heretics. In 1481 a few were punished in Anhalt, and the sect gradually disappeared.[1]
The case of the Beghards and Beguines came before the Coun- cil of Constance in several shapes. To guard themselves from the incessant molestations to which they were exposed they had, to a large extent, affiliated themselves, nominally at least, as Tertiaries, to the Mendicant Orders, chiefly to the Franciscan, whose scapular they adopted. In a project of reform, carefully prepared for ac- tion by the council, this is strongly denounced; they are said to live in forests and in cities, free from subjection, indulging in inde- cent habits, not without suspicion of heresy, and though able of body and fit to earn their livelihood by labor, they subsist on alms, to the prejudice of the poor and miserable. It was therefore proposed to forbid the wearing of the scapular by all who were not bound by vows to the Orders and subjected to the Rules. It was also pronounced necessary to make frequent visitations of their communities on account of the peculiarities of their life, and magistrates and nobles were to be ordered not to interfere with such wholesome supervision under pain of interdict. It was possibly to meet this attack that numerous testimonial letters from the clergy and magistrates of Germany certifying to the orthodoxy, piety, and usefulness of the associations were sent to Martin V., who submitted them to Angelo, Cardinal of SS. Peter and Mar- cellus, and received from him a favorable report. Towards the close of the council, in 1418, a more formidable assault was made upon them by Matthew Grabon, a Dominican of Wismar, who
- ↑ Theod. Vrie, Hist. Concil. Constant. Lib. IV. Dist. 13.—Marieta, Los Santos de España, Lib. XI. c. xxviii.-Gobelini Person. Cosmodrom. Æt. vI. c. 93.—Chron. S. Ægid. in Brunswig (Leibnitii S. R. Brunsv. III. 595).—Gieseler, Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte, II. 1. 317-18.—Herm. Corneri Chron. ann. 1416 (Eccard. Corp. Hist. II. 1206).—Andreæ Gubernac. Concil. P. IV. c. 11 (Von der Hardt VI. 194).—Chron. Magdeburgens. ann. 1454 (Meibom. Rer. German. II. 362).—Haupt, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, 1887, 114-18.-Herzog, Abriss, II. 405.In 1448, when pestilence and famine in Italy brought men to a sense of their sins, the eloquence of Frà Roberto, a Franciscan, excited multitudes to repentance, and the streets of the cities were again filled with Flagellants, disciplining themselves and weeping (Illescas, Historia Pontifical, II. 130).
