The Cathars (The Medieval World) [2 ed.] 9781408252581, 1408252589

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ISBN 978-1-138-43214-7

www.routledge.com

9 781138 432147

The Cathars

The Medieval World Series Editor: Julia Smith, The University of Glasgow Alfred the Great R ichard Abels

Christian-Jewish Relations, 1000-1300 A nna Sapir A bulafia

The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms D avid A bulafia

The Fourth Crusade M ichael Angold

The Cathars, 2nd Edition Malcolm Barber

The Godwins Frank Barlow

Phillip Augustus Jim Bradbury

The Church and People in the Medieval West, 900-1200 Sarah H am ilton

Bastard Feudalism M. Hicks

The Formation of English Common Law John Hudson

The Mongols and the West Peter Jackson

Europe’s Barbarians, ad 200-600 Edw ard Jam es

Cnut K . Lawson

Disunited Kingdoms, Peoples and Politics in the British Isles 1280-1460

The Age of Robert Guiscard

Michael Brown

The English Church, 940-1154

Violence in Medieval Europe

H R . Loyn

Graham Loud

Warren Brown

Justinian

Medieval Canon Law

John Moorhead

/.

A . Brundage

Ambrose

Crime in Medieval Europe

John Moorhead

Trevor Dean

The Devil’s World

Charles I of Anjou

Andrew P. Roach

Jean Dunbabin

The Reign of Richard Lionheart

The Age of Charles Martel

Ralph Turner/R ichard Heiser

P au l Fouracre

The Welsh Princes

Margery Kempe

Roger Turvey

A. E. Goodman

Edward the Black Prince

English Noblewomen in the Late Middle Ages

D avid Green

J Ward

The Cathars D ualist heretics in Languedoc in the H igh M iddle Ages

2nd edition

Malcolm Barber

First published 2000 by Pearson Education Limited Second edition published 2013 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, axon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

First issued in hardback 2017 Copyright © Taylor & Francis 2000 & 2013 The right of Malcolm Barber to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for the print edition is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for the print edition is available from the Library of Congress Typeset in 10j14pt ITC Galliard Std by 35 ISBN 13: 978-1-408-25258-1 (Pbk) ISBN 13: 978-1-138-43214-7 (hbk)

To Paddy McNulty and Jim Holt

Contents

Illustrations, tables, maps Series editor’s preface to the first edition Preface to the first edition Author’s preface to the second edition Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction

ix xi xiii XV

xvi xvii 1

1 The spread o f Catharism Dualism The Bogomils The origins of dualism in the West

7 7 12 20

2 The Cathars and Languedocian society The nobility The territorial lords The clergy Urban society Catharism and social structure

42 42 49 64 68 73 85 85 90 94 105 107 115

3 The Cathar Church The Cathar hierarchy The consolamentum Cathar theology Moral and ethical teaching Popular Cathar belief The attraction o f Catharism

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CONTENTS

4 The Catholic reaction The justification for force

127 127

The campaigns against heresy in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries The Albigensian Crusades

131 139

5 The decline o f Catharism The Treaty of Paris, 1229 The inquisitors Resistance The Italian connection The operation o f the Inquisition

167 167 170 176 190 193

6 The last Cathars The Autier revival Heresy in Carcassonne and Albi The end o f Catharism in Languedoc

208 208 222 225

7 Cathars after Catharism Deodat Roche, Simone Weil, and Otto Rahn Protestantism and Catharism The Cathars and Occitan identity

239 239 247 249

Further reading References Tables Maps Index

266 282 306 312 319

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Illustrations, tables, maps

Illustrations 1 The fortified village o f Minerve, south walls overlooking the confluence o f the rivers Cesse and Brian 2 Carcassonne as restored by Viollet-le-Duc between 1852 and 1879 3 Carcassonne, Chateau comtal 4 Basilica o f Saint Sernin, Toulouse, east end 5 The four castles o f Lastours from the south. Cabaret is the most northerly 6 Cabaret from the south-east 7 Cabaret from the south-west 8 The keep at Cabaret 9 The castle o f Peyrepertuse from the west 10 Peyrepertuse from the north 11 The chapel at Peyrepertuse 12 The remains o f the castle o f Montaillou 13 The cathedral o f Saint Cecilia, Albi, from the south 14 Albi cathedral from the north 15 The title page o f Jean-Paul Perrin’s H isto ire des V audois, 1619 edition 16 Montsegur. It was rebuilt in the second half o f the thirteenth century 17 ‘Cathar’ wine and ‘bonhomme’ adhesivelabels 18 Commemorative stone on the Esplanade du Plo, Jardin de l’Eveche, at the site o f the castle o f Lavaur. ‘A Lavaur, le peuple occitan perdit son independance mais dans sept siecles le laurier reverdira.’

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50 55 56 69 144 145 146 147 187 188 189 215 226 227 250 254 258

259

I L L U S T R A T I O N S , T A B L E S , MA P S

Tables 1 The Albigensian Crusades: chronology 2 The Albigensian Crusades: Simon o f Montfort’s campaigns 3 The Autier revival: chronology

306 308 310

Maps 1 The Bogomils in the Byzantine Empire 2 The political structure o f Languedoc before the Albigensian Crusades 3 The geography o f Catharism in Languedoc 4 Territories affected by the Albigensian Crusades 5 The Italian connection: the links between Languedoc and Lombardy in the thirteenth century 6 The milieu o f the Cathar Bonhomme, Bernard Acier o f Couffoulens, 1241-59 7 The world o f the Autier revival, 1299-1321

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312 313 314 315 316 317 318

Series editor’s preface to the first edition

he spread o f Catharism in Western Europe in the twelfth century is one o f the most fascinating and significant episodes in the history o f medieval Europe. Although heresies o f various kinds were a consistent feature o f the history o f the Byzantine Empire throughout the Middle Ages, Catharism was the first organised and theologically coherent heresy to develop in Western Europe since the time o f the Late Roman Empire. The seemingly monolithic Catholic Church, the papacy and its priesthood, were challenged in ways which were novel and very threatening. After initial attempts at debate and persuasion, their reaction ultimately took the forms o f violence and persecution. The development o f techniques o f institutionalised repression associated with the Inquisition shaped many aspects o f the history o f the succeeding centuries. Although the heretical movements o f the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were geographically widespread - there was even an outbreak in England - they became most deeply entrenched in northern Italy and south-western France. In the midst o f the extensive literature on medieval heresy published since the great upsurge o f interest in the 1960s, no accessible book for the student and general reader has ever been devoted specifically to Languedoc, the region where Catharism undoubtedly left its deepest imprint, and which is to this day most closely associated with it. This book is therefore a very welcome addition to The M edieval World series. The history o f Catharism is a complex phenomenon, whose develop­ ment and decline requires familiarity with, among other things, Catholic and Cathar theology, the peculiarities o f Occitan society, the Crusades and the procedures o f the Inquisition. Professor Barber’s book covers all these themes, moving forward from a thorough analysis o f the relationship

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S E R I E S E D I T O R ’ S P R E FA C E TO T H E F I R S T E D I T I O N

between Languedocian Catharism to eastern European heresies to the place o f Catharism in south-western French society and the organisation o f the Cathar Church. Extensive quotations from contemporary sources are inserted at key moments in the text. While the book’s core is beyond doubt the central chapters devoted to the Cathar Church, the Catholic reaction and Catharism’s decline, Professor Barber adds a very illuminating final chapter on the twentieth-century idealisation o f the Cathars and their exploitation by the tourist industry. Malcolm Barber is not only a scholar who has written extensively on the Cathars and Catharism, but also one with an exceptionally wide interest in many aspects o f the medieval Church and its institutions as well as the general history o f medieval Europe. As a result, he writes with vigour and authority, not just about Catharism and the society o f south-western France, but about matters such as the canon law background to persecu­ tion, evolving papal authority, the violence and strategy o f the Albigensian Crusade and the rigour o f the Inquisition. This is another excellent addi­ tion to The M edieval World series. David Bates

• xi i •

Preface to the first edition

came to the Cathars through the study o f the Templars. Both were brought before the papal inquisitors, and both disappeared, at least partially through inquisitorial efforts, although it took a great deal longer to suppress the former than the latter. The major difference was that many o f those accused o f the various forms o f dualist heresy known as Catharism were prepared to die for their beliefs, whereas the Templars were quite horri­ fied by the charges laid against them and made every effort to avoid going to the stake. Romantics like to see connections between the two, but there were none: no fabulous treasure passed on to the Templars after the fall o f the Cathar fortress o f Montsegur in 1244, no shared anti-Christian beliefs pervaded by esoteric eastern cults, no Grail hidden in a mountain cave on behalf o f a secret alliance. Inevitably, some o f the accusations against the Templars derive from those against the Cathars - they were after all, embedded in the minds o f those who pursued dissent - but the interest lies not in a fruitless search for a non-existent conspiracy, but in comparison between the ways these two central elements o f thirteenth-century life both succumbed to the power o f an establishment determined to put an end to them. I am deeply indebted to many friends and colleagues for their help and advice. This generosity remains an integral part o f the academic world, and I doubt if there has been a single decent historical work published which has not benefited in this way. Two long-standing friends, Bernard Hamilton and Paddy McNulty, read the typescript; Claire Dutton, Ann Peal, Mark Pegg, and Andrew Roach allowed me to plunder their excellent theses; Michael and William Sibly provided me with a copy o f their translation o f the chronicle o f Peter o f Les-Vaux-de-Cernay long before it was published;

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PR E FA C E TO T H E F I R S T E D I T I O N

Karen Carroll o f the National Humanities Center, North Carolina, edited the typescript and deciphered my degenerate handwriting. Many others helped in a wide variety o f ways, including Tom Asbridge, Craig Atwood, Elizabeth Barber, David Bates, Anne Curry, Peter Kaufman, Bob Kendrick, Linda Paterson, Walter Wakefield, and Joe Wittig. I owe particular thanks to the Library staff o f Reading University and the National Humanities Center. The final result, however, with all its imperfections, is the author’s responsibility, but would not have been possible without the time to pursue research. I am therefore very grateful to the Leverhulme Trust, the National Humanities Center, and the Lilly Foundation, the first for a grant to help cover teaching costs, the second and third for the award o f a Fellowship which allowed me to spend the academic year, 1998-99 in the privileged environment o f the N H C , a truly civilised institution. Malcolm Barber

• xiv •

Author’s preface to the second edition

he last decade has seen the intensification o f the controversies which have always beset this subject, so that almost every single facet from the alleged Bogomil origins o f dualism in the West to the very existence o f a ‘Cathar Church’ has been vigorously debated. This has therefore become one o f the most fragmented and least consensual subjects in the whole medieval period: the interpretation, chronology and authenticity o f the essential documents which underpin the history o f ‘Catharism’ have been challenged at almost every point. If all this deconstruction were fully accepted, we would come close to denying the existence o f Catharism as a form o f developed dualism in the West in the twelfth and thirteenth cen­ turies, and the underlying argument o f this book would be exposed as an enormous fantasy. I would not have written the book if I had thought that, but nevertheless caveat emptor is a not inappropriate warning for those about to embark on this subject. I have not changed my fundamental views, but I have tried to provide pathways through these discussions not only in the text, but also in the notes and the further reading. This guid­ ance is not complete; if it had come even close to that, the text would have collapsed under the weight o f the notes. In addition to those who gave generous help towards the first edition, I should like to include my grateful thanks to Peter Biller and Rita Tyler.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

Text Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 7: Various extracts from The Song o f the C athar Wars, A History of the Albigensian Crusade, William of Tuleda and an Anonymous Successor, Ashgate Publishing Ltd (Shirley, J., 1996). Chapters 2, 3 ,4 , and 5: Various extracts from Peter ofLes-Vaux-de-Cernay, History of the Albigensian Crusade, Boydell and Brewer Ltd (Sibly, W. A. and Sibly, M. D ., 1998). Chapters 1 and 3: Heresies o f the Middle Ages, Columbia University Press (Wakefield, W. and Evans, A., 1991).

Plates Pages 50, 56, 69, 144, 145, 146, 147, 187, 189, 215, 226, 227, 259: Malcolm Barber; Page 55: © Adam Woolfitt / Corbis. In some instances we have been unable to trace the owners o f copyright material, and we would appreciate any information that would enable us to do so.

• xvi •

Abbreviations

CEI

CF Chanson

Doat Heresis

HGL

HH

M GH Pelhisson

J. Berlioz and J.-C. Helas, eds, Catharism e: Vedifice im aginaire. Actes du 7e colloque du Centre d ’Etudes Cathares/Rene Nelli', Carcassonne, 29 aout-2 septembre 1994 { Carcassonne, 1998). Cahiers de Fanjeaux. L a Chanson de la croisade contre les Albigeois, ed. and trans., E. Martin-Chabot, 3 vols (Les Classiques de PHistoire de France an Moyen Age) (Paris, 1931, 1957, 1961). English trans. J. Shirley, The Song o f the C athar Wars. A History o f the Albigensian Crusade. W illiam of Tudela and an Anonymous Successor (Aldershot, 1996). Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Fonds D oat, vols 21-7. Heresis. Revue d ’heresologie medievale. Centre d ’Ftudes Cathares/Rene Nelli. Since 1983. C. Devic and J. Vaissete, eds, Histoire generale de Languedoc, ed. A. Molinier, vol. 8 (Toulouse, 1879) (reprint Osnabruck, 1973). J. Hamilton and B. Hamilton, ed. and trans., Christian D ualist Heresies in the Byzantine World c. 650-c. 1450 , with the assistance o f Y. Stoyanov (Manchester Medieval Sources) (Manchester, 1998). Monumenta Germ anica H istorica. Scriptores. Chronique de Guillaum e Pelhisson (1229-1244), suivie du recit des troubles d ’A lbi (1234), ed. and trans., J. Duvernoy (Paris, 1994). English trans. W. L. Wakefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, 1100-1250 (London, 1974).

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ABBREVIATIONS

PL

PVC

RF

RHG R IS WE

WP

WT

J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus. Series L atin a, vols 181, 182, 185, 189, 195, 204, 210, 211, 2 1 4 ,2 1 5 ,2 1 6 . P. Guebin and E. Lyon, eds, Petri Vallium Sarnaci Monachi Hystoria Albigensis, 3 vols (Paris, 1926, 1930, 1939). French trans. P. Guebin and H. Maisonneuve, Histoire albigeoise (Paris, 1951). English trans. W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly, Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, The History o f the Albigensian Crusade (Woodbridge, 1998). J. Duvernoy, ed., Le Registre d ’inquisition de Jacques Fournier, eveque de Pamiers (1318-1325), 3 vols (Toulouse, 1965). French trans. J. Duvernoy, 3 vols (Paris, 197778). Recueil des Historiens de G aul et de France . Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. W. L. Wakefield and A. P. Evans, trans., Heresies o f the High Middle Ages. Selected Sources (New York and London, 1969). J. Duvernoy, ed. and trans., Chronica M agistri Guillelmi de Podio Laurentii (Paris, 1976). English trans., The Chronicle of William ofPuylaurens. The Alhigensian Crusade and its Afterm ath, trans. W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (Woodbridge, 2003). William o f Tudela (see Chanson, o f which William is the author o f the first part).

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Introduction

atharism was the greatest heretical challenge faced by the Catholic Church in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The attempt by the Cathars to find an answer to the fundamental religious and philosophical problems posed by the existence o f evil, combined with their success in persuading large numbers o f Christians in the West that they had solved these problems, shook the Catholic hierarchy to its very core, and provoked a series o f reactions more extreme than any previously contemplated. The Cathars would not accept that an omnipotent and eternal God could have been responsible for the material world; for them, this world was the work o f an evil creator. Such a creator was either a being fallen from the perfection o f Heaven who had seduced a proportion o f the angelic souls there and then entrapped them in matter, or he was a co-eternal power, quite independent o f the Good God o f the Spirit. The only release for those souls encased in the material prison o f the body was through the Cathar ceremony o f the consolamentum , which was the means by which they could return to their guardian spirits in Heaven. The Cathar Church was organised into dioceses, whose bishops presided over an order o f suc­ cession consisting o f elder and younger ‘sons’, deacons, and perfecti and perfectue^ equivalent to ministers o f the Church. M ost o f the lay supporters o f the Cathar Church, known as credentes, took the consolamentum when near death, for the ascetic rigours o f the life o f the perfecti were too great for most people to be able to sustain. There would be no arbitrary Last Judgement; the world would end when the last o f the angelic souls had been released, thus once more disentangling the spiritual and material worlds. Given the imperfections o f most people’s lives this process would not necessarily be completed rapidly, for some souls would need to transmigrate through a variety o f material vessels (including animals) before entering the body o f a person who understood the importance o f the consolamentum.

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INTRODUCTION

Catharism represented total opposition to the Catholic Church, which was viewed by the Cathars as a false and fraudulent organisation which had prostituted itself for power and ill-gotten wealth. The sacraments through which the Catholic Church claimed to open the way to salvation were quite valueless, since they were founded upon the claim that Christ really had lived on earth, had been crucified, and then resurrected, events clearly impossible, since God could not have taken on material form in the first place. For Catholics therefore, there could be no compromise with the Cathars, manifestly working to subvert the faithful at the behest o f the Devil; it was the responsibility o f all Catholic leaders, ecclesiastical and lay, to strive to overcome this heresy with all the strength at their command. This would have been true at any point in the history o f the Latin Church, but it was particularly pertinent to the reformed papacy which, since the 1050s, had been working to reassert its leadership o f the universal Church. By this means it was attempting to infuse both clergy and laity with a new set o f moral values. Repression o f Catharism was not therefore a question o f choice, nor was there any option o f toleration, for it was a positive obligation upon those charged by God to lead His Church on earth. The principal weight o f this obligation naturally fell upon the pope, as the holder o f the see o f Saint Peter, first o f the Apostles and the rock upon which Christ’s Church had been founded. The origins o f Catharism remain controversial. Most historians accept that the dualist Bogomil Church, established in parts o f Macedonia and Bulgaria from at least the 930s, played a role in the formation o f western Catharism, although tracing possible links with earlier dualistic religions such as Paulicianism, and beyond that to the Manicheans and the Gnostics, remains a virtually impossible task. The most important means o f trans­ mission to the West seems to have been through Thrace and Constantinople, although it is unlikely that this was the work o f any single individual or group or that dualistic belief spread to the West by only one route. Indeed, by the mid-twelfth century there are signs o f this heresy in several areas, in particular the Rhine Valley, the Champagne region, the plains o f Lombardy, and the mountains, hills and river valleys o f western Languedoc. There is, though, little agreement on the extent and importance o f Bogomil influence, and still less on the chronology o f its spread. Evidence for the presence o f Cathar adherents in the Rhineland can be found in the 1140s, but some historians remain convinced that forms o f proto-Catharism can be

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INTRODUCTION

discerned possibly as early as the first half o f the eleventh century. Whatever its origin, initially the predominant manifestation o f this belief in the West took the form o f mitigated or moderate dualism, which is based on the idea o f some kind o f fall from grace by the Devil, rather than absolute dualism, which claimed the existence o f two quite independent and co-eternal powers. However, by the late twelfth century, most o f the Cathars o f Languedoc and some o f those o f northern Italy had been converted to absolute dualism, probably by the Greek Nicetas, who reorganised the Cathar Church at St Felix-de-Caraman, a bourg situated about half-way between Toulouse and Carcassonne, where the Cathars held a council either in 1167 or in the mid-1170s. By this time the papacy and many leading members o f the Catholic hierarchy had become convinced that Catharism represented a dire threat to orthodoxy. Their fears were not allayed by the failure o f missions sent to convince the Cathars o f their errors, and by the evident futility o f condem­ nations at Church councils like that o f the Third Lateran in 1179. The accession o f the dynamic Pope Innocent III in 1198 brought matters to a head. Although he never entirely lost faith in the power o f persuasion, he became convinced that he would have to use force in the form o f a crusade if the problem was not to become insoluble. In 1208, following the murder o f the papal legate, Peter o f Castelnau, by a vassal o f Count Raymond VI o f Toulouse, he called upon the faithful to assemble in order to crush the heresy in Languedoc, offering full remission o f sins to those who would take part. Although he was unable to convince King Philip II o f France that participation was in his best interests, for this most pragmatic o f Capetian rulers remained deeply involved in his uncompromising conflict with the Angevin, King fohn o f England, he did inspire two powerful northern armies to descend upon Languedoc in 1209. The more important o f these attacked Beziers from the east, having travelled down the Rhone valley and, following the capture o f the city and the massacre o f a large proportion o f its population, went on to force the submission o f Carcassonne and its lord, Raymond Roger Trencavel. The leading lay power o f the region, Raymond VI o f Toulouse (died 1222), had temporarily avoided the consequences o f the previous laxity o f his father and himself towards heresy by joining the crusade at the last moment. It was a short respite. In late August 1209, Simon o f Montfort, an important baron from the western region o f the Ile-de-France, was chosen as the leader o f the crusade, and from then until

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INTRODUCTION

his death in June 1218, while besieging Toulouse, he waged a relendess war on the heretics and those whom he perceived to be fautors or pro­ tectors o f heresy. During that time he came into conflict with all those lay powers with interests in western Languedoc, most spectacularly with Peter II, King o f Aragon, whom he defeated and killed at the battle o f Muret (south-west o f Toulouse) in September 1213. Papal control over these events was quite limited. Assailed by special interests, which included his own legates on the one hand and the secular powers o f Languedoc on the other, Innocent III became increasingly uneasy about the course o f the crusade. At the Fourth Lateran Council, held in November 1215, he determined to protect the interests o f Raymond V i’s son, the future Raymond VII, on the grounds that he bore no responsibility for the situation, and he therefore reserved to him the Provencal lands o f the house o f Toulouse. This proved to be the catalyst for a southern revival for, while the younger Raymond attacked Beaucaire, his father re-invaded his Toulousan lands, inciting revolt in his principal city at the same time. This resistance gathered strength after Simon o f Montfort’s death and was only finally extinguished by the crusade o f King Louis VIII (1223-26) and the occupation o f royal troops which followed. In April 1229, Raymond VII had no alternative but to accept the harsh terms o f the Treaty o f Paris under which he was left with only a small pro­ portion o f his Toulousan lands. M ost importantly, his daughter, Jeanne, was to marry one o f King Louis IX’s brothers, and their offspring would succeed to the inheritance o f the house o f Toulouse. Despite the reluctance o f Philip II to become involved, the chief benefi­ ciary o f the Albigensian Crusades had evidently been the Capetian monar­ chy, now politically dominant in Languedoc in a manner quite unthinkable only a generation before. Yet the problem o f heresy remained, albeit dis­ played less overtly than in the days before the crusades. These were the circumstances which led Pope Gregory IX to designate specialist inquisi­ tors, whose sole purpose was to investigate heresy on a systematic basis, probing the facade o f opposition in community after community until fissures were opened up to reveal the heretics and those who had helped them. From the early 1230s until the demise o f Catharism in Languedoc a century later, the persistence, courage and, occasionally, corruption o f the inquisitors, played a major role in uncovering and eliminating the fol­ lowers o f Catharism. During this time they suffered many vicissitudes - in

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INTRODUCTION

May 1242, for example, two inquisitors and their staff were murdered while they were staying overnight at the village o f Avignonet - but in general they operated in a far more favourable political environment than those clergy who had tried to combat heresy in the pre-crusade days. Ultimately, a combination o f political change and inquisitorial determination, helped by a developing economy, ground down the Cathar Church in Languedoc. It was no longer possible for the Cathar leadership either to organise itself effectively or maintain its ideological coherence when survival became the chief priority; when their last important refuge in the Pyrenees, the casde o f Montsegur, fell to royal forces in March 1244, the elimination o f the Cathar Church as a coherent force was no longer in doubt. In the second half o f the thirteenth century, isolated perfecti continued to operate but, after Montsegur, adherents o f the Cathars usually had to look towards northern Italy, where many o f the heretical leaders had taken refuge, if they were to find spiritual comfort or receive the consolamentum. Catharism was not easily overcome. Even after the defeats o f the thir­ teenth century, it was still possible for two notaries from Ax on the western edge o f the Sault Plateau in the central Pyrenees to organise a limited revival in the early 1300s. Peter and William Autier spent at least two years in Lombardy studying with the Italian Cathars as well as with their own compatriots in exile, before returning home and, at great personal risk, attempting to spread the Cathar belief once again. Although restricted in geographical extent, this revival was sufficiently strong for the inquisitors (now better organised and more institutionally consistent than ever before) to feel it necessary to engage in an all-out drive to bring it to an end. Peter Autier himself was executed in April 1310, although the traces o f his influ­ ence can still be found in the 1320s. William Belibaste, the last surviving perfectus from the Autier period, was eventually caught and burnt to death in 1321. N o longer a living force in the Latin West after c. 1330, nevertheless, the resonances o f the Cathar era can still be felt today. Catharism was no minor deviation from orthodoxy; on the contrary, it presented itself as the only true Christian community in a corrupt world dominated by a menda­ cious Catholic Church. Even the most cautious historians accept that it had a continuous impact in the Latin West for nearly two centuries between the 1140s and the 1320s, while some argue that its effects were felt well before this time, possibly as early as c. 1000. N ot surprisingly, others have been

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INTRODUCTION

attracted to it since, all with different motives. Among these have been Protestants seeking a provenance with which to counter the Catholic charge o f innovation; southern patriots railing against north French domi­ nation; romantics lamenting the loss o f a cultured civilisation; and com­ mercial interests from local m aires to exploitative publishers and authors who see the opportunity to profit from the religion o f anti-materialism. Even more than most historical subjects, the Cathars are viewed today through the many-layered filters o f the more recent past.

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chapter

1

The spread of Catharism

Dualism O f course you all know how this heresy - God send his curse on it! became so strong that it gain ed control o f the whole o f the Albigeois, o f the Carcasses and most o f the L auragais. A ll the way from Beziers to Bordeaux many, or indeed, most people believed in or supported it. When the lord pope and the other clergy saw this lunacy spreading so much faster than before and tightening its grip every day, each o f them in his own jurisdiction sent out preachers. The Cistercian order led the cam paign and time and again it sent out its own men. Next the bishop o f Osma arranged a meeting between himself and other legates with these Bulgars a t Carcassonne. This was very well attended, and the king of Aragon and his nobles were present. Once the king had heard the speakers and discovered how heretical they were, he withdrew, and sent a letter about this to Rome in Lombardy. God g ra n t me his blessing, what shall I say? They think more o f a rotten apple than o f sermons, and went on ju st the same fo r about five years. These lost fools refused to repent, so that many were killed, many people perished, and still more will die before the fighting ends. It cannot be otherwise.1 This is part o f the introduction o f an extended poem, written in Provencal, the first third o f which is by William o f Tudela, who describes himself as a ‘clerk in holy orders’ . He was originally from Tudela in Navarre, and the poem covers the period just before and during the Albigensian Crusade,

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between 1204 and 1218. He is a generally reliable source, pro-crusader in approach, but with an awareness o f the suffering o f the victims o f the crusade as well. The cursed heresy is Catharism and the early-thirteenth-century followers in the region to which William refers believed in a version o f it known as absolute dualism. According to the De heresi catharorum , written by an anonymous but knowledgeable Lombard, perhaps towards the end o f the twelfth century, this party o f Cathars ‘believe and preach that there are two gods or lords without beginning and without end, one good, the other wholly evil. And they say that each created angels: the good God good angels and the evil one evil ones, and that the good God is almighty in the heavenly home, and the evil one rules in all this worldly structure.’ Lucifer is the son o f this god o f darkness and he ascended to heaven, where ‘he transfigured himself into an angel o f light’, and persuaded the angels to intercede with God on his behalf and have him appointed steward o f the angels. In this capacity he seduced some o f the angels and, in the great battle which followed, they were expelled from Heaven with Lucifer. The angels were made up o f body, soul, and spirit and ‘the souls were seized by Lucifer and were put into the bodies in this world’ . Christ, the Son o f God, ‘came to save only these souls’ . ‘They explain that human bodies are in part animated by those evil spirits whom the devil created and in part by those souls that fell. Those souls do penance in these bodies and, if not saved in one body, a soul goes into another body and does penance.’2 The Cathars o f Languedoc had followed these doctrines since the assembly o f a council at the village o f St-Felix-de-Caraman, situated about half-way between Toulouse and Carcassonne, which was held either in 1167 or a few years later, sometime between 1174 and 1177.3 It had been attended by leading Cathars from both ‘France’, that is the lands north o f the Loire, and Languedoc, who had been converted by Nicetas, bishop o f the Bogomil Church o f Constantinople, from their belief in moderate or mitigated dualism. These moderate dualist Cathars, says the author o f De heresi catharorum ,

believe in and preach one only good God, almighty, without beginning, who created angels and the fo u r elements. They assert that Lucifer and his accomplices sinned in heaven, but some among them are uncertain as to how their sin arose. Some, indeed, hold - but it is a secret - that there

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was a certain evil spirit having fo u r faces: one o f a m an, the second o f a bird , the third o f a fish, and the fourth o f a beast. It had no beginning and remained in this chaos, having no power o f creation. Lucifer came down and was led astray by this evil spirit and when he returned to heaven seduced others.

They were cast out o f heaven but did not lose the n atu ral abilities which they possessed. These heretics assert that Lucifer and the other evil spirit wished to separate the elements, but could not. Thereupon, they begged from God a good angel as an assistant, and thus with God’s acquiescence, with the aid o f this good angel, and by his strength and wisdom, they separated the elements. And, they say, Lucifer is the God who, in Genesis, is said to have created heaven and earth and to have accomplished this work in six days* Ultimately this change was very significant for Languedoc, for moderate dualism has recognisable similarities to the Catholic version o f the Fall, but absolute dualism has no common ground with the Catholics at all. By 1209, having failed to make any inroads against the absolute dualists o f the region, Pope Innocent III saw no feasible alternative to the use o f force. For him, drawing on the ideology o f the just war worked out by St Augustine in the early fifth century, this was a legitimate weapon in the face o f unbending obstinacy.5 William o f Tudela claims that this heresy was rife all the way from Beziers to Bordeaux, but he only hints at how it might have arrived there in the first place when he refers to a meeting at Carcassonne between the bishop o f Osma and those he calls ‘Bulgars’ . The name Bulgar derives from the Bogomil heretics o f the Balkans, in particular those o f Thrace, Macedonia, and Bosnia, but by William’s time it was extensively used to describe Western heretics, reflecting a widespread perception that their beliefs and organisation had originally derived from these regions. However, the process by which it occurred is by no means self-evident. The Bogomils did share some characteristics with two earlier eastern heresies Paulicianism and Messalianism - both o f which were present in the Balkans as a result o f Byzantine policy which aimed to break up opposition in the imperial heartland o f Asia Minor by the physical removal o f disaffected

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populations to other regions. The Paulicians were strengthened in the eighth century when the Isaurian dynasty - the so-called ‘iconoclast emperors’ attempted to suppress the use o f icons, an attitude which, from the 730s, persuaded them to tolerate those equally unsympathetic towards the externals o f Christian worship. Moreover, when the Emperor Constantine V reconquered Armenia from the Muslims in the 750s, Paulicians from the region were among those resettled in Thrace, depopulated by plague a few years before. With the ending o f the Iconoclast regime in the mid-ninth century, Paulicians were persecuted once again, suffering serious military defeat when their fortress at Tefrice in the theme o f Armeniakon in eastern Anatolia fell to Basil I in 878; even so, they were not eliminated, for some were recruited into imperial armies, where their presence was regularly re­ ported down to the twelfth century, while the removal by the Emperor John Tzimisces o f further communities from the eastern frontier to Philippopolis in Thrace during the 970s added to their presence in the Balkans.6 Both sects found their origins in the East: the Messalians in fourthcentury Edessa and the Paulicians in Mesopotamia in the mid-seventh century. Both gained adherents throughout the Byzantine Empire, for during the fifth century Messalians could be found in Syria, Cappadocia and Asia Minor, while by the early ninth century the Paulicians claimed to have seven churches extending from the Euphrates in the east to Corinth in the west.7 Neither accepted the Judeo-Christian belief in the creation o f the world by God; both sought an explanation for evil in the existence o f matter, a key component o f which was the human body. However, while the Messalians thought that a demon inside each body needed to be expelled by intense prayer, the Paulicians were part o f the dualistic tradition, in that they believed in the eternal separation o f God and Matter. These are the ‘Two Principles’ which ultimately came to char­ acterise the absolute dualists o f Languedoc and northern Italy from the 1170s onwards. The origins o f Paulician belief are therefore a matter o f importance to historians seeking the inspiration o f medieval heresy in the West. Byzantine writers almost invariably called them ‘Manichaeans’ . Manichaeism was the work o f a Persian called Mani, put to death by the Zoroastrian establish­ ment in 276 a d . Systematic dualism originated with the Gnostics o f the first century for whom matter was intrinsically evil, but Mani himself seems to have been subject to a variety o f ideas drawn from Zoroastrianism,

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Christianity, Buddhism, and Babylonian Mandaeism (in which he had been brought up). Among the identifiable elements is the influence o f Marcion, the son o f the bishop o f Sinope, who died in 160 a d . Marcion’s dualism took the form o f rejecting the God o f the Old Testament, since he was responsible for the evil in the world, so that this God therefore had no con­ nection with the New Testament at all. In Mani’s cosmology, Darkness and Light were quite separate in origin, but the capture o f some particles o f Light by the aggressive forces o f Darkness (which took the form o f a com­ posite creature with a lion’s head, dragon’s body, bird’s wings, fish’s tail, and beast’s feet) meant that God had been obliged to undertake a series o f actions to undo this catastrophe. The consequence was a long and, as yet, unresolved conflict, in which God sent a series o f ‘evocations’ to create a material world in which to imprison the forces o f Darkness. In reaction to this the power o f Darkness invented man, self-propagating like the demons, in order to ensure that the particles o f Light remained imprisoned, in this case in the human body. Jesus Christ was one o f these divine ‘evocations’, sent to bring the message o f dualism. Mani himself was the last o f these, possessed o f the final revelation which was intended to make these beliefs universally accepted. The ultimate goal was a return to the complete separa­ tion o f Light and Darkness.8 Like their counterparts in the Orthodox Church, for many Latin clerics these ideas were not lost in the obscurity which the passing o f ten centuries might have brought. St Augustine had, for about nine years, been an ‘auditor’ among the Manichaeans, which meant that the word was deeply embedded in the vocabulary o f all literate men in the medieval West.9 Many ecclesiastical writers were therefore ever ready to see ‘Manichees’ at the root o f all ‘heretical depravity’ without feeling the need for further investigation. N ot surprisingly modern historians have neither been so easily con­ vinced nor have they found such ready unanimity. It is notoriously difficult to trace the path o f ideas over centuries, especially when those ideas run counter to prevailing orthodoxy and are therefore subject to vilification, distortion, and suppression. Some historians - among them Dmitri Obolensky, Steven Runciman, and Hans Soderberg and, more recently and tentatively, Yuri Stoyanov - while fully aware o f the propaganda value o f the Manichaean label to the orthodox, have been prepared to accept the essential continuity o f dualism, tracing it from Gnosticism and Manichaeism to the Paulicians and thence to the Bogomils and the Cathars.10 Soderberg’s

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view is especially clear-cut: absolute dualists derived from Persian Manichaeism, and mitigated dualists were influenced by Egyptian and Syrian Gnosticism. For him the Cathars gave ‘a Christian clothing to the myth o f the combat between the two powers’; between them and Gnosticism there existed ‘an uninterrupted, traditional chain’ . Arno Borst sees this more in terms o f context than continuity, pointing to the funda­ mental nature o f the problem o f the existence o f evil. Thus there is a common element in the religions o f the first millennium before Christ seen in both Persian Zoroastrianism and the cults o f ancient Greece, which was the inherence o f evil in matter which imprisoned the soul. Thereafter Pauline Christianity, heavily influenced by the Greek perspective, emphasised the duality between God and the world, while a range o f Christian heretics, including Marcion in the second century and the Spaniard Priscillian in the fourth century, threatened the orthodox with their dualistic beliefs. Two heresies - the Messalians and the Paulicians - proved more durable, stamping their presence on the minds o f the Byzantine theologians o f the early middle ages.11 It is entirely understandable that medieval churchmen should see contemporary dualists as Manichaeans, but Manichaeism as such disappeared in the Byzantine Empire after the persecution o f the Emperor Justinian (5 2 7 -6 5 ), although it persisted further east. Some historians such as Bernard Hamilton and Yliva Hagman - therefore reject the idea o f ultimate Manichaean derivation, pointing out that the Paulicians, the Bogomils, and the Cathars all saw themselves as ‘good Christians’.12 As Hamilton expresses it: ‘The Christian dualists were not an alien graft on a Christian stock, but dissenters who had broken away from the Orthodox Church and interpreted the Christian faith in an exceptionally radical way.’ In this view the founder o f the Paulicians, Constantine o f Mananalis, was there­ fore the first Christian dualist and the originator o f a new heretical movement.

