¹ The chief source of information about the Guglielmites is the inquisitorial process against Guglielma’s followers which is printed by Tocco, [F.]. ‘Il processo [dei Guglielmiti’], Reale Accademia dei Lincei, memorie della classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, Rendiconti, 5 Series, 8 (Rome 1899) pp 309–42, 351–84, 407–32, 437–69Google Scholar. The text is a transcription of MS A 227 inf of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan. Processus ab inquisitoribus haereticae pravitatis confecti Mediolani anno Domini MCCC contra Cuillelmam Bohemam. Apparently this entire extant manuscript, which includes other inquisitorial cases, was composed as a unit and written in the same hand in or after 1303, the latest date noted. (According to Caffi, [M.], [Dell’ abbazia di Chiaravalle] (Milan 1842) p 91Google Scholar, this document was preserved by a Carthusian, Matthew Valerio, in the sixteenth century.) A microfilm of this manuscript has been consulted, but references will be to Tocco’s printed text. A slightly abbreviated Italian translation of the process in Ogniben, [A.], [I Guglielmiti del secolo XIII] (Perugia 1867)Google Scholar is of little use. The record of this inquisitorial activity against the Guglielmites, which lasted from 19 April 1300 until 12 February 1302, is not complete. Thirty-three individuals are examined in the process within which occur references to examinations not extant. Lacking these documents, certain questions concerning the Guglielmites will never receive precise answers.

² For various summations of the basic teachings of this sect see Tocco, ‘Il processo’, pp 319, 320, 329, 332, 336–7, 338, 340, 352–3, 354–5, 358–9, 363–4, 368–9, 377–8.

³ Ibid p 413.

⁴ Vattasso, M., ‘Del Petrarca e di alcuni suoi amici’, Studi e testi, 14 (Vatican 1904) p 53.Google Scholar

⁵ Corio, B., Storia di Milano, ed Magri, E. De, Butti, A. and Ferrano, L., 3 vols (Milan 1855-7) I pp 684–5Google Scholar and Trithemius, J., Annalium hirsaugiensium, opus, 2 vols in I (St Gall 1690) 2 pp 76–8Google Scholar. A manuscript fragment noted by Kristeller, P., Iter italicum, 2 vols (Leiden 1965-7) 2 p 268Google Scholar, Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana MS Marc Lat XIV 235 fols 78^r/^v, De sceleribus secte Gulielma et Andree viri sui apud Mediolanum, told the same story of sexual excesses as found in Corio. This tale was repeated also by Foresti, J. in Novissime hystoriarum omnium repercussiones [Venice 1503] fols 324^v-5^r.Google Scholar

⁶ Conradus Coppa’s wife, Jacoba, actually did belong to the sect. Conradus was absente et nesciente while the sectaries met in his house and one leader, Mayfreda, distributed blessed hosts; see Tocco, ‘Il processo’, p 414.

⁷ Key elements and descriptive phrases of the stock heretical orgy have been traced back to reports of Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix, and Tertullian. The heretics at Orleans (1022) were perhaps the first medieval actors in what becaame the standard orgiastic scenario. For discussions of sexual orgies and heresy see Russell, J., Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Ithaca and London 1972) pp 88–93Google Scholar and his ‘Witchcraft and the Demonization of Heresy’, a paper delivered at the seventh annual conference of the Center of Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, Binghampton, N.Y. (The proceedings are to be published.)

⁸ Bullarium magnum romanum, ed A. Taurinorum, S. Franco, H. Fory, and H. Dalmazzo, 25 vols (Turin 1857-72) 4 pp 134-5. In the year of this bull, 1296, one member of the Gugliclmite sect was called before the inquisition. See Guarnieri, R., ‘Il movimento del Libero Spirito: I. Dalle origini al secolo XVI, II. I “Miroir des simples âmes” di Margherita Porete, III. Appendici’, Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà, 4 (Rome 1963) pp 387–8Google Scholar for references to several other groups this bull might have been directed against.

