Dulcinus and his Wife Margaret, Torn Limb from Limb, in the Year 1308

About the year 1305, the light of the evangelical doctrine began to arise with power also on the mountains of Lombardy, called the Alps, through a pious man called Dulcinus of Novaria, and his wife, who, having accepted the orthodox faith of the Waldensian brothers, excelled most gloriously in doctrine and life, so that Dulcinus by his doctrine, and his wife by her good example, and both by their living and effective faith, opened the eyes of several others, and caused them to separate from popery and to follow Jesus Christ in true penitence and uprightness of life, which they did in full earnestness for the love of Jesus Christ and the salvation of their souls.

But even as it was in the time of John the Baptist, that many unregenerated Pharisees and Sadducees came to his baptism, so it seems also to have been here; for it appears that some who seemed to adhere to his doctrine lived at the same time in anger, revenge, and after the flesh, which, as may be presumed, very greatly grieved this good man and his wife, as also the church which he had founded, and which desired piously to adhere to the doctrine of Christ.

In the meantime, about the year 1307, Pope Clement the Fifth, receiving information of it, condemned this pious man Dulcinus and his wife Margaret as arch heretics, and commanded that they, as well as their adherents, be exterminated. To accomplish this, many Romanists, who had marked themselves with the sign of the cross, lent their services; they charged the misdeeds of the hypocrites upon the pious also, and thus tried to root them both out together; the pious, however, with far more severe and intolerable torments than the hypocrites.

So it happened that this pious man Dulcinus and his wife, refusing to depart from the faith, were torn limb from limb by them, burned to ashes, and the ashes scattered to the winds. The principal members of the church, one hundred and forty in number, loving Jesus Christ, whom they had confessed, more than this temporal life, were all, as they steadfastly adhered to the accepted truth, burned alive; and thus, having commended their souls to God, they offered up a living sacrifice acceptable to God, about the year 1308.

NOTE. These were the people about whom Leonhard Krentzheim has written in his Chronicle, as already noted, saying: "Dulcinus and Margaret founded a new sect or heresy (so the papists speak) alike in every respect to the Anabaptists, which continued until, and so on."

Touching their martyrdom, A. Mellinus writes, from some ancient books of history, that they were first torn limb from limb, and then, as we stated above, burned to ashes. This martyrdom, the papistic historians themselves confess, not only the men, but also the women, endured very steadfastly until death, in the city of Novaria, in Lombardy. In the second book of the Persecutions, folio 477, column 4, folio 478, column 1, from Prat. de Haeres. Tit. Dulcin. ex Bernhardo Lutzenburgh. FURTHER OBSERVATION WHAT P. J. TWISCK HAS WRITTEN CONCERNING IT

"This year," he writes, "many pious people were cruelly destroyed for their religion, by order of Pope Clement the Fifth. Over four hundred persons were killed by hunger, cold, and the sword (of these, however, we do not speak here), and one hundred and forty were burned (these are the ones of whom we speak), whose principal teacher, together with his wife, very steadfastly endured death." Chronicle, page 649. A. from Henr. Boxh., folio 26.

NOTE. The reader should observe here, that these one hundred and forty martyrs, who at Novaria were put to death by fire, and are called special followers of the doctrine of Dulcinus, are to be clearly distinguished from a certain other number of about four hundred persons who, having been surrounded on the mountain by the pope's crusade, lost their lives by hunger, cold, and the sword; for it is not the latter, but the former, whom we would notice here.

TOUCHING THEIR FAITH, ACCORDING TO THE ACCOUNT OF A. MELLINUS

Concerning their faith, A. Mellinus says: "From this it can be clearly inferred that Dulcinus and his wife, and many other martyrs with them, died for the true confession of the doctrine of the Waldenses; because they opposed the Pope of Rome, and the Roman church, maintaining that he was the antichrist, and she the Babylonian whore prophesied of in John's Revelation." Second book, folio 478, A.