US GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO. Strict orders had been given by the bishop to capture alive Dol- cino and his two chief subordinates, Margherita and Longino Cat- taneo, and great were the rejoicings when they were brought to him on Saturday, at the castle of Biella.* Xo case could be clearer than theirs, and yet the bishop deemed it necessary to consult Pope Clement — a perfectly superfluous ceremony, explicable perhaps, as Gallenga suggests, by the oppor- tunity which it afforded of begging assistance for his ruined dio- cese and exhausted treasury. Clement's avarice responded in a niggardly fashion, though the extravagant paean of triumph in which the pope hastened to announce the glad tidings to Philippe le Bel on the same evening in which he received them shows how deep was the anxiety caused by the audacious revolt of the handful of Dolcinists. The Bishops of Yercelli, 2s ovara, and Pavia, and the Abbot of Lucedio were granted the first fruits of all benefices be- coming vacant during the next three years in their respective ter- ritories, and the former, in addition, was exempted during life from the exactions of papal legates, with some other privileges. While awaiting this response the prisoners were kept, chained hand and foot and neck, in the dungeon of the Inquisition at Vercelli, with numerous guards posted to prevent a rescue, indicating a knowl- edge that there existed deep popular sympathy for the rebels against State and Church. The customary efforts were made to procure confession and abjuration, but while the prisoners boldly affirmed their faith they were deaf to all offers of reconciliation. Dolcino even persisted in his prophecies that Antichrist would appear in three years and a half, when he and his followers would be translated to Paradise ; that after the death of Antichrist he would return to the earth to be the holy pope of the new church, when all the infidels would be converted. About two months passed away before Clement's orders were received, that they should be tried and punished at the scene of their crimes. The customary assembly of experts was convened in Yercelli ; there could be no doubt as to their guilt, and they were abandoned to
- Hist. Dulcin. (Muratori IX. 439).
Ptolemy of Lucca, who is good contemporaneous authority, puts the number of those captured with Dolcino at one hundred and fifty, and of those who perished through exposure and by the sword at only about three hundred —Hist. Eccles. Lib. xxiv. (Muratori XI. 1227).
