SPIRITUALI. – An extremist movement that arose within the Franciscan Order, organized and active from around 1274 until 1318.
I. ORIGIN AND CHARACTERISTICS
In their writings the S. never call themselves by this name; it seems to have originated among the people of southern France. The geographical extent of the Spiritual movement must originally be restricted to the Franciscan provinces of the Marches and Tuscany in Italy, and of Provence in France. It is difficult to determine concretely what the movement consisted in, also because it was not unified. Its fundamental element was the rigid observance of poverty and the Franciscan Rule according to the personal example of St. Francesco, the rejection of papal interpretations that adapted its application to the evolution of the Order, and adherence to the so-called “poor use” even of permitted things. No less marked, however, were the ideas opposed to science, especially secular science, and the tendency toward the eremitical life; characteristic was the attachment to the testament of St. Francesco, which Gregory IX had already declared non-binding, and the fanatical fervor for Joachimite ideas. In moments of greatest difficulty, this was joined by a separatist tendency, aimed at establishing a family independent of the Order.Before 1274, there were precedents in the current of those “zealous” friars who, already in the time of St. Francesco and especially under the subsequent generals, Elia (v.), Crescenzo da Jesi, Parma (v.), in close association with some of the Saint’s companions, such as Friar Leone, shared with them their ideas concerning the primitive ideal of the Franciscan Order. By the more balanced majority of the Order, the Community, they were never viewed favorably and were often persecuted.
II. THE VARIOUS GROUPS OF S
Three distinct groups are known, corresponding to the three regions named above: the Marches, Tuscany, and Provence.1. The S. of the Marches. — This was the most important faction and the one about which we are best informed. Its immediate origins are generally traced to 1274, when word spread that the Pope, at the Council of Lyon, intended to reform the religious Orders, especially the Mendicants, by granting them property as well. Several friars of the Marches immediately declared that they would never accept such a reform. Since it did not take effect, most of them lost interest in the matter, but some continued to hold to their ideas, and the superiors confined them for a year (fra' Trasmundo, Pietro, later Liberato da Macerata, and Tommaso da Tolentino), then dispersed them among various hermitages to perform penance for three years. As their following grew in the meantime, the superiors, at a meeting of five provincials (c. 1280), decided to bring them to trial, condemning them as heretics to imprisonment. From Angelo Clareno (v.) was also among them. They were freed by the minister general Raimondo Godefroy in 1290, who sent them as missionaries to Lesser Armenia, where King Aitone II had requested evangelizers. This king praised the missionaries by letter to the General Chapter of 1292. But, persecuted 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, changing their habit and taking the name Poor Hermits of Pope Celestine, under the protection of Cardinal Napoleone Orsini. The separation was disapproved by the S. of Provence and opposed by the Community. Boniface VIII suspended all the privileges granted by his predecessor, thereby removing the legal basis for the existence of the new Congregation. Having left Italy around 1295, they took refuge in Achaea, where they enjoyed two years of peace on a small island near Euboea. After further vicissitudes they again had to return to Italy and settle in the Kingdom of Naples, where the Inquisition struck a great number of them and had them expelled from the Kingdom. They took refuge in the vicinity of Rome, where in 1308 they underwent a new trial, after which they apparently were released and enjoyed a measure of peace, until the Council of Vienne, to which Clareno, their leader, went in order to obtain recognition for them.
2. The S. of Provence. — This second faction was particularly associated COLIVI (v.) and with the great question of poverty, debated during the Council of Lyon. The antecedents of spiritualism in Provence must again be linked to Ugo de Digna, perhaps more because of his Joachimist ideas than because of his views on poverty. Olivi’s doctrines—he was an ardent spiritualist both with regard to poverty and the poor use of goods, and with regard to Joachimist ideas—were condemned several times 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 once again brought into question at the Council of Vienne, where the great question of poverty was debated. It was provoked by a petition from the Narbonnese in favor of the S. and by an interview that Arnaldo da Villanova (v.) had with Clement V; he also induced King Carlo II of Naples to write to the general in their favor. After secretly hearing the leaders of the S. Ubertino da Casale (v.), Clement V established a commission of cardinals on 14 April 1310 to examine the question through the bull Dudum ad Apostolatus, which was highly favorable to the S., who regarded it as a triumph. The Community Bonagrazia da Bergamo (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 favor of the S. he issued the decretal Exivi de Paradiso (6 May 1312), a new interpretation of the Franciscan Rule that adhered more closely to its spirit than the preceding ones; and for the Community he issued the dogmatic constitution Fidei catholicae fundamentum, which condemned certain ideas attributed to Olivi, without naming him. With this, the dispute in the Curia had ended, but agitation and persecution continued within the Order.
3. The S. of Tuscany. — They formed a less important group; they were already organized at the end of the thirteenth century, when Pietro Olivi and Ubertino da Casale resided in Florence. In the early years of the fourteenth century they too were subjected to penalties and trials, about which little is known. During the Council of Vienne, while the question of separation from the Order was still pending, they independently broke away, seizing by force the convents of Arezzo, Carmignano, and Asciano, while some fled to Sicily, where the others also joined them after trials and excommunications, finding tacit protection from King Federico II. Forced to leave, they dispersed, some to Tunisia and some to Calabria (c. 1317).