Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/387

PERSECUTION OF THE BEGUINES. s7l Meanwhile the publication of the Clementines had produced results not corresponding exactly to the intentions of Clement. The canon directed against the heretics received Httle attention, and five years elapse before we hear of any serious persecutions under it. The heretics were poor ; there were no spoils to tempt episcopal officials to the thankless labor of tracking them and try- ing them, and few of the bishops had the zeal of John of Zurich to divert them from their temporal cares and pleasures. The Beguinages, however, were an easy prey ; there was property to be confiscated in reward of intelligent activity. Besides, many of the establishments were under the supervision of the Mendicant Orders, and were virtually or absolutely Tertiary houses, the de- struction of Avhich gratified the inextinguishable jealousy between the secular clergy and the Orders : the struggle between John XXII. and the Franciscans, moreover, was commencing, and the Tertiaries of the latter, who were popularly known as Beguines in France, were fair game. The bishops for the most part, therefore, neglected the saving clause of the canon respecting the Beguin- ages, and construed hterally and pitilessly the orders for their abolition. So eager were they to gratify their vindictiveness against the Mendicants that, when these interfered to save their Tertiaries, they were excommunicated as fautors and defenders of heresy. Thus arose a persecution which, though bloodless, was most deplorable. All through France and Germany and Italy the poor creatures were turned adrift upon the world, without means of support. Those who could, found husbands ; many were driven to a life of prostitution, others, doubtless, perished of want and exposure. Even the quasi-conventual dress to which they were accustomed was proscribed, and they were forced to wear gay colors under pain of excommunication. In the history of the Church there have been many more cruel persecutions, but few which in suddenness and extent have caused greater misery, and none, we are safe to say, so wanton, causeless, and lacking even the shadow of justification. The impression made on the popular sent to Clement V. his chancellor, John of Zurich, Bishop of Eichstedt, and the Abbot of Pairis. The envoys returned bringing papal briefs, one appointing the chancellor to the contested see, and another filling that of Eichstedt with the abbot.— Closener's Chronik (Chron. der deutschen Stadte, VIII. 91).