without the bond of outward obedience. As Dolcino uniformly opposed the inward power and desecularization of religion, to its externalization and conformity to the world, in the corrupt church, so he undervalued the importance attached to consecrated places of worship. "A church," he is reported to have said, " is no better for prayer to God, than a stable or a sty.2 Christ may be worshipped as well or even better in groves than in churches." It is clear that the above principle and tendency must have led him to depart in a great many other ways from the church doctrine, than his unsettled life and prevailing practical bent allowed him liberty to express with consciousness; unless it be the fault of the records which we follow, that we have but a very imperfect knowledge of Dolcino's principles in their logical coherence. Dolcino taught, again, that the church of Rome, by reason of her apostasy and of the prevailing vices among ecclesiastics and monks, had lost all the authority conferred on her in the person of the apostle Peter. This was transferred to the community which restored the Apostolical life, and was to be a refuge for all truly Christian people. The Apostolical Peter, of Lugio, made a distinction betwixt the spiritual and the carnal church (ecclesia spiritualis et carnalis). The former consists of those who live in perfect poverty and humility, and in spiritual obedience to God; but the second, of those who live in fleshly lusts, riches, and honor, in the pomp and glory of the world, like the prelates of the church of Rome. If the representation given by opponents of Dolcino's doctrine is correct, he announced that after the corrupt church had been deprived of her wealth by some king whom God would choose as the instrument of the judgments to be brought upon her, and reduced back to apostolical poverty, the Roman pope and the incorrigible prelates were to be slain, and a new holy pope, the worthy successor of Peter, to be chosen by God himself, and this was to be Dolcino, should he be then living.3 Unquestionably, it follows from the supposition that the Apostolical brethren represent the restored apostolical church, to which is transferred all the plenitude of the Holy Ghost that distinguished the apostolic age, to which passes over the entire authority bestowed on Peter; from this supposition it unquestionably follows that their divinely commissioned leader must hold the first place; that, namely, which was before occupied by the pope, yet with the modification growing out of the nature of free obedience, of the brotherly community, the universal outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It is manifest from Dolcino's doctrine as thus set forth, that Joachim's idea of the period of the Holy Ghost harmonizes with it; though 1 Omnes invicem sine vinculo exterioris obedientiae, sed interioris tantum subjecti et uniti. 2 Muratori, t. ix, f. 457. The latter is stated, however, only in the Historia Dolcini in Muratori. According to the Additamentis, which are more accurate in their representation of Dolcino's doctrine, Dolcino distinguishes himself from this pope; and the supposition that he declared himself to be this pope, may have been nothing more than a false conclusion of his enemies. none of the older contemporary sources ascribe to him this idea.' According to Dolcino's doctrine, also, the last period might be called a time of the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as the distinguishing characteristic of this period was to be the free inspiration by the Holy Spirit, in the Apostolical brethren and sisters, of a life no longer depending, as before, on outward means and ordinances, but purely producing itself from within outwards. We may also mention as a thing deserving notice, that the great poet, Dante, a contemporary, compares Dolcino with Mohammed. He composed his work after Dolcino's death; but he transports himself back to the time when the heresiarch was besieged in those inaccessible mountains covered with snow and ice, where starvation appeared the only method of forcing him to submission. He represents Mohammed therefore as telling Dante, that he might warn brother Dolcino to look out and provide himself well with the means of subsistence; for otherwise he would soon be compelled to yield, and come down to Mohammed in hell. The question is, what led Dante to bring these two personages together? No doubt, because he looked upon him as a false prophet, determined to assert his pretended divine mission with the sword, and had heard of the doctrine of a community of wives, which was imputed to Dolcino by his opponents, and the like. But a certain truth lies at bottom of this comparison, different as these individuals were in other respects. In both, we find a true element of religious enthusiasm, though perverted by the intermingling of natural feelings not controlled, and an imagination not held in curb by the divine life. Both had a partial view of truth in one of its aspects, as opposed to prevailing errors. In the case of Mohammed, enthusiasm for the faith in one Almighty God stood abruptly opposed to polytheism; in the case of Dolcino, enthusiasm for a religious community, estranged from the world, stood abruptly opposed to a worldly church. Both meant, at first, to labor simply as prophets, simply by the word; but afterwards fell into the mistake of appealing to the sword in the defence of truth. In the case of Mohammed, success hurried him on to further steps; in that of Dolcino, it was necessity. Yet in Mohammed, this course of proceeding was certainly grounded in his whole religious mode of thinking, which was an incarnation of Judaism. In Dolcino, it was adopted, in contradiction to the principles originally 1 Notices of heretics of a later time in the French language, which are to be found in the libraries of Avignon and Marseilles, attribute to Dolcino that whole doctrine about the three ages, or periods. But these surely are no credible sources of information, since we find Dolcino confounded in them with the Fratricelli of the fourteenth century. I am indebted for this account to the kind communications of M. G. Heine of this city, one of my dear young theologians, who has for some years consecrated his means and talents to literary investigations, particularly in the libraries VOL. IV. of Spain, from which a rich harvest may be expected in due time. The same friend has also sent me a historia Dolcini transcribed by him, which, however, is not different from the one already published by Muratori. 