Note 78 — Chapter I · THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS. (continued 2)

Guill. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1317.—Coll. Doat, XXVII. 7 sqq., 170; XXXV. 18.—Lib. Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 301, 312, 381.

The case of Raymond Jean illustrates the life of the persecuted Spirituals. As early as 1312 he had commenced to denounce the Church as the Whore of Babylon, and to prophesy his own fate. In 1317 he was one of the appellants who were summoned to Avignon, where he submitted. Remitted to the obedience of his Order, he was sent by his superior to the convent of Anduse, where he remained until he heard the fate of his stancher companions at Marseilles, when he fled with a comrade. Reaching Béziers, they found refuge in a house where, in company with some female apostates from the Order, they lay hid for three years. After this Raymond led a wandering life, associating for a while with Pierre Trencavel. At one time he went beyond seas; then returning, he adopted the habit of a secular priest and assumed the cure of souls, sometimes in Gascony and again in Rodez or east of the Rhone. Captured at last in 1325 and brought before the Inquisition of Carcassonne, after considerable pressure he was induced to recant. His sentence is not given, but doubtless it was perpetual imprisonment.—Doat, XXVII. 7 sqq.