⁹ A few writings, such as the Annales colmarienses [maiores], MGH SS, 17 p 226, contemporary with the sectaries, did, however, correctly identify Guglielma’s heresy as the claim to be the Holy Spirit incarnate. The content of the Guglielmite heresy was rediscovered in 1676 by J. P. Puricelli, whose unpublished manuscript in the Ambrosian Library in Milan was based on inquisitorial records; see [J. P.] Puricelli, [De Guillelma bohema… dissertatio], Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS sup C¹ inf. His finding was reviewed by C. Amoretti in June 1812 in a paper delivered to the Istituto Storico Lombardo.

¹⁰ Ogniben pp 117-30.

¹¹ Ibid pp 84-90.

¹² Tocco, F., ‘Guglielma Boema e i Guglielmiti’, Reale Accademia dei Lincei, memorie della classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, Atti, 5 Series, 8 (Rome 1900) p 28.Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid pp 25-6.

¹⁴ Biscaro, G., ‘Guglielma la Boema e Guglielmiti’, ASL, 6 series 57 (1930) pp 1, 22, 26, 31, 32, 50, 64, 67.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Lea, H. C., A History in the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, 3 vols (New York 1888, repr 1955) 3 p 102.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Contrast Joachim of Fiore, Tractatus super quatuor evangelia, ed E. Buonaiuti (Rome 1930) p 80 with Concordia (Venice 1519, repr 1964) fol 95^v. For arguments that Joachim kept the Petrine and papal elements in the future church see Reeves, [M.], [The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages] (Oxford 1969) pp 395–7Google Scholar; Denifle, H., ‘Das Evangelium aeternum und die Commission zu Anagni’, ALKG, 1 (1885) pp 55–6Google Scholar; and Joachim abbatis liber contra Lombardum, ed C. Ottaviano, Reale Accademia d’Italia, Studi e documenti, 3 (Rome 1934) pp 22-5.

¹⁷ Bonaventura, , Legenda sancti Francisi, Opera omnia, 11 vols (Quaracchi 1882-1902) 8 p 504Google Scholar and Collationes in Hexaemeron, ibid 5 p 445.

¹⁸ ‘Littera magistrorum’, ed S. Baluze and J. Mansi, Miscellanea, 4 vols (Lucca 1761-4) 2 p 259. Although Reeves, pp 195-8 and Manselli, R., ‘La terza età, Babylon e l’antichristo mistico’, BISIMEAM, 82 (1970) pp 49 and 58Google Scholar have debated the meaning of Olivi’s unique passage concerning three ages connected with the Trinity, neither has denied that the text is his. See also Burr, D., The Persecution of Peter Olivi, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, ns, 66 pt 5 (Philadelphia 1976) p 19.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Amalric of Bena died in 1206 and a number of Amalricians were burned in 1210. For their ideas about the incarnation of the Holy Spirit see Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogas miraculorum, ed J. Strange, 2 vols (Cologne/Bonn/Brussels 1851) 1 p 305; Chartularium universitatis parisiensis, ed H. Denifle and E. Chatelain, 4 vols (Paris 1889-97) I pp 70-2- When the heresy was discovered it had just begun to spread from the university of Paris to other areas; consult d’Alverny, M.-T., ‘Un fragment du procès des Amauriciens’, Archives d’historie doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge, 26 (Paris 1951) pp 325–36Google Scholar. Reeves, M. and Hirsch-Reich, B., The ‘Figurae’ of Joachim of Fiore (Oxford 1972) p 298Google Scholar, observed that the author of the Contra Amaurianos, Werner of Rochefort, used Joachim of Fiore’s ideas against the Amalricians because he felt they had misapplied the ideas of the abbot. Hence, Reeves and Hirsch-Reich opened up the possibility of an interconnection between these intellectual currents.

