to cure the rottenness of the 
 Christian body, and that to be wielded by a monarch 
 and a conqueror. It was once more the great pre- 
 diction of Joachim of Flora, the oracle of all the 
 enemies of Rome. This prediction circulated in 
 manuscripts, and underwent the strangest modifica- 
 tions, not during this age merely, but for more than 
 two centuries later. Joachim had said that " the 
 Eagle would come, the mere whirring of whose 
 mighty pinions would cause the Lion's overthrow." 
 Gregory VII. and his successors had grounded the 
 Papacy on the ruins of Monarchy : it was for an 
 emperor to reassert his supremacy by the humiliation 
 of the Papacy. Joachim's life had passed between 
 two Emperors, both bearing the name of Frederic, 
 both of the House of Swabia, who both had attempted 
 the subjugation of the Church, and both had perished
 
 FREDERIC OF SICILY. 155 
 
 in the struggle. A new champion of Monarchy was 
 now at hand ; and for a long time men looked for 
 him amongst the last scions of the Swabian line, 
 among all the monarchs who bore the name of 
 Frederic. 
 
 § 12. There was, from 1291 to 1337, a Prince, 
 who seemed to answer all these particulars. This 
 was King Frederic III. (II. of Sicily); the son of 
 Peter III. of Aragon, and of Constance, daughter of 
 Manfred of Apulia, and, through this latter, grandson 
 to the second Frederic. Like his father Peter, and 
 his brother James, of Aragon, Frederic had to contend 
 all his lifetime for his maternal inheritance of Sicily, 
 against the House of Anjou, who had usurped the 
 Kingdom of Naples, and laid claims to the Sister 
 Kingdom, and against the Popes and the French 
 Kings who supported such claims. Frederic was, 
 therefore, looked upon as the head of the Ghibeline 
 party, and v/as even thought to aspire to the imperial 
 diadem : and although he repeatedly reconciled him- 
 self with the Church, and obtained a short truce 
 with his enemies, although he even came forward in 
 support of Boniface VIII., during his final struggle 
 with Philip the Fair, in 1303*, yet his ordinary 
 place was in the foremost ranks of the foes to the 
 
 * Muratori, Annal. d'ltalia, ad ann. 1303. Sismondi, Re- 
 publiques Italiennes, torn. ii. p. 341.
 
 156 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Papacy, and if he never actually obtained the 
 imperial crown, he was, nevertheless, in close alliance 
 with all the wearers of it, especially with Henry YII., 
 of Luxemburg, and Louis IV. of Bavaria, both of 
 whom came to Italy to rally the Ghibeline party, and 
 only lacked the good fortune or the talents of the 
 great Swabian heroes to accomplish what these latter 
 had left unachieved, 
 
 Frederic of Sicily was, therefore, for a long time, 
 the idol of all the enemies of Rome — the idol, that 
 is, of that anti-papal, anti-gallic party whom we call 
 Ghibeline, and of that vast number of ecclesiastical 
 dissenters whom we might style evangelical or apos- 
 tolical. He was, most probably, one of the many 
 heroes to whom Dante looked up for redress ; since 
 we are informed by Boccaccio *, that the third division 
 of his poem, the Paradise, was dedicated to him. 
 The Poet, indeed, lived to feel bitterly disenchanted 
 about him, as about any other living being; and 
 forgetting that he had called him and his brother 
 James, 
 
 " Aragonla and Sicilia's pride," f 
 
 * Boccaccio, Vita di Dante, p. 68-69. Foscolo (Discorso sul 
 Testo, &c. p. 350, &c.) thinks it improbable, but we are willing 
 to take Boccaccio's word, nevertheless, 
 •j- " Genitrice 
 
 Deir onor di Sicilia e d'Aragona." 
 
 Dante, Purgatory, iii. 113.
 
 KING OF THE MENDICANTS. 157 
 
 he launched forth into bitterest invectives against 
 " his avarice and cowardice," * 
 
 no doubt at a time that the king was under necessity 
 to yield to fortune, and make his peace with the 
 pontiffs. These and other charges against Frederic 
 are, however, triumphantly contradicted by the tes- 
 timony of all historians, who give him the boast of 
 being the wisest and bravest prince of his age.f 
 
 However disappointed Dante might be in him, 
 Frederic continued nevertheless to be the support 
 and refuge of all who were worsted in their fight 
 against Rome or Avignon. As late as 1313, all 
 the seceding Franciscans or Fraticelli of Lombaidy, 
 Romagna, and Tuscany were fain to fly to him for 
 an asylum against the violence of Clement V., who 
 had armed all the rest of the world against them.| 
 
 § 13. The war against heresy had now broken 
 open afresh. The faggots that had been quietly 
 smouldering under ashes after the terrible times of 
 Gregory IX. were fanned into a new blaze by the 
 haughty Boniface VIII. ; and all the wrath of this 
 
 " L'avarizia e la viltade." 
 
 D A^TE, ParadisOj xix. 127. 
 
 f Muratori, Annal. d'ltal. ad ann. 1337. Sismondi, Repub* 
 liques Italiennes, torn, ii. p. 340, &c. 
 
 } Wadding, Annales Minorum, vol. vi. p. 213-265.
 
 158 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 pope was especially turned against the partisans of 
 his predecessor, against the upholders of apostolical 
 humility, under whatever garb they might try to 
 hide themselves. The thunders of the Vatican were 
 first hurled by him at the head of the obnoxious 
 Fraticelli as early as 1297. A short respite might 
 have been obtained under the good-natured Bene- 
 dict XL, had he ever had his own will, for he begged 
 the inquisitors " so to exercise their office that the 
 cry of their victims might not reach his ears ;"* but 
 yet more terrible times came under Clement V., 
 John XXII., and all that series of loathsome 
 Avignonese pontiffs. 
 
 Together with the Fraticelli and other similar 
 sectarians, the Apostles of Sagarelli began to suffer 
 persecution at this same crisis of ecclesiastical affairs. 
 It was only three years before Boniface's bull was 
 aimed at the seceding Franciscans, that four of 
 Sagarelli's disciples suffered at Parma (1294), and 
 only four years after the date of that bull (1300), 
 that sentence of death was passed against the arch- 
 apostle himself, at Parma, and that Dolcino had to 
 provide for his safety by flight to Dalmatia, exactly 
 at the epoch in which the most incorrigible Fraticelli 
 had also to take refuge in the East, into Achaia, 
 
 * Tiraboschi, Storia Letteraria, vol. viii. p. 645.
 
 EXTENT OF THE MENDICANT CONSPIRACY. 159 
 
 and hence into some desert island, to each of which 
 asylums the ruthless watchfulness of their enemies 
 soon knew how to track them.* All these statements 
 have been made with a view to demonstrate that our 
 Apostles were but a fraction of a vast community of 
 those " Parvi Fratres de Paupere Vita," between 
 whom and Rome there was then so deadly a quarrel. 
 From these " Little Friars" the Apostles differed in 
 some trifling peculiarities of dress, and, possibly, of 
 creed ; but they were bound to them by unity of 
 purpose, and it was this purpose which, backed by 
 the suffrage of an admiring multitude, and abetted 
 by the scattered remnants of the imperial or Ghi- 
 beline party, gave all these religious dissenters a 
 formidable political importance, quite sufficient to 
 explain the inveteracy with which Rome laboured at 
 their extermination. 
 
 § 14. Amongst other peculiarities that distinguished 
 them, the Apostles had, besides a name, a costume, 
 and a chief, also a prophet of their own. The sub- 
 stance of Dolcino's predictions has come down to us, 
 though through the same suspicious channel of 
 the anonymous, unfriendly writers through whom 
 we are made acquainted with his religious belief. 
 Dolcino is stated to have sent forth three epistles, 
 
 * Mosheim, Eccles. Hist vol. ii. p. 574., and notes.
 
 160 FKA DOLCINO. 
 
 indited to tlie whole Christian world, and especially 
 to the followers of his own sect. The first is dated 
 August, 1300 : only one month, that is, after Saga- 
 relli's execution ; the second was issued in the 
 Christmas season 1303, probably from Dalmatia; the 
 contents of these are summarily given *; the third 
 seems altogether to have escaped the diligence of 
 these historians. There is a vast deal of Apocalyptic 
 trash in what is there laid before us, with which it 
 would be unwise to fatigue our readers. Even as a 
 prophet Dolcino is there represented as an arrant 
 plagiarist. No mention of Joachim occurs in his 
 words, but it is clear that his prophecy was only a 
 new version of the Sibylline sayings traditionally 
 attributed to the gifted abbot of Flora. There were 
 only a few modifications — some further extension 
 and adaptation to circumstances of that trinal idea, 
 which among all Joachimites, governed the world. 
 According to Joachim, we have seenf the age of the 
 Spirit was to conclude those of the Father and Son. 
 The '* Everlasting Gospel" was intended as a com- 
 pletion of the Old and New Testament. Men 
 who had lived according to the flesh under the old 
 Jewish dispensation, who had reconciled the flesh 
 with the spirit under Christian rule, were now, in 
 
 * Historia Dulcini, p. 435. Addit. ad Dulc. Hist. p. 450, &c. 
 f Ante^ § 8., and chap. ii. § 12., and cliap. i. § 50.
 
 THE COMING AVENGER. 161 
 
 this third era to live according to the spirit merely : 
 this new era was to date from the year 1260, and 
 was to be ushered in by barefooted brethren, true 
 to Apostolic mission. 
 
 At this stage of affairs, Dolcino takes up the pre- 
 diction. The barefooted brethren are Sagarelli's 
 disciples, who made their first appearance in that 
 eventful year. Ever since that epoch, the work of 
 redemption has been in progress. The Apostles have 
 suffered ; they have been driven to flight and conceal- 
 ment, even as Christ's own apostles had done before 
 them. But their triumph is at hand : their vindi- 
 cator is born, has already long since attained man's 
 estate and regal power. The Apostles were pro- 
 fessedly men of peace, but they had long since 
 abandoned all hope of prevailing by mere gentle 
 means. The sword was to prepare the way for 
 their peaceful mission. The old edifice of the 
 Church must fall, must be levelled with the ground, 
 ere they could hope to lay the first stone for their 
 new one. What they expected was Reformation 
 by the sword. 
 
 The wielder of this sword was no ideal personage. 
 The victims of all succumbing parties are apt to die 
 with those words on their lips : — 
 
 " Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor.** 
 
 M
 
 162 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 But Dolcino's avenger was not vaguely fore- 
 shadowed. Indeed he -vvas too distinctly indivi- 
 dualized. "Wedded to the same ideas, living on 
 the same hopes, Dante had also his own favourite 
 hero — perhaps heroes — in view. He also lived and 
 died in daily expectation of the subduer of priestly 
 arrogance, of the restorer of monarchic dignity : 
 but he was a poet, and delighted in mystic lan- 
 guage ; he dealt in allegories ; the coming man was 
 typified, now by 
 
 " the greyhound comiDg to destroy 
 The false she-wolf Tvith poignant pain ;"* 
 
 now by the 
 
 " heh' of that Eagle 
 Who left the chariot plumed ; " f 
 
 literally, the successor of that Constantine who 
 feathered the nest of the Church. 
 
 All this, as if it had been his pleasure to per- 
 plex his commentators, who have, for the last five 
 hundred years, been cudgelling their brains to apply 
 
 * " Infin che il Veltro 
 
 Yerra che la fara morir di doglia." 
 
 Dante, Inferno^ canto i. v. 115. 
 f "K"on sara tutto tempo senza reda 
 
 L' aguglia che lascio le penne al carro." 
 
 Purgatory^ xxxiii. 37.
 
 DOLCINO, DANTE, AND JOACHIM. 163 
 
 such allusions, now to one, now to another of the 
 Ghibeline chiefs of those times, to Cane della Scala, 
 to Uguccione della Faggiuola, and finally, with more 
 plausibility, to Henry VII. of Luxemburg, who 
 filled the throne of Germany from 1308 to 1313: 
 though it is very likely that Dante, unwilling to 
 commit himself, purposely dealt in insoluble riddles, 
 or that the strains of his prophecies were changed 
 in the same measure as the political horizon was 
 altered around him. 
 
 Of the Eaglet, ox pullus aquilce, of Joachim, how- 
 ever, none of his disciples lost sight. It was, plainly 
 enough, only an Emperor who could answer the pur- 
 pose of either Ghibeline or Beggar-monk. Mosheim 
 has amused himself in fishing out all the Frederics, 
 or other princes of different name, to whom the 
 hopes of the world were successively turned.* So 
 long as any scion of the House of Swabia could be 
 
 * Ketzergeschichte, part ii. Geschichte des Apostelordens, 
 Note V. It may be desirable to give one of these predictions, 
 the earliest, and probably the most vague and oracular, and in 
 fact the only one which might, perhaps, be ascribed to Joachim 
 without too glaring an anachronism : — 
 
 " Veniet Aquila, de cujus volatu delebitur Leo : Veniet 
 PuHus Aqullaa et nidificabit in domo Leonis. De radice Aquilaa 
 surget alius Aquila, cujus nomen Fridericus, qui regnans reg- 
 nabit, extendetque alas suas usque ad fines terraB. Cujus 
 sub tempore Summus Pontifex et clerus dilapidabitur et dis- 
 pergetur." 
 
 M 2
 
 164 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 traced through any of its remote branches, legitimate 
 or otherwise, so long as a prince could be found, 
 no matter of what race, who, no matter from what 
 motives, might be supposed to harbour evil designs 
 against the pope and clergy, — there the expectant 
 multitude fancied they could recognise the Man of 
 Joachim. This strange delusion was sent down from 
 generation to generation, and was only dispelled at 
 the decease of the Emperor Frederic III., of the 
 House of Austria (1440-1473), on whom all the 
 yearnings of the enemies of the Church centered 
 with unprecedented earnestness, especially because 
 the long disorders consequent on the great western 
 schism seemed indeed to have brought the Church 
 to the verge of irreparable ruin. 
 
 § 15. Poor Dolcino was both explicit and consistent. 
 Far from entertaining, or at least betraying, any mis- 
 giving as to the certainty of his predictions, he staked 
 all his chances on their fulfilment. He was willing, 
 we are told *, to be branded with falsehood and im- 
 posture, both for himself and his disciples, and ready 
 to give his enemies and persecutors all credit for sin- 
 cerity, if a single tittle should pass away of that 
 future which he held from God's own revelation. 
 
 For him the Deliverer could be only one. Faith- 
 ful to the system of ternaries laid down by the be- 
 
 * Additamentum ad Dulc. Histor. p. 452.
 
 DOLCINO'S CONSISTENCY. 165 
 
 lievers in Joachim, he could only conceive that the 
 work begun under one Frederic, and continued under 
 another, could be achieved by a third. This third 
 Frederic had made his appearance in 1291 ; the 
 very year, by another momentous coincidence, in 
 which Dolcino himself had joined the Apostolical 
 sect : that Frederic was now bravely struggling for 
 his inalienable rights against all the might of Anjou, 
 of France, and of Rome ; and he was known to be 
 boiling with indignation at the sight of the vices 
 of the clergy, and burning with desire to avenge 
 the grievances of the bride of Christ. God would 
 speed him in all his undertakings : he would give 
 him the victory over all his enemies : he would raise 
 him to the imperial throne. From the height of 
 that power he would depute nine kings to rule over 
 Italy.* By his own might, and by their aid, he would 
 smite tke Church with the sword, the Pope and the 
 College of Cardinals ; all the prelates and secular 
 priests, as well as all the orders of monks and nuns 
 without exception. The time of this direful cata- 
 strophe was, also, too accurately determined : all was 
 to come to pass within the third year after the date 
 of that first epistle ; consequently, in the year 1303. 
 After wreaking God's wrath on the ministers of a 
 
 ♦ Or new kings : the Hist. Dulciui, p. 435., has novem reges : 
 the Additamentum, p. 453., reges novos. 
 
 M 3
 
 166 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 false church, Frederic would proceed to the organi- 
 sation of the true one ; the disciples of Sagarelli 
 would now step out of the lurking places to which 
 the malignity of their foes had driven them. God 
 would himself appoint his own Pope : the whole 
 world would he converted to the doctrine of the 
 Apostles : and the emperor and the nine kings, to- 
 gether with the new Pope, would rule peaceahly 
 over the earth for three and a half years, at the end 
 of which period the millennium was to be ushered in, 
 preceded and accompanied by all the phenomena 
 which men were still so fain to see fore-determined in 
 the book of Revelations. 
 
 The anonymous writer who gave the most minute 
 particulars of Dolcino's soothsayings *, concludes 
 with a triumphant remark, that he was writing on 
 the 1st of May, of the year 1316, — sixteen years, that 
 is, since the date of Dolcino's first epistle ; Stnd that 
 the heresiarch had most undoubtedly written himself 
 down a liar and impostor, since not one of the terrific 
 events by him announced to the world had been wit- 
 nessed ; and the last term assigned to him for the rea- 
 lisation of his wicked dreams had long since elapsed. 
 
 § 16. To what extent, however, Dolcino was really 
 positive and precise as to the particulars of his pre- 
 diction, especially with regard to time, may still, in our 
 
 * Additamentum ad Dulcinl Hist, p. 455.
 
 HIS PLAUSIBILITY. 167 
 
 opinion, be considered debatable ground. We must 
 ever bear in mind that all the information on this 
 subject is afforded to us by men who cannot even 
 disguise the temper by which they were actuated 
 whilst writing ; men who can never utter the name 
 of these Apostles without designating them as the 
 " accursed Cathari," without assuring us that " since 
 Adam nothing was ever seen so execrable, so pesti- 
 lential as this horrid sect ; "* men, too, whom it is 
 easy to convict of flagrant contradiction at least, if 
 not deliberate falsehood. Of three epistles, we have 
 said it, two only are produced, and even those not 
 genuinely quoted, but abridged, and not unlikely 
 garbled, with wilful omission of ^' such matter as 
 seemed to the historian irrelevant, "f 
 
 Now it is not easy for the most clear-sighted and 
 unprejudiced critic, we will not say to decipher, but 
 even to read, books of prophecy. The whole of man- 
 kind, as we know, saw in the pages of the New Tes- 
 tament the very plainest intimation that the world 
 was to come to its end about the year 1000, and pre- 
 pared themselves accordingly. The fatal year passed, 
 and men put off the consummation of the inevitable 
 
 * " Postquam formatus fuit Adam, nulla secta reperta fuit 
 tam execrabilis, tam abominabilis, tain horrenda," &c. Hist. 
 Dulc. p. 437. 
 
 -}• Additaraentum, p 450. 
 
 314
 
 168 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 catastrophe from year to year, from age to age, ere 
 tliey would admit the futility of their apprehension. 
 Even acquitting Dolcino's historians of \yilful per- 
 version of his words, we may well presume that his 
 real meaning was, as the last Book of the New Testa- 
 ment, somewhat misconceived or misrepresented. No 
 man should be convicted except on his very words. 
 
 That he wished for the overthrow of the Church 
 is clear enough ; and with men of ardent disposition 
 wo know how easily desire begets hope, and this 
 again hardens into faith. The combination of all 
 circumstances, singularly enough, pointed to Frederic 
 of Sicily as the hero of Joachim's prophecy. The co- 
 incidence of the date of Sagarelli's apostolate, and 
 of Dolcino's own, afforded strong ground for the be- 
 lief that his sect was to have no little share in the 
 working out of God's hidden designs. It is possible, 
 also, that a fond, mystic veneration for ternary 
 numbers may have induced him to announce that the 
 great revolution would be effected in three years : 
 but we must yet doubt whether he could be so egre- 
 giously imprudent, or so utterly self-blinded, as to 
 name any positive date, and still more so as to name 
 so near a day : uttering thus assertions which the 
 very morrow, as it were, might refute. 
 
 He who wrote in 1316, or any of those who lived 
 down to 1337, could very easily laugh at any pre-
 
 FAITH OF HIS FOLLOWERS. 169 
 
 diction tending to the exaltation of Frederic of Sicily ; 
 for that king never extended his power beyond his 
 own island, and the Popes of Avignon and their 
 clergy followed their own wicked courses without 
 any great uneasiness on his account : but Dolcino 
 died in 1307 ; and, although he would have had to 
 confess, in Dante's own words, that, 
 
 " By many a year the writing played him false," * 
 
 yet he could still with his dying breath reassert that 
 the coming of Frederic, and his performance of the 
 high deeds expected of him, was no less matter of 
 necessity. 
 
 This may be set down as senseless obstinacy or 
 stark impudence on his part, truly ; but we must 
 not overlook the fact that Dolcino died surrounded 
 by many of his sectarians, all sharers of his hopes, 
 all strenuous believers of his words. We are willing 
 to admit that the faith of a fanaticised multitude is 
 stronger than even the love of woman is said to be. 
 "We have not forgotten j- that, in 1300, the disciples 
 of that female Messiah, WiJhelmina of Bohemia, 
 were cheerfully dying in the flames at Milan, to 
 bear witness to the truth she taught, although not 
 
 * " Di parecchi anni mi mentii lo scritto." 
 
 Dante, Inferno^ xix. 86. 
 f Ante^ chap. i. § 52.
 
 170 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 one word had ever come to pass of what she was 
 said to have prophesied, more than nineteen years 
 before, respecting her death and resurrection, and 
 her coming to judge the quick and the dead. But 
 in the case of Dolcino the jugglery would have been 
 too glaring and palpable. His fellow-sufferers would 
 have seen every word of his prediction belied from 
 year to year, and yet clung to him all the stronger 
 the more shameless the assurance with which he 
 played on their credulity. 
 
 By the words of his first epistle, Boniface YIII. 
 was to be put to death, with all his clergy, both 
 regular and secular, within three years after August, 
 1300. Now the Pope alone died and only in October, 
 1303 ; and not by the sword, but foaming at the 
 mouth like a mad dog, perhaps strangled by his 
 own hand in a fit of rage brought about by the in- 
 dignities he had to endure at the hands of the Co- 
 lonna, Nogaret, and other agents of Philip the Fair. 
 Boniface died all but a violent death, truly, and that 
 death infiicted by a monarch's resentment ; but that 
 monarch was not only not the one pointed out by 
 the prophet, but was that very French tyrant who, 
 together with the Princes of the House of Anjou, 
 
 * Ferreti Yicentini, Historia, lib. iii. Rer. Ital. torn. ix. p. 
 1008. Swmondi, Republ. Ital. torn. ii. p. 351.
 
 HIS SHIFTS AND CONTRIVANCES. 171 
 
 was to be involved in the fate of Boniface himself, 
 whilst the expected executor of God's mandates, 
 Trederic of Sicily, had at that time made his peace 
 with, and came forth as a champion of, the very 
 pontiff he was appointed to overthrow. 
 
 In the teeth of so signal a failure, the prophet, 
 we are told, merely shifts his ground. In his second 
 letter, written in December of that same year, 1303, 
 and without the least attempt to explain or palliate 
 his discomfiture, he simply says that the fate which 
 Boniface had so miraculously escaped was reserved 
 for his successor. This latter he does not name, 
 probably because the election of Benedict XI. was 
 not yet known in Dalmatia, where Dolcino apparently 
 dated from : he adds that the sentence of Heaven 
 against him and against the cardinals his electors, 
 and the exaltation of God's instrument, Frederic of 
 Sicily, to the highest earthly dignity, would be 
 effected within two years or little more, naming 
 either the Christmas week, 1305, or the Lent of 
 the following year. The ill-starred Benedict XI. 
 did not even live through the short period assigned 
 to him : he died, most probably, a violent death ; for, 
 unless it was from a surfeit of the sweet fruits of 
 which he was too fond, then it must have been from 
 some subtle drug with which his cardinals had them
 
 172 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 seasoned for him*; but, at any rate, this happened 
 in July, 1304, from which epoch to the following 
 June, 1305, there was actually no Pope in Chris- 
 tendom, and after wdiich Dolcino and his friends, 
 shut up in the mountains, hardly ever knew how 
 the fulfilment of prophecy was speeding. During 
 all tliis period, too (1298 — 1308), the imperial 
 sceptre, which was to fall to the lot of the Sicilian 
 king, was still in the hands of Albert of Austria, 
 who never indeed gave himself any concern about 
 Italian matters, to the great vexation of Dante f; 
 but who, although at first opposed by Boniface VIII., 
 ended not only by reconciling himself with that pope, 
 but even acknowledging the supremacy of the Roman 
 See over the Empire, — an act which brought with 
 it his acknowledgment by all the Italian potentates, 
 and, we doubt not, by Frederic of Sicily himself. J 
 
 Well may Mosheim exclaim §, that '* a prophet 
 need be as insensible to shame as a beggar ; and 
 Dolcino was professedly both." But Mosheim, too 
 apprehensive that his Protestant tendencies may 
 betray him into injustice to Catholic authorities in a 
 work on heresy which he emphatically styles impar- 
 
 * Ferreti Vicentini, Ub. iii. p. 1013. 
 
 f Dante, Purgatory., vi. 98. 
 
 J Coxe, House of Austria, vol. i. chap. vi. 
 
 § Geschichte des Apostelordens, lib. i. § xxii.
 
 THE DEGREE OF HIS POSITIVENESS. 173 
 
 tial*, accepts the assertions of Dolcino's accusers with 
 too little discrimination. The fact is, however, that, 
 like an astrologer, Dolcino drew his horoscope ac- 
 cording to the aspects of the political firmament 
 around him, and also in consonance with previous 
 oracles held in universal veneration. The conclusion 
 he came to on these data, may indeed have been 
 delivered with a confidence which proved irresistible 
 to his hearers, but scarcely, we should think, with 
 any decided claims to infallibility. The evidence of 
 God's wrath against the Church, so manifest in the 
 violent death of two successive pontiffs, must have 
 contributed to render Dolcino's predictions matter of 
 great weight, even in their partial miscarriage. His 
 believers might be somewhat staggered, but had no 
 reason to be wholly disheartened. The final doom 
 of the establishment was, however slowly, surely 
 maturing ; and their leader had certainly caught- a 
 glimpse of the truth, even though he had not actually 
 seen God face to face. 
 
 § 17. We have dwelt so long on the probable nature 
 of Dolcino's prophecies, because we apprehend that in 
 these alone, or at least "mainly, lay the offence of 
 these unhappy sectarians. The Church dreaded ill- 
 omens; nor were her fears groundless. "With Boniface 
 
 * Versuch einer unparteiischen und griindlichen Ketzerge- 
 schichte.
 
 174 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 VIII., the Papal power, which had proved irre- 
 sistible during previous centuries, was at last setting, 
 and for ever. Ecclesiastical pride was sure to have 
 a fall ; and no man, at that time, could measure the 
 depth of it. A total subversion seemed almost in- 
 evitable ; and nothing, in that as well as in any 
 successive epoch, could have power to avert it, ex- 
 cept the interested motives of wicked monarchs. 
 The Church was aware of its danger, and knew that 
 these croaking mendicants hastened the impending 
 evil. 
 
 This may explain the facility with which sorcery, 
 necromancy, and all manner of Black Art were, by the 
 inquisition of the middle ages, readily confounded 
 with heresy. The gift of divination, by all human 
 and superhuman means, never was in higher credit. 
 The very cobblers at the street corners — witness 
 Asdente, of Parma, agreeably to Dante*, left "their 
 thread and cord wain" to busy themselves with the fate 
 of pontiffs and monarchs of the earth (a.d. 1280). 
 Even in the opinion of the poet, himself a prophet, 
 
 Asdente 
 
 Che aveve atteso al cuoio ed alio spago 
 
 Ora vorrebbe, ma tardi di pente." 
 
 Daxte, Inferno^ canto xx. 116. 
 See also his Convito, v. 179. ; and Affo, Storia di Parma, tom. iv. 
 p. 39. 59., who gives some interesting particulars respecting the 
 prophetic shoemaker.
 
 HERESY AND SORCERY. 175 
 
 the soothsayer was, to say the least, guilty of impious 
 presumption ; and he dooms those who — 
 
 " too far 
 Before them wished to see," 
 
 to *'look backward" in hell, and 
 
 " Tread reverse their path." * 
 But the Church held, or attempted to hold, all divina- 
 tion as allied to misbelief. The " poor men " of the 
 Alps perished in the flames, as guilty of the black 
 art, which, from their name, was designated as 
 Vauderie.-f "Witchcraft was equally imputed to the 
 Albigenses, the Cathari, and the Templars ; and, it 
 would seem, also to our Apostles, since Dolcino's 
 sister, the beautiful Margaret, of Trent, is purposely- 
 exonerated from any complicity in that particular 
 guilt. J The identity of punishment engendered 
 among the ignorant multitude the notion of similarity 
 
 * " Perche voile veder troppo davante 
 
 Dirietro guarda e fa ritroso calle." 
 
 Dante, canto xx. 36. 
 f Bert. I Valdesi, chap. ii. p. 40. 
 
 J " Margarita, non tarn malefica quam haeretica consors ejus." 
 Bernard. Guidon, in Vit. Clement. V. Rer. Ital. tom. iii. p. 674. 
 Maleficus was the word used for magic : and the Papal Biogra- 
 pher would seem to consider Margaret as a sharer only of the 
 errors of Dolcino, not of his darkest crimes of sorcery. But 
 'Ttolemaus Lucensis, Hist. Ecclesiast. cap. xxiv. Rer. Italic, 
 tom. ix. p. 1228., calls her "Margaretam maleficam et necroman- 
 ticam." See Baluz. Vitae. Papar. Avenionens. tom. i. p. 26 
 and 67.
 
 176 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 of oiFence. The astrologer, indeed, was in some in- 
 stances led to the stake as a predestinarian. Poor 
 Cecco d'Ascoli, for one, thus perished at Florence, in 
 1327. He was a poet, and distinguished himself by 
 a certain rivalry and, as some have thought, malice 
 towards Dante : but he was especially an astronomer, 
 and in that capacity he had been entertained at the 
 court of John XXII., and of Charles Lack-land, 
 Duke of Calabria; he also filled the chair of his 
 science in several Italian universities, especially at 
 Bologna. He had reached his seventieth year, and 
 possessed great reputation for his proficiency in the 
 occult sciences. Like every star-gazer in his times, 
 Cecco conceived that every man was under the irre- 
 sistible influence of the stars that presided over his 
 nativity. Prescience of the future implies a belief in 
 fatalism. The astrologer was tested as to the free- 
 will of Christ and Antichrist ; and he was consistent 
 enough to say that neither of them could depart from 
 the line that was eternally traced out for him : that 
 the one could not but have been a Saviour, the other 
 a destroyer of mankind : a blasphemy which cost him 
 his life.* 
 
 § 18. But besides these hostile feelings to the 
 
 * Dictionn. des Heresies, or Ketzerlexicon, art. Caecus Ascu- 
 lanus. Bernini, Storia di tutte T heresle. Venice, 1717, torn, 
 iii. p. 449, 450.
 
 DOGMAS OF THE APOSTLES. 177 
 
 Church of Rome, and the desperate confidence with 
 which thej anticipated its ruin, but which, however, 
 implied no actual deviation from its doctrines, the 
 Apostles were also accused of holding some of the 
 tenets of the Cathari, and being, therefore, tainted 
 with those errors which it was then the fashion to 
 trace to ancient Manichaeism. 
 
 We have so frequently mentioned this word, and 
 so much meaning was in reality attached to it in the 
 Middle Ages, that we deem it necessary to attempt a 
 definition of it. 
 
 Manichaeism was, in its origin, merely an error of 
 natural theology. It had risen in regions to which 
 no light of Hebrew revelation had ever penetrated, 
 possibly in ages anterior to the earliest Mosaic re- 
 cords. It did not, perhaps, positively amount to a 
 denial of the unity of God. It merely supposed the 
 existence of two antagonistic principles : the one it 
 called spirit — light — good; the other, matter — 
 darkness — evil. These were by some deemed co- 
 existent, co -eternal, self-created; but others, again, 
 conceived them to be the offspring of a higher Being 
 — a God the Father — immeasurably removed from 
 human ken, who, from some inscrutable, providential 
 motive of his own, had endowed these two elements 
 with a hostile activity, and was calmly contemplating 
 the chances of the conflict between them. Launched 
 
 N
 
 178 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 thus into the arena of boundless space, these two ir- 
 reconcilable brothers had laboured to the procreation 
 of congenial auxiliaries. Ahrimane, the evil demon, 
 had heaped up a huge mass of formless matter, and 
 entrenched himself in impenetrable gloom : Ormuzd, 
 or the genius of good, had encompassed himself with 
 myriads of spirits, made in his own image — the 
 human souls, — and darted them, like so many arrows, 
 against that citadel of chaos. The two principles had 
 thus come to a close engagement, which began with 
 the existence of this visible world, and is only to end 
 with it. Spirit has penetrated matter ; it has informed 
 and animated it, and is to end by subduing it, by ut- 
 terly spiritualising it. For the Supreme Deity had 
 preordained a happy issue of the great contest. The 
 forces of the two camps are not so nicely balanced but 
 that the better part may not have a constant, decided, 
 however scarcely perceptible, advantage — sure to 
 lead, at some indefinitely distant period, to certain 
 and complete victory. 
 
 "We do not conceive that any man could be burnt 
 alive at this present age, for entertaining such sub- 
 lime and consoling theories. Such doctrines, in fact, 
 do not seem, in any essential point, repugnant to the 
 great moral law% which, according to all religious 
 revelation, is supposed to govern the world. The 
 existence of evil, under the express sanction of a good
 
 MANICHiEAN DOGMA. 179 
 
 and wise, and yet almighty Providence, a perpetual 
 battle of the spirit with the flesh, lies 'at the basis of 
 Christianity ; and a man is either a son of God or the 
 Devil, according as the soul or the body asserts its 
 ascendency over him. 
 
 Some of the various sects of the Gnostics at the 
 very dav^^n of Christianity, and Mani or Manes to- 
 wards the end of its third century, first attempted 
 the application of those doctrines to the Gospel of 
 Christ, the former deriving their knowledge more 
 immediately from the religion of Zoroaster, the latter 
 adding to this some of the tenets more peculiar to 
 Buddhism.* All of them, however, and Manes and 
 his followers, the so-called Manichasans especially, in 
 a vain anxiety to explain every thing, to account for 
 every thing, so fondly refined upon what was originally 
 pure and intelligible, they launched into so many 
 wild, abstruse, idle speculations, especially with re- 
 gard to the mystery of the incarnation of Christ, his 
 death and resurrection, all of which they looked upon 
 as un-real and symbolical — and about the final resur- 
 rection of the body, a doctrine which clashed with 
 their views of the ultimate destruction of all matter 
 — and with respect to the Old Testament, which, to- 
 gether with some chapters of the New, they rejected 
 
 * Neander, Church Hist. vol. ii. sect, iv., and the Appendix 
 to it, p. 170—195. 
 
 M 2
 
 180 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 as tlie work of the evil spirit — as to arrive at conclu- 
 sions which were possibly impious in themselves, 
 and admitted, at any rate, of the most dangerous ap- 
 plication. 
 
 § 19. Of these errors, and of these practices, it 
 was, at all times, found impossible to cure Chris- 
 tianity. Manichaeism, that is, an endless variety of 
 dogmas that were dignified by that name, after lying 
 dormant for several centuries, burst forth afresh in 
 the eighth and ninth centuries among the Paulicians 
 in the East, a sect, whose errors were, however, at 
 variance and actually conflicting with those of 
 Manes *, and, as we have seen, passed hence into 
 the West amongst the various heretics of Italy and 
 France. 
 
 This connection between the Paulicians and some 
 of the Italian sects of the Middle Ages is, however, 
 rather assumed than satisfactorily demonstrated. To- 
 gether with most modern writers, Hallam f considers 
 it as established " beyond a doubt." He founds his 
 arguments, however, mainly on the appellation of 
 Bulgarians, which was distinctly bestowed upon some 
 of the Albigensian sects, and upon a fact resting on 
 the testimony of Matthew Paris %, that they acknow- 
 
 * Neauder Church Hist. vol. v. sect. iv. § iii., p. 337-354. 
 f Hallam, Middle Ages. chap. ix. part ii. vol. ii. p. 441. 
 + Matthew Paris, Hist. Major, p. 267. ad ann. 1223.
 
 MANICHJEISM IN THE WEST. 181 
 
 ledged a primate or patriarch, resident on the fron- 
 tiers of Bulgaria, Croatia, and Dalmatia. But the 
 election of this pope or antipope is referred to in the 
 year 1223 ; and the name of Boulgres or Bulgarians, 
 as well as that of Cathari or Gazari, which Mosheim 
 would also trace to some Eastern national denomina- 
 tion *, only rose in the twelfth or thirteenth century, 
 wlien the intercourse between the East and West, 
 consequent on the expeditions of Palestine, may 
 either have favoured the importation of new doctrines 
 into France and Italy, or at least the modification of 
 the old ones. But there were, as we have seen, 
 earlier sects at Orleans, Arras, and Monforte, which 
 made their appearance early in the eleventh century, 
 that is, many years before the first Crusade, which 
 were not generally designated as Manichaean, and 
 whose derivation could not be easily traced to the 
 Paulicians,f 
 
 The several French congregations merely owed 
 their origin to Italian propagandism ; and the earliest 
 Italian sect known, that of Monforte, the one, too, 
 
 * Mosheim, Gescliichte des Apostel-ordens, note 7. ; and 
 see ante^ chap. i. § 14. 
 
 •f- Neander, Church Hist, period iv. sect, iv., § iv., vol. vi. 
 p.- 349, 358. Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 393., and note 
 Of the Italian sect, their historian says, " Ipsi a qua orbis parte 
 in Italiam fuissent eventi, inscil. Landulph. senior. Hist. Me- 
 diolan. lib. ii. cap. xxvii. ; Rer. Ital. Script, torn. iv. p. 88. 
 
 N 3
 
 182 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 about which we have the most distinct particulars, 
 made no avowal of such Eastern descent. Their 
 teacher, Gherard, declared *' that they had a pontiff, 
 not him of Rome, but another, who daily visited their 
 brethren scattered through the world*;" by which 
 words we understand that, like most Protestants of 
 our own days, they acknowledged no other supreme 
 Chief of the Church than Christ and his Holy Spirit ; 
 nor should we be surprised, if the Bulgarian pontiff 
 said to have been elected in 1223, by the sects of 
 Languedoc, and whose name, Bartholomew, is given, 
 had been nothing else but an ideal personage, under 
 whom the Divine Spiritual chief was symbolised. 
 
 All this, however, is somewhat extraneous to the 
 present subject. The Apostles of Sagarelli and 
 Dolcino had, most certainly, nothing in common with 
 the main dogma of Manichaeism. Amongst their 
 tenets, such as they came down to us through their 
 enemies' hands, there occurs no mention of the two 
 principles; no denial of the reality of Christ's body, 
 or of the final resurrection ; no rejection of any 
 part of Holy ^yrit. But amongst them, as well as 
 among the Albigenses and Cathari, and the sects 
 which preceded these, and the Brethren of the Free 
 
 * "Pontlficem habemus, non ilium Romanum, sed alium, 
 qui quotidie per orbem terrarumfratres nostros visitat disperses." 
 Landulph. senior, Hist. Mediol. vol. i. cap. i.
 
 MYSTICISM OF THE APOSTLES. 183 
 
 Spirit, the Beghards and Fraticelli, who rose about 
 the same period, doctrines are found which have been 
 referred to Manichseism, though they do not essen- 
 tially and exclusively belong to it. Most of these 
 doctrines are purely mystic and ascetic, such as have 
 been at all times wound up with the most rigid and 
 orthodox Christianity. 
 