The Bogomils Neither position, though, solves the problem o f the possible links between the Messalians and Paulicians and the Bogomils; to make any progress in this direction it is necessary to find out what is known about the Bogomils themselves. The first detailed description o f dualist heresy in Bulgaria is by Cosmas the Priest, whose Discourse or Treatise again st the Bogomils can be dated between 969 and 972. Cosmas may have been a bishop, or at least

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THE BOGOMILS

held a position o f authority within the Church; it is evident that he felt a responsibility to protect ‘the simple and ignorant’ from the hypocrisy o f the heretics, while at the same time deploring some o f the behaviour o f the Orthodox clergy. His account is based on his own observations and owes little or nothing to previous tradition.13 Cosmas places the appearance o f the heresy in the reign o f the Tsar Peter (9 2 7 -6 9 ), preached by a priest called Bogomil, the first to do so in Bulgaria.14 A letter o f Theophylact Lecapenus, Patriarch o f Constantinople, written at Peter’s request some­ time between 940 and 950, confirms that a heresy based on dualist belief had been troubling the ruler, although its content depends much more upon Theophylact’s theological knowledge o f Manichaeism and Paulicianism (or that o f his staff who probably drafted the letter) than any direct experi­ ence, and it is not absolutely certain that he is referring to the Bogomils.15 Cosmas was fully aware o f the persecution o f the heretics which this exchange suggests, but he says, ‘How can they deserve any compassion, even if a host o f them suffer, when they claim the devil as creator o f man­ kind and all the divine creation? And because o f their great ignorance some call him a fallen angel, and others call him the “ steward o f iniquity” .’ Indeed, they say that ‘it is by the devil’s will that all exists: the sky, the sun, the stars, the air, mankind, the churches, the cross; all that belongs to God they ascribe to the devil; in short, everything that moves on the earth, whether it has a soul or not, they ascribe to the devil’ . The Devil’s dominion over the material world was evident in Matthew 4:9, where he offers Christ, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ In ‘the parable o f the two sons’ (that is, the Prodigal Son) in Luke 15, the elder is identified as Christ, the younger, ‘who deceived his father, the devil’ . They call the Devil Mammon, says Cosmas, saying that ‘it was he who bade men take wives and eat meat and drink wine’ . Those who marry are ‘servants o f Mammon’ and their offspring are ‘the children o f Mammon’ . The corollary o f this is the condemnation o f the basis o f Orthodox belief, together with the symbols o f the Christian religion. They could not accept the idea o f the redemption o f the human race through Christ’s death and resurrection, nor the role o f the prophets, John the Baptist, or the Virgin Mary. These people rejected the cross, icons, relics, and saints, ‘wagging their heads like the Jews when they crucified Christ’ . They claimed that ‘the Eucharist is not really, as you [the priests] claim, the body o f Christ, but a simple food like all others’ .

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Cosmas regarded the heretics as hypocrites, especially as they often concealed their beliefs by attending church and taking part in the sacra­ ments and the liturgy. M ost infuriating to him, though, was what he saw as their deliberate obstinacy in misinterpreting important biblical passages. Their presentation o f the accounts o f Christ’s miracles in the Gospels was a case in point.

How, indeed, are they not the enemies o f God and man, they who do not believe in the Lord’s m iracles? Because they call the devil the creator, they do not adm it that Christ performed any miracles. Although they hear the evangelists proclaim out loud the Lord’s miracles, they ctwist them to their own destruction’ [2 Peter 2:16], saying, cChrist did not restore any blind person’s sight, he cured no cripple, he did not raise the dead; these are only parables. The evangelists present sins which were cured as i f they were diseases.’ Cosmas says nothing about any kind o f structured organisation, so probably none existed at this time, although it is clear that there was an elite group o f travelling preachers who relied upon the support o f sym­ pathisers and converts. ‘People who see this great humility o f theirs, who think that they are good Christians and able to direct them to salvation, approach them and take their advice about their souls’ salvation; while they, like a wolf about to snatch away a lamb, at first pretend to sigh, and answer humbly.’ They pray eight times every twenty-four hours, reciting exclusively ‘Our Father’, but they do no work; instead ‘they go from house to house and eat the goods o f others, those o f the men they have deceived’ . They confess and give absolution to each other, women as well as men, an action quite contrary to Paul’s command that women were not to teach or have authority over men. Again, there is no consensus on the derivation o f these ideas. For Obolensky the influence o f the Messalian and Paulician heresies is evident. Messalians believed in intensive prayer, an ascetic lifestyle, and the enhanced role o f women, while Paulician dualism denied the whole basis o f Orthodox Christian belief and the formal ecclesiastical structure that went with it.16 Hamilton rejects Messalian influence since there is no evidence to suggest that this was a living faith after the seventh century, and accords only a relatively small role to the Paulicians since, although both saw the devil as the evil creator, as well as agreeing on some specific points such as their

• 14 •

THE BOGOMILS

refusal to accept the Eucharist, the Bogomils differed fundamentally in believing in only one God and not in two co-eternal deities. Moreover, there was no ascetic tradition among the Paulicians; for Hamilton this was much more likely to have been drawn from Orthodox monasticism, although with a quite different motivation. I f there was an external influ­ ence from eastern dualism, then he suggests it was possibly from Zurvanite Zoroastrianism with which the Bulgars had previously come into contact and which had great similarities to the mitigated dualism o f the Bogomils.17 Nevertheless, although historians differ over influences most agree that this was a new heresy and that Cosmas is describing a set o f beliefs quite specific to his time and place. Bogomil was the true founder o f an original Church which, by the mid-eleventh century, when contemporaries began to use the term ‘Bogomilism’ to describe his legacy, had had a profound influence far beyond Macedonia.18 However, no completely convincing explanation has ever been put forward for the appearance o f the heresy at this particular time. Most historians attribute its success to the prevailing religious, political, and social instability, and there is no doubt that the cultural foundations o f ‘Bulgaria’ were still in the process o f formation in the mid-tenth century. Conversion to Christianity was relatively recent and still incomplete, dating from the mid-ninth century, although no systematic missionary work seems to have been undertaken until the entry o f Clement, Naum, and Angelarius, in 885, disciples o f St Methodius who, together with his brother Cyril, had evangelised the Slavs o f Moravia.19 They may, too, have made an inadvertent contribution for in their concern to ensure the permanence o f their efforts, they established a school at Ochrida, where the translation o f the New Testament and other texts into Old Slavonic greatly facilitated Bogomil propagation o f their own inter­ pretations o f these m aterials.20 The situation was complicated by the ambiguities o f the links with Byzantium, for the political and military relationship oscillated between subservience and sometimes violent Slav resistance. This turmoil was compounded by the attempt o f Khan Boris (8 5 2 -8 9 ) to ally with the Carolingian Louis the German, which would have opened the way for the papacy. The result was forceful Byzantine intervention in 864, compelling the Khan to accept Greek Orthodoxy. It is not surprising to find Paulician missionaries from Tefrice at work in Bulgaria shortly after - probably around

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870 - since the conflicting religious currents offered evident opportunities for proselytisation.21 As a consequence historians have often taken up posi­ tions based on a view derived either from a ‘religious’ or a ‘social’ explana­ tion, approaches which have become equally characteristic o f the modern presentation o f Catharism.22 For Obolensky, the spread o f heresy was essentially a consequence o f the inability o f the Orthodox Church to estab­ lish itself effectively in the face o f the religious, social, and economic unrest o f mid-tenth-century Bulgaria, a situation which could at least be partly explained by the deficiencies o f the ecclesiastical establishment. Cosmas himself is very critical o f the contemporary Church, especially its monastic and eremitical strands, although quite unwilling to accept that there was any external justification for the heretics’ behaviour. Cosmas, nevertheless, saw this religious dissent as encompassing incite­ ment to social revolt. ‘They teach their followers not to obey their masters; they scorn the rich, they hate the Tsars, they ridicule their superiors, they reproach the boyars, they believe that God looks in horror on those who labour for the Tsar, and advise every serf not to work for his master.’23 Obolensky’s interpretation o f this passage is wary: ‘one should beware o f attributing too much importance to the social anarchism o f the Bogomils or o f seeing in them Slavonic communists o f the Middle Ages.’24 However, in contrast to Obolensky, Dimitur Anguelou identifies the prevailing socio­ political climate as the key to understanding the spread o f Bogomilism at this time. ‘Although in its form it represents a heresy, at its base it was a social movement, directed against feudal oppression.’ For him, Bogomilism was essentially a grass-roots movement, which appealed to an oppressed and overtaxed peasantry and an impoverished urban proletariat, which felt little affinity with a wealthy Church and a boyar class which held almost all the economic and jurisdictional power. Violence, pillage, and torture by soldiers exacerbated their already precarious situation. In Anguelou’s view, the hierarchical concept o f Orthodoxy simply provided an ideological justi­ fication for the existing state o f feudal domination.25 Anguelou’s Marxist interpretation seems too schematic to be entirely realistic, but equally Obolensky is too dismissive. The rejection o f those who possessed material power seems entirely consistent with the other information provided by Cosmas. However, if this is the case, a transformation in the extent o f its social acceptance was not the least o f the mutations which Bogomilism underwent in the course o f its transfer to the West.

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THE BOGOMILS

Cosmas had hoped that his warnings would alert his contemporaries to the danger and that the heresy would therefore be eliminated before it could make further inroads. But his efforts were in vain. By the early twelfth century Bogomilism was not only common in Bulgaria, but had also been identified by Byzantine writers in Thrace, in western Asia Minor in the theme o f Opsikion, and, most importantly, in Constantinople itself. Anna Comnena, daughter o f the Byzantine emperor, Alexius I (1081-1118), wrote the A lexiad , her panegyric o f her father, in the 1140s.26 She was as concerned to emphasise his intellectual gifts as to demonstrate his military prowess; for her, Alexius’s debates with heretics made him The thirteenth apostie’ . She identifies Philippopolis in Thrace and Constantinople as the two major centres o f heresy in her father’s time. Alexius encountered the heretics o f Philippopolis in 1114, when he went there to campaign against the Cumans; in Anna’s view, this city was ‘a meeting-place . . . o f all pol­ luted waters’, for practically all its inhabitants were either Paulicians (whom she identifies with Manichaeans), Armenian monophysites, or ‘so-called Bogomils’ . According to Anna, despite the obduracy o f three o f the leaders, Alexius managed to convert many thousands o f the ‘Manichaeans’ and settle them in a new city near Philippopolis called Alexiopolis or Neocastron.27 The emperor’s confrontation with heresy in Constantinople is undated, although internal evidence places it earlier, sometime between 1101 and 1104.28 Here his main opponents are quite specifically Bogomils, whose heresy Anna believed was previously unknown, although she con­ ceded that it apparently existed before her father’s reign, ‘but was unper­ ceived (for the Bogomil sect is adept at feigning virtue)’ . Their dogma, she says, is ‘an amalgam o f Manichaean and Massalian teaching’ , which had ‘deep roots: it had penetrated even the greatest houses and enormous numbers were affected by this terrible thing’ . Their leader, Basil, was tricked into confessing his beliefs and publicly burnt to death in the Hippodrome.29 However, Anna could not bring herself to describe Bogomil beliefs in detail, but instead refers the reader to the Panoplia Dojjm atica by the monk Euthymius Zigabenus, commissioned by her father to produce a systematic description o f all heresies, together with refutations. His section on the Bogomils seems to have been based directly on Basil’s testimony, since he had actually been responsible for interrogating him, so the two writers effectively complement each other.30 His description is, in essentials, con­ sistent with that taught by Bogomil and his disciples although, as might be

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expected, doctrinal refinements had taken place. Even so, although in the early 1170s Nicetas brought absolute dualism from Constantinople to the West, at this date the Byzantine Bogomils described by Euthymius Zigabenus still retained the moderate dualism o f their founder.31 ‘They say that the demon whom the saviour called Satan himself is also a son o f God the Father, called Satanael; he came before the Son, the Word, and is stronger, as befits the first-born.’ Satanael was the steward, second only to the Father, and was so carried away by his position that he engineered rebellion, luring some o f the angels by offering them ‘a lightening o f their burdensome services’ . When God realised this they were all thrown out o f Heaven, but Satanael who ‘possessed the power o f the Demiurge’ used that ability to create the earth, as described in the Book o f Genesis. Basil’s version o f the creation o f man is represented by Euthymius as follows:

Then he moulded the body o f A dam from earth mixed with water, and made him stand up, and some moisture ran down to his right foot, and leaking out through his big toe, ran twisting on to the ground and made the shape o f a snake. Satanael gathered together the breath that was in him and breathed life into the body which he had moulded, and his breath, running down through the emptiness, ran down to the right foot in the same way, and, leaking through the big toe, ran out into the twisted drop. This instantly became alive, and separating from the toe, crawled away. That is why it is clever and intelligent, because o f the breath o f Satanael which came into it. Satanael realised then how limited his powers were, so

he sent an embassy to the Good Father, and asked H im to send H is breath, saying that the man would be shared i f he were to be endowed with life, and that the places in heaven of the angels who had been thrown out should be filled by the m an’s descendants. Because God is good, He agreed, and breathed into what Satanael had moulded the breath o f life; immediately man became a living soul, splendid in his body and bright with many graces. Satanael, though, reneged on this agreement, making Eve pregnant with Cain and his sister, Calomena. Abel, Adam’s son by Eve, was killed by Cain ‘and so brought murder into life’ . It was G od’s pity for the soul that he had breathed into the body that led him in the year 5000 to send ‘the

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THE BOGOMILS

Word, that is the Son’. According to the Bogomils, this son was the Archangel Michael, who ‘descended from above and crept through the right ear o f the Virgin, and put on a body which seems physical like a human body, but in reality is immaterial and divine’ . Here Euthymius makes explicit what is implicit in Anna Comnena, who says only that Basil ‘looked askance at our doctrine o f the Divine Nature o f Christ and wholly misinterpreted His human nature’ .32 Christ’s role was therefore very limited; he was certainly not part o f an eternal Trinity as conceived by the Orthodox. Bogomil’s ‘wrong construction’, which had so angered Cosmas, had now become the heretics’ standard approach to both biblical and apocryphal texts. Anna Comnena had wrongly claimed that the heresy was completely new, but even the better-informed Euthymius Zigabenus did not think it was much older than his own generation, although his belief in its Manichaean origins shows that he thought it had deeper roots. He did claim that Basil had been studying and teaching for more than fifty-five years, which suggests that Byzantine Bogomilism was already established by the mid-eleventh century.33 This is confirmed by an earlier witness, Euthymius, a monk o f the monastery o f the Periblepton in Constantinople (who had originally come from the diocese o f Acmonia), who describes the heresy in the theme o f Opsikion in c. 1045.34 It is likely therefore that the direct conquest o f Bulgaria by Emperor Basil II in 1018, which began a period o f Byzantine domination which lasted until 1185, created circum­ stances which enabled Bogomilism to spread into other parts o f the Byzantine Empire, perhaps partly through intermarriage. Moreover, its appearance among ‘the greatest houses’ in Constantinople shows that not only was the heresy diffused over a wide area, but that it was both socially mobile and intellectually evolving, developments o f great significance for the history o f Catharism in the West. Certainly it had become too wellestablished for Alexius to eliminate it, despite his best efforts. Michael Angold suggests that the emperor was particularly alarmed because heresy had ceased to be exclusively a provincial problem as in the past and had penetrated the capital, having taken advantage o f the political and social turmoil so evident in Constantinople since the 1040s.35 It was still there in the 1170s. At about the same time as Nicetas was on his mission to the West, Hugh Eteriano, a Pisan living in Constantinople, wrote a treatise condemning Bogomil belief and demanding that such heretics be executed.

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According to him, they could be found both in the districts around the Hellespont and throughout the whole city o f Constantinople itself36 (See Map 1.) It seems therefore that, during the reign o f Alexius Comnenus, the Bogomils o f Bulgaria and Byzantium adhered to a common set o f beliefs and ritual. When asked at the Council o f St-Felix-de-Caraman, Nicetas said that there were five Churches: Romania (meaning Constantinople), Drugunthia (the valley o f Dragovitsa in the region o f Philippopolis), Melenguia (possibly the Church o f the Slav Milingui, who lived around Mount Taygettus in the southern Peleponnese), Bulgaria, and Dalmatia (which probably meant Bosnia).37 However, at some time before the council there had been a doctrinal split in which the Bogomils o f Thrace and Constantinople became absolute dualists, leaving Bulgaria and Bosnia as the centres o f the original moderate belief. This may, as has been argued by Bernard Hamilton, reflect linguistic and cultural divisions between the Slavs and the Greeks,38 but it does seem nevertheless that the schism was a relatively recent occurrence, for there is no evidence that either Anna Comnena, writing in the late 1140s, or contemporary dualist heretics in the West knew o f it at that time.39 There is no solid evidence to explain the appearance o f absolute dualism among the Byzantine Bogomils, but expo­ sure to Paulician beliefs was certainly much more likely in Thrace than in Macedonia, especially since the mass deportations to the region by the Emperor John Tzimisces, while Anna Comnena says that Alexius I actu­ ally concentrated ‘Manichaean’ or Paulician heretics in a new city in the vicinity. Perhaps most significant o f all was the insistence o f Nicetas at the Council o f St-Felix-de-Caraman on the importance o f the Paulician Churches in the history o f the beliefs he was transmitting.40

The origins of dualism in the West According to the anonymous Lombard author o f the De heresi catharorum Nicetas went first to Lombardy.

In the early days, when the heresy of the C athars began to increase in Lombardy, they first had a certain bishop named Marky under whose rule all the Lombard, Tuscan , and Trevisan [heretics] were governed. M ark

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was consecrated in the sect of B ulgaria. Then there came to Lombardy from Constantinople a man called Papa Nicheta, who began to declaim against the B ulgarian consecration which M ark had received. This raised doubts in the minds o f Bishop M ark and his followers; he gave up the Bulgarian consecration and accepted, a t the hands ofN icheta himself that o f D rugunthia , and in this sect ofD rugunthia he and all his associates remained fo r some time.41 Nicetas and Mark then travelled on to St-Felix-de-Caraman. After con­ vincing the Cathars there that absolute dualism was the correct belief, Nicetas established three further dioceses o f Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Agen, adding to the already existing bishoprics o f Albi and France.42 When the Dominican and former Cathar, Rainier Sacconi, reviewed the whole range o f Cathar churches in 1250, he counted sixteen in all, concluding with those o f Bulgaria and Drugunthia. ‘All [the others] sprang from the last two named’, he says.43 As Rainier’s summary implies, Nicetas was only partially successful for, soon after his mission, the Bulgarian Bogomils reacted by sending their own man, Petracius (who may have been a bishop), to Lombardy. He claimed that Nicetas had been consecrated by a bishop o f Drugunthia called Simon who had subsequently been caught with a woman. If this were true, it would have invalidated all o f Nicetas’s work in the West, for the Cathars believed that the spiritual powers o f their elite depended upon their moral state, in sharp contrast to the Catholic Church which condemned such a view as donatist heresy. The De heresi catharorum says that the Italian Cathars were thrown into such confusion by this news that a quarrel arose and they split into two camps. Subsequent attempts to resolve the problem only exacerbated matters, so that ‘the whole body o f Cathars . . . once living in unity was first split in two and then again into six parts’ 44 However, neither Nicetas nor Petracius actually created Catharism in the West; each was trying to persuade existing adherents that their own cosmology contained the true explanation o f the origin o f evil. The original consecration o f Mark in the Bulgarian ordo, as well as the readiness o f the Westerners to accept the authority o f emissaries from Bulgaria and Drugunthia, make clear that there must have been strong contacts before this time but, because o f the difficulties o f interpreting the evidence, when and how remain matters o f great controversy among historians, who have

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adhered to almost every possible variation on this theme. Some, like Steven Runciman, Hans Soderberg, and Antoine Dondaine have argued that the various heretical groups and individuals which appear quite suddenly in the West in the first half o f the eleventh century show such evident similarities to Bogomil practice that there must have been direct connections. More recently, Anne Brenon has assumed that the heresies recorded in the West in the early eleventh century were dualist, but denied their Bogomil filia­ tion; they were ‘parallel but different’. Others, like the Italian historian Raffaello Morghen, draw attention to the fact that there are no explicit references to dualism in these heresies, even though this formed the core o f Bogomil teaching and would therefore be expected to be its most characteristic element. On the contrary, some o f their beliefs are quite incompatible with those o f the Bogomils as expressed in Cosmas’s treatise. Morghen argues that all their characteristics can be adequately explained without recourse to outside influence.45 Moreover, there are dangers in the argument by analogy adopted by Dondaine. As R. I. Moore points out, medieval chroniclers readily mixed contemporary information with material taken from ancient authorities found in the monastic library. References to ‘Manichees’ were as likely to be taken from reading St Augustine as they were to come from observation o f contemporary sects.46 For some historians therefore, there is no unequivocal evidence o f dualistic belief in the West until the report in the letter o f Eberwin, Premonstratensian Prior o f Steinfeld, near Cologne, to Bernard, Abbot o f Clairvaux, which was probably linked to Bernard’s preaching in Cologne at the end o f 1146 and early 1147. Eberwin speaks o f two different groups o f heretics, whose disagreement seems to have contributed to their discovery. Among those who appear to have been influenced by the Bogomils, some were reincorporated into the Church, but two o f their leaders, ‘their bishop and his assistant’ debated before a public assembly for three days until ‘the people’ took matters into their own hands and threw them on to the fire.

Anyone am ong them who is thus baptised [by the imposition o f hands] they refer to as ‘Elect\ and say that he has the power to baptise others who shall be found worthy, and to consecrate the body and blood o f Christ a t his table. By the imposition o f hands one is first received from the ranks of those they c a ll ‘auditors’ into the number o f the cbelieversy; thus he g ain s permission to be present a t their prayers until they deem him sufficiently tested to be made an cElect\ Theygive no credence to our baptism. They

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condemn m arriage, but I could not learn from them the reason, either because they dared not reveal it or, more probably, because they did not know. Those who had returned to the Church

have told us that these heretics have a very large number o f adherents scattered throughout the world, among whom are many o f our clergy and monks. Indeed, those who were banned told us during their defence that this heresy has lain concealed from the time o f the martyrs even to their own day, and has persisted thus in Greece and certain other lands.47 Eberwin o f Steinfeld’s informant may have exaggerated when he claimed that there were ‘very large numbers o f adherents scattered throughout the world’ . Nevertheless, the first canon o f the provincial council, held by Archbishop Samson at Reims in October 1157, was directed against Piphiles, who rejected marriage, and lived in impure or even incestuous unions, while the very important Council o f Tours o f May 1163, pre­ sided over by the pope and attended by seventeen cardinals, included legislation specifically aimed at ‘Albigensians’ and those who helped them.48 Moreover, there are a number o f reports o f heretics who appear to have held at least some o f the beliefs which characterised the Bogomils. In 1145 the clergy o f Liege described a group at Mont-Aime (Montwimers) in Champagne, who had three classes o f followers, that is auditors, believers, and Christians, the last meaning ‘its priests, and its other prelates, just as we have’ . They did not believe in baptism, the Eucharist, or marriage, and refused to take oaths which they said were criminal.49 It is possible that the ‘prelates’ referred to may have been the Cathar bishops o f France and Lombardy known to Nicetas in the early 1170s or their predecessors.50 Other reports emanate from the 1160s: at Lombers (south o f Albi) ‘Good Men’ told an assembly o f clergy and people that ‘they do not accept the law o f Moses, nor the Prophets, nor the Psalms, nor the Old Testament, but only the Gospels, the Epistles o f Paul, the seven canonical Epistles, the Acts o f the Apostles, and the Apocalypse’;51 at Oxford, at about the same time, a group o f Germans identified as ‘Publicans’ ‘scorned holy baptism, the Eucharist, and matrimony’;52 and at Vezelay in Burgundy in 1167, another group o f so-called ‘Publicans’ were judged to have been guilty o f rejecting all the sacraments o f the Church.53 According to a reliable con­ temporary, the Austin canon, William o f Newburgh, who is the source for

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the heretics condemned at Oxford, they had originated in Gascony, but had ‘spread the poison o f their infidelity’ in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany.54 In all the cases cited it was claimed that the heretics had made efforts to conceal some or all o f their true beliefs, often by falsely taking part in Catholic ceremonies. M ost importantly, this period also saw the first detailed polemical response to the perceived threat by Eckbert, a former canon o f Bonn and later abbot o f Schonau in the diocese o f Trier, who dedicated his Sermones contra Catharos to Rainald o f Dassel, the imperial chancellor and Archbishop o f Cologne, to whom he sent the book in 1164 or 1165. Eckbert had probably been working on the book since the late 1150s and by this time was well known as an expert on heresy, but the dedication seems to have been made in the hope o f achieving wider circulation.55 Rainald was a great man by this time, the driving force behind Frederick Barbarossa’s imperial ambitions and one o f the most powerful intellects in Germany, and Eckbert may well have hoped to ingratiate himself, for he congratulates Rainald on his elevation to the archbishopric o f Cologne and recalls the time that they had both been students in France.56 The treatise consists o f a short introduction followed by thirteen sermons setting out the origin o f the heresy and refuting its major tenets one by one. An excerpt from St Augustine’s De M anichaeis is added to the end, which suggests that, like earlier commentators, Eckbert too was influenced by Augustine and that such knowledge does not necessarily exclude the writer’s own observations. Eckbert says that they were generally called Cathars, which was the name used in his part o f the world, but were also identified as Piphles in Flanders and Texemnt in France, from their occupation as weavers. There is an echo o f the frustration o f Cosmas the Priest when he castigates them for not understanding ‘the right meaning which lies in the sacred words’ , for it appears that when he was at Bonn Eckbert and his friend Bertolph had often disputed with them. His reference to the past execution o f some o f them in the city o f Cologne suggests strongly that these were the same heretics described by Eberwin o f Steinfeld twenty years before, and confirms the importance o f that witness in tracing the history o f Catharism, for, if Eckbert’s assertions can be accepted, these heretics are the first in the West who can be seen as unambiguously Bogomil in their beliefs.57 ‘Those who have entered their sect as perfecti avoid all flesh, not for the reason that monks do, or others living spiritual lives abstain from it,

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but they say that the consumption o f flesh should be avoided because it is all produced as a result o f sexual intercourse; and for this reason they judge it to be unclean.’ He goes on to say that this is their public explanation) ‘but in secret they say what is worse, namely that all flesh is made by the devil, and that they never touch it even in the greatest necessity’ . They rejected marriage, infant baptism, baptism by water, prayers for the dead, masses, and the Eucharist. Christ, they said, ‘was not truly born o f the Virgin, nor indeed had human flesh, but an imitation o f the flesh; nor had he risen from the dead, but, his death and resurrection were a simulation’ . For Eckbert this confirmed that they were truly Manichaean, for they did not celebrate Easter, he claimed, but rather ‘a certain other feast, on which was killed their heresiarch Manichaeus, to whose heresy they without doubt adhere’ . Eckbert describes these Cathars as extremely loquacious, but he, like the other witnesses, claims that they held some o f their beliefs in secret.58 Some historians therefore regard it as unsafe to attempt to trace the transmission o f Bogomilism to the West to any time before the 1140s, even assuming contemporary western heresy owed anything to outside sources in the first place. However, there has recently been dissent from Bernard Hamilton.59 He agrees that there is no evidence o f ‘fully-fledged Bogomilism’ in the West before 1050, but argues that this is because it did not yet exist in the East in that form either. In other words, Bogomilism was continu­ ing to evolve in Macedonia, Thrace, and Constantinople, even while it was spreading elsewhere. He believes that there is a connection between the development o f the ‘newly appeared’ heresy described by Cosmas the Priest, the spread o f Bogomil beliefs into Thrace, and, soon after, in the first half o f the eleventh century, the reporting o f apparentiy isolated outbreaks o f heresy in Italy and France after a long period o f quiescence dating back to the decline o f the Arian heresy in Spain in the early seventh century. He speculates that visits by Orthodox monks to Western shrines might have been one means o f transmission. However, he accepts the gen­ erally agreed view that there is no sign o f Western dualist heresy between 1051 and 1114, so that if there were Bogomils in the West in the earlier eleventh century, then their teachings did not at that time flourish. As Hamilton sees it, the Bogomils began the successful spread o f their beliefs in the West in the early twelfth century in the period after the First Crusade (1095-1101).

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A key passage in this debate is the account given by Anselm o f Alessandria, who was Inquisitor in Milan and Genoa from 1267, and one o f the few Western writers who attempted to investigate the history o f the Cathars.

