A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; Volume III

In the shadow of the Lateran Palace, a spiritual earthquake split one of Christianity's greatest orders. This volume of Lea's monumental history traces the catastrophic collision between Franciscan idealism and papal pragmatism, between the poverty Christ demanded and the wealth the Church accumulated. The Spiritual Franciscans, those who took St. Francis's vow of absolute poverty with deadly seriousness, found themselves hunted by their own brothers. Lea reconstructs the political maneuvering of figures like Elias, the former architect who built the great basilica that became a symbol of the Order's betrayal, and John of Parma, the minister general who championed the Spirituals until Rome silenced him. This is not mere institutional history: it is a study of what happens when sincere faith collides with institutional power, when a movement founded on humility becomes a persecuting force. Lea's 1888 masterpiece remains the definitive account of how medieval Christianity dealt with its own restless conscience, and how the Inquisition that emerged from these conflicts shaped Western attitudes toward heresy, dissent, and the limits of religious authority.