the
Free Spirit," known also as Beghards, Beguttes, Bicorni, Beghins, and
Turlupins, were the chief additional body. They believed that all things
had emanated from God, and that to Him they would return; and to this
Eastern philosophy they added practical fanaticism, rushing wildly
about, shouting, yelling, begging. The Waldenses and Albigenses
multiplied, and diversity of opinion spread in every direction.

CENTURY XIV.

This fourteenth century is one of the epochs that sorely test the
ingenuity of believers in papal infallibility; for the cardinals, having
elected one pope in A.D. 1378, rapidly took a dislike to him, and
elected a second. The first choice, Urban VI., remained at Rome; the
second, Clement VII., betook himself to Avignon. They duly
excommunicated each other, and the Latin Church was rent in twain. "The
distress and calamity of these times is beyond all power of description;
for not to insist upon the perpetual contentions and wars between the
factions of the several popes, by which multitudes lost their fortunes
and lives, all sense of religion was extinguished in most places, and
profligacy arose to a most scandalous excess. The clergy, while they
vehemently contended which of the reigning popes was the true successor
of Christ, were so excessively corrupt as to be no longer studious to
keep up even an appearance of religion or decency" ("Europe During the
Middle Ages," Hallam, p. 359).

Meanwhile, the struggle between Rome and the heretics went on with
ever-increasing fury. In England, Dr. John Wickcliff, rector of
Lutterworth, became famous by his attack on the mendicant orders in A.D.
1360, and from that time he raised his voice louder and louder, till he
spoke against the pope himself. He translated the Bible into English,
attacked many of the prevailing superstitions, and although condemned as
holding heretical opinions, he yet died in peace, A.D. 1387. Rome
revenged itself by digging up his bones and burning them, about thirteen
years later. Rebellion spread even among the monks of the Church, and a
vast number of some nonconformist Franciscan monks, termed Spirituals,
were burned for their refusal to obey the pope on matters of discipline.
The intense hatred between the Franciscan and Dominican orders made the
latter the willing instrument of the papacy; and, in their character as
inquisitors, they hunted down their unfortunate rivals as heretics. The
Flagellants, a sect who wandered ab