FRATICELLI. - Name given to a sect that formed at the beginning of the 14th century and lasted until the second half of the 15th century. The name, in itself a diminutive of the word frati, took on a heterodox meaning with the bull Sancta Romana of 30 Dec. 1317 (Bull. Franc., V, p. 134), by which John XXII condemned the Spirituals who had not submitted to the pontifical decisions on Franciscan poverty. Other names used in the same bull are
"frati of the poor life," "bizzocchi" and "beghini," of which the last two, also in use earlier, then designated the lay adherents of the sect. To distinguish the heretical F. from the other non-heretical ones, the name "F. of the opinion" came into use, so called because they held the "opinion" that John XXII, with his decretals on the poverty of Christ and the Apostles, had become a heretic and that his successors and the bishops who had accepted them would have lost all jurisdiction, which resided solely in the F. who formed the true Church.
As for the origin of the sect, there was great confusion almost until modern times. At the end of the 15th century Giacomo Filippo da Bergamo (Suppl. Chronic., at the year 1298) names as author of the sect Ermanno Puncilobo (Pungilupi), falsely venerated as a saint at Ferrara and in 1301, by command of Boniface VIII, exhumed as a heretic. In the year 1299 he counts among the F. of the opinion the adherents of the sect of the spirit of liberty. In the 17th century the Irish Franciscan Antonio Hiquey, under the pseudonym Dermicius Thadci, published Nitela Franciscanae Religiones et abterris sordina quibus cum conspurcare frustra tentusit Abrahamus Boonius (Lyons 1627), to demonstrate that the F. drew their origin from Puncilobo and were renewed by the Apostolics of Gerardo Segarelli and of Dolcino da Novara, by the sect of the free spirit and by other similar ones, followed in this by Wadding (at the year 1297, n. 30), by Manai (Miscellanea, III, pp. 303-67) and by other authors down to the last century.
Against all these, Cardinal F. Ehrle victoriously demonstrated that the sect derives from the ancient Spirituals condemned by John XXII.
The sect spread in Greece, and even in Persia; some trace of it is found in Bohemia, in Catalonia and in Provence (in these last two countries it was especially the lay bizzocchi who called themselves of the Franciscan Third Order), but their field of action was principally Italy, where the religious and political circumstances of the times, such as the Avignon exile of the papacy, the Western Schism and the politics of the Communes often in conflict with that of the Church, favored their expansion and tolerance. From inquisition trials, pontifical bulls and other documents and texts it is clear that the F. were numerous in the Papal State and in Rome itself (S. Giovanni ante portam Latinam), in the Abruzzi, where Cola di Rienzo encountered them and was deceived by them with false prophecies, in Umbria, in the Marches, in Tuscany, in Calabria and in Sicily.
They lived in secluded places, near rural chapels and in the woods, wore the habit of the Friars Minor and were organized like them, that is, in provinces, with a general at their head, at least in the middle of the 14th century. But afterward other groups formed, and some claimed to observe the rule of St. Augustine, as results from a trial held at Città di Castello in 1361. Some even had a pope and bishops of their own. On the whole it may be said that these heretics lacked a single organization. They lived on alms and preached their errors to adherents among whom there were also nobles. They secretly visited their faithful and celebrated their religious rites at night in hiding places, which according to some inquisitorial trials degenerated into orgies (Bariletto); but not all historians admit the reliability of the relevant testimonies. Certain, however, is the immorality of the fratricello Paolo Zoppo tried at Rieti in 1334, who confesses to have borrowed his practices from the "rite of Spoleto."
In frequent manifestos to all Christendom and to individual cities (Rome, Narni) and personalities (Giovanni dalle Celle), they try to prove their orthodoxy, but in truth they show themselves to be at least schismatics. In the Gliotium ecclesium of 23 Jan. 1318 (Bull. Franc., V, p. 137), by which the Tuscan spirituals who had fled to Sicily are condemned, who from that moment must be counted among the F., five different errors concerning the Church, the Sacraments and oaths are expressly reproached to them.