 § 20. The Apostles were mystical ; they rejected, 
 or at least deemed unimportant, all forms of external 
 worship. They conceived, and expressed their views 
 in a language unnecessarily strong and coarse, that 
 a consecrated church is of no greater worth, as a 
 place of worship, than a horse-stable or a pig-stye; and 
 that Christ could be worshipped in the woods fully 
 as well as in churches * ; that a life of holiness, of 
 chastity and self-denial is all the more meritorious if 
 it be observed without the restraint of an irrevocable 
 vow.f Finally, they professed to live under no bond 
 of external discipline, merely in obedience to an in- 
 ward instinct of subordination to superior grace.J 
 
 The Apostles were, besides, ascetical. Theirs was 
 a life of privation and penitence, of squalor and 
 
 * See Tenets of the Apostles, art. 18, 19. Addit. ad Dulc. 
 Hist. p. 457. 
 
 t Art. 17. 
 
 I See Dulc. Epistles, in Addit. ad Dulc. Hist. p. 450. and 
 454. 
 
 N 4 
 
 ■%
 
 184 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 gloom : they practised severe fasts, and doomed them- 
 selves to the strictest celibacy. 
 
 These few articles constituted all the ground of 
 their real and imaginary oiFence. Like all other 
 mystics of ancient and modern times, they made 
 religion to consist exclusively in internal worship, 
 with utter contempt of rites and ceremonies, with 
 utter disregard of formal discipline. They held that, 
 by rigid mortification, by intense contemplation, the 
 soul could be so lifted up, so absorbed, as to become 
 identified with God, in which state it would be in- 
 accessible to sin, proof against temptation. All per- 
 fection, for them, lay in the utter emancipation of 
 the spirit from the flesh. 
 
 These ideas may originally have sprung from that 
 Eastern Dualism, upon which the dogma of Manes 
 was supposed to rest: as they certainly evince a 
 desire on the part of the human soul to aid in the 
 great battle of the spirit-world against the world of 
 matter, by the utter subjugation of that part of mat- 
 ter in which, agreeably to the great Providential 
 scheme, it is temporarily imprisoned : but they, at 
 the same time, contain nothing repugnant to the 
 Christian dogma ; and the Brethren of the Free 
 Spirit, when they maintained that a perfect man 
 could be, by intense communion with God, made 
 superior to all the rules of monastic discipline, and
 
 THEIR IMMORTALITY. 185 
 
 all other merely human institutions, — when they 
 made light of the sacraments, of baptism, and the 
 Last Supper — thought they could refer to the autho- 
 rity of the Apostle Paul *, and upheld their notions 
 by a chain of arguments which are accepted as sound 
 and conclusive by many an honest sectarian of the 
 present day. 
 
 § 21. But out of these doctrines, harmless and 
 perhaps holy in themselves, the Apostles and all 
 kindred sects, were accused of making a loose and 
 flagitious rule of life ; they were charged, not merely 
 with occasional and individual incontinence, but with 
 deliberate profligacy and villany : their scheme of 
 religion was so calculated as to sanction and sys- 
 tematise all manner of infamous vice. 
 
 The Apostles condemned matrimony and all sexual 
 intercourse. 
 
 On economical and hygienic, no less than moral, 
 ground, chastity has always been a primary virtue in 
 the East, and in all countries where a hot climate 
 exercises too strong an influence over the passions. 
 The ascetics of primitive Christianity had made it the 
 Christian virtue par excellence. By a principle 
 analogous to that of the Teetotallers of our own 
 times, they thought that men could only be bound to 
 temperance by a pledge of utter abstinence. Hence 
 
 * Rom. viii. 2-14.
 
 186 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 the myriads of Anchorites and Coenobites, the holy 
 virgins which the Church numbered among her 
 saints. 
 
 But cehbacy, as it was at first understood, was an 
 exceptional state ; a privilege, as it were, of the 
 happy few, an unnatural stretch of self-denial to 
 which the Church neither intended nor expected that 
 the generality of mankind should be forced. 
 
 But there were sects, it was said, that over-stepped 
 all the Church's just and moderate views : there were 
 fanatics, who enjoined absolute chastity on all their 
 followers, and that on dogmatic grounds. The Mani- 
 chaeans aimed at the emancipation of mankind by its 
 extinction. Since all evil was in matter, and all sin 
 in the flesh, they said, it was clear that redemption 
 could be best achieved by a universal, though not 
 violent suicide of our race. Not a few sects, espe- 
 cially among the early Gnostics and Manichaeans, 
 were supposed to entertain this destructive notion : 
 from the Abelites of the fourth century in Africa, 
 who took their name from Abel, the first bachelor, as 
 they fancied, in human records*, down to the Shaker 
 communities of North America, who strictly adhere 
 to it at the present time. 
 
 With tlie exception of the very ancient, and of the 
 
 * Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, liv. vii. chap. iii. 
 Buck's Theological Dictionary, art. AbeHtes, Shakers, &c.
 
 ABELITES AND SHAKERS. 187 
 
 very modern sects just named, however, it does not 
 clearly appear that such was invariably the aim of 
 Manichaeism. Some of the sects bearing that name, 
 far from wishing for the destruction, seemed, on the 
 contrary, to believe in the indefinite improvement of 
 mankind here below. The heretics of Monforte, 
 amongst many others, expected a happy day, in 
 which the human race, after the utter defeat of the 
 common purposes of nature by the total discontinu- 
 ance of matrimony, should be propagated by some 
 miraculous means.* 
 
 Moreover, nearly all these sects admitted of two 
 or more ranks among their votaries : they all had 
 their " elect " or " perfect men," and their mere 
 " believers or auditors." Of these, the former alone 
 were bound to conform to the strictest rule of their 
 institution, whilst allowance, as it is natural to infer, 
 was made for the frailty of the latter. 
 
 § 22. Considered under such a point of view, and 
 supposing that they put off the ultimate improve- 
 ment of the whole race to an indefinite period, what 
 else was the " chastity" which was made a theme of 
 reproach to the Manichaeans, save only something 
 like the celibacy of the clergy, which the Church of 
 
 * " Sicut apes, sine coitu, genus humanum gigneretur." 
 Landulph. senior, Hist. Mediolanens. Hb. ii. cap, xxvii. 5 Rer. 
 Ital, torn. iv. p. 88.
 
 188 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Rome, about this same epoch, had been making 
 strictly obligatory ? It is a fact of the very greatest 
 importance, that, in the eleventh century, Gregory 
 VII., Peter Damianus, and other zealous discipli- 
 narians, who strove so hard, and succeeded in the 
 end, in forbidding the marriage, or, as they called it, 
 the concubinate of the priests, in the north of Italy 
 and beyond the Alps, were, by their adversaries, 
 looked upon as Manichaean innovators ; and desig- 
 nated in Lombardy under the name of Paterini, a 
 word which was then made synonymous with Mani- 
 chaean, and was first applied to the strictest Ro- 
 manists, because the inveterate hatred which they 
 evinced against the holj' tie of wedlock was by the 
 honest Lombard priests, and by their adherents, con- 
 strued into an undue stretch of Manichaean asce- 
 ticism * : as, indeed, the Church herself was wont to 
 consider all excess of zeal, all fasting and praying 
 extraordinary, total abstinence from animal food; 
 nay, the mere paleness supposed to result from such 
 exaggerated devotional practices, as a sure index of 
 the abhorred heresy, and to send such fanatics to the 
 stake accordingly. -j- 
 
 But there was an orthodox and a heterodox asce- 
 
 * Arnulpli. Hist. Mediolanens. hb, iii. cap. xxiv., lib. iv. 
 cap. vi. ; Rer. Italic. Script, torn. iv. p. 24., seq. 
 f See ante^ chap. i. § 8.
 
 ASCETICISM OF THE APOSTLES. 189 
 
 ticism, as there was a Catholic and a heretic dogma ; 
 and Rome would not allow any man to be a samt 
 without her permission. 
 
 § 2S. For what more immediately concerns our 
 subject, it is not easy to state whether or not Dolcino 
 went the whole length of the Abelites and Shakers. 
 He taught*, that it had been good for men living 
 under the rule of the Old Testament to marry and 
 multiply their race : that in the second epoch, or 
 under the Christian dispensation, single life, as Paul 
 seemed to understand itf, was better than the mar- 
 ried state. The natural inference from this would 
 be, that in the new era, or that of the Holy Ghost, 
 chastity, like all ascetic virtues, should attain per- 
 fection, and become absolute and universal. 
 
 But whatever might be his ultimate expectation 
 as to the future, Dolcino could not hope or wish, at 
 first, to people the world with apostles. To such of 
 his followers as aspired to that proud denomination, 
 the apostolic virtues were inexorably enjoined : but 
 these were only the elect, the heralds of the new- 
 gospel : the same severe rule was not, perhaps, ap- 
 plicable to the multitude of their believers. These 
 latter were supposed, with no good reason, as we 
 shall see, to live together in a promiscuous inter- 
 
 * Dolclno's Epistle, in Additam. p. 451. 
 f 1 Cor. vii. 29.
 
 190 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 course, in a " community of goods, and community of 
 women." 
 
 We come now, in fact, to the main ground of their 
 enemies' ill-report against them. It was not so much 
 the exaggerated puritanism, which, as reproachful 
 to the laxity of the regular clergy, made both these 
 and all other dissenters obnoxious, as the univer- 
 sally prevalent opinion that all their holiness was 
 sheer hypocrisy — a mask for the indulgence of the 
 most culpable excesses. 
 
 The accusation was as old as Christianity itself. 
 So long as the earliest believers, under the pressure 
 of persecution, enveloped their deeds in mystery and 
 concealment, the darkest, the most odious surmises 
 were rife against them among the pagans : and the 
 evil reports spread against the Carpocratians, Mar- 
 cionites, and other Gnostic sects by the orthodox, 
 and retorted against these by the dissenters, gave 
 sufficient ground for the worst misconceptions.* The 
 rancour and ill-will of Christians against Christians 
 only increased with the prosperous spread of their 
 faith, and the Manichaeans especially, or those who 
 were designated as such, at all times came in for the 
 most atrocious charges on the part of their brethren. 
 
 *' At certain times," it was said of the sectarians 
 
 * Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xvi.
 
 HOKRORS OF HERESY. 191 
 
 of Orleans, in 1022*, and has been confidently re- 
 peated of a hundred other sects in all ages and coun- 
 tries, as nearly as possible in the same words, " the 
 heretics met together by night, each with a lighted 
 torch, and invoked the Devil till he made his appear- 
 ance. Then putting out all lights, they banished all 
 shame, and disregarded the most sacred laws of Nature 
 herself. The fruits of these horrid scenes, when 
 eight days old, were murdered and burnt, and the 
 ashes so obtained constituted their heavenly food, 
 which was of such efficacy, that whoever partook of 
 it at all, became an enthusiast of their sect, and could 
 seldom ever afterwards be recovered to a sound 
 mind." 
 
 It would be of little matter to repeat, that stories 
 of this nature were got up and believed respecting 
 the early Gnostics of the third century, respecting 
 the disciples of Priscillian, in the fourth. There are 
 men amongst the ignorant multitude in Germany 
 and Italy, who will still piously treasure up such idle 
 tales with regard to the Jews of the present day. At 
 Mantua or Leghorn, the notion that the Israelites 
 are bound to celebrate some decennial or centennial 
 anniversary by the sacrifice of a Christian virgin is 
 
 * Glabrii Radulph. Hist, sui tempor. lib. ili. cap. viii. 
 Duchesne, Her. Franc. Script, torn. iv. p. 32., and see ante^ 
 chap. i. § 7.
 
 192 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 still deeply-rooted in the popular mind ; and grave 
 personages liave assured us at Frankfort, that it is 
 enough to raise the formidable cry, " Hep ! Hep ! 
 Hep ! " * to send the whole fanatic mob to the 
 Judengasse, there by murder and plunder to avenge 
 some imaginary deed of bloodshed periodically sup- 
 posed to stain the floor of the synagogue. 
 
 Nor is it merely all that is most atrocious and re- 
 volting that man at all times showed himself ready 
 to believe of his fellow-man. The absurd and ludi- 
 crous comes in for its ample share of popular credu- 
 lity. We have seen how irrefragably it was proved 
 that the Stedingers and other heretics of Germany 
 paid their worship to the Devil under the disguise of 
 a toad. The Cathari, in Italy, were said to derive 
 their name from some strange ceremony performed 
 in honour of the same evil spirit, who appeared to 
 them under the shape of a black cat.f The same 
 tom-foolery figures conspicuously among the charges 
 
 * The initials H. E. P. (Hierosoljma est perdita) by which 
 the zeal of the Crusaders was stirred up in the Middle Ages, 
 and which was often the signal for a slaughter of the Jews. The 
 convivial shout " Hip I Hip! Hurrah!" in England is referred to 
 the same origin. 
 
 f " Quia osculabantur posteriora catti, in cujus specie, ut 
 dicunt, apparet eis Lucifer." Alani, Contra Waldenses, lib. i. 
 p. 4. in Gretzer's Scriptor. contra "Waldenses, Ingoldstadt, 
 1613, quarto.
 
 INDISCRETION OF THE APOSTLES. 193 
 
 SO triumphantly substantiated against the Templars, 
 ** on their own confession:" and Boniface VIII., 
 who had also such familiars always about his person, 
 was proved to have propitiated the Nether Gods in 
 true classical style, by the sacrifice of a black cock. 
 
 § 24. Our Apostles, as incarnate fiends, would ap- 
 pear to have scarcely needed any actual communica- 
 tion with the powers below. Not only had they 
 invented, as it was believed, a religious scheme which 
 removed all restraint on the impulse of passion, but 
 they actually ministered to its flame by the incentive 
 of constant, systematic temptation. 
 
 Here, again, the error, if it may be proved, must 
 be traced to the primitive times of the Christian 
 establishment. In the paramount importance they 
 attached to the virtue of chastity, some of the earliest 
 zealots did not follow the dictates of discretion. ** A 
 few of them, amongst whom we may reckon the 
 learned Origen," says Gibbon, resting on the very best 
 authorities *, ** judged it most prudent to disarm the 
 tempter : some were insensible, and some invin- 
 cible against the assaults of the flesh. Disdaining an 
 ignominious flight, the virgins of the warm climate of 
 Africa encountered the enemy in the closest engage- 
 ment But insulted Nature sometimes vin- 
 dicated her rights," &c. &c. 
 
 * Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. xvi. 
 O
 
 194 PRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Of this most deplorable fool-hardiness the Apos- 
 tles of Dolcino were said to have made themselves 
 guilty. Dolcino * laid the greatest stress on that 
 strength of mind which could purposely court such a 
 temptation and come off victorious over it. Not 
 only was it no sin to go through such a dangerous 
 ordeal, but the continence exhibited under it implied 
 a greater miracle than raising the dead. 
 
 Yet, the idea that virtue should be valued in ac- 
 cordance to the amount of danger to which it was 
 exposed, found favour with fanatics, which the Church 
 has not always disavowed. All monastic establish- 
 ments were not prisons in which each sex pursued its 
 own separate path towards perfection. The visits of 
 pious monks to pious nuns were long encouraged, 
 especially among the Benedictine communities. Pro- 
 miscuous monasteries were also known up to the 
 year 787, when they were interdicted by the Seventh 
 General Council — the Second of Nice, — nor was 
 even then the prohibition considered effectual. As 
 late as the twelfth century the idea was revived in 
 
 * See Tenets of the Apostles. Addit. ad Dulc. Hist. p. 457. 
 Art. XV. " Item, quilibet homo et qucelibet mulier nudi possunt 
 j acere in uno et eodera lecto * ♦ * * sine omni peccato : 
 et conjungere ***** si quis stimuletur carnaliter, ut 
 cesset temptatlo, non est peccatum." Art. xvi. " Item, quod 
 jacere cum muliere et non commisceri ex carnalitate majus est 
 quam resuscitare mortuum."
 
 SHAKER MARRIAGES. 195 
 
 France by Robert des Arbriscelles, the founder of 
 the Order of Fontevrault, who not only harboured 
 brethren and sisters under the same roof, but placed 
 his whole establishment under the rule of an abbess, 
 professedly — for what oddity has not sought its au- 
 thority in the same quarter? — professedly in pursu- 
 ance of the example of our Saviour, who commended 
 St. John to the care of his mother, and wished him 
 to look up to her with filial duty and submission.* 
 
 § 25. The injunction of chastity anongst some of 
 the Manichasans did not bind them to a formal vow 
 of celibacy. The Abelites of the fourth century, or 
 the Shakers of the nineteenth, anxious as they w^ere 
 that this wicked world should come to an end, did 
 not, however, venture on the abolition of matrimony, 
 seeing that the institution was too plainly hallowed 
 by Christ himself; but they frustrated it by looking 
 upon it merely as a holy spiritual union. Theirs 
 was to be the wedded home to which no child is born ; 
 their family should receive no increase except by the 
 adoption of the offspring of more sinful people ; 
 until by the conversion of all the races of mankind, 
 the living should be the last of human generations. 
 
 Even such a bond of spirit would Dolcino's 
 Apostles have established between them and their 
 " sisters." The very name of marriage was pro- 
 
 * Abelard, Op. p. 38. 
 O 2
 
 196 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 scribed amongst them. It was the boast of their leader 
 that the most virtuous connection existed between 
 himself and the beautiful Margaret of Trent. That 
 *' best beloved of all his disciples had lived with him 
 like a sister in all holiness and purity.*' To all these 
 protestations, it is true, human malignity would yield 
 no belief. It was impudently asserted that, at the 
 time of her apprehension, that sainted sister exhibited 
 symptoms of approaching maternity ; a taunt which 
 Dolcino and his disciples refuted by saying that, had 
 that really been the case, it must have come to pass 
 through the interference of the Holy Ghost.* 
 
 That this connection between brothers and sisters 
 was in all cases as blameless and holy as they wished 
 the world to believe, no man in his senses would too 
 confidently assert. A mode of life fi-aught with the 
 same severe trials had been adopted by those apos- 
 tolic sects which flourished in France about one 
 century and a half before Dolcino came to his fate.f 
 St. Bernard, who had undertaken to reclaim or to 
 refute those enthusiasts, admonished them in a tone 
 which does credit to his moderation, and strikes us 
 as remarkably sensible for a saint. ** This young 
 
 * " Secum ducebat Amasiam, nomine Margaritam, quam di- 
 cebat se tenere more sororis in Christo, provide et honeste : et 
 quia fuit deprehensa esse gravida, ipse et sui asseruerunt esse 
 gravidam de Spiritu Sancto." — Additam. p. 459. 
 
 t See ante^ chap. i. § 17.
 
 DISCRETION BEST PAKT OF VALOUR. 197 
 
 woman," says he, '* who is always about you, day 
 and night, she is no relation to you. You deem 
 yourself safe with her ; you wish us to understand 
 that all is right between you ; it may be so, friend, 
 but — I have my suspicions."* This mixture of stark 
 imprudence and consummate hypocrisy has at all 
 times been reproached to all apostolical and other 
 mendicant sects. The German Beghards, Beguins, 
 and the Italian Fraticelli, though these latter as 
 disciples of St. Francis ought to have had nothing to 
 do with women, were also "sisterers:" they also 
 held that virtue could be of no value while untried, 
 and that no man should boast of perfection till he 
 had flung himself into the flames of passion and come 
 off unscathed. t 
 
 § 26. But all this would yet be mere venial offence 
 
 * " Quotidie latus tuum ad latus juvenculae est in mensa ; 
 lectus tuum ad lectum ejus in camera; oculi tui ad oculos ejus 
 in colloquio ; manus tuae ad manus ipsius in opere ; et conti- 
 nens vis putari : Esto ut sis, sed ego suspicione non careo." 
 Bernard. Serm. LXV. in Cantic. § 4. Oper. tom. i. p. 1495. 
 
 f " Dixit quod inter BeguLnos communiter dicebatur quod 
 in partibus Italia? erant aliqui Fratisselli, et aliqui homines de 
 pcenitentia qui erant de tale opinione, quod non reputabant esse 
 perfectum aliquem nisi posset se ponere nudum cum muliere 
 nuda et non perficeret actum carnalem." See the confession of 
 a Beguin, Rufus de Einktagarella, before the Inquisition at 
 Toulouse, in Limborch. Hist. Inquisit. Lib- Sententiarum, p. 
 381, 382. 
 
 O 3
 
 198 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 if compared with the fundamental errors which were 
 at all times attributed to Manichseism, and from 
 which hardly a sect in the middle ages was pro- 
 nounced entirely free. The Gnostics of the first 
 century and the Brethren of the Free Spirit of the 
 Thirteenth *, alike taught that the acts of the body 
 have no connection with the soul, when this latter 
 has been lifted up to immediate communion with 
 God ; that consequently all desires may be safely 
 indulged, as there can be no moral difference in mere 
 physical actions. Others held that a man can com- 
 mit no sin except in so far as his thinking organs 
 were concerned! ; that instead of subduing the flesh 
 by abstinence, it was a wiser course to blunt its 
 cravings by satiety. Others again announced that 
 the third era was now at hand ; the age of the Holy 
 Ghost ; a law of love ; when, for the sake of charity, 
 not only was it no sin to grant a brother all he 
 might ask, but it was actually a sin to deny him. J 
 
 * Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. cent. i. part ii. chap. v. § 7. and 
 cent. xiii. part ii. chap. v. § 11. 
 
 T " Quidam dicebant quod nullus poterat peccare ab umbilico 
 et inferius." — Petr. Vail. Sam. Hist. Albigens. Rer. Franc- 
 Script, torn. xix. p. 5. 
 
 X " Tertia lex, quae nunc est, est lex amoris, clementiae, 
 caritatis, ita, quicquid petatur sub nomine caritatis, quicquid 
 sit illud, etiam actus fornicationis venerese, absque peccato 
 potest concedi petenti, inimo nee potest licite denegari." — Con-
 
 THE GROUND OF SUCH CHARGES. 199 
 
 In the teeth of all such monkish assertions and all 
 inquisitorial convictions, we do not hesitate to affirm 
 that such were never the teachings of any sect. All 
 we can believe is merely that some of the general 
 theories of those Manichsean divines, by dint of 
 unconscionable stretch and perversion, admitted of 
 some such unfavourable interpretation, either on the 
 part of a few vicious or ignorant individuals belonging 
 to the sect, or more probably on that of their bigoted 
 opponents. In the same manner Calvinism might 
 be, and, we know, has been taken to task for that 
 predestinarianism which, by throwing on God alone 
 the responsibility of all human deeds, would free 
 man from all moral restraint. We hold that no re- 
 ligious scheme, whether Christian or otherwise, was 
 ever contrived, consciously and deliberately to ad- 
 vocate immorality ; and that whenever, by refining 
 on some abstruse topic, theology has ever come to 
 conclusions warring with the better instincts of human 
 nature, this latter has invariably recoiled from such 
 conclusions ; or at least come to some compromise by 
 which the real mind of the Eternal Lawgiver should 
 best be carried into effect. Collectively at least, 
 man has always been better than his gods ; and that 
 because man's mission is progress, and it is in the 
 
 tinuat. Chron. Guil. de Nangis. in Daclierii Spicileg. veter. 
 Scriptor. torn. iii. p. 59. 
 
 o 4
 
 200 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 nature of all religions, as taught by priests, to be 
 stationary : man's real sense of good is infinite, and 
 all priestly scheme of morality is limited to time, 
 accommodated to circumstances. 
 
 § 27. There never, perhaps, was a more clear and 
 flagrant instance of the abuse of reasoning, on which 
 the Church grounded her proofs against heresy in 
 the dark ages, than the very case of the sect of the 
 Apostles which she destroyed by fire and sword in 
 the year 1307. For the unsoundness of their doc- 
 trines was said to be manifestly seen in the looseness 
 of their lives ; and, by a strange confusion of cause 
 and efiect, the profligacy of their lives was taken for 
 granted, as a necessary consequence of the doctrines 
 they professed. 
 
 With the exception of the idle story about Marga- 
 ret's pregnancy, which the sequel of this narrative will 
 fully disprove, even if we deemed it unnecessary to 
 revert to it in plain words, there is, we will not say 
 no proof, but even no direct and positive assertion of 
 dissoluteness in the manners of these Apostles. 
 
 § 28. !Muratori, for instance, an historian who had 
 no wish to meddle with theological questions, but who 
 could hardly be superior to vulgar prejudices, testifies 
 his surprise* that "no mention of licentiousness should 
 
 * " Quod mirere, Dulcini, ejusque sectatorum effusa licentia 
 in abominandam quamque Hbidinem a scriptore hujus opusculi
 
 CONTRADICTORY EYIDENCE. 201 
 
 occur amongst the errors and crimes enumerated" in 
 the contemporary *' history of Dolcino," which he 
 gives into light. He adds, that " doubtless fame has 
 always greatly aggravated the guilt of heretics of this 
 description :" as, however, he concludes, " Dolcino 
 held some of the tenets of the Gnostics and Mani- 
 chaeans, who allowed full indulgence in all disgraceful 
 excesses, so consequently, Eymeric and other writers 
 were justified in their statement that all things, 
 even wives, were looked upon as common property 
 among his disciples ; for well we know, that no- 
 where does so large a crowd of men and women 
 eagerly flock to hear these perverters of the Catholic 
 dogma, as when they, under the semblance of piety, 
 allow full scope for the gratification of evil passions." 
 Now, there are grave and conscientious divines, — 
 
 minime inter ejus errores et crimina recensetur. Et sane horum 
 hominum genus et scelera, plus aequo fama interdum onerare 
 consuevit. Attamen quum Dulcinus ej usque schola principiis 
 quibusdam uterentur quae Gnosticis olim et Manicbaeis fuere 
 communia, et e quibus fluebat impunitas ad omnia luxuriae in- 
 quinamenta, nemo neget, quin fides facile habenda sit supra 
 laudato Eymerico, de iis scribenti, omnia communia esse docehant 
 etiam uxores. Sanctus quoque Antonius, part 3. tit. 21. cap. 1. 
 Bernardus Lucemburgensis, Blondus, aliique idem confirmant. 
 JTunquam enim ad hosce Catholicas doctrinae novatores et cor- 
 ruptores tam studiose turba virorum ac mulierum confluit, quam 
 quum sub specie pietatis libidLni aliisque vitiis porta recluditur." 
 Muratori, in Dulc. Hist. Praefatio Rer. Ital. torn. ix. p. 426.
 
 202 FRA DOLCIXO, 
 
 Mosheim amongst others*, who do not find anything 
 like Gnosticism or Manichaeism amongst Dolcino's 
 articles of belief; and although we opine that those 
 fatal articles XV. and XVI. may be looked upon as 
 not belonging to the purest Christianity, we can find 
 no argument to induce us to believe that they were 
 ever put into, or intended for, actual practice. What 
 allurements of luxury and debauchery Dolcino could 
 hold out to his militant, mendicant brotherhood, to 
 drag multitudes of males and females in his suite, 
 will be made apparent by what remains to be told of 
 his sorrowful tale. Meanwhile, it is well to observe, 
 it was not merely in this case ; but out of thousands 
 and thousands of Fraticelli, Beghards, and Beguins, 
 who were brought to the stake in the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth century — two thousand Fraticelli alone 
 perished in the flames — hardly one was ever seriously 
 accused of acting up to the foul and corrupt code of 
 morals they were said to have prescribed for them- 
 selves. Their pretended mask of hypocrisy was 
 hardly ev^er taken from their faces f, — their boast of 
 rigid virtue, of unshaken chastity, of purity unsullied 
 amongst the flames, is seldom impugned, nay, very 
 
 * Geschichte des Apostel-ordens, Book III. § 1-3. 
 
 ■j- " Asserentes mendaciter et fingentes se nuUis carrds ten- 
 tationibus molestari." — Addit. ad Dulc. Hist. p. 460. This is 
 one of the many instances of a plain assertion met with a flat 
 negation.
 
 ABSURDITY OF THE CHARGES. 203 
 
 often admitted by their tormentors ; who, unable 
 otherwise to account for it, gravely assert that it was 
 the devil himself, who, no doubt, from reasons best 
 known to himself, helped them in their sorest need, 
 and so cooled their blood, so blunted their feelings, 
 as to carry them safe through their fiercest experi- 
 ments.* 
 
 But how far these said experiments were ven- 
 tured upon has not been clearly stated. Dolcino 
 himself does not go so far as to recommend a trial of 
 continence as a meritorious action, always supposing 
 the XV. and XVI. articles of his creed to be genuine, 
 — though he does not deem it sinful. On the con- 
 trary, he qualifies a victory in a similar contest, as 
 the '* Miracle above all miracles," and there is no 
 evidence of either himself or any of his disciples so 
 far presuming on his valour as to engage in it. 
 
 So far as the sect of the Apostles is concerned, we 
 must never lose sight of the fact, that not the least 
 allusion to immoral practices as being rife amongst 
 them, occurs in the bulls of the Popes directed to 
 the suppression of their order, in 1286 and. 1290; 
 that is, twenty-six and thirty years after its founda- 
 
 * " Credo quosdam ex eis daemonis opere affectos fuisse ne 
 moverentur ad naturales actus incontinentiaB : faclllimum enim 
 est daemonibus infrigidare." — Nieder, Fornicarium, lib. iii. 
 chap. V. p. 346.
 
 204 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 tion ; also, that no confession of similar guilt was 
 extorted from Peter of Lugo, during the long and 
 painful interrogatory which he underwent for two 
 years, before that keen-searching inquisitorial tri- 
 bunal at Toulouse, in 1320 ; that is, thirteen years 
 after the dispersion of the sect in Italy. The idea 
 that errors of that nature might be imputed to his 
 sect, never fell into his own or into his questioner's 
 minds. * The assertions of Eymeric, and other 
 ecclesiastical authorities, must needs therefore rest 
 on mere popular scandal ; a scandal which arose from 
 the real or supposed guilt of the many mendicant sects 
 which arose at the same period and afterwards, and 
 with which our Apostles had, doubtless, many things 
 in common. The obvious contradiction and incon- 
 sistency of those assertions, too, will easily satisfy us 
 of the vague and contemptible sources they sprang 
 from : for Benvenuto da Imola, and after him 
 many others f, stated that mothers and daughters 
 were at least excepted from that ** community of 
 women " which was to be grounded on the new law 
 
 * Limborch, Hist. Inquisit. Liber Sententiarum, p. 361. 
 
 •j" " Quod omnia debebant communicare in caritate ; et quod 
 licebat omnibus uti mulieribus indifferenter, ita quod nullus 
 concubitus erat damnatus nisi in matre et filia." — Benvenut. 
 Imolens. in Dant. Comoed. ; Muratori, Antiq. Italicae, vol. i. 
 p. 1121.
 
 205 
 
 of charity, whilst Trithemius more stoutly asserts 
 that " no such exception was made."* 
 
 The same and even worse horrors, it will be re- 
 collected-)-, w^ere said with regard to that Tanquelin 
 or Tanquelm who was followed by a vast multitude 
 in the Flemish cities, in the earlier part of the twelfth 
 century ; and a connection between him and all the 
 swarms of Beghards of the north, and Fraticelli of 
 the south, is fondly traced out by men who were 
 equally bent upon darkening the fame of all those 
 sects J; so that the guiltlessness of one of them being 
 sufficiently established, will go far towards exone- 
 rating all of them from at least the grossest charges 
 too heedlessly heaped upon them. 
 
 § 29. Meanwhile, we are authorised to conclude with 
 Limborch, a most accurate and conscientious critic, 
 who went, perhaps, deeper into those inquisitorial 
 researches than any writer of either Protestant or 
 Catholic denomination, that the immorality of these 
 Apostles rests on no better ground than that on which 
 lay, equally from age to age, all imputations against 
 
 * " Coltum enim indlfferenter cum matre, sorore, filia, et 
 uxore sua vel alterius exercentes nullum dlcebant esse peccatum 
 sed opus earitatis." — Trithemius, Annal. Hirsaugienses, torn. ii. 
 p. 103. St. Gallen, 1690. 
 
 t See ante^ chap. i. § 20. 
 
 X Trithemius, loc. cit. p. 74. ; Wadding. Annal. Minor, torn. 
 vi. p. 288.
 
 206 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 the Waldenses. Limborch's conclusion results espe- 
 cially from the depositions of Peter of Lugo before 
 the ecclesiastical court of Toulouse, which he lays 
 side by side with all that had been advanced by 
 Eymeric and his commentator, and which he finds 
 in all points, except this important one, coinciding.* 
 Were it possible to sift the evidence bearing on the 
 guilt of these Apostles, in short, and of all the men- 
 dicant sects whicli sprang up with or from them, all 
 of which were, like themselves, convicted of Mani- 
 chaeism ; nay, were it in our power to tear asunder 
 the veil that hides the mysteries of Gnosticism and 
 Manichseism itself, in the same manner as time and 
 common sense have enabled us to come to the truth 
 for what concerns the harmless brethren of the Pied- 
 niontese valleys, we need hardly doubt that the real 
 
 * Dogmata quoe illis attribuit Eymericus magnam partem 
 conveniunt cum iis quae in sententia Petri Lucensis, ipsis 
 attribuuntur, in volumine seutentiarum, Inquisit. Tolosanae, 
 fol. 183. excepto fcedo dogmate de promiscua Venere^ de quo ne 
 minima quidem in sententia Petri Lucensis mentio. Unde 
 evidenter coUigimus illud de Apostolicis perinde atque de Wal- 
 densibus esse calumniam," — Limborcb, Hist. Inquisit. p. 65-66. 
 Also " Tribuuntur (Gherardo et Dulcino) quaedam incommodse 
 sententiae quin et promiscuae libidines, quae ut suspicor, magna 
 ex parte, mendaciter a Pontificiis eis adscribuntur, sicut et 
 Waldensibus promiscuas libidines falsissimae Papistae tribuunt." 
 Mattheus Flacius, Catalogus Testium Veritatis, &c. &c., 
 Frankfort, 1666. 4to. No. ccxcix.
 
 COMMUNISM OF THE APOSTLES. 207 
 
 offence would be found to lay less in the error or 
 criminality of the heretic, than in the ignorance and 
 fanaticism of the orthodox, 
 
 § 30. The communism of Dolcino's Apostles, — and 
 it is important to observe, that religion very often 
 developed that tendency in Italy, whether under 
 Papal sanction or in opposition to it, — was abso- 
 lutely nothing else than a universal renunciation of 
 property, an inexorable mortification of life. " Com- 
 munity of goods," resolved itself into the strictest 
 equality of destitution. *' Community of wives," im- 
 plied a breaking up of all domestic ties, a condemna- 
 tion of all the most sacred affections. This same 
 communism, that is, utter expropriation and self- 
 extinction, was professed in Italy by the heretics of 
 Monforte as early as the beginning of the eleventh cen- 
 tury*, who, like the Apostles, cohabited with "sis- 
 ters," and reconciled matrimony with virginity ; and 
 who might, nevertheless, never have heard of Manes, 
 or his doctrines. Like Francis of Assisi, whom these 
 Apostles, together with, perhaps, millions of ** bro- 
 therlets of the poor life," held up as the great pattern 
 of Christian perfection, they condemned collective, 
 no less than individual possession ; they did not share 
 the goods of the earth among them, they spurned them 
 
 * Landulph Senior. Hist. Mediolanens. lib. ii. cap. xxvii. 
 Rer. Ital. torn. iv. p. 88., and see ante, chap. i. § 8.
 
 208 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 utterly, except inasmuch as their daily sustenance 
 rendered them strictly necessary, and no more. In 
 the same manner women were not common property, 
 they belonged to none of them, except by a bond of 
 spiritual union — a Shaker marriage — a sisterhood. 
 Such doctrines, as they demand too much from 
 human frailty, may often have been violated or 
 baffled: they may have added to the dangers that 
 encompass us, they may have lent a convenient cloak 
 to vice. A rash, foolish, improvident mode of life it 
 was that asceticism, whether Franciscan or Dolcinian, 
 held up for the veneration of mankind. Happily for 
 Dolcino, however, his own sect had no leisure for de- 
 generacy or corruption. But few, if any, of the 
 sweets of life were ever within their reach. The 
 world held them strictly to their profession. They 
 had chosen a life of privation and tribulation ; their 
 lot was that of utter want and misery. Through 
 every stage of hardship and suffering, through every 
 degree of horrid starvation, against ruthless enemies, 
 under the dire inclemencies of nature, they had to 
 fight their way to the crown of martyrdom. If these 
 were the men of Belial, as their enemies inform us *, 
 assuredly, at no time, in no country, did the devil do 
 less for his servants. 
 
 * Addit. ad Dulc. Ilist. p. 455.
 
 209 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1. Dolcino's real Views. — 2. Sagarelli and Dolcino. — 3, The Heretic 
 and the Patriot. — 4. Dolcino's Plans. — 5. His Battle-field. — 6. 
 Persecutions against him. — 7. Dolcino's Enemies. — The Bishops 
 of Vercelli. — The Avogadro Family. — Guelphs and Ghibelines. — 
 8. Crusade against the Apostles. — 9. Dolcino's first Escape. — 
 his first Success. — 10. Excesses committed by the Heretics — their 
 Causes — their real Nature. — 11. Their Distress. — 12. Dolcino 
 shifts his Camp. — 13. Attack upon Trivero. — 14. Forces raised 
 against him. — 15. Dolcino's Genius — his Stratagems. — 16. New 
 Efforts of his Adversaries. — 17. Character of Mediaeval Warfare. 
 — 18. New and signal Victory of Dolcino. — 19. Dolcino Master 
 of the Battle-field — his Situation. — Position of his Enemies. — 
 20. New Distress of Dolcino — his Conduct examined — his Sacri- 
 leges. — 21. His Cruelties. — Nature of the Evidence against him — 
 his real Motives of Action. — 22. Ferocity of the Age. — 23. The 
 Apostles driven to extremities. — 24. Renewal of Hostilities. — 
 Last Encounter. — Defeat and Extermination of Dolcino's Sect. — 
 Capture of the Leaders. — 25. Character of Alpine Warfare. — 
 
 26. Spanish and Italian Guerillas. — Dolcino and Garibaldi. — 
 
 27. The real Strength of Italy. 
 
 § 1. From the epoch of Dolcino's re-appearance in 
 the north of Italy, in 1304, to that of his melancholy 
 end in 1307, the narrative of his anonymous his- 
 torian proceeds with sufficient distinctness and con- 
 tinuity. 
 
 On two points only the subject remains involved in 
 hopeless obscurity, and these are, to a certain extent, 
 dependent on one another. 
 
 In the first place, what hopes or designs brought 
 P
 
 210 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 the heresiarch back to the scenes of»>his former 
 danger ? 
 
 Secondly, how far can he be said to have acted in 
 good faith, to have been the dupe of his own enthu- 
 
 siasm 
 
 We know not at what age Dolcino died ; conse- 
 quently, neither can we tell the precise period of his 
 life at which he first dedicated himself to his mission. 
 He stated in his last confession, that he had held the 
 same faith for the last sixteen years, but that does 
 not necessarily mean that he had actually joined, or 
 even heard of Sagarelli's sect at the period thus 
 designated, that is, in 1291. Strictly speaking, the 
 creed of Sagarelli's apostles amounted to little else, 
 besides hatred against the court of Rome ; and by 
 how many other persons, sects, and parties was not 
 such a feeling entertained at that time in the north 
 of Italy? In the bosom of the Church itself, and 
 more so among the people, anti-papal notions were 
 still cherished in Lombardy, owing especially to that 
 question of the marriage of the priests, which Gregory 
 VII. had rather hushed up than settled. As the son 
 of a priest and the ward and pupil of another, Dol- 
 cino must have shared such animosities at his very 
 birth and early training. After his first mishaps in 
 his guardian's house, at Vercelli, he took refuge at 
 Trent, and in the mountains of* Bergamo and Brescia,
 
 SAGARELLI AND DOLCINO. 211 
 
 where the spirit of that daring Arnold, who took his 
 name from the latter city, was still abroad ; that 
 Arnold who so nearly overcame both episcopal and 
 papal power in the twelfth century.* If Dolcino's re- 
 miniscences went no further back than 1291, and if 
 we are to take that as the date of his first flight from 
 Vercelli, we think, that as the son and pupil of 
 " concubinarian " priests, and as an Arnoldist, he was 
 justified in his assertion of a coincidence of belief 
 with Sagarelli, even if he had no actual connection 
 with him. 
 
