PERSECUTION IN ARAGON. 85 the Pyrenees into Aragon. Even before the Council of Beziers, in 1299, took official cognizance of the nascent heresy, the bishops of Aragon, assembled at Tarragona in 1297, instituted repressive measures against the Begumes who were spreading errors through- out the kingdom, and all Franciscan Tertiaries were subjected to supervision. Their books in the vulgar tongue were especially dreaded, and were ordered to be surrendered. These precautions did not avert the evil. As we have seen, Arnaldo de Vilanova became a Avarm advocate of the Spirituals ; his indefatigable pen was at their service, his writings had wide circulation, and his in- fluence with Jayme II. protected them. With his death and that of Clement V. persecution commenced. Immediately after the latter event, in 1314, the Inquisitor Bernardo de Puycerda, one of Arnaldo's special antagonists, undertook their suppression. At their head stood a certain Pedro Oler, of Majorca, and Fray Bo- nato. They were obstinate, and were handed over to the secular arm, when all were burned except Bonato, who recanted on being scorched by the flames. He was dragged from the burning pile, cured, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment, but after some twenty years he was found to be still secretly a Spiritual, and was burned as a relapsed in 1335. Emboldened by the accession of John XXIL, in November, 1316, Juan de Llotger, the inquisitor, and Jofre de Cruilles, provost of the vacant see of Tarragona, called together an assembly of Dominicans, Franciscans, and Cis- tercians, who condemned the apocalyptic and spiritualistic writ- ings of Arnaldo, which were ordered to be surrendered within ten days under pain of excommunication. The persecution continued. Duran de Baldach was burned as a Spiritual, with a disciple, in 1325. About the same time John XXIL issued several bulls command- ing strict inquisition to be made for them throughout Aragon, Valencia, and the Balearic Isles, and subjecting them to the juris- diction of the bishops and inquisitors in spite of any privileges or immunities which they might claim as Franciscans. The heresy, however, seems never to have obtained any firm foothold on Span- ish soil. Yet it penetrated even to Portugal, for Alvaro Pelayo tells us that there were in Lisbon some pseudo-Franciscans who applauded the doctrine that Peter and his successors had not re- ceived from Christ the power which he held on earth.*
- Concil. Tarraconens. ann. 1297 c. 1-4 (Martene Ampl. Coll. VII. 305-6).—