Presently, Greeks from Constantinople, who are neighbours to B ulgaria a t a distance o f about three days’ travel, went as merchants to the latter country; and , on return to their homeland, as their numbers grew, they set up there a bishop who is called bishop o f the Greeks. Then Frenchmen went to Constantinople, intending to conquer the land, and discovered this sect; increasing in number, they established a bishop who is called bishop o f the Latins. Thereafter, certain persons from Sclavonia, that is, from the area called Bosnia, went as merchants to Constantinople. On return to their own land, they preached and, having increased in number, established a bishop who is called the bishop o f Sclavonia or of Bosnia. Later on, the French who had gone to Constantinople returned to their homeland and preached and, as their numbers grew, set up a bishop o f France. Because the French were originally led astray by the Bulgars, throughout France these persons are called Bulgarian heretics. Also, people o f Provence who are neighbours o f those o f France, hearing the teachings of the French and led astray by them, grew so numerous that they set up fo u r bishops, namely, bishops o f Carcassonne, ofA lbi, of Toulouse, and ofA gen.60 This passage is clear enough, but provides no dates, so historians are left with the problem o f exactly when ‘Frenchmen went to Constantinople, intending to conquer the land’ . Given the frequency with which crusading armies passed through Constantinople from the late eleventh century onwards, this is not easy to resolve. The phrase is usually taken to mean the Second Crusade o f 1147-48, when a belligerent section o f Louis VTI’s army was certainly willing to mount such an attack.61 Malcolm Lambert, however, has argued forcefully that Anselm can only be referring to the Fourth Crusade o f 1204; indeed, for him that is ‘the plain meaning’ o f the words.62 However, although the Fourth Crusade was the only one actually to conquer Constantinople, Anselm in fact says only ‘in order that they might conquer the land’,63 which could in fact apply to almost any o f the crusading armies which passed through or by Constantinople. Moreover,

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the evidence already discussed shows that the French had already set up a Cathar bishop by the 1160s so, if Anselm is any guide at all to events, he cannot be referring to 1204.64 Hamilton picks the third option, which is the First Crusade, a date which he sees as according with the apocalyptic visions o f St Hildegard o f Bingen, whose knowledge may have come from her friendship with St Elizabeth o f Schonau, sister o f Eckbert, the scourge o f the Cathars in 1164. In that same year Hildegard wrote that the devil led people astray ‘sixty years and twenty and four months’ ago, and that the spread o f the error was ‘twenty-three years and four months’ ago, which would give dates o f 1101 (the last o f the great armies o f the First Crusade) and 1140 (the first appearance o f Cathars in the Rhineland) respectively.65 These arguments suggest that reports o f heresy in Latin Christendom from before 1140 may be relevant, despite the scepticism o f many his­ torians.66 One case - that o f a peasant called Leutard, who lived in the village o f Vertus, near Chalons-sur-Marne, around the year 1000 - has featured prominently in some recent accounts (notably those o f Brenon and Fichtenau), as the first possible instance o f dualistic belief in the West. Leutard’s activities included sending his wife away, breaking a cross in the local church, and preaching to others in the vicinity. Part o f his message was that there was no need to pay tithes. He was eventually shown the error o f his ways by the bishop o f Chalons, but committed suicide soon afterwards. In the report by the Cluniac monk, Raoul Glaber, he seems an isolated individual, but he does appear to have been part o f a group, from which he probably learned some o f the ideas he propounded. Brenon, though, does not accept outside influence, whereas Fichtenau suggests an ultimate Balkan source, although through intermediaries. Both historians are influenced not only by the actions described (which are a slim basis for asserting dualistic belief), but the recurrence o f reports o f heresy in Champagne thereafter, especially centred at Mont-Aime, which is about four kilometres from Vertus. By the 1170s this appears to have been the focus o f the ‘Church o f France’, whose bishop, Robert o f Spernone, Nicetas reconsoled at St-Felix. Moreover, it was the execution o f 183 heretics at Mont-Aime in 1239 which seems to have seen the end o f Catharism in the region.67 Taken at face value, there are six further reports o f heresy between c. 1018 and 1114 which suggest possible Bogomil influence. In chrono­ logical order they encompass Aquitaine, Perigord, Toulouse, Orleans, Arras,

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Montforte (near Turin), Chalons-sur-Marne, and Soissons. Three writers call them Manichaeans: Adhemar o f Chabannes, a monk o f Angouleme, describing those in Aquitaine and in Perigord, Toulouse and Orleans in 1022; Roger II, Bishop o f Chalons, discussing those in the countryside around Chalons-sur-Marne sometime between 1043 and 1048; and Guibert, Abbot o f Nogent, speaking o f heretics near Soissons, in c. 1114.68 Adhemar’s identification o f the heretics in Perigord may possibly be con­ firmed by the mysterious monk, ‘Heribert’, who claims ‘numerous heresies’ in the region, the characteristics o f which included a pretence that they were leading an apostolic life, adhering to chastity, abstaining from meat and wine, and rejecting alms, liturgical chant, the Eucharist, and the cross.69 Heribert appears to have been a monk, possibly at the monastery o f Saint-Sauveur at Sarlat, whose aim was to warn Christians o f the dangers o f heretics infiltrating local society. His descriptions bear a considerable resemblance to Bogomil belief and it is credible that Balkan heretics were exploiting contemporary social discontents in Aquitaine by offering a more convincing explanation o f the many afflictions o f humanity than did the Catholic hierarchy.70 Guibert says that he had re-read St Augustine and that this enabled him to say that the heresy he had reported ‘resembles none other than that o f the Manichaeans’ which, if he is telling the truth, sug­ gests that, initially, at any rate, he had received his information from a source other than St Augustine. As the designation o f Bogomils does not seem to have been used even in Macedonia and Thrace before the time o f Euthymius o f the Periblepton in c. 1045, it is difficult to see how either Adhemar or Roger could have described what they believed to be dualist heresy other than as Manichaean. Three reports (by Paul, a monk o f St Pere de Chartres, writing in c. 1072 about the Orleans heretics o f 1022, Landulf, a cleric o f Milan describing the heretics o f Montforte in c. 1028, and Guibert o f Nogent) emphasise the docetic views o f the heretics, that is their belief that the human life o f Christ was an illusion.71 Two reports (from the Synod o f Cambrai in 1025 which looked at the allegations against the heretics o f Arras, and Guibert o f Nogent) say that the heretics only believed in the Gospels and the Acts o f the Apostles.72 Roger o f Chalons describes the ritual o f the laying-on o f hands.73 Guibert says that they rejected food produced by coition.74 All the cases exhibit strong antisacramental opinions, including the denial o f the validity o f baptism, the Eucharist, penance, and marriage. Chastity and fasting were central to their

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lifestyle. All these beliefs are consistent with Bogomil teaching, and in three cases there is some hint o f outside influence in which Italy is the common factor. According to Raoul Glaber, the heretics at Orleans in 1022 were influenced by a female missionary from Italy, the synod at Cambrai found that the heretics at Arras were followers o f an Italian called Gundolfo, and Landulf o f Milan said that those at Montforte ‘had come into Italy from some unknown part o f the world’ .75 By 1139, at the Second Lateran Council, it was thought necessary to issue a general condemnation o f those who ‘simulating a kind o f religiosity’ denied the validity o f the Eucharist, the baptism o f children, and legitimate marriage, as well as denigrated the priesthood.76 M ost historians accept that there is little or no identifiable heresy in the West in the second half o f the eleventh century; its absence is convention­ ally ascribed to the turmoil created by the papal reform movement, which absorbed most potential dissenters.77 If this was so, it was only a temporary respite. In the first half o f the twelfth century new critics appeared, more strident and populist than their predecessors. The activities o f one o f these men - Tanchelm o f Antwerp (died c. 1115) - are known largely through a letter o f the canons o f Utrecht to Frederick, Archbishop o f Cologne, in which their violent denigration o f his character seems to have been more concerned with what they saw as his interference in diocesan affairs than with any coherent presentation o f his beliefs.78 More significant was the preaching o f Henry the Monk and Peter o f Bruys, both because their careers were longer and, in the case o f Henry, affected the Toulousain directly. As with Tanchelm it is necessary to prune the thickets o f clerical outrage in order to find the core o f their teaching, but in essence it amounted to an attack upon the sacramental functions o f the priests and the externals o f worship which were associated with them. In Henry’s case the basis o f his argument was donatist - sacraments administered by sinful priests were worthless - while Peter o f Bruys particularly targeted church buildings and crosses, as well as denying the validity o f infant baptism, the Eucharist, and prayers and offerings for the dead. Peter was killed at St Gilles sometime after 1131, but Henry remained a persistent and persuasive opponent o f the clerical hierarchy, drawing crowds in important cities o f the west, including Le Mans, Poitiers, Bordeaux, Cahors, and Perigueux, and then, in the 1140s, in and around Toulouse. In 1145 a preaching tour by Bernard, Abbot o f Clairvaux, seems to have undermined him and he was

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probably captured in the autumn o f that year.79 Elie Griffe believed that ‘Arians’ in Toulouse were really Cathars and that their existence predated Henry’s appearance, but it is difficult to connect Henry with dualistic belief from any o f the existing evidence.80 More pertinent may be St Bernard’s pointed question to Count Alfonso-Jordan before he journeyed to Toulouse, when he asked him why it appeared that his lands were the only ones to offer sanctuary to Henry now that he had been driven out o f ‘France’ .81 The answer may have lain less in the count’s neglect, which is what St Bernard implies, but in popular resentment at the success o f the Church in extending its financial control over so many areas o f social life, in particular marriage.82 Henry’s temporary success may show that there were issues which the Cathars could readily exploit. These diverse movements did not last, but it is possible that they are early signs o f the development o f what Andrew Roach describes as a grow­ ing ‘consumer choice’, a phrase more often associated with economics than with religious belief. However, Roach believes that just as the economic dynamism o f the twelfth century offered a wider section o f the population a greater variety o f goods and services than in the past (and indeed a greater range o f occupations as well), so that they became accustomed to making new choices, so too were there more opportunities for the laity to acquire new religious tastes from the ever-lengthening menu now laid before them.83 Among the items on that menu were forms o f Bogomil belief imported from Byzantium, as well as more local movements arising from both anti-clericalism and reformist impulses. N ot all these choices were heretical - some, for example, were attracted to the new monasticism o f the Cistercians and Carthusians, among others - but they were all part o f what Roach sees as greater choice for a laity discontented with the clerical monopoly. M oore’s belief that dualism in the West cannot be proven before c. 1140 rests upon a strict and cautious reading o f the sources and, as such, forms a distinct marker-point in the elusive search for evidence o f the spread o f heretical ideas. For him, the disparate nature o f the beliefs reported, their wide geographical spread, and the lack o f any evidence o f Bogomil activity suggest that these heresies were generated by the circum­ stances prevailing in Western Christendom in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries and owe nothing to outside influence.84 Nevertheless, given the powerful missionary zeal o f the Bogomils, as well as their evident spread

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east as far as Constantinople, it does seem intrinsically unlikely that Italy (if nowhere else) would have remained hermetically sealed from their ideas for the better part o f one and a half centuries. Moreover, if the 1147-8 date really does represent the first appearance o f Bogomilism in the West, then it put down roots remarkably quickly. If Anselm o f Alessandria is correct, at some time point before Nicetas’s mission in the early 1170s, Catharism not only spread from northern France into Languedoc, but also into Italy, when ‘a notary from France’ led astray Mark, who was a gravedigger, and his two friends John Judeus and Joseph, a weaver and a smith respectively. They added a fourth man, Aldricus o f Bando.

A ll these deluded persons took counsel with the aforesaid notary, who sent them to Roccavione - that is a place near Cuneo - where dwelt Cathars who had come from France to settle. The bishop o f the heretics was not there, being a t Naples. Thither they went and sought him out, staying in that city fo r a year. Thereafter, having received the imposition o f the hand , M ark was made a deacon. The aforesaid bishop sent him back to his native place o f Concorezzo, where M ark himself began to preach. A s a result of his preaching in Lombardy, then in the March o f Treviso, and later in Tuscany, the number o f heretics greatly increased.85 The passage suggests that the bishop o f France had already established a community at Roccavione and that he was continuing his work in south­ ern Italy. Mark’s consecration as a bishop ‘in the sect o f Bulgaria’, as described by the author o f the De heresi catharorum ,86 could well have followed these events, and it could have been done by either the bishop o f France or by Bulgarian Bogomils. However these sources are interpreted, it does seem that missionaries from the Bogomil Church did proselytise in the West at some point, and that, even if a very conservative view is taken, this was unlikely to have been later than the 1140s. Probably the Bogomils had been active in some regions from a much earlier date. There remains the problem o f how this was done. Certainly the means o f communication were present. Greek influences on Western monasticism in the tenth and eleventh centuries are evident, while pilgrims travelled in both directions, especially after Basil II’s conquest o f Bulgaria in the early eleventh century, which made travel in the region much easier. It does appear that most contacts between Greeks and Latins at this time were harmonious, but even hostile comment suggests

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that the Greeks were known travellers in the West.87 If Western regions were accessible to the Orthodox then equally they were open to Byzantine heretics, themselves heavily committed to spreading their beliefs. As so much must have been transmitted orally, there are strict limits as to what can be discovered, as the matter can only be approached through an analysis o f the surviving literature. Bernard Hamilton has shown that the Cathars only obtained a limited amount o f their literature from the Bogomils, but that this was mainly from the period before c. 1170. Three items were particularly important: the Ritual (from which the Cathars derived their initiation ceremony known as the consolamentum)yan apocry­ phal work known as The Vision o f Isaiah (which dates probably from the first century a d ), and probably a collation o f the Vulgate text o f the New Testament with the text established by the Bogomils. All these, Hamilton argues, must have been translated from Greek into Latin (and later the Ritual and the New Testament were translated into Occitan). This work o f translation is unlikely to have been done by merchants, travellers, or crusaders, however much they might demonstrate contact between the Latin and Byzantine worlds, but it must rather have been done by the Westerners resident in Constantinople mentioned by Anselm o f Alessandria. These were the people who formed the Cathar (that is Latin) Church in Constantinople, which was distinct from the Bogomil Church there, and they must have been responsible for the evangelisation o f the West, since they had the capability to do so.88 It was men such as these who had prepared the ground for Nicetas and Petracius.

Notes and references 1

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 2 , pp. 8 - 1 1 ; trans., Shirley, pp. 1 1 -1 2 .

2

De heresi catharorum in Lom bardia , in A. D ondaine, ‘L a Hierarchic cathare en Italic’ , I, Archivum fratru m praedicatorum 19 (1 9 4 9 ), pp. 3 0 9 - 1 0 ; trans. W E, no. 2 3 , pp. 1 6 4 -5 .

3

The dating, purpose and even the existence o f this council remain the subject o f intense debate am ong historians. The date is traditionally given as 1167, derived from docum ents describing the assembly published by Guillaum e Besse in 16 6 0 , docum ents which themselves have som etim es been challenged as forgeries, since Besse’s original m anuscript has not been found.

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There are two fundam ental articles on the subject: A. D ondaine, ‘ Les Actes du concile albigeois de Saint-Felix de Caram an. Essai de critique d ’authenticite d ’un docum ent medieval’ , in M iscellanea Giovanni M ercati, vol. 5 (Studi e testi, 125) (C itta del Vaticano, 1 9 4 6 ), pp. 3 2 4 - 5 5 , and B. H am ilton, ‘The Cathar Council o f Saint-Felix reconsidered’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 4 8 (1 9 7 8 ), pp. 2 3 - 5 3 . D ondaine persuaded m ost historians that the docum ents were genuine, while H am ilton argues that the council probably took place between 117 4 and 1177. Integral to both articles is the view that N icetas’s m ission was threefold: to reconsecrate the leading Cathars in the W est, to establish a set o f bishoprics through which the m essage o f the Cathar Church could best be conveyed, and to convert the Westerners from m itigated to absolute dualism. H ow ever, as H am ilton adm its, the last o f these m atters is ‘nowhere explicitly stated in the docum ent’ (p. 2 9 ) and, for this reason, two leading French Cathar historians, Jean Duvernoy, Le Catharism e , vol. 1, L a Religion des Cathares (T oulouse, 197 6 ), pp. 1 0 5 - 7 , and Anne Brenon, Le V rai Visage du Catharism e , 2nd edn (Portet-sur-G aronne, 1 9 9 5 ), pp. 109, 1 2 2 - 2 8 , supported by the English historian, Janet N elson , ‘Religion in uH istoire Totale” : som e recent works on medieval heresy and popular religion’ ,

Religion 10 (1 9 8 0 ), pp. 6 8 - 9 , have insisted that N icetas was concerned solely with organisational m atters and not with belief. Subsequent disputes am ong the Cathars in the W est, especially in Italy, arose from doubts about the probity o f som e o f those responsible for the consecrations o f bishops, not from any division between m itigated and absolute dualists. H ow ever, having said this, Brenon accepts the presence o f absolute dualism in Lom bardy by 119 0 at the latest, basing her view on the testim ony o f Bonacursus, a Cathar converted som etim e between 1 1 7 6 and 11 9 0 , M anifestatio haeresis catharorum quam fecit Bonacursus, in W E, no. 2 5 , pp. 1 7 0 -3 (where the different texts are collated). This she sees as an element o f internal developm ent in W estern Catharism , ow ing nothing to outside influence. Given that the author o f the De heresi catharorum , writing about this period in the early thirteenth century, states both that Nicetas was from the sect o f D rugunthia and that the D rugunthians were absolute dualists, it seem s perverse to argue, as Brenon does, that there is no p ro o f that the D rugunthian Church had been absolute before the Churches in the W est and that Nicetas was not therefore a believer in absolute dualism . F or a balanced sum mary o f the argum ents, see M . D . Lam bert, The C athars (O xford, 1 9 9 8 ), pp. 5 4 - 8 . Even m ore radical is M . G. P egg, A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle fo r Christendom (O xford and N ew York, 2 0 0 8 ), pp. 1 6 9 - 7 1 , w ho thinks that it is likely that the docum ents were forged in the 1220s. F or a very useful display o f recent views, see M . Zerner, ed., L H istoire du Catharism e en discussion. Le aconcile* de Saint-Felix (1167) (Collection du Centre d ’Etudes M edievales de N ice, 3)

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(N ice, 2 0 0 1 ). This includes a transcript o f a wide-ranging debate held in 1 999, as well as three im portant articles by Jean-Louis Biget, D enis M uzerelle (gathering together the ideas o f a team at the Institut de Recherche et d ’H istoire des Textes) and M onique Zerner. Zerner has also included a concise summary o f the positions held by the leading protagonists between 1933 and 19 9 4 , pp. 2 7 - 3 6 .

4

De heresi catharorum , p. 3 1 0 ; trans. W E, p. 165.

5

See pp. 1 2 7 -8 .

6

F or a concise sum mary o f the Paulician heresy, see H H , pp. 5 - 2 5 .

7

See B. H am ilton, ‘The Cathars and the seven churches o f A sia’ , in J. D . H ow ard-Johnston, ed., Byzantium and the West c. 850-c. 1200: Proceedings o f the X V III Spring Symposium o f Byzantine Studies, Oxford (Am sterdam , 1 9 8 8 ), pp. 2 8 4 - 6 . Also D . O bolensky, The Bogomils (C am bridge, 1 9 4 8 ), pp. 2 8 - 5 8 , and M . L o o s, D u alist Heresy in the M iddle Ages (Prague, 1 9 7 4 ), pp. 3 2 -8 .

8

See Obolensky, The Bogomils, pp. 2 - 2 8 ; L o o s, D u alist Heresy, pp. 2 1 - 3 9 ; V. N . Sharenkoff, A Study o f M anichaeism in B u lgaria (N ew York, 1 9 2 7 ), pp. 5 - 1 5 ; Y. P. Stoyanov, The Hidden Tradition in Europe (H arm ondsw orth, 1 9 9 4 ), pp. 8 7 - 1 0 3 ; new edn entitled The Other God: D u alist Religions from A ntiquity to the C athar Heresy (N ew H aven, C T and Lon don , 2 0 0 0 ), pp. 1 0 2 -1 9 .

9

See P. Brown, Augustine o f Hippo. A Biography (Berkeley, C A and L on don , 1 9 6 7 ), pp. 4 6 - 6 0 .

10

Obolensky, The Bogomils, pp. 1 0 9 -1 0 ; S. Runcim an, The M edieval Manichee. A Study o f Christian D ualist Heresy (Cam bridge, 1947) (reprint, 1955), pp. 62, 8 7 - 8 , 1 7 1 -4 ; M . Soderberg, L a Religion des Cathares. Etude sur le Gnosticisme de la basse antiquite et du moyen age (U ppsala, 1 9 4 9 ), pp. 8 2 , 2 6 5 - 8 .

11

A. Borst, D ie K atharer (Schriften der M onum enta Germaniae historica) (Stuttgart, 1 9 5 3 ), pp. 5 9 -6 0 .

12

H H , pp. 2 - 3 ; Y. H agm an, ‘ Les historiens des religions et les constructions des esoteristes’ , in C EI, pp. 1 3 1 -4 3 .

13

H .-C . Puech and A. Vaillant, eds and trans., Le Traite contre les Bogomiles de Cosmas le Pretre (Paris, 1 9 4 5 ), pp. 1 3 - 4 7 , for the background, and pp. 5 3 - 1 2 8 , for the text in French translation. H H , no. 15, pp. 1 1 4 - 3 4 , for English translation. All translations are taken from this version.

14

Bogom il may have been an adopted name m eaning ‘beloved o f G o d ’ . Obolensky, The Bogomils, p. 1 20, believes that his Christian name was Theophilus. H ow ever, recent m odern opinion tends to accept that his actual name was Bogom il, which L o o s, D ualist Heresy, pp. 6 5 - 6 , n. 4 7 , argues was ‘a com m on personal name o f the tim e’ . The view which has som etim es been

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N O T E S AND R E F E R E N C E S

expressed that there was no such figure can be dism issed, see D . A nguelou,

Le Bogomilisme en Bulgarie , trans. L. Petrova-Boinay (T ou lou se, 19 7 2 ) (originally 1 9 6 9 ), p. 4 9 , and Puech, Traite , pp. 2 8 3 - 9 , w ho thinks it very unlikely that a mythical figure w ould have developed so soon after his alleged death. 15

H H , no. 10, pp. 9 8 - 1 0 2 . Greek text in I. D ujcev, ‘ L ’epistola sui Bogom ili del patriarca constantinopolitano Teofilatto’ , in Melanges Eugene Tisserant, vol. 2 (Studi e testi, 2 3 2 ) (C itta del Vaticano, 1 9 6 4 ), pp. 8 8 - 9 1 .

16

Obolensky, The Bogomils, pp. 5 9 -1 6 7 .

17

H H , pp. 2 9 - 3 1 . O n the Eucharist, see C osm as, H H , p. 119. See also Puech, Traite , pp. 2 9 2 - 3 0 4 , where he reviews the ‘genealogy’ o f heresy. H e thinks that direct M anichaean influence was negligible, but ascribes a greater role to elements o f Paulicianism and M essalianism.

18

See Obolensky, The Bogomils, p. 119; L o o s, D u alist Heresy, p. 6 7 ; Stoyanov,

Hidden Tradition , pp. 1 3 0 -1 . 19

Obolensky, The Bogomils, pp. 8 8 - 9 .

20

Stoyanov, H idden Tradition , pp. 1 3 2 - 3 ; H H , p. 31.

21

O n the Bulgarian situation in the second half o f the tenth century, see Stoyanov, Hidden Tradition , pp. 1 2 0 -3 . The account o f the Paulician missionaries derives from the report o f the Byzantine envoy to Tefrice, Peter o f Sicily, H H , p. 67.

22

Janet N elson in ‘Religion in uH istoire Totale” , p. 6 0 , regards the debate between ‘religious’ and ‘social’ factors as ‘a dead duck’ . She may be right, but much o f the fundam ental historiography predates this time.

23

H H ,p . 132.

24

Obolensky, The Bogomils, p. 137.

25

A nguelou, Le Bogomilisme, pp. 2 3 - 9 . See to o Vaillant, Traite, pp. 2 8 - 9 , w ho see Bogom ilism as a m ovem ent o f protest and social agitation which found its origins am ong the lower clergy.

26

Anna Com nena, A lexiad , trans. E. Sewter (H arm ondsw orth, 1 9 6 9 ), p. 4 6 6 . Greek text with French translation, Anne C om nene, A lexiade (Regne de TEmpereur Alexis I Comnene 1081-1118), 3 vols (C ollection Byzantine publiee sous le patronage de l’A ssociation Guillaum e B ude), 2n d edn (Paris, 1 967). Anna C om nena’s witness is valuable, both because she had been educated in ‘the classical-hellenistic tradition’ and because her technique was superior to m ost contem porary W estern chroniclers. As the events were well rem em bered by others, it is likely that her descriptions are groun ded upon fact. M oreover, her selectivity suggests that the confrontations with the heretics were regarded as events o f m ajor im portance in Alexius’s reign; see

. 35 .

T H E S P R E A D OF C A T H A R I S M

J. C hrysostom ides, ‘A Byzantine historian: Anna C om nena’ , in D . O . M organ, ed., M edieval H istorical W riting in the Christian and Islam ic

Worlds (Lon d on , 1 9 8 2 ), pp. 3 0 - 4 6 . 27

A lexiad , trans. Sewter, pp. 4 6 3 - 9 .

28

See M . A ngold, Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni, 1081-1261 (C am bridge, 1 9 9 5 ), p. 4 8 6 . H e suggests that Basil’s execution may have been som e years later, perhaps in 1107.

29

A lexiad , trans. Sewter, pp. 4 9 6 - 5 0 4 .

30

H H , no. 2 5 , pp. 1 8 0 -9 5 . Greek text in J. P. M igne, ed., Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, vol. 1 30, cols 1 2 8 9 -1 3 3 1 .

31

A ngold, Church and Society, pp. 4 7 1 - 6 , is not convinced that there was any connection between the Bogom ils o f Bulgaria and Basil’s group in Constantinople. H e agrees, though, on ‘the similarities o f outlook and teaching’ (p. 4 7 6 ).

32

A lexiad , trans. Sewter, p. 4 9 8 .

33

H H , p. 203.

34

H H , no. 19, pp. 1 4 2 -6 4 . The text survives in fragm ents. The version in H H is a com posite text.

35

A ngold, Church and Society, pp. 4 7 7 - 8 .

36

H H , no. 36, p. 2 3 5 .

37

D ondaine, ‘Les A ctes’, pp. 3 4 4 - 5 , for the identification o f these Churches. The location o f the Church o f the M elingui remains uncertain. According to C. Schm idt, H istoire et doctrine de la secte des Cathares en Albigeois, vol. 1 (Paris and Geneva, 1848) (reprint Bayonne, 1 9 8 3 ), p. 57, n. 5, it was ‘without d ou b t’ Melnik in M acedonia. This view still com m ands som e support (e.g. A ngold, Church and Society, pp. 4 9 3 - 4 ) on the grounds o f its proximity to the other known Churches. D ondaine, ‘Les A ctes’ , p. 3 4 5 , evades the issues, and H am ilton, ‘Cathar Council’ , pp. 3 8 - 9 , offers circumstantial evidence for the Peloponnese, but the truth is that nobody really knows. A ngold, Church and Society, pp. 4 9 4 - 5 , also suggests that D rugunthia m ight have been in the theme o f M oglena in M acedonia, where Bogom ilism was com batted by St H ilarion, bishop there between c. 1134 and 1164.

38

B. H am ilton, ‘The origins o f the dualist church o f D rugunthia’ , Eastern Churches Review 6 (1 9 7 4 ), p. 122.

39

D . Obolensky, ‘Papa Nicetas: a Byzantine dualist in the land o f the C athars’ , in Okeanos: Essays Presented to Igor Sevcenko (H arvard Ukrainian Studies, 7) (1 9 8 3 ), pp. 4 9 9 - 5 0 0 , thinks that there is evidence o f the change in the O ld Slavonic Life o f St. H ilarion , although this is a late source, its author, Euthym ius, Bulgarian Patriarch o f Trnovo, dying in 1402.

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N O T E S AND R E F E R E N C E S

40

H am ilton, ‘Seven churches’ , pp. 2 8 4 - 5 .

41

De heresi catharorum , p. 3 0 6 ; trans. W E, pp. 1 6 0 -1 .

42

D ondaine, ‘Les A ctes’ , pp. 3 2 6 - 7 .

43

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus de Lugduno , in A. D ondaine, Un Traite neo-manicheen du X H Ie siecle: Le Liber du duobus

principiis, suivi d ’un fragm ent de rituel cathare (R om e, 1 9 3 9 ), p. 7 0 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 336. 44

De heresi catharoruMy pp. 3 0 6 , 3 0 8 ; trans. W E, no. 2 3 , pp. 1 61, 1 6 3 -4 . A later source, Anselm o f Alessandria, writing probably in the m id -1260s, says that there was a report that Nicetas has m et ‘a bad en d’ , Anselm o f Alessandria, T ractatus de haereticis, in A. D ondaine, ‘L a H ierarchic cathare en Italic, I I ’ , Archivum Pratrum Praedicatorum 2 0 (1 9 5 0 ), p. 3 0 9 ; trans. W E, no. 2 4 , p. 169.

45

Runcim an, Medieval Manichee, pp. 1 1 7 - 2 2 ; Soderberg, L a Religion des CathareSy pp. 3 6 - 7 ; A. D ondaine, ‘ L ’O rigine de l’heresie medievale: a propos d ’un livre recent’ , R ivista di Storia della Chiesa in Ita lia 6 (1 9 5 2 ), pp. 4 7 - 7 8 , is a criticism o f the section on heresy in R. M orgh en ’s Medievo Cristiano (Bari, 1 9 5 1 ), pp. 2 1 2 - 4 9 with the detailed notes, pp. 3 4 6 - 6 5 . ‘II C osidetto neo-m anicheismo occidentale del secolo X I’ , in Convegno di Scienze M orali Storiche e Pilologiche (R om e, 1 9 5 7 ), pp. 8 4 - 1 0 4 , and ‘Problem es sur l’origine de l’heresie au moyen age’ , Revue historique 3 3 6 (1 9 6 6 ), pp. 1 -1 6 , are two characteristic statem ents o f this author’s position. F or Brenon’s variants on all these views, see Le V rai Visagey pp. 9 8 - 9 . F or a recent general survey o f ideas on the origins o f heresy, see H . Fichtenau, Heretics and Scholars in the H igh Middle Ages, 1000-1200y trans. D . A. Kaiser (Philadelphia, PA, 19 9 8 ) (originally M unich, 1 9 9 2 ), pp. 1 0 5 -2 6 . For an analysis o f the com m on features o f Bogom ilism and Catharism , as well as the differences, see Lam bert, The C atharsy pp. 2 9 - 3 2 . While not su ggestin g that Bogom ils were active in the W est as early as the first decades o f the eleventh century, Lam bert nevertheless argues that the Rhineland Cathars o f 1143 ‘had already passed beyond the first missionary phase’ .

46

R. I. M oore, trans., The Birth o f Popular Heresy (D ocum en ts o f M edieval H istory, 1) (Lo n d on , 1 9 7 5 ), pp. 5 - 6 . See also M oore, The O rigins o f European Dissent (new edn, O xford, 1 9 8 5 ) (originally 1 9 7 7 ), pp. 8 - 2 0 , for the problem s presented by the sources for heresy.

47

Eberwin o f Steinfeld, Epistola a d S. BernarduM y in PL, vol. 1 8 2 , ep. 4 7 2 ; trans. W E, no. 15, pp. 1 2 6 -3 2 . See M oore, OriginSy pp. 4 1 - 2 , 1 6 4 -9 6 . O n the im portance o f this source, see A. Brenon, ‘L a Lettre d ’Evervin de Steinfeld a Bernard de Clairvaux de 1143: un docum ent essentiel et m econnu’, Heresis 2 5 (1 9 9 5 ), pp. 7 - 2 8 . Obolensky, The BogomilSy pp. 2 2 2 - 3 , draws attention to reports o f Bogom ilism in C appadocia and

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T H E S P R E A D OF C A T H A R I S M

south-eastern M acedonia from 1143 onwards. This appears to suggest an upsurge in the heresy at the same time as the C ologne heretics became known, but it looks as if m ost o f the Byzantine cases were political rather than heretical in nature, H H , pp. 4 0 - 1 . For the dating, see U . Brunn, Des Contestaires au x

“Cathares3>. Discours de reforme et propagande antiheretique dans les pays du Rhin et de la Meuse avan t VInquisition (Collection des Etudes Augustines. Serie M oyen A ge et Tem ps M odernes, 4 1 ) (Paris, 2 0 0 6 ), pp. 125, 1 3 9 -4 9 . See, however, R. I. M oore, The War on Heresy. Faith and Power in Medieval Europe (Lon don , 2 0 1 2 ), who now places more emphasis on the local context, in which religious conflict within C ologn e offers him a m ore plausible explanation for accusations o f heresy than any outside Bogom il influence. 48

The relevant decrees are conveniently gathered together in J. Fearns, ed.,

Ketzer und Ketzerbekdmpfung im Hochmittelalter (H istorische Texte, M ittelalter, 8) (G ottingen, 1 9 6 8 ), pp. 5 9 - 6 0 . See also C. J. Hefele and H . Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, vol. 5(ii) (Paris, 1 9 1 3 ), pp. 9 1 3 , 9 6 3 - 7 2 . 49

Epistola ecclesiae Leodiensis ad Lucum pap am I f in E. M artene and V. D urand, eds, Veterum scriptorum et monumentorum historicum , dogm aticarum , moralium am plissim a collection vol. 1 (Paris, 1 7 2 4 ), pp. 7 7 6 - 8 ; trans. W E, no. 17, pp. 1 3 9 -4 1 . Brunn, Des Contestaires, pp. 1 1 2 - 2 4 , suggests that this should be dated about a decade earlier and should not be forced into a Cathar context.

50

See Borst, Die K atharer , p. 93.

51

A cta concilii Lum bariensis, in R H G yvol. 14, pp. 4 3 1 - 4 ; trans. W E, no. 2 8 , pp. 1 8 9 -9 4 . See p. 118.

52

William o f N ew burgh, H istoria rerum anglicarum , ed. R. H ow lett, in Chronicles o f the Reigns ofStepheny Henry I f an d Richard I (Rolls Series, 82 ) (Lon d on , 18 8 4 ), pp. 1 3 1 -4 , trans. W E, no. 4 0 , pp. 2 4 5 - 7 .

53

H ugh o f Poitiers, H istoria Vizeliacensis m onastery in R H G , vol. 12, pp. 3 4 3 -4 , where they are called D eonarii or Poplicanf trans. W E, no. 4 1 , pp. 2 4 8 - 9 .

54

William o f N ew burgh, H istoria , p. 2 4 5 .

55

See Brunn, Des Contestaires, pp. 2 0 7 - 1 9 .

56

See W. G rebe, ‘Studien zur geistigen Welt Rainalds von D assel’ , in G. Wolf, ed., Friedrich Barbarossa (D arm stadt, 1 9 7 5 ), pp. 2 5 0 - 3 . In fact, Rainald does not seem to have taken m uch notice, presumably having m ore im portant matters in mind.

57

However, even this is open to challenge. Uw e Brunn’s analysis o f the Sermones leads him to conclude that Eckbert’s writing is so dependent upon patristic and canonical m odels that it cannot be used as evidence o f the transmission o f Bogom il beliefs into the Rhineland, Des Contestaires, pp. 2 8 6 - 3 1 5 , 4 0 5 , 545.

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N O T E S AND R E F E R E N C E S

58

Eckbert o f Schonau, Sermones contra haereticos, in PL, vol. 195, pp. 1 3 -1 6 ; re-edited by R. J. H arrison, Eckbert o f Schonau’s ‘Sermones contra K ataros\ vol. 1 (Ann A rbor, M I, 1 9 9 0 ), pp. 1 -3 7 3 ; partial trans. in R. I. M oore, The Birth o f Popular Heresy (D ocum ents o f Medieval H istory, 1) (Lon d on , 197 5 ), pp. 8 8 - 9 4 .

