BERTOLLO di ROHRBAUCH. — A layman who lived in the first half of the 14th century, burned at Speyer in 1356 by order of the Inquisition. A fanatical follower of the false mysticism professed by the sect of the Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit, he had sought to spread its strange ideas in Würzburg and elsewhere. Denounced to the Inquisition, he first recanted his false doctrines, but soon relapsed and was condemned. The sources do not always agree in outlining the lines of his doctrine. He seems to have taught the existence of beings illuminated by God who, though not priests, can preach the word of the Lord and transubstantiate bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
BIBL.: I. Trittemius, Annales Hirsagueneses, II, St. Gall 1690, pp. 231-32; J. L. Mosheim, De beghardis et begnainibus commentariis, Leipzig 1790, p. 325 sqq. Settimio Cipriani.