 § 2. It does not appear that Dolcino ever went to 
 Parma, or that he had any interview with his single- 
 hearted precursor ; nor is it stated at what time he 
 fell in with the missionaries, which the latter sent out 
 to evangelise the world. As a pope-hater and a 
 patriot, Dolcino required no affiliation into any sect 
 or party. He was so by the nature of all circum- 
 stances. A high-minded Italian, at that epoch — 
 witness Dante, who was born and brought up a 
 Guelph, and was driven into the ranks of the oppo- 
 site party — could hardly help being a Ghibeline. 
 The Church party, backed by all the might of France, 
 had grown insolent by success : hence a reaction in 
 favour of Imperialism ; a reaction which enabled 
 Henry VII. of Luxemburgh, only two years after 
 
 * See ante, chap. i. § 32. 
 p2 
 
 J
 
 212 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Dolcino's death, to march triumphantly throughout 
 Italy, without an army, and with no other support 
 than popular opinion ; a reaction which would have 
 been complete, and would have changed the face of 
 the world, without the sudden and early and per- 
 haps violent death of that Emperor. 
 
 § 3. As a sharer of the most advanced ideas of 
 Ghibelinism, Dolcino must have sought his friends 
 anywhere amongst the Pope's enemies. He heard of 
 the Apostles and their doctrines, it little matters how, 
 or at what time ; he coupled the date of Sagarelli's 
 first rise, in 1260, with that assigned for the fulfil- 
 ment of Joachim's alleged prophecies. On these, 
 and on the great plausibility accruing to them from 
 the general aspect of the political world, he grounded 
 his own predictions, and dwelt on them with the 
 fondness of a man of warm and sanguine imagina- 
 tion. He joined this sect, as he would have joined 
 the Fraticelli (and there is, in fact, good ground 
 to think that he began by this, and put on at first a 
 Franciscan, or other monkish frock *) or any other 
 which promised to become instrumental in the world's 
 
 * " Coepit fundare novam sectam, in liabitu fraticelli sine 
 ordine." — Benvenut. Imolens. p. 1121. Also, Villani, 1st. Fioren. 
 Jib. viii. cap. Ixxiv. p. 383., &c. &c. Schlosser, Abailard and 
 Dulcin. p. 7. See appendix at the end of this volume, B. 
 Dolcino's portraits, and other particulars.
 
 THE TWO APOSTLE CHIEFS. 213 
 
 deliverance. From his first entrance into it, and 
 much more from his assumption of supreme power, 
 after Sagarelli's death, in 1300, a new soul was 
 breathed into the heart of his companions. The 
 sect assumed a new tone and attitude. 
 
 Sagarelli had laid no claim to prophetic gifts. 
 All revelations began with his more gifted successor. 
 A body of men, who had been at first united by a 
 religious bond, developed, under Dolcino, a political 
 aim. Two distinct objects became through him in- 
 divisible. The success of the Apostles implied not 
 only the reformation of the Church, but also the re- 
 organisation of Italy : not only the overthrow of the 
 papacy, but also the restoration of monarchy. To 
 realise Dolcino's view, it was necessary that a great 
 Ghibeline potentate, that the last of the Swabians, 
 Frederic of Sicily, should come by his own ; that he 
 should, with the Church, humble also the Church 
 party, the Guelphs, and the houses of Anjou and 
 France, which had given that party an undue ascen- 
 dancy all over Europe. 
 
 With some very slight modifications as to persons, 
 Dolcino's scheme will be found to be absolutely the 
 same as Dante's. 
 
 Consequently was it of the utmost importance to 
 Dolcino to keep strictly within the pale of orthodoxy. 
 The Apostles have been described as foes to the Pope 
 p3
 
 214 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 and clergy, and especially to the monastic orders. 
 They were, however, or at least strove to be, rigid 
 Catholics both as to dogma and discipline. Their 
 ideal of a Church comprehended the whole Roman 
 hierarchy as it then existed. They quarrelled with 
 the persons of the rulers of the Church, but not with 
 their office. This we stated because some critics * 
 have denied that the Apostles had anything in com- 
 mon with the Fraticelli and dissenting Franciscans in 
 general. Sagarelli's disciples, it is urged, were espe- 
 cially bitter against the monks. Yes, against the 
 false monks, as against false pontiffs and bishops; 
 but, for the rest, Benedict, Dominic, and Francis 
 were Dolcino's angels and saints. It was only be- 
 cause their fraternities were so different from what 
 they should have been that Dolcino, like Dante, 
 wished not by any means to destroy or suppress, but 
 to reform them. The present clergy, both secular 
 and regular, was indeed to be smitten with the sword, 
 but only to make room for another organised on the 
 same plan, but more true to its apostolical insti- 
 tution. 
 
 § 4. Towards the accomplishment of so thorough 
 a revolution as he contemplated, Dolcino felt that 
 his followers could do nothing except by moral per- 
 suasion. The Apostles were men of peace. Like 
 
 * Moabeim, Geschichte des Apostel-ordens, note ix.
 
 PEACEFUL INTENTIONS. 215 
 
 most Manichaeans, like the Waldenses, and the 
 Quakers, they held the use of carnal weapons incon- 
 sistent with Christianity, at least with a Christian 
 ministry. Independent of principle, they were also 
 by nature no jfighters ; they mostly sprang from the 
 lower ranks, at a time in which the trade of arms 
 was monopolised by the feudal and knightly orders. 
 As armed champions they could not greatly have 
 aided the good cause ; they were merely to begin by 
 the Word, what Frederic and the Ghibelines would 
 achieve with the sword. Sagarelli, therefore, and 
 after him Dolcino, taught * that the Apostles were 
 at first merely endowed with a weak and timid spirit, 
 compelled to work in the dark, and hide from the 
 wrath of their persecutors, and that, until the time 
 in which their hero, Frederic of Sicily, should have 
 acquitted himself of his own share of the task, when, 
 under shelter of the eagle's wing, they would issue 
 forth with the good strength and daring which ani- 
 mated the primitive apostles after the descent of the 
 Spirit. 
 
 Until that time they would have been satisfied 
 with the part of preachers, if the world had only, if 
 not listened to them, at least allowed them freedom 
 of speech. But even all their peacefulness, caution, 
 and meekness availed them not. Concealment and 
 
 * Addit. ad Dulc. Hist. p. 458. 
 p 4
 
 216 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 flight had not saved Sagarelli from imprisonment and 
 death : nor had equivocation, and even perjury, better 
 served the purpose of Dolcino himself. This latter 
 had even tried to quit Italy, but found, most proba- 
 bly, no safe refuge abroad. We, at least, do not 
 know in what part of Dalmatia he might be per- 
 fectly undisturbed. It is, indeed, stated that, ever 
 since the ninth century, the whole of that province, 
 and especially the peninsula of Stagno, near Ragusa, 
 were swarming with Arians and Patarini ; and that 
 religion was only restored to its purity by the bishops, 
 in 1333; that some of the Fraticelli remained un- 
 molested in Cattaro down to 1321.* But similar 
 assertions have been made with respect to many parts 
 of Lombardy, wherever the Ghibeline party still held 
 its ground ; and especially in the northern part of 
 those provinces of Novara and Vercelli where Dolcino 
 soon made his appearance. The shelter these dis- 
 tricts afforded to heresy was always precarious ; and 
 we know, at any rate, that some of Dolcino*s fellow- 
 labourers, the Fraticelli, could find no resting-place 
 in the East, not even in uninhabited islands. Dol- 
 cino's return to Italy may, therefore, have been mere 
 matter of necessity : it was, most probably, one of 
 those measures which despair often suggests, urging 
 
 * Farlati, Illyricum sacrum, Venice, 1800. torn. vi. p. 328 — 
 330.
 
 DOLCINO'S MOTIVES. 217 
 
 a man to change, even with no prospect of bettering 
 his situation. 
 
 Possibly, however faint, some inducement was held 
 out to him, either by great political persons or by 
 humbler friends, with whom he had kept up some in- 
 tercourse. "We are told, on the one hand, that the 
 powerful family of the Biandrate, and other Ghibe- 
 line chiefs were leagued with him ; and on the other, 
 that one Milano Sola, a rustic of Campertogno, in 
 the Val di Sesia, diocese of Novara, had recalled him 
 from far off countries.* Possibly, also, he was ad- 
 vised to come back to witness the accomplishment of 
 his own predictions : though this hypothesis is 
 weakened by the fact that the death of Boniface VIII. 
 in the previous year must have shaken his reliance 
 on his fore-knowledge of future events ; and also by 
 the consideration that if his hopes rested on Frederic 
 of Sicily, his natural course would have been to re- 
 pair, not to Lombardy, but either to the island-realm 
 of that king himself, as so many of the Fraticelli did 
 before and afterwards, or to the coast of Romagna, 
 and the Apennine of Umbria or Abruzzo, which 
 would have brought him so much nearer Rome, 
 nearer, that is, to the theatre of Frederic's anticipated 
 exploits. 
 
 Whatever his real reasons nevertheless Dolcino 
 
 * Historia Dulcini, p. 430.
 
 218 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 chose to turn his steps towards " the place of his 
 nativity, and was first heard of in the valley of the 
 Sesia. 
 
 § 5. The valley of the Sesia is divided into two 
 distinct regions. The river has its head in the 
 deepest gorges of Monte Rosa, comes down into 
 the plains between Gattinara and Romagnano, and 
 enters the Po below Vercelli. The upper part, 
 as far as Ponte San Quirico, between Bettola and 
 Serravalle, bearing more properly the name of 
 Val Sesia, and called also the territory of Varallo, 
 belongs to the diocese of Novara. The lower valley 
 flows from Ponte San Quirico down to the lower 
 hills, between Gattinara on the right and Ro- 
 magnano on the left bank. All along this lower 
 course, the river itself forms the boundary line be- 
 tween the diocese of Novara and that of Vercelli ; 
 but the upper regions of the latter bishopric, on the 
 north-west, constituting the territory of Biella, were 
 detached from Vercelli, and erected into a new 
 diocese (of Biella) in 1772. In its upper course the 
 river flows between two immense mountain ridges 
 which slope down, converging majestically upon 
 Borgo Sesia and Serravalle, and there leaving but 
 a narrow outlet for the stream, enclose on all sides 
 that sequestered region to which the name of Val 
 Sesia more properly belongs.
 
 YAL SESIA. 219 
 
 The southern of those two mountain ridges, the 
 very limit which parted once the Novarese from 
 the Vercellese, now Biellese, territory, and to which 
 modern maps give the name of Mount Molera, looks 
 down upon another valley, and gives rise to another 
 river, the Sessera, a confluent of the Sesia, which, 
 after running almost parallel to the main stream, 
 joins it at Bornate, near Serravalle, and just above 
 Ponte San Quirico, the bourne of Val Sesia. 
 
 The whole valley of the Sesia, and especially the 
 upper district, is at the present day one of the 
 happiest and loveliest regions bordering on the great 
 alpine crest ; with wide-spreading chesnut and walnut 
 woods everywhere mantling the mountain sides ; the 
 vivid green of rich pastures running unbroken up to 
 the limit of perpetual snows. The Yal Sesia num- 
 bers, besides two large boroughs, no less than thirty 
 thriving villages. It yields mineral produce, espe- 
 cially iron and copper. The beauty of landscape, 
 freshness of the air, and wonderful purity of the 
 waters, ' together with the renowned sanctuary of 
 the Sacro Monte, or New Jerusalem, at Varallo, 
 founded in 1486, attract crowds of foreign visitors 
 in the summer season. Some of the people in the 
 higher regions, at Alagna, Rima, Rimella, &c., are 
 the descendants of German settlers, and speak a 
 Teutonic dialect. The main valley of the Sesia
 
 220 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 bears also the name of Val Grande, to distinguish it 
 from the minor vales of the Sermenta and Mas- 
 tallone, and other tributaries of the principal stream. 
 
 The valley of the Sessera — deep, narrow, solitary 
 — presents also a smiling and fertile aspect, from 
 Bomate and Crevacore, as far as Trivero and Cog- 
 giola. Above, it is made up of pasture-lands or 
 " Alps," only inhabited by cow and sheep herds, in 
 the summer months. Like the Valsesians, the Biel- 
 lese are an industrious, clean, thrifty race. Besides 
 considerable skill in home manufacture, they mi- 
 grate and trade abroad, and the wealth they thus 
 accumulate is spent in embellishing their dwellings 
 and churches. They are all artists by nature, and 
 the whole region has an air of well-being, ease, and 
 populousness which resembles Switzerland rather 
 than Italy. 
 
 In the times of our heresiarch, that part of the 
 country, if not so well cultivated, was at any rate 
 thickly inhabited. The malcontents from the Lom- 
 bard cities, particularly many of the defeated nobles, 
 had everywhere taken to the hills, either, in many 
 instances, repairing to the homes of their feudal 
 ancestry, or else seeking shelter wherever nature 
 offered a ready stronghold. Several branches of the 
 Tornielli and Visconti, the Testa, Ranza, Ravella, 
 Rasaria, Scarognini, Rusca, Chiarini, &c. were num-
 
 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 221 
 
 bered amongst them.* These men, with very few 
 exceptions, the outcasts of rampant democracy, could 
 bear no good will to Dolcino and his communistic 
 ideas. The favour which the Apostles almost in- 
 stinctively found with the rustics of those valleys, 
 and even with their unsophisticated clergy, was more 
 than counterbalanced by the animosity of the bank- 
 rupt aristocracy on the mountain steeps. It was 
 on their part that the most serious hostilities might 
 be apprehended. Yet there were exceptions, never- 
 theless. The powerful house of the Biandrate, and 
 some of their Ghibeline adherents, such as the Tiz- 
 zoni, and other nobles who had been driven from 
 Vercelli at the time of the success of the Guelph or 
 Avogadro party, in 1301, showed a more or less open 
 inclination to Dolcino and his party, and the he- 
 resiarch is even said to have found a temporary 
 refuge in some of their castles. We learn also, from 
 the very best authority -j-, that it was owing to the 
 Biandrate, and the Ghibelines in general, that these 
 mountainous regions had at all times been infested 
 by heretics of every description. The town of Ser- 
 ravalle was even built, in 1254, and fortified by the 
 Vercellese with a view to put a check to their 
 incursions. 
 
 * Lana, Guida nella Valsesia, Novara, 1840, p 18, 19. 
 f Durandi, Dell' Antica Condizione del Vercellese, &c. Turin, 
 1776, p. 112.
 
 222 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 § 6. Dolcino came suddenly from a distant part of 
 the world, and first tarried in the neighbourhood of 
 Gattinara and Serravalle, in the year 1304. Those 
 towns lie both on the right bank of the Sesia, within 
 the diocese of Vercelli : the former nearly opposite 
 to Romagnano ; the latter only a few miles below 
 Borgo Sesia ; and, as the very name implies, near 
 the point where the valley contracts itself, marking 
 the limit between the higher and lower lands. At 
 Serravalle, Dolcino was so successful as to bring the 
 very rector, or parish priest, together with many of 
 the flock, to his own views. But the Inquisitors 
 from Vercelli had already their eyes upon him. It 
 was only through a timely warning, and by a hair- 
 breadth escape, that he slipped through their fingers. 
 It would seem that he tarried for some time in the 
 castle of Robiallo, one of the strongholds of the 
 Biandrate family, situated at a short distance below the 
 hamlet of Bettola, not far from Ponte San Quirico, on 
 the left bank of the river, and, consequently, in the 
 diocese of Novara * : the ruins of the castle are still 
 perceptible. But there also he deemed his position 
 untenable ; so that, ascending the river, he betook 
 himself to the territory of Varallo, always in the 
 
 * Lana, Valsesia, p. 51. Rimella, Sacra Lega de' Valsesiani 
 contro r Eretico Dulcino, &c. Vercelli, 1793, p. 81.
 
 PERSECUTION. 223 
 
 diocese of Novara, with as many of his disciples as 
 deemed it expedient to follow. 
 
 Those that lagged behind fared badly. The In- 
 quisitors, backed by the " secular arm " of the 
 podesta or supreme magistrate of Vercelli, seized 
 hold of the parish priest, and as many of the towns- 
 people as were suspected of listening to the teach- 
 ings of Dolcino or favouring his flight, and after 
 long examination they uttered a sentence against 
 them, the tenor of which is not known to us, but 
 which could be nothing less than imprisonment and 
 confiscation.* 
 
 A fugitive from Serravalle and Robiallo, Dolcino 
 had a ready shelter in the house of that Milano, or 
 Emiliano Solaf, whose invitations had prevailed 
 upon him to come over from distant lands. His 
 host was a wealthy countryman, an inhabitant of 
 Campertollio, now Campertogno, in that upper part of 
 the Valsesia which goes more especially by the name 
 of Val Grande. 
 
 Dolcino and his faith throve for a time under this 
 friendly roof; but always uneasy on the score of his 
 enemies J, and warned by the fate of his friends at 
 
 *. See Appendix E. The Rector of Serravalle. 
 t Appendix F. Milano Sola. 
 
 I Benvenuto da Iniola sets the question of the necessity by 
 which Dolcino was driven to hostility, completely at rest. He
 
 224 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Serravalle, he came to the resolution to establish 
 himself beyond all limit of human habitations. 
 Milano Sola, with many of the wealthy countrymen 
 of the neighbourhood, and all his other followers, 
 went with him. They took all of their property 
 that could be removed, and that could prove of use 
 to them : they ascended a great mountain ; there 
 built huts and fortified themselves, especially against 
 the rigour of the climate : against other enemies the 
 very site of their camp sufliciently protected them. 
 The mountain is, by the anonymous historian, de- 
 scribed as rising behind Balmara. There is, how- 
 ever, no place bearing that name in Yalsesia, and 
 the author could hardly designate by that name the 
 town of Balmuccia, lying at a great distance down 
 the valley, between Scopa and Varallo. There is 
 no doubt in our mind, but the first mountain refuge 
 of Dolcino was in the ridge called " le Alpi del 
 Vallone di Valnera," — the confusion of Valnera 
 with Balmara is sufliciently easy, — a verdant ridge 
 rising immediately to the west of Campertogno, and 
 which may now be reached by about two hours' hard 
 walk from the said town. 
 
 Dolcino was now in the county or diocese of Novara, 
 and, consequently, beyond reach of the jurisdiction of 
 
 says : " Sentiens bellum parari contra se munivit montem," &c. 
 p. 1121.
 
 THE BISHOPS. 225 
 
 Vercelli. But the Inquisitors and magistrates of 
 the latter diocese, after driving him off their own 
 ground, were still anxious to pursue him further, and 
 sought the means of carrying the war over their 
 neighbour's boundaries. 
 
 § 7. The Bishop of Novara, from 1304 to 1309, 
 was Uguccione de' Borromei.* It was his imme- 
 diate concern to clear his diocese of these dangerous 
 intruders. But he had, especially now, at his acces- 
 sion, his hands full of other business. He was a 
 party man, and had to hold his ground against the 
 Ghibelines, who attacked him, especially in Val 
 d' Ossola, from the Valais, where some branches of the 
 Biandrate had established themselves. He of Vercelli, 
 on the contrary, had both more zeal and more leisure 
 to hunt after heretics. He was called Rainieri di 
 Pezzana, and belonged to the Avogadro family, then 
 omnipotent in Vercelli. He had risen, we are told by 
 his panegyrists f, in the Church step by step, with a 
 nolo-episcopari simper on his lips all the time, and had 
 attained the highest dignity in the diocese by unani- 
 mous popular acclamation, bearing down the oppo- 
 sition of Boniface VIII., who had at last been com- 
 pelled to sanction his election in 1303. 
 
 The real facts of the matter are, however, simply 
 
 * Ughelli, Italia Sacr. torn. iv. p. 731. Litta, Famiglie 
 Celebri di Italia, art. Borromeo di San Miniato. 
 t Hist. Dulcin. p. 429. 
 
 Q
 
 226 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 these * : — Vercelli had shaken off the feudal, together 
 with the imperial yoke at the time of the Lombard 
 League, in which it had played an important part. 
 It had resisted the pretensions of the powerful Ghi- 
 beline family of Biandrate, who from their castle, 
 between Vercelli and Novara, attempted to establish 
 their dominion, not only over both those cities, but 
 over also a great part of Piedmont. The pride of 
 this family had been humbled in 1170, and Vercelli 
 had equally come off victorious in its differences with 
 the lords of Montferrat, in 1182. The town, how- 
 ever, only freed itself from lordly power to fall under 
 episcopal ascendency. Even of this it wearied, at 
 last, in the early part of the thirteenth century ; it re- 
 peatedly drove the bishops from its walls, and, in 
 1243, it reconstituted itself as a democratic state, 
 and reasserted its rights over its rural districts, as far 
 as the Alps. It was, however, soon distracted by 
 the factions of its noble families, and was alternately 
 under the sway either of the Tizzoni, or Tiziani, who 
 generally headed the Ghibeline party ; and of the 
 Avogadro and Arboreo, who led the Guelph. The 
 latter, from their very attachment to Church inte- 
 rests, had a strong voice in all episcopal elections, 
 
 * Ughelli, Ital. Sacr. torn. iv. p. 798. Cibrario, Vercelli, II 
 Vercellese, e 1' Ossola, in Storia del Conte Rosso, Turin, 1851. 
 cap. iii. p. 1G7.
 
 THE AVOGADRO. 227 
 
 and the Avogadro all but monopolised the See since 
 1243. When the opposite faction was in the as- 
 cendant they, and their bishops with them, had to 
 give way, and removed the See itself to Biella, in the 
 mountain districts, where they at all times mustered 
 very strong. They had, however, obtained a com- 
 plete success in 1301, they had driven the Tizzoni, 
 and all the Ghibelines from Vercelli, and since that 
 year they had lorded it over both town and country. 
 The unanimity of the election of Rainieri, in 1303, 
 is, therefore, easily accounted for. They had already 
 proposed him as a candidate, in 1212, but without 
 success ; and they now carried the election with such 
 indecent hurry as to incur the hot displeasure of Boni- 
 face VIII., who complained that no proper regard 
 had been paid to the privileges of the Holy See. That 
 difficulty being smoothed down, however, the bishop 
 was put in possession of his full powers. The 
 bishop was no longer the absolute sovereign he had 
 been in previous ages ; but he could still give great 
 weight to the party with which he sided ; and the 
 Avogadro, backed by the favour of the Church, of 
 which they had always been the champions, and from 
 which they derived their name of Avogadri, Advocati, 
 or Advocatores — the advocates of the diocese, rid of 
 the presence of their adversaries, were now at the 
 very height of their prosperity. The family was split 
 
 Q2
 
 228 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 into various branches, amongst whom were the Lords 
 of Pezzana, of Guaregna, of Casanova, of Colobiano, 
 &c., most of which are extant, and highly flourishing 
 at the present day. One of the latter, Simone da 
 Colobiano, was amongst the best generals of his time ; 
 another of this family, Francesco Avogadro da Colo- 
 biano, had also contributed to the success of the 
 Delia Torre, at Milan, w4io, like other Guelphs over 
 all Lombardy, obtained about this period a tem- 
 porary advantage over their implacable enemies, the 
 Ghibeline Visconti. 
 
 Bishop Rainieri was new in office, eager in the 
 discharge of his duties. He took as his model 
 Eusebius, the founder and patron of his see, in the 
 fourth century, who had been a terror to the Arians, 
 during a glorious career, which won him the crown 
 of martyrdom, and secured for him the honour of 
 canonization (a.d. 371). All the efforts of that dis- 
 tinguished saint had not, however, driven all Arianism 
 and other abominable heresy from the lands subjected 
 to his see. We read, in the memorials of the dark 
 ages *, that in 901, at the time of the most terrific in- 
 roads of the Hungarians, the Arians and other sec- 
 tarians, always at war with the clergy, took advantage 
 of the universal calamity of their country, and joining 
 the barbarian hordes, they aided them so efficiently 
 
 * Irici, Joan. And. Tridinensis,Rerum Patriae, lib. iii. Milan, 
 1745, p. 12—16.
 
 RAINIERI, BISHOP OF YERCELLI. 229 
 
 against their spiritual lords, that hardly one priest 
 was suffered to live in the whole diocese. 
 
 Religious dissent was always a pretext for political 
 insubordination. The Bishop Rainier! and his par- 
 tisans knew it, and the cause of orthodoxy was taken 
 up by them with a zeal in which a feeling of self- 
 preservation had no trifling share. 
 
 For these and other reasons, which we soon shall 
 see, this merely religious question was mixed up with 
 political matters, and all the family of the bishop, 
 with their vast connections all over the diocese, and 
 all over Lombardy, took the field with tlieir kinsman, 
 and headed his forces. Some of the Avogadro of 
 Guaregna and Casanova were, in fact, the generals of 
 the expedition. 
 
 In his officious pursuits after heretics the good 
 bishop had, however, some difficulties to contend 
 with. The Apostles had quitted his diocese, and he 
 had no right to overstep its limit. There was for 
 nearly a year, 1304 — 1305, no pope over Christendom, 
 and the Church had been thrown into the greatest 
 disorder. But when at last Clement V. was elected 
 the bishop lay the grave matter before him, and was 
 invested with full powers to follow his game into his 
 neighbour's preserves. 
 
 Measures were taken, and it was, perhaps, a mere 
 shov/, to win back the stray sheep, by means of 
 
 Q 3
 
 230 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 conciliation. Pope Clement sent a few of the Domini- 
 cans to Dolcino's camp, to see what the might of 
 their eloquence could effect.* They were, however, 
 sent back with contempt, and on their return the 
 Papal bulls were promulgated, and war was declared. 
 The Pope granted to any man who would take arms 
 against Dolcino for one month the same indulgences 
 awarded to the warriors of the Cross in Palestine. 
 
 § 8. The Papal bull was issued soon after the exal- 
 tation of the new Pope, which took place on the 5th of 
 June, 1305. Before the 24th of August, a consider- 
 able force had assembled at Scopa, composed chiefly 
 of the lords and knights of the neighbourhood; and 
 on that day, in the main church of that town, the 
 leaders took a solemn oath never to lay down their 
 arms till their purpose was thoroughly made good. 
 
 The form of that sacred pledge, as preserved in the 
 acts of the public notary, is given by Muratori, and it 
 is a curious, interesting document.f 
 
 " After it has pleased God," it says, ** to deliver 
 almost the whole of the Lower Valley of the Sesia 
 
 * Ptolomaei Lucensis, Histor. Ecclesiast. Mur. Rer. Ital. 
 torn. xi. p. 1228. See Appendix G. Missionaries to Dolcino. 
 
 t Muratori in Hist. Dulcin. p. 429, note 10. See also 
 Rimella, La Sacra Lega de' Valsesiani, who gives the names of 
 the chief personages who signed the deed, from a copy in his 
 possession. According to him, there are three copies extant, 
 p. 50.
 
 THE crusaders' OATH. 231 
 
 from the tyranny of the Biandrate " (that famous 
 Ghibeline family which, as we have seen, had been 
 the terror both of Yercelli and Novara, and of other 
 parts of Piedmont, and which, although now driven 
 from the plain, still held its ground, and from parts 
 of the Valais and of the Val d' Ossola caused great 
 uneasiness to those districts), " the villainous heretics, 
 the Gazari, their partisans {eorum milites, an expres- 
 sion conveying a clear idea that these heretics were 
 looked upon as enemies of the Guelph party, as well 
 as of the Church, and which accounts for the zeal 
 of the Avogadro family and of all their dependents 
 of Vercelli for their extermination), " invaded the 
 Upper Valley or Val Grande, fortified themselves in 
 Val Raxa, and desolated the country with pillage, 
 slaughter, and arson, with all sacrilegious enormities. 
 It pleased our Holy Father Clement, at his accession, 
 to publish an indulgence in the form of a crusade, 
 against Dolcino and his followers. Wherefore, the 
 vassals, the people, and the members of those illus- 
 trious families which, in consequence of the calamities 
 of wars and factions, have sought a refuge on these 
 Alps, assembling here in a general council, have con- 
 tracted a perpetual covenant among them, and have 
 resolved and decreed, with one mind and one will, 
 to pursue these ravagers by might of arms to the last 
 drop of their blood ; and from this day to begin the 
 
 Q4
 
 232 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 war and the leaguer. Thus, they swore on God's 
 gospels, in all unity, truth, and fidelity, declaring 
 war to these perverse enemies of the faith and free- 
 dom, even to their utter extermination." 
 
 On hearing of these formidable preparations, Fra 
 Dolcino lost no time in breaking up his camp, and 
 that, most probably, even previous to the meeting of 
 the crusaders at Scopa. He disappeared, secretly, 
 by night, from his position of Valnera, and removed 
 to another more lonely, more rugged mountain, which 
 the records of the times call the " Mons," or " Saxum 
 Parietis Calvae" (the Mountain or Rock of the Bare 
 Wall), a name suiRciently indicative of its steep and 
 forbidding appearance. On this new spot those 
 ancient Mormons again constructed their dwellings 
 and fortifications. They were, perhaps, stronger 
 than at any other period; and the historian who 
 furnishes the minutest particulars*, reckons their 
 number at " more than fourteen hundred." It must 
 have been considerably " more, " as we shall see ; and 
 from other authorities it would seem, that their ranks 
 
 * Hist Dulc. p. 431 Pegna in Eymeric. Direct. Inquisit. 
 p. 272. Villani, Giov. Histor. Fiorent. p. 383. Tritheim, 
 Annal. Hlrsaugens. tom.ii. p. 104. Antoninus, Episcop. Florentin. 
 Histor. Lugduni, 1517, torn. iii. fol. xc. a. &c. " Habuit ultra 
 tria millia hominum robustas juventutis ; inter quos erant 
 aliqui nobiles et divites." — Benven. Imolens. p. 1121.
 
 THE ROCK OF THE BARE WALL. 233 
 
 swelled to at least three thousand combatants, per- 
 haps to six thousand persons altogether. 
 
 The locality of the Bare Wall is also easily ascer- 
 tained. It still bears the name of Parete Calva 
 (Parei Calvd) among the villagers of Campertogno, 
 who behold its summit to the south of their town, 
 and can reach it by about three hours' walk. On the 
 side looking towards Campertogno and upon the 
 Val Grande, the mountain is densely wooded up to 
 the summit; but on the southern side, where it 
 descends into the Val Rassa, it is a bare, steep, 
 perpendicular precipice, and well answers the idea 
 suggested by its name. From the Valnera to the 
 Bare Wall, Dolcino must have crossed, under the 
 greatest difficulties, along the mountain crest. There 
 is still a spot where a stream dashes headlong into a 
 narrow ravine, which the inhabitants designate under 
 the name of Varca Monga, or Varco della Monaca 
 (the Pass of the Nun), stating that over that terrible 
 chasm, Margaret, whom they designated as the nun, 
 by a superhuman effort, was made to leap, resting on 
 the strong arm of Dolcino. 
 
 On the summit of that dreary Bare Wall, the 
 Apostles are said to have dwelt for above a year. 
 They were at last driven from it by famine, and 
 crossing the huge mountain ridge which separates 
 the territory of Novara from that of Vercelli, they
 
 234 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 entered the latter diocese, on the 10th of March, 
 1306. 
 
 There is some confusion and evident contradiction 
 in the few dates dropping thus carelessly from the 
 pen of our anonymous chronicler ; which render it 
 an impossibility to satisfy ourselves on some matters 
 of the greatest moment. Dolcino, in all probability, 
 came back to Italy in 1304 ; he was for a few months 
 at Gattinara, Serravalle, and Robiallo, then a guest 
 of Milano Sola at Campertogno, then for a few 
 months on the hills of Valnera, finally for above a 
 twelvemonth on the Rock of the Bare "Wall. If 
 this last statement could be relied upon, he would 
 then have taken this last station on or before the 
 10th of March, 1305 ; consequently, before the cru- 
 saders met at Scopa (Aug. 24th), or even before the 
 crusade was preached by Clement V., who was only 
 elected on the 5th of June of that year. 
 
 That the removal of Dolcino from his post to his 
 second camp was previous to the taking of the oath 
 by the Catholic host at Scopa, seems very clearly to 
 result from the words of the oath itself; in which it is 
 stated that the heretics " had invaded the Val Grande, 
 and fortified themselves in Val Raxa ; " as by Val 
 Raxa or Rassa, they evidently meant his position on 
 the Parete Calva, which in fact rises giant-like on the 
 northern side of the said Val Rassa, and alone sepa-
 
 DATES. 235 
 
 rates that narrow glen from the main valley of the 
 Sesia, to which they give the name of Val Grande. 
 
 But if Dolcino was already safely established on 
 this rock before his enemies had obtained a Papal 
 sanction to proceed against him, we must needs take 
 it for granted that his enemies, both from the Valsesia 
 itself, and from other parts of the districts of Novara 
 and Vercelli, had already taken up arms on their 
 own responsibility, and before any aid could be ob- 
 tained from the Pope. 
 
 At the time in which these various enemies medi- 
 tated a first attack on the hills of Valnera, the 
 heretics, we are told, vanished in the dark, so that 
 in the morning their enemies, on coming up to the 
 mountain, found the camp deserted, and came too 
 hastily to the conclusion that the mere terror of their 
 arms had already broken up and dispersed the here- 
 tics, and that the war was therefore at an end. The 
 heretics, however, had gone no great way. They 
 had only given up a strong position for a stronger 
 one. In this last, it may be presumed, they lay for 
 some time snug and still, and their enemies were 
 thrown ofi* their scent. What the Catholics accom- 
 plished from the ^4th of August to the setting in of 
 the winter is not sufficiently clear ; but as it was a 
 host assembled upon feudal principles, made up of 
 volunteers serving for a stipulated period, generally
 
 236 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 two months, it is to be presumed, that in spite of 
 their oath never to lay down their arms to the end of 
 their enterprise, they, at least the auxiliaries who 
 may be supposed to have come from distant coun- 
 tries, such as the Yercellese and Novarese, on the 
 first approach of winter fell asunder, and went back 
 every man to his own house, leaving the Valse- 
 sians alone to take care of their own territory. The 
 reader must bear in mind that the Valsesia, al- 
 though belonging to the diocese of Novara, was, 
 however, to a great extent, politically an independent 
 district, burdened therefore with many of the duties, 
 as it was invested wdth the privileges, of self-exist- 
 ence ; principal among which duties was that in 
 ordinary circumstances of providing for its own 
 defence. 
 
 On summing up evidence, indeed, it seems very 
 clear that both the authorities of Novara and Ver- 
 celli were satisfied with removing the heretics from 
 their immediate territories, and that for a whole 
 year (1305 — 1306) Dolcino had no other enemy to 
 encounter than the people themselves of Valsesia, 
 aided at the utmost by a few volunteers, both from 
 the adjoining dioceses and from other parts of the 
 country ; and that the bishops and their partisans 
 either deemed it unnecessary or had as yet no leisure 
 to proceed any further against him. Certainly the
 
 MISDEEDS OF THE APOSTLES. 237 
 
 crusaders who signed their names to the oath at 
 Scopa, on the 24th of August, 1305, were all 
 Valsesians.* 
 
 § 9. The consequence of this isolation was to throw 
 the district of Varallo into consternation. The 
 Podesta, or mayor of Varallo, was a gentleman of the 
 house of Brussato, a house at that time exercising 
 an almost sovereign sway over the whole county of 
 Novara. This man, left alone in the lurch, and 
 hopeless of any succour from other allies, took 
 the field with the gentry and people of his own 
 province, with a view to keep the heretics in check, 
 and put an end to the depredations to which hunger 
 began to drive them. He was, however, signally 
 unsuccessful. He fell into an ambush which Dolcino 
 had laid out for him, and was taken prisoner with a 
 considerable part of his forces. After this defeat 
 the Val Sesia offered no further resistance, and the 
 Apostles overran it as conquerors during the whole 
 of that winter. t 
 
 § 10. To what extent they abused their victory 
 is the point that would be important to clear up. 
 
 The Apostles were no saints. They had already 
 so far departed from the rule of their founder, as to 
 take up arms in self-defence. From the principle of 
 
 * See Rimella, Sacra Lega de' Valsesiani, p.50. seq. 
 t See the Appendix H., the Fate of Marco Miretti.
 
 238 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 self-defence the right of reprisals too easily springs. 
 The crusaders at Scopa declared that the motive of 
 their enterprise was the protection of the country 
 from the ravages of the Gazari. That declaration, 
 however, was made on the 24th of August, in all 
 prohability, when the Apostles had already been 
 driven from their first refuge of the Valnera to the 
 more bleak and inhospitable of the Bare Wall. It 
 seems very clear, that, in spite of all previous perse- 
 cution, the Apostles would have shunned all en- 
 counters. They had withdrawn beyond the limits of 
 human abodes : they had, in defiance of Sagarelli's 
 improvident precepts, taken with them on their first 
 retreat provisions and other means to face the first 
 wants, with a view to avoid all necessity of providing 
 by violence to their subsistence. 
 
 Had they been left unmolested, and had not all 
 the prestige of papal decrees, and a war of the cross 
 been resorted to, to fanaticise against them a simple 
 population which were inclined in their favour, they 
 would, doubtless, have been supported by the volun- 
 tary alms of their believers, even if the means of 
 the wealthier members of their fraternity were soon 
 exhausted. 
 
 But every peaceful means of support was denied 
 them. From that first and comparatively comfortable 
 abode of their own choice they were driven by main
 
 MURDER, ROBBERY, AND ARSON. 239 
 
 force, compelled to leave it hurriedly, to leave it by 
 stealth, and, there is no doubt, to leave behind them 
 those provisions on which they had reckoned for 
 their subsistence. The inevitable result of such a 
 step was sheer starvation staring them in the face 
 on their first arrival on the rock of the Bare 
 "Wall. As soon as the retreat of the main force 
 of their enemy allowed them leisure to breathe, they, 
 of course, issued forth from their hiding-place, came 
 up to the huts of the rustics, and, according to their 
 wont, begged for their bread. But the exhortations 
 of the papal agents, their invectives and slanders, 
 had by this time changed the disposition of the 
 rustics. The famished brethren met with repulse, 
 perhaps with indignity. Hunger and necessity ill 
 brook harsh treatment : the Apostles found it in- 
 dispensable to help themselves to what no man would 
 help them to. The forcible seizure of necessary food 
 was characterised as robbery, and the blood spilt in the 
 consequent frays was laid to their charge as murder. 
 Arson is, however, numbered among the crimes 
 which signalised their progress through the valley, 
 together with manslaughter and pillage ; and this 
 would scarcely ever be warranted by distress of food 
 or any other legitimate reason of self-preservation. 
 But we are at the same time informed, that they 
 were particularly hostile to the churches ; from which
 
 240 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 we argue that all wanton destruction by fire was 
 with them merely prompted by iconoclastic notions. 
 It was the ill-will against the clergy which vented 
 itself against the vain idols held out by them to the 
 veneration of a deluded populace. 
 