59

B. H am ilton, ‘W isdom from the E ast’ , in P. Biller and A. H u dson , eds,

Heresy and Literacy, 1000-1530 (C am bridge, 1 9 9 4 ), pp. 3 8 - 6 0 . 60

Anselm o f Alessandria, Tractatus de haereticis, p. 3 0 8 ; trans. W E, no. 2 4 , pp. 1 6 8 -9 .

61

See C. Thouzellier, ‘H eresie et croisade au X lle siecle’ , Revue d ’H istoire Ecclesiastique 4 9 (1 9 5 4 ), p. 8 6 1 ; Borst, Die K atharery p. 9 0 ; W E, p. 6 9 5 ;

62

M . D . Lam bert, M edieval Heresy. Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reform ation , 2nd edn (O xford, 1 9 9 2 ), p. 60.

63

ut subiugarent terram (subjunctive).

64

Lam bert, Medieval Heresy, p. 6 0 , calls Anselm’s account ‘semi-legendary’ . This seem s a harsh judgem ent, for much o f what he says accords with De heresi catharorum , which is much nearer to the actual events, while other statements (such as the establishment o f the Cathar bishoprics o f T oulouse and A gen) can be corroborated from other sources. A nselm ’s mistaken idea that Mani actually taught in D rugunthia, Bulgaria, and Philadelphia, does not invalidate the inform ation he had gathered for more recent times. M ore recently, Lam bert, The Cathars, pp. 3 5 - 7 , is less dismissive o f Anselm ’s account.

65

H am ilton, ‘W isdom from the E ast’ , pp. 4 2 - 4 , and ‘ Catholic Perceptions o f East European Dualism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’ , in Crusaders, C athars and the Holy Places (Variorum Collected Studies Series, 6 5 6 ) (Aldershot, 1 9 9 9 ), pp. 1 -2 . There are problem s with the first date as the phrase is am biguous: sexaginta an n i sunt atque viginti et quatuor menses. It

Obolensky, ‘ Papa N icetas’ , p. 4 9 5 , am ong others.

could therefore mean 80 years ago. The use o f atque m ight be im portant as it som etim es indicates a closer connection between words than et (Lew is and Short, L atin Dictionary , p. 189). I f so, then H am ilton suggests she is referring to the capture o f St Peter’s by Em peror Henry IV in 10 8 3 , an event o f equal apocalyptic significance. Either way the argum ent for an introduction o f Bogom il ideas into the W est before c. 1140 still stands. 66

M ark Pegg, A Most Holy War, p. 10, challenges the very existence o f such heresies as independent realities, su ggestin g that eleventh-century heresies may have been nothing m ore than ‘a learned conceit that saw all heretics as linked to each other through time and space’ . See also below, n. 68.

67

Rodulfi G labri H istoriarum libri quinque. The Five Books o f the Histories, ed. and trans. J. France (O xford Medieval T exts) (O xford, 1 9 8 9 ), pp. 8 8 - 9 1 ; Brenon, Le V rai Visage, pp. 4 5 - 8 ; Fichtenau, Heretics and Scholars, p. 17.

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T H E S P R E A D OF C A T H A R I S M

68

Adhemar o f Chabannes, Chronique, ed. J. Chavanon (Collection de textes pour servir a l’etude et a l’enseignem ent de l’histoire, 2 0 ) (Paris, 1 8 9 7 ), pp. 1 73, 1 8 4 - 5 ; trans. W E, no. 2 , pp. 7 3 - 4 ; H erigeri et Anselmi Gesta episcoporum Leodiensium , ed. R. Koepke, in M G H Scriptores, vol. 7 , pp. 2 2 6 - 8 , trans. W E, no. 6, pp. 8 9 - 9 3 ; Guibert de N o gen t, H istoire de sa vie (1052-1124 ), ed. G. Bourgin (Collection de textes pour servir a l’etude et a l’enseignem ent de l’histoire, 9 ) (Paris, 1 9 0 7 ), p. 2 1 3 ; trans. W E, no. 9 , pp. 1 0 1 -4 . See the lists drawn up by D ondaine, ‘L ’O rigine’ , pp. 5 9 - 6 1 , for com parison.

69

H eribert’s letter on the subject has been redated to the early eleventh century, having previously been thought to belong to the 1140s. H ow ever, som e historians deny that such a person existed or that the description applies to a real group o f heretics at all. See G. Lobrichon, ‘The chiaroscuro o f heresy: early eleventh-century Aquitaine as seen from Auxerre’ , in T. H ead and R. Landes, eds, The Peace o f God. Social Violence and Religions

Response in France around the T ear 1000 (Ithaca, NY and L on don , 1 9 9 2 ), pp. 8 0 - 1 0 3 (with English trans.) and 3 4 7 - 5 0 (Latin versions o f the text). 70

See C . Taylor, ‘The letter o f H eribert o f Perigord as a source for dualist heresy in the society o f early eleventh-century Aquitaine’ , Jo u rn al o f

M edieval History, 2 6 (2 0 0 0 ), pp. 3 1 3 -4 9 , and M . Frassetto, ‘The Serm ons o f A dem ar o f Chabannes and the Letter o f H eribert. N ew Sources Concerning the Origins o f M edieval H eresy’ , Revue Benedictine, 109 (1 9 9 9 ), pp. 3 2 4 - 4 0 . 71

Paul o f Saint-Pere de Chartres, Vztus Aganon, ed. B .-E .-C . Guerard, in

C artu laire de Vabbaye de Saint-Pere de Chartres (Collection des cartulaires de France, 1) (Paris, 1 8 4 0 ), p. I l l , for docetic views; trans. W E, no. 3 (B ), pp. 7 6 - 8 1 ; Landulphi senioris Mediolanensis historiae libri quatuor, ed. A. C u tolo, in R ISyvol. 4 , pt. 2 (B ologn a, 1 9 0 0 ), pp. 6 7 - 9 ; trans. W E, no. 5, pp. 8 6 - 9 . Puech points ou t that C osm as never calls them B ogom ils, but only uses the term heretics, Traitey p. 2 8 0 . 72

A cta synodi Atrebatensi a Gerardo Cameracensiy in P. Fredericq, ed., Corpus documentorum inquisitionis haereticaepravitatis Neerlandicaey vol. 1 (G hent,

73

H erigeri et Anselmi Gesta episcoporum Leodiensiumy p. 2 2 6 .

74

Guibert o f N o gen t, H istoire de sa viey p. 2 1 2 .

189 9 ), pp. 2 - 5 ; trans. W E, no. 4 , pp. 8 2 - 6 .

75

Rodulfi G labri H istoriarum libri quinquey pp. 1 3 8 -9 .

76

N . J. Tanner, ed., Decrees o f the Ecum enical Councihy vol. 1, N icaea I to Lateran V (Lo n d on , 1 9 9 0 ), p. 2 0 2 .

77

See B orst, D ie K atharery pp. 7 1 -8 0 .

78

Traiectenses Fridericum I archiepiscopum Coloniensem hortantus, quod ceperit Tanchelmum haereticum eiusque socios, M anassen et Everwacherum , ne eos dimittaty in Codex Udalriciy ed. P. Jaffe, in Monumenta Bambergensis

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(Berlin, 1869) (reprint, 1 9 6 4 ), pp. 2 9 6 - 3 0 0 , and Sigiberti Gemblacensis chronographia: Continuatio Praemonstratensis, ed. L. C . Bethm ann, in M G H

Scriptores, vol. 6 , p. 4 4 9 ; trans. W E. nos 8(A ) and (B ), pp. 9 7 - 1 0 1 . Brunn, Des Contestaires, pp. 6 1 - 8 , argues that the letter was m odelled on a description o f a sixth-century heretic from B ourges, who had preached in the province o f Arles. H e sees the letter as o f limited value as evidence o f the real activities o f Tanchelm and as m ore concerned to offer readers recognizable references to the past. 79

Actus pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degentium , eds. G. Busson and A. Ledru (Archives historiques du M aine, 2 ) (Le M ans, 1 9 0 1 ), pp. 4 0 7 - 1 5 , 4 3 7 - 8 ; Peter the Venerable, Epistola sive tractatus adversuspetrobrusicmos

haereticos, in PL, vol. 189, cols 7 1 9 - 2 4 ; Bernard o f Clairvaux, Epistolae, in J. Leclercq and H . Rochais, eds, S. Bernardi Opera, vol. 8 (R om e, 1 9 7 7 ), no. C C X L I, pp. 1 2 5 - 7 ; trans. W E, no. 1 1 -1 4 , pp. 1 0 7 -2 6 . See R. M anselli, ‘II m onaco Enrico e la sua eresia’ , Bullettino dell’lstituto storico italiano per il medio evo e Archivio M uratoriano 65 (1 9 5 3 ), pp. 4 4 - 6 3 , and B. M . Kienzle, Cistercians, Heresy and Crusade in O ccitania , 1145-1229. Preaching in the Lord’s Vineyard (W oodbridge, 2 0 0 1 ), pp. 8 2 -1 0 7 . 80

E. Griffe, Les Debuts de I’aventure cathare en Languedoc (1140-90) (Paris, 1 969), pp. 3 4 - 7 . H ow ever, Jam es Fearns argues that the Petrobrusian attitude towards the cross suggests Bogom il influence, see ‘ Peter von Bruis und die religiose Bew egung des 12. Jahrhunderts’, Archiv fu r Kulturgeschichte 4 8 (1 9 6 6 ), p. 325.

81

Epistolae, no. C C X L I, p. 126. Trans. B. S. Jam es, The letters o f St Bernard o f C lairvaux (reprint Stroud, 1 9 9 8 ), p. 388.

82

M oore, Origins, pp. 8 9 - 9 5 ; M . C osten , The C athars and the Albigensian Crusade (M anchester, 1 9 9 7 ), pp. 9 5 - 6 .

83

A. Roach, The Devil’s World: Heresy and Society 1100-1300 (H arlow , 2 0 0 5 ), pp. 1 -8 3 .

84

M oore, Origins, pp. 4 1 - 5 .

85

Anselm o f Alessandria, T ractatus de haereticis, pp. 3 0 8 - 9 ; trans. W E, no. 2 4 , p. 169.

86

De heresi catharorum , p. 306.

87

See B. H am ilton and P. A. M cN ulty, ‘ Orientale lumen et m agistra latinitasr. Greek Influences on W estern M onasticism (9 0 0 - 1 1 0 0 )’ , in Le M illenaire du Mont AthoSj 963-1963. Etudes et Melanges I (C hevetogne, 1 9 6 3 ), pp. 1 8 1 -2 1 6 . See the com m ent o f Bernward, M aster o f the xenodocium at H ildesheim , in 1 0 2 4 , that there are men ‘w ho wander ab out through provinces and kingdom s dressed as monks or canons or even Greeks’, p. 2 0 7 .

88

H am ilton, ‘W isdom from the E ast’, pp. 4 6 - 6 0 .

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chap ter 2

The Cathars and Languedocian society

The nobility The most important Catholic chronicler o f the Albigensian Crusade is Peter, a Cistercian monk, from the abbey o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, situated about thirty-five kilometres to the south-west o f Paris. The abbey had strong connections with the family o f Simon o f Montfort, who was chosen as leader o f the crusade in late August 1209, and Peter accompanied the crusade for much o f the time Montfort was in charge, so he was either an eye-witness or gained his information from participants. According to Peter, the fortified town o f Lavaur, thirty-seven kilometres to the north­ east o f Toulouse, was The source and origin o f every form o f heresy’ . William o f Puylaurens, a cleric from Toulouse who offers an overview o f events from a mid-thirteenth-century perspective, even though a much less biased commentator than Peter, was equally provoked. It was a place ‘in which through the heretics the Devil had prepared a seat for himself’ .1 In late March 1211, Simon o f Montfort, reinforced by a fresh contingent o f crusaders from the north, set out from Carcassonne with the intention o f conquering this ‘synagogue o f Satan’ . He had originally planned to besiege the fortress o f Cabaret in the Black Mountain just to the north o f Carcassonne, but its lord, Peter Roger, despite his reputation as a defender o f heretics, had decided that the wiser course would be to submit and had handed over his castle to Simon’s companion, Bouchard o f Marly. The inhabitants o f Lavaur, however, determined to resist. ‘In Lavaur’, says Peter

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o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, ‘were the traitor Aimeric, who had been the lord o f Montreal, and numerous other knights, enemies o f the cross, up to eighty in number, who had entered the place and fortified it against us. The Dame o f Lavaur was a widow named Giraude, a heretic o f the worst sort and sister to Aimeric.’2 Aimery was the son o f Sicard II o f Laurac and his wife, Blanca, and he had inherited the lordships o f two o f the most important fortified places in the Carcasses, Laurac and Montreal, when his father died in 1200. Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay regarded him as ‘the most powerful and noble man in the whole area except for the Counts’, while William o f Tudela claimed that ‘there was not a richer knight in all the Toulousain nor the rest o f the county, nor a more generous spender or o f higher rank’ .3 Certainly the family was well connected. Three o f Aimery’s sisters had married into important noble houses: Guirauda to the lord o f Lavaur, Navarra to Stephen o f Servian, and Esclarmonda to William o f Niort.4 These marriages placed the lord o f Laurac and Montreal at the heart o f a network which stretched from Lavaur on the borders o f the Albigeois in the north to Niort in the pays de Sault in the Pyrenees in the south, and eastwards to Servian in the Biterrois, just north o f Beziers itself. There is no doubt that this was a heretical network, which the female members o f the family played a key role in sustaining.5 After Sicard’s death, Blanca became a Cathar perfecta at Laurac, where she set up a home for Cathar women, one o f whom was another daughter, Mabilla. There were regular meetings o f Cathars and their supporters at Laurac and Montreal, as well as public debates on matters o f belief, including confrontations at Montreal in 1207 between Catholics led by Diego, Bishop o f Osma, and Cathars led by Arnaud Oth, a deacon from Laurac, and at Laurac, the next year, between Isarn o f Castres, Cathar deacon o f nearby Mas-SaintesPuelles, and the Waldensian, Bernard Prim.6 A good idea o f the religious milieu o f the area in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries can be gained from the memories o f Helis o f Mazerolles, wife o f Arnaud, a knight from Montreal. She deposed before the inquisitors in 1243 and recalled gatherings o f up to fifty years before. Her grandmother, Guillelma o f Tonneins, had presided over a house o f perfectae at Fanjeaux, which is about half-way between Laurac and Montreal and, as a young girl, Helis had visited her there. In turn, her mother, Auda, became a perfecta in the house as well. Guilhabert o f Castres, who took part in the debate with

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Bishop Diego in 1207 and who later became Cathar bishop o f Toulouse, lived in Fanjeaux at this time. Among the many meetings she had attended Helis recalled one at Montreal in 1203 at which two perfecti, Bernard Coldefy and Arnaud Guiraud, had preached to a group o f ten women, several o f whom were wives o f knights o f Montreal. Her sister, Braida, and her sister-in-law, Fabrissa, had houses at Montreal and Gaja-la-Selve (just to the west o f Fanjeaux) and she had visited them many times. Among the many others she had seen at the house at Montreal were Aimery o f Montreal and two o f her husband’s brothers, Raines and Peter.7 Although the chroniclers never actually describe Aimery himself as a heretic, the Cathars clearly lived openly at Laurac and Montreal and were in regular contact with neighbouring places in which heretics were estab­ lished. Many, perhaps most, o f his knights and their families respected the perfecti and their teaching. William o f Tudela lamented the day that Aimery had met the ‘heretics and clog-wearers’ (meaning Waldensians), for he saw them as the reason for his downfall.8 In one sense this was correct, for the Cathar penetration o f the lordships o f the viscounties o f Beziers and Carcassonne held by the Trencavel family was the immediate reason for the crusader invasion. However, William o f Tudela’s view is only a partial explanation o f Aimery’s situation, for his patronage o f the Cathars stemmed from a fundamental perception o f his own social and political position which he shared with other similar lords o f the region. Peter o f Les Vauxde-Cernay calls him ‘a traitor o f the worst sort’ because he twice reneged on his promises to Simon o f Montfort, once at the time o f the fall o f Carcassonne in August 1209, when he had abandoned Montreal and joined the crusaders, only to take over the castle again when Montfort’s representative handed it over to him, and again a year later, when he had agreed peace in exchange for what Peter calls an equivalent territory which was in open country and unfortified.9 Between times he had tried to nego­ tiate an agreement with Peter II, King o f Aragon who, early in 1211, had reluctantly accepted Montfort’s homage for the Trencavel lands in place o f the former viscount Raymond Roger, who had died in prison in November 1209. In May or June 1210, Raymond o f Termes, Peter Roger o f Cabaret, and Aimery o f Montreal had offered their homage directly to the king, but Peter II would only accede to this if they accepted the principle o f rendability, which meant the king would be allowed, as a matter o f right, to take over their castles whenever he wished, although this would in no way abrogate

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his vassals’ prerogatives.10 This appears to have been a step too far for these lords and negotiations broke down.11 Aimery o f Montreal’s manoeuvres and his final defiance at Lavaur grew out o f the nature o f these lordships. These lords had never been accustomed to the close control over their actions which the Capetians in northern France or the Angevins in England had been imposing upon their vassals during the twelfth century. Although they accepted the overlordship o f the viscount o f Beziers - and indeed they seem to have attended his court12 - they were not prepared to allow him to curtail their political or economic independence to any great degree.13 It is not difficult to see how a set o f religious beliefs which, for Cathar believers, demanded nothing o f the increasingly burdensome penitential system o f the Catholic Church, could fit into this world.14 In these circumstances, Aimery’s defence o f Lavaur is easy to understand. According to William o f Tudela, ‘he had lost Montreal, Laurac and all his other lands to the crusaders; they had reduced his fief by 200 knights, and he was angry’.15 The regional power o f such lords had been consolidated by dynastic alliances, as the marriages o f Aimery’s sisters demonstrate. However, because o f their geographical positions in relation to crusader activity the histories o f the lordships o f Servian, Niort, and Lavaur are quite different. Servian was abandoned even before the fall o f Beziers on 22 July 1209, for the crusaders took possession o f the empty castle the day before they reached the city.16 Like Montreal, in 1206 it had been the setting for a debate between Catholic preachers and heretic leaders, to whom Stephen o f Servian had given his protection. Stephen admitted this in February 1210, when, at the abbey o f St Thierry in the presence o f the papal legate, Arnald Amalric, he abjured his heresy. ‘I have received in my castles heretics and even heresiarchs, namely Theoderic, Baldwin, Bernard o f Simorre, and others who wished to come, and I have protected and maintained them, and allowed them to hold schools o f heresy, and to preach and dispute publicly.’ 17 While Navarra’s husband was affected by the crusade almost instantly, Esclarmonda was married to William o f Niort, whose family was only gradually drawn into the conflict. In contrast to Servian, the core o f the Niort lands, which were situated in the mountains in the Rebenty gorge west o f the upper Aude river, was remote from the operations o f the crusade. Nevertheless, the family was an integral part o f the Cathar world: Bernard Oth, Esclarmonda’s eldest son, was partly brought up by his grandmother, Blanca, in her house at Laurac in the early years o f the

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thirteenth century. Such early influences were reflected in adulthood, for both Bernard Oth and his brother Raymond were actively involved in pro­ tecting heretics in the 1220s and, indeed, the latter died hereticated some­ time between 1223 and 1227. Bernard Oth himself was married to Nova, a daughter o f another heretical lord and a former associate o f his uncle, Peter Roger o f Cabaret. In the early 1220s, taking advantage o f the south­ ern revival under the new Count o f Toulouse, Raymond VII, he had regained possession o f Laurac and Montreal. Although Bernard Oth did attempt a reconciliation with King Louis VIII in 1226, for most o f his career he was in conflict with the prelates and inquisitors o f the region, none o f whom saw any redeeming features in the beliefs o f his entire family. In fact, individuals within the Niort clan did show varying degrees o f enthusiasm for the Cathars, but it is unlikely that the lords o f Laurac would have married Esclarmonda into the family if they had been unsure o f its commitment to their beliefs. Their activities continued until, following their involvement in the failed Trencavel rising o f 1240, their casdes were confiscated by the king. Despite several attempts, they never regained their previous position.18 Lavaur stands on the west bank o f the Agout, at a point where the river has cut a steep cliff as it swings across the valley, before bending back into a relatively narrow defile. Aimery seems to have decided that it was a more formidable place than his castle at Montreal, despite the latter’s hilltop situation. William o f Tudela says that no stronger town was ever seen outside the mountain castm , for it was protected by ramparts and deep ditches.19 Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay calls it Very noteworthy and exten­ sive’; during the siege fully armed knights rode along the walls ‘to show their contempt for our side and demonstrate that the walls were substantial and well fortified’ .20 This fits the pattern o f fortified towns and villages, which Anne Brenon has called bourgades, found from at least the eleventh century in Italy, Provence, and Gascony as well.21 Such places were not simply military garrisons, but had a strong community life, often centred upon an important public open space within the walls. Lavaur was a civilised place to live; when it fell to the crusaders the booty included bay and sorrel warhorses, good iron armour, ample supplies o f corn and wine, and cloth and rich clothing,22 and when Simon o f Montfort moved on in his military campaigning, this was the place he chose to leave his wife. Before the crusade the matriarchal figures who seem to have been so

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N O BILITY

influential in maintaining the heretical networks flourished in this setting. From the twelfth century onwards female life expectancy was greater than that o f men and the general health o f women improved. At the same time age gaps within marriage seem to have become more common with many women at least twenty years younger than their husbands, so that not only was there a considerable likelihood that they would become widows but also that they would be better placed to mould the outlook o f their chil­ dren.23 By 1211 Guirauda had already lost her husband, but she continued to reside at Lavaur, where she had gained a considerable reputation as a generous hostess.24 While Lavaur was hardly the source o f the whole Cathar movement - Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay’s hyperbole may well have been a means o f justifying what contemporaries saw as the exceptional blood­ shed which followed the fall o f the town - it was nevertheless a key Cathar centre. A generation before it had been singled out for attack by Henry o f Marcy, Abbot o f Clairvaux, who, in 1181 had besieged it with the help o f forces supplied by Raymond V, Count o f Toulouse. Henry probably chose it because, three years before, he had confronted two heretics from Castres, Raymond o f Baimire and Bernard Raymond, at Toulouse, and they had since settled in Lavaur. Bernard Raymond had been Cathar bishop o f Toulouse since the Council o f St-Felix-de-Caraman in the mid-1170s. On this occasion the inhabitants were persuaded to submit by Adelaide, wife o f Roger II o f Trencavel, and the two men were handed over.25 According to William o f Puylaurens, they were converted to Catholicism and spent the rest o f their lives as canons in Toulouse.26 Henry’s efforts, however, bore no other fruit for the Catholic Church, for Lavaur remained the seat o f a Cathar bishopric and the heretics continued to maintain houses there.27 ‘The fever o f heresy did not abate’, says William o f Puylaurens.28 Just like Laurac and Montreal, Lavaur was surrounded by places in which there is evidence o f heretical presence and, before 1209, the heretics moved quite freely between them. The river was an important means o f communication: up-river at fourteen, twenty-four, and thirty-six kilometres respectively were Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux, Vielmur, and Castres. N ot on the Agout, but within a radius o f less than thirty kilometres, were Rabastens (on the River Tarn), les Touelles (the present Briatexte), Lombers, and Lautrec to the north, and Verfeil, Puylaurens, and Lanta to the south.29 Both Saint-Paul and Lombers were seats o f Cathar bishoprics and Lautrec, Verfeil, Lanta, Vielmur, and Puylaurens all had Cathar deacons.30 In April

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SO CIETY

1211, when the crusaders began the siege o f Lavaur, the town’s population had been swollen by Cathars from other towns in the vicinity. One such town was Villemur, situated thirty-six kilometres downstream from Lavaur, beyond the point where the Agout flows into the Tarn. In June 1209, this town had been destroyed by its own inhabitants, who had heard that a crusading army had entered the region from the Agenais.31 Arnauda o f Lamothe, a perfecta who deposed before the inquisitors in 1244, was there at the time. Arnauda had been brought up in Montauban, the daughter o f Austorga, a believer o f heretics. In about 1206 Arnauda and her sister, Peirona, had been sent to live in a house o f female heretics at nearby Villemur, and three years later they had been consoled. Here, they were in the midst o f a thriving Cathar community, which had at least two houses o f heretics, and was frequently visited by Cathar leaders. All this, though, was thrown into confusion within months when all the heretics fled from the town because ‘the crusaders came into the region’ . From then onwards Arnauda was unable to setde anywhere. Under the care o f Raymond Aimeric, a Cathar deacon, they went first to Roquemaure and Giraussens, and then to Lavaur, where she and her companion stayed for a year at the house o f Alzalais, a perfecta resident there. The threat o f Montfort’s army in the spring o f 1211 led to another departure, this time to Rabastens.32 As she explained, Arnauda was still young at the time and this may have been the reason for taking her to safety. Many other adult heretics stayed - perhaps as many as 400 - either because it was impractical to escape in such numbers or because they were confident that the powerful defences o f the town could be maintained. If this was what they believed, they were wrong. At first the crusaders did not have sufficient men to surround the town and the defenders felt strong enough to make a sortie. Indeed, Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay claimed that the town contained ‘a huge force’ which outnumbered the crusaders and that it had been secretly reinforced by the Count o f Toulouse despite his previous enmity for Lavaur. However, once joined by members o f the ‘White Brotherhood’, an orthodox militia formed to defend the faith by Bishop Fulk o f Toulouse, the crusaders were able to press the attack more vigorously and, after a siege o f over a month, the town fell on 3 May. Retribution was enacted on a scale hitherto unprecedented in the Albigensian Crusade. In July the previous year the crusaders had taken Minerve, a fortified village to the north-east o f Carcassonne. Like Lavaur,

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LORDS

it was set on river cliffs, although here the confluence o f the Rivers Cesse and Brian had cut steep ravines on either side o f it. It had two houses o f heretics, one male and one female; all but three women remained obdurate and 140 were burnt to death. The other inhabitants had renounced heresy and had been spared, and William, the lord o f Minerve, had been granted the revenues o f some lands near Beziers.33 However, according to Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, each winter when the bulk o f the crusaders departed, there were defections among the secular lords on a massive scale, more than forty in 1209-10.34 At Lavaur therefore Simon o f Montfort adopted a dif­ ferent policy. Aimery o f Montreal and over eighty o f his knights were either hanged or slaughtered; between 300 and 400 heretics were burnt to death; and Guirauda, screaming and shouting, was dropped into a well and rocks piled on top o f her, apparently on Montfort’s orders.35 The killing o f Aimery o f Montreal and his vassals, as well as that o f Guirauda o f Lavaur, seems to have a conscious policy aimed not only at eliminating the perfecti, but also at terrorising the leaders o f the local nobility who had for so long tolerated and protected the heretics.36 Indeed, William o f Tudela had never previously heard o f the hanging o f a noble o f the status o f Aimery o f Montreal. There is some limited evidence that the killing was not indiscriminate. The knights who were hanged seem to have been from the viscounties o f Beziers and Carcassonne and were therefore traitors in Montfort’s eyes. Others involved, who came from the county o f Toulouse, were probably ransomed.37 The policy had immediate effect: ‘On hearing that Lavaur had been taken, Sicard, lord o f Puylaurens, who had at one time sided with our Count but later deserted him, was seized with fear; he left Puylaurens and hurried off to Toulouse with his knights. Puylaurens was a notable castrum about three leagues from Lavaur in the diocese o f Toulouse.’38

The territorial lords Both contemporary chroniclers and later inquisitorial records demonstrate that the real strength o f Catharism lay in this network o f interrelated lordships, particularly but not exclusively in the Toulousain, the Albigeois, and the Carcasses. In the eyes o f the Catholic authorities, however, the ultimate responsibility for the spread o f heresy lay with the main secular powers o f the region: the counts o f Toulouse, Foix, and Comminges, and the

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AND

LA NGUEDO CIAN

SO CIETY

P la te 1 i T he fortified village o f M inerve, south walls overlooking the confluence o f the rivers C esse and Brian

• 50 .

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LORDS

viscounts o f Beziers and Carcassonne. By 1213, when events had forced Peter II, King o f Aragon, to take a stand to defend rights which he saw as threatened by the crusaders under Simon o f Montfort, the king, too, was added to the list of fautors (or protectors) o f heresy, despite his crusading feats in the Iberian peninsula. Raymond VI, Count o f Toulouse, was seen as prime defender o f heretical wickedness. In a letter o f March 1208, two months after the murder o f Peter o f Castelnau, the papal legate in Languedoc, by a vassal o f the count, Innocent III held Raymond to be directly responsible.