54 2 The words in the 28th canto of the Inferno, v. 55. Or di a Fra Dolcin dunque, che s' armi, laid down by him. Yet, as he was bent on realizing at once, in the form of an outward community, overlooking, with enthusiastic love, the great gulf betwixt his purpose and its accomplishment, an idea which Christianity would realize by moral spirit and temper in the very process of that historical development which proceeds in conformity with nature, so by this externalization and secularization of a thing that was only to be seized ideally and spiritually, he was hurried along farther and farther in the same course of secular action. Ideas which have once acquired in a period a certain domination, are wont to lay hold of manifestations proceeding from some entirely different quarter, merely furnishing them a point of attachment; and to stamp their signature upon fanatical tendencies, which happen to meet and mingle with them, assuming in the same some strange, fantastic shape. Thus we may instance, as illustrating the power which the idea of the age of the Holy Ghost exerted on the minds of men in the thirteenth century, a sect otherwise unimportant, which sprung up in the last times of this century in Milan. In the year 1281, a rich widow of noble rank, died in Milan, Wilhelma, or Wilhelmina, said to have been a Bohemian princess. Having spent in that city the last twenty or thirty years of her life, she secured the love and respect of many by her piety, and especially by her active charities. A circle of men and women, who had placed themselves under her guidance, and were advised and helped by her in their necessities, had become strongly attached to her. She was reverenced as a saint, insomuch that the sick applied to her for healing. Already in her lifetime she began to be made an object of extravagant, fanatical veneration; though such demonstrations were never sanctioned by herself, but repelled with abhorrence: but this veneration was not to be suppressed in that way; on the contrary, it increased so much the more after her death. A citizen of Milan, Andrew Saramita, who seems to have united in himself the characters of impostor and fanatic, undertook to work upon this feeling. The body of Wilhelmina, which had been already buried, was disinterred. Having first been bathed in water and wine, it was enwrapped in costly purple robes, fringed with silver and gold. To the water in which the body had been washed, the bewildered enthusiasts ascribed a miraculous virtue; over the recent grave of Wilhelmina they erected a magnificent altar, and pilgrims flocked in great numbers to the spot. It was not enough to honor Wilhelmina as a saint. The veneration exceeded all bounds; the spirit of dissatisfaction and opposition with the dominant church was doubtless connected with it. In Wilhelmina, it was pretended, the Holy Spirit had become incarnate. After the worship of the incarnation of the Divine Word in Christ, was to follow the worship of the Holy Spirit incarnate in Wilhelmina. A new age of the Holy Ghost was to begin. The ancient hierarchy, at whose head stood the vicar of Christ, was to cease; a new female hierarchy, corresponding to the incarnation of the Holy Spirit in a woman, at whose head stood a vicar of Wilhelmina, as the incarnate Holy Spirit, was to take its place. For the PERSECUTION OF HERETICS BY THE CHURCH. 639 present, this place was filled by the nun Mayfreda of Tirovano. In the year 1300 this sect was put down by force, and those who stood at the head of it perished at the stake.' Since then, as appears evident from the facts above presented, the church had now to engage in a violent contest with tendencies of spirit, struggling in opposition to her, continually multiplying and continually spreading, a contest such as had never occurred before, she must be driven (in case she would concede nothing to religious needs manifesting themselves with such power, but was determined to maintain her position against all opposition) to employ every means at her command for the purpose of suppressing an insurrection which could not be put down by spiritual might alone. Those principles of ecclesiastical law, on the ground of which all violent measures against heresies could be justified, had, indeed, long since been shaped out on the foundation laid by Augustin; and the systematic theologians of the thirteenth century needed, in the present case, only to build further on the same foundation. But the bishops were too busily occupied with other concerns to ferret out, in all quarters, the sects which, with so much zeal and so much prudence, sought to spread themselves in the communities; and in many districts, where the anti-churchly spirit had already become too powerful, they were no longer regarded in the communities with the requisite respect. This was especially the case in South France, in Languedoc, in the territory of the counts