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We may name also the Beghards and Lollards, whose extravagances were to some extent outgrowths of earnest piety, and their lives strongly contrasted with the levity and luxury of the higher ecclesiastics.
His reward was to be hooted at as a magician, and to be confined in a dungeon for many years. The heretics spread and increased in this century, spite of the terrible weapon brought to bear against them. The "Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit," known also as Beghards, Beguttes, Bicorni, Beghins, and Turlupins, were the chief additional body.
These views are said to have spread fairly widely over the east of France and part of Germany, and especially among the Beghards on the Rhine. The "Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit" also appear during the Hussite wars under the name of "Adamites"; this name being given them because they declared the condition of Adam to be that of sinless innocence.
It is needless to enter into the arguments of his 'Essay on the Character of the Apostles and Evangelists. Its object was to prove they were wholly free from the errors of enthusiasts; that in their private conduct, and in the government of the Church, they were 'rational and sober, prudent and cautious, mild and decorous, zealous without violence, and steady without obstinacy; that their writings are plain, calm, and unexaggerated, ... natural and rational, ... without any trace of spiritual pride, any arrogant claims to full perfection of virtue; ... teaching heartfelt piety to God without any affectation of rapturous ecstasy or extravagant fervour. On the other hand, he illustrates the extravagances into which enthusiasts have been led, from the history of Indian mystics and Greek Neoplatonists, from Manichæans and Montanists, from monastic saints, from the Beghards of Germany, the Fratricelli of Italy, the Illuminati of Spain, the Quietists of France, from Anabaptists, Quakers, and French prophets.
Closely allied in spirit with these "Spiritual Franciscans," as they were called, or Fraticelli, were those curious mediaeval bodies of Beguins and Beghards. Hopelessly pantheistic in their notion of the Divine Being, and following most peculiar methods of reaching on earth the Beatific Vision, they took up with the same doctrine of the religious duty of the communistic life.
We find, for instance, in the thirteenth century, a degenerate sect of the "Beghards," who called themselves "Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit," or were also called "Amalrikites," after the name of their founder. They preached not only community of goods but also of women, a perfect equality, and rejected every form of authority.
The same crimes attach to every Church, and Rome's black list is only longer because her power is greater. Let us glance at Protestant communions. In Hungary, Giska, the Hussite, massacred and bruised the Beghards.
The book is divided into two parts; the first is a dialogue de Nobilitate et Rusticitate, and the second is a treatise against the mendicant friars, monks, Beghards, and Beguines. The town of Zuerich was very indignant at this bold attack, and deprived the poor author of his benefices and of his liberty.
He built a number of small houses to be inhabited by the Order of Bèguines, a new sisterhood who did not sever themselves entirely from the world, but lived in peaceful retirement, occupied by spinning and weaving all day long. The Beghards, or Weaving Brothers, took pattern by this busy guild of workers and followed the same rules of simple piety.
Some of these bodies, Beguines, Beghards, and what not, were harmless enough, but the whole history of the Middle Ages bears testimony to the readiness with which religious excitement unchastened by discipline or direction, grew into dangerous heresy. The strangest of the new communities, the Flagellants, made its appearance in England immediately after the pestilence.
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