 In their rapid excursions, and we shall see their 
 doings more circumstantially described in their at- 
 tack on Trivero, in the diocese of Vercelli, they 
 would fall on a defenceless village, seize on every- 
 thing that could either satisfy their wants on the 
 spot, or that could easily be conveyed to their 
 camp ; and on their retreat they would heap to- 
 gether crosses, relics, and other ecclesiastical gear, 
 they would make a bonfire of it all, and if the 
 flames extended to the sacred building itself, they 
 consoled themselves with their favourite maxim, 
 " that a horse-stable or a pig-stye would answer all 
 purposes of Christian worship fully as well as the 
 church itself." 
 
 The history of Dolcino says plainly*, that the 
 deeds of violence on their part began after they had 
 shut themselves up in their camp on the Bare Wall ; 
 that means, as soon as want was severely felt. That 
 a movement originating in mere distress should end 
 in needless violence, is but too sadly in the course 
 of human nature ; and we will not aflirm that the 
 
 * Historia Dulcin. p. 431.
 
 DOLCINO'S CRUELTr. 241 
 
 Apostles never took more than their necessities re- 
 quired, or that they never struck except on actual 
 provocation. 
 
 The same stern need which made them lay a 
 violent hand upon property, made them also eager 
 to possess themselves of persons. They took pri- 
 soners to live upon their ransom. It is a course 
 followed by Italian bandits both of ancient and 
 modern times. It is always a dangerous, often an 
 inhuman expedient. For, in order to compel the 
 prisoner's friends to pay a heavy sum for his de- 
 liverance, it is necessary to act upon their terrors ; 
 to have recourse to threats which would soon fall 
 unheeded unless occasionally carried into execution. 
 
 The first captives upon which Dolcino made this 
 formidable experiment had, probably, been taken in 
 fair war; they were that Brussato, mayor of Va- 
 rallo, and the other men of the valley who had 
 taken up arms against him, and fell into his power 
 by a strategic manoeuvre. That there is everywhere 
 great anxiety to aggravate the guilt of these Apostles, 
 is very evident from the fact that Cusanus, the 
 biographer of the bishops of Vercelli, does not 
 hesitate to assert* that the mayor and his fellow- 
 captives were slain in cold blood ; whereas the ano- 
 
 * M. Aur. Cusanus de Episcop. Vercellens. Vercelli, 1676, p. 
 210—224. See Muratori, note xi. to Hist. Dulc. p. 431. 
 
 B
 
 242 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 nymous writer of Dolcino's history, togetlier with 
 all other authorities, eager as they also are to darken 
 Dolcino's memory to the best of their abilities, not 
 only never mention this cruel murder, but posi- 
 tively assert that, like other prisoners, these had to 
 save their life by paying a fine amounting to the 
 whole of their own and their friends' property. This 
 ransom was paid in kind, — in com, cattle, and other 
 means of subsistence. 
 
 That, always driven by famine, the Apostles may 
 in later times have laid hands on the inoffensive 
 inhabitants of those valleys, — that they may have 
 held out to them the same alternative as to the 
 enemies taken sword in hand, — that in the well- 
 tried inefficiency of their threats (especially as their 
 adversaries, wishing to starve them out, forbade 
 the redemption of prisoners by all means that 
 either spiritual exhortation or legal enactment could 
 contrive) they should have been forced to the des- 
 perate remedy of giving weight to their words by 
 corresponding deeds, and immolated their victims, 
 we are not unwilling to admit ; but hunger was with 
 them the most pressing motive. It bade them be 
 cool and deliberate ; however maddened by despair, 
 however urged on b}'^ provocation, there must always 
 have been method in their retaliation, calculation in 
 their cruelty.
 
 REASONS OF HIS CRUELTY. 243 
 
 § 11. Even all these fearful resources were in- 
 adequate to their wants. After ransacking the whole 
 province for ten miles all round above Varallo, so 
 that the whole population was driven to wander 
 abroad in utter destitution, the plunderers them- 
 selves were so hard up for lack of food, that they 
 laid hold of unclean animals, — rats, horses, and 
 dogs ; until at a loss for any other nutriment, they 
 boiled some hay with grease or tallow, " even in the 
 season of Lent," to the great scandal of the orthodox 
 writer of Dolcino's history, who looks upon that as 
 by no means the least of the atrocities he had to 
 record.* 
 
 Even all such disgusting messes came to an end, 
 and then the beleaguered Apostles were compelled 
 to abandon a position which they had found im- 
 pregnable. And then — it was early in March, the 
 very heart of winter on the Alps — then they made 
 their way along the paths of the avalanche, over 
 
 * " Faenum coctum cum sepo comedebant etiam in tempore 
 quadragesimae." — Hist. Dulcin. p. 431. And elsewhere, "Carnes 
 vero tota quadragesima comedebant," p. 432. And again : " quod 
 licebat sibi comedere carnes in tota quadragesima in diebus 
 Veneris et Sabbati et in vigiliis prasceptis ab Ecclesia, et hoc sine 
 pcccato quia non habebant alia sufficientia ad edendum," p. 
 431. The breach of a fast-day is looked upon with by far 
 greater horror amongst the ignorant Italians than amongst 
 Catholics of any other countries. 
 
 R 2
 
 244 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 rocks and precipices where no man had ever dreamt 
 of forcing a passage * ; through deep snows, against 
 obstacles from which the very imagination of the nar- 
 rator recoils, they left behind them the redoubtable 
 ridge which separates the two dioceses, the valley of 
 the Sesia from that of the Sessera, and came upon 
 Trivero, the first town in the Vercellese territory, in 
 such a state of destitution that they had only a few 
 scraps of meat to answer the cravings of a whole 
 multitude. 
 
 So little had, then, their rapacity been sufficient 
 to satisfy their want, that, after the depopulation of 
 the district, they were compelled to quit it ; and 
 this, after many of their own number had fallen 
 victims, either to hunger, or to diseases contracted 
 from the unwholesome food to which hunger com- 
 pelled them, a fact which will dispose us to hear 
 with indulgence of the ** enormity of their depreda- 
 tions," since they certainly did not take more than 
 they needed, nor did they suffer less misery than 
 they inflicted. 
 
 We must also observe, in further extenuation of 
 their guilt, that, however smiling their pastures, 
 however luxuriant their woods, those alpine regions 
 are always poor, unfit for any produce save the rear- 
 
 * " Transeuntes monies magnos, vias inexcogitabiles fecerunt, 
 per nives altissimas, et loca difficillima." — Hist. Dulcin. p. 431.
 
 POVERTY OF THE ALPINE REGIONS. 245 
 
 ing of cattle, and dependent on their neighbours 
 for a supply of corn. Any interruption of free in- 
 tercourse with more fertile districts, the removal of 
 the cattle and other such measures resorted to in time 
 of war, cannot fail to strike them with immediate 
 penury. The defeated or disbanded host of the 
 crusaders, upon their falling back on their winter- 
 quarters at Varallo, had, undoubtedly, taken up their 
 position in some strong place in the valley, where the 
 inhabitants of the exposed upper district had fol- 
 lowed them vv^ith all their portable wealth. The 
 terror of the arms of the heretics, enhanced by super- 
 stition, and by the exaggerated reports of their 
 Catholic enemies, did more towards starving out 
 and scattering abroad the few remaining rustics 
 than any actual violence they might have to endure. 
 Panic and improvidence aggravated the real miseries 
 of waste and destruction. In ancient no less than 
 in modern times, the Lombard hind always flies 
 before he is attacked ; and the sufferings arising 
 from needless alarm are too often more deplorable 
 than the real evils inseparable from the treading of 
 armies. 
 
 From the valley of the Sesia to that of the Sessera, 
 there is, even at the present day, no other communi- 
 cation than the most steep and arduous shepherd's 
 paths. The most frequented of them is known by 
 
 E 3
 
 246 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 the name of the Bocchetta or Pass of the Boscarola, 
 and it leads from Trivero to Scopello in about eight 
 hours* walk. There are other such passes, much 
 more long and difficult, further up, one especially 
 called II Col della Creusa, from Rassa leading into 
 the Val d' Andorno, and hence to Biella. But all 
 these passes are even now considered quite impass- 
 able for six months in the year, except by the most 
 venturous smuggler, occasionally, in days of very 
 hard frost. This we say, even at the present day, 
 when human ingenuity and enterprise has done so 
 much towards subduing the Alps, and overcoming 
 the awe with which more helpless generations be- 
 held them. At the times of Fra Dolcino, a journey 
 across those snows was, in all probability, an un- 
 heard of achievement ; and yet despair nerved to it 
 not merely a few daring mountaineers, but a whole 
 band of armed men, who were either accompanied 
 at the time, or soon afterwards joined by the women 
 in their suite. 
 
 § 12. On the 10th of March, then, being Maundy 
 Thursday, in 1306, Fra Dolcino came dowm upon 
 the diocese of Yercelli, and rested his exhausted 
 forces on a hill called Mount Zebello, looking down 
 upon the town of Trivero. The hill called Mount 
 Zebello or Rubello, and now St. Bernard's, rises on 
 the southern bank of the Sessera, and for a long
 
 ATTACK ON TRIVEEO. 247 
 
 tract its great borders fall down perpendicularly 
 upon that very deep, narrow valley. Its height from 
 the bed of the river is nowhere less than two hours* 
 painful ascent. From Trivero itself, a very fair 
 mountain road now leads to the summit, in little 
 more than an hour, or an hour and a half; but 
 Trivero itself is already very high, and it lies in fact 
 on the very side of the mountain to the south-east 
 away from the river, and almost out of the valley. 
 The summit of the mountain, with the white dot 
 of its little chapel or sanctuary, is a conspicuous 
 object from almost every part of the plain. From 
 that elevated position, a vast panorama may be had 
 of all Piedmont ; behind it vast rocky mountains rise 
 perpendicularly all round; far to the north, the 
 Alps of the Val d' Ossola are seen like vast snowy 
 glittering waves, low on the horizon from very dis- 
 tance ; and westward, the great mass of Monte Rosa, 
 sitting calm, pure, majestic, almost within reach of 
 the beholder's hand. 
 
 On this grand eagle's perch, Dolcino first came to 
 a halt. The halt, however, was of no long duration. 
 Of men who had for so many months been reduced 
 to the last extremities, who had J eft the dead and 
 the dying behind them in their previous camp, 
 who had strewn the trackless path over which they 
 had toiled with the bodies of their companions 
 
 B 4
 
 248 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 dropping from sheer exhaustion, it seemed im- 
 possible to expect further exertions. But Dolcino's 
 genius and necessity were inexorable. On the same 
 hill, at the close of the same night, a choice was 
 made of the bravest in that choice band, and, at 
 break of day, a descent made upon the town of 
 Trivero. 
 
 § 13. Trivero is, at the present day, a large scat- 
 tered township, divided into no less than five pa- 
 rishes, and numbering above 4225 inhabitants. 
 Its wealth, however, is derived from manufactures 
 and other branches of industry, which are probably 
 of no very ancient date. At the time in which Dol- 
 cino made his sudden descent upon it, it had, in all 
 likelihood, nothing but its natural produce to rely 
 upon ; and this, notwithstanding the freshness and 
 richness of its pastures, and the luxuriancy of its 
 dense walnut groves, could, by no means, afford sub- 
 sistence for so large a population, or bless them with 
 the affluence they now seem to enjoy. The inha- 
 bitants of that town lay warm in their beds ; nothing 
 could well be farther from their dreams than an 
 onset of heretics. The suddenness of the attack 
 thus removed any chance of resistance. The Apostles 
 took possession of the church, rifled it of cups, books, 
 and other sacred utensils ; then spread about the 
 houses, set fire to some of them, probably to in-
 
 ITS SUCCESS. 249 
 
 crease the terror of the people, and loaded them- 
 selves with everything that could relieve their 
 urgent wants. They forced a few of the villagers 
 along with them, either as prisoners or hostages ; 
 and without further violence — for no mention is 
 made of bloodshed — they hurried away to their 
 starving friends on Mount Zebello. 
 
 The men of Trivero began at last to look up from 
 their blind astonishment. With the true instinct 
 of a Lombard peasantry, their first steps were to the 
 church-steeple, where they lay hold of the bell- 
 ropes and tolled the alarm. The bold youths of the 
 neighbouring townships, especially those of Mosso, 
 a straggling village, or rather a group of straggling 
 villages, at the present day, dotting two of the ad- 
 joining glens, which bear the names of Upper and 
 Lower Valley of Mosso, gathered at the first peal, 
 and dashed gallantly to the help of their neighbours. 
 
 Dolcino, however, a strategist of first-rate abi- 
 lities, as he proved himself throughout, had foreseen 
 that move and provided against it. He had posted 
 his vanguard on the road between Trivero and 
 Mosso, and the young villagers from the latter place 
 fell in with these strangers, who, though only four 
 and thirty in number, were so well placed as to be 
 able to bar their progress. The people from the 
 plundered town, in their turn, came up, and that
 
 250 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 mere handful of men found itself encompassed on all 
 sides : they stood their ground like very lions : they 
 allowed themselves to be mown down to a man, glad 
 in the thought that their self-immolation would 
 enable Dolcino to effect his retreat unmolested, and 
 that his arrival with his booty would be the salvation 
 of their camp.* 
 
 § 14. This first incursion of the Apostles threw 
 Vercelli and the whole diocese into speechless con- 
 sternation. The Bishop, who had hoped to be quit 
 of such dangerous enemies, ever since he had driven 
 Dolcino from Gattinara and Serravalle in 1304, 
 was at first far from estimating to its full ex- 
 tent the magnitude of his danger. He conceived 
 that the heretics could be but few — about 1000 
 — worn out by famine and disease, shut up by in- 
 hospitable mountains, to wliich it was enough to 
 confine them, to drive them sooner or later to the 
 necessity of a sunrender. He gathered a few of his 
 vassals in great haste, sent for auxiliaries from his 
 immediate neighbours, and marched a respectable 
 force upon the threatened district. These troops 
 must have been but slovenly led. They came blun- 
 dering on, took up a dangerous position at the foot 
 of the hill, and were set upon by Dolcino, who was 
 watching their movements, who cut them to pieces, 
 * See Appendix I. The thirty Amazons.
 
 DOLCINO'S NEW CAIVIP. 251 
 
 and threw them into hopeless confusion. He took 
 thus a number of prisoners, every man of whom was 
 worth at least his weight in corn and meat, and 
 having thus cleared the ground before him, he ob- 
 tained a fresh supply not only of food, but of arms 
 also and ammunition. 
 
 § 15. For a few weeks there was thus, necessarily, 
 a suspension of hostilities, during which either party 
 strove to better its respective position. 
 
 With all their advantage the Apostles were not 
 equal to a distant inroad on the plain. Compelled 
 to cling to their place of refuge on Mount Zebello, 
 they only thought of strengthening it to the best of 
 their abilities. As they had done in the Valnera, 
 and on the Bare Wall, they built up a little town on 
 their new hill. The Mount Zebello or St. Bernard's 
 is now almost entirely bare of trees upwards of 
 Trivero, but the old inhabitants of the district re- 
 member the time when it was all wooded, in its 
 sheltered gorges, up to the summit ; and its primeval 
 beech and fir trees supplied Dolcino with ample 
 materials for construction. There was no water on 
 the summit, but adown the mountain side, at about 
 a quarter of a mile distance from their camp, an 
 alpine spring gushed out. Dolcino collected this 
 water into a well, built a stone ravelin round it, and 
 made a covered walk all the way from the spring to
 
 252 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 the main citadel, and so fortified this gallery, that he 
 could at all times obtain a supply of the pure ele- 
 ment in perfect safety, not only from the close attack, 
 but even from the distant shot of the enemy. 
 
 The author of Dolcino's history seems to intimate 
 that this covered way was dug in the rock ; but those 
 who have visited the spot, and know the hardness 
 of the material he had to work upon, are aware 
 of the impossibility of such an undertaking in so 
 short a time. There are no traces of excavation 
 in any part of the mountain, and the soil is by no 
 means hollow or cavernous. A very narrow grotto, 
 a natural cleft in the mountain side about fifteen 
 yards in length, opens indeed in the hardest rock, at 
 about half a mile from the summit. The peasantry 
 of Trivero call it la Ca' del Diavol (the devil's ovm 
 home), and the tradition is, that it was the last refuge 
 of Dolcino on the day of his defeat, and that there 
 he was taken prisoner with a few of his stoutest 
 combatants. But that cavern is at a great distance 
 from the spring above-mentioned, and in altogether 
 a different direction ; it pierces an isolated rock 
 through and through, and leads no-where, and is, 
 moreover, so low, that a man can hardly stand up- 
 right in any part of it, and must crawl in with the 
 greatest difficulty at both entrances. 
 
 On the other side, the Bishop's generals had hastily
 
 DOLCINO'S STRATAGEM. 253 
 
 drawn up their forces at Mosso, at a reasonable 
 distance, and limited themselves, as it had been done 
 in the previous year in the district of Varallo, to a 
 strict blockade of their dreaded foe. The latter 
 was again very shortly brought on the verge of 
 starvation. The invalids, the women, and all whom 
 he had left behind at the time of his tremendous 
 expedition across the snowy mountains, came up now, 
 day by day, as the advancing season rendered those 
 paths somewhat more practicable ; many rustics also, 
 at every new success on the part of the Apostles, in- 
 variably joined them. The garrison was thus in- 
 creased rather by mouths than by available hands ; 
 and its position, however impregnable, became daily 
 less tenable. Hunger, however, is proverbially a 
 sharpener of wit. On the first day in May, the 
 Apostles, having already held out for about seven 
 weeks, — the anonymous historian says four months, 
 but it is difficult to reckon so long a time from the 
 10th of March to the first day in May* — Dolcino 
 called all his men under arms, and with a great deal 
 of show and parade marched them out of the citadel, 
 as if yielding to the law of necessity, and going to 
 look for better quarters elsewhere. All this ma- 
 noeuvre had been witnessed by some of his prisoners, 
 who, after the departure of the main force of the 
 
 * Hist. Dulcini, p. 433.
 
 254 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 heretics, found themselves thus left behind, in the 
 charge of a few of the brethren. These latter en- 
 tered into conversation with the prisoners, confirmed 
 them in their natural belief that Dolcino had aban- 
 doned his position, and offered not only to set them 
 at liberty, but even to deliver up their camp and the 
 hill to the Bishop's generals, on condition that they 
 would obtain an amnesty in their favour. The re- 
 leased captives ran joyously to the Episcopal camp 
 at Mosso, announced the departure of the enemy, 
 and awakened a tumultuous desire for the immediate 
 occupation of the vacated encampment. Led by the 
 rescued prisoners, the whole host hurried up the hill 
 and stood before the redoubted fortalice, which they 
 found not only deserted by the main force of its 
 garrison, but even by those few contrite and sub- 
 missive brethren who had undertaken to deliver 
 it up. 
 
 A suspicion of some ambush naturally shot across 
 their minds. They had come up at nightfall, and 
 did not venture on the immediate occupation of the 
 citadel, but resolved to put it off till the morrow, 
 and in the meanwhile they lay down outside, on the 
 ground. Clouds now gathered over their heads : 
 these were torn asunder by a sudden mountain gust, 
 and a deluge of rain, snow, and hail, such as can only 
 fall on the Alps, poured down upon their devoted 
 
 I
 
 ITS RESULT. 255 
 
 heads. Drenched with wet, numbed with cold, they 
 rose utterly dispirited in the morning. Always 
 under apprehension of an attack from that blank, 
 silent fort, they not only refused to enter it, but a 
 sudden panic seized them, and they broke off in 
 disorderly retreat. 
 
 That was the moment Dolcino had been looking 
 for. He had, as every one easily imagines, only 
 gone out at one gate to come in at another. He 
 had just made the tour of the hill, and allowed his 
 guards time to aid his ruse de guerre by their 
 suggestions to the too credulous prisoners. Upon the 
 departure of these latter, he had in great silence 
 regained his quarters, and lay hid the whole night. 
 The stratagem succeeded only by half. Had Dolcino 
 been able to decoy his enemies within his own 
 walls, on the eve, in the dark, pele-mele, the proba- 
 bility is that hardly a man would have escaped. Even 
 as it turned out, the crusaders had no sooner turned 
 their backs, than out rushed the hidden foes, the 
 ** accursed dogs," as the historian calls them resent- 
 fully at every word*, and " like very demons," they 
 darted on men totally unfit for self-defence, and 
 killing a good number, and taking as many as were 
 
 * " Canes pestiferi, canes maledicti, irruerunt more daemo- 
 num," &c. — Hist. Dulcin. p. 433, &c.
 
 256 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 worth taking, they pursued them as far as their own 
 station at Mosso.* 
 
 § 16. This new check caused no little uneasiness 
 to the good Bishop, and impressed him with the 
 necessity of greater exertions. He held a council 
 of war with his generals and many of the nobility 
 and gentry in his interest, and it was resolved to 
 send messengers to Clement V., representing the 
 untoward situation they found themselves in, and 
 the great distress of their finances. Pope Clement f 
 answered as popes usually do at similar junctures. 
 He sent neither men nor money, but was lavish of 
 new bulls and fresh indulgences, and did not forget 
 a few curses to be hurled at the head of those mis- 
 believers, who were by this time tolerably well 
 inured to them. A new crusading host was, how- 
 ever, assembled. The indulgence allowed either of 
 personal or vicarious service ; and both volunteers 
 and hirelings were only bound to the standards for 
 the period of a month. Together with the Bishop's 
 own men, the warriors of the cross came from the 
 cities of Lombardy and Tuscany, and, as the conflict 
 
 * See Appendix M. James de Quaregna. 
 
 f " Le cose della guerra andavan zoppe ; 
 I Bolognesi richiedean danari 
 Al Papa, e il Papa rispondeva coppe, 
 E mandava indulgenze per gli altari." 
 
 Tassoni, La Secchia Rapita, canto xii. st. i.
 
 ST. EUSEBIUS'S BANNER. 257 
 
 had now lasted above a year, and the report of great 
 deeds had spread abroad, even from Savoy, France, 
 Provence, and especially from the vale of Aosta.* 
 
 As in all decisive encounters, the " Sisters " of 
 the Apostles, under the guidance of Margaret, made 
 their appearance in the melee, dressed in men's 
 garbs, witli a view not only to take their share of 
 the toils and perils of their brethren, but also to 
 make a greater show of combatants -j- ; so now the 
 women of the orthodox party, unwilling to be behind 
 hand, took the cross in great numbers, and the 
 relicts of the men who had fallen in previous com- 
 bats clubbed together and collected a sum sufficient 
 to arm a band of five hundred cross-bowmen, whom 
 they entertained at their own expence during the 
 campaign. J 
 
 By all these means a very considerable force 
 marched under the standard of the cross and the 
 patronage of the martyr saint, Eusebius of Vercelli, 
 
 * " Multi cruce signati venerunt non solum de terris Lom- 
 bardiae, qusB ollm vocabatur Gallia CIsalpina, sed etiam de Gallia 
 Transalpina, sicut de Vienna, Sabaudia, Provincia et Francia." 
 Benvenuti Imolens. p. 1121. Cibrario, Storia della Monar- 
 chia di Savoia, lib. iv. cap. 10. vol. iii. p. 226. 
 
 t " Saepissime mulieres -^stimenta et arma virilia defere- 
 bant ut per hoc major exercitus ipsorum appareret, bisque 
 potius tuerentur." — Hist. Dulc. p. 437. 
 
 J " Foerainse porrexerunt manum huic bello. Nam viduse 
 foeminae miserunt D. balistarios." Benven. Imol. p. 1121. 
 
 S
 
 258 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 constituting the bishop's own army, who placed it 
 under the command of James and Peter Quaregna, 
 two noblemen of the district of Biella, and of 
 Thomas de Casanova, all of the Avogadro family, 
 — all kinsmen of the Bishop. 
 
 By the side of this another troop was put together 
 by the Comune, or municipality of Vercelli, and 
 these marched under the orders of their own mayor 
 or podesta; they dragged along with them two of 
 those huge, clumsy war-engines which did service 
 instead of artillery in the middle ages ; bombards, or 
 petriere, which threw heavy stones at a great dis- 
 tance, and with terrible execution. 
 
 The Mount Zebello is divided into three great sum- 
 mits. The very highest, the one on which St. Ber- 
 nard's chapel was built, is most probably the spot on 
 which Dolcino's citadel stood. On the left of this, 
 as you look up to the mountain from Trivero, there 
 is another summit, round and much larger, nearly 
 on a level with the main top, at about one mile's 
 distance from it, which the inhabitants call in their 
 dialect Mount Margueus (Mazzaro). On the right, 
 again, but at a far greater distance from the prin- 
 cipal summit, and considerably below it, is another 
 bluff, which the people designate by the name of 
 Mount Turlo. Between the main summit and this 
 Mount Turlo, or Tirlo, is a col or mountain pass,
 
 MILITARY OPERATIONS. 259 
 
 over which the road passes which leads from Trivero 
 down to the Sessera, and hence again over the pass 
 of the Boscarola to Scopello in Val Sesia. This 
 pass is called at its lowest point, nearer Trivero, the 
 Sella Caulera ; at its highest, nearer the mountain 
 top, the Sella di Stavello. 
 
 § 17. The two main divisions of the crusaders took 
 up their position on the first arrival. Notwithstanding 
 immense superiority of numbers, they could not be 
 induced to venture into the lion's jaw, by a direct 
 attack on Mount Zebello ; but sat themselves down 
 around it, determined to reduce the enemy by a 
 close blockade. The crusaders opened the campaign 
 by the sudden occupation of a mountain rising im- 
 mediately opposite to the main summit, most pro- 
 bably the Mount Margueus, as no other part comes 
 so near that the stones launched by their ma- 
 chines could fall in the very centre of the heretics* 
 fortified camp with fatal efifect on their persons and 
 habitations, as the chronicler describes. The taking 
 of this hill, building of a fine and strong bastion on 
 its summit, and conveying those unwieldy war-en- 
 gines to their place, took not a little time, and cost 
 infinite labour. It was, however, accomplished, and 
 the Bishop, who, old as he was, deemed it necessary 
 to encourage his own people and to strike dismay 
 amongst the enemies by his venerable presence, and 
 
 S 2
 
 260 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 who with this intent came up all the way from his 
 see, mounted on his white ambling mule, and clad 
 in his pontifical attire, garrisoned this his main 
 stronghold with twelve hundred of his picked men. 
 The mayor's army, for their own part, took up a 
 similar position at the foot of the hill, and equally 
 fortified it. The two camps were thus within reach 
 of each other, ready for mutual support. 
 
 Such was the common mode of warfare in the 
 middle ages ; they combated one fort by another. 
 Owing to want of unwearied watch, and good steady 
 discipline, the investment of a strong place was made 
 by the erection of one or more entrenched camps ; 
 regular fortresses, in fact, so contrived with towers, 
 bastions, and moats as to guard against all chances 
 of a sally from the besieged. Owing to the ready 
 dispersion of a feudal army, nothing was more com- 
 mon than a reverse of fortune, by which the belli- 
 gerents exchanged parts, and it became the besiegers* 
 turn to be attacked in their own fortifications. Thus 
 at the time of the leaguer of Parma, in 1248, to 
 quote one out of a thousand instances, Frederic II. 
 undertook to reduce that city by the construction of 
 another town, to which he gave the auspicious name 
 of " Victoria," seemingly because his host, imperial 
 host as it was, could not take care of itself in an open 
 field. And when at last the Parmesans mustered up
 
 MILITARY OPERATIONS. 261 
 
 courage to fall on that ill-guarded camp, and beat 
 up the emperor's quarters, they put an end both to 
 the siege and to the war ; and the fall of the strong- 
 hold was the signal for the disorganization of its 
 defenders.* 
 
 § 18. To complete the works contemplated by the 
 crusaders, it was necessary for them to take pos- 
 session of the other hill, called the Mount Turlo, 
 between which and the summit occupied by Dolcino 
 ran, as we have seen, that long sweep of lower 
 ground which bears the name of " Sella di Stavello." 
 This mountain pass had, as its name *' saddle" im- 
 plies, an extensive table-land on the summit, spacious 
 enough to serve for a battle-field. It was pasture- 
 land throughout, garlanded here and there by deep 
 bushes, here and there by clumps of beech-trees, 
 fine trees, such as only grow on the Italian side of 
 the Alps and on the Apennine crest. Had the 
 Bishop's plan entirely succeeded, had he been able 
 to establish his forces on the hill on the right as he 
 had on that on the left and at the base, Era Dolcino 
 would thus have been cut off* on three sides, and had 
 hardly any ground to fall back upon except the preci- 
 pitate slope which fell into the Sessera, beyond which 
 
 * Chronic. Parmens. in Mur. Rer. Ital. Script, torn. ix. p. 
 770. &c. 
 
 6 3
 
 262 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 there was nothing except the bleak mountain region, 
 — all the desolation of the Alpine desert. 
 
 Full of the importance of their enterprise, the 
 crusaders made an onset on the Sella di Stavello, in 
 that heedless, headlong style which characterises the 
 movements of an improvised army. But Dolcino, 
 for whom the occupation of the Sella was matter of 
 life and death, had been on the watch, and was 
 beforehand with his enemy. No sooner had this 
 latter reached the plain on the summit of the pass, 
 than out from a hundred thickets rushed the " per- 
 nicious Gazzari." The warriors of the cross were 
 hurled down the mountain-side. Reinforcements 
 stepped up on both sides ; a general engagement 
 ensued, with great carnage on both sides. So great 
 was the havoc, indeed, that the mountain-torrent 
 which flows from the Sella di Stavello, and which 
 now bears the name of the Ricco, or Riccio, was dyed 
 deep with gore as far as its confluent with the main 
 stream of the Sessera ; and from this circumstance, 
 and from the heap of dead bodies and severed limbs 
 that floated on its surface, it received the name of 
 Carnasco, which it is said to have preserved for some 
 time, but which it has certainly lost at the present 
 day. Among the many who came to their end in 
 that encounter were five noblemen, all from the 
 neighbouring town of Crevacuore^ probably brothers
 
 DOLCINO VICTORIOUS. 263 
 
 and lords of the place, who with their men fell on 
 the attack of that lower part of the pass, which was 
 then and is still called the Sella Caulera.* 
 
 In this combat once more fortune declared in fa- 
 vour of the heretics. Towards evening the crusading 
 forces, in spite of their great superiority of numbers, 
 were beaten at all points, and fell back upon the 
 towns of Trivero, Mosso, and Crevacuore. 
 
 § 19. That engagement took place towards the fall 
 of the year, and throughout the autumn and winter 
 Dolcino ^followed up his advantage, and every day 
 was signalised by a further extension of his posses- 
 sions. In December, the municipal forces of Vercelli 
 found themselves unable to hold their position in the 
 valley, and in so great a dread of pursuit, if they 
 left it in sight of the enemy, that they chose the 
 darkest and longest night of the year, and stole out 
 of their camp, without as much as conveying a hint 
 of their intentions to their confederates on the hill, 
 and setting fire to their tents, barracks, and other 
 works, effected their escape. The main episcopal 
 force, reduced from 1200 to only 700 men, was 
 thus left behind on the hill it occupied from the outset, 
 isolated now, encompassed all round by mountains of 
 snow, and sore beset by the enemy, who, masters of 
 all the positions around, cut off all retreat. It would 
 
 * Histor. Dulcin. p. 434. 
 8 4
 
 264 FKA DOLCIKO. 
 
 thus have perished with cold and hunger, had not 
 the Bishop, always indefatigable in his exertions, 
 sent a body of daring mountaineers, who by dint of 
 infinite toil cut open a path for them across the 
 deep snow, and thus conveyed these poor men, stiff 
 and helpless, but yet alive, to a place of safety. 
 
 This great object being obtained, the crusaders 
 fell back altogether, abandoning not only the posi- 
 tions which they had occupied and attempted to oc- 
 cupy, on six of which now Dolcino in his turn built 
 his own bastions and trenches, but also, successively, 
 the towns of Trivero, Mosso, Coggiola, Flecchia, and 
 as far as Crevacuore on the east, and Mortigliengo 
 and Curino in the south. All these places are extant 
 with hardly any modification in the names. 
 
 The demoralisation of the Catholics, both people 
 and military, was so complete, that the mere sight 
 of the heretics was enough to strike a panic amongst 
 them : a whole host often running from a mere hand- 
 ful of the enemy.* 
 
 The Bishop, however, compelled as he was to give 
 up his ground, would not abandon his plan — a plan 
 which had been followed now for more than two 
 
 * " Et ideo homines dioecesis et civitatis Vercellorum erant ita 
 perterriti et tabefacti, quod a facie ipsorum canum quantum 
 poterant fugiebant ; immo saepissime pauci de ipsis multos de 
 Fidelibus persequebantur." — Hist. Dulc. p. 437.
 
 % 
 
 HIS POSITION. 265 
 
 years, and which aimed at starving his adversaries. 
 He allowed the heretics full run of the country round 
 Trivero, but placed himself on the mountains above 
 the vales of Mosso, and in the territories of Mor- 
 tigliengo and BeduUio, now Bioglio, and erected new 
 works, behind which his men were at last brought to 
 a stand. By this manoeuvre he limited the enemy's 
 excursions to the barren district which he had pur- 
 chased at so high a rate, and otherwise effectually 
 protected the broad and rich low lands of his diocese. 
 By a policy of which Russian despotism has recently 
 given so luminous an example, he took timely mea- 
 sures for the depopulation aud utter destruction of 
 every place he was compelled to evacuate. He forced 
 the whole of the inhabitants of the occupied districts 
 to emigrate on the enemy's approach ; these dragged 
 their cattle and all their portable goods along with 
 them : fire consumed whatever could not follow 
 them. 
 
 Dolcino, thus victorious on the summit of Mount 
 Zebello, and on six other mountain- tops equally 
 bristling with his citadels, lorded it over a desert. His 
 present camp was vast, but hopelessly barren and 
 waste. All round, south and east, the Bishop guarded 
 every outlet, and interrupted all communication : on 
 the west were mountains, ridge behind ridge, inha- 
 bited by all the terrors of a severe winter, and in-
 
 266 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 finitely more formidable at that period than the high 
 spirit and perseverance of modern curiosity has ren- 
 dered them since. On the north, again, mountains, 
 and beyond them the district of Varallo, such as it 
 had been left after the unsparing devastations of the 
 previous year. Further on again mountains, and on 
 the other side other valleys, — those of Ossola on the 
 north, and of Gressoney and Aosta on the west, 
 where, had there been the slightest possibility of 
 cutting one's way to them, the Apostles would have 
 found the peasantry all in arms, fanaticised by their 
 priests, sworn to their destruction. 
 
 § 20. Fra Dolcino, like a lion in the pit the hunter 
 has dug for him, paced up and down that desolate 
 valley of Trivero. It was at this time that his worst 
 deeds of cruelty and rapacity are said to have taken 
 place* ; and truly there was despair enough in his 
 situation to prompt him to the most savage excesses. 
 There is something, nevertheless, in the enumeration 
 of his crimes, as set down by the historian who all 
 but witnessed them, that may sometimes awaken our 
 suspicions as to his veracity and discernment, some- 
 times calls up our smiles at his simplicity. 
 
 The greatest ofience of the heretics in his estima- 
 tion was of course sacrilege. The heretic " dogs" 
 
 * Hist. Dulc. p. 437.
 
 HERETIC SACRILEGE. 267 
 
 desecrated the churches of Mosso and Trivero. They 
 lopped off the arms* of wooden Madonnas, dis- 
 figured other images, carried away cups and other 
 silver utensils, and finally pulled down the bells and 
 demolished the belfries. 
 
 All this was doubtless wanton work. It was the 
 Vandalism of the Petrobrusians in Francef, of the 
 Stedingers in Germany before Dolcino, that of the 
 Independents in England and Covenanters in Scot- 
 land after him. The just hatred of reformers for the 
 Catholic priesthood everywhere vented itself upon 
 the tools of their jugglery. The breaking of the 
 bells was especially characteristic. All apostolical 
 fraternities had a grudge against those christened 
 brazen monitors, which they called " the Devil's 
 trumpets," an appellation which any one who has 
 lived in Italian towns, or even in Protestant London, 
 especially in the vicinity of Puseyite chapels, may feel 
 disposed to find correct. The recollection of the straits 
 to which the tolling of the alarm-bell at Trivero had 
 brought Dolcino and his friends on their first attack 
 on that place, was not calculated to stay their de- 
 stroying hand, on a second visit. At Trivero, we 
 are told again, they removed and shattered the sacred 
 
 * Statuae Hgneae ad honorem Beatae Marias Virginis fabricate 
 brachium amputaverunt,*' &c. — Ibid. 
 f See ante^ chap. i. sect. 15 — 26.
 
 268 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 stones of the main altar, hallowed, in all Catholic 
 churches, by the sacrament which rests upon them 
 during the performance of mass and communion. 
 But the same horrid deed could not be perpetrated 
 at Mosso, for, owing to some divine interference 
 which is not explained, the Gazzari were never able 
 to remove the linen cloth that covered them :* — a 
 statement tantamount to a positive avowal that at 
 Mosso, at least, the altars on the return of the faithful 
 were found inviolate. 
 
 § 21. It, however, signifies but little what real 
 harm was done to stone or wooden idols ; but the 
 Apostles ai'e also charged with murder, accompanied 
 with every refinement of barbarism. It is distinctly 
 asserted that they hung many of the faithful ser- 
 vants of Christ upon the gallows, amongst others a 
 child about ten years old ; that they mutilated other 
 persons ; cut ofi" the nose, lips, hands and feet of 
 some women ; and that one of these, whose arm was 
 cruelly amputated, suffered such tortures as brought 
 about her premature confinement ; and that her 
 infant thus born was left to die on Mount Zebello, 
 almost on the instant of its birth — unbaptized. 
 
 * " Tentaverunt lapides de altari majori diruere et mappam 
 quae co-operiebat ipsum altare exportare voluerunt, et multa 
 alia bona, sed volente Deo non potuerunt extraliere de altari." 
 —Hist. Dulc. p. 437.
 
 CRUELTY. 269 
 
 These are atrocities which no motive or circum- 
 stance can extenuate. Yet we must observe, that 
 these executions are said to have taken place, not, 
 as it would be natural to suppose, in the heat of 
 action, or after the storming of towns, but in cold 
 blood, on Mount Zebello, in the presence of the 
 wives, parents, and other relatives of the sufferers, 
 and merely because these were unable or unwilling 
 to rescue their friends at the price the heretics set 
 upon their lives or limbs.* These heretics, it must 
 never be forgotten, were fighting for bread. Their 
 prisoners were their only resource, and the inexorable 
 Bishop, true to his own plan, forbade and actually 
 disabled his subjects from treating for the redemption 
 of captives, or, indeed, from holding any intercourse 
 with their captors. The heretics, always under the 
 maddening scourge of necessity, we think it very 
 natural to suppose, led forth their prisoners on the 
 esplanade before their fort on the hill ; they raised 
 their gibbet fully in sight of their besiegers, they 
 first threatened, and then actually suspended their 
 victims, always in the hope that the heart of their 
 friends would relent. There the men hung — one 
 minute — two minutes — five minutes: the murder 
 
 * " Item multos alios viros suspenderunt, videntibus uxoribus 
 et parentibus, quia non valebant se redimere arbitrio praedictorum 
 canum." — Hist. Dulc. p. 437.
 
 270 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 was consummated ; and it is a question whether the 
 charge of it should lie heavier on the Apostles who 
 demanded a ransom rather proportionate to their 
 wants than to the means of the interested parties, 
 or rather on these latter, who could balance between 
 life and gold ; or, finally, on their mitred ruler, who 
 allowed neither gold, nor what was infinitely more 
 precious than gold, on any account to go beyond his 
 outposts. 
 
