ACTIVE PERSECUTION. 165 There is even talk of a chief of the laity who styled himself Em- peror of the Christians.* It was in vain that successive popes ordered the Inquisition to take the most active measures for the suppression of the sect, and that occasional holocausts rewarded their exertions, as when, under Urban V. nine were burned at Yiterbo, and in 1389 Fra Michele Berti de Calci suffered the same fate at Florence. This last case reveals in its details the popular sympathy which favored the labors of the Fraticelli. Fra Michele had been sent to Florence as a missionary by a congregation of the sect which met in a cav- ern in the Mark of Ancona. He preached in Florence and made many converts, and was about leaving the city, April 19, when he was betrayed by five female zealots, who sent for him pretend- ing to seek conversion. His trial was short. A colleague saved his life by recantation, but Michele was firm. When brought up in judgment to be degraded from the priesthood he refused to kneel before the bishop, saying that heretics are not to be knelt to. In walking to the place of execution many of the crowd ex- changed words of cheer with him, leading to considerable disturb- ance, and when tied to a stake in a sort of cabin which was to be set on fire, a number put their heads inside to beg him to recant. The place was several times filled with smoke to frighten him, but he was unyielding, and after his incremation there were many people, we are told, who regarded him as a saint, f Proceedings such as this were not likely to diminish the favor with which the Fraticelli were popularly regarded. The two Sici- lies continued to be thoroughly interpenetrated with the heresy. When, in 1362, Luigi di Durazzo made his abortive attempt at rebellion, he regarded the popularity of the Fraticelli as an ele-
- Raynald. ann. 1344, No. 8; 1357, No. 12; 1374, No. 14.— Jac. de Marchia
Dial. (I c. 599, 608-9). It may surprise a modern infallibilist to learn that so thoroughly orthodox and learned an inquisitor as the blessed Giacomo della Marca admits that there have been heretic popes — popes who persisted and died in their heresy. He comforts himself, however, with the reflection that they have always been suc- ceeded by Catholic pontiffs (1. c. p. 599). t Werunsky, Excerptt. ex Registt. Clem. VI. et Innoc. VI. p. 91. — Raynald. ann. 1354, No. 31; ann. 1368, No. 16.— Wadding, ann. 1354, No. 6-7; 1368, No. 4-6.— Comba, La Riforma, I. 327, 329-37.— Cantu, Eretici d 1 Italia, I. 133-4.— Eymeric. p. 328.
