The Man Who Invented the Future

Imagine a world with no clocks or calendars in the homes. You lived by the cycle of the seasons and the annual religious festivals and holy days. Life is cyclical. After all, "If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" as Shelley wrote centuries later. No need to look ahead, unless the pope called a synod or Crusade that took years of preparation. No one imagines this changing. Into this world comes Joachim de Fiore (c.1135 - 1202), who begins to study the Bible, looking for hidden meanings. He especially focuses on John's book of Revelation that describes a very different world.

We've talked about medieval attitudes to the end times before (here and here, for example). Clearly the world did not end or change radically at the millennium, and Joachim was trying to figure out what biblical references to upcoming events meant. What he proposed was a theory of the ages of the world that was very appealing to his co-religionists, and saw what lay ahead in very attractive terms.

He tied the history of the world—both past and future—into the concept of the Trinity. The first age of the world was represented by God the Father and aligned with the Old Testament. The second age was the age of Jesus Christ, and aligned with the New Testament. A third age was coming, however, and this is why Joachim's thought was such a pivotal moment in theology and culture. Each age was better than the previous, and the best was yet to come.

Of course people had a concept of the future, in that they knew they would wake up tomorrow and different events might happen during their day. They knew they would eventually die, but their children would age, have children of their own, and the cycle would continue. Joachim envisioned a future in which the entire world evolved into something new.

The third age was the age of the Holy Spirit. It was supposed to arrive at or by 1260, and would be the age of universal love, the Kingdom of the Holy Spirit, and the ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church would be replaced—an enormous change in society!—by the "Order of the Just," people whose level of Christian enlightenment would mean no rules were needed: people would simply care for each other.

Those who felt the church was too worldly were attracted to Joachim's theory. One of Joachim's followers, Gerardo, would later declare the "Order of the Just" was the Franciscan Order, that had developed an ascetic branch called the Spirituals. Ubertino de Casale adopted Joachim's ideas. Joachim's notion of the third age also inspired the Cult of the Holy Spirit centuries later.

One of the problems with the reception of his writing was, of course, that he foresaw the end of the current ecclesiastical system. He had no problem declaring the end of the papacy because Rome was Babylon and the pope as the Antichrist. As the year 1260 approached, however, his writing was widely circulated. Thomas Aquinas (writing just after 1260) opposed Joachim's theory, but Dante (c.1265 - 1321) placed Joachim in Paradiso. Some Franciscan Joachimite Spirituals decided that the Antichrist was Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (died 1250).

The Fourth Lateran declared some of his ideas heretical. Worthy of note, however, was that Joachim himself was still respected and never declared a heretic.

Joachim has been referenced by poets and authors, including Umberto Eco, James Joyce, Yeats, the modern Illuminatus trilogy. Some think that Hegel's theory that each age of history gets better than the last came from Joachim's theory.  There was even a 2023 movie called Joachim and the Apocalypse.

I want to get away from "heavier" topics for a bit and build on what I said in the fourth paragraph above. Tomorrow we'll look at the question "Did children exist in the Middle Ages?"

Ubertino the Heretic

Ubertino de Casale felt so strongly that the proper spiritual life for a Franciscan and other prelates required a life of strict poverty that he strongly denounced those who thought and lived otherwise. Franciscans who felt the same were called the Spirituals.

The Spirituals publicly declared the leaders of the Franciscans as heretics, along with Popes Gregory IX, Nicholas III, and Innocent III. Innocent had spoken against the teachings of Joachim of Fiore, a brilliant theologian whose ideas supported the Spirituals. Another pope, Benedict XI, forbade Ubertino from preaching and banished him to Monte Alverna, a remote convent in the center of the Tuscan Apennines that was associated with St. Francis (he supposedly received the stigmata there).

Rather than be penitent and alter his views, Ubertino used his time to write a book, Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Jesu Christi ("The Tree of the Crucified Life of Jesus"), in which he promoted his views on the poverty of Christ and Christians. The book became popular reading, which brought it to the attention of the church authorities.

In the book, Ubertino had identified Pope Boniface VIII and Benedict XI as the first and second beats of the Apocalypse. This was not received well by the papacy, and Ubertino was summoned to Avignon with other leaders of the Spirituals to debate his ideas. Ubertino's demand that the Spirituals of the Franciscans have separate monasteries was denied. Pope Clement V issued a bull in 1312, Exivi de Paradiso, in which he declared the Franciscans able to accept and use money for necessities despite the strict rule of St. Francis.

In 1317, Ubertino was allowed to lave the Franciscans and make his home with the Benedictines, but he did not stop commenting loudly on the Franciscans, for which he was excommunicated in 1318. In 1322, the Dominicans and the Franciscans were arguing about the poverty of Jesus Christ, and Ubertino was summoned once again to Avignon to offer his opinions. Ubertino's opinion mirrored the papal bull of 1312: although Christ and the Apostles rejected personal possessions, they used alms and goods for necessities and to help others.

