When even the Benedictine monasteries started to amass riches appeared the brothers Saint Francisco and Saint Dominic, who even more severely than Benedict started to preach against this world’s power. But now, – proclaimed Dolcino, even in these orders the life of many prelates again entered in conflict with the good Evangelical commandments, the hour of the end of the third age has arrived and a return to apostles’ instructions is necessary.
He claimed that for the ending of the third age all the clergy with the monks and the anchorites need to die in terrible sufferings: he predicted that soon all church prelates, clergymen, monks and nuns, parishioners and all, dedicated in orders of preachers and Minorites, all the holy recluses and with them Boniface himself, the Roman Pope will be destroyed by the promised emperor which he, Dolcino will indicate and this emperor will be Frederic of Sicily (Frederic received with honors the spirituals in Sicily, banished from Umbra lands).
In his second letter, in 1303, Dolcino called himself the rector of the apostolic order and next to him he introduced as directors his Margaret (a woman!) and Longin of Bergamo, Frederic of Navara, Albert of Karenta and Valderic of Brescia.
The pope Clement V proclaimed a crusade against Dolcino as in Dolcino’s letters the latter affirmed that the roman Church is a fornicator, that no one should obey the clergymen, that from now on all spiritual leadership of the world transfers to the sect of apostles, that only the apostles are able to found a new Church, that the apostles can neglect the sacrament of marriage, that not a single pope is authorized to absolve sins, that the tithes should not be paid, that life without oaths is more perfect than with oaths and that a blessed church is not a more fitted place for prayer than any stable and that it does not matter where to honor Christ – in a chapel or in the woods.
Having settled on the Bald Rock Dolcino was forced to ransack valley hamlets, he looted everything to get provisions for his men. A real war against the neighboring villages was waged.
In the meantime came the winter of 1305 – one of the fiercest over the last few decades – and a terrible hunger set in. Dolcino spread a third letter to his confreres and many flowed to him but soon life on the mountain became unbearable and the deprivations were such that they were forced to eat horses, other living beings and boiled hay. And many died. The bishop Varicelli turned for help to Clement V and he equipped a crusade on the heretics. He declared complete absolution to anyone who will participate in it. He addressed himself to the count of Savoy, to the inquisitors of Lombardy, to the archbishop of Milan. Many came out to help the residents of Vercelli – the Navarians as well as the Savoyards, the Provencals and the Frenchmen. The bishop Vercelli headed the crusade. The vanguards of both armies kept running into each other but Dolcino fortifications were unapproachable and besides, “The Apostolic brothers” received significant support.
In the end of 1305 the heresiarch was forced to take his people away from the Bald Rock, abandoning there the wounded and the sick, unable to walk and passed to the region of Trivero and entrenched himself there on the hill that was previously called Dzebello and from this time it was called Rubello or Rebello because it became the stronghold of the insurgents. Horrible bloodshed took place. But in the end the insurgents were forced to give up. In Mars 1307 Dolcino, Margaret and Longin were brought to the city of Biella and handed to the bishop who waited for the Pope’s orders. The Pope wrote to the French king Philippe “We have the most splendid information, fraught with enthusiasm and rejoicing. The most nauseous demon, Satan’s spawn and vile monster heresiarch Dolcino by the cost of enormous danger, deprivations, battles and constant efforts finally and with his accomplices is captured and is now in our prisons by the merits of the dear brother of ours, Ranier, bishop of the city of Vercelli and he was caught on Christmas Eve and a big crowd that was with him, infected with heretic leprosy was exterminated on the same day”.
For my part I will add that the French king Philippe IV The Fair – the addressee of the pope Clement V – had just recently in 1304 destroyed in Paris the Knight Templars order and burned the Grand Master of the order De Molay on the extremity of the St-Louis Island in Paris (then it was even a separate small island called “the Jewish Island”). It is known that from the blazing bonfire the master cursed the entire royal family of the Valois and the curse came true: the damned kings died either mad or in great sufferings. The Master Templar did not have solely personal reasons for the curse, he was cruelly tortured in hopes of finding out the location of the order’s treasures. Philip The Fair moreover was guilty of black ingratitude. A few years before that, during the uprising of the Parisians against royal power the Templars hid Philip in their citadel Temple in Paris. Temple was located at the place of today’s city hall of the 3d arrondissement of the city of Paris. The city hall was built in the middle of the XIX century during the reign of Napoleon III from the stones of the destroyed Temple.
Actually the powerful order occupied a huge territory east of Paris. Even today the surrounding streets show this: rue du Temple, rue Vieille du Temple and others. And in the city hall of the 3d arrondissement Nathalia Medvedeva and me concluded our marriage after having lived together for ten years. Maybe the curse of the Templar towered over us too because after three years the marriage was dissolved.
But let us go back to Dolcino. Here is what Eco writes: “In June of the same year (1307), the first day of the month the heretics got in the hands of the secular authorities. On all church towers bells kept tolling: the condemned were put on a chariot, the executioners were also there, the guards were around and thus they were dragged through the public places of the city and on each place with incandescent pincers they tore off their limbs. Margherita was burned the first before the eyes of Dolcino who had to watch how she was being burned. Dolcino did not move a muscle on his face, just as he did not utter a moan when the pincers bit into his limbs. And thus they continued to move through the city and the executioners each time heated their instruments in cauldrons filled with glowing coals. Dolcino underwent other torments and remained silent, only when his nose was removed – he shook with all his body, and when they tore off his male member he emitted a long sigh, like a groan. His last words were uncompromising. He affirmed that he would be resurrected on the third day. After this he was burnt on the stake and his ashes were scattered downwind” Such was the end of Dante’s protagonist. As we see, strictly religion is not observed in this bloody revolutionary drama. The struggle is led for how one should live on Earth.