This hypothesis was not to be underestimated, for Bernardino of Siena tells how one day Lucifer, surrounded by all his demons, manifested to them his desire to start a church in contraposition to that of Christ, an Ecclesia malignantium wherewith to cancel out or at least mitigate the effectiveness of the other, celestial Church, upon which it was modelled. Even Agrippa of Nettesheim, who did not much believe in witches' spells, was so certain of the malefic powers of the canters that he went so far as to accuse them of practising black magic.
With time, matters got worse, explained the chaplain, as I checked on one of the arquebuses planted in the ground, to make sure that it was indeed well aimed. Even the genuine religious orders were infected by the scandal. The monasteries got wind of the freedoms enjoyed in the world: it was necessary only to serve up a little nonsense to the ingenuous. The body came then to prevail over the spirit, eating and drinking over prayer, sloth over works consecrated to the Lord.
"Wearing black vestments, as Libanius writes in Pro Templis, the monks ate more than elephants. They were men in appearance, yet they lived like pigs, and they publicly tolerated and committed acts of the foulest, most unspeakable turpitude. As Saint Augustine well knew, the enclosed orders of friars were reduced to an ignoble, muddy Gehenna," he exclaimed, casting a compassionate glance at a robin I had found dead in one of the cages, perhaps killed by the strain of being carted around thus.
Monks and pseudo-monks, excommunicated by their own bishop, swarmed out from the cloister and began to wander unpunished on the highways, perturbing the peace of the Church and spreading further corruption amongst the good people. They joined the multitudes of true and false tramps, ragamuffins, layabouts, lepers, gypsies, vagabonds, cripples and paralytics lying in front of church doors, and made them their impure flocks.
Now all doors were open to their cunning. Yet none could do anything about them, because they were poor, or at least, so they seemed and, as Domingo de Soto teaches in his Deliberatio in causa pauperum, in case of doubt, one should nonetheless give one's coin to those who beg. In dubio pro paupere.
"Not only does the practice of charity cancel out sin but, as Saint John Chrysostom puts it: the poor beggars piled one on another in church porches are the physicians of the soul. Indeed, Peter Chrysologos preached that, when the poor man stretches out his hand to ask for charity, it is Christ Himself who does so."
"But, if it is as you say, then roguery is the daughter of compassion and thus, indirectly, of the Church itself," I deduced with no little surprise as I placed a few crumbs in a cage.
"Oh, come now…" Don Tibaldutio stumbled, "I really did not intend to say such a thing."
There was, he nonetheless admitted, something disquieting about all this. The Hospitalier Friars of Altopascio, for instance, who begged unrestrictedly at castles and in villages, were an official grouping authorised by the Church of Rome. By their preaching they frightened the people, threatening excommunication or promising indulgences. And, in exchange for money, they would absolve anyone.
Had not the pontiffs too succumbed to the ambiguous fascination of superstition and charlatanry? Boniface VIII always wore a talisman against the urinary calculus, while Clement V and Benedict XII were never separated from the cornu serpentinum, an amulet in the shape of a serpent which John XXII even went so far as to keep on his table, stuck into a loaf of bread and surrounded by salt.
"But, some say," he added, lowering his voice by an octave, "that even the cerretani themselves originally enjoyed official sanction."
"Really? And what kind of sanction?"
"There's a tale that I heard from a brother originating in those parts. It would appear — but beware, there is no proof of this — that at the end of the fourteenth century, the cerretani had a regular authorisation to beg, at Cerreto itself, on behalf of the hospitals of the Order of the Blessed Antony. A permit, in other words, emanating from the ecclesiastical authorities."
"But then the cerretani were officially tolerated. Perhaps they still are to this day."
"If such a permit ever existed," said he, prudently, "it would have had to be registered in the statutes of the city of Cerreto."
"And is it?"
"The pages concerning this begging for alms were torn out by someone," he remarked impassively.
Besides, he added in the same breath, if one really wished to pay attention to gossip, it was even said that they had a friend in the Vatican.
"In the Vatican? And who could that be?" I exclaimed, matching my intonation to my incredulity.
On his face, I read regret at having pronounced one word too many, and displeasure at being unable to row back.
"Well… They speak of someone from the Marches. But perhaps it is all a matter of envy because he has an important post in Saint Peter's factory, so they slander him behind his back."
So, I thought in astonishment, someone at Saint Peter's Factory (the permanent workshop for the repair and restoration of the most important church in Christendom) was in contact with the cerretani. This was obviously a matter to be looked into, but not with the chaplain, who had given himself away and would certainly provide me with no further details.
It was time for us to part. I had completed my task of setting out the birds which were to act as bait, and I had checked on the fixed arquebuses; furthermore Don Tibaldutio had answered quite exhaustively my questions concerning the links between the Church and the cerretani.
How much like the skilled and crafty trade of scoundrels and swindlers was all that proliferation of Holy Years, decade after decade, which had reduced the Jubilees from a rare act of collective devotion falling only every hundred years to a vehicle for constant money-making! Was this not perhaps a consequence, however distant, of the errors and misdeeds committed or tolerated when the cerretani first came into the world, even before the first Jubilee, born from a rib of Holy Mother Church and fed with the sacred milk of pity and charity? Sfasciamonti was right, said I to myself, we were surrounded. The seat of the papacy was a fortress into which the Trojan horse had long since been introduced.
Don Tibaldutio blew his nose in conclusion, staring at me thoughtfully through the folds of his handkerchief. He understood that I had on my mind something that I did not mean to reveal to him.
I thanked him and promised that, should I need further clarification on the subject, I would certainly seek his advice.
A moment before taking my leave of the chaplain, I remembered a question over which I had been brooding a long time:
"Excuse me, Don Tibaldutio," said I with seeming nonchalance. "Have you ever heard tell of the Company of Saint Elizabeth?"
"But of course, everyone knows it," he answered, caught out by the ingenuousness of my question. "It is the one that gives money to the catchpolls. Why do you ask?"
"I saw them passing the other day and… Well, it was the first time I had ever seen them, that's all," said I, clumsily disguising the matter.
I simply could not see clearly into the doubt that was slowly gnawing away at my insides but had not yet reached my brain.
Thank heavens, the merry hunt turned out well and happily. After a few hours of lying in wait and laying ambuscades, the ladies and gentlemen had exhausted their lust for the chase and had returned to the great house, bearing almost empty baskets containing a meagre, pitiable haul (starlings, swallows, rooks, a few toads, two moles and even a bat) and with everyone falling about with laughter. In the end, once I had withdrawn all the cages with the bait, I could see that these were far more numerous than what had been caught.