Pope John XXII liked this answer. Ubertino stayed in Avignon, but in 1325 he was accused of heresy again by speaking out in support of Peter Olivi, a French Franciscan who had been Ubertino's teacher in Florence who also promoted strict poverty and probably influenced Ubertino in that direction. Pope John XXII ordered him arrested, but Ubertino fled and disappeared from the historical record.

I mentioned Joachim de Fiore above. His ideas still resonate today among theologians. Our current Pope quoted him just a few months ago, so I think he's worth discussing. See  you next time.

Ubertino of Casale

St. Francis of Assisi insisted on personal poverty for members of the order he founded, the idea that one should have no possessions and live with as little as possible. Over time, some members of the Franciscans felt that this restriction was not being observed the way it should, and they started practicing the extreme poverty exemplified by Francis himself.

To be fair, the Franciscans began caring for the poor and the sick, and that was not something you could do unless you had possessions: a roof and paraphernalia for helping sick and hurt people. So the Franciscans evolved into two groups: The Zelanti (from the word "zeal"), also called the Spirituals, and the Relaxati, later called the Conventuals.

The Spirituals' extreme views caused them to criticize the growing wealth of the Church and the lavish lifestyle of its top prelates. This put the Fraticelli on a collision course with the papacy, fictionalized by Umberto Eco in the book The Name of the Rose. In the book (and movie), we meet one of the Spirituals, Ubertino de Casale (seen above worshipping Christ).

Ubertino joined the Franciscans in 1273 as a 14-year-old. After a few years he was sent to Paris to study, but returned to Italy when he was done. He traveled to Rome, visiting Christian sanctuaries and sites, then settled in Tuscany. Considered very smart though eccentric, he soon became leader of the Tuscany Spirituals.

The Tuscany Spirituals were so extreme that they started to publicly claim that Popes Gregory IX and Nicholas III (who had been a friend of Francis) were heretics for not interpreting the Franciscan rule of poverty properly, and allowing moderation. Gregory had stated that gifts given to the Franciscans were in fact gifts to the pope, and the Franciscans were just using them temporarily. Pope Innocent IV allowed the Franciscans to appoint an outsider who would be in charge of buying, selling, and managing goods, like a quartermaster. The Spirituals did not approve of this way of trying to weasel out of Francis' original rule.

Of course, Ubertino was one of the loudest critics of the papacy and his fellow Franciscans, and the authorities decided he needed to be dealt with. We'll talk about that tomorrow.

The Council of Vienne

The Council of Vienne (1311-1312; seen here in a painting in 1880 by Paul Lacroix) has been mentioned before, and produced some positive decisions, but its goal of church reform led to the condemnation of certain groups who did not seem to deserve condemnation.

One of its condemnations was of the Beguines and Beghards. These were groups of (respectively) laywomen and laymen who created communities of folk who wanted to live simple lives devoted to prayer and good works. Their lifestyle mirrored that of monks, but they took no formal vows. The difficulty for the Council was that these groups were accused of believing that they could achieve their own salvation independent of the guidance of religion (or the authority of the Church) by living their lives simply. Pope Clement V produced an encyclical from the Council condemning the groups as heretical. In some areas, Beguines and Beghards were actually burned.

Another conflict between formal and informal spirituality was sparked by Ubertino de Casale (a significant figure in the book and movie The Name of the Rose). He complained that a stricter adherence to the Rule of St. Francis was necessary, especially regarding the vow of poverty. Those following this stricter rule were called Spirituals, and they were opposed by the leaders of the Franciscans, who were straying away from the vow of strict poverty. The outcome of the Council was a bull from Clement left decisions of behavior up to the individual abbots.

The Council embedded in canon law that priests must not marry, and laid out punishments for adultery, concubinage, fornication, incest, and rape.

A crusade was discussed, because the King of Aragon wanted to attack the Muslim city of Granada. Philip IV of France on 3 April 1312 (the Council ended the following May) vowed to go on Crusade within the next six years, but Clement said he had to start within the next year and Philip must lead it. A tithe was begun to raise funds for the Crusade, but Phillip died in November 1314.

One of the biggest decisions to come out of the Council was regarding the Knights Templar. When Clement called the Council by a bull in August 1308, saying the Templars would have to answer for their actions in a new ecumenical council in 1310 (it was obviously delayed). This bull created papal commissions to investigate the Templars and take depositions that would be brought to the pope.

The fate of the Templars has been discussed many time in this blog, but Ubertino de Casale has not, so tomorrow we'll look at his life and impact on the Franciscans.