Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe

VIII THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS AND VOLUNTARY POVERTY

VIII THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS AND VOLUNTARY POVERTY The devotional movements of the early thirteenth century are particularly striking in their variety and in their tendency to exist always on the margins of ecclesiastical approval. Some dissenting groups remained outside the pale of orthodoxy, while others-the Humiliati for instance-managed to stay just inside the boundaries the legitimacy, at least as those boundaries were defined by ecclesiastical authorities. One of the most distinctive features of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as the last chapter may have suggested, is the increasingly systematic character of ecclesiastical authority, which was not always careful in defining the difference between the varieties of search for an authentic spiritual life and the point at which that search either became heterodox or disobedient. Often it was the changing definitions of ecclesiastical authorities, rather than the changing character or beliefs of religious groups, that moved the boundary between legitimate membership in the Church and heterodox belief. Perhaps the most dramatic episode in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Church history in this respect was the growth and persecution of the Spiritual Franciscan movement, the subject of this chapter. But to see that movement in a clearer light, it is necessary to examine briefly other devotional movements of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries that encountered similar, if less drastic, resistance from authority. One of the most vigorous movements of the search for apostolic life in the twelfth century was that of lay women who began, in Flanders and France, to establish religious communities belonging to no order and to live there collectively, earning their livings by labor. There were several of these groups, [ 235 1 [ 236 1 Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe one of the most notable of which congregated around Mary of Oignies at Liege early in the thirteenth century. Jacques de Vitry, the great preacher and historian, became an advocate of such groups as Mary's, and praised them and circulated his praises widely: For you have seen and rejoiced, in the lily gardens of the Lord, many bands of holy virgins in different places who, spurning carnal pleasures for the sake of Christ and condemning the riches of the world for desire of the Kingdom of Heaven, cleave to the heavenly bridegroom in poverty and humility and seek their slender fare by the work of their hands, although their families have abundance. The Beguines' renunciation of family wealth and marriage, their active laboring to support themselves, and the devotional strength of their communities attracted the praise of others besides Jacques de Vitry in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Primarily an urban phenomenon, the Beguines, who are unable to find monasteries which will receive them, live together in a single house ... under the discipline of one who excels the others in integrity and foresight. They are instructed in manners and letters, in vigils and prayers, in fasts and various torments, in manual work and poverty, in self-effacement and humility.... [They1live in profound poverty, having naught else but what they can acquire by spinning and working with their hands, content with shabby clothes and modest food. The independence of the Beguines and the general ecclesiastical concern over varieties of individual devotion and their propensity to turn into heresy generated objections to their way of life among both clergy and laity. Even Jacques de Vitry had to defend them against some of these accusations early in the thirteenth century. Later in the century they suffered from some of the opprobrium that had begun to attach to the Mendicant Orders, being denounced as hypocrites and secret sinners. In fact, in Provence, members of the spiritualist movement in the Franciscan Order were called Beguins. They fell under stricter censures for their lack of affiliation with any recognized order. The Council of Vienne in 1312 issued stringent criticisms of such ways of life, and the decretal Cum de qUibusdam mulieribus banned their activities outright, although it left an escape clause that many Beguines and female members of the Franciscan Order took advantage of. The decretal caused considerable disruption in the Beguines' religious communities. One of the best examples of invective against Beguines is contained in the biography of the German mystic Ruysbroeck in an account of the doctrines of a Beguine Spiritual Franciscans and Voluntary Poverty [237 1 named "B1oemardinne" of Brussels. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, pious communal groups of laypeople were the targets of frequent...