THE spiritual exaltation which produced among the Franciscans the developments described in the last chapter was by no means confined to the recognized members of that Order. It manifested itself in even more irregular fashion in the little group of sectaries known as Guglielmites, and in the more formidable demonstration of the Dolcinists, or Apostolic Brethren.
About the year 1260 there came to Milan a woman calling herself Guglielma. That she brought with her a son shows that she had lived in the world, and was doubtless tried with its vicissitudes, and as the child makes no further appearance in her history, he probably died young. She had wealth, and was said to be the daughter of Constance, queen and wife of the King of Bohemia. Her royal extraction is questionable, but the matter is scarce worth the discussion which it has provoked.[93] She was a woman of pre-eminent piety, who devoted herself to good works, without practising special austerities, and she gradually attracted around her a little band of disciples, to whom such of her utterances as have been recorded show that she gave wholesome ethical instruction. They adopted the style of plain brown garment which she habitually wore, and seem to have formed a kind of unorganized congregation, bound together only by common devotion to her.[94]
At that period it was not easy to set bounds to veneration; the spiritual world was felt to be in the closest relation with the material, and the development of Joachitism shows how readily received were suggestions that a great change was impending, and a new era about to open for mankind. Guglielma’s devotees came to regard her as a saint, gifted with thaumaturgic power. Some of her disciples claimed to be miraculously cured by her—Dr. Giacobbe da Ferno of an ophthalmic trouble, and Albertono de’ Novati of a fistula. Then it was said that she had received the supereminent honor of the Stigmata, and although those who prepared her body for the grave could not see them, this was held to be owing to their unworthiness. It was confidently predicted that she would convert the Jews and Saracens, and bring all mankind into unity of faith. At last, about 1276, some of the more enthusiastic disciples began to whisper that she was the incarnation of the Holy Ghost, in female form—the Third Person of the Trinity, as Christ was of the Second, in the shape of a man. She was very God and very man; it was not alone the body of Christ which suffered in the Passion, but also that of the Holy Ghost, so that her flesh was the same as that of Christ. The originators of this strange belief seem to have been Andrea Saramita, a man of standing in Milan, and Suor Maifreda di Pirovano, an Umiliata of the ancient convent of Biassono, and a cousin of Matteo Visconti. There is no probability that Guglielma countenanced these absurd stories. Andrea Saramita was the only witness who asserted that h
