86 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS. A somewhat different development of the Joachitic element is seen in the Franciscan Juan de Pera-Tallada or de Pupescissa, better known perhaps through Froissart as Jean de la Eoche- taillade. As a preacher and missionary he stood pre-eminent, and his voice was heard from his native Catalonia to distant Moscow. Somewhat given to occult science, various treatises on alchemy have been attributed to him, among which Pelayo tells us that it is difficult to distinguish the genuine from the doubtful. Xot only in this did he follow Arnaldo de Yilanova, but in mercilessly lashing the corruptions of the Church, and in commenting on the prophecies of the pseudo-Joachim. No man of this school seemed able to refrain from indulging in prophecy himself, and Juan gained wide reputation by predictions which were justified by the event, such as the battle of Poitiers and the Great Schism. Per- haps this might have been forgiven had he not also foretold that the Church would be stripped of the superfluities which it had so shockingly abused. One metaphor which he employed was largely quoted. The Church, he said, was a bird born without feathers, to which all other fowls contributed plumage, which they would reclaim in consequence of its pride and tyranny. Like the Spirit- uals he looked fondly back to the primitive days before Const an- tine, when in holy poverty the foundations of the faith were laid. He seems to have steered clear of the express heresy as to the pov- erty of Christ, and when he came to Avignon, in 1319, to proclaim his views, although several attempts to burn him were ineffectual, he was promptly thrown into jail. He was " durement grand clerc" and his accusers were unable to convict him, but he was too dan- gerous a man to be at large, and he. was kept in confinement. "When he was finally liberated is not stated, but if Pelayo is cor- rect in saying that he returned home at the age of ninety he must have been released after a long incarceration.* Eymeric. pp. 265-6. — Raynald. ann. 1325, No. 20. — Mosheim de Beghardis p. 641.— Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espanoles, I. 777-81, 783.— For the fate of Arnaldo de Vilanova's writings in the Index Expurgatorius, see Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen Biicher, I. 33-4. Two of the tracts condemned in 1316 have been found, translated into Italian, in a MS. of the Magliabecchian Library, by Prof. Tocco, who describes them in the Archivio Storico Italiano, 1886, No. 6, and in the Giornale Storico della Lett. Ital. VIII. 3.
- Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espanoles, I. 500-2. — Jo. de Rupesciss. Vade raecum