A gainst him [the legate] the Devil roused his minister, the Count of Toulouse. This man had often incurred the censure o f the Church fo r the many grave outrages he had committed again st her, and often - as might be expected o f a person who was crafty and cunning, slippery and unreliable - had received absolution under the guise o f feigned penitence. A t last he could not hold back the hatred he had conceived again st Peter -sin ce indeed in Peter’s mouth the word o f God was not restrained from executing vengeance upon the nations and punishments upon the people; hatred the stronger because the Count himself was so richly deserving of punishment fo r his great crimes?9 This letter, incorporated in full in Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay’s chron­ icle, was in fact composed in the highly charged atmosphere o f the papal curia at that time and, indeed, although not convinced o f the count’s sincerity, a little over three months later, the pope allowed Raymond to be reconciled to the Church. The new papal legate, Master Milo, who had been appointed on 1 March, took the precaution o f acquiring seven o f Raymond’s Provencal castles as security for his conduct.40 Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay himself had no doubt about Raymond’s beliefs: ‘The most convincing proof that he always cherished heretics is that none o f the papal legates could ever persuade him to drive the heretics from his domain, even though the legates did very often compel him to denounce them.’ Peter claimed that Raymond kept heretics in his entourage (although disguised in ordinary clothes) so that, should he find himself close to death, they would always be on hand to administer the consolamentum (the rite by which Cathar believers entered the ranks o f the perfecti or bonhommes) and thus admit him into the Cathar Church.41 Peter’s hatred o f the count is well known, but it is interesting to see that William o f Puylaurens, who was not an outsider like Peter but brought up in a town little more than a day’s

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SO CIETY

journey to the east o f Toulouse, and who was writing from the perspective o f the mid-thirteenth century, also thought that, as the most powerful lords o f the region, the blame must be laid at the door o f the counts o f Toulouse, Through whose negligence and failure the evil increased in these parts’ .42 William seems to be talking about those counts within living memory, that is Raymond VI (1194-1222) and his son, Raymond VII (1222-49). The crucial period, however, was that under the rule o f Raymond V, who succeeded to the county at the age o f fourteen, when his father, AlfonsoJordan, died while on the Second Crusade in 1148. At that time he entered into an impressive inheritance, extending across the south from the borders o f Gascony to the Alps, and from Perigord and the Auvergne in the north to the Mediterranean. The origins o f this agglomeration went back to the early tenth century when the empire built up by Charlemagne in the late eighth and early ninth centuries was disintegrating in almost every part. In 778 Charlemagne had campaigned in Iberia and, although this cannot be seen as his most successful military exploit, he did establish marcher lordships in Gascony and Catalonia, as well as a comital administrative system in Languedoc itself. The counts o f Toulouse emerged from this structure as the Carolingian system broke up in the course o f the ninth century. In 924 Count Raymond III gained ‘Gothia’, which included Narbonne, Montpellier, and Nimes and, in 990, the marriage o f Count William III to Emma o f Provence extended the dynasty’s power east o f the River Rhone. This was not always a steady expansionist progress since the counts suffered several setbacks in the eleventh century, but by 1096 Raymond IV felt confident enough to leave the territories he had reassembled to set off on crusade to the East. The tie with the ruling dynasty in Francia remained; at times it could be useful as when, in 1159, the Capetian king, Louis VII, who was also his brother-in-law, helped Raymond V to protect himself from the combined threat o f the Angevin, Henry II, and Raymond Berengar IV, Count o f Barcelona.43 However, such interventions were usually as impractical as they were infrequent, for the Capetian kings had no long-term influence in Languedoc. Indeed, one o f the consequences o f Louis V II’s divorce from Eleanor o f Aquitaine in 1152 and her subsequent marriage to Henry II was that the Angevins acquired the claims o f the dukes o f Aquitaine to the county o f Toulouse. The counts were just as ready to seek an Angevin alliance when it suited them. In 1173, having repudiated his wife, Constance o f France, Raymond V accepted Henry as

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his liege lord; twenty years later, Raymond VI took Joan, sister o f Richard I, as his fourth wife, and received the fief o f Agenais and the restoration o f Quercy, thus extending his power along the right bank o f the Garonne beyond Marmande. N ot surprisingly, the French king, Philip II, received no help from Toulouse in his conflict with Richard’s successor, John, over Normandy between 1202 and 1204.44 The counts o f Toulouse had therefore expanded their territories in much the same way as other powerful contemporaries in the twelfth century: by military strength, marriage alliances, and opportunistic changes o f loyalty. The result has been described as having a ‘federal character’ in which the various elements each preserved their own local institutions, ‘to the detriment o f central government’ .45 The counts did have local officials: viguiers in the more important towns, who usually shared power with the local consulate, not always harmoniously, and bayles in the countryside. Under Raymond VI senechaux were introduced with the aim o f governing whole regions, but they were not fully established by 1209 when the cru­ sade began and did not develop properly until after the peace o f 1229. Even so, this lack o f ‘centralised’ institutions was not untypical. The mighty assemblage o f fiefs brought under the rule o f Henry II had no more admin­ istrative consistency than Raymond’s territories.46 Ambitious rulers looked to gain what they could and to govern what they acquired by whatever means presented themselves. Nevertheless, Raymond V ’s inheritance was not as formidable as a map o f his domains might suggest, not so much because o f its administrative deficiencies but because o f political rivalries. Other lords, too, had taken advantage o f the decline o f Carolingian power, both lay and ecclesiastical. T o the counts o f Toulouse the most important were the viscounts o f Beziers and Carcassonne, whose lands, although subordinate to the counts, stretched from the territory between the Aveyron and the Tarn north o f Albi to the Pyrenees in the south, and encompassed Herault to the east, forming a large wedge o f territory cutting right across the main roads con­ necting Toulouse with Nimes and the Rhone Valley. Within the Trencavel lands were over fifty castm and fortified towns. Friction was inevitable, despite marriage links. In 1150, shordy after Raymond V ’s accession, Raymond Trencavel, already viscount o f Beziers since 1129, added the viscounty o f Carcassonne, Albi, and the Razes, to his titles when his older brother, Roger, died. N ot only did this consolidate Trencavel power

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(which thereafter was not subdivided), but it also enabled the rulers o f Aragon to insert themselves into the relationship since the viscounty o f Carcassonne and the Razes was held from them and not from Toulouse.47 Moreover, these rulers were always alert to exploit any conflicts within the Toulousan lands. Raymond Berengar IV, Count o f Barcelona and ruler o f Aragon through his wife, had successfully expanded his power against the Moors, and looked to pursue an equally vigorous policy north o f the Pyrenees. Therefore, Raymond Berengar and, when he came o f age in 1174, his successor, Alfonso II (1 1 6 2 -9 6 ), worked to draw the Pyrenean powers into their orbit, particularly the counts o f Foix and the viscounts o f Bearn. To this end Raymond Berengar acquired the fealty o f the Trencavel viscount in 1150 and, although this was lost by Alfonso II in 1176, Roger II, the new viscount, returned to the Aragonese side three years later. R oger’s marriage to Adelaide, Raymond V ’s daughter, in 1171, there­ fore provided no long-term solution to this instability.48 Equally sensitive was Provence, where Raymond V inherited the conflicts with Raymond Berengar that his father had pursued. For Raymond V this was particularly important for the evidence o f his charters suggests that he was more inter­ ested in his eastern domains than the Toulousain.49 Some ecclesiastical lords had also established their own enclaves, notably the archbishops o f Narbonne and Montpellier. Significantly, the dioceses o f Toulouse and Carcassonne lay within the province o f Narbonne.50 (See Map 2.) Raymond V’s relative inaction on the matter o f heresy may therefore be explained both by his youth at the time o f his accession and by his pre­ occupation with the long-term political and military problems presented by the vast collection o f territories to which the counts laid claim. When he did eventually appeal for help to King Louis VII - in a letter to Alexander, Abbot o f Citeaux, in 1177 - he had already been count for nearly thirty years. By this time there is good reason for believing his claim that The most noble o f my lords, already overcome by the plague o f infidelity, have become corrupt and with them a very great multitude o f men have been led from the faith’ .51 Evidence o f the existence o f heretical belief in the territories o f the count o f Toulouse is strong in the 1140s and, although St Bernard had successfully combated the preaching o f Henry the Monk in Toulouse in 1145, Bernard himself appears to have believed he had not really tackled the root o f the problem o f heresy in the region.52 In 1165 there had been the public debate between orthodox bishops and abbots

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Carcassonne as restored by Viollet-le-Duc between 1 8 5 2 and 1 8 7 9

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P la te 3 4 Carcassonne, Chateau com tal

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and heretical leaders in the town o f Lombers, south o f Albi, and in the mid-1170s the Council o f St-Felix-de-Caraman had received Bogomil missionaries who had reorganised the Cathar Church.53 Raymond V’s letter may well have been a reaction to the assembly at St-Felix, which, unlike Lombers in the Trencavel territories, was situated in the county o f Toulouse itself, but even here his policy is ambiguous, for historians argue that he was at least as concerned to use outside intervention to undermine political enemies like the consuls o f Toulouse or Roger Trencavel as he was to stamp out heresy.54 It is noticeable that when an armed expedition did finally materialise, under Henry o f Marcy, Abbot o f Clairvaux, in 1181, it was actually aimed at Lavaur in the Trencavel lands.55 It is ironic that, when he succeeded in 1194, Raymond VI, whose grandfather and great-grandfather had both died while crusading in the East, was already presiding over a society in which religious beliefs were accepted that were at least as shocking to the orthodox as those o f the Muslims. Indeed, by the 1180s, Raymond IV, who had died while besieging Tripoli in 1105, was revered as a hero o f the First Crusade, a reputation he never held during his life­ time. William, Archbishop o f Tyre, whose history o f the Latins in Outremer was becoming well known in the West, greatly admired his determination to stay in the East and offer himself as ‘a holocaust to the Lord’, despite the fact that he was ‘an illustrious and powerful man who, as he had the most ample patrimony, could have in abundance every good thing he wanted’ .56 Any assessment o f Raymond VI needs to be seen in this context. Although Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay was correct in his belief that there were heretics associated with Raymond’s court, it was not the consolamentum that the count desired when he died, but the habit o f the Hospitallers and burial in the cemetery o f their commandery in Toulouse.57 In this, at least, his attitude is strikingly similar to that o f his direct contemporary, William Marshal, Earl o f Pembroke, who had a special mantle prepared for his even­ tual burial in the Templar church in London.58 If, for Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, Raymond VI was the arch-villain, the exact counterpoint to Simon o f Montfort, he was nevertheless only the most prominent member o f a cast which the chronicler saw as equally wicked and perverse. Raymond Roger Trencavel, who succeeded to the viscounties in 1194, the same year as Raymond VI, was the son o f Adelaide, daughter o f Raymond V, and ‘was following his uncle’s evil example and was doing nothing to restrain the heretics’ . Their contemporary, Raymond

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Roger, Count o f Foix between 1188 and 1223, ‘allowed heretics and their supporters to stay in his territories, and helped and encouraged them as much as he could’, while his son, Roger Bernard, was a man ‘whose deprav­ ity in no way fell short o f his father’s’, a mantra which Peter repeats on three further occasions in the course o f his chronicle. In Pamiers, Raymond Roger ‘kept his wife and her two sisters (who were heretics), along with a crowd o f other heretics’, in a house he had built for them on the property o f the canons o f St Antonin. Indeed, Peter devotes a long section to ‘the barbarity and malignity o f the Count o f Foix’, which develops an increasingly hysterical tone as he piles up stories o f the count’s outrages. ‘His wickedness exceeded all bounds. He pillaged monasteries, destroyed churches, excelled all others in cruelty.’ The real problem, however, lay in the conflicts with the canons o f St Antonin arising from shared jurisdiction over the town o f Pamiers, rather than disputes over ‘the two principles’ . Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay appears to have been an uncritical listener to the version told him by the abbot.59 There were three other great Pyrenean lords who came into conflict with the crusaders: Bernard IV, Count o f Comminges (1181-1225), his nephew, Roger II o f Comminges, Viscount o f Couserans and Count o f Pallars by marriage, whose lands lay between the counties o f Foix and Comminges, and Gaston VI, Viscount o f Bearn (1170-1215) and Count o f Bigorre, again through marriage. Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay knew less about these and bracketed the count o f Comminges and the viscount o f Bearn with Raymond Roger o f Foix as ‘that villainous and damned trio’. He clearly agreed with the Catholic prelates at the Council o f Lavaur who, in 1213, claimed that Bernard o f Comminges had ‘allied himself with the heretics and their supporters and joined with these pestilential men in attacking the Church’ . Roger o f Comminges, who did homage to Montfort during the siege o f Lavaur, but later reneged on it, he calls ‘a wretched and faithless man’, for in Peter’s world there could be no ambiguity; men were either on the side o f the Lord or in the grip o f the devil.60 Although Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay’s language is intemperate and his moral judgements immutable, his view that the great territorial lords o f the region tolerated and even protected heretics is nevertheless confirmed by other chroniclers and by witnesses before the inquisitors. William o f Puylaurens says that the milites adhered to one or other o f the heretics and held them ‘in such great reverence that they had cemeteries in which those

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who had been hereticated were publicly buried, from whom they received complete beds and clothes’ .61 William o f Tudela’s portrait o f Raymond Roger Trencavel is that o f a young man, ‘generous and open-handed’, who laughed and joked with his vassals on an equal basis. However, while he was not himself a heretic, ‘all his knights and vavasours maintained the heretics in their towers and castles, and so they caused their own ruin and shameful deaths’ .62 He had been brought up in an environment in which the presence o f Cathars was commonplace. When his father, Roger II, died in 1194, he left the protection o f the nine-year-old Raymond Roger to one o f his senior vassals, Bertrand, lord o f Saissac, who was himself a protector o f Cathar perfecti,63 The milieu o f the count o f Foix was little different. William o f Puylaurens says that, in 1207, heretics at Pamiers, where Raymond Roger normally resided, were openly protected by his sister, Esclarmonda, who, according to inquisitorial witnesses had become a Cathar perfects in 1204 in the presence o f her brother. His wife, Philippa, also became a perfecta with a house for Cathars at Dun, about twenty kilo­ metres to the south-east o f Pamiers, while the appearance o f his aunt, Fais o f Durfort, another perfecta, in Pamiers, was the occasion o f a major alter­ cation between some o f the count’s knights and the canons o f St Antonin.64 As well as members o f his immediate family, as in the domains o f the count o f Toulouse and the viscount o f Beziers, there were important heretical families among his own vassals, most notably the Mirepoix, closely linked by marriage to Raymond o f Pereille who, sometime between 1204 and 1208, rebuilt the fortress o f Montsegur in the Pyrenees, south-east o f Foix, and developed it as a centre for Cathar perfecti and their supporters. Raymond’s son-in-law, Peter Roger o f Mirepoix, later claimed that, in 1206 or 1207, the town o f Mirepoix had been the meeting-place for an assembly o f about 600 Cathars.65 Nevertheless, like Raymond VI and Raymond Roger Trencavel, Raymond Roger o f Foix does not seem to have been a committed Cathar himself. The pro-southern anonymous continuator o f the Chanson, who invents a series o f colourful speeches for the participants in the Fourth Lateran Council held in November 1215, places Raymond Roger at the forefront o f the debate. As presented by the poet, the count claimed that he had ‘never befriended heretics, neither believers nor the clothed’, and that if his sister had done wrong, he ‘ought not to be destroyed for her fault’ . When Fulk, Bishop o f Toulouse, claimed that his whole county was ‘seething with heresy’ and that the peak o f Montsegur

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had been deliberately fortified so that he could protect heretics, Raymond Roger countered by denying that he had ever been its overlord. He also stressed the patronage given by himself and his predecessors to the Cistercian monastery o f Boulbonne, just to the north-east o f Pamiers, which had become the family mausoleum; it is noticeable that his son, Roger Bernard, whom Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay believed to be as depraved as his father, took the habit at Boulbonne as an associate before he died and, in 1241, was buried there.66 These Pyrenean lords formed a tightly knit group who, although not regional powers o f the first rank, were able to maintain a large degree o f independence. They were closely linked by marriage: in the crusade gen­ eration, for instance, Roger II o f Comminges was the nephew o f Raymond Roger o f Foix through his mother and Bernard IV o f Comminges through his father. From the mid-twelfth century both the counts o f Foix and Comminges rendered homage to the counts o f Toulouse, but only for the small part o f their lands which lay within the diocese, Saverdun in the case o f Foix, and Muret and Sammartin in the case o f Comminges. Otherwise, they associated themselves as much with Aragon as with Occitania. Roger o f Comminges, Viscount o f Couserans, held lands in Catalonia which were joined to his northern territories by the Salou Pass.67 Peter o f Les Vaux-deCernay was uniformly condemnatory, since they tended to act together, usually in opposition to the crusaders; the count o f Foix and his son were particularly dangerous opponents to Montfort’s men.68 The case o f Peter II o f Aragon is different from those o f the Languedocian lords in that he had never been associated with heretics before the Albigensian Crusade; indeed, in 1204, he was crowned by Innocent III, thus turning his lands into a papal fief, and in 1212 he played a major role in the famous Christian victory over the Moors at Las Navas de Tolosa, south o f Toledo. As such, his condemnation by Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay in 1213 as a man ‘extremely hostile to the business o f the faith’ is significant for the striking way in which it demonstrates the problems faced by these southern lords once Catharism had become entrenched in their territories. In the chronicler’s eyes, this view was justified because, ‘He [the king] took under his protection, and accepted oaths o f allegiance from, all the heretics and excommunicants - the Counts o f Toulouse, Comminges, and Foix, Gaston de Bearn, all the knights o f Toulouse and Carcassonne who had fled to Toulouse after being deprived o f their possessions

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for heresy, and the citizens o f Toulouse.’ The king then misrepresented the position o f the counts o f Comminges and Foix and Gaston o f Bearn, result­ ing in a mistaken papal restoration o f their lands, which had to be rapidly rescinded.69 The kings o f Aragon, though, could not ignore events beyond the Pyrenees, for they had significant interests in Roussillon, Montpellier, and Provence, as well as the fealty o f the Trencavels for the viscounty o f Carcassonne. Their usual policy had been to secure a foothold in the Toulousain through exploiting their rights o f fealty, but Peter II changed this strategy by forming an alliance with Raymond VI, when Eleanor, the king’s sister, became the count’s fifth wife after the death o f Joan o f England. This has called into question the sincerity o f Peter’s apparent attempts to mediate between Raymond Roger Trencavel and the crusaders in August 1209, when the viscount was trapped in his capital at Carcassonne.70 Whatever his long-term aims - which may even have encompassed a dream o f general overlordship o f Occitania - they came to an abrupt end with his death in battle at Muret in September 1213. The fact was that the southern lords could hardly avoid contact with heretics, even though their personal religious inclinations seem not to have gone beyond the conventional desire o f military men for burial in the cemetery o f the local house o f their favoured religious order, most likely the Cistercians or the Hospitallers. For William o f Puylaurens, their sin was that o f omission. Nobody had opposed the heretics, he says, who were allowed to set themselves up in the towns and the countryside, acquiring fields and vineyards and large houses where they could preach publicly to their fol­ lowers.71 But, as the chronicle o f Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay makes very clear, in the climate o f Latin Christendom in the first half o f the thirteenth century, there was no middle way. As the anonymous author o f the Chanson saw it, the crusade destroyed this world. Writing in the late 1220s he looked back nostalgically to a time when what he called paratge had been the central element in aristocratic society. In retrospect, the turning-point had been the defeat o f the southern lords and the death o f Peter II at the battle o f Muret in September 1213: Tt diminished the whole world, be sure o f that, for it destroyed paratge^ it disgraced and shamed all Christendom.’ This, said the Toulousans in 1218, was the fault o f outsiders, primarily the pope and the prelates o f the Church, for ‘ordering our death and destruction at the hands o f foreigners who quench the light, from whose dominion

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we want to be free. If God and Toulouse had let them, they would have buried worth and pam tge deep, past recovery.’ For a time it looked as if Raymond VII, both in his father’s later years and during the 1220s when he became count himself, might have the means to restore the past. When Simon o f Montfort was killed in June 1218, the poet saw an opportunity to csave pam tge and worth’ . It lay in the hands o f The brave young count, who paints the darkness with gold and brings green back to the dead world’ .72 This concept o f pam tge was integral to the nature o f aristocratic rela­ tionships in Occitania, well understood by both William o f Tudela and William o f Puylaurens. Most historians believe that, until the post-crusade settlement o f 1229, in most parts o f the south, ties o f vassalage were weak or non-existent, freemen were generally unwilling to become directly dependent upon a suzerain, and the granting o f a fief in return for military service was quite rare.73 Men did enter into agreements o f mutual support, known as convenientiae, but participants saw themselves as equals and not dependents, and would not have interpreted them in anything like the manner that northerners understood oaths o f homage and fealty. Such men held their own territories, often centred upon a castrum or fortified town, which they fully intended would be handed down to their descendants. Many o f these were allods, quite free o f outside encumbrance: even though the proportion was declining, it is estimated that just under 50 per cent o f land in the Toulousain was held in this form at the end o f the twelfth cen­ tury.74 Others were free fiefs, for which relatively few services were owed, sometimes no more than render; even then many were reluctant to comply, as can be seen by Aimery o f Montreal’s refusal to grant such access to Peter II o f Aragon in 1210, although he was in dire need o f his help.75 This pat­ tern was reinforced by the survival o f Roman influence in the south, both in law and art. Roman law allowed the free disposal o f property rather than insisting on primogeniture which had become increasingly common in Francia during the twelfth century. As a consequence patrimonies were not so much divided as shared; in places the numbers o f co-seigneurs could grow to unmanageable proportions.76 As the author o f the Chanson saw it, however, pam tge was not only about the right o f men to hold their patrimonies and devolve them to their heirs as they wished, but was a word which encompassed a whole way o f life. When the two Raymonds met at Genoa early in 1216 after gaining

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papal recognition o f the younger Raymond’s rights in Provence, they travelled first to Marseille and then to Avignon. As they set out for Avignon they rode through a picturesque natural world.

Next morning as dew was fallin g, the clear light o f dawn grow ing brighter and birds beginning to sing, as leaves unfolded and flowerbuds opened, the knights rode two and two across the grassland, talking about their weapons and equipment. But Guy o f Cavaillon, riding a bay horse, said to the young count, cNow is the time when paratge urgently requires you to be bad and good. The count de Montfort, who destroys men, he and the Church a t Rome and the preachers are covering paratge with shame, they have cast it down from its high place, and i f you do not raise it up, it will vanish fo r ever. I f worth and paratge do not rise again through you, then paratge dies, in you the whole world dies. Tou are the true hope o f all paratge and the choice is yours: either you show valour or paratge dies. The younger Raymond pledged that this is what he would do and that evening they received an ecstatic welcome at Avignon. ‘So large were the crowds and the procession that threats and sticks and stones were needed. They went into the church to say their prayers and afterwards sat down to a rich and savoury banquet with many kinds o f sauces and fish dishes, red and white wines, clove-scented and vermilion, with entertainers, viols, dances and songs.’77 It is not difficult to see how the poetic conventions and sexual mores o f courtly love could flourish in this atmosphere. Nevertheless, the pre-crusade world o f Languedoc, which the poet saw as reviving all too briefly under Raymond VII, was not as idyllic as he pre­ sented it or perhaps, by the late 1220s, remembered it. When, in March 1179, at the Third Lateran Council, the Church fathers brought anathema down upon the Cathars and their followers in Gascony and the territor­ ies o f Albi and Toulouse, they associated them with those they called Brabanters, Aragonese, Navarrese, Basques, Coterelli, and Triaverdini. According to canon 27, these ‘practise such cruelty upon Christians that they respect neither churches nor monasteries, and spare neither widows, orphans, old or young nor any age or sex, but like pagans destroy and lay everything waste’ . Anyone who hired or kept them ‘should be subject in every way to the same sentence and penalty as the above-mentioned heretics and that they should not be received into the communion o f the church, unless they abjure their pernicious society and heresy’ .78 William o f

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Puylaurens saw this problem as endemic in the south. According to him, Fulcrand, Bishop o f Toulouse between 1179 and 1201, could not accom­ plish any visitation in the diocese without first pleading for protection from the lords o f the lands in which he intended to travel. William did not hold the count o f Toulouse entirely responsible for this state o f affairs, for warfare was such that he could not secure his own lands, let alone impose a general peace. These wars attracted routiers from outside the region, particularly from Spain, who moved freely through the land. ‘Even if by chance he [the count] very much wanted to, he was not able to extirpate the heretical weeds so strongly rooted in the land without the co-operation o f his enemies.’79 It is possible, o f course, that this level o f violence although considered reprehensible by contemporary clerics - was not abnormal for the late twelfth century, but if this was so, then Stephen o f Tournai, Abbot o f St Genevieve in Paris, did not see it that way. When he accompanied Henry o f Marcy’s expedition o f 1181, for most o f the time he was evidently terrified o f attack. In a letter to his prior he wrote: T am following the bishop o f Albano through mountains and valleys, through vast wildernesses, through the ferocity o f robbers, and the image o f death, through the burning o f towns and the ruins o f houses, where nothing is safe, nothing quiet, nothing conducive to security.’ It was never possible to relax or rest properly, because they were constantly afraid o f ambush.80 The abbot may have been a timid man, given to exaggeration, but in a sense, pam tge and mercenaries were linked, for the rarity o f the obligation to provide military service meant that resort to mercenaries was the most obvious alternative.

The clergy William o f Puylaurens placed the main responsibility for the spread o f Catharism upon the count o f Toulouse; paraphrasing Proverbs 2 4 :30-1, he claimed it could be said o f him, T have crossed the field o f the slothful man, and lo, nettles have completely filled it.’81 Yet, William knew very well that the task o f combating heresy fell first and foremost upon the clergy and, in particular upon the episcopate. Given the geography o f heresy in Languedoc, the key was the see o f Toulouse which, for a crucial period, was occupied by two men whom William presents as manifestly ill-equipped for the task, both because o f their own inadequacies and because o f the cir­ cumstances in which they were forced to operate. Fulcrand, bishop between

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1179 and 1201, he describes as living like a burgess from the little that he could collect from farm rents and his banal powers over the municipal area. He was unable to collect any tithes which all went to the nobles and the monasteries. His successor, Raymond o f Rabastens, was a man tainted by simony, who spent the meagre resources o f the see upon litigation and warfare with his vassal, Raymond Fort o f Belpech. When he was deposed by Innocent III in 1205, the farms and the fortresses o f the see were all in the hands o f creditors. When Fulk o f Marseille, Cistercian Abbot o f Floreze and Le Thoronet, was appointed to replace him, William saw it as divine providence. He was sent, he says, to revive a dead bishopric, like another Elisha. It was not an enviable task, for the financial crisis was so acute that there were only ninety-six sous toulzas in cash left and the creditors were so pressing that Fulk was forced to water his four mules in the wells o f his house rather than take them down to the river where they might have been seized to cover debts. Indeed, the creditors o f the see demanded that Fulk present himself before the capitouls o f the city, even though he was its bishop.82 A bishop like Fulcrand, too poor and too frightened to visit the par­ ishes, was in no position to uphold standards among the lower clergy. According to William o f Puylaurens, the nobility had no wish to make their own children ecclesiastics, although they were prepared to force the sons o f their subjects upon the Church so that they could take the tithes. There was, therefore, no honour or status in such a position, so that the local clergy tried to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible, even combing their hair over their tonsures. In William’s view the clergy became objects o f scorn: people said that they would rather be a Jew or, if faced with a really unpleasant task, that they would rather be a cleric than do that.83 As outsiders, neither William o f Tudela nor Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay had William o f Puylaurens’s knowledge o f the southern clergy, but both reported local contempt for prelates as much as for parish priests. According to William o f Tudela, when the papal legate, Arnald Amalric, tried to per­ suade the people to repent, ‘they laughed at him and scorned him for a fool’ , while Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay says that wherever the legate tried to preach 6the heretics countered by pointing to the disgraceful behaviour o f the clergy and argued that if the legates wanted to reform the life style o f the clergy, they would have to give up their preaching campaign’ .84 At the Council o f St-Felix-de-Caraman, the Cathar leaders themselves, who must have had a good grasp o f where their main support lay, had

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defined their own bishoprics as Albi, Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Agen. The metropolitan for Toulouse and Carcassonne was the archbishop o f Narbonne, while Albi lay in the province o f Bourges and Agen in the prov­ ince o f Bordeaux. Less affected by heresy were the dioceses o f Beziers, also within the province o f Narbonne, and those o f Comminges and Couserans, within the province o f Auch.85 Bourges and Bordeaux were quite distant, while the Cathars at St-Felix had not thought to establish a bishopric at Foix, so the major task o f combating heresy fell to the archbishops o f Narbonne. Here again there was a failure o f leadership. The archbishops were powerful lords by any standards. Apart from Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Beziers, their suffragan bishops encompassed Fine, Lodeve, Nunes, Maguelonne, Uzes, and Agde, a vast province which stretched from Roussillon to the Rhone. They dominated the city o f Narbonne itself, forcing the viscounts to acknowledge their suzerainty, and they held direct lordship over a range o f places in the Razes, Termes, and Pierrepertuises in the west and Herault, Capestang, Montels, Nissan, and Poilhes, in the east.86 Nevertheless, neither Pons o f Arsac (1162-81) nor Berengar, Abbot o f Mount Aragon, near Tarragona and Bishop o f Lerida, who occupied the see o f Narbonne from 1190 to 1212, used this financial muscle to tackle heresy, despite the fact that Catharism became entrenched in about half the province in this period. Archbishop Berengar was a great Catalan aristocrat, the son o f the count o f Barcelona. He revived the financial position o f the see after the profligacy o f Pons o f Arsac within only four years o f his acces­ sion, and indeed went on to develop new resources. However, in 1204, after legatine investigation, Berengar was obliged to defend himself before the pope, after accusations that he had never visited the province, nor provided any spiritual leadership. Despite promises to the contrary, there is no evidence that thereafter he conducted any visitations in the diocese or became any more active in the battle with heresy and, finally, in 1212, he was deposed and replaced by the papal legate, Arnald Amalric.87 The relationship between the strength o f the diocesan structure and the spread o f heresy is not necessarily a simple one o f cause and effect - indeed, there does not appear to have been any significant heresy in the city o f Narbonne itself - but in this case the chief metropolitan o f this part o f Languedoc took no initiatives against heresy, nor provided support for the two financially weakest dioceses, those o f Toulouse and Carcassonne.88

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It is, however, an over-simplification to present Languedoc in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries as staffed by uniformly weak clergy and riddled with anti-clericalism. Both were present, but individual bishops were aware o f heresy and attempted positive action to combat it. Several complained about the situation at the Council o f Tours held by Pope Alexander III in 1163 and, two years later, at the debate at Lombers, the orthodox side was represented by Bishops William o f Albi and Gaucelm o f Lodeve, and even Archbishop Pons o f Narbonne was present, together with Bishops Adelbert o f Nimes, Gerard o f Toulouse, and William o f Agde.89 At Narbonne, the appointment o f Bernard Gaucelm, Bishop o f Beziers, in 1182, seems to have been an attempt to fill the post with a man who had a good record in opposing heresy,90 while Peter o f Les Vaux-deCernay, who was never reluctant to express moral outrage at anyone he considered insufficiently supportive o f orthodoxy, described Renaud o f Montpellier, Bishop o f Beziers at the time o f the crusade, as a man deserv­ ing respect for his age, the conduct o f his life, and his learning.91 Moreover, this was no religious backwater, as it has sometimes been described.92 Indeed, like the cities o f Tuscany and Lombardy, it was the centre o f a rich and complex religious life in which both orthodoxy and heresy flourished, circumstances which made capable ecclesiastical leader­ ship all the more important. Even though Languedoc was not the creative heart o f twelfth-century monasticism like Burgundy, the new orders were well represented. In the region south o f the Tarn and west o f the Orb, twelve Cistercian abbeys were founded between 1136 and 1165, o f which Fontfroide, Grandselve, and Boulbonne were three o f the most important Cistercian houses o f the time. The first two produced three o f the papal legates o f the crusading era.93 For the Templars and Hospitallers Languedoc was a major source o f income and recruits. The Hospitallers had established their administrative centre, or priory, at St Gilles, by 1121, which governed their commanderies in the regions o f Toulouse, Albi, and Beziers, among other places. Similarly, during the 1130s, the Templars appointed a regional master or bailli over Aragon, Toulouse, and Provence, to oversee the increasing number o f preceptories they were establishing in the region. The military orders could not have achieved their great expansion in Languedoc without noble support; the establishment o f new communities, and the opening up o f previously uncultivated territory which was common in the twelfth century owed much to an alliance between the nobles’ land

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and the orders’ capital.94 In keeping with the rest o f France and England, between 1081 and 1170 there was a sharp rise in the numbers o f nunneries; in the archdiocese o f Narbonne ten houses were either founded or re­ founded during this period.95 John Mundy’s research into the foundation o f hospitals and other charitable institutions in Toulouse between 1100 and 1250 shows that there was no shortage o f donors prepared to back their professed beliefs with specific material gifts in the expectation o f par­ ticipating in the spiritual benefits o f the house. Eleven o f Toulouse’s fifteen hospitals were founded or renewed between the late eleventh century and the beginning o f the Albigensian Crusade, while at least four o f its seven leper houses were established between 1167 and 1209. In the late twelfth century the role o f individual lay initiative (albeit under the aegis o f canon law and episcopal jurisdiction) was particularly marked.96 The roots o f this piety ran deep; in the same region between the Tarn and the Orb there were thirty-two Benedictine houses which had been founded before the year 1000 and, among these, St Sernin o f Toulouse steadily recovered its control over both churches and tithes in the course o f the twelfth century, which belies the claim that Gregorian reforms had hardly touched the region.97 The verbal jousts between the orthodox and the heretics, and among the heretics themselves, reflect the religious vitality o f the region. William o f Puylaurens listed Arians, Manichaeans, and Waldensians, and claimed that some ‘ignorant priests’, in their hatred o f other heretics, toler­ ated the Waldensians, an observation confirmed by inquisitorial deposi­ tions.98 Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay understood why: ‘They were evil men, but very much less perverted than other heretics; they agreed with us in many matters, and differed in some.’99 Although quite unconnected with the heretics, the frequent use o f Jews as administrators by both the counts o f Toulouse and the viscounts o f Beziers, as well as their greater freedom to hold and transfer property than was the case in northern Europe, shows that Judaism was one more element in a varied religious scene.100

Urban society Traditionally, it was the cities and towns which were the most receptive to heterodox ideas, particularly during the period o f economic expansion and population growth so manifest in the twelfth century. Better communica­ tion with distant places, a more rapid turnover o f population, and the close

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P la te 4 ♦

Basilica o f Saint Sernin, T oulouse, east end

URBAN SO CIETY

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•

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proximity o f large numbers o f people facilitated the spread o f ideas as much as it accelerated the exchange o f money. Historians have therefore tended to associate the rise o f heresy with urban growth; indeed, the Bogomil missionaries were able to gain adherents in the towns o f northern Italy and the Rhineland. Consequently, for the orthodox, heretics were particularly difficult to isolate and control in towns; with a weapon as non-selective as a crusade, the task was impossible. Towns became targets o f indiscriminate attack, even though, unlike some castra and villages in the Toulousain, none o f them actually had a majority o f heretics and their supporters. As far as Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay was concerned the entire populations o f the three main cities were irredeemably tainted by heresy; indeed, he seems to have associated urban life with sin, almost by definition. ‘Beziers was a most notable city, but entirely infested with the poison o f heresy. Its citi­ zens were not only heretics, they were robbers, lawbreakers, adulterers and thieves o f the worst sort, brimful o f every kind o f sin.’ At Carcassonne the ‘citizens were heretics o f the worst sort and sinners before the Lord exceed­ ingly’ . As for Toulouse, this was a place which, since its foundation, had ‘rarely if ever been free o f this detestable plague’ .101 According to the anonymous author o f the Chanson, the crusaders became so frustrated during their siege o f Toulouse in 1218 that Foucaud o f Berzy, one o f M ontfort’s long-standing companions, proposed a radical plan o f building a ‘New Toulouse’ where there could be a completely fresh start with new men and new oaths. Then they could destroy ‘Raymond’s Toulouse’ and all those who lived there.102 In practice, it is as difficult for the historian as it was for the crusaders to identify the sources o f urban heresy. Geoffrey o f Auxerre, a Cistercian who had accompanied St Bernard on his visit to Toulouse in 1145, believed that there were heretics in the city before the disturbances caused by Henry the Monk and that they had been encouraged by some o f the leading citi­ zens, although he did not think that they had a great following in the city as a whole.103 The Maurand were one such family: Peter Maurand was a prominent member who was brought before the legation o f Peter o f Pavia, the papal legate, and Henry o f Marcy, Abbot o f Clairvaux, in 1179. H e is described as a rich man who owned two mansions or towers, one inside and one outside the city. They claimed that he was a leader o f heretics in Toulouse and, although he at first refused to admit it, he eventually confessed to the denial o f the reality o f the sacrifice in the Eucharist. He

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received a heavy penance o f flogging and three years’ exile in Jerusalem, although it is not known if this was ever carried out. His towers, which were ‘rich and very beautiful’, were to be demolished.104 While this might mean that members o f the consulate, the ruling oligarchy o f Toulouse, were affected by heresy, the formation o f the White Brotherhood, an orthodox militia founded in 1210 by Fulk, Bishop o f Toulouse, to combat heresy and usury, suggests that their numbers were not great. According to William o f Puylaurens, the White Brotherhood was supported by almost everybody in the City, and led by four men who were, at one time or another, members o f the consulate.105 Opposition to this came mainly from the Bourg, where many o f the richer inhabitants had made their money through financial dealings and who therefore might be expected to oppose measures against usury.106 It is equally difficult to determine how many heretics lived permanently in Toulouse, given the close ties between the consulate and the nobility o f the castm. Some took refuge in the relative anonymity o f the city when their presence in the castm became too obvi­ ous, thus temporarily increasing the size o f the heretical community.107 The only detailed list o f urban heretics available is the one furnished by Renaud o f Montpellier, Bishop o f Beziers, to the papal legates, shortly before the fall o f that city in July 1209; it was the refusal o f the inhabitants to hand over these people which provoked the attack. This suggests that Catharism had some support among the crafts, although the proportion o f the total population is very small.108 The list contains between 219 and 222 names which the editor, Louis Domairon, interprets as heads o f families, which might mean about 700 people were affected. Five persons are designated Waldensians, so that the others are presumed to be Cathar sympathisers. Among these it is possible to identify one noble (baronus) and four doctors, and a range o f craftsmen, including five hosiers, two blacksmiths, two pelterers, two shoe-makers, a sheep-shearer, a carpenter, a weaver, a saddler, a corn-dealer, a cutler, a tailor, a tavern-keeper, a baker, a wool-worker, a mercer, and a money-changer. In both chronicle sources and inquisitorial depositions, textores (weavers) are associated with heresy. Here ten persons are employed in the textile industry, although only one is actually a weaver, perhaps because weaving was by no means an exclusively urban occupation.109 In fact, analysis o f the evidence for Languedoc as a whole does not sug­ gest a strong correlation between urban growth and heresy. Languedoc west o f the River Orb, which was the part most affected by Catharism, was