 Certainly, as far as their own interests were con- 
 cerned, the worst use to which the Apostles could 
 put a prisoner was to deprive him of life. Whatever 
 may be thought of their vindictiveness, it is difficult 
 to conceive that they would not fain have exchanged 
 the man dangling and still writhing on their gallows 
 against the carcase, we will not say of an ox, but of 
 a horse or dog. Even thirst for blood is seldom 
 proof against hunger for bread. And perhaps those 
 very mutilations which on a first glance might be 
 looked upon as a useless refinement of torture, were 
 only a preliminary experiment, or first appeal to the 
 avarice of their enemies. They wished to show these 
 latter that they were in real earnest, but they put 
 oflT to the last that decisive stroke which, together 
 with the life of their victim, would also have ended 
 all their chances of a bargain for it. 
 
 That such horrid experiments should have been
 
 HORRID ATROCITIES. 271 
 
 tried upon persons, whom either tender age or sex 
 ought to have recommended to mercy, does indeed 
 greatly aggravate the evil, without, however, chang- 
 ing its nature. That one of the female sufferers 
 was deprived of the privilege in all ages and countries 
 hallowing approaching maternity, would be utterly 
 unpardonable, if we might not suppose that her 
 situation escaped the observation of her tormentors. 
 But what is given as the climax of horrors, the 
 privation of baptismal rites to her new^-born infant, 
 is a fact whose importance must be proportionate to 
 our willingness to admit the Catholic doctrine of 
 limbo. All apostolic sects had peculiar notions 
 about the administration of sacraments ; some of 
 them strong objections to the baptism of infants. 
 
 All these horrors, however, rest entirely on the 
 testimony of our anonymous historian, and on the 
 opinion that we may form from his absurdly intem- 
 perate language, of his disposition and ability to 
 tell the truth. That he was himself, although a 
 contemporary, also an ocular witness of all he de- 
 scribes is nowhere asserted ; and if we are to suppose 
 that he relied on other people's reports, it is impossible 
 to decide' to what extent party spirit and credulity 
 exaggerated or perverted facts. Those who reached 
 Milan only two or three days after the conflict of 
 March, 1848, must have felt how vain it was to
 
 272 FBA DOLCINO. 
 
 Strive to come to the positive truth respecting the 
 atrocities perpetrated in the suburbs by Radetzky's 
 Croatians ; atrocities, however, with which the whole 
 town resounded, of which it was high treason to 
 doubt, and which had, undoubtedly, its ground 
 of reality. Contemporaneous statements are not 
 always our safest guide as we grope amidst the 
 darkness of history : sound and unbiassed criti- 
 cism must often sift even what is called ocular 
 evidence, and test it by the general laws of pro- 
 bability. Reason knows better than passion sees. 
 There are, at any rate, traditions which charge the 
 Catholics themselves with those very atrocities which 
 our anonymous chronicler ascribes to the heretics, 
 and nearly in the same words.* 
 
 § 22. But if the worst deeds imputed to Dolcino 
 were proved, and if the worst motives could be 
 ascribed to him, still it would be necessary to look 
 upon them with due regard to the melancholy times 
 to which such outrages belong. Such were then in 
 Italy the usages of war : and that Dolcino was pur- 
 suing the most righteous and legitimate of wars, that 
 of self-defence, we, for our own part, entertain no 
 doubt. During that same siege of Parma, to which 
 we have already adverted, Frederic II. who was 
 fighting not for life, but in pursuit of ambitious 
 
 * See Appendix J. Heretic and Catholic atrocities.
 
 SAVAGENESS OF THE AGE. 273 
 
 schemes, who had not, like Dolcino, been goaded by 
 mad persecution, and had suffered no injury tliat 
 could entitle him to reprisals, deemed himself autho- 
 rised to try to shake the resolution of the citizens 
 by the daily decapitation of four of his prisoners or 
 hostages, two of the noble and two of the plebeian 
 order ; nor did he desist from these barbarous exe- 
 cutions, until his Italian auxiliaries, especially the 
 Pavese, to their eternal honour, threatened to leave 
 his camp, unless he abandoned a practice repugnant 
 both to the laws of nations and of humanity.* His 
 grandfather, Barbarossa, suspended the hostages of 
 Crema to the wooden towers with which he at- 
 tempted to storm that city, that the first shafts from 
 the defenders on the walls should fall on their own 
 brothers. f Cruelties of that nature, whatever may 
 be said of the revengeful passions of southern races, 
 were first exercised in Italy by northern despots : 
 and that great master of cruelty, Ezzelino da Ro- 
 mano, the main support of Frederic IL, was a Ger- 
 man by descent, one of those foreign settlers, whom 
 contempt for their subjects prevented from ever be- 
 coming acclimated to Italy. Two or three centuries 
 of ruthless endless warfare had blunted all feeling 
 throughout the country. Family feuds and civil 
 
 * Sismondi, Hist, des Republiques Italiennes, torn. ii. p. 53. 
 t Ibid. torn. i. p. 310. 
 
 T
 
 274 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 broils made cold-blood murder and dastard treachery 
 matters of daily occurrence : still nothing more 
 powerfully tended to ensavage the people's hearts, 
 than the variety and ingenuity of torture with which 
 the ministers of the God of Mercy — the Inqui- 
 sitors, — had, for the last half century, sought out 
 their victims and disposed of them. 
 
 § 23. But all the crimes and outrages of the 
 heretics, if their object, as we suppose, was only a 
 prolongation of their miserable existence, were of 
 no avail towards averting their fate. Had they 
 been able to wait until the thawing of the Alpine 
 snows enabled them to try their fortune across the 
 great mountain barrier, they might, perhaps, have 
 taken some desperate course, such as freed them 
 from similar horrors on the Bare Wall, in the previous 
 spring. But it was otherwise decreed. They soon 
 came to their old loathsome resources of dogs, horses, 
 and mice. They peeled off the bark, dug up the roots 
 of trees ; they gnawed the leather of their buff coats, 
 their belts, the soles of their shoes.* 
 
 Cannibalism came at last. Such of the Apostles 
 as only died of their wounds or of cold and famine, 
 supplied a repast for their brethren.f We shall not 
 describe their horrid shambles and hideous cookery. 
 
 * Benvenut. Imolens. p. 1122. 
 t Histor. Dulcin. p. 438.
 
 LAST EXTREMITIES. 275 
 
 They had provisions of that nature in sufficient 
 quantity, it is likely, to save them from that last 
 dreadful necessity mariners are often brought to 
 — that of casting lots. 
 
 All this for above three months.* Skeleton-like 
 and almost blind, they groped about, like Count 
 Ugolino in the Tower of Famine, about nineteen 
 years before them — they groped among the corpses 
 of their comrades. They had no strength or reso- 
 lution to dig a grave for them. Such of their rem- 
 nants as were even in their extremities deemed un- 
 meet for human food, were left to the ravenousness 
 of the wolves and vultures of the Alps. 
 
 § 24f. The Bishop at last took them out of trouble. 
 He had during the whole winter strained every nerve 
 to procure both material and spiritual aid. The 
 fugitives of Mosso and Trivero, from very necessity, 
 came to swell his ranks. The non-combatants helped 
 him with their prayers. Those two townships made 
 vows to St. Eusebius and to other saints to observe a 
 solemn day of festival and thanksgiving, in comme- 
 moration of their deliverance, if they could obtain it. 
 
 * " Et in tanta captivitate fuerunt restricti per tres menses et 
 ultra, obsessi super dicto monte, quod semimortui duraverunt 
 existendo in magna necessitate. Et multi ex eis moriebantur, 
 quorum corpora partim comedebant vivi, et partim projiciebant 
 in locis desertis dicti montis Zebelli, a feris et volueribus 
 comedenda." — Hist. Dulc. p. 439. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 The men of Mosso appointed the Thursday ; those of 
 Trivero, the Friday in holy week. All these prayers 
 and sacred pledges told amazingly against the here- 
 tics, who were dying on their hills and dying by 
 inches. The finger of St. Eusebius was visible in all 
 their disasters. The little cattle the misbelievers 
 had left, eleven oxen and forty-nine sheep, fell sud- 
 denly dead in their pens as the sacred pledge escaped 
 from the lips of the faithful ; and the wine they kept 
 in five casks was converted into a viscous ofiensive 
 liquid, or evaporated in noisome smoke. The very 
 days appointed for the contemplated thanksgiving 
 were actually those in which the final boon was 
 vouchsafed. 
 
 The Episcopal army, which, agreeably to its feudal 
 organisation, had either gone asunder, or rested in 
 its winter-quarters, was again mustered together and 
 led into the field in early spring. It came up to 
 Trivero at the beginning of holy week. There were 
 daily skirmishes at the foot of the various hills, on 
 which the heretics, though worn to mere shadows, 
 still showed good countenance. Indeed, the ap- 
 proach of their detested foes breathed a new soul 
 into their exhausted frames. They fought like men 
 from whom despair has banished fear ; who had no 
 better prospect than a speedy and honourable death, 
 and no wish save that of selling: their more than
 
 DOWNFALL OF DOLCINO. 277 
 
 half-spent breath at the highest rate. They fought 
 in silence, sullenly, doggedly, like wild cats at bay. 
 They came to a final battle on the Saddle or Pass of 
 Stavello, on, that is, or near the identical spot which 
 had witnessed the last success of Dolcino in the fore- 
 going autumn. It was again on a Thursday, on that 
 same day, hallowed as the eve of the last agony of 
 the Saviour of mankind, which fell on that year, 
 1307, on the 23d of March. Again, the plain was 
 strewn with the dead : again, the Carnasco ran high 
 with the blood of both parties. Again, it carried to 
 the main stream that tribute of carnage which gave 
 it its name. A very great number of the Apostles 
 only yielded victory with their life. More than a 
 1000, or even 1300, according to the same autho- 
 rity *, were found killed, drowned, or burnt ; for 
 the brand of the crusaders was hurled among the 
 palisades and other works of the heretics, and these 
 were consumed to ashes together with their de- 
 fenders. About 150 f fell into the hands of their 
 enemies. Amongst others, Fra Dolcino, Margaret, 
 and that Longino de Cattanei, a man of noble birth, 
 who was the bravest of Dolcino's disciples, and acted 
 
 * Hist. Dulc. p. 439—441. 
 
 t Ptolenijei Lucens. Vit. Clem. Y. in Baluz. Vit. Papar. 
 Avenionens. torn. i. p. 26. 
 
 T 3
 
 278 ERA DOLCINO. 
 
 as his lieutenant. These were the men the bishop 
 so " tenderly wished " * to have in his power. The 
 eagerness of his men to comply with his directions, 
 that the lives of these men should be spared for the 
 laudable purpose of " making an example " of them, 
 probably prolonged the conflict of that awful day. 
 Agreeably to tradition, Dolcino and a few of his 
 followers were found crouching in that grotto above 
 described -)-, where they might hope to escape detec- 
 tion, but where, once found out, they had no room 
 even to raise an arm for their defence. This might 
 explain how they came alive into their enemies' 
 hands. 
 
 It was over. The remaining strongholds of the 
 misbelieving dogs, and the main citadel on Mount 
 Zebello itself were stormed one after another, and 
 were utterly destroyed, probably by fire ; so that we 
 are told, perhaps with some exaggeration, that all 
 vanished on that same day. 
 
 The prisoners, loaded with irons all round their 
 arms, feet, and neck, were, on the Saturday of the 
 same holy week, conveyed to Biella, where the 
 Bishop had taken up his quarters so as to be as near 
 
 * " Affectuose desiderabat vivos habere, ut pro meritis eorum 
 praemia digna reciperent." — Hist. Dulc. p. 439. 
 
 t See ante § xv., and see the Appendix K. The Last 
 Conflict.
 
 THE ALPS AS A DEFENCE. 279 
 
 as possible to the scene of action ; and there they 
 were thrown into the dungeons of the castle. 
 
 § 25. Thus ended the war on the Alps. 
 
 A melancholy warning to those who deem those 
 mountains impregnable ! A warning to those high- 
 minded but over-sanguine enthusiasts, who view those 
 deep ravines and inaccessible cliffs as so many bul- 
 warks and moats reared and dug up by God himself 
 to make them into a stronghold for a just and 
 weak cause against the overpowering numbers of a 
 tyrannical force ! 
 
 The Alps are no fortress, but only the wall of a 
 fortress. Like the Apennines in all their length, 
 they constitute, not a mountain region, but only a 
 crest. As a breast-plate for Italy, or for Northern 
 Italy at least, the Alpine chain will be found an in- 
 valuable defence whenever the whole country, united, 
 self-dependent, looks out at all those defiles ; and the 
 champions on the hills can rely on the inexhaustible 
 resources of the plain in their rear. But that the 
 Alps should give the initiative, that a few, however 
 heroic, bands thrown up into Valsesia, or Valtellina, 
 or into Abruzzo, or Calabria, may support themselves 
 for even a single season, and so harass and perplex 
 the foreign invader as to shut him up in his citadels, 
 and give the nation a chance for a general rise — 
 that is one of the many illusions of *' Young Italy," 
 T 4
 
 280 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 which must needs vanish with the coming of her years 
 of discretion. 
 
 § 26. The experiment was made, under the very 
 best circumstances, in recent times. The hour and 
 the man had come together. At a period in which 
 all Italy was in arms, in 1848, when vast numbers 
 of youthful adventurers wandered about, houseless, 
 hopeless, lavish of their life for their country, Gari- 
 baldi appeared to lead them. He was the man, 
 long kept in reserve by Young Italy for the great 
 purpose, and had won a fair name in distant countries 
 for his genius in that peculiar mode of warfare that 
 was now in contemplation. The leader could not 
 have been abler nor the men braver. Yet the former 
 looked in vain for a strategic point fit for the display 
 of his talents ; the latter found themselves in pre- 
 sence of an enemy they were not prepared to en- 
 counter. Garibaldi's campaign on the Alps did not 
 last quite a fortnight. 
 
 There are many obvious reasons to account for his 
 failure. The Spanish guerilla bands, whom the 
 Italians would have taken as models, are always re- 
 cruited among the immediate children of the soil — 
 patient, frugal, unwearied mountaineers, hard as their 
 own rocks. The enemy never knows where to find 
 them. The boor he passes by to-day, a ragged goat- 
 herd, or a stupid ploughman, the innkeeper, whose
 
 FATE OF GUERILLAS IN ITALY. 281 
 
 hospitality he repays with ill-usage, will confront 
 him, all cloaked and plumed, a redoubtable guerillero, 
 on the morrow. 
 
 The Italian patriots under Garibaldi were strangers 
 n the land of their fathers. Mere city-men, young 
 students for the most part, they knew nothing of the 
 Alps, except the faint blue outline they could descry 
 from their coffee-house window, in the city of the 
 plain. The Italian is too exclusively the man of the 
 city. From the days of ancient Rome he has 
 estranged himself from nature. All civilisation is 
 with him centered in his artificial habits of town- 
 life. The rural population is a mere blank for what 
 concerns the destinies of the country. Accustomed 
 to all the leisure and luxury of their idle frivolous 
 life, the young patriots had nothing to uphold them 
 but the excitement and devotion of the moment. 
 The country people, amongst whom they moved, 
 evinced neither sympathy nor intelligence; they gazed 
 at them in listless stupor, and the very wonderment 
 of their gaze pointed out their course to their pur- 
 suers. 
 
 Nowhere could the heroes meet with either sup- 
 port or sustenance on the mountains. Had their 
 campaign lasted a whole fortnight, necessity would 
 have driven them to plunder. The patriot of to-day 
 would have stood forth a bandit and a marauder to-
 
 282 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 morrow ; when the Alpine rustics, in mere self-de- 
 fence, would have been roused from their apathy, 
 only to join the Austrian in the hue and cry after 
 their brethren. 
 
 The case of Fra Dolcino was far different ; hence 
 the importance it may have on present matters. 
 Dolcino led mountaineers into the field. He had 
 come unarmed, almost alone into Val Sesia. His 
 earnest eloquence, his simple truths, won him an 
 army. At its head he repulsed all enemies for two 
 years. Had those valleys offered him an outlet, had 
 he always been able to shift his ground from an ex- 
 hausted into a fruitful district, as the Spanish gue- 
 rilla men have it in their power to do, and as he did 
 himself by incredible efforts, in one instance — had 
 he, in short, as Dante warned, provided against the 
 gaunt fiend that was to prey upon his entrails, he 
 might have wearied out his adversaries — and who 
 knows ? — even eventually have taken the offensive. 
 
 But no ! Each of these valleys is a cul-de-sac, a 
 trap. The man who abandons the plain before his 
 enemy can find but too ready a refuge amongst them ; 
 but on their entrance he may read the infernal in- 
 scription — 
 
 " Relinquish hope, all ye who enter here." 
 
 The Apostles made a long stand, unexampled in 
 the annals of Italian, or indeed of any other, war-
 
 THE TRUE CITADEL OF ITALY. 283 
 
 fare, because faith and despair were strong at their 
 heart ; but their fate, nevertheless, admonishes us 
 that the hopes of Italy must rest on other resources 
 than those which the mountains afford. 
 
 § 27. As in the days of the Lombard League, the 
 war of emancipation must begin and end in the 
 towns. It is only by such cruel and costly sacrifices 
 as Crema, Tortona, Milan, and others, underwent 
 seven centuries ago, that Italy may once more be 
 redeemed. 
 
 Some of the spirit of the olden times has indeed 
 been shown lately, 1848-49, at Milan, Brescia, Bo- 
 logna, and above all, where it least could have been 
 looked for, — in rotten Rome. It was not along the 
 Alpine defiles, it was behind the walls of that " City 
 of the Priests," that Garibaldi answered the expec- 
 tations of his admirers. 
 
 It is of the greatest importance that all should 
 profit by past experience ; that no efforts should be 
 wasted in the pursuit of impracticable schemes, how- 
 ever plausible and romantic they may seem in the 
 abstract. 
 
 Italy is not Spain or Tyrol. Let it be understood 
 that the Alps can be no cradle for Italian freedom : 
 they may guarantee the independent existence of the 
 country ; but they will lend no very material aid to- 
 wards its attainment.
 
 284 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1. Eejoicings at Vercelli at Dolcino's Do-^vnfall. — State of the Dio- 
 cese : it tunis to the Pope for Indemnities. — 2. Joy of Clement V. 
 at the Tidings of the Defeat of his Enemies 3. Papal Munifi- 
 cence. — 4. Papal Resolutions as to the Fate of the Heretics. — 
 Their Trial and Execution. — 5. Their Guilt. — Estmiate of its 
 Enormity on the part of their Judges. — 6. Test of their Firmness. 
 7. With Margaret. — 8. TTith Dolcino. — 9. Natiu-e of Dolcino's 
 Guilt in the opinion of his own Age. — 10. His Heresy eminently 
 national. — 11. Motives imputed to Dolcino. — Incontinence im- 
 puted to him — to his FoUowers. — 12. Dolcino's Ambition. — 13. 
 Chances of Dolcino's Success. — 14. Religious and Political Re- 
 sources. — 15. Contingencies. — Papacy and Providence — in old 
 and recent Times. — Melancholy Reflections. — 16. Relics of Dol- 
 cino's Sect — in Italy — in France. — 17. Peter of Lugo — his Cha- 
 racter. — Importance of his Confessions. — 18. The Sect in Germany. 
 — 19. The Spirit of the Sect surWves its final Extinction, — Dol- 
 cino and the Waldeuses. — Present Position of the latter Sect in 
 Piedmont — thek Influence in Italy — 20. The Ideas of Dolcino 
 perpetuated among the Beghards and Lolhards in Germany, 
 England, and the Low Coimtries. — 21. Heretics and Reformers. — 
 Italian and Transalpine Reformers. — 22. Dolcino and Luther. — 
 23. Ancient and modem Communism. — 24. The real Truth of 
 Communism. — How Dolcino's Apostles understood it. — 25. Dol- 
 cino's Memory in ancient and modem Times — amongst Catholics. 
 — 26. Amongst Protestants — 27. Terrors of Dolcino's Name in 
 the Land of his Exploits. — 28. How finally overcome. 
 
 § 1. The tidings of Dolcino's downfall caused a shout 
 of triumph to be raised at Vercelli, to which all Italy 
 and all Christendom responded. 
 
 The joy of the Vercellese themselves was not, how- 
 ever, altogether free from alloy. The exultation of 
 victory was somewhat damped by the reckoning of
 
 THE COSTS OF THE CRUSADE. 285 
 
 its fearful costs. The Bishop and his party were 
 deeply in debt ; the diocese in ruins. What had not 
 been trodden by the iron-heels of contending armies, 
 what had escaped the rapacity of the famishing here- 
 tics, was purposely laid waste by their opponents to 
 reduce them by starvation. The whole territory had 
 otherwise been drained to the last able-bodied man, 
 to the last farthing, to the last grain of corn, to sup- 
 ply soldiers, money and provisions for the crusade. 
 
 For all this immense outlay of two years' disastrous 
 campaign, the Bishop had gained nothing save the 
 ruins of dismantled fortifications, some thousands of 
 dead bodies strewn on the hills, and a few living ones 
 fast in the dungeons of his castle. These latter he 
 determined to turn to the best account. There can 
 be no doubt but the Bishop and his court, the 
 inquisitors and magistrates of Vercelli, would in 
 ordinary circumstances have deemed themselves com- 
 petent to decide on the fate of their prisoners. But 
 it was not their interest to dispose of them thus sum- 
 marily. It entered into the views of their policy to 
 show in this instance the most scrupulous deference 
 towards the Holy See. They wished to make the 
 Pope a sharer of their gain — and of their loss. 
 
 A legation was therefore sent to Clement V. in 
 France, avowedly with the object of acquainting his 
 Holiness with the happy issue of the holy war, and
 
 286 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 asking the pontiff's pleasure with respect to the pu- 
 nishment of the heretics, but in reality to represent 
 the enormity of the sacrifice that war had occasioned, 
 and to describe the exhaustion and distress into which 
 zeal for the Church's interests had plunged both the 
 pastor of Vercelli and his flock ; and try to impetrate 
 such indemnity as Papal liberality might consider 
 adequate to their losses. The choice of the men 
 deputed to this mission was not without design. The 
 Bishop appointed those very relatives of his who had 
 led his episcopal forces during the war — James and 
 Peter de Quaregna, and Thomas de Casanova.* As 
 these men no less than the whole clan of the Avo- 
 gadro, and their party in general, had done and 
 suffered the most in those laborious expeditions, the 
 Bishop was not unwilling, at the same time that he 
 expected them strenuously to plead his own cause, 
 that they should also have a chance of putting in a 
 a word for themselves. Together with the Bishop's 
 credentials, the messengers were also bearers of a 
 letter from Simone da Colobiano, that famous Guelph 
 chief, as we have seen, who had thrown so much 
 lustre on the common name of their family, and who 
 by signal services to the cause of the Church had 
 won such claims as would give the utmost weight to 
 his recommendation.-j- 
 
 * See appendix IM. James de Quaregna. 
 f See appendix I^. Simone da Colobiano.
 
 JOY OF THE POPE. 287 
 
 § 2. The news thus conveyed threw the Pope into 
 an ecstasy of delight ; a delight perfectly unmixed 
 on his own part, since a success which was of such 
 vital interest to the head of the Church had actually 
 cost him nothing but the parchment of his bulls, and 
 the wax taper of his excommunication. The legates 
 fell in with him at Poitiers, on the 15th of April, in 
 the evening ; and on that very same evening or the 
 ensuing night, he wrote with his own hand a long 
 letter to his patron and very good master, Philip IV. 
 the Fair of France, bidding him rejoice that " that 
 son of Belial, that incarnate fiend, the arch-heretic, 
 Dolcino, had by God's own interference, after in- 
 finite trouble, peril and sacrifice, at last been over- 
 come by the Christian arms." * 
 
 § 8. Having thus given vent to his feelings in this 
 letter, which has been preserved, and which supplies 
 us with most of the above particulars, the Gascon Pope 
 seems soon to have cooled upon the matter. His 
 gratitude, at least, and the generosity with which he 
 requited the " great toils and dangers" of his faithful 
 servants, were by no means commensurate with the 
 admiration testified in that first outburst of enthu- 
 
 * " Hie daemon pestlfer, filius Belial, horrendissimus haeresi- 
 arclia Dulcinus — miro Dei prodigio, cum magnis straglbus, 
 laboribus et periculis," &c. — Baluzii Yitae Papar. Aveuion. torn, 
 ii. p. 67.
 
 28S FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 siasm. As to the messengers themselves, and their 
 Guelph friends, it nowhere appears that they ever 
 received any more substantial token of the Papal 
 bounty than the honour of being admitted to pay the 
 usual homage on the Apostolical slipper.* The 
 Bishop, however, had his own reward, but even that 
 came late : it was sordid, unavailing ; and the Pope 
 took care that it should cause the least possible out- 
 lay to himself. By his letters, dated July 4th, 
 1307f , Clement provided that the Bishop of Vercelli 
 should be exempted from the tribute that all the 
 Christian dioceses were bound to pay annually to the 
 Pontifical treasury. And for the rest, the Bishop was 
 empowered to levy a tax upon all the churches and 
 convents of his own diocese, and also to present a can- 
 didate for any vacant place in the chapters of the 
 cathedrals of Asti, Turin, Ivrea and Novara, besides 
 his own, and besides other collegiate churches in 
 Asti, Novara and Monza. All these honours and 
 emoluments of which the Pope was lavish at other 
 people's expense, were only to continue during the 
 Bishop's own life-time, Clement well kno\ving all the 
 while that this latter had not many years to reckon 
 upon, as indeed he only lived to 1310, and that the 
 paltry pittance thus accruing to his annual income, 
 
 ♦ See Appendix X. Papal Munificence. 
 f Ughelli, Ital. Sacr. torn. iv. p. 799, &c.
 
 DOLCINO'S TRIAL. 289 
 
 was but a poor compensation for efforts which had 
 brought himself and his family to the brink of ruin. 
 
 § 4. So much for Papal guerdons ! The Pontiff, 
 however, had no objection that the Bishop and his 
 party should repay themselves by revelling in the 
 blood of their victims. The legates came back with 
 the announcement that Clement V. had waived all 
 the rights and privileges of the Holy See, and 
 decreed, agreeably to the usage of ancient jurisdic- 
 tion, that the law should be avenged on the very spot 
 in which it had been trespassed upon. Fra Dolcino 
 and his accomplices were consequently to be judged 
 and to suffer at Vercelli. 
 
 The trial was made an affair of the greatest 
 moment. The Bishop held a general council of all 
 the prelates and other magnates of the Church, to 
 which he admitted laymen versed in the laws. These, 
 after long deliberations, came to the unanimous reso- 
 lution, that " the heretics should be made over to the 
 secular arm."* 
 
 The principal persons on whom this sentence fell 
 were Dolcino of Novara and Margaret of Trent, who 
 were to suffer at Vercelli, and Longino de Cattanei, 
 of Bergamo, who was kept for execution at Biella. 
 The day appointed for this last act of the tragedy 
 was the 1st of June of the same year, 1307, that is, 
 
 * Hist. Dulcin. p. 440. 
 U
 
 290 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 two months and eight days after that fatal Maundy 
 Thursday, in ^Yhich those unfortunate persons came 
 into the power of their adversaries; an interval 
 of time which Dolcino's historian*, with his usual 
 slovenliness, computes at " three months, or there- 
 abouts." Of several other heretics that were doomed 
 to the same punishment, at the same time, neither 
 the names nor the numbers have reached posterity. 
 
 Margaret of Trent enjoyed the precedence due to 
 her sex. She was first led out into a spot near Ver- 
 celli, bearing the name of ** Arena Servi," or more 
 properly " Arena Cervi," in the sands, that is, of the 
 torrent Cervo, which has its confluent with the Sesia 
 at about one mile above the city. A high stake 
 had been erected in a conspicuous part of the place. 
 To this she was fastened, and a pile of wood was 
 reared at her feet. The eyes of the inhabitants of 
 town and country were upon her. On her also were 
 the eyes of Dolcino. She was burnt alive with slow 
 fire. 
 
 Next came the turn of Dolcino : he was seated 
 high on a car drawn by oxen, and thus paraded from 
 street to street all over Vercelli. His tormentors 
 were all around him. Beside the car, iron pots 
 were carried, filled with burning charcoals : deep in 
 the charcoals were iron pincers, glowing at white 
 
 * Hist. Dulcin. p. 440.
 
 EXECUTION. 291 
 
 heat.* These pincers were continually applied to 
 the various parts of Dolcino's naked body, all along 
 his progress, till all his flesh was torn piece-meal from 
 his limbs : when every bone was bare and the whole 
 town was perambulated, they drove the still living 
 carcase back to the same arena, and threw it on the 
 burning mass in which Margaret had been consumed. 
 
 Whilst this was being done at Vercelli's, Longino 
 was expiating his crimes in the same manner at 
 Biella.t 
 
 § 5. "We have thus, in a few cold words, described 
 a mode of punishment, of which our less inhuman 
 age can hardly realise all the horrors. 
 
 We cannot, however, refrain from a few obvious 
 remarks. These persons who were treated in so 
 savage a manner were guilty of crimes, that even in 
 the opinion of their bigoted enemies were neither 
 unpardonable nor irretrievable. It was vain, on their 
 part, to assert that Dolcino suffered not only as a 
 heretic, but also as a highway robber, murderer, and 
 incendiary. The alternative that was held out to 
 him and to his accomplices to the last would not 
 
 * " Cum tenaculls ferri candentis carnes eorum dilaniabant." 
 — Hist. Dulc. p. 440. " Cum tenaculls ignitis truncantibus 
 carnes, et spoliantibus usque ad ossa, fuit crudeliter laceratus 
 et ductus vicatim per civitatem." — Benven. Imol. p. 1 122. 
 
 t Appendix O. The execution. 
 U 2
 
 292 FRA DOLCINO- 
 
 equally have been offered to men fairly convicted 
 of such heinous crimes. He only died as an ob- 
 durate misbeliever. A single word of recantation, 
 of penitence, of acknowledgment of what his tor- 
 mentors called the '* true faith," would not only 
 have put out the fire that was to destroy him, but 
 even perhaps broken his chains asunder, and obtained 
 his full pardon. His conversion was of greater 
 moment to his adversaries than even their revenge. 
 
 § 6. We are at least most distinctly told that the 
 heretics could be induced neither by entreaties, nor 
 by promises of reward, nor by any other means, to 
 bow down to our Lord Jesus Christ, or to embrace 
 his true religion.* The anxiety to save their souls 
 was then so great, that had they only taken 
 pity on themselves, all their other alleged crimes 
 would, out of this mere consideration, have been 
 overlooked. All their other crimes, then, we con- 
 clude, scarcely amounted to an aggravation of the 
 main offence. 
 
 Before they addressed themselves to the more 
 sordid feelings of self-preservation and self-interest, 
 the inquisitors resorted to all the most coercive 
 
 * " Et tamen nullus ipsorum, nee etiam dicta Margarita un- 
 quam voluerunt conveniri prece, sive pretio, nee alio quovis 
 modo eonverti ad Dominum lesum Christum et ad veram 
 fidem Catholicam." — Hist. Dulc. p. 440.
 
 HEROISM OF MARGARET. 293 
 
 means of persuasion. They set their ablest divines 
 at them.* It is probable that the Bishop himself, 
 who was reckoned a man of great controversial 
 powers, and is repeatedly styled " a good athlete of 
 the Church," argued the point with them, but all in 
 vain ; Dolcino was ever louder and louder in his 
 testimony to what he deemed truth; he died with 
 the conviction of the approaching fulfilment of his 
 prophecies ; and his example had so powerful an 
 effect on his fellow-sufferers, that not one of them 
 fell from or denied him. 
 
 § 7. With Margaret of Trent other arguments 
 were employed. We are distinctly told by Benve- 
 nuto da Imolaf, that even in this extremity her 
 beauty and her wealth moved several noble and 
 gentle men to ask her in marriage. Mosheim, in- 
 deed |, questions the accuracy of that report, and 
 asks what beauty could be left to a woman who had 
 
 * " Multum et diu persuasus a magnis maglstris numquam 
 potuit convert! ut revocaret errorem suum." — Benvenut. Imol. 
 p. 1122. 
 
 t "lUa vero imbuta doctrina ipsius numquam deseruit 
 mandata illius. Ideo pertinacius eo fuit firma in hoc errore, 
 considerata sexus infirmitate. Nam cum muiti nobiles quae- 
 rerent earn in uxorem, turn propter pulchritudinem illius 
 immensam, tum propter ejus pecuniam magnam, numquam 
 potuit flecti." — Benven. Imolens. p. 1122. 
 
 J Mosheim, Geschichte des Apostel-ordens, book ii. § xvi. 
 
 U 3
 
 294 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 for the last two years been exposed to a slow death 
 by starvation, amidst all the inclemencies of that 
 cruel climate of the A.lps. He also contends that 
 any wealth to which she might lay claim would be 
 forfeited by the very sentence which struck her ; 
 but he forgets that, had her suitors prevailed on her 
 to recant, there was an end both of forfeiture and 
 condemnation : and she might, on the other hand, 
 be the heiress of wealthy relations at Trent, whose 
 property would be placed beyond reach of any 
 jurisdiction of Vercelli, whether ecclesiastical or 
 temporal. 
 
 An appeal to the tenderness and vanity of the 
 softer sex, with a view to win them by earthly 
 allurements from their devotion to the cause of 
 Heaven, was tried as early as the age of primitive 
 Christianity, when, as we are informed by Gibbon*, 
 " the Roman magistrates endeavoured to seduce 
 those whom they were unable to vanquish ; " and 
 when " by their orders the most brutal violence was 
 oflfered to those whom it had been found impossible 
 to seduce." It was most probably with the Bishop's 
 consent, if not by his direction, that proposals of a 
 tender nature were made to Margaret in the gloom 
 of her dungeon. But she was proof against similar 
 
 ♦ Gibbon's Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xvi.
 
 HEROISM OF DOLCINO. 295 
 
 temptation ; and, indeed, on the testimony of the 
 same Benvenuto, we learn that she exhibited greater 
 fortitude than even the very man for whose sake she 
 endured so much. 
 
 § 8. But the depth of Dolcino's fortitude who 
 shall presume to fathom ? Wife, sister, or con- 
 cubine, the woman at any rate whom he loved above 
 all human beings, — the woman who had shared his 
 unheard of toils and perils, who had given and was 
 giving such evidence of more than womanly devotion, 
 was expiring in the flames before him. With his 
 eyes sternly riveted on her eyes, he bade her be 
 firm ; he bade her cling to him, cling to his faith, 
 and heed not what the ingenuity of tyranny could 
 inflict. The poor woman was writhing as the 
 flickering flames reached her feet, she was quivering 
 in her death-throes, when his admonitory voice rose 
 calmer and calmer, more and more stern and re- 
 lentless, always bidding her to be firm. 
 
 But too firm, poor thing ! With her eyes never 
 shrinking from his steady gaze, with his name on 
 her lips, — the name of her " Dulcissimo Dulcino," 
 as the old pedant finds the courage, with a villainous 
 pun, to express it*, the brave, however erring, 
 
 * "Unde poena pari cum Dulcino suo dulcissimo, ferro et 
 
 igne lacerata, ilium sequuta est ad Inferos." — Benven. Imol. 
 
 p. 1122.* 
 
 u 4
 
 296 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 creature, vanished in the flames, — she "preceded 
 her paramour to hell." 
 
 What impression could burning coals or white- 
 hot pincers make after that? Indeed, we would 
 almost say, supposing him ever so guilty, what 
 greater torture could await Dolcino in another 
 world ? The moral anguish he had just undergone 
 deadened him to all mere physical pain. Dolcino 
 was not a man of flesh and blood. He disappointed 
 his tormentors to the very last. No change was 
 ever perceptible in his countenance, not a groan was 
 wrenched from his breast ; " only," we are told, 
 with that singular ingenuousness with which men 
 wrote five hundred years ago, " Only when they tore 
 the nose from his face, he was seen spasmodically to 
 shrug his shoulders ; and, in another instance, when, 
 before that gate of Vercelli, which is called the 
 * Porta Picta,' another more vital part of his body 
 was violently severed by the seething instrument, a 
 faint sigh escaped from his heart, and a slight con- 
 traction manifested itself in the muscles about the 
 regions of his nostrils." * 
 
 * " Et quod notatum full a videntibus et est mirabile dictu 
 inter tot et tarn varia tormenta dicitur nunquam mutavisse 
 faciem, nisi semel in amputatione nasi, quia strinxit parum 
 
 spatulas; et in amputatione v m juxta Portam 
 
 civitatis quaB dicitur Picta, ubi traxit maximum suspirium cum 
 contractione narium." — Benvenut. Iraolens. p. 1122.
 
 REVIEW OF CHARGES AGAINST DOLCINO. 297 
 
 § 9. But enough of the brutalities of that stupid 
 age. Even in that stupid age, however, the heroism of 
 Dolcino and Margaret elicited the admiration of the 
 besotted bystanders, who, according to the same Ben- 
 venuto*, lamented that so much courage and con- 
 stancy had not been exhibited in a better cause. 
 
 In a better cause ! That may mean, if we judged 
 of its merits by success. For the rest, Dolcino only 
 succumbed in a strife in which others were sure to 
 bear the palm. Divested of all fables which igno- 
 rance, prejudice, or open calumny involved it in, 
 Dolcino's scheme amounted to nothing more than a 
 reformation, not of religion, but of the Church ; his 
 aim was merely the destruction of the temporal 
 power of the clergy, and he died for his country no 
 less than for his God. The wealth, arrogance, and 
 corruption of the Papal See appeared to him, as it 
 appeared to Dante, as it appeared to a thousand 
 other patriots before and after him, an eternal hin- 
 drance to the union, peace, and welfare of Italy, as 
 it was a perpetual check upon the progress of the 
 human race, and a source of infinite scandal to the 
 piety of earnest believers. The religious and poli- 
 tical questions were then, as they are now, indis- 
 solubly, eternally blended in Italy. At the head of 
 
 * " Poterat martyr dici si poena faceret raartyrlum et non 
 voluntas." — Benvenut. Imolens.
 
 298 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 the Mendicant sects, supported by all the " Brother- 
 lets" of Italy, by all the Beghards of Germany, and 
 France, and Belgium, Dolcino would have attempted 
 what Arnold of Brescia before, and Cola da Rienzi 
 aimed to achieve after him. All Itah'an dissent was 
 ever stigmatised as " political heresy," not because 
 there have not at all times been daring inquirers on 
 religious subjects in Italy ; but because the multi- 
 tude, in that countr}^, have the question of discipline 
 too strongly at heart to deem it advisable to interfere 
 with the dogma. 
 
 § 10. To this clear mission of Italian protestantism 
 Dolcino was true throughout. If we bring the light 
 of even the clumsiest criticism to bear on his creed, 
 even such as it has been summed up by the ignorance 
 or malignity of men who never utter his name with- 
 out an imprecation, we have reason to be astonished 
 at the little we find in it that may be construed into 
 a wilful deviation from the strictest orthodoxy. 
 Luther and Calvin would equally have repudiated 
 him. He was neither a Presbyterian nor an Episco- 
 palian, but an uncompromising, staunch Papist. 
 His was, most eminently, the heresy of those whom 
 we have designated as " literal Christians." He 
 would have the Gospel strictly — perhaps blindly — 
 adhered to. Neither was that, in the abstract, an 
 unpardonable offence in the eyes of the Romanism
 
 HIS FANATICISM. 299 
 
 in those times — witness St. Francis and his early 
 flock — provided he had limited himself to make 
 Gospel-law binding upon himself and his followers 
 only. But Dolcino must needs enforce it upon the 
 whole Christian community, enforce it especially on 
 those who set up as teachers of the Gospel, on those 
 who laid claim to Apostolical succession. That was 
 the error that damned him. 
 
