LIBERTINES, LIBERTINI, in ecclesiastical history, a religious sect which arose in the year 1525, and the principal tenets of which were, that the Deity was the sole operating cause in the mind of man, and the immediate author of all human actions; that, consequently, the distinctions of good and evil, which had been established with regard to those actions, were false and groundless; that men could not, properly speaking, commit sin; that religion consisted in the union of the spirit or rational soul with the Supreme Being; that all those who had attained this happy union, by sublime contemplation and elevation of mind, were allowed to indulge, without exception or restraint, their appetites or passions; that all their actions and pursuits were then perfectly innocent; and that, after the death of the body, they became united to the Deity. This sect likewise held that Jesus Christ was nothing but a mere entity, composed of the spirit of God, and of the opinion of men. These maxims occasioned their being called Libertines; and the word has been employed in a bad sense ever since.
The Libertini spread principally in Holland and Brabant. Their leaders were one Quintin, a native, Picards, Pockesius, Ruffus, and another person called Chopin, who joined Quintin, and became his disciple.
This sect obtained a certain footing in France through the favour and protection of Margaret, queen of Navarre, sister of Francis I., and it found patrons in several of the reformed churches. It was probably a remnant of the more ancient Beguards, or Brethren of the Free Spirit.