Ubertino of Casale

During his banishment, Ubertino wrote the Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Jesu Christi (The Tree of the Crucified Life of Jesus), exalting a literal interpretation of the Rule of St. Francis and the poverty of Christ.

In 1307, he was chosen chaplain and familiar to Cardinal Napoleone Orsini Frangipani, cardinal-protector of the Spirituals of the Marches of Ancona, but which protectorate soon ceased by the election of Boniface VIII in December 1294.

But this was absolutely denied, whilst on the other hand the question of the practical observance of poverty was settled by the famous Bull Exivi de paradiso, 6 May 1312, partly called forth by the polemical writings of Ubertino.

[1] Ubertino stayed with Cardinal Giacomo Colonna until 1317, when Pope John XXII allowed him to leave the Franciscan order and enter the Benedictine Abbey of Gembloux, in the Diocese of Liège.

Ubertino asserted that Christ and the Apostles, though they had rejected all property of private persons, made use of goods and money for necessities and alms as ministers of religion.

Ubertino remained in Avignon, in the service of Cardinal Orsini, until 1325, when he was accused of heresy for having defended the condemned opinions of his teacher Peter Olivi.

While the Pope commanded the general of the Franciscans to have him arrested as a heretic, Ubertino probably went to Germany to seek the protection of Louis the Bavarian, whom he is said to have accompanied on his way to Rome in 1328.