 In our own eyes Dolcino was, perhaps, on some 
 points too much of a Quaker, too much of a Shaker, 
 too much of a Mormon. By relying too much upon, 
 exacting too much from, human perfectibility, all 
 those sects allow too ample a scope for the vagaries 
 of fanaticism, or the juggleries of hypocrisy ; but 
 there is no evidence that he ever presumed upon, or 
 abused the powers of human reason. It was, on the 
 contrary, excessive abnegation of reason that made 
 him a rebel, for Rome demands indeed such an ab- 
 negation on the part of her votaries, only not with 
 regard to God's word, but her own. 
 
 Dolcino spoke Christ's own language ; and there 
 is no doubt but that, at Rome or Avignon, at Parma 
 and Vercelli, our Saviour himself would, in those 
 days, have fared little better than Sagarelli and Dol- 
 cino. He would have found men who styled them- 
 selves his representatives on earth, who would con-
 
 300 FRA DOLCIXO. 
 
 demn him on the strength of his own words, and 
 crucify him in his own name. 
 
 § 11. For the rest we need not give one minute's 
 attention to those who would ascribe to Dolcino 
 motives either of ambition or licentiousness. Had 
 his purpose been merely the gratification of his own 
 passions, had his aim been only the enjoyment of 
 his Margaret's company, we are aware of no law, 
 either civil or canonical, that could oppose his desire, 
 even admitting — what does by no means appear to 
 have been the case, and is, on the contrary, stoutly 
 denied by his enemies * — that he was an ordained 
 priest ; nay, even supposing that both himself and 
 his " Sister" were bound by monastic vows ; for there 
 was hardly any excess of licentiousness that could 
 not be indulged with impunity in the thirteenth 
 century, provided it was within the pale of the 
 Church, and with some show of submission to its 
 authority. All the efforts of such Popes as Gre- 
 gory VII. and Innocent III. had been directed to 
 little more than to keep up the bare decencies of the 
 Church : they had battled against what they called 
 the concubinate of the priests rather on political 
 than moral principles, an evil which they only cured 
 by closing an eye to much more grievous abuses. 
 
 * See Appendix B. Dolcino's Portraits.
 
 HIS INCONTINENCE. 301 
 
 Dolcino, familiar with a connection of that nature in 
 his father's household *, himself the offspring of such a 
 connection, was certainly under no necessity to start 
 a new religion, and produce a new code of morality, 
 in justification of his own misconduct, — always 
 taking for granted that he was really guilty of such 
 a misconduct, and that there had been any hindrance 
 to his uniting with Margaret in lawful wedlock. 
 
 But if that is, at the utmost, the only grievous 
 charge urged against Dolcino himself, what are we 
 to think of the assertion that it was the indulgence 
 of all gross sensualities that brought the multitude 
 around him, and contributed to the spread of his 
 sect ? The sect of the Apostles, it must be kept in 
 mind, did not originate with Dolcino, nor was it in 
 this respect that he introduced any innovation. Their 
 tenets for what concerned their union with their 
 " Sisters," were laid down by Sagarelli, who had 
 probably no such companion of his own, and to whom 
 no irregularity of conduct was ever imputed. f Nei- 
 ther did Sagarelli invent that connection, but it was 
 part and parcel of that Apostolic system on which all 
 mendicant sects were grounded. "Women filled with 
 them the places which Mary and Martha occupied by 
 the side of the earliest heralds of Christianity. That 
 
 * See Appendix C. Missionaries to Dolcino. 
 t Appendix A. Sagarelli's son.
 
 302 FEA DOLCINO. 
 
 familiarity of intercourse may have led to occasional 
 — to frequent impropriety, who would ever doubt ? 
 but that that was the incentive by which multitudes 
 were attracted, is simply absurd. Mere sensual 
 pleasures can hold out no very strong inducements to 
 the lower classes, beset as they are by want and 
 blunted by hard labour. There is no instance in the 
 Pagan world of Epicurism making its way anywhere 
 except amongst the pampered sons of refinement and 
 luxury. The poor may be bribed indeed, but not 
 persuaded into debauchery. The hopes of plunder 
 and the specious ideas of communism may have some 
 weight with those who have been called the *' Lack- 
 alls :" but, from 1260 to 1304, the sect of the 
 Apostles grew and throve, not only without trespass- 
 ing upon or coveting their neighbours' goods, but 
 binding itself to the renunciation of their own. 
 
 § 12. That love of power, the prospect of an 
 autocracy somewhat analogous to that of the Old 
 Man of the Mountain, may have had charms for a 
 lofty and solitary mind like Dolcino's, is indeed more 
 credible. His followers, we are told, bowed to his 
 transcendent genius : they kissed his feet*, and re- 
 garded him as the noblest and the holiest of human 
 beings. Similar homages, as we have seenf, were 
 paid to Tanquehn, in Brabant, in the twelfth cen- 
 
 * Hist. Dulcm. p. 437. t See ante, chap. i. § 20.
 
 HIS AMBITION. 303 
 
 turj ; and that man and his sect, were their history 
 better known, would be found to bear the strongest 
 analogy to the Italian fraternity. We have seen, in 
 many instances, how that devotion was put to the 
 test, and how ready Dolcino's disciples were to lay 
 down life at his bidding without a murmur. At no 
 period, however, was the arch-heretic's ascendency 
 attended by state or grandeur, at no period did it 
 give any promise of success. It was for several years 
 a pre-eminence of privation and misery — at the close, 
 merely a precedence in martyrdom. Mere worldly 
 ambition is apt to weary of disappointment and re- 
 verse. Could the mere lust of command, the boast 
 of leading a few hundred fanatics in his suite, uphold 
 Dolcino in the midst of such dreadful extremities ? 
 could it bear him up in his last fearful agony ? and 
 it must be remembered, from those extremities it 
 was in repeated instances in his power to escape by 
 flight ; and the cup of misery would have passed 
 away from him at the supreme moment, by a single 
 word of recantation. Must there not have been 
 some nobler aim ? a deep, however blind instinct of 
 the holiness of his cause ? an inextinguishable, even 
 though faint and evanescent hope that God would be 
 with him at the final issue ? a strong, unshaken faith 
 in the eventual fulfilment of his prophecies, in the 
 approaching hour of redemption ? or, what would
 
 304 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 have answered the same purpose, a stubborn convic- 
 tion that even his utter disappointment, his downfal 
 and martyrdom were ordained for the best ? that Pro- 
 vidence was maturing his design even by breaking 
 the humble instrument which He seemed to have 
 appointed to work it out ? 
 
 That is what is called enthusiasm ; than which no 
 other mover exercises so great a sway upon the heart 
 of mankind, especially amongst the single-minded 
 and pure men of the lower classes, especially among 
 the inhabitants of remote, unvisited regions. That 
 was the secret of Dolcino's success : it was, be it said 
 with all reverence, the success of those carpenters 
 and fishermen whom the Holy Ghost inspired, whom 
 the raeek-souled Sagarelli and his disciples would fain 
 have taken for their models. 
 
 But the great error of Dolcino — one might feel 
 tempted to judge on a first glance — lay in his cal- 
 culation of means and ends. It is every where 
 success that hallows a cause ; and there is indeed 
 guilt in the attempt of evident impossibilities. At 
 the head of a few ill-armed, unwarlike adventurers, 
 Dolcino undertook a reformation, a work of redemp- 
 tion, which could only be achieved by the previous 
 conquest of the world. Even if we acquit him of 
 any intentional attack, the very defence, because 
 hopeless, was unjustifiable. Those few deluded
 
 HIS IMPROVIDENCE. 306 
 
 fanatics were by him launched into a contest of which 
 it seemed impossible to anticipate any but a dis- 
 astrous issue. They were, therefore, wantonly im- 
 molated, and their blood must rest the head of their 
 leader. 
 
 § 13. Yet — yet — wasDolcino's case really so hope- 
 less ? Was he truly standing up single-handed against 
 the whole world ? Was that ill-assembled apostolical 
 band all the physical force he could rely upon ? 
 
 The combatants immediately under his orders at 
 no time exceeded 3000, his sphere of action was 
 limited to Italy, to its northern division, to one or 
 two counties in that region. But we have searched 
 the memories of the past to little purpose, if we have 
 not made it very clear that there were a hundred 
 other sects, especially of mendicant heretics ; there 
 were thousands of Franciscans, both in and out of 
 convents, there were Waldenses and brethren of the 
 Free Spirit, there were tens of thousands of Beg- 
 hards, Beguins and Turlupins, all of whom shared, 
 in the main, the views, hopes, and aspirations of the 
 Apostles. The conspiracy against the Church — or 
 we should say in its behalf — as it aimed at the 
 redintegration of its original simplicity and holiness 
 — was every where, in its own bosom ; it spread as far 
 as the Church itself extended. Had Dolcino taken 
 the offensive from the outset, had he made a loud
 
 306 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 appeal to these his natural auxiliaries, or had he at 
 least held his ground a few seasons longer, had he 
 chosen a fitter battle field, and had he not been so 
 hopelessly cut off from all communication, who is 
 prepared to say how many combatants conformity of 
 belief might have started up in his path ? Less than 
 a century had elapsed since the heresy of the Albi- 
 genses had assumed an attitude which, but for poli- 
 tical considerations, arming the potentates of France 
 against it, might have led to the ruin of the Estab- 
 lishment. Ever since that epoch the rottenness of 
 that Establishment had been made more manifest : 
 its enemies had increased in numbers and audacity. 
 The edifice was trembling on its basis, friends and 
 foes equally looked forward to its inevitable and 
 speedy dissolution. 
 
 § 14. Truly, it may be said, even the army of all 
 the beggars of Europe, had Dolcino been able to 
 muster it under his standards, could not have done 
 much for him. Like his own Apostles, nearly all those 
 dissenters were bound to non-resistance principles. 
 Had they even waived these, and actually taken the 
 field, they would have made rather a numerous than 
 a formidable host, cumbrous more than efficient. But 
 Dolcino had an eye to other aids. The aspect of the 
 political world was very different from what it bore 
 at the time of the crusades of Languedoc. A strong 
 antagonism against priestly arrogance had developed
 
 HIS CHANCES* 307 
 
 itself in every European community. Papal pride 
 had its fall in Dolcino's own times; with Boni- 
 face VIII., in 1303. Henceforth the Church could 
 only be strong by the support of the State. At the 
 time that Dolcino shut himself up in Valsesia, in 
 1304, he could scarcely foresee that Papacy had 
 gained a permanent, though an overbearing protector 
 in that very King of France, who had so powerfully 
 contributed to its humiliation. Anywhere but in 
 Paris, or at Avignon — where it was in a state of 
 captivity — the Papacy had nothing but enemies. 
 In Italy, especially, — and it was pardonable for an 
 Italian in that age not to look much beyond the Alps 
 — in Italy, t specially, the Church had sunk very low 
 in popular estimation. It was in vain that she en- 
 deavoured to blend its interests with those of demo- 
 cratic freedom ; the very Guelphs fell off from her. 
 In all the Guelph cities, as we iiave seen at Vercelli, 
 the burgher magistrate had superseded the mitred 
 ruler. It was a family faction, not his ecclesiastical 
 authority, that made Rainieri of Vercelli so strong 
 against Dolcino. Nay, the very election of bishops 
 no longer took place except in obedience to the will 
 of a faction. But for the violence and intrigue of 
 the House of Anjou and France, necessity for order 
 and union would have thrown the Italians into the 
 hands of Ghibelinism. That party, eternally at war 
 
 X 2
 
 308 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 with the Church, was already sufficiently strong in 
 itself to staiid up hand to hand against all the might 
 of the opposite party ; for a resistance against French 
 influence, it looked abroad in expectation of the 
 support of the Houses of Aragon and Sicily, or of 
 that of the princes who successively wore the silver 
 crown of Germany. 
 
 § 15. Dolcino was, then, not so far from success 
 as one might judge from the actual event. Had, for 
 instance, his own trumpeted hero, Frederic of Sicily, 
 been as enterprising as he was able and daring, or had 
 Dante's champion, Henry VII., been more fortunate, 
 had he been on his guard against the consecrated host 
 that poisoned him at Buonconvento — for the fate of 
 nations too often hangs on the thread of a man's life 
 — the dream of those two far-sighted patriots, the 
 prophet and the poet, might have been fully realised. 
 Had a strong hand seized the Imperial power, forced 
 the fretting Italian cities to as much obedience as 
 would save them from self-destruction, the popes 
 who quitted Rome, in 1305, might never have re- 
 visited it. They would either have abided at Avig- 
 non, soon to be limited to the petty dignity of French 
 primates, or if they had come to terms with the em- 
 perors, it would only have been by bowing to their 
 authority, by being stripped of that sovereignty 
 which, according to Arnold of Brescia and Fre-
 
 CONJECTURES. 309 
 
 deric II., no less than to Dolcino and Dante, made 
 them false to their apostolic mission. 
 
 But why should we lose ourselves in unprofitable 
 conjectures ? It was otherwise decreed. That com- 
 bination of circumstances which seemed to betoken 
 the immediate fall of the Papacy, only ushered in its 
 decline. It had yet a long, lingering period of dis- 
 solution to go through. There is a tenacity in human 
 institutions which makes them resist instantaneous 
 death. That "Providence" which armed the Franks 
 in defence of Adrian I., which led the Normans of 
 Apulia to the rescue of Gregory VII., which started 
 up a champion for Clement V. in the person of that 
 wicked and unprincipled Philip the Fair of France, 
 or an ambitious statesman like Charles V. of Austria 
 in behalf of Clement VII., equally enlisted the 
 most unnatural auxiliaries — the Russian " schisma- 
 tics," — the English "heretics," — the Ottoman "in- 
 fidels," in support of Pius VII. in 1800: nay, it 
 called forth such a reprobate as Louis Napoleon 
 Buonaparte to the restoration of Pius IX. The 
 bitterest enemies of Rome at all times miraculously 
 turned out her preservers : from selfish, short-sighted 
 views, they acted against their own true interests no 
 less than against their conscience. 
 
 Neither Dolcino nor Dante had the good fortune 
 to find the man according to their own heart, and 
 X 3
 
 310 TEA DOLCINO. 
 
 both succumbed. " God arose and the enemies of 
 his Church were dispersed." In the same manner 
 did Cola da Rienzi fall, forty years after Dolcino, 
 and Stefano Porcari in 1453, and Fra Girolamo Sa- 
 vonarola in 1498 ; and the same " Providence " 
 skielded Pius IX. against Mazzini, in 1849. Baffled 
 again and again were all attempts to undo the fatal 
 work of Pepin and Charlemagne, and the Vatican is 
 still standing, and the ugly Pope is still there, cutting 
 Italy in twain, precluding all chances of unity and 
 real peace for that country, and doing its utmost to 
 resist human progress, to fetter down thought all 
 over the world. 
 
 How long, O God ? 
 
 Truly man*s history seems written to weigh down 
 our hearts with despondency. And it would incline 
 our ears to the teachings of the old Manichaeans ; it 
 might yield plausibility to that magnificent theory of 
 Eastern Dualism. Is then, one might be tempted to 
 ask — is evil unconquerable ? and are the Powers of 
 Darkness too strong for all the combined efforts of 
 the Children of Light ? 
 
 Alas ! the war is long : hard-won and long-deferred 
 must be the victory ; but it is nevertheless assured. 
 Good is no less to prevail in the end. Progress is 
 eternal, incessant : the God of Spirits is with us, if we 
 struggle on with cheerful, manful confidence. Light
 
 HOPES. 3 1 1 
 
 pervades matter : it reaches one after another all the 
 most recondite gulphs of chaos. Only the strife is 
 long, and is to end with the world itself. Light 
 must prey upon matter as fire upon its fuel ; de- 
 vouring as it subdues, consuming as it purifies. As 
 death alone brings about man's release, so the day 
 of doom alone will achieve the redemption of his 
 race. 
 
 § 16. Because Sagarelli and Dolcino perished at 
 the stake, because Dante and many other noble hearts 
 were wearied out with disappointments and broken, 
 are we to think that all their work was void of result, 
 that all their words fell unheeded ? Truth is great ; 
 not one spark of it is ever annihilated. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the extravagant joy to which 
 Pope Clement V. abandoned himself on the first 
 tidings of the full success of the warriors of the 
 cross on the banks of the Sesia, he was yet far from 
 having a distinct idea of all the importance of that 
 victory ; nor did he well comprehend all the boding of 
 the storm-cloud which had for the last two or three 
 years been gathering on the Alps. The Papal 
 biographer said it, truly*, that Dolcino's errors were 
 not altogether put out by the extinction of their 
 
 * " Nee tamen perversura dogma Dulcini ipso extincto 
 penitus est extinctum." — Bernard. Guidon. Vit. Clement V. in 
 Baluz. Vit. Papar. Avenionens. tom. i. p. 67. 
 X 4
 
 312 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 propagator. By this he merely means that the sect 
 itself to which Dolcino and his predecessor had 
 given a name, survived them both ; for, otherwise, 
 in some sense, what is called the dogma of the 
 Apostles was properly never extinguished at all. The 
 same Pope Clement had, in fact, no slight trouble in 
 following up his advantage by ordering the rooting 
 up of the minor branches of the apostolical com- 
 munities, which had sprouted out in the diocese of 
 Spoleto, and in other parts of Umbria, Romagna, 
 and Lombardy. These heresies form the main 
 subject of a long and elaborate bull addressed by the 
 pontiff to Rainieri, Bishop of Cremona, in 1311, 
 quoted by Raynald in his Ecclesiastical Annals.* 
 From the words of the bull itself, and from other 
 authorities collected by the annalist by way of illus- 
 tration, we are enabled to appreciate to some extent 
 the real nature of the evil complained of by the 
 Head of the Church. All these sectarians, says the 
 Pope, " claimed the liberty of the Spirit, by which 
 they understood the licence to do all they pleased." 
 And Cardinal di Torre Arsa, who describes all these 
 heretics as immediate disciples of Fra Dolcino, comes 
 out again with the charge ** that they considered it 
 no sin to disarm temptation by indulgence," as 
 usual adding, we don't know whether as cause or 
 
 * Raynald. Annal. Ecclesiast. ad ann. 1311, torn. iv. p. 539.
 
 THE SECT SURVIVING. 313 
 
 effect, that all these sinful doctrines and practices 
 were always found associated with that most hor- 
 rid of all blasphemies, " that the Church of Rome 
 had apostatised from the faith of Christ, and was 
 that shameless woman whose abominations were 
 foreshadowed by John in the Apocalypse.*' * 
 
 The prophecies of Joachim, abbot of Flora in 
 Calabria, respecting the coming of a new age, the 
 promulgation of the everlasting gospel, the fulfilment 
 of the two old laws — of the Father and the Son, 
 imder a third dispensation — that of the Spirit — all 
 the dreams and fancies with which Peter John Oliva, 
 John of Parma, and other enthusiasts, had been 
 heating the imagination of those swarms of dissenting 
 Franciscans, and of other mendicants of all orders 
 and of no order, during the better part of that 
 restless thirteenth century, appear, from the same 
 testimonies, to have been blended together and to 
 have constituted a new creed, which was, indeed, 
 
 * " Meminit de impuris ejusmodi lenonibus haereticis 
 Joannes Cardinalis Turrecremata, ac Geraldi Sagarelli ejusque 
 discipuli Dulcini, paucis ante annis affecti supplicio, sequaces 
 ait ; pervertebant enim plures illecebra hujus dogmatis sordi- 
 dissimi, nimirum fornicationes et adulteria commissa ad sedan- 
 dam tentationem non esse peccatum. lidem vero haeretici 
 ^anc blasphemam vocem in Romanam Ecclesiam vomebant : 
 Ecclesia Romana est ilia meretrix, quce a fide Christi apostatavit^ 
 de qua scrihit Joannes in Apocalypsi'"' — Raynald, Annal. 
 Ecclesiast. torn. iv. p. 541.
 
 314 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 embraced by a great many sects of various origin, 
 views, and tendencies ; but which was, whether by 
 right or ^vrong, invariably traced to Dolcino's own 
 brotherhood, and to which that apostolic leader seems 
 to have given the peculiar stamp of his own powerful 
 mind.* 
 
 § 17. A few years after the enactment of these 
 pontifical decrees in Italy, in ISSO, some branches 
 of the apostolical sect were still flourishing nearer 
 to the Papal see itself, in the south of France. It 
 was in that year, as we have seenj, that Peter of 
 Lugo, a Spaniard, was brought before the Inquisition 
 of Toulouse, and there declared himself the member 
 of a brotherhood established many years before in 
 Galicia, by one of Sagarelli's missionaries. He was 
 a pious, earnest man, and his uprightness and can- 
 dour won him the regard even of his stern Dominican 
 judges, who proceeded in his case with unwonted 
 leniency, and succeeded after two years' persuasion in 
 bringing him to a fuU confession, as well as to a par- 
 tial recantation of his errors. His profession of faith 
 is calculated to throw considerable light on the sub- 
 ject.f With the exception of a few quaker-like 
 
 * Raynald, Anna!. Ecclesiast. torn, iv, p. 542, &c. 
 t See ante, chap, ii. § 14,, chap. iii. § 28. 
 X Limborch, Hist. Inqubit. p. Q5^ &Q ; and Liber Sententiar. 
 p. 360.
 
 PETER OF LUGO. 315 
 
 notions about the lawfulness of oaths and of war, 
 it is impossible for the utmost stretch of priestly 
 ingenuity to construe those errors into anything be- 
 sides the most profound detestation of the Church of 
 Rome ; not, however, in its institutions, but simply 
 in its persons. The good man distinguished between 
 the carnal Church, — that is, the Pope, cardinals, 
 priests, and monks, such as they then were — and the 
 spiritual Church, such as the Apostles would recon- 
 struct it, exactly on the same basis, with precisely 
 the same hierarchy, but with men that should not 
 depart from the strictest precepts of apostolical dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 § 18. In the same manner and with no better 
 success, other disciples of the same school went 
 about the countries of Languedoc and Gascony, 
 sometimes under the garb of their order, and bearing 
 its name, more often under a variety of disguises. 
 In the year 1368, at a council held at Lavaur by the 
 archbishops of Narbonne and of Toulouse, new and 
 more stringent laws were issued against men of this 
 description * ; and Mosheim, who has followed up 
 the subject with his wonted industry, finds f that 
 the sect still existed in Germany and other countries 
 down to the times of Boniface IX., at the beginning 
 
 * Harduin. Concil. torn. vii. p. 1818. 
 
 f Mosheim, Ecclesiast. Histor. vol. ii. p. 629, and note.
 
 316 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 of the fifteenth century, and that an apostle, named 
 William, was burnt at the stake in 1402. 
 
 § 19. This as to the name merely. But the spirit 
 of the sect, — the leading thought, — the faith which 
 Sagarelli and Dolcino had, if not originated, at least 
 sealed with their blood — who shall say how far it 
 was propagated from age to age, communicated from 
 sect to sect? who shall say under how many different 
 forms it revived, how deep it sunk into the hearts of 
 mankind ? It had been distinctly stated, both by 
 Catholic and Protestant writers *, either by way of 
 reproach or of self-gratulation, that some stray mem- 
 bers of Dolcino's fraternity made good their escape 
 from the valley of the Sesia into Val d' Angrogna, 
 Val Pelice, and the other well-known abodes of the 
 Waldenses. The distance from Dolcino's encamp- 
 ment to those western valleys of Piedmont could be 
 travelled over in two or three days ; and nothing 
 could be more probable than that some of the weaker 
 disciples of the Novarese Apostle, from sheer in- 
 ability to withstand the terrible hardships by which 
 their faith was tried for above two years, either fell 
 off from their chief, especially on his removal from 
 one camp to another, or had the good fortune to 
 escape with life from the final onslaught, or that, 
 
 * Hieronym. Vignier. Theatr. Historic, ad ann. 1308, ap. 
 Spondau. Annal. Baron. Continuat. torn. i. p. 364.
 
 APOSTLES AND WALDENSES. 317 
 
 falling into the hands of the crusaders, they pur- 
 chased their safety by one of those subterfuges to 
 which Dolcino himself had trained them ; or, finally, 
 in any other way slipped through the fingers of their 
 captors, and found a safe refuge in the solitude of 
 the western Alps. One of them is indeed tradition- 
 ally described as having travelled in his flight as far 
 as Bellentro in Sivitzerland — properly Bellentre in 
 Savoy — where he died of his wounds.* 
 
 But even supposing that none of Dolcino's im- 
 mediate followers, and none of the earlier envoys of 
 Sagarelli, ever visited those Waldensian retreats, 
 there is no doubt but much of the spirit of those 
 apostolic sectarians was breathed into the pure and 
 honest hearts of those primitive Christians. A com- 
 munion of faith between those different brethren of 
 the mountains existed from very remote periods. 
 The Waldenses of the twelfth century did not, as 
 we have seen f , quarrel with any part of the dogma, 
 or even of the discipline of the Church, but limited 
 their objections to the scandalous abuses which 
 avarice and ambition had introduced into its bosom. 
 Like the disciples of Peter de Bruys and Henri, 
 like the apostolic sects of Burgundy, in the same 
 age, they had adopted Dolcino's views ere this heresi- 
 
 * See Appendix A. Sagarelli's Son. 
 t Chap. i. § 16—19.
 
 318 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 arch had made his appearance. They continued 
 faithful to them long after he had vanished from 
 the stage of the world. 
 
 Now the descendants of Waldo's disciples, the 
 " poor men of Lyons," are still living and flourishing. 
 They are, perhaps, the only " mendicant" sect, the 
 only apostolic community that has been preserved ; 
 — preserved, not perhaps without some great provi- 
 dential design. The torch of freedom and truth 
 which they fed at so dear a cost ia their Alpine 
 wilderness, is not only still allowed to burn bright 
 and serene in their native valleys, but shines at this 
 present moment in the midst of some of the most 
 polished, — of the only free cities of Italy. The 
 Waldenses are invading Piedmont. So long as the 
 Sardinian States enjoy even the phantom of con- 
 stitutional government awarded to them by Charles 
 Albert, — who, to his eternal honour be it spoken, 
 was always fain to show as much justice and mercy 
 to his Protestant subjects as he dared* — so long as 
 Waldensian chapels are erected both at Turin and 
 Genoa — so long as Italian versions of the Bible, and 
 
 * Bert. I *Valdesi, &c., cap. xiv. Emancipazione Civile e 
 Politica dei Valdesi dall' anno 1847 al 1848. The publication 
 of that excellent book itself is already a splendid proof of the 
 progress of liberal ideas both among the people of Piedmont 
 and in its government, especially if vre compare it to the 
 course followed by the Tuscan and Austrian governments.
 
 BOLOINO AND LUTHER, 319 
 
 even Protestant tracts and journals, sucli as " La 
 Buona Novella" of Turin, openly circulate there, 
 the cause of Dolcino must be looked upon as any- 
 thing but lost, even in that last, citadel of Popery, 
 — in Italy itself. Such virtue as may lie latent in 
 the pure doctrines of the gospel, has now a chance 
 of full development, even in Italian lands. 
 
 § SO. But it was not merely among their fellow- 
 believers in the Piedemontese valleys, that Dolcino's 
 disciples left visible traces of the vitality of his ideas. 
 The spirit of the sect survived in many parts of 
 the Peninsula, and still more beyond the Alps, long 
 after the name of its leader had been effaced from 
 the memory of mankind. The fugitive Apostles found 
 everywhere friendly reception and sympathy. They 
 were everywhere adopted among the Fraticelli of Italy 
 and France, among the Beghards of Germany, and 
 the Lolhards or Lollards, who sprung from the latter 
 sect, both in that country and in the Netherlands 
 and in England. Nothing could be easier than to 
 exchange the tunic of Sagarelli for the frock of the 
 Fransciscan ranter, or for the sack-cloth of the ^' Bro- 
 ther of the True Penitence." It was always the same 
 host under new colours ; under the same ragged 
 banner of poverty, it was always the same war 
 against Roman luxury and pride. What endless 
 trouble and anxiety all those begging sects caused to
 
 320 FEA DOLCINO, 
 
 the Papal See, throughout the fourteenth and six- 
 teenth century, may be argued from the fact, which, 
 we believe, has already been stated, that of the Fra- 
 ticelli alone more than two thousand were doomed to 
 the flames.* Of the Beghards, more than thirty dis- 
 tinct sects were known to flourish at the same time.f 
 Had any, or all of these, been better seconded by the 
 always weak and irresolute, often treacherous Ger- 
 man emperors, — by such monarchs as Louis IV. of 
 Bavaria, Charles IV. of Luxemburg, Wenceslaus of 
 Bohemia, or Frederic III. of Austria, the great Re- 
 formation of the sixteenth century, — which, even at 
 that period, was partly impeded and frustrated by 
 the hesitation and bad faith of another Austrian 
 sovereign, Charles V., — would most probably have 
 been anticipated by many years. At any rate, it is 
 impossible not to refer that great revolution to the 
 influence long exercised by those suffering sects on 
 the minds of the lower classes ; and, through them, 
 it is also impossible not to rank Fra Dolcino and 
 his disciples among the precursors of Luther and 
 Calvin. 
 
 § 21. Mosheim J, indeed, objects to the strict 
 orthodoxy, to the uncompromising Papism of the 
 
 * Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 670, and note. 
 
 f Ibid. p. 579, note. 
 
 X Mosheim, Ketzergescbichte, book ii. § ii.
 
 APOSTLES AND PROTESTANTS. 321 
 
 Apostles and of all other Italian sectarians. He finds 
 fault with their compliance with most of the Catholic 
 practices, with their observance — so far as they 
 found it practicable — of Church fasts. Had it been 
 in their power to carry their views into effect, he 
 seems to think, no real material change in the hier- 
 archy of the Catholic Church would have taken 
 place. The reforming axe would never have struck 
 at the root of the evil. To the corrupt clergy then 
 in power they would have substituted another no less 
 corruptible priesthood. There would have been a 
 revolution without permanent amelioration. 
 
 But he seems to have lost sight of the fact, that 
 all reformers take their start from the same ground ; 
 they all begin with the same professions : they come 
 ** not to destroy, but to confirm." But the first at- 
 tempts at improvement have no other result than to 
 reveal all the unsoundness and rottenness of the old 
 edifice, and to urge upon them, in spite of them- 
 selves, the necessity for thorough demolition and 
 fundamental reconstruction. 
 
 In so far as the principle of Lutheran Reformation 
 lay in stripping the Church of all power to enforce 
 its own opinion by material coercion, and compelling 
 her to rely on the unarmed means of persuasion, — 
 thereby indirectly, but most efliciently establishing 
 the right of freedom of conscience, and placing all 
 
 T
 
 322 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 faith and worsliip on a footing of equality before the 
 law, — the Italian heretic of the thirteenth century, 
 who would have taken from the Church all its wealth 
 and worldly influence, would certainly have conferred 
 as great a benefit on the human race as the German 
 monk of the sixteenth. 
 
 § 22. Nay, in our opinion, not only have Luther 
 and Calvin not gone beyond the ideas of Sagarelli 
 and Dolcino, but with a view to accommodate their 
 doctrines to the imperfection of human nature, with 
 a hope to avoid unnecessary collision with those lay 
 authorities who backed them with all the strength of 
 their patronage, the reformers of the age of Leo X. 
 and Clement VII. have stopped short of many of the 
 levelling theories of the mendicant sects of the 
 days of Clement Y., and of his successors in Avig- 
 non ; they have patched up churches and congrega- 
 tions in which the sleek bishop has survived the fate 
 of the "Bishop of Bishops;" they have tried to 
 reconcile Catholicism with nationality, liberty with 
 authority, evangelical humility with worldly respect- 
 ability : hence their work has been looked upon 
 (by men who have on that account, not very justly, 
 been branded as infidels) as a transient and incon- 
 sistent scheme — a poor make-shift.* And in the 
 bosom of those time-serving denominations, new 
 
 * Gibbon's Decline and Fall, &c. chap. liv. Character and 
 Consequences of the Reformation.
 
 OLD AND NEW SECTS. 323 
 
 communities have been at all times, and are still, 
 springing up, — the Methodists, Quakers, Shakers, 
 Mormons, and a hundred other sects of ** literal 
 Christians," all of them true to Dolcino*s fruitful 
 ideas — though they may never have heard his name 
 — all of them, in spite of some oddities and ab- 
 surdities, active in the development of true apostolical 
 Christianity. 
 
 By the Reformation of the sixteenth century, no- 
 thing has been positively determined, except the vital, 
 holy, ever-blessed principle of unbounded freedom of 
 inquiry. It very little matters by what inscrutable 
 ways of Providence, — it matters still less with what 
 egregious unconsciousness, or with what stubborn 
 repugnance on the part of some of the Protestants 
 themselves, mankind have arrived at this all-important 
 result. Suffice it, that the human race cannot retro- 
 grade. Truth may shift its ground from Jerusalem 
 to Rome, from Rome to Oxford, from Oxford to a 
 Mormon city, but never releases its hold of the earth. 
 It is not of the least consequence what Jesuitism in 
 France, or Puseyism in England may do towards re- 
 erecting the banner of authority. Men will sound 
 Christian evidence to its depth, they will strip the 
 sanctuary of its veil, they must needs see God face 
 to face. 
 
 § 23. In the future discussion of such vital mat- 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 ters, the heresy of Fra Dolcino, the heresy of all 
 " literal Christians" will have its due share. In fact, 
 it is, even at the present day, every where most 
 powerfully agitating the minds of all true and earnest 
 believers. After the experiment of eighteen cen- 
 turies, after a variety of theories built up on a free 
 and easy, a specious interpretation of the spirit of the 
 Gospel, the world is every day drawing nearer and 
 nearer to the conclusion that it is the letter alone, 
 the whole letter, and nothing but the letter, that can 
 save, and must govern us; the precepts of Christ 
 implicitly obeyed ; the examples of the apostles 
 closely followed. The communism which they 
 preached must become the law of mankind. The 
 day must come when there will be amongst us " none 
 that lack ; for as many as are possessors of land and 
 houses will sell them, and bring the prices of the 
 things that are sold, and lay them down at the 
 apostles' feet, amd distribution will be made unto 
 every man according as he hath need."* 
 
 § 24. Amongst the mad freaks of Communism, 
 whether ancient or modern, whether religious or po- 
 litical, there is one eternal truth, acknowledged by 
 every man in theory, but to which the world will 
 eventually, whether from love or fear, be made to 
 bow in practice, and that is, the right of every man 
 
 * Acts of the Apostles, iv. 34—36.
 
 TRUE CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM. 325 
 
 to a place in this world into which God has sent 
 him. This need not be effected by agrarian or social 
 enactments, not by violent spoliation, or violation of 
 the right of property ; not, at least, until experi- 
 ments have been made to ascertain to what extent 
 an enlightened, far-reaching, and truly provident sys- 
 tem of poor-laws, of education, of emigration, how- 
 soever costly, may provide for all the legitimate 
 wants of our fellow-beings. But until poverty and 
 misery have put forth their claims to a share in the 
 birthright of the Lord, till a Church and State be 
 established at whose feet as much of the wealth of 
 the possessors of lands and houses be laid as may 
 be distributed unto every man according to his just 
 want, let no human society arrogate the title of a 
 Christian community. It is only when Lazarus has 
 risen from his bed of wretchedness that Dives may 
 hope for peace and security, either in this world or 
 in another. This great consummation of God's ulti- 
 mate will, that men should suffer from no evils except 
 from such as were eternally ordained by him, but 
 should not add to them by mutual injustice and 
 cruelty, this great law of humanity to man, the 
 apostles of the thirteenth century had mainly in 
 view. Like Anthony of Egypt, Francis of Assisi, 
 Peter of Waldo, and many others, poor Sagarelli 
 " sold everything that he had," and shared it with 
 
 ¥ 3
 
 326 FEA DOLCIXO. 
 
 liis brethren. Now this rigid, total expropriation 
 may not have been contemplated by the All-wise 
 Lawgiver. As the world is now constituted, it may 
 not prove the most expedient remedy for the mani- 
 fold ills human flesh is heir to. It will be enough 
 if the rich man considers himself as trusted with the 
 stewardship of the good things that have been la- 
 vished upon him. And it will be no harm if he be 
 held accountable for his administration to his fellow- 
 men no less than to God. 
 
 § 25. That the general frailty and selfishness of 
 mankind, and especially of wealthy prelates and fat 
 monks, should have found out that Christ's words 
 need not too inexorably bind them, was indeed too 
 natural ; but that charity, however improvident, and 
 asceticism, however bigoted, should be accounted 
 heresy, that they should be looked upon as the most 
 capital of all offences, that they should be dealt with 
 with every refinement of cruelty, branded with post- 
 humous infamy, and made an object of horror to the 
 latest generations, is somewhat more diflicult to un- 
 derstand. Yet such was doubtless the fate of Sa- 
 garelli and Dolcino. The hatred of Rome did not 
 stop at the threshold of their graves. It visited their 
 memory with unslaked animosity. For more than 
 two centuries, all over Europe, and in nearly two- 
 thirds of the globe at the present day — wherever
 
 THE FAME OF DOLCINO. 327 
 
 the successors of Boniface VIII. and Clement V. 
 are held infallible — the name of those heresiarchs 
 has been, and is, vaguely but obstinately associated 
 with every crime that ever disgraced the name of 
 man. From Giovanni Villani to Muratori, and from 
 this latter again to the Cavaliere Cibrario, the same 
 false and absurd charges against their heinous tenets 
 and hideous morals have been confidently repeated, 
 without examination, almost against conviction ; 
 partly from credulous bigotry, partly from mere 
 habit and parrot-like iteration, but partly also from 
 necessity to compound with the censor, and to keep 
 on good terms with civil and ecclesiastical autho- 
 rities. 
 
 § 26, Among Protestants again, the subject has 
 always excited less interest than it deserved. In 
 early times, all intent upon fighting their own 
 battles, anxious to keep within the limits of discre- 
 tion, and in the very schism to leave a loophole open 
 for future compromise, the reformers of the sixteenth 
 century, with few exceptions, carefully avoided all 
 connection or solidarity with men whose names 
 seemed irretrievably lost in the opinion of mankind; 
 they abandoned the Albigenses to the obloquy that 
 had been heaped upon them, and all but ignored the 
 apostles, the Stedingers, Peter de Bruys, Henri, 
 Tanquelin, and Eon de I'Etoile, all men whose 
 
 Y 4
 
 328 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 opinions and life had perhaps no little influence on 
 the advancement of religious freedom, whose history 
 would be most essential to the full understanding of 
 its final success. 
 
