The Spiritual Franciscans: From Protest to Persecution in the Century After Saint Francis

10 Southern France: Four Case Histories

BY THE END OF 1318, the spirituals’ situation had changed dramatically. The pope had decided, and he had done so in a way that made further resistance equivalent to heresy. Since this turn of events meant triumph for the community and defeat for the spirituals, one might consider it the end of our story. Few stories ever end completely, though. The community soon discovered that its victory bore a huge price tag, and the spirituals found themselves presented with more options than simple capitulation to their superiors. Spirituals, Beguins, and Inquisitors We begin with the aftermath in southern France. Here, the task of dealing with recalcitrant spirituals had fallen into the hands of inquisitors, and it is mainly from inquisitorial documents that we gain a picture of what happened next. By the time Michel Le Moine had berated and then burned the four holdouts at Marseilles, the others had returned to obedience. In time, though, some Southern France Four Case Histories T E N THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS of the latter began to rethink their options, and for a variety of reasons. We can infer from comments in later inquisitorial processes that some felt pangs of conscience; that the superiors to whom they returned could be vindictive; and that some continued to keep an anxious eye on Michel Le Moine. Michel, they feared, had not forgotten them (and in fact he had not). Eventually a number of French spirituals followed the example already offered by their Tuscan brethren and continued their defiance as fugitives. By the end of 1319, we find Michel Le Moine writing to the inquisitor of Tuscany with the announcement that certain of the friars who had abjured at Avignon had since returned to their error and were at large.1 Better yet, we have an earlier report of the farewell note some of them left behind.2 They announce that they are leaving “not the order but the walls; not the habit but the cloth; not the faith but its shell; not the church but the blind synagogue; not a shepherd but a devourer.” They predict that after John’s death “we and our companions who are now suffering persecution by Christ’s adversaries will come forth and bear away the victory.” It seems that the inquisitors still had a great deal to do. Once they found themselves at large, these escapees would have had little chance of survival if they had not been supported. The close ties between French spirituals and the urban laity already had born fruit in the support that cities such as Narbonne and Béziers had given the spirituals against their leaders prior to and immediately after John XXII’s election.3 Raymond Barrau, writing two decades later, claims that the bishop, the cathedral chapter—in fact, the whole city of Béziers—backed the spirituals.4 In Narbonne, as late as February 1317 the consuls of the bourg publicly affirmed their solidarity with their local Franciscans, emphasizing that they went to their church regularly to hear masses and pray for those family members who were buried there.5 Once John had clarified his stand, residents of those cities had to make hard choices. The sort of open, corporate support once given the spirituals no longer seemed possible. Nevertheless, inquisitorial records suggest that a surprising number of townspeople continued to aid the fugitive friars by hiding them and attempting to transport them out of France. Soon the protectors too became targets. On October 14, 1319, three lay supporters were burned at the stake in Narbonne.6 More would follow as the investigations spread across a good deal of Languedoc and down into Catalonia. We encounter these remarkable people under the worst possible conditions. They are under examination, and their interrogators include some of the most famous inquisitors of the period. One is Bernard Gui, well known to readers of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. Gui’s Practica inquisitionis, a manual for inquisitors, includes a very full section on this group. In at least one series of 214 SOUTHERN FRANCE: Four Case Histories investigations, Gui is assisted by Jacques Fournier, bishop of Pamiers and future Pope Benedict XII, whose investigations into heretical activity in his own diocese provided the raw material for Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s Montaillou, one of the few serious historical studies to become a best-seller. The interrogators want what interrogators always want in...