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indeed relatively populous, but it was not one o f the more urbanised regions o f Latin Christendom in the Middle Ages. Even after the settle­ ment o f 1229 when there was a spurt o f economic growth, only Toulouse and Narbonne, with pre-plague populations o f about 35,000 and 25,000 respectively, were large enough to compare with the more important cities o f Lombardy and Tuscany.110 These two were in a class o f their own in the region: the next three were Beziers at 14,500, Albi at 10,700, and Carcassonne at 8,400. Agen, on the fringes o f the region, was about 6,000, but otherwise even Pamiers was only 3,500.111 Estimates o f the size o f Beziers when it was attacked by the crusaders in 1209 are usually lower, at about 8 ,0 0 0 -9 ,0 0 0 ,112 so it is probably reasonable to scale down the other cities in proportion. Even Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay did not see Narbonne as a city full o f Cathars, although he found the conduct o f its citizens reprehensible in many ways; equally, modern research has shown that the inquisitors achieved a meagre haul in the city.113 On the face o f it, the region to the east o f the River Orb, where Catharism was not widely accepted, shows some similarity in that there were only three large cities in Montpellier with 40,000, Avignon with 18,000, and Marseille with 12,000. However, it actually had what Josiah Russell calls a much higher urban index o f about 11.3 per cent compared with the western part where the proportion is only 3 per cent, figures which reflect the eastern region’s much greater commercial activity.114 Indeed, Innocent III believed that Montpellier, the largest o f these cities, was a place particularly loyal to the Catholic Church.115 This pattern is confirmed by the development o f consulates, oligarchies o f the more powerful and wealthy citizens who had gained a series o f privileges which reduced the degree o f comital control. The process is not dissimilar to the development o f communal institutions in the Italian cities, but it is notably later and more restricted in scope.116 In the county o f Toulouse only the city itself had a consulate by 1220, which it had estab­ lished in 1152. Toulouse had grown because it was the centre o f a prosper­ ous local agriculture, in which grain and vines were the main components, and because it was the meeting-point o f trade from the Mediterranean and the river traffic along the Garonne connecting it to Bordeaux.117 As in Italy, the consulate was made up o f an amalgam o f mercantile and knighdy families who held city property, although with the growth o f the Bourg, which encompassed more money-lenders and bankers, the composition was

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AND

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STRUCTURE

sometimes subject to change. After 1189 Toulouse was governed by a consulate o f twenty-four, representing both City and Bourg. Between 1202 and 1205 the government o f Toulouse attempted to create a contado not dissimilar to those o f the Italian cities which, if it had succeeded, would have brought twenty-three neighbouring towns and villages under the city’s control.118 In western Languedoc as a whole, only Beziers and Narbonne had their own consulates before Toulouse, in 1131 and 1132, respectively, and only three other places, Millau (1187), Carcassonne (1192), and Montauban (1195) had gained them by 1195. Agen (1197) and Albi (1220) were among ten further towns with their own consulates between 1195 and 1220. While it is evident that the region was experien­ cing economic growth in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and that, consequently, certain towns were seeking greater independence from the traditional territorial authorities, it is equally clear that this growth was quite modest in comparison with the most advanced areas such as northern and central Italy and Flanders, and perhaps even eastern Languedoc. The really striking development o f consulates occurred after the crusading era, when Catharism was being slowly crushed, rather than during the twelfth century, when heresy was spreading most vigorously. Taking the county o f Toulouse alone, another fifteen consulates had appeared by 1249 (the death o f Count Raymond VII) and an additional 145 by 1271 (the death o f Alphonse o f Poitiers, who had succeeded Raymond as count).119

Catharism and social structure The most favourable environment for the establishment and sustenance o f Catharism was the castm and fortified villages o f powerful local nobles. Their families were linked by marriage which often gave them widespread regional influence, enabling Cathars to preach over a large area and to establish houses for their communities in many different places. At the same time, believers provided a ready means o f economic support with gifts and legacies o f money, clothing, and food, and the conservation o f needed resources, as well as shelter on both a long- and short-term basis.120 The kings o f Aragon, the counts o f Toulouse, Foix, and Comminges, and the viscounts o f Beziers and Carcassonne had seldom been able to exercise close control over these networks; consequendy, when the Cathars appeared there was little hope o f undermining those who supported or

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tolerated them, even had the will been present. Strong feudal ties which, as the Capetians showed, contained the potential for tighter control over wil­ ful vassals, were lacking in Languedoc, where confederations among equals were much more common. The great lords could not therefore rely on contingents o f vassals to fight their wars, but were more likely to employ mercenary troops, or routiers as the Church called them. However, these warriors were not easy to control and their activities frequently made the roads unsafe for those who did not have the resources to defend them­ selves. Moreover, while it is wrong to see the diocesan personnel as uni­ formly incapable or indifferent, in the key diocese o f Toulouse the situation was exacerbated by the inability o f impoverished bishops and a demoralised and ill-informed clergy to combat a well-organised and confident Cathar Church, driven forward by highly motivated ministers who commanded the respect o f a considerable proportion o f the populace. This was not, however, an exclusively heretical society, but one characterised by a wide range o f successful ecclesiastical institutions, as is demonstrated by the establishment o f important Cistercian monasteries and many houses o f Hospitallers and Templars and by the lively debates between the orthodox and the heretics. Urbanisation was less crucial in the spread o f Catharism than might be expected, for there were only two really large cities in west­ ern Languedoc, one o f which was largely unaffected by heresy. Overall, quite a low proportion o f the population lived in towns. The extent o f heresy in the towns is inevitably difficult to measure because o f the num­ bers and mobility o f the inhabitants and the variety o f their activities. In this region therefore traditional explanations for the spread o f heresy are inadequate; poor clergy and urban growth made a contribution, but the interaction between society and heresy is much more complex than such simple formulae will allow. The relationship between Catharism and social structure is not, indeed, subject to a single, monolithic explanation. Reports o f dualistic belief in the Rhineland, northern France, and Flanders from the 1140s onwards suggest that its appeal was essentially to the lower classes - the association with textores or cloth-workers seems to confirm this - rather than to the aristo­ cracy. Its spread by merchants along trade routes seems a quite feasible explanation, as indeed Anselm o f Alessandria claims happened in Bosnia after local merchants had visited Constantinople. This would also explain why the heresy was much less successful than it became in Languedoc,

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NOTES

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REFERENCES

where its interaction with the social structure was quite different. In Languedoc the chief protectors o f heresy were the local nobles, a situation which made Catharism both more durable and, because o f the likelihood that a dependent rural populace would follow the example o f their social leaders, more widespread.121 The castrum and village o f Mas-SaintesPuelles in the Lauragais - later the subject o f intensive inquisitorial scrutiny - is a case in point. It was ruled by a noble family deeply imbued with Catharism, but it is clear that merchants, professional men, craftsmen, and peasants were all involved. Indeed, the socio-economic background o f nearly half o f the believers in the community is not known, which suggests that they were probably peasants. Heresy in Mas-Saintes-Puelles therefore did not arise as a result o f class or gender conflict, for it ‘encompassed all social classes’ .122 It is unlikely to be a coincidence that the major turningpoint for Catharism in Languedoc was the conversion o f the heretics to absolute dualism at the Council o f St-Felix-de-Caraman by papa Nicetas, for Nicetas was almost certainly from that circle o f upper-class Constantinopolitan families which had moulded the fairly crude Bogomilism o f Cosmas’s day into the more sophisticated cosmology that Nicetas seems to have presented. In contrast Bulgarian Bogomilism, with its strong attrac­ tion for oppressed peasants and craftsmen (made clear by Cosmas), readily transferred itself to a similar social milieu in the West. For one historian this difference was decisive. In Dmitri Obolensky’s view, ‘The seeds o f the Albigensian Crusade were well and truly sown at the Council o f St-Felixde-Caraman.’ 123

Notes and references 1

PV C , vol. 1, para. 2 2 0 , p. 2 1 9 ; trans. Sibly, p. 113; W P, pp. 2 8 - 9 ; trans. Sibly, p. 11.

2

PV C, vol. 1, para. 2 1 5 , pp. 2 1 4 - 1 5 ; trans. Sibly, p. 111.

3

PV C , vol. 1, para. 135, p. 138; trans. Sibly, p. 7 3 ; Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 6 8 , pp. 1 6 4 - 5 ; trans. Shirley, p. 4 1 .

4

See W. L. W akefield, ‘The family o f N iort in the Albigensian C rusade and before the Inquisition’ , Names: The Jou rn al o f the Am erican Nam e Society 18 (1 9 7 0 ), pp. 9 8 - 1 0 0 .

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5

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AND

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See A. Roach) The Devil’s World: Heresy and Society 1100-1300 (H arlow , 2 0 0 5 ), p. 192, who argues that w om en took advantage o f the range o f choices available by 1200 to ‘subvert their inferior theological position’ , actions evident am ong both the orthodox and the heretical.

6

PV C , vol. 1, para. 2 6 , pp. 2 8 - 9 ; trans. Sibly, p. 2 0 ; W P, pp. 5 0 - 1 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 2 5 - 6 (M ontreal); Bibliotheque m unicipale, T oulouse, M anuscrit

609 (hereafter Ms. 609), f. 109a (Laurac). 7

D oat, vol. 2 3 , if. 1 6 2 -8 0 . Anne Brenon sees Catharism as virtually a family heritage for the generation born around 1 1 9 0 , pointing out that there were few isolated believers, ‘Catharism in the Family in Languedoc in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: An Investigation Based on Inquisition Sources’ , in K. Reyerson and J. Drendel, eds, Urban and R u ral

Communities in Medieval France. Provence and Languedoc, 1000-1500 (Leiden, 1 9 9 8 ), pp. 2 9 5 - 6 . 8

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 6 8 , pp. 1 6 4 - 5 ; trans. Shirley, p. 41.

9

PV C, vol. 1, para. 135, pp. 1 3 8 -9 , para. 167, p. 170; trans. Sibly, pp. 7 3 , 90.

10

See C. C oulson, ‘Fortress policy in Capetian tradition and Angevin practice: aspects o f the conquest o f Norm andy by Philip I I ’ , in R. A. Brown, ed., Anglo-Norm an Studies FT, Proceedings o f the Battle Conference 1983 (W oodbridge, 1 9 8 4 ), pp. 1 3 - 3 8 , for a discussion o f rendability.

11

PV C , vol. 1, paras 1 4 8 - 9 , pp. 1 5 2 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, p. 81. Aragonese am bitions beyond the Pyrenees were very evident to these lords, which helps explain their reluctance, see pp. 6 0 -1 .

12

F. L. Cheyette, review o f J. Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades, Speculum 48 (1 9 7 3 ), pp. 4 1 1 -1 5 .

13

See E. Graham -Leigh, The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade: The Trencavel Viscounts o f Carcassonne and Beziers (W oodbridge, 2 0 0 5 ), pp. 1 3 7 - 6 5 , where she shows how little real control the Trencavels had over these lords.

14

J. H . M undy, Men and Women a t Toulouse in the Age o f the C athars (Studies and T exts, 101) (T oron to, 1 9 9 0 ), pp. 1 -4 , for a discussion o f the various theories put forward by historians about the possible attractions o f Catharism.

15

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 6 8 , pp. 1 6 4 - 5 ; trans. Shirley, p. 4 1 .

16

Innocentii I I I Registrorum sive Epistolarum , in PL, vol. 2 1 6 , col. 139. Letter o f the legates Arnald Amalric and M ilo to Innocent III.

17

LTGL, vol. 8, no. 150, col. 584. See also PV C , vol. 1, para. 2 3 , p. 2 6 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 8 -1 9 .

18

See W akefield, ‘Family o f N iort’ , pp. 9 7 - 1 1 7 , 2 8 6 - 3 0 3 , and revised version, privately circulated in typescript, 1 9 8 9 , for a thorough survey.

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REFERENCES

19

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 6 8 , pp. 1 6 4 - 5 ; trans. Shirley, p. 4 1 .

20

PV C , vol. 1, para. 2 1 5 , p. 2 1 4 , para. 2 2 2 , pp. 2 2 2 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, pp. I l l , 115.

21

A. Brenon, Les Femmes Cathares (Paris, 1 9 9 2 ), pp. 1 1 7 -1 9 . O n the nature o f his ‘castle-villages’ , see F. L. Cheyette, ‘T he castles o f the Trencavels: a preliminary aerial survey’ , in W. C . Jordan , R. M cN ab and T . F. Ruiz, eds, Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor o f Joseph R . Strayer (Princeton, N J, 1 9 7 6 ), pp. 2 5 5 - 7 2 .

22

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 7 1 , pp. 1 7 4 - 5 ; trans. Shirley, p. 4 3 .

23

D . Herlihy, ‘T he generation in medieval history’ , Viator 5 (1 9 7 4 ), pp. 3 4 7 - 6 4 , and ‘Life expectancies for w om en in medieval society’ , in R. T . M orew edge, ed., The Role o f Women in the M iddle Ages (Albany, NY , 19 7 5 ), pp. 1 - 2 2 ; V. Bullough and C . Cam pbell, ‘Fem ale longevity and diet in the M iddle A ges’ , Speculum 55 (1 9 8 0 ), pp. 3 1 7 - 2 5 ; M undy, Men and Women a t Toulouse, pp. 8 1 -5 . In the testam ents studied by M undy, ‘nearly 95 percent o f the males left female relicts when they d ied’ , p. 84.

24

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 6 8 , pp. 1 6 6 - 7 ; trans. Shirley, p. 4 1 .

25

See E. Griffe, Les Debuts de Paventure cathare en Languedoc (1140-90) (Paris, 196 9 ), pp. 1 2 7 - 3 0 , for these events. O n the 1178 m ission, see R oger o f H ow den, Chronica, ed. W. Stubbs, vol. 2 (Rolls Series, 51) (Lon d on , 1 8 6 8 ), pp. 1 5 0 - 5 , and for the subm ission o f 1 1 8 1 , Geoffrey o f V igeois, Ex Chronico Coenobitae M onasterii S. M artialis Lemovicensis ac Prioris Vosiensis Coenobii, in R H G , vol. 12, pp. 4 4 8 - 9 . Trans, o f H ow den, in W E, no. 2 9 , pp. 1 9 4 -2 0 0 .

26

W P, pp. 2 8 - 9 ; trans. Sibly, p. 12.

27

D oat, vol. 2 4 , f. 24r. See E. Griffe, Le Languedoc C athare de 1190 a 1210 (Paris, 1 9 7 1 ), pp. 2 5 - 6 .

28

W P, pp. 3 0 - 1 ; trans. Sibly, p. 12.

29

See M . R oquebert, L ’Epopee cathare, vol. 1, 1198-1212: V Invasion (T oulouse, 1 9 7 0 ), appendix, pp. 5 2 5 - 3 7 , for places with known Cathar sympathisers.

30

See J. Duvernoy, Le Catharism e , vol. 2 , LH istoire des Cathares (T oulouse, 1 9 7 9 ), appendix II, pp. 3 4 7 - 5 1 , for Cathar bishops and deacons. A. Brenon, Le V rai visage du Catharism e , 2n d edn (Portet-sur-G aronne, 1 9 9 5 ), p. 119, for map.

31

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 14, pp. 4 2 - 5 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 1 7 -1 8 . This was a different army from that which attacked Beziers in the east in the following m onth, and it had little impact on the crusade as a whole. It consisted largely o f forces from the Auvergne and from Quercy and its m ost im portant noble

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seems to have been Guy II, C ou n t o f Clerm ont and the Auvergne. See C. Taylor, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in M edieval Quercy (W oodbridge, 2 0 1 1 ), pp. 9 1 - 6 , for this cam paign.

32

D oat, vol. 2 3 , ff. 2v-6v. O n Arnauda and her family, see J. Feuchter,

Ketzer, Konsuln und Buffer: Die stadtischen Eliten von M ontauban vor dem Inquisitor Petrus C ellani (1236/1241) (Spatm ittelalter, H um anism us, Reform ation, 4 0 ) (Tubingen, 2 0 0 7 ), pp. 2 0 8 - 1 0 , and Taylor, Quercy, pp. 1 2 5 - 6 , 139. 33

PV C , vol. 1, paras 1 5 6 - 7 , pp. 1 6 0 -1 ; trans. Sibly, p. 85.

34 PV C , vol. 1, para. 136, pp. 1 3 9 - 4 0 ; trans. Sibly, p. 74. 35

PV C , vol. 1, para. 2 2 7 , pp. 2 2 7 - 8 ; trans. Sibly, p. 117; Chanson, vol. 1, kisses 6 8 , 7 1 , pp. 1 6 4 - 7 , 1 7 2 - 3 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 4 1 - 2 , 4 2 - 3 . WP, pp. 7 0 - 1 ; trans. Sibly, p. 4 0 .

36 See, too , the com m ents o f R oquebert, UEpopee cathare, vol. 1, pp. 378 and 4 0 6 .

37

Ibid., p. 397.

38

PV C , vol. 1, para. 2 3 0 , p. 2 3 0 ; trans. Sibly, p. 118.

39

PV C , vol. 1, para. 57, pp. 5 2 - 4 ; trans. Sibly, p. 32.

40

PV C , vol. 1, paras 7 5 - 8 , pp. 7 5 - 9 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 4 3 - 5 .

41

PV C , vol. 1, paras 3 7 , 2 8 , pp. 3 5 , 3 1 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 2 3 , 2 2 .

42 W P, pp. 3 0 - 1 ; trans. Sibly, p. 12. 43

See E. Hallam and J. Everard, Capetian France, 987-1328 , 2nd edn. (H arlow , 2 0 0 1 ), pp. 6 8 - 8 0 , for an overview.

44

See Y. D ossat, ‘Le C om te de T oulouse et la feodalite languedocienne a la veille de la croisade albigeoise’ , Revue du Tarn 9 (1 9 4 3 ), pp. 7 8 - 9 , and C. Taylor, T o p e Innocent III, Joh n o f England and the Albigensian Crusade (1 2 0 9 - 1 2 1 6 )’ , in J.C . M oore, ed., Pope Innocent I I I and H is World (Aldershot, 1 9 9 9 ), pp. 2 0 6 - 7 .

45

Ibid., p. 83.

46

See J. C. H olt, ‘The end o f the A nglo-N orm an realm ’ , Proceedings o f the British Academy 61 (1 9 7 5 ), pp. 2 2 3 - 6 5 , and J. Gillingham , The Angevin Empire (Lon d on , 19 8 4 ; 2nd edn, 2 0 0 1 ).

47

D ossat, ‘Le C om te de T ou lo u se’ , pp. 8 8 - 9 .

48

See T . Bisson, The M edieval Crown o f A ragon . A Short History (O xford, 198 6 ), pp. 3 2 - 8 , and H allam and Everard, Capetian France , pp. 7 8 - 8 0 .

49

D ossat, ‘Le C om te de T ou lo u se’ , pp. 7 8 - 9 .

• 78 •

NOTES

50 51

AND

REFERENCES

Ibid., p. 88 ; Griffe, Les Debuts, p. 8. Gervase o f Canterbury, The H istorical Works o f Gervase o f Canterbury, vol. 1, in The Chronicles o f the Reigns o f Stephen, Henry I I and R ichard I, ed. W. Stubbs (Rolls Series, 7 3 ) (Lon d on , 1 8 7 9 ), pp. 2 7 0 - 1 .

52

See p. 30.

53

See pp. 8 -9 , 137, for the Council o f St Felix-de-Caram an, and for the Council o f Lom bers.

54

For exam ple, W. L. W akefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, 1100-1250 (Lo n d on , 1 9 7 4 ), p. 83.

55

O n this expedition, see pp. 1 3 3 -4 .

56

Guillaum e de Tyr, Chronique, ed. R. B. C. H uygens, vol. 1 (C orpus Christianorum . C ontinuatio Medievalis, 6 3 ) (Turnhout, 1 9 8 6 ), 11.2, p. 4 9 7 . It has been suggested that the political instability o f the lands o f the counts o f T oulouse was a consequence o f Raym ond IV ’s absence on crusade between 109 6 and 1 1 0 5 , Y. P. Stoyanov, The Hidden Tradition in Europe ( H arm ondsw orth, 1 9 9 4 ), p. 159. It is interesting to note that it was precisely during the following period that King Louis V I (1 1 0 8 - 3 5 ) established royal authority in the Ile-de-France.

57

J. Delaville Le Roulx, ed., C artu lairegen eral de VOrdre des H ospitallers de

Saint-Jean de Jerusalem , 1100-1310, vol. 2 (Paris, 1 8 9 4 ), no. 1 6 1 7 , p. 2 4 6 ; W P, pp. 1 1 2 -1 3 . 58

See S. Painter, W illiam M arshal (Baltim ore, M D , 1 9 3 3 ), pp. 2 8 4 - 5 . William died in 1 2 1 9 , three years before Raym ond V I.

59

PV C , vol. 1, paras 8 8 , 1 9 7 - 2 0 9 , 2 1 9 , pp. 8 9 - 9 0 , 1 9 9 - 2 0 8 , 2 1 8 - 1 9 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 4 9 , 1 0 3 - 7 , 113.

60

PV C, vol. 2 , paras 4 3 9 , 3 8 0 , pp. 129, 7 5 , vol. 1, para. 2 2 8 , pp. 2 2 8 - 9 , vol. 2 , para. 3 5 8 , p. 56; trans. Sibly, pp. 199, 1 7 7 , 1 1 7 , 168.

61

W P, pp. 2 4 - 7 ; trans. Sibly, p. 8.

62

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 15, pp. 4 4 - 7 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 1 8 -1 9 .

63

H G L, vol. 8, no. 8 6 , cols 4 2 9 - 3 1 ; Ms. 609, f. 2 5 2 r, for the presence o f heretics at Saissac in 1195.

64

W P, pp. 4 8 - 9 ; trans. Sibly, p. 2 4 ; D oat, vol. 2 4 , ff. 4 2 - 3 , 2 4 lr , 2 5 lr , and

H G L , vol. 8, no. 3 2 9 , cols 1 0 3 5 - 6 , for Esclarm onda’s heretication. See also J.-M . Vidal, ‘Esclarm onde de Foix’ , Revue de Gascogne 11 (1 9 1 1 ), pp. 5 3 - 7 9 , and Griffe, Le Languedoc Cathare de 1190 a 1210, p. 155. 65

F. Pasquier, ed., C artulaire de Mirepoix, vol. 1 (Paris, 1 9 2 1 ), pp. 1 5 -1 6 , pieces just., no. IV, pp. 2 4 - 6 , for the fealty to the count o f Foix (1 2 2 3 ).

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For Mirepoix as a meeting-place for Cathars, D oat, vol. 2 4 , E 2 4 0 -1 . See also Vidal, ‘Esclarm onde de Foix’ , p. 5 7 , for other houses in the county o f Foix. S. Nelli, Montsegur. Mythe ethistoire (M on aco, 1 9 9 6 ), p. 8 1 , thinks that 1 2 0 7 -8 is a more plausible date for the reconstruction o f M ontsegur than the one usually given, which is 1204. 66

Chanson, vol. 2 , laisse 145, pp. 4 8 - 5 5 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 7 4 - 5 ; W P, p. 165, n. 2. Brenon, Femmes Cathares, pp. 1 2 2 - 3 , thinks that there m ust have been relatively few Cathars in the county o f Foix in the early thirteenth century, since no Cathar bishopric was set up there.

67

D ossat, ‘Le C om te de T ou lou se’ , p. 8 8 ; Bisson, M edieval Crown o f A ragon, pp. 3 7 - 8 .

68

F or exam ple, in battles at M ontgey (April 1 2 1 1 ) and Castelnaudary (Septem ber 1211).

69

PV C , vol. 2 , paras 3 6 7 , 3 8 9 , 4 0 8 , pp. 6 5 , 8 5 , 104; trans. Sibly, pp. 172, 180, 1 8 8 -9 .

70

Chanson, vol. 1, laisses 2 6 - 3 0 , pp. 6 8 - 7 7 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 2 3 - 4 . Cheyette, in his review o f Strayer’s Albigensian Crusades, in Speculum , 1973, suggests an attempt by Raymond VI and Peter II to act in concert against Raymond Roger. See also Graham-Leigh, Southern French Nobility, pp. 1 2 -1 4 , 1 0 2 - 3 ,1 1 3 - 1 8 .

71

W P, pp. 2 2 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 7 - 9 . William’s claim is fully supported by those who, deposing before the inquisitors in the 124 0 s, were old enough to rem em ber the pre-Crusade era. Castelnaudary (about thirty kilometres to the north-west o f Carcassonne) is an example o f such a place. In 12 4 5 , Raym ond Arrufat rem em bered that both Cathars and W aldensians had often stayed there, had taken meals with local people, and had gone about the town quite openly, Ms. 609 , f. 2 5 lr.

72

Chanson, vol. 2 , laisse 137, pp. 1 6 -1 7 , vol. 3, laisses 196, 2 0 8 , pp. 1 0 4 - 5 , 2 3 4 - 5 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 6 8 , 1 50, 176.

73

For a succinct summary o f the historical debate, see L. Paterson, The World

o f the Troubadours (C am bridge, 1 9 9 4 ), pp. 1 0 -1 9 . In essence this view was established in the late nineteenth century and has only been subject to m odifications since then, although debate continues. See P. D ogn on , Les Institutions politiques et ad m in istra te s du pays de Languedoc du X H Ie siecle auxguerres de religion (T oulouse, 1 8 9 5 ), pp. 1 6 -1 9 , and Y. D ossat, ‘ La Societe meridionale a la veille de la croisade des A lbigeois’ , Revue du Languedoc 1 (1 9 4 4 ), pp. 6 6 - 7 1 . 74

D ogn on , Les Institutions politiques, p. 19; P. M artel, ‘Naissance de l’O ccitanie’ , in A. A rm engaud and R. Lafont, eds, H istoire d’Occitanie (Paris, 1 9 7 9 ), pp. 1 6 1 , 165, 2 1 9 - 2 0 . O n convenientiae, see E. M agnouN ortier, ‘Fidelite et feodalite m eridionales d ’apres les serments de Fidelite,

. 80 •

NOTES

AND

REFERENCES

Xe-debut X lle siecles’, in Les structures societies de l’A quitaine , du Languedoc et de PEspagne au premier dge feodal (Paris, 1 9 6 9 ), pp. 1 1 9 -2 8 . 75

See pp. 4 4 -5 .

76

See D ossat, ‘ La Societe m eridionale’ , pp. 6 9 - 7 0 .

77

Chanson, vol. 2 , laisse 154, pp. 9 4 - 7 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 8 4 - 5 .

78

N . J. Tanner, ed., Decrees o f the Ecum enical Councils, vol. 1, N icaea I to Lateran V (Lon d on , 1 9 9 0 ), pp. 2 2 4 - 5 .

79

W P, pp. 4 2 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 9 -2 0 .

80

Stephani Tornacensis Episcopi Epistolarum P ars Prim a (1163-77) , in P L , vol. 2 1 1 , no. 7 3 , col. 371.

81

W P, pp. 4 2 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, p. 20.

82

WP, pp. 4 0 - 5 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 2 1 - 2 .

83

WP, pp. 2 4 - 5 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 8 - 9 .

84

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 3, pp. 1 2 -1 3 ; trans. Shirley, p. 12; PV C , vol. 1, para. 2 0 , pp. 2 2 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, p. 17. See also J. H . M undy, ‘U rban society and culture: T oulouse and its region’ , in R. L. Benson and G. C onstable, eds, Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century (O xford, 1 9 8 2 ), p. 2 3 5 . M undy has identified a family o f Tudela in T oulouse for the years 1212 to 1215, so it seems that William may have been less o f an outsider than Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, although he does say in the poem that he was educated in Tudela.

85

Y. D ossat, ‘ Le C lerge meridional a la veille de la croisade des A lbigeois’ , Revue du Languedoc 1 (1 9 4 4 ), p. 2 6 5 .

86

D ossat, ‘Le Clerge m eridional’ , pp. 2 6 5 - 6 .

87

R. W. Emery, Heresy and Inquisition in Narbonne (N ew York, 1 9 4 1 ), pp. 5 5 - 6 0 , for a sum mary o f his career. See also the views o f R oquebert,

L 7Epopee cathare, vol. 1, pp. 1 5 1 -4 , and Grille, Le Languedoc C athare de 1190 a 1210, pp. 1 9 7 -2 0 0 . 88

D ossat, ‘Le Clerge m eridional’ , p. 2 6 7 . It should be noted, however, that even Arnald Amalric becam e intensely interested in developing the power o f the see after 1212, when his sweeping claims to ‘the Duchy o f N arbon ne’ brought conflict with Sim on o f M ontfort and disapprobation from Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, vol. 2 , para. 5 6 1 , pp. 2 5 3 - 4 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 2 5 0 - 1 .

89

A cta concilii Lum bariensis, in R H G , vol. 14, pp. 4 3 1 - 4 ; trans. W E, no. 2 8 , pp. 1 8 9 -9 4 .

90

Grille, Les Debuts, p. 145. There is som e controversy over whether Pons was deposed or died. W E, p. 7 0 5 , think the form er, while Grille, p. 133, says there is no evidence o f deposition. There does, though, seem to have

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been som e difficulty in finding a suitable candidate willing to take up the post, Griffe, p. 135. 91 92

P V C , vol. 1, para. 8 9 , p. 9 0 ; trans. Sibly, p. 50. For exam ple, J. Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades (N ew York, 1 9 7 1 ), pp. 2 4 - 5 .

93

F. van der M eer, ed., A tlas de TOrdre Cistercien (Paris and Brussels, 1 9 6 5 ), m ap II; P. Wolff, ed., Documents de Phistoire du Languedoc (T oulouse, 1 9 6 9 ), pp. 1 1 8 -1 9 .

94

A. Luttrell, ‘The earliest H ospitallers’ , in B. Z. Kedar, J. Riley-Smith and R. H iestand, eds, Montjoie. Studies in Crusade History in Honour o f H ans Eberhard Mayer (Aldershot, 1 9 9 7 ), pp. 3 7 - 5 4 ; M . Barber, The New Knighthood: A History o f the Order o f the Temple (C am bridge, 1 9 9 4 ), pp. 2 0 - 1 ; M undy, ‘U rban society and culture’ , p. 2 4 1 .

95

See B. L. Venarde, Women’s Monasticism and M edieval Society: Nunneries

in England and France, 890-1215 (Ithaca, N Y and L on don , 1 9 9 7 ), fig. 6 , p. 56. H ow ever, V enarde’s figures show that such foundations were m uch m ore frequent in northern and central France than in the M idi in this period. It is, though, perhaps indicative o f the religious vitality o f Languedoc that, in contrast to other regions, between 1171 and 1 2 1 5 , the num bers continued to rise. In the archdiocese o f N arbonne another ten houses were established in this m uch shorter period, a figure only exceeded by Sens and Reim s, see fig. 10, p. 137. 96

J. H . M undy, ‘Charity and social work in T oulouse, 1 1 0 0 - 1 2 5 0 ’ , Traditio 22 (1 9 6 6 ), especially pp. 2 3 5 - 8 .

97

See Wolff, Documents, p. 117 (m ap). F or S t Sernin, D ossat, ‘Le Clerge m eridional’ , p. 2 7 2 .

98

W P, pp. 2 4 - 5 ; trans. Sibly, p. 8.

99

PV C , vol. 1, para. 18, pp. 1 8 -1 9 ; trans. Sibly, p. 14.

100

See J. O ’Brien, ‘Jews and Cathari in medieval France’ , Com parative Studies in Society and History 10 (1 9 6 8 ), pp. 2 1 5 - 2 0 .

101

PVC, vol. 1, paras 8 4 ,9 2 , 8, pp. 8 6 - 7 ,9 3 - 4 , 7 -8 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 4 8 -9 , 5 1 ,9 .

102

Chanson, vol. 3, laisse 1 89, pp. 3 0 - 3 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 1 3 5 -6 .

103

Geoffrey o f Auxerre, Sancti Bernardi A bbatis Clarae-Vallensis Vita et res gestae libris septem comprehensae: Liber tertius auctore Gaufrido monacho, in PL, vol. 185, cols 4 1 1 -1 2 .

104

R oger o f H ow den, Chronica, pp. 1 5 0 - 2 ; trans. W E, no. 2 9 , pp. 1 9 6 -7 . See J. H . M undy, Liberty and Political Power in Toulouse, 1100-1230 (N ew York, 1 9 5 4 ), pp. 6 0 - 2 , and Griffe, Les Debuts, pp. 9 7 - 1 0 0 .

. 82 •

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AND

REFERENCES

105

WP, pp. 6 4 - 5 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 3 5 - 7 .

106

WP, pp. 6 4 - 7 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 3 6 - 7 . See W akefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition , p. 75.

107

PV C , vol. 2 , para. 3 5 9 , p. 57; trans. Sibly, p. 168 (under the year 1212). See Grifte, Le Languedoc Cathare de 1190 a 1210, p. 73.