 About Tanquelin and the Stedinger, about the 
 apostolical sects of France and Germany, the positive 
 facts will, perhaps, never come into light. But the 
 Italian Brotherhood of Dolcino made its appearance 
 at a time and in a country, where a thousand pens 
 were daily at work — at work in the convent, in the 
 cabinet, in the town-hall. Public opinion in Italy, 
 in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, might be 
 misguided, but could not be hushed up. Truth 
 might be perverted, but not altogether obscured. 
 Even through the bitter invectives of the bigoted 
 monk, even through the gross mis-statement of the 
 careless notary-public, glimpses of probability will 
 occasionally shine forth. Dolcino's name, and many 
 of the essential particulars of his story, occur in at 
 least a score of the contemporaneous chronicles with 
 which Lombardy and Tuscany were in those days 
 inundated. However vast and perplexing, the his- 
 tory of Italy rests on more solid basis than that of 
 any other European country. Out of those records 
 we have taken enough, we believe, to have come to 
 some positive knowledge of Dolcino's actions. We 
 have absolutely no statements on the subject, except
 
 HIS MEMORY. 329 
 
 those of his adversaries ; but their glaring exaggera- 
 tions, their patent contradictions, have done more 
 towards his exculpation than might have been achieved 
 by the most zealous apologist. It is the infinite 
 trouble, the virulence and impatience with which his 
 guilt is attempted to be proved, that, above all other 
 arguments, forces upon us the conviction of his inno- 
 cence. 
 
 § 27. The memory of the dread heresiarch was 
 long preserved in the primitive region which he chose 
 for the theatre of his exploits. Restored to their 
 plundered and desecrated homes, the men of Mosso 
 and Trivero could find no peace there, even after the 
 fire and the sword of the Crusaders had delivered 
 them of the presence of the accursed Gazzari. The 
 hill that had been the head-quarters of Dolcino's 
 camp, the Mount Zebello, frowned still menacing 
 upon the last-named town. Like Mount Pilatus at 
 Lucern, it wrapped its head in eternal clouds ; and 
 under the name of Mount Dolcino, or Mount Gazzaro, 
 it cast its ominous gloom on the devoted neighbour- 
 hood : tlie foul fiends of the whirlwind and storm, 
 driven thither from happier lands by the exorcisms of 
 incautious priests, kept up their infernal Sabbath on 
 that excommunicated ground. Year after year the 
 echoes of that desolate summit were alive with perpe- 
 tual thunder, and incessant hail showers spread havoc 
 and consternation throughout the terrified district.
 
 330 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 This happened especially when avarice tempted some 
 godless miscreant to venture into the accursed ground 
 on the mountain summit, with a view to unearth and 
 possess himself of the wealth and treasury which the 
 heresiarch was said to have buried in some cave in 
 the neighbourhood, and which was now left in the 
 keeping of a whole host of demons.* The poor 
 guileless peasantry saw but too clearly that the vows 
 to which they had bound themselves in aid of the 
 Crusade, had only helped them by half. Nothing 
 but their bare lands and dismantled dwelling had 
 been restored to them. No harvest was ever suffered 
 to come to maturity : famine and distress were no 
 less heavy upon them: and the real evils were 
 enhanced by dire portents and supernatural terrors. 
 Of the many wanderers who had dragged themselves 
 back to the land of their birth, not a few were fain 
 once more to turn their back upon it, preferring to 
 confront even the miseries of exile, rather than 
 endure the scourges and the perils of their haunted 
 abode. 
 
 § 28. At last they betook themselves to new sup- 
 plications and fresh pledges. Against the male- 
 volence of the fiends they implored the assistance of 
 
 * Bellini, Vercellino, Descrizione e Successi di Serravalle e 
 dei Luoghi circonvicini, Vercelli, 1649. A MS. in the Munici- 
 pal Archive of Vercelli.
 
 ST. BERNAKD. 331 
 
 God and of St. Bernard. This is not the famous 
 Abbot of Clairvaux, the champion of the Church 
 in the twelfth century ; but the so-called Apostle of 
 the Alps, Bernard, a native of Menthon in Savoy, 
 and for a long time archdeacon of Aosta, who died 
 in 1008, the founder of the famous hospices on the 
 Alpine passes that still bear his name. Devotion to 
 this venerable archimandrite is paid by the inhabitants 
 of the whole western chain of the Alps ; and on 
 many a mountain summit, in many a lonely valley, 
 his convent or hospice, or at least his chapel, is 
 reared. Such a shrine was now, ex voto, raised in 
 honour of the Saint, on the summit of Mount 
 Zebello, which, ever since, dropped its ominous 
 appellation of " Mons Dulcini," and " Mons Gazza- 
 rorum," and became " Mons Sancti Bernardi," though 
 it must not be confounded with the Great or Little 
 St. Bernard, athwart which lie two of the main 
 roads, from the Valais and from Savoy into the vale 
 of Aosta. 
 
 John Bonacci, the notary-public or town-clerk of 
 Trivero, who furnished us with all these particulars, 
 and appended them to the History of Dolcino, to 
 which we have often alluded*, gives a fair description 
 of the sanctuary, ** how it was built, with God's 
 help, on the very top of the hill, how it boasted of 
 * Hist. Dulcin. p. 441, 442.
 
 332 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 two altars and was decorated with many pictures, 
 especially of the Blessed Virgin, and paved with 
 marble and studded with stones, so as to make a 
 very neat and handsome building, and be a credit to 
 the town." 
 
 He adds, that on a certain appointed day, the 
 5th of June of every year, being the anniversary of 
 their patron, St. Bernard, the people not only of 
 Trivero, but also of Mosso, Coggiola, Cossato, &c., 
 with their parsons and curates at their head, and 
 with a great display of crosses and banners, all, — 
 that is, one person at least for every hearth in the 
 above-named villages, — repaired to the shrine in 
 solemn procession. The inhabitants of Crepacuore, 
 Curino, Mortillengo, and in fact the whole of the 
 district, never failed to flock in great numbers — 
 men and women — to that yearly solemnity ; attracted 
 not only by the ample indulgences with which several 
 Popes have endowed those altars, and by the pe- 
 culiar efficacy of the masses celebrated there, but 
 also by the bounty of a pound loaf of wheaten bread, 
 which the men of Trivero, " not from any obligation, 
 but out of spontaneous charity, and hospitable kind- 
 ness," awarded to every person who may be willing to 
 join them in their devotions ; of such loaves " never 
 less than one thousand four hundred were known to 
 have been distributed in a single day,"
 
 APPARITIONS. 333 
 
 The partiality of those mountaineers for St. Ber- 
 nard, did not, however, render them unmindful of 
 their duty to other heavenly protectors and bene- 
 factors. Besides that main solemnity of the 5th of 
 June, there were other days which were kept holy, 
 in their own way, by masses, benedictions and pro- 
 cessions, in the latter of which every family was duly 
 represented by one, at least, of its members. These 
 were days set apart in honour of St. Ann, St. 
 Magdalen, and St. Grato. In all of these the huge 
 wooden St. Bernard was taken down from its niche 
 on the main altar, and issued forth from the chapel 
 to be promenaded round and round the summit of 
 the hill, on a ground strewn with flowers and boughs, 
 with a great waving of standards, and ribbons and 
 garlands, and with all the glitter and pomp of priestly 
 attire. 
 
 By all these expiatory performances Dolcino*s 
 ghost was finally laid. The men of Trivero were 
 allowed to sleep undisturbed, and if they were not 
 altogether free from roaring thunder, flooding rain, 
 and ravaging hail, they had at least no greater share 
 of such scourges than what usually fall to the lot of 
 their neighbours. All customs, however, even the 
 best, are liable to fall into desuetude. Whether the 
 ardour of the people of the valleys abated, or the 
 inhabitants of Trivero found the distribution of so
 
 334 FKA DOLCINO. 
 
 many thousand pounds of bread too onerous, it is 
 not clearly made out ; but the fact is, that towards 
 the middle of the last century, the festival of St. 
 Bernard's, and all other devotions paid to his shrine 
 were — it is hardly known how or why — it is not stated 
 whether all at once or gradually — discontinued ; the 
 mountain was left to its dreary solitude, and the 
 chapel itself went rapidly to decay, and might have 
 ended by sinking under the weight of yearly snows. 
 
 Only very lately, in 1837, August 23rd, Mon- 
 signor Gian Pietro Losanna, Bishop of Biella, 
 anxious to renew all obsolete religious practices in 
 his diocese, repaired to the summit of the mountain 
 with a large flock of priests and dignitaries of the 
 Church : he gave orders for the reconstruction of the 
 sanctuary in somewhat larger dimensions and with 
 greater pretensions to architectural style, and exerted 
 all his episcopal influence towards the restoration of 
 the ancient solemnities.* 
 
 The age, however, seemed less propitious to the 
 
 * See the Gazzetta Piemontese, No. 206, Sept. 11, 1837. 
 Also, Verbale della Solenne Pontificale Benedizione del? 
 Oratorio di San Bernardo, fattasi il 17 Luglio, 1839. A MS. 
 in the Parochial Archive of Trivero. Also, Discorso per la 
 Rinnovazione dell' Antica Festa di San Bernardo di Mentlion 
 sui monti sopra Trivero Biellese, &c. &c. pronunziato da Paolo 
 Gaghardini, Biella, 1839.
 
 ST. BERNARD'S FESTA. 335 
 
 display of popular fervour. The people of Trivero 
 alone could be induced to answer the call of their 
 zealous pastor; and even they limited their festivities 
 to a single procession in the year, on the same anni- 
 versary of St. Bernard's day ; whilst of the beau- 
 tiful one pound white loaves with which the bodily 
 strength of the faithful was to be held up during 
 the toils of that pilgrimage, no further mention was 
 made. 
 
 A sad falling off from the happy days in which 
 the eager spirit of the faithful, we are informed, 
 never rested till it had reared up the humble but 
 solid sanctuary on Mount Zebello, " in fifty hours." 
 But it must be also allowed that the saints take now 
 less pains to guard their interests here below* ; for 
 the same authorities assure us, that in the good old 
 times, whenever the zeal of those good mountaineers 
 seemed at all to flag, " a huge hideous he-goat" would 
 be seen perambulating the skirts of the ominous hill, 
 and " cowled fiends and sheeted phantoms and spectres 
 with asses' heads," monsters in every shape, manifest 
 in every shade of moon and twilight, visible, audible, 
 all but tangible, so as to shake the very hearts 
 of those for whom to " see is to believe." 
 
 * Baggiolini, Dolcino e i Patareni, p. 171.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Recent "Writers on the Subject of Fra Dolcino. — Professor Baggiolini 
 — Dr. Krone— Father Rimella. — A. Sagarclli's Son. — B. Dolcino's 
 Portraits. — Particulars about him and Margaret of Trent. — C Dol- 
 cino's Companions. — Ambrogio Salamone — D. First Hostilities — 
 at Gattinara — at Campertogno — Leaders of the Crusade — The Mar- 
 quises of Montfcrrat and Saluzzo. — Nicholas Trivet, the English 
 Dominican. — Anecdotes of Theodolind Queen of the Lombards. — 
 
 E. The Rector of Serravalle — F. Mlano Sola G. Missionaries 
 
 to Dolcino. — H. Marco Miretti. — L The Thirty Amazons. — 
 J. Heretic and Catholic Atrocities. — K. The Last Conflict. — L. Si. 
 mone da Colobiano. — M. James de Quaregna. — N. Papal Mxmifi- 
 cence. — O. The Execution. — P. Campo Dolcino. 
 
 The memoir of Fra Dolcino and his time, which lias been 
 here submitted to the reader, rests on documents to 
 which either the epoch, the writer's character, or other 
 circumstances would seem to give all the importance of 
 historical authenticity. But there circulates in Northern 
 Italy, and especially in the districts of Novara and 
 Vercelli, once the stage of Dolcino's exploits, and for a 
 long time the haunt of vague terrors connected with his 
 memory, a variety of rumours, which, although very 
 plainly the work of popular exaggeration, and often 
 bearing the marks of palpable absurdity, have nevertheless 
 that interest which tradition must always have in the eyes 
 of diligent inquirers. 
 
 Z
 
 338 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Tradition is the smoke revealing the existence of the 
 hidden fire of truth. Only, in order that mere report 
 may be fairly entitled to our attention, it must arise 
 spontaneous from popular belief, and not, as it frequently 
 happens, result from the mere distortion of facts by some 
 unskilful chronicler, whose blunders will afterwards sink 
 amongst the multitude, and there assume all the authority 
 of immemorial oral tradition. 
 
 It is only by fortuitous coincidence, no doubt, and we 
 would attach no serious importance to the fact — that 
 Dolcino*s execution occurs in the same year, 1307, from 
 which the earliest Swiss cantons date their emancipation. 
 It would seem as if that eventful year was under some 
 peculiar atmospheric influence, which gave mankind 
 extraordinary inventive powers, so as to send down in- 
 soluble puzzles to posterity ; for, if we were to sift our 
 positive knowledge with all that is current amongst the 
 people, we should come, with respect to Fra Dolcino, to 
 the same conclusion adopted by some German critics on 
 the subject of William Tell — we should, that is, doubt 
 the very existence of the portentous personage. 
 
 The popular myth of Fra Dolcino had been embodied 
 in a specious narrative by Professor Baggiolini, a resident 
 of Vercelli, published not many years ago * ; a work 
 which a German of uncommon scholarly abilities, Dr. 
 Julius Krone, has thought fit to translate, or rather to 
 paraphrase, into his native language, with such additions, 
 alterations, and notes, as his more extensive reading 
 naturally suggested. ■j' 
 
 Professor Baggiolini was destitute of the commonest 
 
 * Baggiolini, Dolcino e i Patareni, Memorie Storiche. Novara, 
 1838, 12mo. 
 
 t Krone, Fra Dolcino und die Paterener, historische Episode aus 
 den Piemontesischen Religionskriegen. Leipsig, 1844, 8vo.
 
 APPENDIX. 339 
 
 qualifications as an historian. Startling errors are lo be 
 met with in his pages which would prevent any man of 
 sense from taking him as a safe guide in his researches. 
 He tells us, for instance *, that Fra Dolcino, on his flight 
 from Trent, " crossed the Julian Alps, and after tra- 
 versing a part of Italy came first into the dioceses of 
 Vercelli and Novara." He informs his readers f , that the 
 interval elapsing between Dolcino's capture and his 
 execution was owing to the journey of the legates of 
 Vercelli " to and from Rome," where they had been sent 
 to Pope Clement V., to ask his good pleasure as to the 
 prisoner's fate. 
 
 Besides these unlucky slips, which give us no exalted 
 idea of the Professor's knowledge of the rudiments of 
 geography and general history, several statements occur, 
 as to local facts, against which the reader may not always 
 be so easily on his guard. He brings into the field 
 against Dolcino, such men as Manfred of Saluzzo, in 
 behalf of whom an alibi might be easily proved ; and 
 others, such as Rainer Montferrat, who never had any 
 existence. Concerning this latter, the German translator, 
 with all his good faith and reliance on his original, was so 
 egregiously puzzled, that he ventured to inquire of Pro- 
 fessor Baggiolini himself, where he had found any record 
 of such a person, as no allusion to him occurs in any of 
 the historians of the House of Montferrat. " My appli- 
 cation to the Professor," Krone concludes, " led to no 
 satisfactory result :j:, as the Professor was utterly ignorant 
 of the subject.'' With all that may be said to its dis- 
 paragement, however, the work of Baggiolini cannot be 
 passed over with contempt. The Professor was some 
 
 * P. 37. 
 
 ■f P. 141. The same oversight occurs in Krone, p. 89. 
 
 % Krone, p. 55,, note. 
 
 z 2
 
 340 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 time the Keeper of the Municipal Archives of Vercelli ; 
 and he had, as a tutor and instructor, free access to the 
 private libraries and records of several conspicuous 
 families of that town and country, such as the Avogadro, 
 Fiorella, Arboreo, Vialardi, &c. &c. 
 
 For all his assertions on the subject before him, he refers 
 now to one, now to another, of the documents which 
 were thus placed under his inspection. The public docu- 
 ments are almost invariably misquoted ; and even the Cata- 
 logue, printed by Baggiolini himself, of the most precious 
 MSS. of Vercelli, bearing the name of " Codici Biscioni," 
 collected by order of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, in 
 the 15th century, can hardly ever be depended on for 
 accuracy and correctness. As to the private papers, 
 Baggiolini himself avowed that he had seen them, " at 
 some time or other, in the libraries of families either no 
 longer extant, or fallen into such decline that their 
 collections are either sold or dispersed through neglect." 
 He added that oftentimes he quoted, as historical facts, 
 such versions of Dolcino's deeds as he heard in conversa- 
 tion from members of those families whose papers he 
 was allowed to examine. So it is that we see him quoting 
 in a careless and almost enigmatic manner, the "MSS. 
 Avog." — "MSS. Fior. &c.," — without ever mentioning, 
 for instance, in which of the many houses of the Avogadro 
 or other family the MSS. in question were found, to what 
 epoch they belong, or what weight other circumstances may 
 give to them : for, most assuredly, in the farrago of manu- 
 scripts in the archives of a noble house, a distinction may 
 be drawn between contemporary title-deeds, diplomas, 
 charters, &c., and the mere rhapsodies of some obscure 
 almoner, secretarj^, or even conceited member of the 
 family in recent times — papers which only remain manu- 
 scripts, because it might be a public outrage to give them 
 to the press.
 
 APPENDIX. 341 
 
 With one of such papers, by Its wretched style plainly 
 belonging to the worst part of the 17th or 18th 
 century, any reader may make himself familiar. It exists 
 in the King's Library at Turin, in the archives at Vercelli, 
 and elsewhere; the oldest copy, dated 1694, is in the 
 hands of the rector or vicar of Trivero.* 
 
 For a good many of the incidents in his narrative, 
 Baggiolini rests, as he says, on the support of Modena's 
 Vercellese history. Modena was a canon of the Cathedral 
 of Vercelli in the 17th century, and a writer of good 
 repute. His Italian history exists in manuscript, in 
 the King's Library at Turin, in the archives of Vercelli, 
 and elsewhere. Under the date of 1307 he consecrates 
 only a few words to Fra Dolcino, referring, however, to 
 his Latin history for fuller particulars on the subject. 
 Now Modena's Latin history is nowhere to be found. 
 The Cavaliere Promis, the King's librarian, the Padre 
 Bruzza, a learned Barnabite, who has given all his life- 
 time to the history of Vercelli, and other industrious 
 scholars, have in vain looked for it. Baggiolini, who 
 could only have quoted from Modena's Latin history, as 
 the Italian version has nothing to his purpose, was taken 
 to task on the subject, and answered that he positively 
 knew of two copies of that work in Latin, though he 
 eould only point out one copy, which was, to his best 
 knowledge, in the University Library at Turin. The 
 keeper of that library, however, knows nothing about it. 
 
 And yet, even supposing all the authorities quoted by 
 
 * Racconto dell' Introduzione del Eresiarca Fra Dolcino con 11 suoi 
 perfidi Compagni Gevai'do Segarello di Parma e Longino Cattaneo di 
 Bergamo con la bella Margarita di Trento, nella vallc di Sesia ed 
 altri luoghi, 1' anno del Signore 1 304. The copy at Vercelli is stated 
 to have been transcribed from a MS. probably of the 17th centuiy, 
 now in possession of the architect, Giuseppe LaA'ini, 
 z 3
 
 342 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Baggiolini to be utterlj' worthless, — even suspecting him 
 of wilful imposition upon the public, — his book would 
 always be entitled to the consideration of conscientious 
 writers, for it is difficult to suppose all his statements to 
 be mere inventions or dreams on his part, and it is more 
 natural to suppose that he picked up his information here 
 and there, deriving a great part of it either from mere 
 hearsay, or from narratives grounded on the same hear- 
 say, possessing, therefore, only a secondary importance as 
 positive materials of history, but not altogether to be 
 despised as traditional illustrations of it. 
 
 Although, therefore, we deemed it unadvisable to 
 disturb the course of our foregoing narrative by the 
 introduction of episodes, which seemed to rest on 
 questionable authority, we also considered it our duty to 
 write down, in a series of notes, the most important points 
 on which Baggiolini's narrative differs from earlier ac- 
 counts, taking good care to point out those frequent 
 instances in which the worthy Professor is rather rudely 
 contradicted by well authenticated historical truth. 
 
 Besides the works above mentioned, we have also taken 
 into consideration an account of Dolcino's doings, pub- 
 lished towards the close of the last century by the Padre 
 Filippo da Rimella*, a native of the Valsesia, well ac- 
 quainted with the localities of that lofty region, and a 
 truthful man besides, incapable, one would think, of wilful 
 deception, whatever otherwise his claims to sound criticism 
 and plain good sense may be, and who also talks of im- 
 
 * Orazione sopra la sacra Lega de' Valsesiani contro 1' Eretico Dul- 
 cino e seguaci, con tre Appeudici, e con riflessioni analoghe agli errori 
 e ai bisogni dei correnti tempi, del Padre Dottor Filippo da Rimella, 
 'SL R. dedicata, &c. ; Vercelli, 1793. The discourse was delivered 
 at Scopa on the 24th Aug. 1790, the anniversary of the famous 
 League and Covenant of the Valsesians in 1305 which forms the 
 subject of the book.
 
 APPENDIX. 343 
 
 portant documents belonging to a very remote period, to 
 which, it seems, he had access, but which are now in all 
 probability lost to our curiosity. The object of his book 
 was altogether polemical ; he wished to bring the remote 
 past to bear on the immediate present ; to draw some 
 uncharitable comparisons between the ruthless Dolcino 
 and the amiable reformer Bishop Ricci of Pistoia, — 
 between the fanatic Gazari of the 14'th century and 
 the sneering Jacobins of the 18th ; with what success 
 to the cause of religion it is for his readers to decide, 
 but certainly with little benefit to himself, since we are 
 informed by the Cavaliere Morbio* that the liberals of 
 the Cisalpine republic turned against him on the first 
 success of the French sans-culottes, and so harassed and 
 persecuted him as to break his heart and bring him with 
 sorrow to his grave — for no other crime, says the his- 
 torian, than that of proudly standing his ground as a 
 true Christian minister, and denouncing the folly and 
 impiety of his age. 
 
 A. Sagakelli's Son. 
 
 Amongst the most distinguished companions of Dolcino, 
 from his first arrival at Gattinara to his downfall at Mount 
 Zebello, some writersj* mention one Gherardo Sagarelli, 
 a relative — some even say a son or nephew — of his 
 namesake, the founder of the Order of the Apostles, who 
 was burnt at Parma in 1300. Baggiolini, followed by 
 
 * Morbio, Storia dei Municipii Italiani, Milano, 1841, vol. v. 
 Storia della Citta e Diocesi di Novara, p. 116. 
 
 f Baggiolini, Dolcino e i Patareui, p. 37. Krone, Dolcino und die 
 Patarener, p. 39. ; Racconto dell' Introduzione del Eresiarcha Pra 
 Dolcino con li perfidi suoi compagni, Gherardo Segarello di Parma 
 &c., MS. 
 
 z 4
 
 344 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 Krone, places this Sagarelli at the head of one of the 
 divisions of Dolcino's host in the most important en- 
 counters that band of heretics had to sustain, according 
 to their version, from 1303 to 1307. They represent him 
 as fighting desperately the last day on Mount Zebello, 
 adding that he alone had the rare fortune to escape from 
 the cave in which Dolcino was overpowered, and that, 
 after tarrying for some time in those valleys at the head 
 of a few of the fugitives, he at last crossed over to 
 Switzerland, where he died in consequence of his wounds. 
 The very spot where he ended his mortal career is named 
 by Baggiolini, "Bellentro."* Such a place is not easily 
 to be found in any Swiss map. Krone f, who follows 
 Baggiolini to the letter, avoids all difficulty by simply 
 saying *' in Switzerland." That place may, however, be 
 Bellentre in Tavantaise, Duchy of Savoy. 
 
 It is almost impossible to escape the conviction that 
 this junior Segarello or Sagarelli was altogether an ima- 
 ginary personage ; and as he was found neither among 
 the dead nor the captives, nothing is more natural than 
 to account for his almost miraculous disappearance, and 
 his tragical yet obscure end, in some all but nameless 
 spot, by supposing that the populace, on hearing Dolcino 
 preaching in the name of Sagarelli, and styling him his 
 fellow-labourer in the Lord's vineyard, fancied at the 
 time — and their surmise survived among the popular 
 traditions — that Sagarelli was actually one of the com- 
 panions and lieutenants of the heresiarch. 
 
 For the rest, it is very evident that Sagarelli had no 
 son, as no mention of any improper connexion on his 
 part occurs in the narrative of Salimbeni and other writers 
 intent on blackening his memory. And no allusion to 
 the name of Sagarelli is to be found in the enumeration 
 
 * Baggiolini, p. 139,; Racconto dell' Introduzione, &c. 
 t Krone, p. 89.
 
 APPENDIX. 345 
 
 made by Dolcino himself, in his Second Epistle, of the 
 most gifted disciples of his order. 
 
 B. DoLCiNo's Portraits. 
 
 Some curious particulars respecting Dolcino and Mar- 
 garet's personal appearance, their origin and early career, 
 may be derived from various — unfortunately not very 
 reliable — sources.* 
 
 Dolcino was a native of Prato, near Romagnano — not, 
 as some have averred, of Trontano, in Val d'Ossola.*!" The 
 latter village was perhaps the birthplace of his father, 
 the priest Julio, who may have been appointed parish 
 priest at Prato, where his son was born. In the neigh- 
 bourhood of Prato is a village, called Cavallirio, in the 
 parish records of which, it is pretended, Dolcino's birth 
 and baptism are registered. This, if not positively true, 
 would at least be plausible, as the priest Julio, both on 
 account of the illegitimacy of his child, and of the too 
 close ties of consanguinity, might have had some scruple 
 in performing the ceremony with his own hand, and 
 would have preferred to send him to some near obscure 
 church. 
 
 In contradiction to what Benvenuto da Imola wrote, 
 who must, however, be considered as the best authority, 
 and who described Dolcino as a man of diminutive size, 
 
 * Racconto dell' Introduzione del Eresiarcha Fra Dolcino, &c, 
 f Nevertheless Monignor Bascape in bis " Novaria, seu de Ecclesia 
 Novariensi (Novara, 1612, p. 144.), says most distinctly: " Xos autem 
 Traguntano Ossulaj vico, ortum compeiimus, Julii cujusdam Pres- 
 byteri filium, idque ex commentariolo quodam, do rebus fi"atris 
 Dulcini, qui apud Inquisitorcm Vercellensem inventus est, rudi qui- 
 dem stylo conscripto, sed eo tempore quo res eae acciderunt."
 
 346 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 the records to which we allude depict him as a man of 
 tall stature, with a high forehead,, large piercing eyes, an 
 aquiline sharp-pointed nose, and prominent nether-jaw. 
 Margaret is said to have been of middle size, with snow- 
 white complexion, and with limbs endowed with great 
 strength and elasticity, no less than symmetry and ele- 
 gance. She had deep blue eyes, overshadowed by dark 
 slightly-arched brows ; the hair was also dark, and fell 
 in wild profusion down to her shoulders. Her features 
 were exquisitely moulded ; her nose w£is somewhat long ; 
 she had oval cheeks, a round chin, and white, close-set 
 teeth ; the neck was gracefully bent ; on her pale coun- 
 tenance, as well as on that of Dolcino^ dwelt a settled 
 expression of deep, half-unconscious melancholy, such as 
 is generally observed in persons destined to a premature 
 and violent end.* 
 
 Two portraits, purporting to be real likenesses of the 
 heresiarch and of his partner in guilt, circulate in Northern 
 Italy. The originals are said to be miniatures in an an- 
 cient parchment MS., now in possession of Signor Barto- 
 lommeo Tettone, of Novara ; good copies of both, of the 
 size of life, are to be seen in the studio of Signor Pietro 
 Giacobini, an artist of merit at Campertogno. A litho- 
 graph of that of Fra Dolcino was published by the Jesuits 
 of Novara, as a frontispiece to a worthless pamphlet on 
 the subject, on the occurrence of their annual distribution 
 of prizes to their pupils.f 
 
 These portraits, however, bear not the slightest mark 
 
 * Eimella, Lega de' Valsesiani, &c., who states he derived his 
 information from a very ancient MS. ; as he thinks, the work of one 
 Dolcino's own contemporaries, p. 80. These pictures have been 
 somewhat improved upon by Morbio, Storia dei Municipii ItaHani, 
 vol v. Storia di Novara, p. 94., note. 
 
 f T. Crociati Novarcsi alia Giornata di Monte Zebello, azione 
 Drammatica, &c., Novara, 1846.
 
 APPENDIX. 347 
 
 of authenticity. The gaudy Spanish costume, the beaver 
 and plume of Dolcino, and the Tuscan, be-ribboned 
 straw-hat of Margaret, belong in all probability to the 
 17th century, and are altogether out of keeping, not 
 only with the times, but also with the humour of Fra 
 Dolcino, who continued to his dying day faithful to the 
 tunic and white mantle of the apostolic garb first intro- 
 duced by Sagarelli. The bandit-like appearance of the 
 arch-heretic, and the coquettishly half-drawn dagger of 
 his beloved, are the evident creation of the ignorance and 
 fancifulness of an nge of bad taste. 
 
 The name of the heroine is given by some as Mar- 
 gareta di Trank, which might designate a German origin, 
 if indeed it was not a corruption of Trent. She was 
 known by the emphatic appellation of Margaret the 
 Beautiful. It is added that she was an orphan, heiress 
 of noble parents, and had been placed for her education 
 in a monastery of St. Catherine in Trent ; that there 
 Dolcino — who had also been a monk, or at least a novice, 
 in a convent of the Order of the Humiliati, in the same 
 town, and had been expelled in consequence either of his 
 heretic tenets, or of immoral conduct — succeeded never- 
 theless in becoming domesticated in the nunnery of St. 
 Catherine, as a steward or agent to the nuns, and there 
 accomplished the fascination and abduction of the wealthy 
 heiress.* It is not a little remarkable that the order of 
 the Humiliati, first established about the year 1014, were 
 often suspected of heterodoxy. Under the pontificate 
 of Innocent III., 1198-1216, they were charged with 
 the various heresies of the Patarini, the Cathari, and Poor 
 Men of Lyons.f Dolcino was indeed a monk in their 
 convent at Trent: it was there, perhaps, that he first 
 meditated rebellion against Rome. 
 
 * Rimella, La Sacra Lega de' Valsesiani, &c., p. 80-82. 
 f Tiraboschi, Humiliator. Veter. Monumeut., 3 vols. 4to. Milan, 
 1776, Diss. iii. § 3.
 
 348 FRA. DOLCINO. 
 
 C. DoLciNo's Companions. — Ambrogio 
 Salamone. 
 
 Besides Sagarelli, Longino di Cattaneo, and Milano 
 Sola, all of whom are made to plaj^ a very brilliant part 
 in all deeds of arms, Baggiolini mentions* one Ambrogio 
 Salamone, a name not occurring in the older records on 
 this subject There might have been such a man, never- 
 theless, and probably also a man of conspicuous birth and 
 rank. A noble family of that name, now extinct, for a 
 long time held feudal sway at Serravalle, with the title 
 of Lords or Counts of that place. Baggiolini adds, that 
 Salamone forsook Dolcino in his greatest need, and passed 
 over to the Catholic partyf just as Dolcino pitched his 
 camp on the summit of the Rock of the Bare Wall. 
 
 D. First Hostilities. — Nicholas Trivet. 
 
 A long tissue of Dolcino's warlike exploits, from his 
 first appearance at Gattinara to his retirement into the 
 Alps of the Valnera, is given by Baggiolini, who is not, 
 in this instance, borne out by any of the chronicles to 
 which access may be obtained ; and whose narrative rests, 
 therefore, entirely on those authorities of which he alone 
 had any knowledge. His account is, however, so circum- 
 stantial and positive, though in some parts altogether 
 erroneous and absurd, that it is impossible to look upon 
 it as the work of his own invention ; and many of its 
 particulars are sufficiently interesting to deserve a succinct 
 exposition of them. 
 
 According to his version, Dolcino first came into the 
 
 * Dolcino e i Patareni, p. 94. f Ibid. p. 111.; Krone, p. 76.
 
 APPENDIX. 349 
 
 diocese of Vercelli towards the end of 1303^ a statement 
 which cannot be reconciled with the date of his Second 
 Epistle, written from Dalmatia in the Christmas week 
 of that year, nor with the positive assertion of all other 
 writers who put off his first arrival till the following year. 
 
 Gattinara, he continues, was then in a defenceless state, 
 as the feudal lords of the Avogadro and Arboreo families 
 had been driven from it by their Ghibeline opponents. 
 Dolcino, either called, or at least abetted, by these latter, 
 took possession of the town, and fortified himself in it. 
 From this first stronghold he commenced his career of 
 plunder and violence, strengthened by the support of the 
 inhabitants of Gattinara, a fierce people at all times, now 
 highly exasperated against their late lords, and the epis- 
 copal party to which these belonged. 
 
 The Bishops of Novara and Vercelli, the Marquis of 
 Montferrat, and other lords armed themselves against 
 Dolcino, and held a council at Vercelli to devise the 
 best means of annihilating such dangerous enemies. Dol- 
 cino, who did not trust the people of Gattinara, and did 
 not think his position there sufficiently strong, without 
 relinquishing his hold of the town constructed a fort on 
 the brow of a hill rising "at two sling-throws" from 
 Gattinara, and bearing now the name of St. Lorenzo. 
 
 From Gattinara to the summit of the hill, there is little 
 more than an hour's easy ascent. The hill is sufficiently 
 smooth towards the town, and mantled all over with vine- 
 yards, which yield that wine for which Gattinara is re- 
 nowned in Northern Italy. But on its north-eastern side, 
 the skirts of the hill hang rather steep on the bank of the 
 Sesia, in many a bold cliff, which, though covered with 
 rich verdure and brushwood, may be considered as of 
 arduous access. On the very top of the hill are the ruins 
 of a castle, where, tradition says, the good Lombard queen 
 Theodolind had once her home, — a kind of shrine and her-
 
 350 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 mitage to which she repaired in her old age, when weary of 
 the world. Between the mountain and the river, amongst 
 those towering cliflfs, there lies a little open space, not 
 exactly level, but made up of gently swelling knolls, which 
 bears the name of Piano, or Pra di Cordova. The same tra- 
 dition adds that this plain was once part of a great lake, and 
 that in this lake one of the children of queen Theodolind 
 fell and was drowned: that the inconsolable queen, anxious 
 to have at least the cold remains of her child, ordered the 
 lake to be drained by opening a mighty gap in the mountains 
 on the river side. The plain of Cordova does certainly bear 
 the appearance of a bottom from which the waters have 
 subsided; and the peasantry of the neighbourhood re- 
 member the existence of large iron rings, to which, they 
 fancy, the boats that plied on the lake were once fastened. 
 The corruption of a vast quantity of dead fish and other 
 refusal, suddenly exposed to the air and heat of the sun 
 by the sinking of the waters, caused, they add, a mor- 
 tality in the country. 
 
 Some of the chroniclers of Dolcino's deeds say, truly, 
 that he settled in this plain of Cordova, and that he con- 
 tinued for some time unmolested, building huts, planting 
 vineyards, &c., but always without assuming an offensive 
 attitude.* 
 
 But Baggiolini describes the works made above this 
 Pra di Cordova, and all over the mountain, as something 
 resembling the doings of the Tyrolese under Andreas 
 Hofer.f Massive walls, rocks hanging on the air, and 
 above all an immense tunnel of more than a mile in 
 length, by which the fort on the hill was put in com- 
 munication with the town below, — a statement which he 
 would never have made, had he only been once at Gat- 
 
 * Rimella, Lega de' Valsesiani, &c. p. 85.; Relazione dell' Intro- 
 duzione, &c., MS. 
 t Baggiolini, p. 71.
 
 APPENDIX. 351 
 
 tinara (as such a tunnel would exceed any of the great 
 excavations of Napoleon on the Simplon road), and which 
 we must look upon as a popular exaggeration of the 
 account, also fabulous, given by the author of '^ Historia 
 Dulcini," in Muratori, of a similar subterranean passage 
 on Mount Zebello.* 
 
 The Bishops and Lords, assembled at Vercelli, after 
 in vain trying to bring the heretic to reason by the means 
 of a peaceful legation, resolved to march against him. 
 They had only 2,000 men under their standards : Dolcino 
 had no less than 5,000 followers. The Catholics divided 
 their little army into two bands, the one commanded by 
 Filippone di Langosco, Count of Lumello, a man well 
 known in the history of those times, and composed of 
 Novarese and their allies; the other by Solomon Coc- 
 carella, a Vercellese, who led the troops of his town and 
 diocese. These two divisions marched, the first on the 
 right, the second on the left bank of the Sesia. They were, 
 it is said, three days in getting over the distance from 
 Vercelli to Gattinara, about twenty Italian miles, owing 
 partly to the wretched state of the roads, as they had 
 to flounder across deep swamps, now converted into the 
 rich fields which constitute the wealth of the Lombard 
 plain ; partly, also, to the egregious disorder and dissension 
 reigning in their camp, — evils which greatly increased 
 and became incurable, when Filippone di Langosco, the 
 only leader that was worth his salt, quitted his post, to 
 hasten to the rescue of one of his castles which had been 
 laid siege to by the Beccaria of Pavia. 
 
 Dolcino, who had been watching the movements of his 
 enemy, prepared for their reception by placing his own 
 troops also on both sides of the river. He had given the 
 command of his divisions to Sagarelli and Cattaneo, 
 
 * Ante, chap. iv. § 15. 
 
 t See Appendix G., Mssionaries to Dolcino.
 
 352 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 whom he called his Peter and Paul ; but the belligerent 
 parties scarcely came to any decisive encounter. The 
 Catholics, incapable of discipline, scattered themselves 
 about the country, plundering the defenceless peasantry ; 
 many of them fell prisoners into their adversaries' hands. 
 Not a few also spontaneously surrendered, embraced the 
 doctrines and followed the fortunes of Dolcino ; the rest 
 fell back in confusion. Before the 23th of March, 1304, 
 the first Catholic expedition was thus at an end, and from 
 April to July the heresiarch was left in full and peaceful 
 possession of the country.* 
 
 The result of their first eff*orts had thrown the people 
 of Vercelli into the greatest discouragement^ when an 
 unexpected aid, almost from heaven, came to raise up 
 their drooping spirits. There came in those days to 
 Vercelli, an Englishman, by name Nicholas Trivet, — a 
 man of knightly rank, but who had entered the order of 
 the Preaching Friars, or Dominicans, had signalised him- 
 self by his hot zeal against the heretics of Southern 
 France, and was now travelling through Italy, preaching 
 the *' Truce *' of God, and striving hard to bring about a 
 universal reconciliation between the feudal lords and 
 the free cities of Lombardy. The name of this mis- 
 sionary is by no means unknown. He was the son of 
 Sir Thomas Trivet, of Norfolk, Chief Justice of the King's 
 Bench ; he was educated at Oxford, and died in 1328. 
 One of his works, -'Annales Sex Regum Angliae," was 
 edited by Ant. Hall, in 1719. f Of his deeds in Italy 
 we have indeed no account in the very numerous bio- 
 graphical sketches collected by the editor at the begin- 
 ning of the said work. It is only stated that he was for 
 
 • Baggiolini, 78-88. 
 
 t Xicholai Triveti, Annal. Sex Regmn Angliae, Edid. Anton. Hall, 
 Oxon. 1719.
 
 APPENDIX. 353 
 
 isome time at the University of Paris, as he informs us 
 himself in his own preface, " Cum aliquando in studio 
 moraremur Parisiensi," &c. Baggiolini* adds, we know 
 not on what authority, that he was there in 1304-, — the 
 very year in which he is described as stirring up the 
 Catholics against Dolcino in the diocese of Vercelli. 
 Still it is difficult to conceive how Baggiolini could even 
 have heard of such a man, and the part Trivet may 
 actually have played in Italian politics and Italian cru- 
 sades may form a fit subject for the lucubrations of 
 English scholars. 
 
