Consigned to the flames: An analysis of the Apostolic Order of Bologna 1290-1307 with some comparison to the Beguins/Spiritual Franciscans 1300-1330

Timberlake-Newell, Elizabeth (2012) Consigned to the flames: An analysis of the Apostolic Order of Bologna 1290-1307 with some comparison to the Beguins/Spiritual Franciscans 1300-1330. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

The Apostolic Order, a late medieval Italian mendicant order remains fundamentally little understood despite several centuries of research and writing devoted to their history. Much of the work done on the Apostolic Order (or Followers of Dolcino) has been focused on their leaders, taken as given the order’s heretical status, or presumed the marginalized status of those who supported the order. This thesis attempts to reconsider the order and its supporters by placing them as another mendicant order prior to the papal condemnation, and put forth the new perspective that the supporters were much like other medieval persons and became socially marginalized by the inquisitorial focus on the Apostolic Order. To support this theory, this thesis will compare the inquisitorial records of the Apostolic supporters found in Historia Fratris Dulcini Heresiarche and the Acta S. Officii Bononie—ab anon 1291 usque ad annum 1310 to those of another group of mendicants and supporters, the Beguins of Provence, which are found in Spirituali e Beghini in Provenza, Bernard Gui’s Le Livre des Sentences de L’inquisiteur Bernard Gui 1308-1323, and the martyrology in Louisa Burnham’s So Great a Light, So Great a Smoke: The Beguin Heretics of Languedoc. These two groups of data were compared using statistical analysis and network and game theory, and the results were that 1) the groups were similar; 2) most differences could be reasonably explained by the objectives of respective inquisitions or length of persecution prior to the inquisition. That these two groups are comparable suggests that there are patterns in mendicant supporter membership exemplified by Franciscan tertiaries and that the supporters of the Apostolic Order fit this pattern.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Keywords: Followers of Dolcino, Pseudo-Apostles, network analysis, heresy, Medieval Italy, Franciscans
• Subjects: D History General and Old World > DG Italy
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > History
• Supervisor's Name: Roach, Dr. Andrew
• Date of Award: 2012
• Depositing User: Dr. Elizabeth Timberlake-Newell
• Unique ID: glathesis:2012-3592
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 16 Aug 2013 06:54
• Last Modified: 16 Aug 2013 06:56
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/3592