²⁰ May, W., ‘The Confession of Prous Boneta Heretic and Heresiarch’, Essays in Medieval Life and Tliought, ed Mundy, J., Emery, R., Nelson, B. (New York 1965) pp 11, 27; 19–20Google Scholar. For information about another contemporary who considered himself the apostle of a new dispensation see Lerner, R., ‘An “Angel of Philadelphia” in the Reign of Philip the Fair: The Case of Guiard of Cressonessart’, Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages, ed Jordan, W., McNab, B. and Ruiz, T. (Princeton 1976) pp 343–64.Google Scholar

²¹ Tocco, ‘Il processo’, p 340.

²² Ibid p 321.

²³ Ibid p 333.

²⁴ Ibid pp 318, 320.

²⁵ Ibid pp 338, 342, 353, 370, 373.

²⁶ Gilbert of Tournai in his Collectio de scandalis ecclesiae wrote about the stigmata of a contemporary German woman, who has been identified as Elizabeth of Erkenrodt in Stroick, A., ‘“Collectio de scandalise cclesiae”. Nova editio’, AFP, 24 (1931) p 62.Google Scholar

²⁷ His stigmata was used by both the conventuals and the spirituals as absolute proof of Francis’s sanctity, and it also played a role in their apocalyptic symbolism; see Bihelf, S. ‘S. Franciscus fuitne angelus sexti sigilli? (Apoc. 7, 2)’, Ant, 2 (1927) pp 59–90Google Scholar. For the belief in Francis’s resurrection and subsequent appearance see ‘Ausziige aus des Petrus Johannes d’Olive Postille über die Apokalypse’, Beitrãge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, ed I. v. Döllinger, 2 vols (Munich 1890, repr [1960]) 2 p 549.

²⁸ Salimbene, [Chronica], MGH SS, 32 pp 255-8.

²⁹ Tocco, ‘Il processo’, p 372, ‘… quod ipse Andreas credebat, quod dicta sancta Guillelma esset spiritus sanctus, et quod ipsa Guillelma faceret multa similia hiis que fecerat Christus.’

³⁰ Ibid pp 415, 418, 420.

³¹ Ibid pp 329, 441 for the belief; pp 371-2 for the lack of proof.

³² Ibid p 373.

³³ Ibid pp 321, 375, 413.

³⁴ Salimbene pp 280-4, 286.

³⁵ Aldrovandi, L., ‘Acta Sancti Officii Bononiae ab anno 1291 usque ad annum 1309’, Atti e memorie d.r. Deputazione di storia patria per le provincie di Romagna, 3 Series, 14 (Bologna 1896) pp 259, 260Google Scholar; Historia Fratris Dulcini heresiarche di Anonimo Sincrono, ed A. Segarizzi, Muratori, 9 pt 5 p 57.

³⁶ Tocco, ‘Il processo’, pp 317, 322, 329-30, 331, 333, 373-4.

³⁷ Ibid pp 424, 425.

³⁸ Ibid pp 422, 426; 370, 326.

³⁹ Ibid pp 353, 369.

⁴⁰ Ibid p 415. Guglielma’s statement resembles the assertions of the free spirit mystics; see Lerner, R., The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages (Berkeley, Los Angeles/London 1972) pp 115, 211, 218, 222.Google Scholar

⁴¹ The career of Otto Visconti may be studied in Cattaneo, E., ‘Ottone Visconti arcivescovo di Milano’, Contributi dell’ istituto di storia medioevale, 3 Series, I (Milan 1968) pp 129–65.Google Scholar

⁴² Galvanno Fiamma, Chronica Mediolani seu manipulus fiorum, Muratori, 11 col 692; Raynaldus, [O.], [Annales ecclesiastici], 15 vols (Lucca 1747-56) 3 p 389Google Scholar. The full involvement of the whole city in this controversy can be seen in Ratti, A., ‘A Milano nel 1266’, Memorie del reale istituto lombardo di scienze e lettere, 3 Series 12 (Milan 1899-1907) pp 205–35.Google Scholar

⁴³ Tocco, ‘Il processo’, pp 320-1, 411.

