SPIRITUALI

SPIRITUALS. – An extremist movement that arose within the Franciscan Order, organized and active from 1274 until 1318.

I. ORIGIN AND CHARACTERISTICS

In their writings the Spirituals never refer to themselves by this name: it seems to have originated with the common people of southern France. The geographical scope of the Spiritual movement was originally confined to the Franciscan provinces of the Marches and Tuscany in Italy, and Provence in France. It is difficult to determine the movement’s concrete strength, not least because it was not uniform. A fundamental element was the strict observance of poverty and the Franciscan Rule in accordance with the personal example of St Francis, rejecting papal interpretations that adapted its application to the evolution of the Order, and following the so-called “poor use” even of permitted things. Yet no less marked were their ideas against learning, especially secular learning, and their tendency toward eremitical life; characteristic was their attachment to the Testament of St Francis, which Gregory IX had already declared non-binding, and their fanatical enthusiasm for Joachimite ideas. In moments of greater difficulty, separatist tendencies emerged, aiming to constitute a family independent of the Order.

Before 1274, there were precedents in the movement of those “zealous” friars who, already in the time of St Francis and especially under subsequent ministers general—such as Brother Elias (q.v.), Crescenzio da Jesi, and Giovanni da Parma (q.v.)—in close association with some of the Saint’s companions like Brother Leo, shared with them the ideal of the primitive Franciscan Order. They were viewed with disfavour and often persecuted by the more balanced generality of the Order, the Community.

II. THE VARIOUS GROUPS OF SPIRITUALS

Three distinct groups are known, corresponding to the three regions mentioned above: the Marches, Tuscany, and Provence.

1. The Spirituals of the Marches

This was the most important faction and the best documented. Their immediate origin is generally traced to 1274, when a rumour spread that the Pope, at the Council of Lyon, intended to reform the religious orders, especially the Mendicants, by granting them ownership of property. Some friars of the Marches immediately declared that they would never accept such a reform. When it did not materialize, most lost interest, but some persisted in their views, and their superiors imposed on them a year’s penance (Brother Trasmundo, Pietro, later Liberato da Macerata and Tommaso da Tolentino) and then sent them to various hermitages to perform penance for three years. As their numbers grew, the superiors, at a meeting of five provincials (c. 1280), decided to put them on trial and condemned them as heretics to imprisonment. From this point their historian, Angelo Clarenzo (q.v.), joined them. They were released in 1290 by the Minister General Raymond Godefroy, who sent them as missionaries to Lesser Armenia, where King Hethum II had requested evangelizers. The king praised the missionaries in a letter to the General Chapter of 1292. Persecuted, however, by the friars of the Holy Land, they had to return to Italy. When Celestine V was elected in 1294, they obtained from him exemption from obedience to the Order, changed their habit, and took the name of Poor Hermits of Pope Celestine, under the protection of Cardinal Napoleone Orsini. This separation was disapproved by the Spirituals of Provence and opposed by the Community. Boniface VIII suspended all the privileges of his predecessor and thus removed the juridical basis for the existence of the new congregation. Abandoning Italy c. 1295, they took refuge in Acciaio, where for two years they enjoyed peace on a small island near Euboea. After further vicissitudes they were forced to return to Italy and settle in the Kingdom of Naples, where the Inquisition struck many of them and had them expelled from the kingdom. They took refuge around Rome, where in 1308 they underwent a new trial from which they seem to have been released, and enjoyed a measure of peace until the Council of Vienne, where Clarenzo, their leader, went to seek its recognition.

2. The Spirituals of Provence

This second faction is particularly linked to the figure of Peter Olivi (q.v.) and the great debate on poverty that took place during the Council of Lyon. The precedents for Spiritualism in Provence are still connected to Hugh de Digne, perhaps more for his Joachimism than for his ideas on poverty. The doctrines of Olivi, a fiery advocate of poverty and the “poor use,” as well as of Joachimite ideas, were condemned repeatedly within the Order during his lifetime, and after his death (1298) his writings were consigned to the flames. His disciples venerated him as a saint, but his theories were again brought into question at the Council of Vienne, where the great issue of poverty was debated. This was provoked by a petition from the people of Narbonne in favour of the Spirituals and by a conversation with Clement V held by the famous physician Arnold of Villanova (q.v.), who also induced King Charles II of Naples to write in their favour to the Minister General. Clement V, having secretly heard the leaders of the Spirituals of Provence and Ubertino da Casale (q.v.), on 14 April 1310 established a cardinals’ commission to examine the matter by means of the bull *Dudum ad Apostolatus*, which was very favourable to the Spirituals, who regarded it as a triumph. The Community then protested through Bonagrazia da Bergamo (q.v.) in a public consistory on 1 March 1311. The dispute was accompanied by a flood of polemical pamphlets from both sides, particularly from the fiery pen of Ubertino da Casale. The papal solution was a compromise: in favour of the Spirituals, the decretal *Exivi de Paradiso* (6 May 1312) was issued, a new interpretation of the Franciscan Rule more faithful to its spirit than previous ones; and for the Community, the dogmatic constitution *Fidei catholicae fundamentum* was issued, condemning certain ideas attributed to Olivi without naming him. With this, the dispute in the Curia ended, but within the Order the agitation and persecution continued.

3. The Spirituals of Tuscany

They formed a less important group; they were already organized at the end of the 13th century when Peter Olivi and Ubertino da Casale resided in Florence. In the early 1300s they too were subjected to penalties and trials, though little is known of them. During the Council of Vienne, while the question of separation from the Order was still pending, they broke away on their own initiative, seizing by force the convents of Arezzo, Carmignano, and Asciano, while some fled to Sicily, where the others, after trials and excommunications, joined them, finding tacit protection from King Frederick II. Forced to leave, they dispersed, some to Tunisia, others to Calabria (c. 1317).

III. THE END OF THE SPIRITUALS

While Clement V had shown himself favourable to the Spirituals, John XXII, from the beginning of his pontificate, intended to suppress the movement. Summoned to the Curia, the leaders Angelo Clarenzo and Ubertino da Casale were brought before the Pope; the former was imprisoned but later released after successfully defending himself with the *Epistula excusatoria*, while the latter, on 10 October 1317, was allowed to transfer to the Benedictines. The Spirituals of Provence appeared before the Pope on 25 May 1317, numbering 64. On 7 October the bull *Quorumdam exigit* was issued, obliging them to return to obedience to the Order. Twenty-five refused, and when brought before the Inquisition, 21 recanted their ideas, while the remaining four who persisted were handed over to the secular arm on 7 May 1318. On 30 December 1317 the bull *Sancta Romana* condemned and declared heretical the Spirituals of Italy dependent on Angelo Clarenzo, and the bull *Gloriosam Ecclesiam* of 23 January 1318 did the same to the Spirituals of Tuscany. After these condemnatory bulls, the Spirituals became part of the Fraticelli movement, which developed more fully in the following years in connection with the theoretical question of poverty under John XXII.