of Toulouse; districts where also at a later period Protestantism gained a wide spread, and sought to maintain itself in a sanguinary struggle,where the opponents of the dominant church found protection from mighty lords, and the localities of a mountainous region afforded them safe retreats. The clergy, and the church service had here, ever since the last times of the twelfth century, been treated with contempt and ridicule. A characteristic proof of this was the colloquial phrase used in these districts to express a supreme feeling of disgust: "I would rather be a chaplain than that." By mere chance, the sects scattered in South France2 received the common name of Albigenses from one of the districts, where the agents of the church who came to combat them, found them mostly to abound,3-the district around the See the extracts from the trial preserved in the Ambrosian library in the literary tour to Italy, of the Bohemian historiographer, Franz Palacky. Prague, 1838, p. 72, and on. The man who during the crusades against the Albigenses wrote in verse in the Provençal language the history of this war, published by Fauriel, in the Collection des documens inédits sur l'histoire de France, Paris, 1837, says, that the sects were thick ly spread throughout the whole province of Alby, Carcassone, Laurae, in a great part of the province of Beziers as far as Bourdeaux-la eretgia | Era tant fort monteia cui domini Dieus maldia | Que trastotz Albeges (absolutely all, the appended adverb tras gives a superlative signification to the adjective tous), avia en sa bailia | Carcasses, Lauragues, tot la major partia | De Bezers tro a Bordel si col cami tenia (as far as the way goes), A motz de lor crezens e de lor companhia (many of their faith and of their party). In the above-mentioned poem, v. 30, et seq. 3 In the Histoire générale de Languedoc, published by the Maurins, an important work in reference to the history of these struggles (t. iii, A. D. 1737), it is asserted, in connection with that inquiry concerning the origin of the name Albigeois, which first threw more light on this subject (note xiii, f. 553), that the heretics were by no means particularly spread over this district, and 640 TRIBUNALS AGAINST HERETICS IN SOUTH FRANCE. town of Alba, or Alby; and by this common name they were known from the commencement of the thirteenth century.1 Under this general denomination parties of different tenets were comprehended together, but the Catharists seem to have constituted a predominant element among the people thus designated. Innocent the Third, a pope accustomed to act in all cases with vigor, well understood that extraordinary measures were needed to suppress the heretical tendencies so rapidly advancing, which threatened wholly to sever the connection betwixt these districts and the church of Rome. As the bishops, who were here even looked upon with contempt, had shown themselves too weak or too inactive, he chose for his instruments the monks, an order in which the most faithful, zealous, and active organs of the hierarchy were ever to be found, and in whose hands was already placed an exorbitant power independent of the bishops, the germ of the future inquisitions. At the very commencement of his papal reign, in 1198, he sent to South France two Cistercians, Rainer and Guido, whom he recommended to the bishops and magistrates of those districts, calling upon them to sustain them in their labors in all possible ways. These monks, on whom the pope conferred unlimited powers to proceed against the heretics, were to endeavor to convince them, by argument, of their errors, and if they did not succeed in this way, to pronounce the ban upon them. The nobles and magistrates should then expel the obstinate from the country, having first confiscated their goods; and if they ventured to come back again, they were to be visited with still severer punishments. The same punishments were suspended over all who dared to harbor the heretics as over the heretics themselves. These papal delegates were authorized to employ ban and interdict for the purpose of enforcing obedience to the appointed measures. But to those who, in the case of so great a danger threatening the church, contended against the heretics with fidelity and devotion, employing the power of the sword bestowed on them by God for the preservation of the faith, the pope promised the same indulgence which was granted to pilgrims to the tomb of St. Peter, or to St. Jago di Compostella. It is curious to observe the strange medley, not uncommon, indeed, nor new to this age, of juridical, ethical, and religious ideas in the way in which the pope proceeds to justify the severity of these measures for suppressing the heretics, when he says that these sects sought to rob men, not of their earthly goods, but of the spiritual life; for he who deprives a man of faith, robs him of his life, since the just man lives by his faith.2 that it was not this which had occasioned the more general use of that name; but the above-cited words of the Provençal poet prove the contrary. The words in the dedication, addressed to the pope, in the so-often cited Chronicle of the monk Peter of Vaux-Sernai: Unde sciant, qui lecturi sunt, quia in pluribus hujus operis locis Tolosani et aliarum civitatum et castrorum haeretici et defensores eorum generaliter Albigenses vocantur, eo quod aliae nationes haereticos Provinciales Albigenses consueverint appellare. Nec volumus ipsos aegre ferre aliquatenus, si eos ad id exequendum tam districte compelli praecipimus, cum ad nil amplius intendamus, uti severitatis judicio, quam ad exstirpandos haereticos, qui non nobis substantiam temporalem, sed spiritualem vitam surripere moliuntur; nam qui |