108

It is not clear in this context i f ‘heretics’ means perfecti or m ore generally Cathar sympathisers. O n this issue, see J. L. N elson , ‘Religion in “ H istoire Tota l e som e recent works on medieval heresy and popular religion’ , Religion 10 (1 9 8 0 ), p. 7 1 , and Brenon, Le V rai visage, p. 183. I f they were all perfecti, then a percentage o f 2 .5 w ould be considerable but, given the references to their occupations, this seem s unlikely.

109

L. D om airon, ed., ‘Role des heretiques de la ville de Beziers a l’epoque du desastre de 1 2 0 9 ’, Cabinet historique 9 (1 8 6 3 ), pp. 9 5 - 1 0 3 . The occupations listed include those whose surname is a trade, since it suggests that they came from that type o f background, even if not actually following that occupation in 1209. See J. Duvernoy, ‘Les Albigeois dans la vie sociale et econom ique de leur tem ps’ , A nnales de V Institut d ’Etudes occitanes, Actes du colloque de Toulouse, annees 1962-3 (T oulouse, 1 9 6 4 ), pp. 6 7 - 8 , for Cathars in the textile industry.

110

J. C . Russell, M edieval Regions and Their Cities (N ew ton A bbot, 1 9 7 2 ), pp. 1 5 4 - 9 , 1 6 2 -3 .

111

Ibid., pp. 1 56, 163.

112

Estim ates vary. This figure is that o f A. P. Evans, ‘The Albigensian C rusade’ , in K. M . Setton, R. Wolfe and H . H azard, eds, A History o f the Crusades, vol. 2 (Philadelphia, PA, 1 9 6 2 ), p. 2 8 9 . It may be to o low. Russell, M edieval Regions, pp. 1 6 2 - 3 , thinks 1 4 ,5 0 0 in 1342.

113

PV C , vol. 1, paras 2 6 4 , p. 2 6 2 , vol. 2 , paras 3 0 5 , 4 8 8 , 5 0 1 - 3 , 5 6 0 , pp. 5 - 7 , 1 7 9 - 8 0 , 1 9 4 - 8 , 2 5 2 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 34, 1 4 9 - 5 0 , 2 2 0 - 1 , 2 2 5 - 6 , 2 5 0 ; Em ery, Heresy and Inquisition , ch. 5.

114

Russell, M edieval Regions, pp. 162, 166, 159.

115

See C. D utton, Aspects o f the Institutional History o f the Albigensian Crusades, 1198-1229 (PhD diss., Royal H ollow ay and B edford N ew C ollege, University o f L on d on , 1 9 9 3 ), p. 89.

116

D ossat, ‘L a Societe m eridionale’ , p. 74.

117

Ibid., p. 76. F or a comprehensive analysis o f the social and econom ic context o f Catharism in T oulouse, see J. H . M undy, Society and

Government a t Toulouse in the Age o f the C athars (Studies and T exts, 129) (T oron to, 1 997).

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SOCIETY

M undy, Liberty and Political Power, pp. 6 8 - 7 3 , and ‘U rban society and culture’ , pp. 2 2 9 - 3 3 .

119

D ossat, ‘ La Societe m eridionale’ , pp. 7 2 - 3 , for urban liberties, and Wolff,

Documents, pp. 1 2 6 - 8 , for maps. 120

See A. Roach, ‘The Cathar Econ om y’, R eading M edieval Studies 12 (1 9 8 6 ), pp. 5 1 - 7 1 , who shows that the Cathars relied mainly on bequests and that, contrary to received w isdom , usury was not an im portant issue.

121

See, M undy, Men and Women a t Toulouse, p. 7, where he shows how the nobility responded to the decline o f endogam y by the practice o f prim ogeniture as a m eans o f protecting their property. H e notes the same trends am ong the lower classes, although with much less econom ic reason and concludes that ‘the lesser im itated the behaviour o f the greater’ . H owever, Duvernoy speculates that Catharism perhaps only appears m ore successful in Languedoc because o f the existence o f im portant narrative sources and inquisitorial depositions but that, if better evidence were available, Germ any, Cham pagne, or Flanders m ight offer ‘the same sight’ ,

Le Catharism e , vol. 2 , L ’H istoire des Cathares, p. 195. This seem s unlikely, see M . Barber, ‘Northern Catharism ’ , in M . Frassetto, ed., Heresy and the Persecuting Society in the Middle Ages: Essays on the Work o fR . I. Moore (Leiden, 2 0 0 6 ), pp. 1 1 5 -3 7 . 122

G . Sem kov, ‘Le Contexte socio-econom ique du Catharism e au MasSaintes-Puelles dans la premiere m oitie du 13e siecle’ , H eresisl (1 9 8 4 ), pp. 3 5 -5 3 . For the view that it was an issue o f gender conflict, see G. Koch, Frauenfrage und Ketzertum im M ittelalter: Die Frauenbewegung im

Rahmen des Katharism us und des Waldensertums und ihre sozialen Wurzeln (1 2 -1 4 . Jahrhundert) (Forschungen zur Mittelalterlichen Geschichte, 9) (Berlin, 1 9 6 2 ), for exam ple, p. 2 0 . F or the various theories about the role o f wom en in Catharism , see M undy, Men and Women a t Toulouse, pp. 4 1 - 6 . 123

D . Obolensky, ‘Papa Nicetas: a Byzantine dualist in the land o f the Cathars’, in Okeanos: Essays Presented to Igor Sevcenko (H arvard Ukrainian Studies, 7) (1 9 8 3 ), p. 500.

• 84 .

chapter

3

The Cathar Church

The Cathar hierarchy In his querulous letter to Abbot Alexander o f Citeaux in 1177, Count Raymond V o f Toulouse alleged that ‘all the ecclesiastical sacraments are held for nothing and, what is sacrilege, even the two principles have been introduced . . .V He was right to be alarmed at the progress o f heresy in his lands for, at the Council o f St-Felix-de-Caraman, probably held the previous year, the Drugunthian emissary from Constantinople, papa Nicetas, had indeed converted the leading representatives o f the moderate Cathars o f Languedoc to a belief in the two principles o f absolute dualism, and he had consolidated this by drawing the previously disparate groups o f Cathars in Lombardy, northern France, and Languedoc into an organised diocesan structure. While this wider unity lasted for only a brief period, Nicetas’s work in Languedoc remained effective until the mid-thirteenth century, presenting the counts o f Toulouse with a far greater challenge than anything they had encountered before the 1170s. When Nicetas began his mission there were already Cathar bishops o f France and o f Albi, representing the Church in the Languedoil and the Languedoc, while Mark, who was the leader o f the Lombard Cathars, may have been either a bishop or a deacon. At any rate, even if he was not a bishop before Nicetas’s arrival, Mark was consecrated soon after, either in Lombardy or at St-Felix.2 His authority was acknowledged among the Lombard, Tuscan, and Trevisan heretics.3 The account o f the proceedings at St-Felix was copied by Peter Pollan, who appears to have been the ‘younger son’ o f the diocese o f Carcassonne (that is, second in succession

• 85 •

TH ECA TH A R CH U RCH

to the bishopric), for Peter Isarn, Cathar bishop o f Carcassonne, in 1223.4 It was taken from eye-witnesses, and describes how, at the council, the dioceses were expanded to six:

The Church of Toulouse invited Papa Nicetas to the castle o f St-Felix and a great multitude o f men and women o f the Church of Toulouse and others o f neighbouring churches assembled there, so that they could receive the consolamentum, which the Lord Papa Nicetas began to adm inister. Afterwards indeed Robert o f Spernone, Bishop o f the Church o f the French, came with his council; M ark of Lombardy sim ilarly came with his council, and Sicard Cellarer, Bishop o f the Church o f A lbi, came with his council, and Bernard the C atalan came with his council o f the Church o f Carcassonne, and the Council o f the Church ofAgen was there. A ll thus assembled in countless numbers, the men o f the Church o f Toulouse wished to have a Bishop and chose Bernard Raim ond: sim ilarly , both Bernard the C atalan and the Council o f the Church o f Carcassonne, asked and enjoined by the Church o f Toulouse, and with the advice and wish and permission o f the Lord Sicard Cellarer, chose G uiraud Mercer; and the men ofAgen chose Raymond o f Casals. All these bishops, both established and newly elected, were then con­ soled and consecrated or re-consecrated by Nicetas.5 Peter Pollan also provided Peter Isarn with a copy o f the charter which set out the territorial extent o f the dioceses, a charter probably drawn up originally at the coun­ cil itself. Two panels were chosen from the members o f the Churches o f Toulouse and Carcassonne, before the bishops were themselves elected, and they decided to follow the existing Catholic boundary where feasible, with a dividing line between them running west from Saint-Pons between Cabaret and Hautpoul, along the line o f the Black Mountain, and then south between Saissac and Verdun and Montreal and Fanjeaux. Both, however, encompassed far more territory than their Catholic counterparts. Carcassonne included the Catholic archdiocese o f Narbonne, and both extended beyond the Pyrenees into the contiguous areas to the south, so that Toulouse took in Couserans, Huesca, and Lerida, and Carcassonne extended into Catalonia, which meant Fine, Gerona, Barcelona, Tarragona, Vich, and Urgel.6 The third new diocese encompassed the Agenais, to the north-west o f Toulouse. Catharism made little impact on Aquitaine as a whole, but the lands on the right bank o f the Garonne and beyond to

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Bas-Quercy were certainly affected, even though the supporters o f heresy were not as numerous as they were in the dioceses o f Toulouse and Carcassonne. The seat o f the first Cathar bishop, Raymond o f Casals, appears to have been at Casseneuil and when this fell to the crusaders in 1214, it was transferred to Castelmoron-sur-Lot, presumably because the Lot valley still contained a good number o f sympathisers.7 According to the charter, the Churches had been divided in this way 6so that they may have peace and mutual concord and one should not cause injury to another, [nor] one contradict the other’ . Nicetas, indeed, seems to have made the goal o f peace the central theme o f the assembly, for the fragment o f his sermon which survives, probably taken from accounts o f those present, emphasises that The seven Churches o f Asia were divided and distinct among themselves, and none o f them did anything to the other to contradict it’ . This was, he claimed, equally the case with the five other existing Bogomil Churches, those o f Constantinople, Dragovitsa, Melenguia, Bulgaria, and Bosnia. In fact, as has been seen, he was not telling the entire truth: Bulgaria and Bosnia retained their belief in moderate dualism and it was not long before the arrival o f Petracius in Lombardy blew apart the unity which Nicetas had hoped to create.8 This inaugurated a complicated series o f disputes which divided the Italians into two groups, under John Judeus (who succeeded Mark) and Peter o f Florence. After an unsuccessful attempt at mediation by the Bishop o f France, they made another attempt at reconciliation in an assembly held at Mosio, a village between Mantua and Cremona. Here they chose a man called Garattus as their bishop, but before he could go to Bulgaria to be consecrated, as planned, he was alleged to have had relations with a woman, and the whole fragile agreement collapsed. Disintegration fol­ lowed: by 1190 there were six Italian Churches, at Concorezzo (which retained Garattus), Desenzano, Mantua, Vicenza, Florence, and Spoleto. Only one o f these - at Desenzano - continued to adhere to the absolute dualism which Nicetas had brought, although two o f the others, the con­ gregations o f Mantua and Vicenza, sent their bishops to be consecrated in Bosnia rather than Bulgaria.9 Nevertheless, despite the acrimony such quarrels caused, by the end o f the twelfth century the Cathars and Bogomils together had created a formidable structure o f sixteen bishoprics from Toulouse in the west to Constantinople in the east. H alf a century later Rainier Sacconi could still

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identify sixteen, thirteen o f which were the same as those listed by the author o f the De heresi catharorum . Sacconi, however, divided the Church o f Constantinople into two, that o f Greeks and Latins, which must have been the case in the twelfth century as well.10 He omits the diocese o f Agen, which was probably marginal even in the later twelfth century, and that o f the Milingui (the Ecclesia Melenguiae), which, if it was located in the Peloponnese, may have been overwhelmed (or at least isolated) by the Frankish presence after the conquest o f Constantinople in 1204.11 He does not seem to have known o f the new creation in the Razes, set up in 1225. He adds one other Church, at Philadelphia in Romania, which has been tentatively identified as the ancient Philadelphia in Lydia in western Asia Minor, now known as Alashehr.12 This may suggest a revival o f dualism in Asia Minor in the thirteenth century, but it is more likely that this Church existed in the twelfth century as well, for Anselm o f Alessandria lists it as one o f the three original Manichaean Churches, along with Drugunthia and Bulgaria.13 The Cathar perception that there was a need for a formalised set o f dioceses with properly recognised boundaries shows that they were pre­ pared to establish a structured Church on this earth, whatever their views about the material excesses o f the Catholic clergy. Consequently, the Cathar bishoprics were themselves founded upon a hierarchy, although it was much less complex than that o f the Catholic Church. Two Catholic sources, Rainier Sacconi, and the Franciscan lector at Milan, James Capelli, writing about ten years earlier, provide the most detailed descriptions o f this, although their earlier existence is confirmed by three other writers, the author o f the De heresi catharorum , the crusader chronicler, Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, and a Piacenzan layman, Salvo Burci, writing in c. 1200, c. 1213, and 1235 respectively.14 As an ex-Cathar himself Rainier Sacconi is particularly valuable. ‘The offices o f the Cathars are four. He who has been established in the first and highest office is called bishop; in the sec­ ond, the elder son; in the third, the younger son; and in the fourth and last, the deacon. The others among them, who are without office, are called Christian men and women.’15 (See Map 3.) James Capelli compares the elder and younger sons to Franciscan Visitors whose duty was to travel around the convents ensuring that standards were maintained, whereas the deacons were generally responsible for administering the hospices, which acted as communal centres for the local Cathar community, as well as

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providing hospitality for the travelling perfecti}6 The Cathars took literally the idea that Christ was present when 6two or three are gathered together’ and, therefore, when they were not living in a community, they generally travel­ led in pairs.17 As it is thought that nearly half the houses o f the Cathars o f Languedoc were occupied by women, historians have speculated that the matriarchical figures who often appear to be running these houses might be described as deaconesses. This is certainly possible, for older women did become deaconesses in the Early Christian Church and were particularly important assisting at female baptisms in an era when adult baptism was much more common than it later became. Important as such women were within the Cathar network, however, there is no solid evidence to support this idea, while research which shows that the perfectae were much less active and important in the Cathar Church than the perfecti would tend to suggest that it was unlikely.18 All the holders o f these offices had powers o f ordination, as did the perfecti, depending upon who was present, although it appears to have been rare for perfectae to have been called upon. However, it was essential to maintain the structure because, as the controversy over the origins o f the ordination o f Mark shows, breaks in continuity for whatever reason threw the validity o f past actions into doubt. The elder and younger sons therefore also represented a line o f succession. Rainier Sacconi sets this out very clearly:

The ordination o f a bishop once usually took place in this fashion: when a bishop died, the younger son ordained the elder son as bishop, the latter thereupon ordained the younger son as elder son. Then a younger son was elected by all the prelates and those in their charge who were gathered a t the place set fo r the election, and he was ordained as younger son by the bishop. This appears to have remained the system in the Balkans, but at some time before 1250 the Cathars in the West (or perhaps simply in Italy) became uneasy with this arrangement so that the bishop was required to administer an anticipatory consecration o f the elder son in order to avoid the seemingly unnatural situation in which the son appeared to be installing the father. For Rainier Sacconi, however, the result o f the change was an equally reprehensible creation, that o f two bishops in each Church.19

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T h e consolam entum Entry into this Cathar elite was through the ceremony o f the consola­ mentum, the essential elements o f which the Westerners had received from the Bogomil missionaries. Here there do exist two Cathar versions o f the ceremony, one in Latin dating from 1235-50, and a later one in Occitan, dating from the second half o f the thirteenth century.20 Again, these are relatively late in the history o f the Cathars in the West, but Eckbert o f Schonau’s description o f ‘the baptism o f the spirit’ in 1163 shows that the Cathar initiation was known to Catholics from an early date, even if the ceremonies shown in the Rituals were more elaborate than those o f the early Cathars. Moreover, Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay adds to his brief (and contemptuous) allusion to the unrestrained sinfulness o f the believers, safe in the knowledge that they can ultimately receive ‘the laying-on o f hands’ , an account o f how a heretic was first received by renouncing the cross and baptism by water, after which ‘all present place their hands on his head and kiss him and clothe him in a black robe; from that time he is counted as one o f them’ .21 Thereafter, a whole range o f Catholic writers, including James Capelli, Anselm o f Alessandria, and Bernard Gui, Inquisitor in the Toulousain from 1307, offered their versions.22 Moreover, the ceremony is mentioned in numerous inquisitorial depositions and penances which, in some cases, record witnesses whose memories extended back to the 1190s.23 The Ritual shows that the ceremony was in two parts. In the Latin the opening has disappeared and it used to be thought that this derived from the fuller Occitan version, but it is now accepted that they probably both emanated from a Latin original.24 The Occitan version therefore sets down the words to be spoken at the beginning. These were always in Latin. ‘Bless us; have mercy upon us. Amen. Let it be done unto us according to Thy word. May the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit forgive all your sins.’ This was repeated three times, and then followed by the Lord’s Prayer and the reading o f the passage from John 1:1-17, ‘In the beginning was the Word . . .’ . Next, in the Occitan version alone, there were a series o f invoca­ tions to God for ‘pardon and penance for all our sins’, which were a normal part o f the life o f the perfecti who attended assemblies for monthly con­ fession, sometimes called the upparellumentum by Catholic writers.25 The next stage was the ministration o f the Lord’s Prayer. The Latin version

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begins part o f the way through this, but the Occitan text shows a ceremony presided over by the most senior o f the Cathars present, usually called an elder, assisted by other perfecti or Good Men. The elder placed the Book (meaning either the New Testament or St John’s Gospel) upon a table covered with a cloth and then the postulant made his meliommentum or ritual greeting, before receiving the Book. The elder then explained to the postulant - who would probably have undergone a probationary period o f about a year by this time - the significance o f what he was about to do. In the Latin, this takes the form o f a line-by-line interpretation o f the meaning o f the Lord’s Prayer, which included the use o f the phrase ‘supersubstantial bread’ rather than ‘daily bread’, meaning, according to the Ritual, ‘the law o f Christ’, but apparently regarded by orthodox commentators as evidence o f heresy.26 In Occitan, there are a series o f Scriptural injunctions intended to demonstrate how ‘the presentation which you make before the sons o f Jesus Christ confirms the faith and preaching o f the Church o f God as Holy Scriptures give us to understand it’ . At the end o f the ministration the initiate is enjoined (as expressed in the Latin version): ‘Now, you must understand if you would receive this prayer, that it is needful for you to repent all your sins and to forgive all men, for in the Gospel Christ says, “ But if you will not forgive men their sins, neither will your Father forgive your offences’” (Matthew 6:15). The second part o f the ceremony consisted o f the actual administration o f the consolamentum. Usually this followed immediately, but the wording o f the Ritual shows that this was not always the case. In the Occitan text the elder began: ‘Peter [or whatever was the name o f the postulant], you wish to receive the spiritual baptism by which the Holy Spirit is given in the Church o f God, together with the Holy Prayer and the imposition o f hands by Good M en.’ Then, drawing on Scriptural justification, the elder asserted that the baptism o f the laying-on o f hands had been instituted by Christ. ‘This holy baptism, by which the Holy Spirit is given, the Church o f God has preserved from the apostles until this time and it has passed from Good Men to Good Men until the present moment, and it will continue to do so until the end o f the world.’ The postulant was enjoined to keep the com­ mandments o f Christ ‘to the utmost o f your ability’ , not to commit adul­ tery, kill, or lie, nor swear an oath or steal. He should turn the other cheek in the face o f those who would persecute him. He should ‘hate this world and its works and the things which are o f this world’ . When the believer

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had confirmed that he had the will to follow these injunctions, he made his melioramentum , and was then given the consolamentum. The elder placed the Book upon the believer’s head and each o f the Good Men placed their right hand on him. The ceremony concluded in the way customary with the Cathars, with mutual requests for forgiveness o f sins known as the Pardon, and the Act o f Peace in which the men embraced and kissed on each cheek and the women kissed each other and the Gospel.27 His changed status now established, the new perfectus listened to the elder’s exposition o f the rules o f conduct in the varied situations in which he might find himself. Finally, the Occitan Ritual shows that the perfectus was instructed on how he should administer the consolamentum to the sick, which usually meant a believer who was thought to be dying. This was particularly import­ ant as it was likely to be one o f the most frequent needs o f the believers and was therefore an integral part o f the day-to-day duties o f the ordinary per­ fect. It was, o f course, unlikely that a dying person would be able to undergo the extensive initiation which the Ritual lays down for the perfects themselves, so there is a much greater flexibility about the inclusion o f exhortation, preaching, and the use o f Scriptural texts. Nevertheless, the believer was still required to show how he had conducted himself towards the Cathar Church in the past, and to confess whether he owed debts to the Church, and whether he had done it any injury. Any debtor who could pay, but refused to do so, was not to receive the consolamentum , although inability to pay was not to be taken as a barrier. The believer was then asked to agree to maintain the usages and prohibitions o f the Church before receiving the Prayer as the perfect himself had done. In these cases the cloth was spread out on the bed and the Book placed upon it. The believer was then consoled in the same way by the placing o f the Book upon his head, together with the hands o f the other believers present. Any bequests were to the Church itself and not to individuals. However, it was never easy to judge if an illness was terminal and it was accepted that if the sick person survived, then ‘the Christians should present him to the order and pray that he receive the consolamentum again as soon as he can’ .28 By the 1240s (if not earlier) provision had also been made for the opposite circumstance in which a believer made an agreement (known as the convenensa) that he or she could be consoled even if they were no longer able to speak.29 The consolamentum remained the key ceremony o f the Cathar Church in the West between at least the 1140s and the 1320s, for by this means it

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maintained the continuity o f the episcopal ‘o rd o \ continually replenished the elect class o f perfecti, and provided the means by which dying believers could gain the salvation which had been promised. At the same time the perfecti acted as the focal point for believers still living in the material world, for they could make intercessionary prayers to God (which could not be done by anyone who had not taken the consolamentum) and they presided over communal gatherings in which they distributed bread which had been blessed in a manner not dissimilar to the eulogia o f the early Christians. The custom, says the Franciscan James Capelli, was because they believed themselves to be the successors o f the Apostles.30 It seems certain that the Cathars had been taught the essentials by Balkan mission­ aries; indeed it has been shown that the opening section o f the Occitan version, which begins the service, is derived directly from Bogomil usage.31 Moreover, the basic division between perfect and believers, which this ceremony creates, is litde different from the Bogomils, even in the early unstructured Church described by Cosmas in the tenth century, and is very similar indeed to the description o f the Bogomils o f Constantinople in the early twelfth century given by Euthymius Zigabenus in the Panoplia D ogm atica?2 The Latin and Occitan versions differ mainly in details, although the latter contains important additional elements, either lost from the Latin version or never included in the first place. In the Latin version, however, the postulant is told not to disdain his previous baptism in the Catholic Church or indeed any other good things done up to that time, a concession which is surprising in view o f the complete dismissal o f baptism by water found in other Cathar sources. It has been argued that this was intended to disguise the real nature o f their beliefs,33 although it is more likely that it reflects a changing view among the moderate dualists o f Concorezzo about the role o f John the Baptist.34 Variations o f this nature notwithstanding, whatever the region or period, the consolamentum was universally employed by the Cathars. Sometimes it took place in large public assemblies at the castles o f socially prominent believers o f the Toulousain, at others in secret, furtive meetings with dying believers in rural villages deep in the Pyrenees.35 The consola­ mentum thus provided the cement for the whole Cathar movement in the West, but it was a cement which could all too easily come loose. Misdemeanours by one o f the perfecti or, worse still, by a member o f the hierarchy, even if only alleged, could throw whole networks into doubt, for

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those whose consolamentum stemmed in any way from the individual concerned found that it could be invalidated by actions with which they had no connection or even knowledge. The failure to reunify the Italian Churches in the late twelfth century was a consequence o f the allegation o f sexual immorality by Garattus which led him ‘to be deemed unworthy o f the episcopal office by many o f them, and therefore they did not hold themselves bound by the pledge o f obedience which they had made to him’ .36 As Rainier Sacconi saw it, all Cathars lived under this shadow, for ‘if their prelate, especially their bishop, may secretly have committed some mortal sin - and many such persons have been found among them in the past - all those upon whom he has imposed his hand have been misled and perish if they die in that state’ . The Cathars therefore allow the consolamen­ tum to be repeated once or even twice more.37 The Catholic Church had overcome the problem o f the relationship between die validity o f the sacra­ ment and the moral state o f the priest as early as the second decade o f the fourth century, when it had refused to accept the Donatist position, although Pope Gregory V II’s boycott o f sinful priests had nearly led it down that path again in the late eleventh century. Even so, donatist dis­ putes within the Catholic Church were containable, whereas the introduc­ tion o f the two principles by Nicetas brought a set o f beliefs which, as Raymond V knew, were much more confrontational than the moderate or mitigated dualism to which all the Cathars had previously adhered.

Cathar theology Any attempt to reconstruct Cathar belief should, in the first instance, derive from the Cathars themselves, either through the parts o f their own liter­ ature which have survived or through their own testimonies as recorded by the inquisitorial notaries. However, Catholic writers wrote extensively about the Cathars as well, including some individuals who themselves either may have been or were Cathars in the past, such as the anonymous Lombard who wrote the De heresi catharorum, or the inquisitor, Rainier Sacconi. In the latter cases their information is valuable as it stemmed from inside knowledge but, as has been pointed out, even orthodox attacks on Cathar belief are important since they were particularly concerned to define it accurately in order to give weight to their refutations.38 Moreover, they wrote in the changed intellectual climate o f the thirteenth century, founded

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much more on scholastic argument than their twelfth-century predecessors, who were often overly dependent upon their knowledge o f the heresies o f the early Church.39 Individuals appearing before the inquisitors were encouraged to say what they knew or had been taught although, as manuals such as that o f the early-fourteenth-century inquisitor Bernard Gui demonstrate, their testimony was to some extent directed along lines set by their questioners.40 Despite this, the depositions show the range o f percep­ tions o f the faith among different social classes and at different periods, offering quite another perspective from the more ‘literary’ approaches o f the Cathar and Catholic intellectuals. Most Cathar literature emanated from north-eastern Italy, perhaps partly because controversy among the different Churches there stimulated debate, but also because the close ties with Bulgaria and Bosnia led to the importation o f books already influential among the Bogomils. Such literature soon found a place in the written culture o f the major Italian cities, where the development o f schools was more advanced than anywhere else in the West.41 Moreover, although reli­ ance on Bogomil materials is particularly evident in the twelfth century, this environment encouraged the Italian Cathars to develop their own inter­ pretations and produce their own books in the post-1200 period 42 One such writer, the anonymous author o f the The Book o f the Two Principles, includes a substantial section o f refutation o f the views o f a certain Master William who, although thought by some to have been a Cathar opponent, is more likely to have been William o f Auvergne, Bishop o f Paris, whom the author claims to have heard. If the identification is correct, Ivo o f Narbonne’s story that the Lombard Cathars sent their best minds to study dialectic and theology in the Parisian schools may well have some foundation.43 Indeed, despite the relative scarcity o f extant Cathar writings, the existence o f Cathar intellectuals was sufficiently well known for the Cistercian Caesarius o f Heisterbach, writing in the 1220s, to use them as the basis o f an exemplum for novices in his book o f instruction The Dialogue on M iracles. The novice suggests that the heretics might not have fallen into such error if they had had literate men ( literati) among them, but the monk denies this. ‘When literati begin to err’, he says, ‘at the instigation o f the devil, they exhibit greater and more profound stupidity than even the illiterate.’44 The literacy and knowledge o f the French Cathars should not therefore be under­ estimated, as the evidence o f the inquisitorial depositions shows, but survival o f Cathar literature from Languedoc is scanty compared to that o f Italy.45

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Two works known to have come from the Bogomils before 1200 are The Secret Supper or The Book o f St. John , and The Vision of Isaiah. The text o f The Secret Supper was brought to Italy from Bulgaria by Nazarius, Elder Son and later Bishop o f the Church o f Concorezzo, but the beliefs described are likely to be a good reflection o f those held by the moderates before the mission o f Nicetas in the mid-1170s.46 It seems originally to have been in Greek, produced in the circle established around Basil in the early twelfth century, which had so alarmed Anna Comnena and which Euthymius Zigabenus describes in his Panoplia Dogm atica. It must have been through a number o f hands since then and it is thought that the ver­ sion brought by Nazarius was in Old Slavonic which was then translated (badly, according to Anselm o f Alessandria) into Latin. The two surviving Western manuscripts themselves differ at various points.47 It takes the form o f a dialogue: ‘The questions o f John, the apostle and evangelist, at a secret supper in the kingdom o f heaven, about the gover­ nance o f this world, about its ruler, and about Adam.’48 Marginal glosses were added to elucidate certain points. It is the story o f how the invisible celestial hierarchy established by God was corrupted by the sins o f pride, avarice, and lust, leading to the creation o f the prison o f the material world. The cosmology o f this hierarchy was the common heritage o f Christians, for it was derived from the late-fifth-century anonymous neo-Platonic author now known as the Pseudo-Dionysius, but who was then thought to have been a companion o f St Paul and therefore to have lived in apostolic times. This writer had assembled a coherent structure o f nine hierarchical choirs o f angels created by God in a perfect heavenly society.49 According to the author o f The Secret Supper, originally, Satan had been 6the regulator o f all things and sat with the Father’; indeed, ‘his power descended from the heavens even unto hell, and arose even unto the throne o f the Father invisible’ . However, he was not satisfied, but wished, as it says in Isaiah 14:13-14, to be ‘like the M ost H igh’ . Passing through all these layers, he began to subvert the angels’ allegiance by offering them a lower scale o f obligations than they owed God. Cast out by God for his treachery, Satan took a third o f the angels with him, but ‘could find no peace in the firma­ ment’, so he presented himself as a sinner who had repented. ‘The Lord was moved with pity for him and gave him peace to do what he would until the seventh day’, meaning by this the seventh age o f the world.50 It was during that time that Satan created the earth and the living things within

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it, including man, formed from clay, made to serve him. He ordered ‘an angel o f the second heaven’ to enter this body. A part was then taken to form woman, entered by ‘an angel o f the first heaven’ . These angels there­ fore had been forced to take mortal form and ‘to perform the works o f the flesh’ . As they knew nothing o f sin, Satan made paradise, within which was a serpent made from his spittle. Satan told the man and the woman, ‘Eat o f all the fruit in Paradise, but o f the fruit o f good and evil eat not.’ The serpent, now in the form o f a beautiful young man according to the mar­ ginal gloss,51 but actually entered by the Devil, created in Eve ‘a longing for sin, and Eve’s desire was like a glowing oven’ . The Devil then ‘sated his lust on her with the serpent’s tail’. The same longing was instilled in Adam and both ‘were affected by a lust for debauchery’, which explained why all known offspring were ‘sons o f the devil’, a concept which inquisitorial depositions show that some perfecti were often very determined to impress upon pregnant believers. Christ explained to John that the spirits o f heaven were trapped in the bodies o f clay as a consequence o f their fall, and there­ fore they took on the lusts o f the flesh and suffered the penalty o f death. Satan’s dominion, supported by Enoch and Moses, would last for seven ages. Initially, he convinced men he was the one true God, but the Lord sent Christ ‘to this world to make manifest His name to men, that they might recognise the devil and his wickedness’ . Christ entered the world through the ear o f Mary, an angel o f the Lord, an action which the devil countered by sending his angel, ‘the prophet Elijah, who baptised in water and was called John the Baptist’ . The Day o f Judgement would come about when ‘the number o f the just shall equal the number o f those crowned [angels] who fell’ . Although Satan would make war on the just, neverthe­ less all people would stand before the throne o f judgement to be divided between ‘those who have cherished the angelic life’ and ‘the servants o f iniquity’, the former being taken into G od’s kingdom, the latter thrown into everlasting fire. ‘Then Satan shall be bound and all his host, and he shall be cast into the pool o f fire.’ Finally,

the Son o f God shall sit on the right hand o f his Father, and the Father shall command H is angels that they minister unto them [the ju st]; and He shall place them in the choir o f angels and clothe them in imperishable raim ent; and He shall give them crowns never fad in g and seats unmoving. A nd God shall be in their midst. cThey shall no more hunger

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nor thirst; neither shall the sun fa ll on them, nor any heat. A nd God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes/ A nd [the Son] shall reign with his Holy Father, and his reign shall endure forevermore.52 Outside commentators, both Catholic and Cathars o f different persua­ sion, confirm the explanation o f moderate dualism presented in The Secret Supper. Three o f the most important o f the Catholic writers, the mid- and late-thirteenth-century Italians Rainier Sacconi, Moneta o f Cremona, and Anselm o f Alessandria, were well versed in this cosmology. Rainier Sacconi had actually met Nazarius when he was a very old man and he had told him that The Blessed Virgin was an angel and that Christ did not assume human nature, but an angelic one, or a celestial body’, ideas which he had received from the Bishop and Elder Son o f the Church o f Bulgaria sixty years before.53 Moneta o f Cremona, who was a Dominican professor at Bologna and may also have been an inquisitor, was writing about the same time as Rainier Sacconi. He was more interested in absolute dualism, but he nevertheless devoted his second book to refuting the errors o f the moder­ ate dualists. The problem with them, as he saw it, was that although they accepted the truth o f God’s creation, they mixed it with ‘a leaven o f heretical depravity’ .54 Anselm o f Alessandria, in his historical survey, places Nazarius as the third bishop o f the Cathars at Concorezzo after John Judeus and Garattus. He had his own copy o f Nazarius’s text. According to him, the views which Nazarius derived from this were rejected by Desiderius, his Elder Son, thus causing a split among the Cathars o f Concorezzo.55 Bernard Hamilton sees this new generation o f Cathar leaders, exemplified by Desiderius, as preferring to develop their own ideas, rather than depend­ ing upon the Bogomil literature which had become so important to the heretics in the twelfth century.56 In this context therefore it is not surprising to find that in The Book o f the Two Principles, which was written in the 1240s, probably by John o f Lugio, a contemporary o f Desiderius, and an absolute dualist from the Church o f Desenzano, there is an attack on the mitigated school no less assertive about their errors than the Catholic polemicists.57 The author found The Garatenses’, as he calls them, deeply frustrating, for they accepted only the existence o f one benevolent creator, yet repeatedly claimed that There is another lord, the evil prince o f this world, who was a creature o f the most excellent Creator’ . To the author, through the testimony o f Genesis (which only John o f Lugio and his circle

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accepted among the Cathars), ‘we can plainly prove the existence o f an evil creator, who created heaven, earth, and all other visible bodies whatsoever’ . The obstinacy o f the mitigated school in not accepting what the author saw as obvious could only be the consequence o f foolishness.58 The Book of the Two Principles is the most decisive evidence that the Cathars were evolving their own ideas about the nature o f dualism, but half a century before the Bogomil influence had been predominant. One work - the Vision o f Isaiah - was basic to both the moderate and absolute schools. The Cathars seem to have received it from the Bogomils before the schism o f the 1170s, translated into Latin from Old Slavonic or Greek, but it had deep roots in the past, probably finding its origins among Greek Gnostics towards the end o f the first century a d . References to it by thirteenth-century writers in both Languedoc and Italy and in early-fourteenth-century inquisitorial depositions show that it remained an important text for the Cathars until their disappearance in the West.59 When Isaiah ‘had ceased to behold the vision’, he was able to recount his experience. This was o f great value to the Cathars for he had been taken on a journey through the visible and invisible worlds by an angel, who had told him that ‘no one who desires to return to the flesh o f that world has seen what you see nor is able to see what you have seen’ . The angel took Isaiah by the hand and, as they ascended through the firmament, they saw a great battle raging between Satan and the followers o f God. ‘For just as it is on earth, so also is it in the firmament, because replicas o f what are in the firmament are on earth.’ The angel told him that the world would not end until God ‘comes to slay him [Satan] with the spirit o f His virtue’ . Beyond the firmament he was conducted through the seven heavens, each one inhabited by angels praising God and each more glorious than the one below until, reaching the seventh, he saw ‘the righteous who, stripped o f fleshly robes, were in heavenly robes and standing in great glory’ . They had not, however, received their ‘thrones and crowns o f glory’, which would not happen, the angel said, until the Son o f God took on human likeness.