 Trivet, then, according to Baggiolini's wonderful tale, 
 had been sent to Lombardy by Barnabas, a general of 
 the Dominician order, a native of VerceUi. He had 
 already endeavoured at Casale to effect a peace between 
 Giovanni III., Marquis of Montferrat, and the free city 
 of Alexandria. Hence, having heard of the terror in- 
 spired by Dolcino and his partisans, he had come to 
 Vercelli, proclaimed there the truce of God, and turned 
 all the energies of a weak, only because discordant, popu- 
 lation against a common enemy. He soon assembled an 
 army of 7,000 combatants. 
 
 At the head of this force, Baggiolini f places one 
 Raineri di Monferrato. Some difficulty arises with 
 regard to this personage, as it is known that the last 
 Marquis Giovanni III. died without male heirs in 1305, 
 and his estates passed to the branch of the Paleologues, 
 by right of female inheritance. Neither in San Giorgio's 
 Chronicle, nor in other historians of Montferrat, nor in 
 Litta's Celebrated Italian Families^, does the name of 
 Raineri occur in the Montferrat pedigree, not at least at 
 
 * Dolcino e i Patareni, p. 114. ; Ki-oue, p. 79. 
 
 t Dolcino e i Patareni, p, 83. 
 
 J Litta, Famiglie Celebri di Italia, art. MonfeiTato. 
 
 A A
 
 354 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 this epoch. On first receiving tidings of so mighty an arma- 
 ment, Dolcino resolved upon withdrawing to the mountain 
 region, where his sectarians eagerly followed him, "in 
 expectation," the same writers continue, "that their chief 
 could, in case of famine, renew the miracle of the loaves 
 and fishes, or turn stones into bread in their behalf." 
 
 Dolcino, however, aimed at effecting his retreat in 
 perfect safety, and with that view he first collected his 
 forces at Gattinara, only leaving a garrison of two hun- 
 dred men in his fort above the Pra' di Cordova, under 
 the order of his brave, trusty Margaret. 
 
 Two emissaries of the English Trivet, probably both 
 of them Englishmen, by name Matthew and Rudolf, 
 possibly sent to convert some of the heretics, were 
 found in Dolcino's camp, and hung as spies and traitors. 
 The people of Vercelli aroused by the fiery words of 
 Trivet, rushed to the castle or gaol where some of the 
 captive heretics were imprisoned : they forced open the 
 doors, and put those helpless creatures — women and 
 children amongst them — to a barbarous death. A high- 
 minded nobleman, Pietro degli Avogadri, in vain stepped 
 between the rabble and the objects of their fury. He 
 was himself struck to the ground with a stone, and it 
 was with the greatest difficulty that his mangled body 
 was rescued by his kinsfolk from the murderers' hands. 
 
 But the townspeople forgot that some of their own 
 prisoners were also in Dolcino's hands. Mad with re- 
 venge, the heresiarch ordered fifty of these to be led 
 forth and strung up like dogs, on as many high posts 
 or stakes in the market square of Gattinara. By such 
 awful reprisals did those ruthless partisans prelude their 
 hostilities. 
 
 It was meanwhile Dolcino's plan to evacuate Gattinara, 
 to cross over to Romagnano (he had thrown a bridge of 
 boats across the stream), and hence by Prato, Grignasco,
 
 APPENDIX. 355 
 
 and Borgosesia, ascend the river on the left bank, as 
 far as Varallo. He would not relinquish his fort on 
 the Pra' di Cordova, but left there Margaret with her 
 200 men, who had all sworn to die sooner than 
 surrender. On the side on which he was marching 
 also, he had left a rearguard, composed of 200 equally 
 devoted men, under the guidance of Ambrogio Sala- 
 mone, who took up his station at a Franciscan con- 
 vent, immediately above Romagnano, lying on a little 
 hill commanding that town, not indeed steep and rugged 
 as Baggiolini describes it, but favourable to ambuscades 
 under cover of its thick woods. The ruins of that con- 
 vent were still extant a few years ago, when the Marquis 
 Caccia, of Novara, built on them a magnificent white 
 Palazzo, a very conspicuous object in the midst of that 
 verdant landscape. 
 
 The Catholic vanguard, 1700 men strong, led by 
 Raineri of Montferrat, marched into Gattinara, which it 
 found ominously lonely and still. They reached the 
 main square, where the ghastly spectacle of those fifty 
 bodies hanging on their gibbets, met their view. Unable 
 otherwise to assuage their rage, for every soul had fled, 
 they vented it upon the houses and chattels of the in- 
 ofl'ensive inhabitants, and it was with the greatest trouble 
 that their leader was able to withdraw them from that 
 work of wanton destruction. He then marched on the 
 track of his foe, crossed over to Romagnano, went 
 past the fatal hill where Salamone lay hid, and pushed 
 forward towards Grignasco where Dolcino had come to 
 a halt. Some of his men threw themselves upon Prato 
 Dolcino's birthplace, lying at a quarter of a mile above 
 Romagnano, and there scattered themselves about the 
 town to burn the house where the heretic was born, and 
 to seek out and slaughter his relations. The whole of 
 the Catholic troops had thus left Romagnano behind it, 
 
 A A 2
 
 356 FRA DOLCIIs^O. 
 
 and had already broken up its ranks, when out rushed 
 Salamone from his hiding-place and suddenly assailed 
 them in the rear. The whole road between Romagnano 
 and Grignasco is hemmed in between the hills and the 
 river, so that the hindmost men of the Catholics, thrown 
 into disorder by that first onset, huddled up to those 
 before them, and the confusion became general. That 
 was the moment Dolcino was waiting for, to attack the 
 foremost ranks in his turn. The massacre became general, 
 and the first body of the Catholics was thus utterly an- 
 nihilated. Raineri of Montferrat, severely wounded, only 
 made his escape good by plunging into the Sesia, which 
 ran then very high, and where many, whose horses were 
 not equally good swimmers, found a watery grave. He 
 came back with many bitter invectives against the cow- 
 ardice and insubordination of his soldiers, whilst these on 
 their own part ascribed all the disasters of the day to the 
 inexperience and inconsiderate haste of their leader. 
 
 Salamone, however, was not content with his signal 
 success. He wandered far and wide in pursuit of the 
 fugitives, and lost sight of the strong position that was 
 entrusted to his care. On his return he found that the 
 enemy had been beforehand with him ; and on attempting 
 to retake his former station by storm, Salamone was 
 repulsed. 
 
 The main army of the Catholics had, in the mean time, 
 reached Gattinara, and there, although disheartened by 
 the news of the loss of its vanguard, was still bent on pur- 
 suing its course, animated by the eloquence of Trivet, 
 who headed the troops, clad in a full suit of armour 
 and bearing the standard of redemption aloft, and by the 
 example of a young hero^ Simone da Colobiano, the 
 same who had taken the hill above Romagnano from 
 Dolcino's lieutenant, and held it against his repeated 
 assaults.* 
 
 * See Appendix L., Simone da Colobiano.
 
 APPENDIX. 357 
 
 The road from Romagnano to Grignasco, and hence 
 into the Valsesia Proper, was thus open to the enemy, 
 at least on the left bank, and Dolcino was now compelled 
 to continue his retreat as far as Varallo ; there also, after 
 a short halt, either unable to find a favourable position, 
 or won by a strong bribe by the people of that town*, 
 he withdrew still further, and only pitched his camp at 
 his friend Milano Sola's house, at Campertogno. t 
 
 On the right bank of the river, meanwhile, Margaret 
 of Trent still held her ground on the foot above the Pra' 
 di Cordova. But one of the Catholics, the Marquis 
 Manfred of Saluzzo, actuated half by religious zeal, half 
 by a certain curiosity and chivalrous spirit of enterprise, 
 eager to see and to take alive a woman whose beauty 
 and valour were already the theme of such high praises, 
 climbed the hill by many a cunning detour, and took that 
 stronghold by surprise, in the night time. All the 
 200 Dolcinians died on the spot, true to their pledge. 
 Margaret alone slipped in the dark through the fingers 
 of the enemy who environed her; and thus, disappointing 
 her conqueror of his most coveted prey, was able through 
 unheard of obstacles to make her way in perfect safety 
 to her lover. 
 
 The Marquis of Saluzzo was originally no friend to 
 the Vercellese. He had come forward in arms to vin- 
 dicate his claims to the inheritance of Montferrat, on the 
 approaching extinction of the reigning dynasty; — we 
 say "approaching," because that bungling Baggiolini 
 seems to have forgotten that the events he describes, 
 took place in ISO^, and that the last Marquis Giovanni 
 III. of Montferrat, only died in January, 1305, and it 
 sounds rather strange that people should cast lots and 
 
 * See Appendix H., Marco Miretti. 
 f See Appendix F., Milano Sola.
 
 3o8 FRA DOLCIKO. 
 
 quarrel about his substance before he was laid in his 
 grave. The difficulties arising from contending claims 
 to the succession of Monferrat, do not seem to have 
 commenced before the death of Giovanni III., and it 
 was then only, in all probability, that Manfred of Saluzzo 
 occupied the disputed territory, 1305, 1306.* Even 
 then he only came forward as an executor of the late 
 Marquis's testament, entered Trino peacefully, and there, 
 in March 1305, he convoked the States General of the 
 Marquisate. There is good reason to believe, that up to 
 March, 1305, Manfred was elsewhere and otherwise em- 
 ployed, and nothing leads us to suppose that he, at 
 any time, in any manner, took an active part in the 
 anti-heretic crusade.f In the teeth of all historical 
 evidence, neverthless, Baggiolini continues, that he had 
 been prevailed upon by Filippone di Langosco and 
 Guido dalla Torre, to forego all personal considerations, 
 and refer his claims to peaceful arbitrament ; that he had 
 even given up Trino which he occupied by might of 
 arms on his first arrival, and had brought his own troops 
 to swell the Catholic ranks. 
 
 These latter, in the mean while, masters of the whole 
 of the lower valley of the Sesia, had pursued Dolcino 
 as far as Varallo, and were preparing to attack him in 
 his last entrenchments at Campertogno. 
 
 The position of the heresiarch was every day becoming 
 more precarious. The eloquence of the English mis- 
 sionary turned the minds and hearts of the Valesians 
 against him. One of his ablest generals, Sagarelli, lay 
 disabled by wounds. Salaraone had given proofs rather 
 of blind impetuous valour, than either of skill or dis- 
 cretion. Dolcino had, however, still about 3000 com- 
 
 * Muratori, Anna!. d'ltaL ad Ann. 1305, 1306. 
 t Irici, Eerum Patriae Tridinens., p. 107-113. See also, San 
 Giorgio, Muletti, &c.
 
 APPENDIX. 359 
 
 batants under his orders, with these he determined to 
 sally forth from Campertogno, and once more to give 
 battle to his pursuers. 
 
 As he had done in previous encounters, he divided his 
 forces into two columns, and gave the command of his 
 right wing to Ambrogio Salamone, and of his left to 
 Longino di Cattaneo ; whilst he himself, with a few 
 chosen men, was ready to fly to the aid of his forces 
 wherever aid might be needed. Cattaneo, who had been 
 highly successful in the first onset, was by a severe 
 wound stopped in the midst of his victorious career. 
 Dolcino stepped forward to the rescue, and on this side 
 his presence for a long time held up the courage of the 
 apostles, and the Catholic confederates yielded ground 
 before them. But on the other, where Salamone had to 
 contend with the young hero, Simone da Colobiano, and 
 with the English enthusiast. Trivet, whose huge crucifix 
 was to be seen everywhere in the thickest of the melee, 
 the fortune of the day declared against the heretics, 
 and the disorderly retreat of Salamone had well-nigh 
 exposed his chief to be surrounded on all sides and com- 
 pelled to lay down his arms. 
 
 At this critical juncture, the fiends of the air, not un- 
 mindful of their friends, raised a heavy storm, with snow, 
 rain, and hail, which, driving furiously against the faces 
 of the Catholic combatants, had the effect of cooling 
 their ardour, and soon darkness and confusion forced the 
 combatants asunder, and put an end to the conflict.* 
 
 Dolcino, unable any longer to take the open field, 
 limited his operations to the fortification of Campertogno. 
 He there established new rites and ceremonies, and 
 attempted to reduce to practice his own forms of apo- 
 stolical worship. He had full leisure for these inno- 
 
 ♦ Baggioliui, p. 105. ; Krone, p. 73. 
 
 A A 4
 
 360 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 vations, for the advanced season had by this time com- 
 pelled the Catholics to slacken in their hostilities. A 
 few had taken up their winter quarters at Varallo ; the 
 greatest number had dispersed and repaired to their own 
 homes in the plain. 
 
 Dolcino, however, who is described bj' Baggiolini as a 
 man of dark melancholy temperament, haunted by re- 
 morse and suspicion, could find no rest even under the 
 friendly roof of his friend Milano Sola. Always appre- 
 hensive of treachery, not deeming the sojourn of Cam- 
 pertogno sufficiently defensible, and mistrustful of the 
 inhabitants, he resolved upon seeking a refuge on the 
 Alps of Valnera. 
 
 From this first place of retirement he is soon made to 
 go over to the Parete Calva, where, Baggiolini avers, the 
 heretics were encamped for two years. In the mean 
 while, the Catholics are disheartened by the departure of 
 the English missionary, who in good sooth, according to 
 Baggiolini and Krone*, had already gone back to Paris in 
 the course of the year ISO^-; and the Catholic chiefs, the 
 Avogadro, Montferrat, and Saluzzo, had once more broken 
 out into fresh dissensions, and abandoned the camp either 
 in pursuit of ambitious schemes or of party and family 
 feuds. The Valsesia was thus left to the defence of its own 
 habitants, and for a long time Dolcino was allowed to 
 have the upper hand. 
 
 The rest of Baggiolini's narrative, as to what took place 
 on the Bare \A'all, and on Mount Zebello^ does not in 
 the main difi^er from the statements we have already 
 quoted from the Historia Dulcini. Only the whole ac- 
 count of these latter campaigns is given in the greatest 
 hurry and in the utmost confusion — a confusion of which 
 the writer himself seems well aware, as he finds it im- 
 
 * Rqggiolini, p. 114.; Krone, p. 79.
 
 APPENDIX. 361 
 
 possible to crowd such a multitude of events in so short 
 a lapse of years.* 
 
 E. The Kector of Serravalle. 
 
 The name of this personage, Autemio, is given by 
 Baggiolinif, and a singularly tragical story is attached 
 to it. Dolcino, he relates, with a few of his followers, 
 came unexpectedly into the neighbourhood of Serravalle, 
 M'here he was looking out for a fit spot for a fortified 
 camp, on his contemplated retreat from Gattinara. Agree- 
 ably to a custom still prevalent in those mountains, where 
 inns, if there are any, are too often of a most wretched 
 description, he took up his quarters at the rector or parish 
 priest's of the village, by whom he was received with 
 great apparent cordiality, and liberally treated with such 
 homely fare as the parsonage afforded. Towards evening 
 Dolcino had retired to rest, and his men had sunk in a 
 state of intoxication, asleep in the court-yard. 
 
 From the first arrival of the heretics, the rector had 
 been meditating treason. There was at a short distance, 
 — at Arona or perhaps at Borgomanero, — Riccardo 
 Tizzoni, one of the proscribed Ghibelines of Vercelli, a 
 man who exercised no sliglit influence on the destinies of 
 his country, a few years later (1309). To him the priest, 
 Autemio, despatched a messenger, showing how great and 
 how easy a prey was within his reach, and what a golden 
 opportunity was offered to him of lending his country an 
 important service, and thereby securing with honour his 
 recall. 
 
 Tizzoni gave a favourable audience to the priest's sug- 
 gestions. He marched in the niglit, and arrived before 
 Serravalle, where the rector, stealing out of his house, 
 
 * Baggiolini, p. 109-112. 
 
 t Dolcino. &c., p. 64— 68. ; lijrone, p. 43—46.
 
 362 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 soon joined him. Under the directions of this latter, the 
 Ghibeline chief so laid out his forces as completely to 
 surround the village and parsonage. He had with him 
 fifty men-at-arms and a handful of infantry — altogether 
 about 200 men. 
 
 Dolcino, however, was not the man to be caught 
 napping. He was up before day-break, aware of the 
 priest's escape, and had even descried the gleam of the 
 enemies' points as they first shone amidst the dense 
 foliage of those hills. He had aroused his companions, 
 entrenched himself behind the fence of the parsonage 
 garden, and previously despatched a messenger to Gatti- 
 nara, summoning Sagarelli, who commanded his main 
 forces there, to fly to his support. 
 
 Tizzoni met thus with a reception he little anticipated. 
 A conflict arose, mortal on both sides, but especially on 
 the part of the assailants, who were more exposed to the 
 enemies' shafts. Towards noon the appearance of Saga- 
 relli at the head of thousands compelled Tizzoni to a 
 hasty retreat. He recrossed the Sesia, and rode back to 
 his former quarters, taking, however, the rector Autemio 
 a captive with him. 
 
 Tizzoni had, almost against his own judgment, departed 
 from a line of policy which was obvious to him as to 
 most Ghibeline partisans, — that of abetting all the enemies 
 of the Church party, were they ever so dark heretics and 
 misbelievers. The consequence had been both serious 
 loss and disgrace to himself. Anxious now to retrieve 
 his error, and to wreak his vengeance on the man who 
 had led him into it, he cast Autemio into irons, and sent 
 him under escort of two of his men to Dolcino, stating 
 that it was quite unwillingly that he had taken up arms 
 against him, acting on the representations of the false 
 priest, who had described the guests at his parsonage as 
 a band of Swiss marauders — such as at the time were
 
 APPENDIX. 363 
 
 wont to infest Italian lands, especially from the Valaig — 
 that for the rest, he (Tizzoni) entertained the greatest 
 regard for Dolcino, whose humblest servant he professed 
 to be (miser et honestus servus — the phrase of the day), 
 in token of which devotion he placed into his hands the 
 author of the evil, Autemio, to be dealt with agreeably to 
 Dolcino's own pleasure. 
 
 Dolcino received the prisoner, gnashing his teeth with 
 anticipated revenge. He uttered some words which were 
 always with him the prelude of some fearful act of re- 
 tributive justice. "With what measure you mete it shall 
 be measured to you again ;" he ordered the hands, ears, 
 and nose of the poor caitiff to be cut off; and with those 
 very words of Scripture written on a large bill on his 
 breast, he turned him out into the wide world. 
 
 The wretched priest dragged himself to Vercelli, where 
 lay and spiritual lords were organising their first expedi- 
 tion against the heretics. Leaving the track of blood all 
 along his way, and like Dante's lost spirit in hell, — 
 
 " Uplifting in the gloom 
 The bleeding stumps, that they with gory spots 
 Sullied his face — " 
 
 he stood before them and told his doleful tale. The 
 tale was not implicitly believed, and his conduct appeared 
 to those severe and perhaps prejudiced judges rather 
 ambiguous and wavering. As the friend and host of 
 heretics, he was laid under the sentence of excommuni- 
 cation, which struck all who harboured and abetted them. 
 It was in vain for him to remonstrate that he had only 
 acted on compulsion, and with a design the better to 
 serve the interests of the Church by delivering her enemies 
 
 * " Levando i moncherin per I'aria fosca 
 Si che il sangue facea la faccia sozza." 
 
 Danxe, Inferno, xxviii. 29—31.
 
 36-1 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 into her hands. The decree had gone forth, and was 
 never revoked. The harshness and obstinacy of the 
 judges created great irritation among the priest's friends 
 and relatives, who were numerous and powerful in those 
 mountains ; many of whom, together with the whole of 
 Autemio's flock at Serravalle, hastened to join the ranks 
 of the heresiarch. 
 
 Tradition has here evidently garbled the narrative of 
 very simple facts. The rector of Serravalle had, as all 
 accounts agree*, fallen in with Dolcino's views, and 
 welcomed him at his house. On Dolcino's retiring into 
 Upper Valsesia, he was pounced upon by the Catholics, 
 who " severely punished him." It is not impossible that 
 the first savage men who arrested him, inflicted upon him 
 that very barbarous treatment which made him an object 
 of horror to all beholders. Being brought before the 
 authorities at Vercelli, he very probably endeavoured to 
 justify his conduct by all manner of pretence and sub- 
 terfuge ; his excuses were not, however, admitted, hence 
 the inexorable sentence of the inquisitors. 
 
 r. MiLAxo Sola. 
 
 Baggiolini states f that this Milano Sola had one of his 
 sons among those twenty-two prisoners who were put to 
 death by the populace at Vercelli, in retaliation for the 
 execution of the two English emissaries or spies of 
 Nicholas Trivet. 
 
 ♦ See, besides the BQstoria Dulcini, Eimella, La Lega dei Valsesiani, 
 p. 85, 86. ; Racconto dell' Introduzione del Eresiarcha Fra Dolcino, &c. 
 t Dolcino, &c., p. 99.
 
 APPENDIX. 365 
 
 As the heretics were marching on Campertogno, Milano 
 Sola, who had knelt at the altar to receive the sacrament, 
 took in his hand the consecrated host that the priest was 
 about to lay on his tongue, and upon that sacred symbol 
 of the greatest of Catholic mysteries, he swore in a very 
 loud and impressive voice, and in awful language, to 
 avenge the cruel death of his son in the heart's blood of 
 his murderers. This implacable old man, who is every- 
 where described as a peasant of great wealth and of some 
 influence in the valley, continued to the very last a staunch 
 friend to Dolcino. He was with him on the Bare Wall 
 and Mount Zebello, always foremost among the com- 
 batants (though other accounts make no particular men- 
 tion of him on the battle>field). Baggiolini* describes 
 him, in the last conflict on Mount Zebello, as grappling 
 in death with a Crusader who had given him his coup de 
 grace, and fastening upon his throat with such a des- 
 perate grasp, that they were both found dead one upon 
 the other ; somewhat after the manner in which Walter 
 Scott paints the death of Balfour of Burley in the last 
 pages of Old Mortality. 
 
 G. Missionaries to Dolcino. 
 
 According to Baggiolinif, who is alone accountable for 
 all the battles that took place near Gattinara and Cam- 
 pertogno, it was to the former place, as the Catholics 
 were preparing to attack him, that they sent him a depu- 
 tation, composed of two clergymen, — names unknown, — 
 
 * Baggiolini, p. 139.; Krone, p. 91. 
 t Dolcino, &c., p. f2-74. ; Krone, p. 49.
 
 366 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 and a nobleman, Arderico Arborio, offering Dolcino, if 
 he would repent and return to the bosom of the Church, 
 not only to grant him full pardon for himself and his 
 followers, but also to take him as a leader of a free corps 
 into the pay of the city of Vercelli. They also promised 
 their mediation to reconcile him with the Pope, to release 
 him from his monastic vows, so as to enable him to live 
 with his Margaret in lawful wedlock. Dolcino answered, 
 lifting up his dagger and battle-axe in the air, that those 
 excellent friends of his had already freed him from any 
 tie he might have contracted in his inexperienced youth. 
 As to his connection with Margaret, he begged them to 
 observe that he at least was satisfied with one companion 
 for life, whilst all the decrees of popes and emperors were 
 inefficient to prevent prelates and monks from having a 
 whole harem about them, and whilst their very mothers 
 and sisters were hardly safe from their unlawful passions. 
 This was said in allusion to an edict of Frederic II., by 
 which clergymen were forbidden from having female 
 relations living under one roof with them. For the rest, 
 Dolcino declared himself ready to lay down his arms, 
 asked nothing for himself, but demanded of the clergy 
 the renunciation of all temporal goods and power. This 
 put an end to the negotiations. 
 
 Thus did the deputation miscarry, and the Catholics, 
 who never were in earnest about it, and rather wished to 
 gain time and put their enemy off his guard than hoped 
 to make any impression upon him, proceeded with their 
 warlike preparations. 
 
 H. Marco Miretti. 
 
 The episode we are now i^bout to relate is by some 
 supposed to have taken place at Campertogno, by some
 
 APPENDIX. 367 
 
 on the Valnera, by some on the Bare Wall. It is, how- 
 ever, too universally admitted by all authorities not to 
 have a ground of truth to stand upon. Rimella, who 
 states that he had found it in a contemporary record he 
 had in his hands, relates it in the following manner* : — 
 
 Dolcino was on the rock of the Parete Calva, and from 
 there laid waste all the Valsesia. The people of this dis- 
 trict, abandoned by their allies of Vercelli and Novara, 
 the latter of whom, by the testimony of Morbio*, had 
 wars in other quarters, after the ill success of the cam- 
 paign of the Podesta of Varallo, Brusati, came to the 
 determination to offer a strong bribe to Dolcino, with a 
 view to persuade him to quit their territory and carry his 
 devastations elsewhere. 
 
 Dolcino, who was already disposed to shift his camp, 
 driven by distress of food, lent a favourable ear to the 
 proposal, and the difficulty was now reduced to the finding 
 of a person who would venture into that dreaded camp, 
 and appear before the redoubted presence of the arch- 
 heretic. In these straits, a young man, by name Marco 
 Miretti, or Miletti (the name of Miretti was known till 
 very late at Campertogno), a native of Camproso, a dis- 
 trict of Campertogno, declared himself willing to take 
 upon himself the risk for the sake of his country. He 
 put on, under plain clothes, a coat of mail, proof against 
 sword and lance, and walked up to the hill, delivered 
 his gold, — a sum of 2000 gold florins, very con- 
 siderable for those times, — and was dismissed with 
 strict injunctions to leave the camp within two hours. 
 There were some cogent reasons, however, why he should 
 not only tarry beyond the prescribed time, but also step 
 aside from the path that led out of the camp. He was 
 
 * Rimella, La Lega de' Valsesiani, p. 93, 94. 
 
 f Morbio, Municipii Italiani, torn, v., Storia di Novara, p. 95.
 
 368 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 thus seen by one of Dolcino's sentinels, who, apprehending 
 some hostile design on his part to acquaint himself with 
 the localities of the camp, shot him with an arrow on the 
 back of the neck. The wound was mortal, but Miretti 
 dragged himself as far as his own home, where he died 
 a saint's death, surrounded by numerous friends, for- 
 giving his enemies, and exhorting all good Christians to 
 fight the heretics a toute outrance. 
 
 Baggiolini* relates the event as taking place at Cam- 
 pertogno, and states that the messengers were sent from 
 Varallo and were two in number, that one of them was 
 killed on the spot, and the other, Marco Miretti, though 
 severely wounded, lived to tell the result of his mission 
 to his friends at home. 
 
 Morbio, as we have seen, says that it was not the Va- 
 rallese, but the municipality of Novara, which, having 
 their hands full of other business, managed to bribe 
 Dolcino off their own territory, heedless of the mischief 
 which, to save themselves, they let loose on the lands of 
 their neighbours. 
 
 Others again contendf that the deputation was sent by 
 the people of Campertogno to Dolcino on the Valnera ; 
 others state that its object was merely to propose an ex- 
 change of prisoners; an object which Dolcino himself had 
 greatly at heart, as he repeatedly offered to give up his 
 captives against as many heads of oxen, sheep, &c. 
 
 It is also added, that Teseo Arboreo and Luca Tornielli, 
 no less than the bishops of Vercelli, obstinately at all 
 times rejected Dolcino's advances : and that in his greatest 
 stress for food, and to spare his prisoners the agony of un- 
 avoidable starvation, he put them to death with the sword ; 
 invariably absolving them, before he sent them out to 
 
 * Baggiolini, p. 106.; Krone, p. 73. 
 
 f Relatione dell' Introdnzione del Eresiai-ca, &c., MS.
 
 APPENDIX. 369 
 
 execution, in his capacity as a high priest, not only from 
 all sins, but also from the excommunication which he 
 himself in the same capacity had launched against them 
 as well as against all his opponents.* 
 
 I. The Thirty Amazons. 
 
 Instead of thirty chosen men, meeting a heroic death in 
 defence of a post intrusted to them by Dolcino, tradition 
 assigns the honour of that exploit to thirty women, armed 
 as warriors and commanded by the intrepid Margaret. 
 It adds also that, far from falling victims to their devo- 
 tion, these fierce heroines drove back the men of Mosso, 
 killing as many as .came too near their formidable 
 weapons.f 
 
 J. Heretic and Catholic Atrocities. 
 
 Those who are familiar with the history of religious 
 wars at all epochs, will readily believe that fanaticism 
 would, in the thirteenth century, lead to deeds of horror 
 on the side of the orthodox, no less than on that of the 
 heretic party. Friends and enemies have equally painted 
 Dolcino as a man of quick resentful disposition. The 
 mere execution of the two English spies caught plotting 
 treason in his camp, and the mutilation of two monks, 
 
 ♦ Baggiolini, p. 108, 109.; Krone, p. 75. 
 
 f Reliizione dell' Introduzione del Eresiarcha Fra Dolcino, Sec. ; 
 also, Baggiolini, p. 116.; Krone, p. 80. The latter are both very 
 positive as to the fact, and quote the authority of Modena's Ilistor. 
 Verceliens. 
 
 B B
 
 370 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 who came on the same errand to Mount Zebello, would 
 be consonant with the usages of war, in all ages and 
 countries. The treatment the Rector of Serravalle is 
 said to have met with at his hands, however barbarous, 
 might, if it were true, hardly be deemed undeserved ; 
 and the fifty men he ordered to be hanged at Gattinara, 
 would only have fallen victims to a retaliation which the 
 inhumanity of the Vercellese themselves had called forth. 
 The death of Marco Miretti cannot be laid to his charge; 
 that unfortunate man only perished in consequence of 
 some untoward accident. Dolcino himself is said* to 
 have been sorely grieved at this mishap, and to have 
 even sent the man or men who had so strictly inter- 
 preted his orders with respect to the two hours' time 
 allowed to Miretti for his departure to Simone da Colo- 
 biano, to be used by him according to his own discretion. 
 For the rest, self-interest no less than humanity, at all 
 times would have prompted Dolcino to show mercy and 
 forbearance to his prisoners, as they were his only re- 
 source against the extremities of famine. We have 
 already seen that he spared no efforts to effect an ex- 
 change of his captives against the provisions he was in 
 urgent need of; and that the cold policy of his adver- 
 saries, to the very last frustrated his best intentions. 
 We are told elsewhere f, that in the greatest stress of 
 hunger, some of Dolcino's companions turned a wistful 
 eye upon their captives, proposing a deed of cannibalism, 
 to which Dolcino firmly denied his consent. It is true, 
 that he afterwards preferred that these prisoners should 
 die by the sword rather than be slowly consumed by 
 want, whereas the most humane course would have been 
 to suffer them to depart ; but we know from recent in- 
 
 * Baggiolini, p. 106, 
 
 f Baggiolini, p. 108.; Krone, p. 75.
 
 APPENDIX. 371 
 
 stances how difficult it is to prescribe a line of conduct 
 to a man under such peculiar difficulties. War has its 
 own terrible exigencies, and Dolcino had to deal with 
 adversaries who shrunk from no means, fair or foul, to 
 bring him to extremities. 
 
 From the top of Mount Zebello, we are also in- 
 formed*, Fra Dolcino rolled down to the feet of his 
 besiegers, the heads he had just severed from the 
 prisoners' busts. He made, be it understood, a parade 
 of his cruelty. He wished to trade for those prisoners, 
 to compel their frionds to ransom them : we may be 
 allowed to believe that, when he perceived the uselessness 
 of those bloody demonstrations, he desisted from them. 
 The mutilation of defenceless persons, and especially of 
 women and children, however they might be excused 
 on the score of the universal barbarity of an age which, 
 deeming life the most precious of all blessings, seemed 
 to think less of the loss of limbs, eyes, nose, &c., would, 
 however, call forth all our indignation, were it not that 
 even those cruelties may be supposed to have been in- 
 flicted by Dolcino, with a view to soften the heart of his 
 enemies, by showing them that the same terrible hand 
 which could thus lop off ears and noses, might also, if 
 goaded by hunger, strike off the heads of those devoted 
 hostages. At any rate, it must not be forgotten, that 
 the charge preferred against him in the Historia Dulcini 
 of having tortured to death an unfortunate woman and 
 her new-born infant f, is by Baggiolini retorted against 
 Dolcino's enemies, the Catholics themselves. He says 
 most distinctly J, that the Crusaders having taken five 
 of the wives of the heretics, hanged them by their feet ; 
 that one of these, in the midst of such horrible tortures, 
 
 * Baggiolini, p. 126. ; Krone p. 84. f Ante, chup. iv. § 21. 
 J Baggiolini, p. 134. 
 
 B B 2
 
 372 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 gave premature birth to a child, and that even dying, she 
 implored the by-standers to give baptism to the new- 
 born creature; that a humane woman who was present, 
 stepped forward to administer the holy rite, but one of 
 the soldiers pushed her back with great harshness, and 
 even harshly struck down the pious hand that held the 
 water of life, lest the offspring of a heretic should be free 
 from punishment, either in this world or in the next. 
 Krone*, probably owing to his imperfect apprehension 
 of Baggiolini's meaning, states that the five wives of 
 the " Patareni " all bore the symptoms of approaching 
 maternity, and that with them were also extinguished 
 the innocent germs they bore in their bosom. All this 
 was done by the immediate order of the aged Bishop 
 of Vercelli. 
 
 K. The Last Conflict. 
 
 The final battle, on the 23rd of March, 1307, lasted all 
 day. The heretics asked no quarter. When struck to 
 the ground, they still fought on their knees. Dolcino, 
 Cattaneo, and a few of their followers, were found in a 
 hole in the rock. Cattaneo was laid on the ground by 
 a heavy stroke; the others were likewise overpowered. 
 The whole hill when it came into the power of the con- 
 querors was found strewn with the bodies of the heretics, 
 long since dead by starvation and already decayed. 
 
 * Krone, p. 86.
 
 APPENDIX. 373 
 
 L. SiMONE DA COLOBIANO. 
 
 The part that this distinguished man may have played 
 in the campaigns against Dolcino, seems, indeed, very 
 problematic matter. According to Baggiolini*, he was 
 born in 1285, and we have seen in an authentic docu- 
 ment that he was still a minor in July 1306. In the year 
 1304, he was, therefore, only in his eighteenth year; but 
 he had already the reputation of one of the oldest 
 generals, no less than stoutest soldiers in his time. In- 
 deed, the Cavaliero Cibrario, an accurate writer, and 
 generally resting on positive prooff, informs us, that 
 Simone was already a warrior of great experience (pro- 
 vatissimo guerriero) in 1301, as he indeed must be, since 
 the Guelphs of Vercelli chose him as their leader when 
 they drove the Tizzoni and their Ghibeline partisans out 
 of their city. He was, however, at that time, in all 
 probability not more than sixteen years old! In 1307, 
 again, as we know from the letter of Clement V. to 
 Philip of FranceJ, he enjoyed sufficient authority to 
 presume to write to the pontiff, urging the claims of his 
 kinsmen, the Bishop of Vercelli and the other Avogadri, 
 to indemnity for the losses they had incurred in conse- 
 quence of their efforts against Dolcino. A presumption 
 on his part which was well grounded on the eminent 
 services he had performed in behalf of the Guelph or 
 Church party. Whether Simone himself ever actually 
 took arms against the heresiarch, in the year 1304, and 
 performed all the prodigies of valour attributed to him 
 by Baggiolini, we have no means to ascertain. His 
 
 * Baggiolini, p. 172-178.; Krone, p. 63, 64. 
 t Storia del Contc Rosso, c Frammenti Storici ; Vercelli, il vcr- 
 cellcsc c rOssola, Turin, 1851, p. 177. 
 I At}te, chap. v. § 2.
 
 374 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 name certainly occurs in no other version of Dolcino's 
 history. Only amongst the MS. Biscioni, in the Archive 
 of Vercelli (vol. ii., fol. 34 retro, and vol. iii., fol. 103), 
 we found a deed, dated July 19th, 1306, in which the 
 City of Vercelli makes Simone a donation of a place 
 called II Borghetto near the Po, and its territory, in 
 return for one hundred and fifty livres of Pavia, which 
 the said Simone had lent to the community of Vercelli, 
 to enable it to pay the soldiers encamped against the 
 heretics on the trenches at Tivero. The circumstance 
 of Simone being yet a minor is expressly noticed in the 
 deed. Other remunerations to persons who signalised 
 themselves in the same campaigns against the Cathari, 
 equally occur in the Biscioni MSS. In 1306, at least, 
 Simone was, therefore, to all appearance no longer in the 
 camp of the Crusaders. 
 
 M. James de Quaregna. 
 
 Baggiolini* does not hesitate to assert that this leader 
 of the Crusaders from Vercelli, was killed in that en- 
 counter which, we have seenf, took place on the 1st of 
 May, 1306, on Mount Zebello, when the Catholics were 
 decoyed into Dolcino's fort by a stratagem of the here- 
 siarch. But the author of the Historia DulciniJ, names 
 James de Quaregna, together with his kinsmen Peter de 
 Quaregna and Thomas de Casanova, as forming part of 
 the deputation which was sent to Pope Clement V., in 
 France, after the 23rd of March of the following year. 
 
 * Baggiolini, p. 126. ; Ki'oue, p. 84. f Ante, chap. iv. § 15. 
 f Ante, chap, v, § 1.
 
 APPENDIX. 375 
 
 And yet the latter-named writer was describing what 
 fell under his own observation ; he wrote evidently with 
 a view to flatter the Bishop of Vercelli and his kindred 
 the Avogadri, and he must have known whether one of 
 the leaders of the crusade had fallen in the war, or 
 had rather survived to bring the Pope tidings of the 
 victory. 
 
 N. Papal Munificence. 
 
 A letter of Pope Clement V., dated August 30th, 1307, 
 is quoted by Rimella*, but without assigning the sources 
 from which he derived it, by virtue of which that Pontiff 
 as a reward to all the distinguished families of Vercelli, 
 No vara, and the Valsesia, who had displayed the greatest 
 zeal and valour in the crusade against Dolcino, he con- 
 fers upon all of them and their descendants the titles of 
 Knights and Counts of the Holy Church, with all the 
 honours and privileges appertaining to that rank. The 
 Bull gives the names of all the illustrious houses thus 
 honoured, and enumerates all the signal advantages ac- 
 cruing to them from this distinction. By way of a pre- 
 lude to pontifical bounty, the Pope " confirms all the 
 said families in the estates, lands, &c. already in their pos- 
 session," 
 
 O. The Execution. 
 
 By some M'ritersf , Margaret is said to have been made to 
 stand by, a witness to all the suff'erings of Dolcino, at Ver- 
 
 * Rimella, Lega de' Valsesiani, p. 115 — 117. See also Morbio 
 Storia del Mnnicipii Itahani, vol. v, ; Storia di Novara, p. 98. 
 f Baggiolini, p. 144.; Krone, p. 90, 91.
 
 376 FRA DOLCINO. 
 
 celli ; tiien to be removed to Biella, where her own doom 
 awaited her. The death-knell of Dolcino was told by a 
 famous bell of Vercelli,nanied "La CampanadeH'Orenga." 
 One of the by-standers, a nobleman, was ill-advised enough 
 to strike Margaret in the face, as she was led to execution. 
 The populace, already affected with strong sympathy in 
 her behalf, well-nigh tore the cowardly offender into 
 pieces. The ashes of the heretics were strewn into the 
 sands of the Cervo. 
 
 P. Campo DoLCiNa 
 
 At the foot of the Splugen Pass, on the Road to Chia- 
 venna, in Valtellina, there is a spot bearing the name 
 of Campo Dolcino. It is not impossible that the Heretic 
 leader may have sojourned there at the time of his first 
 wandering from Trent into the mountains of Milan and 
 Como, previous to his escape into Dalmatia in 1303. Our 
 endeavours to procure some evidence to that effect, have 
 however been unavailing. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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