MICHAEL of Cesena. - Franciscan friar, b. at Cesena c. 1270, d. at Munich on 29 Nov. 1342. Elected Minister General of the Order at Naples (1316) while probably in Paris, where he was Master of Theology at the University, he immediately upon his arrival in Italy presided over the commission of twelve friars for the revision of the Order’s statutes (published in Arch. franc. hist., 4 [1911], pp. 276-307, 508-26). He then went to the papal curia at Avignon to press for the total suppression of the Spirituals (v.) and succeeded, not without employing the full rigour of the Inquisition against the most obstinate. His government seemed to benefit the Order, since as Minister General he concerned himself not only with discipline but also with studies and missions in the East.
However, at the General Chapter of Perugia (1322), while submitting a petition to John XXII that no new decision be taken on the question of Christ’s poverty, he issued with the capitulars a doctrinal declaration to the effect that it was not licit to affirm that Christ and the Apostles had no private or common ownership of any kind. With this thesis, making poverty an absolute canon of virtue, he thought to consolidate the excellence of the Minorite ideal of poverty. The contrary decisions of the Pope were not accepted by part of the Order; but Michael remained reserved, and at the General Chapter of 1325 he ordered his subjects to speak of the Church, the person of the Pope, and his constitutions with due reverence and sobriety. Nevertheless, and with good reason, John did not trust him, and in June 1327 ordered him to present himself before him. He was forbidden to leave the city without the Pope’s special permission. Michael’s open rebellion broke out after the severe reproofs that John XXII addressed to him in the Consistory of April 1328, when the Pope also ordered that the Chapter of the Friars Minor, to be held at Bologna, should not be presided over by Michael but by Cardinal Bertrand de Pouget, and should elect another Minister General. Most strangely, the capitulars reaffirmed their votes for Michael. But before he knew the outcome, he fled together with Bonagratia and William of Ockham (v.) to Louis the Bavarian. Excommunicated on 6 June 1328, he took an active part in that sovereign’s struggle against the Pope. In 1330 he accompanied him to Munich, where he published further
(from F. Lucreti, Le titre de patriarche occumenique, in Vite, G. Verrati, III, Delle del Vaticano, p. 102) Michael Cerularius — Seal of M. C., the Virgin Hodigitria on the obverse, inscription on the reverse — Washington, Coll. M. H. Shau.
ceremonies, partly superstitious, partly
filled with invective and protests full of hatred against the Pope. Although expelled from the Order in 1331, he claimed to be Minister General until his death, which overtook him without his having been reconciled with the Church.