⁴⁴ Les registres de Martin IV, ed L’École francaise de Rome and F. Olivier-Martin (Paris 1901-35) pp 267-71; Arnoldi, D., ‘Le carte dello archivio arcivescovile di Vercelli’, Biblioteca della società storica subalpina, 85 (Turin 1917) pp 324–35Google Scholar; HVM, 2 pp 32-29; and pp 317-18, ‘…quod non sine mentis turbatione referimus, religionis quidem gestantes habitum, sed a religionis actibus discrepantes, in eodem ordine pacis emulo instigante, seditiones multiplices excitarunt, et assumpto rebellionis spiritu contra magistrum ejusdem ordinis et suos prelatos se in superbiam erexerunt, ac horrendis ab eis nimium excessibus perpetratis, plurima in predicto ordine scandala suscitarunt, in suarum animarum periculum, et ipsius ordinis maximum detrimentum…’

⁴⁵ Tocco, ‘Il processo*, p 333.

⁴⁶ Ibid p 376.

⁴⁷ Ibid pp 316-17, 324.

⁴⁸ Ibid pp 320, 337, 339, 340, 352, 359, 412-14, 415. The hosts were given to the sick and consumed out of devotion to Guglielma. Any recoveries were ascribed, of course, to her; see ibid pp 326 and 366. When the sectaries were cited by the inquisition, Mayfreda particularly feared the disclosure of this priestly activity; she warned those cited to say nothing about the mass in ibid p 412.

⁴⁹ Ibid pp 318, 332, 333.

⁵⁰ Koch, G., Frauenfrage und Ketzertum im Mittelaher (Berlin 1962) pp 31 and 32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Koch the most important impulses that drove women into beguine houses and cathar groups were economic and social, but he did not deny religious motivation. McLaughlin, E., ‘Les femmes et l’hérésie médiévale. Un problème dans l’histoire de la spiritualité’. Concilium, III (Paris 1976) pp 73–90Google Scholar, failed to consider the Guglielmites in her discussion of the presence of women in medieval heretical groups.

⁵¹ Coleman, E., ‘Infanticide in the Early Middle Ages’, Women in Medieval Society, ed Stuard, S. M. ([Philadelphia] 1976) p 64Google Scholar and Herlihy, D., ‘Life Expectancies for Women in Medieval Society’, The Role of Women in the Middle Ages, ed Morewedge, R. T. (Albany 1975) pp 14, 20Google Scholar. I am grateful to John Mundy of Columbia University who originally offered this suggestion to me.

⁵² Ibid pp 10-16.

⁵³ Werner, E., ‘Messianische Bewegungen im Mittelalter’, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, 10 (Berlin 1962) p 396.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Werner, E., ‘Die Stellung der Katharer zur Frau’, Studi medievali, 3 Series, 2 (Turin 1961) pp 295–301.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ In practice catharism did not provide equality for its perfectae, as Werner, ibid p 300, tells us.

⁵⁶ Gui, Bernard, Manuel de l’inquisiteur, ed Mollat, G., 2 vols (Paris 1964) 2 p 42Google Scholar; Summa fratris Renerii…de calharis et Leonistis seu Pauperibus de Lugduno, Martène and Durand, Thesaurus, 5 col 1775.

⁵⁷ Aegerter, E., Les hérésies du moyen âge (Paris 1939) p 98Google Scholar, wrote drolly, ‘Telle (sic) quelle la doctrine apparaît comme une sorte de Joachimisme pour suffragettes’. Although the hierarchy seems to have been limited to women, their priesthood was, in fact, open to men.

⁵⁸ For information about Chiaravalle, located near Milan, see especially Caffi; also Bagnoli, R., L’abbazia di Chiaravalle milanese nella storia e nell’ arte (Milan 1935)Google Scholar, and Ottani, G., L’abbazia di Chiaravalle milanese e la sua storia (Milan 1942).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Tocco, ‘Il processo’, p 461. In the purchase of this house for the monastery Andreas Saramita acted on behalf of Chiaravalle.

