Martyrs Mirror 460DULCINUS AND HIS WIFE MARGARET, TORN LIMB FROM LIMB; AND, WITH THEM, AN HUNDRED AND FORTY OTHERS BURNT FOR THE FAITH, AT NOVARIA, IN LOMBARDY, A. D. 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 brethren, 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 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, 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, very greatly.

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

Thus it happened that this pious man Dulcinus and his wife, refusing to depart from the faith, were torn limb from limb by them, burnt 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 burnt alive, and thus, having commended their souls to God, offered up a living sacrifice acceptable unto God, about the year 1308.

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

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, burnt to ashes. This martyrdom, the papistic historians themselves confess, not only the men, but also the women, endured very steadfastly unto death, in the city of Novaria, in Lombardy. In the second book of the Persecutions, fol. 477, col. 4, fol. 478, col. 1, from Prat. de Haeres. Tit. Dulcin. ex Bernhardo Lutzenburgh.