Not a few Catholic writers of the time combated the sect with their writings, such as Andrea Richi (1381), Manfredo da Vercelli, St. James of the March, St. John of Capistrano, St. Antoninus of Florence and Giovanni dalle Celle. Numerous are the pontifical bulls against the F., especially in the 14th century, and the inquisitors proceeded vigorously against them. To the combatants there contributed not a little the nascent regular observance of the Franciscan Order, which demonstrated by facts that the Franciscan Rule could be observed within the bosom of the Church. Bl. Paoluccio da Trinci around 1382 publicly confuted them at Perugia; the Observants occupied several convents of the F. in the Marches and elsewhere. In 1386 Sts. John of Capistrano and James of the March were appointed inquisitors against the sect, and under Nicholas V several F. went to the stake at Fabriano. The last inquisitorial trial took place at Rome in the years 1466-67 against a group of F. of Maiolati (Marches) and Poli (Lazio), who with their adherents had gone on pilgrimage to Assisi for the pardon of 2 August, where they were recognized, captured, brought to Rome and shut up in Castel S. Angelo. On the occasion of this trial, in which some ladies of noble houses were also involved, several treatises (unpublished) on the sect were written, which then disappears from history. According to Giacomo Filippo da Bergamo alone, who wrote toward the end of the 15th century, at the year 1298, he writes that in his time there still existed conventicles of the sect in some hidden places and in certain valleys.
Finally, toward the middle of the 15th century there are found some F. free from errors, living under the jurisdiction of the bishops. They are called in the Marches and in Umbria "poor hermits" with or without the addition "of the society of fra' Angelo da Chiarino"; and at Savona instead in 1455 they bear the name of "e" or "poor apostles" (Bull. Franc., new series, II, p. 57 ff.).
BULL. Bull. Franc. V-VII, new series, I-II. Rome-Quaracchi 1898-1939; G. Gatzanni, Memorie ecclesiastiche della b. Chiara di Rimini, Rome 1755, pp. 131-64 and 318 ff.; E. Balusius, J. D. Manai, Miscellanea, I, Lucca 1761, pp. 481-84; II, ibid., 1761, pp. 509-610; [A. Dressel], Vier Documents aus römischen Archiven, Leipzig 1843, pp. 1-48 (Roman trial of 1466); mons., Storia di fra' Michele Minorita come fu arno in Firenze nel 1369, ed. F. Zambrini, Bologna 1864; ed. F. Flora, Florence 1942; G. Vanzolini, Lettera de' F. a tutti i cristiani, Bologna 1865; A. Wesselsky, Il Paradiso degli Alberti, I, ibid. 1869, pp. 334-45; Lett. di Gio. dalle Celle contro i F., pp. 356-67; their reply: Fr. Ehle, Die Spiritanten, ihr Verhältnis zum Franziskanerorden und zu den Fratricellen, in Archiv für Literaturund Kirchengeschichte, 4 (1888), pp. 1-100; L. Puni, Erstizi e ribelli nell'Umbria del 1320 al 1330, in Bull. della r. dep. di storia patria per l'Umbria, 3 (1897) - 5 (1899), with many documents, omitted in the separate edition of Todi (1916); P. Gividali, Il b. Giovanni dalle Celle (R. Acc. dei Lincei, 5th series, meric. XII, pp. 353-477), Roma 1907, pp. 9-120 (cf. 47-54); L. Oliger, Documenta inedita ad historiarum fratriceliorum spectantia, Quaracchi 1913; id., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Spiritanten, Fratricellen und Clarener in Mitelitalien, in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 45 (1926), pp. 215-22; id., Acta inquisitoris Umbriae Fr. Angeli de Assisi... contra Fraticellos aliusque a. 1361, in Arch. Franc. hist., 24 (1931), pp. 63-90; J. Pou y Marti, Visionarios, Requinos y Fraticeles Catalanes (siglos XIII-XV), Vich 1930; D. L. Douie, The nature and the effect of the heresy of the F., Manchester 1932; M. Bibi, F. cuiusdam Decalogue evangelicus pauperinis au. 1310-12 contribuit, in Arch. Franc. hist., 23 (1930), pp. 379-411; R. Creytena, Manfred de Vercell O. P. et son traité contre les Fraticelles, in Arch. Ord. Praed., 11 (1941), pp. 173-208.
Livario Oliger