112 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO. oaths could then be taken with the lips and not with the heart ; but that if death could not be escaped, then it was to be endured cheerfully and patiently, without betraying accomplices." For three years after his epistle of August, 1300, we know noth- ing of Dolcino's movements, except that he is heard of in Milan, Brescia, Bergamo, and Como, but they were busy years of prop- agandist! and organization. The time of promised liberation came and passed, and the Church was neither shattered nor amended. Yet the capture of Boniface VIII. at Anagni, in Sep- tember, 1303, followed by his death, might well seem to be the be- ginning of the end, and the fulfilment of the prophecy. In Decem- ber, 1303, therefore, Dolcino issued a second epistle, in which he an- nounced as a revelation from God that the first year of the tribu- lations of the Church had begun in the fall of Boniface. In 1304 Frederic of Trinacria would become emperor, and would destroy the cardinals, with the new evil pope whom they had just elected ; in 1305 he would carry desolation through the ranks of all prel- ates and ecclesiastics, whose wickedness was daily increasing. Until that time the faithful must lie hid to escape persecution, but then they would come forth, they would be joined by the Spirituals of the other orders, they would receive the grace of the Holy Ghost, and would form the new Church which would endure to the end. Meanwhile he announced himself as the ruler of the Apostolic Congregation, consisting of four thousand souls, living without external obedience, but in the obedience of the Spirit. About a hundred, of either sex, were organized in control of the brethren, and he had four principal lieutenants, Longino Cattaneo da Ber- gamo, Federigo da Xovara, Alberto da Otranto, and Yalderigo da Brescia. Superior to these was his dearly-loved sister in Christ, Margherita. Margherita di Trank is described to us as a woman of noble birth, considerable fortune, and surpassing beauty, who had been educated in the convent of St. Catharine at Trent. Dolcino had been the agent of the convent, and had thus made her ac- quaintance. Infatuated with him, she fled with him, and remained constant to the last. He always maintained that their relations
- Benvenuto dalmola (Muratori Antiq. III. 457-9). — BescapS, La Novara Sacra,
Novara, 1878, p. 157. — Baggiolini, Dolcino e i Patarini, Xovara, 1838, pp. 35-6. — Hist. Dulcin. Haeresiarch. (Muratori. S. R. I. IX. 436-7).— Addit. ad Hist. (Ibid. 457, 460).
