DOLCINO COLLECTS HIS FOLLOWERS. H3 were purely spiritual, but this was naturally doubted, and the churchmen asserted that she bore him a child whose birth was represented to the faithful as the operation of the Holy Ghost.* Although in this letter of December, 1303, Dolcino recognizes the necessity of concealment, perhaps the expected approaching fru- ition of his hopes may have encouraged him to relax his precautions. Returning in 1304 to the home of his youth with a few sectaries clad in the white tunics and sandals of the Order, he commenced making converts in the neighborhood of Gattinara and Serravalle, two villages of the Valsesia, a few leagues above Vercelli. The In- quisition was soon upon the track, and, failing to catch him, made the people of Serravalle pay dearly for the favor which they had shown him. Deep-seated discontent, both with the Church and their feudal lords, can alone explain the assistance which Dolcino received from the hardy population of the foot-hills of the Alps, when he was forced to raise openly the standard of revolt. A short distance above Serravalle, on the left bank of the Sesia, a stream fed by the glaciers of Monte Rosa, lay Borgo di Sesia, in the diocese of Novara. Thither a rich husbandman, much esteemed by his neighbors, named Milano Sola, invited Dolcino, and for sev- eral months he remained there undisturbed, making converts and receiving his disciples, whom he seems to have summoned from dis- tant parts, as though resolved to make a stand and take advantage of the development of his apocalyptic prophecies. Preparations made to dislodge him, however, convinced him that safety was only to be found in the Alps, and under the guidance of Milano Sola the Apostles moved up towards the head- waters of the Sesia, and established themselves on a mountain crest, difficult of access, where they built huts. Thus passed the year 1304. Their num- bers were not inconsiderable— some fourteen hundred of both sexes —inflamed with religious zeal, regarding Dolcino as a prophet whose lightest word was law. Thus contumaciously assembled in defiance of the summons of the Inquisition, they were in open rebellion
- Corio, Hist. Milanesi, arm. 1307.— Benv. da Imola, loc. cit.— Additamentum
(Muratori IX. 454-55, 459).— Baggiolini, pp. 36-7. Dolcino's two epistles were formally condemned by the Bishop of Parma and Fra Manfredo, the inquisitor, and must therefore have been circulated outside of the sect (Eymeric. Direct. Inq. P. n. Q. 29). III.— 8