⁶⁰ According to the inquisitorial process Guglielma was alive in 1276, but was not mentioned in the proceedings of 1284 when the sect was investigated. The exact date of her death can be computed as 24 August 1279. Guglielma was originally buried at Saint Peter’s and later exhumed and brought to the house of a sectary. Then, the monks of Chiara valle claimed her remains for their monastery. When the translation of the relics to Chiaravalle took place, an escort was necessary because Milan and Lodi were at war (1281). Between Guglielma’s burial at Saint Peter’s and the war of 1281, according to the testimony before the inquisitors, two years had elapsed. The anniversary of Guglielma’s death was celebrated yearly on 24 August. The evidence is not completely clear, however, and sparse in details; see ibid pp 364-5.

⁶¹ Although Guglielma was brought to the church of the lay brothers, both fratres clerici and conversi were present, see ibid p 376.

⁶² Ibid p 339.

⁶³ Puricelli fols II^r/^v; Caffi pp 10 and 69, described the fresco painted at Chiaravalle in honour of Guglielma, and represented its configuration with a line drawing.

⁶⁴ Tocco, ‘Il processo’, pp 360, 361, 364.

⁶⁵ Ibid pp 331, 357, 360, 361, 362, 364, 367, 379-80. 381.

⁶⁶ Ibid p 378. In a list of the abbots of Chiaravalle, Marchixius de Veddano, who was elected abbot in 1305, was noted as the one under whom the notorious Guglielma was buried; see Ratti, A., ‘La miscellanea chiaravallese e il libro dei prati di Chiaravalle’, ASL, 3 Series, 4 (1895) p 127.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Tocco, ‘Il processo’, pp 340-2.

⁶⁸ Some contemporaries suspected that such inquisitorial investigations of putative saints supported by older orders aided mendicant interests. When a Brescian, Guido Lacha, was exhumed for heresy by the inquisition, according to the report of the Dominican Bernard of Luxemburg, the people demanded the death of the bishop and friars because these men wished out of jealousy to burn a saint; see Bernard of Luxemburg, Catalogus hereticorum ([Cologne] 1526) H, fol 4^v; and Creytens, R., ‘Le manuel de conversation de Philippe de Ferrare, O. P. (ƚ1350?)’, AFP, 16 (1946) pp 120–1Google Scholar. (I am grateful to Fr Kaeppeli of the Istituto Storico Domenicano in Rome for pointing out to me the mention of Guido Lacha in Philip of Ferrara’s work.) The investigation of Armanno Pungilupo of Ferrara by the inquisition fits this same pattern; see Alatri, M. da, ‘L’eresia nella Cronica di Fra Salimbene’, Coll Franc, 37 (1967) p 372Google Scholar). On the other side, however, the Franciscan chronicler Salimbene gave the mendicant viewpoint concerning these cults when he listed the all-too-human motives for the veneration of several ‘false’ saints of his day; see Salimbene pp 503-4.

⁶⁹ From the inquisitorial records it can be concluded that there were at least twenty-eight female sectaries, eighteen of whom were examined during the trial, and eighteen male sectaries, eight of whom were also examined. It is important to note that among the sectaries there were adherents of both the rival Visconti and della Torre factions, and also that the attempt of John XXII in the 1320s to use this heresy as part of his anti-Visconti propaganda campaign does not give the sect itself any political overtones.

⁷⁰ Biscaro, G., ‘Il contratto di vitalizio nelle carte milanesi del secolo XIII’, Rivista italiana per te scienze giuridiche, 41 (Rome and Turin 1906) pp 28–32.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Although the document that sentenced Guglielma’s body to be burned is lost, and although the incomplete process against the Guglielmites does not declare that Guglielma was a heretic, other evidence indicates this fate for her remains; see Tocco, ‘Il processo’, p 462; Annales colmarienses p 226; Raynaldus, 5 p 262; and Chronique latine de Guillaume de Nangis de 1113 a 1300 avec les continuations de cette chronique de 1300 a 1368, ed H. Géraud, 2 vols (Paris 1843) p 5.