All this rings true, and it was confirmed and completed by the evidence of the “lay” prisoners. These people called themselves “the poor of Christ” and regarded themselves as God’s elect. Indeed — exactly like the Waldensians — they held that they were the only true Christians, for they alone imitated Christ and the apostles in their absolute poverty. Whole families lived and died in this faith, and had done for generations; children were born into it. From time to time inquisitors would descend on these remote villages and scare those whom they did not imprison or burn into abandoning their faith. But sooner or later the renegades were apt to decide that the poverty-loving brethren offered a surer way to salvation than a Church weighed down with possessions and riddled with simony; and they would drift back. So the Fraticelli communities survived, minute islands of asceticism in a sea of worldliness.
But if the first confession at the Castel Sant’ Angelo yields a perfectly coherent picture, the second reveals some strangely incongruous features. For the statements by the next prisoner, Francis of Maiolati, include the following:
“Interrogated concerning the matter of the barilotto, he said that when he was young, ten or twelve years of age, he twice found himself in the crypt of a church which has since been destroyed, at a spot near Maiolati. After mass had been celebrated at night, just before dawn, the lights were put out and the people cried, ‘Put out the light, let us go to eternal life, alleluia, alleluia; and let each man take hold of his woman.’ ” Asked what he did himself, and whether he had sexual intercourse with any woman, he replied that he was young at that time, and the young people left the church; the adults stayed behind and had intercourse with the women present. They made a stamping noise, like the noise on the holy day of Venus.
Interrogated concerning the powders, he replied that, from the babies born, they take one little boy as a sacrifice. They make a fire, around which they stand in a circle. They pass the little boy from hand to hand until he is quite dried up. Later they make powders from the body. They put these powders in a flask of wine. After the end of mass they give some of this wine to all taking part; each drinks once from the flask, by way of communion. And he, Francis, was there twice, and drank twice, when attending mass. He also said that for thirty years he had not belonged to the sect, because he had had no occasion. He joined again after the arrival of Brother Bernard, who brought him back to it by his preaching; and he had made confession four times to the same Bernard.(29)
Such was the story told by Francis of Maiolati. To understand it, two facts have to be borne in mind. As in all inquisitorial trials, the tribunal was empowered to use torture; and again and again the record of the enquiry expressly states that torture was in fact used. Francis may not have been tortured, but he certainly knew that he could be. Secondly, the prisoners incarcerated in the Castel Sant’ Angelo included a Fraticelli “bishop”, Nicholas of Massaro. This man did not figure at all in the first series of interrogations; but there are strong indications that Francis’s statement was intended to prepare the way for his appearance later. Interrogated afresh, Francis stated that he knew of the ritual infanticide only from senior members of the sect.(30) Another prisoner, Angelo of Poli, was more precise: the first time he had ever heard of the barilotto was now, in prison, when the “bishop” Nicholas had told him of it.(31) It is impossible to tell whether these laymen were forced to incriminate their “bishop” or whether, on the contrary, the “bishop” was forced to mislead his followers; but it is also immaterial. By whatever means, the scene was set for a dramatic confession by a leader of the Fraticelli.
The enquiry began in August 1466, and in October the commission laid its report before Pope Paul. The pope insisted that the enquiry should be resumed forthwith, and the prisoners interrogated afresh.(32) This time Nicholas of Massaro was at the head of the line; a venerable figure, it would seem, for he had been a bishop for some forty years. He at once confessed to everything — to taking part in the orgies and in the infanticides; also to handing out the wine with the ashes of the incinerated baby “nine or ten times”. He had only one correction to make: the orgies were not wholly promiscuous, the men usually chose women they knew, and he himself usually took Catherine of Palumbaria.(33) Catherine, being summoned, failed to confirm this — she could recall having intercourse with the elderly Nicholas only once or twice. On the other hand, she knew all about the infanticides and the making of the powders; indeed, these things were frequently done in her very house.(34)
This is the sum total of evidence concerning orgies, infanticides and cannibalistic beverages amongst the Fraticelli: for the rest, the records of the interrogations, which are unusually full and vivid, show only how utterly strange these stories seemed to the ordinary lay members of the sect. The reaction of one exceptionally strong character, Antonio of Sacco, is revealing. In August and again in October this man stood by his faith.(35) He refused to abjure, and he refused to kneel before the tribunal. Told that the “bishop” Nicholas himself had abjured, he remained unshaken; in that case, he replied, he would subordinate himself not to a heretical pope but to God alone. He admitted, and gloried in, every article of faith of the Fraticelli. At the same time he denied all knowledge of the barilotto. So, at the renewed enquiry in October, Antonio de Sacco was tortured in the usual way; being hauled up by a rope around his wrists, which were tied behind him, and then suddenly dropped — a proceeding calculated to tear the muscles and dislocate the joints. After several applications of this torture Antonio admitted to taking part in the barilotto — but as soon as he was taken off the rope, he denied it. Tortured again, he confirmed his first statement — but when he was brought before the tribunal, he again denied everything.(36)
In the end Antonio capitulated, like all the other accused, to the extent of abjuring his faith, asking to be received back into the Church, and promising to accept the pope as the true vicar of God on earth. Coming close up to the commissioners he said humbly: “My lords, forgive me.” But he also said: “My lords, you saw how yesterday, when I was being tortured, I said I had twice attended the barilotto. It’s not true. I have a young wife and a beautiful daughter, who are detained here in the prisons of Sant’ Angelo. I would never have permitted such things.”(37)
The rest of the accused were no more helpful. Unlike Antonio of Sacco they all abjured very quickly, during the first series of interrogations — but even so, nobody supported Francis of Maiolati in his allegations. It was not simply that nobody confessed to taking part in such sinister practices — nobody knew anything at all about them. And the same happened when the interrogations were resumed in October. Apart from Nicholas, Catherine and Francis, nobody could throw any light on the matter — and Francis himself insisted that he had never seen any of these things himself. Indeed, as the proceedings continued he could no longer even recall the age at which he had heard, from outside a church, what he thought was a barilotto — perhaps it was ten, but then again perhaps it was fifteen.(38)