They were not, however, entirely eradicated. Some remained--men of more intellect than the lunatic heresiarch and his half-witted herdsmen--and among them a certain Fra Dolcino, who saw in the appearance of Segarelli in the all-fateful year 1260 a fulfilment of the prophecies in 'The Everlasting Gospel.'[55] He chose to regard himself as a heaven-appointed messenger of the new dispensation. As fanatical as Segarelli himself, he was more dangerous because apparently gifted with the capacity of leadership and of inspiring even enthusiastic loyalty. Beginning in Milan, Bergamo, Brescia, Vercelli, he had by 1304 created a distinct religious community among the Italian Alps. It appears that in order to maintain their supplies of provisions they were wont to resort to robbery, and must have become a public nuisance. But they were also dangerous heretics; it is a remarkable tribute to the mark made by Dolcino's personality that Dante makes Mohammed send a warning message to Dolcino, as to a kindred false prophet, lest he fall into the same ill-case as himself.[56] In June, 1305, Clement V resolved upon drastic measures to wipe out this 'son of Belial who had been polluting Lombardy.'[57] A crusade was organized against the Dolcinists in their mountain fastnesses, and after a desperate defence against no fewer than four different expeditions, in which there was much bloodshed and ferocity and in which the heretics were so reduced as to have recourse to cannibalism, they were forced to surrender.[58] The punishment of Dolcino--for the nature of which, it should be remembered, the state and in no way the Inquisition was responsible--was terrible in the extreme. He was gradually torn to pieces by red-hot pincers--an appalling torment which he bore with an almost incredible fortitude.
Indirectly connected with the ascetic and mendicant enthusiasm of the Spiritual Franciscans were certain heretical movements in Germany--those of the Beghards or Beguines. The names are used somewhat indiscriminately to denote Fraticelli, who were simply wandering Spirituals asserting the supreme virtues of poverty, and other sectaries, much more extravagant, whose only likeness to the Spirituals lay in their mendicancy. The indiscriminacy of nomenclature undoubtedly denotes a very comprehensible failure at times to distinguish between vagrants outwardly alike and all of them at least under the suspicion of heretical tendencies.[59] Among the extravagants to whom this title was given were followers of two teachers of a crude mysticism and pantheism--one Amaury de Bène,[60] whose doctrine had a very marked antinomian tinge, for he maintained that no one filled with the Holy Ghost and the spirit of love could commit sin; the other, Ortlieb of Strassburg, whose pantheism caused him to include Satan in the divine essence, so that his followers, generally known as Brethren of the Free Spirit, were also sometimes known as Luciferans and credited with devil-worship and the perpetration of the most disgusting obscenities at the initiation of novices into the faith. The Brethren of the Free Spirit were never numerous, but in spite of constant persecution they appear to have existed right up to the days of Lutheranism. Their doctrines were not without significance, because together with an exalted claim to impeccability which prescribed the severest tests of sexual purity they combined a mystic belief, which under the term Illuminism, a name they themselves adopted, had a considerable influence on the theological thought of Germany. The most remarkable of these was the distinguished Dominican, Master Eckhart, who appears to have maintained that man shared the divinity of God and that in the eyes of God virtue and sin were alike.[61]