A nd the prince of that world will stretch forth his hand upon the Son of God and will kill H im and hang H im on a tree, and he will kill H im not knowing who He is. A nd He will descend into hell and lay it waste, with all the phantoms o f hell. A nd He will seize the prince o f death and despoil him, and crush all his powers, and will rise again on the third

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day; having with him certain o f the righteous. A nd He will send H is preachers into the whole world, and will ascend into heaven. Then these will receive their thrones and crowns. In the seventh heaven Isaiah saw an angel more glorious than all the others: this was the Archangel Michael, who held a book in which the works o f all men were contained, including Isaiah’s own. Finally, he saw ‘the Lord in great glory and I was most sorely afraid’ . Isaiah saw too the Son o f God descending through the heavens and his transfiguration, saw him ‘like the Son o f Man dwelling with men and in the world’, and saw his ascent back through the heavens. He saw ‘a wonderful angel sit at His left hand’, who told him that he had seen what ‘no other son o f the flesh had seen’ and that he must now return his robe ‘until the time o f your days shall be fulfilled and then you shall come here’ .60 Although the Bogomils had made their own modifications to this story, both moderate and absolute Cathars accepted the theological landscape it depicted, for it showed a material world and a firmament riven by the battle between Satanic and Godly forces, but it did not tackle the ques­ tion o f the devil’s origins, which was the central issue o f dispute between them. In the thirteenth century, however, the surviving Cathar literature is dominated by those who believed in absolute dualism. Cathars in both Languedoc and Lombardy produced major books expounding this point o f view. The Languedocian treatise is an anonymous exposition by a leading Cathar from the Albi, Toulouse, and Carcassonne triangle, copied out for the purpose o f refutation in the Liber contra Manicheos by Durand o f Huesca, a former Waldensian reclaimed by the Catholic Church, and was probably written between 1218 and 1222.61 The Lombard version is The Book o f the Two Principles, written perhaps twenty years later. Neither author can be certainly identified. Speculation that the author o f the Albigensian treatise might have been ‘Theoderic’ (formerly William o f Chateauneuf, a canon from Nevers), who is described by Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay as debating with Bishop Diego o f Osma in 1206, or Bartholomew o f Carcassonne, a leading Cathar o f the region in the 1220s, fails to take account o f Duvernoy’s point that Durand o f Huesca would almost certainly have known if either o f these two were behind it.62 The idea that John o f Lugio was the author o f The Book of the Two Principles is, however, much more likely, for Rainier Sacconi says

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that he possessed a copy o f ‘a large volume o f ten quires’ written by John o f Lugio, and indeed The Book o f the Two Principles is much more compre­ hensible in the light o f Sacconi’s detailed commentary upon John o f Lugio’s beliefs. Since Sacconi had himself been a Cathar for seventeen years, it is quite possible that he knew John o f Lugio personally. He was certainly well aware o f the divisions within their ranks, for he differentiates between the two parties o f the Albanenses, based at Desenzano on Lake Garda, by his day the only Italian Cathar Church still adhering to absolute dualism. M ost o f the older Cathars followed Bishop Belesmanza o f Verona, whose views had commanded general support among the Albanenses between 1200 and 1230, but who by the 1240s found himself in a minority in the face o f a group o f ‘modernisers’ , led by John o f Lugio o f Bergamo.63 According to Rainier Sacconi, the Languedocian Churches maintained ‘the errors o f Belesmanza and the old Albanenses’ which, as these evidently represented the established view, suggests that they best reflect the teach­ ing o f Nicetas at the Council o f St-Felix-de-Caraman. John o f Lugio held to some o f these, but he had changed others ‘for the worse’, while ‘some errors he has devised for himself’ .64 However, neither author seems to have been writing for the mass o f believers, any more than the scholastics o f the Catholic Church intended their thoughts to be communicated directly to the faithful. The Albigensian author saw himself as the upholder o f the truth in the face o f the Catholics, whom he saw as heretics, ‘blind leaders o f the blind’, as in Matthew 15:14. He probably intended his work to fortify the perfectiy for it is buttressed throughout with careful and detailed Scriptural quotation. The author o f The Book o f the Two Principles is equally keen to provide biblical justification, although he is more directly combative, and had evidently debated the issues with both Catholics and Albanenses on many occasions. Indeed, he appears to have been quite capable o f goading opponents whom, at one point, he describes as ‘speaking calmly at first and then shouting’ . Rainier Sacconi’s reference to members o f the Albanenses, ‘who were less well informed, to whom special points were not revealed’, suggests that these writers were part o f a Cathar elite aiming to provide the intellectual underpinning o f their faith.65 Neither the Catholic nor the Cathar leaders expected the mass o f people in their Churches to be able to explicate the whole range o f their respective theologies.

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The absolute dualists believed in the existence o f two worlds, one visible, vain, and corruptible, and one invisible, incorruptible, and eternal. John’s Gospel says that Christ’s kingdom is not o f this world (18:36), but is the New Heaven and the New Earth which the Lord spoke o f in Isaiah (66:22).66 The idea that God created all things had been grossly misinter­ preted by the Catholic Church. Tt should be clearly realised’, says The Book o f the Two Principles, That these universal symbols which refer to what is evil, vain, and transitory are not o f the same sort as those other universal symbols already mentioned, which designate the good, clean, and highly desirable, and which persist forever.’67 They therefore argued that the two principles, good and evil, existed from eternity, and that each principle had created his own world.68 Consequently, as the Albigensian author says, The devil engendered the children o f this world, who are born o f the flesh o f sin, who are born o f blood and o f the will o f the flesh and o f the pleasure o f man’ .69 For the author o f The Book o f the Two Principles, the logic o f this was inescapable. There could not be a single, omnipotent God. ‘For one who knows fully all things that shall come to pass is powerless, in so far as he is self-consistent, to do anything except that which he himself has known from eternity that he shall do.’ Given the evident existence o f evil, it was therefore obvious that a single God would have ‘knowingly and in full awareness created and made His angels o f such imperfection from the beginning that they could in no way escape evil’ . In other words, God would have been ‘the whole cause and origin o f evil - which is obviously to be denied’ .70 Although the literature o f the Cathars shows that they used the same text o f the New Testament as the Catholics and the Waldensians, there was, as a consequence o f these beliefs about creation, one significant difference. According to the orthodox, John 1:3, 4 should be rendered as ‘All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light o f men.’ For those who believed that the material world was the work o f the Devil, this was clearly unacceptable; for the Albigensian author, for example, this passage meant that ‘nothing’ (nihil) had been made without him (i.e. without G od’s involvement), interpreting ‘nothing’ to be the transitory world which contrasted with the true reality which was the creation o f G od.71 Then, the Devil and his angels invaded the heavenly world, did battle with the Archangel Michael, and came away with a third o f the creatures o f God. ‘These he [the Devil]’, says Rainier Sacconi, ‘implants daily in human

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bodies and in those o f lower animals, and also transfers them from one body to another until such time as all shall be brought back to heaven.’72 Rainier is referring here to the idea that souls transmigrated until they reached the body o f a consoled Cathar, preparatory to reintegration with their guardian spirit, although it is not clear how widely accepted this belief was among Cathar intellectuals.73 This devil’s attack seems to be what the Albigensian author is referring to when he speaks o f the spread o f terror in The land o f the living’ .74 The author o f The Book o f the Two Principles uses the Parable o f the Sower from Matthew 13:24-5 to make the same point: ‘The kingdom o f heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field; but while men were asleep, his enemy came by night and oversowed cockle among the wheat, and went his way.’75 Here was another funda­ mental question - that o f how angels could have sinned - which equally exercised contemporary Catholic theologians.76 For the Cathars it followed that G od’s angels in no way had free will, for God ‘would have known that from this cause alone His kingdom would be corrupted’ . The corruption therefore was the consequence o f this invasion o f evil.77 For the author o f The Book of the Two Principles, therefore, there would be no cataclysmic Last Judgement at some arbitrary point in the future, where all would be judged in accordance with their actions based on free will. On the contrary, the finite number o f souls which had been entrapped would all eventually be delivered from their prisons and only then would the material world come to an end. Otherwise, ‘there would be an untold multitude o f children o f all races, four years o f age or less, and an astonishing multitude o f the dumb, the deaf, and the simple-minded, none o f whom were ever able to do penance, none o f whom had from God in any measure either the ability or knowledge to do good’ . For the author this was manifestly absurd.78 The Cathars accepted the Trinity, but not as one God, for ‘the Father is greater than the Son and than the Holy Spirit’ .79 Salvation came through Christ. What the Cathars actually understood by this however is difficult to interpret. Using the text from Matthew 26:31, ‘For it is written, “ I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep o f the flock shall be dispersed” ’, the author o f The Book o f the Two Principles explained that God ‘ “ struck” His Son by enduring His death’ because he ‘was unable in a better way to deliver His people from the power o f the enemy’ . He did not, he stressed, ‘by His own act absolutely and directly strike His Son Jesus Christ’ .80 Both Rainier Sacconi and Moneta o f Cremona say that the Cathars did not

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believe that the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection had literally taken place. Christ did not, says Rainier Sacconi, ‘acquire human nature in reality but only its semblance from the Blessed Virgin, who, they say, was an angel. Neither did he really eat, drink, or suffer, nor was he really dead and buried, nor was His resurrection real, but all these things were in appearance only’ .81 However, Bernard Hamilton has recently argued that, while this was the Cathar belief about the role o f Christ in this world, they nevertheless believed that these events really had occurred in the other world, that is the ‘Land o f the Living’ .82 ‘The tribulation and persecution and passion and death o f our Lord Jesus Christ’ , says The Book of the Two Principles, in a section which consists almost entirely o f biblical quotation, ‘ . . . is manifestly displayed in Holy Scriptures’ .83 It is not easy to discern how widespread this view was among the Cathars. Rainier Sacconi saw it as a particular tenet o f John o f Lugio, ‘that Christ was born according to the flesh o f the fathers o f old, just named [i.e. the Old Testament prophets], and that He really assumed flesh from the Blessed Virgin and really suf­ fered, was crucified, dead, and buried, and rose again on the third day, but he thinks that all these things took place in another, higher world, not in this one’ .84 According to Sacconi, John o f Lugio believed that the other world was entirely comparable with the visible realm: ‘marriages, fornica­ tions and adulteries take place there, from which children are born’ .85 As the copious quotation deployed by the Cathar writers shows, the heretics rested their arguments exclusively upon certain books o f the Bible. Rainier Sacconi says that they believed that the devil was the author o f the Old Testament, ‘except these books: Job, the Psalms, the books o f Solomon, o f Jesus son o f Sirach, o f Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezeckiel, Daniel, and o f the twelve prophets. Some o f these, they say, were written in heaven, to wit, those which were written before the destruction o f Jerusalem, which, they say, was the heavenly land’ .86 In keeping with his view that ‘whatever in the whole Bible is stated to have been in this world he changes to have actually taken place in that other world’, John o f Lugio dissented from this, accepting the whole o f the Old Testament and, indeed, that all the patriarchs and the prophets were ‘pleasing to G od’, but that ‘they were men in another world’ .87 As Hamilton points out, John o f Lugio’s school nevertheless understood the version o f creation in the Old Testament to be the work o f the devil, even though they did not ascribe this part o f the Old Testament to diabolic origin.88 They found it inconceivable that the God

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TEACHING

o f the Old Testament^ who had ‘caused the manifest and merciless destruc­ tion o f so many men and women with all their children’, could be the same as the true creator.89

Moral and ethical teaching Apart from the anonymous exposition o f the nature o f the true Church, L a Gleisa de Dio, which is exceptional in that it is probably to be dated to the third quarter o f the fourteenth century, none o f the surviving Cathar writ­ ings set down their moral code in any systematic or detailed way although, as has been seen, the Occitan Ritual reiterated what the Cathars saw as basic New Testament commandments (the prohibitions on adultery, killing, lying, oath-taking, and stealing). The Ritual also contains guidance on the practical application o f some o f these beliefs for perfecti who are travelling from place to place. Therefore, for example,

i f theyfin d some personal belonging along the road, let them not touch it unless they know that they can return it. I f they see that persons to whom the object may be returned have passed that way ahead o f them, let them take it to return it i f they can. I f this is not possible, they should p ut it back in the place where it was found. 90 Catholic writers saw matters differently. They were familiar with Cathar ethical and moral teaching and, indeed, many had observed the behaviour o f the perfecti at first hand. Nevertheless, few were prepared to accept it at face value. One o f the most virulent was the Cistercian, Peter o f Les Vauxde-Cernay, whose close connection with the Albigensian Crusade hardened his already uncompromising stance on the heretics.

The ‘perfected’ heretics wore a black robe, claimed (falsely) to practise chastity, and renounced meat, eggs and cheese. They wished it to appear that they were not liars although they lied, especially about God, almost unceasingly! They also said that no one should take oaths fo r any reason. The term cbelievers’ was applied to those who lived a secular existence and did not try to copy the way o f life o f the ‘perfected’, but hoped that by following their faith they would attain salvation; they were separated in the way they lived, but united in their beliefs - or rather unbelief! Those called ‘believers’ were dedicated to usury, robbery, murder and illicit love

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- and to all kinds o f perjury and perversity; indeed they felt they could sin in safety and without restraint, because they believed they could be saved without restitution o f what they had stolen and without confession and penitence, so long as they were able to recite the Lord’s prayer and ensure a claying-on o f hands’ by their masters, in the fin al moments o f their lives. Among his other points he reported that ‘some o f the heretics declared that no one could sin from the navel downwards; they characterised images in churches as idolatry; they maintained that church bells were the trumpets o f devils; and they said that it was no greater sin for a man to sleep with his mother or his sister than with any other woman’ .91 Rainier Sacconi was more sophisticated in his presentation, but equally outraged by what he saw as the Cathar indifference to sins committed before their consolamentum and their consequent rejection o f the Catholic system o f penance involving contrition, confession, and works. After the consolamentum , he says, they make no restitution for past usury, theft, or rapine, leaving any gains from these activities to their relatives.92 N ot all were as consistently antagonistic as Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay though. The Franciscan James Capelli, for example, shows a willingness to take a more objective view. Although hostile to 6the ferocious rabies o f the heretics’, he nevertheless affirmed their adherence to chastity and to dietary restrictions and fasts. Rumours o f sexual orgies were quite false, he said; their gatherings were for preaching, confession, and prayer. Both Capelli and Sacconi agreed that they refused to eat meat, eggs, fowls, and cheese.93 Sacconi says that this was because they were ‘begotten o f coition’, although it may be that it had more to do with Cathar belief in the transmigration o f souls to warm-blooded creatures, inducing a consideration for animal life among them 94 This would answer the question posed by the Cistercian theologian, Alan o f Lille, in the late twelfth century, who thought it illogical for them to eat fish, which were also the product o f generation.95 Over and above the dietary prohibitions, it was also admitted that the Cathar perfecti were expected to endure rigorous fasts; according to Anselm o f Alessandria, three days per week on bread and water, as well as three forty-day fasts in the course o f the year 96 Naturally, a Church which believed in the continuity o f the Old and New Testaments was for the Cathars, as for the Bogomils, an object, first, o f distaste, and then, after the crusade, o f hatred. According to Moneta o f

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Cremona, the Cathars believed that almost all o f what is found in Revelations 1 6 ,1 7 , and the first part o f 19, applied to the Catholic Church:

For they interpret cthe beast* and cthe woman* as references to the Roman Church. The beast, we read, was scarlet; likewise, we fin d in verse 4 that the woman was clothed with C scarlet and purple, and g ilt withhold, and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand\ These words are applicable to the lord pope, who is the head o f the Roman Church. The woman cdrunk with the blood o f the saints* (verse 6) is referred to in the same connection. This symbol they attach to the Rom an Church because it orders their death, fo r they believe that they are sain ts?7

Popular Cathar belief Moneta may have derived some o f his information about Cathar views o f the Roman Church from the testimonies o f witnesses before the inquisi­ tors, for important and well-educated Cathars deposed before the tribunals in both France and Italy. However, the inquisitors also swept up many more ordinary believers, whose answers to questions on belief offer some idea o f the way dualism was understood at a popular level, as well as sug­ gesting the content o f the preaching o f the perfecti to their supporters. Among Cathar supporters in Languedoc, not surprisingly, less effort was expended in the attempt to unravel the origins o f evil power than was the case with the intellectuals. The most important messages which were absorbed were the attribution o f the material world to the Devil and, in turn, the identification o f the Catholic Church with that materialism. It has been suggested, indeed, that the reason for the greater unity o f the Cathar Church in Languedoc lies in its lack o f doctrinal dogmatism, which is in sharp contrast to the quarrels among the Italians. In this view, the example set by the lifestyle o f the perfecti was more important than dualistic belief as such.98 It is probable that Nicetas’s absolute dualism was comprehended more fully among the leaders o f the Cathars in southern France than it was by the majority o f the believers: an anonymous treatise describing the heretics o f Languedoc, probably dating from the early years o f the Albigensian Crusade, while outlining their belief in absolute dualism, nevertheless also says that some o f them believed in one god, who had two sons, ‘Christ and the prince o f this world’ .99

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William Faure o f Pechhermer, who appeared before Bernard o f Caux at Toulouse during November and December 1243, offers a pertinent case history, since he not only testified himself, but was one o f a group o f men who discussed these issues, a circumstance known to others. Moreover, he admitted that he had been involved with heretics for as long as he could remember; he had believed their errors, as he put it, ‘as soon as he could distinguish between good and evil’ . References in the document suggest he was unlikely to have been younger than his early forties at the time o f his deposition, so his testimony and those o f the other witnesses are relevant to most o f the earlier thirteenth century. H e had often assisted at heretical gatherings in Toulouse and in the area to the north in and around Castelsarrasin and Moissac, and he had been a witness o f ‘a disputation’ about faith between three bonhommes and two priests in a house at Castelsarrasin some twenty-five years before. Marriage to Bernarde, a woman who did not share his views, apparently made no difference, except that he had often shouted at her because o f it. He said that he had heard the heretics preaching that God did not make visible things, that baptism and marriage were o f no value, that the consecrated host was not the body o f Christ, and that there was no resurrection o f the dead.100 According to another witness, John Vital, William was among those seen celebrating the news o f the murder o f the inquisitors at the village o f Avignonet (south­ east o f Toulouse) in May 1242, by a band emanating from the Pyrenean fortress o f M ontsegur.101 These included William’s nephew, William Audebert, a man who had, according to John Vital, ‘written a great deal’ about Cathar belief, and who had explained to him what he called the truth o f the Upper and Lower Worlds.

On a certain day, while the Lord was preaching in the sky to his people, a messenger came to him from earth, saying that he would lose this world unless he sent someone a t once, and the Lord immediately sent Lucibel to this world, and received him fo r a brother, and afterw ards Lucibel wished to have a p art of the Lower and Upper possessions, and the Lord did not wish it, and on this account there was a war fo r a long time. Thus, as a consequence o f pride, conflict still continues between them every day.102 A third witness, William Feraut, had been present when, some years earlier, in 1234, William Faure had discussed the issue o f salvation in this world, while at the house o f a John o f Toulouse, where William

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Audcbert was lying ill. ‘When God saw the poverty o f his kingdom on account o f the fall o f the evil spirits’) said William Faure,

he asked those around him, ‘Does anyone wish to be my true son and that I be his fath er \ and when no one replied, Christ, who was the bailli of God, replied, CI wish to be your son and I will go wherever you shall send me’, and then God, as i f [he were] his son, sent Christ to the world to preach the name o f God, and thus Christ came. William Audebert was not too ill to make his own contribution, in which he showed an appreciation o f the Cathar belief in two parallel worlds. The heretics taught, he said, that oxen and roncins grazed and ploughed the soil and worked on the sky as on earth.103 Such conversations were not uncommon among the believers o f Castelsarrasin and there is no reason to believe that this town was untypical. Aymeric o f Naregina had said that God had not come in the Blessed Virgin, but had adumbrated himself; nor had he instituted the mass, which was the invention o f the cardinals and the clergy ‘for the love o f the great obla­ tions’ . Sometimes, it was simply part o f everyday gossip, as in the following explanation o f the creation o f man overheard in the market-place:

the devil made man from the clay o f the land, and said to God that he should send a soul to man, and God said to the devil he will be stronger than me and you i f he is made of clay, but make him from the mud o f the sea, and the devil made him from the mud o f the sea, and God said, he is good, fo r he is not too strong and not too weak, and God sent a soul to m an.104 Discussion o f this kind remained frequent despite the attentions o f the inquisitors. In 1274 Guillelma, wife o f Thomas o f St Flour, a carpenter from Toulouse, alleged that her neighbours, Fabrissa and her daughter, Philippa, regularly sheltered heretics, both male and female. Guillelma claimed that Fabrissa had said that Lucifer made man and God had told him to make man speak. Lucifer replied that he could not do this, ‘so God breathed in the man’s mouth, and the man spoke’ . Moreover, she had heard Fabrissa speak ill o f the clergy, saying that their teaching was in bad faith and that it was untrue for them to say that ‘they gave the bread which was the body o f G od’ . On a number o f occasions, Fabrissa and Philippa had planned to go secretiy to Lombardy (with which they had contact through

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the heretics who frequently stayed with them) in order to perform penance, but they had never done so. These women lived in houses attached to each other and it seems unlikely that Fabrissa would have allowed heretics to stay if Guillelma had not been trustworthy or even complicit, so this testimony suggests that at some time they must have quarrelled. Perhaps the key to it lay in the Cathar view o f the creation o f new material bodies. When Guillelma was pregnant, Fabrissa had apparently told her that ‘she should ask God to free her from the demon which she had in her belly’ .105 I f the testimony o f 1274 seems more simplistic than that o f 1243-44, it was not only because it might have stemmed from antagonism between neighbours. By the 1270s the pressures brought to bear by the inquisitors, the monarchy, and the new count, the king’s brother, Alphonse o f Poitiers, combined with a series o f failed attempts at resistance, had largely broken up the Cathar hierarchy in Languedoc.106 Those who had survived had fled to Lombardy, as Fabrissa indicates, so there was no core o f perfecti the believers could turn to for guidance. However, in 1299, two brothers, notaries from the Pyrenean spa town o f Ax, Peter and William Autier, hav­ ing been to Italy for several years’ instruction and training, returned to the county o f Foix and began a new preaching campaign in an effort to revive their ailing faith. Although this lasted for barely a decade, it was suffici­ ently vigorous to have a real impact upon the rural society o f the northern Pyrenees south o f Foix and Carcassonne, an impact which can be seen in the depositions made before James Fournier, Bishop o f Pamiers, recorded between 1318 and 1325.107 One witness, Sibylla, wife o f Raymond Peter, a farmer from the Sabarthes region in the upper Ariege valley, lived in the village o f Arques, a substantial village, south-east o f Limoux, situated in the valley o f the River Sals, a tributary o f the Aude. Drawn into Catharism by her husband’s interest, she was able to give first-hand accounts o f the teaching o f the Autiers and their circle in the early years o f the fourteenth century, some 130 years after Nicetas had furnished the Cathar Church in the West with new doctrines and a systematic organisation. Sibylla and Raymond Peter were familiar with both the heretics’ conver­ sation and their more formal preaching, for they stayed at their house and were frequent visitors to others in the village. N ot surprisingly, given the circumstances in which they found themselves, the Autiers were particularly vehement about the Roman Church. The priests were ‘evil men . . . since although they taught the way o f God, nevertheless they departed from the

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way and despoiled and stole everything which men had’ . In d eed ,6they did not say masses nor do anything except for money’ . Since they did not live properly, 6they had lost the power o f absolving from sins’ .108 On another occasion, the Autiers had compared the Roman clergy to a cow, which does good by delivering milk, but then destroys it by placing her foot in the milk vessel or kicking it over. In contrast, the Autiers represented the Church o f God, for ‘the other Church was a house o f id o ls,. . . and they said that adoring such images was fatuous, since the images themselves were made with axes and other metal tools’ .109 But the Cathar Church o f the early fourteenth century was not based on mere anti-clericalism, for the positive teaching on creation remained. The technique o f the Autiers was for one o f them to read from a book, while the other explained what it meant in the vernacular; in this case, Peter’s son, James, did the reading and Peter made the exposition.110 One evening, Peter had told them that ‘in the beginning the celestial Father had made all the spirits and souls in Heaven’, but then the d evil cam e to the g a te o f p arad ise , w ishing to en ter there, b u t he w as not able to, re m ain in g a t the g a te fo r a thousand years; then he frau d u le n tly entered p a ra d ise an d , when he w as there, p ersu ad ed the sp irits a n d souls m ade by the celestial F ath er th at it w as not goo d fo r them, since they were subject to the celestial F ath er, b u t i f they wished to follow him a n d g o to his w orld, he could g iv e them possessions, nam ely field s, vineyards, g o ld a n d silver, wives, a n d other goo d th in gs o f the visible w orld.

Many o f the souls and spirits were seduced by this and fell from heaven for nine days and nine nights until God, seeing that he had been almost deserted, put his foot upon the hole through which they had fallen, and said to those who remained that from now on if any others left ‘they would never have pause or rest’ . As for those who had already fallen, they would be allowed to return, although it would be a difficult and prolonged pro­ cess for those spirits o f bishops and other great clerics, who had knowingly deserted, whereas those o f simple men (and here the Autiers must have been very aware o f their audience), who had been more or less tricked out o f heaven, would be able to return quickly and easily. After their fall the spirits remembered the good they had lost and were sad about the evil they had found. The Devil saw that they were sad and

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told them that they should sing a canticle to the Lord, as they had been accustomed to do, but they replied ‘how could they sing a canticle to the Lord in an alien land?’ Then one o f the spirits asked the Devil why he had deceived them into following him when all could now return to heaven, but the Devil replied that they would not be returning to heaven, ‘since he had made for the spirits and souls such a husk ( tunica) from which they could not escape, and in these husks the spirits would forget all the good and joys which they had had in heaven’ . The Devil then made bodies, but he was unable to make them move, so he asked God to do this for him. God consented only on condition that what he placed in the bodies, which enabled them to move, belonged to him; consequendy, ‘since then souls are o f God and bodies are o f the Devil’ . N o one could be saved unless ‘he had been touched by the hand o f the good Christians, that is the heretics, and had been received by them’ . Without this the souls or spirits would pass from body to body until they reached one which had been received by the good Christians ‘and when they left that body, they would return to heaven’ . This seems to have been considered enough for one session. The Autiers ended by telling anecdotes about the transmigration o f souls, including one which they had often repeated about a man who had pre­ viously been a horse and was able to prove it by identifying the place in the mountains where he had once lost a shoe. This amused the company and seems to have been part o f their repertoire aimed at lightening the mood at the end o f an evening o f serious preaching and instruction, a tech­ nique not dissimilar from that used by contemporary Dominicans and Franciscans.111 They then performed the meliommentum , ‘adoring’ (as the inquisitors preferred to express it) the heretics three times and receiving the blessing in return. The following evening the Autiers developed these themes further. It was not worthy to believe that ‘the Son o f God was born o f a woman, or that the Son o f God adumbrated himself in a thing so vile as a woman’ . Peter Autier said that ‘he who was called the Son o f St Mary came to earth and preached, but nevertheless did not eat or drink, nor experience hunger or thirst or cold or heat’ . Then the Jews crucified him, but he suffered no harm, since he was only ‘apparently’ crucified. He did not die or suffer, but he disappeared and was believed to be dead. He ascended to the celestial Father ‘from whom he obtained that he could give his disciples power that what they should do on earth be done by the celestial Father in heaven’ .

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Returning to the disciples after three days, he said to them that he had given them nothing and that they should ask, ‘since he would give to them’ . But when one o f them asked that they should be without fear and evil in the world, Christ said that he could not grant this since ‘as he had had evil in the world, it was necessary that they should also have it’ . Then one o f the disciples, representing all o f them, asked that he should grant that what they do on earth be done in heaven and ‘the same for others who came after them until the end o f the world’ . Peter Autier saw himself as one o f these successors.112 These views had implications for the behaviour o f contemporary Cathars. They should not revere the cross or images o f the crucifixion or other images o f the saints, ‘since such images were idols, and as a man ought to break with an axe gallows on which the father o f that man had been hung, so ought they to endeavour to break crosses since, according to appearances, Christ was suspended on the cross’ . He told them too that the Catholic baptism was not valid as it was done with water which was material and accompanied by many lies, for a child cannot consent when it did not have ‘the use o f reason’ . Only their baptism o f the Holy Spirit, given to adults, was good. In the sacrament o f the altar, there was only bread and wine, and ‘he added derisively that if the said sacrament was the body o f Christ and was as great as the mountain o f Bugarach [a well-known peak in the Aude], there were so many chaplains that they had already eaten it, nor would it be sufficient for them’ .113 Good matrimony was when ‘our soul was joined to God through good will, and that was the sacrament o f matrimony’ . In contrast, ‘carnal matrimony’ was not matrimony at all, and carnal intercourse between husband and wife was ‘always a sin’, even more than if a man had intercourse with a woman who was a stranger, as carnal acts between those who were married were more frequent and therefore engendered greater shame. Hasty anger was not a sin, but it was better that men conducted their affairs and work through discussion together. H e also said that since men ate meat, it made litde difference whether they ate it one day or another as it was just as much a sin. Peter Autier drew all this together around the theme o f salvation and the end o f the world. Those who were saved through their hands, that is through the Cathar Church, would never return to the flesh or to this world, for there never had been resurrection o f the flesh. ‘After the end o f the world the whole visible world would be full o f fire, sulphur, and pitch, and it would burn, and this was

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called the inferno. But all the souls o f men would then be in paradise, and one soul would have as great a good in heaven as another, and all would be one.’114 Such a detailed presentation from a believer, herself a peasant who was almost certainly illiterate, shows that, in this case at least, the Autiers had been highly successful. Despite claiming from time to time that she did not remember certain things that had been said, Sibylla o f Arques nevertheless shows a remarkable recall o f the basic teaching which had been conveyed to her in the course o f two evenings. When comparison is made both with the intellectual expositions o f Catharism and with earlier deposition evi­ dence, it seems clear that the Autiers, if only for a brief period, managed to sustain the content and level o f past teaching, belief, and morality in the Cathar Church, even though their Italian training seems to have infused them with something o f a mixture o f mitigated and absolute dualism.115 There is no doubt that some o f those whom they hereticated failed to reach these standards116 - and indeed the lack o f suitable personnel remained a major weakness o f the early-fourteenth-century Cathar Church - but it is difficult, nevertheless, to argue that Cathar belief was ‘decadent’ while the Autiers lived. Although Sibylla o f Arques’s witness is admittedly late evi­ dence o f popular Cathar belief, it is arguably a valid reflection o f what it had meant to most o f the populace since the last quarter o f the twelfth century. On one issue, however, historians have claimed that there had been a change in attitude, which is on the question o f the en d u m , or ‘the suicide’ o f those who had received the consolctm entum }17 This was later to cause Sibylla o f Arques much misery when Trades Tavernier, one o f the perfecti o f the Autier circle, hereticated her infant daughter, although as Peter Autier clearly regarded Trades as having acted wrongly in this case, it cannot be said that giving the consolctm entum to infants was approved practice in the contemporary Cathar Church.118 Jean Duvernoy is undoubtedly correct in saying that the en d u m was not a special rite and that, in most cases, it was simply ‘the normal consequence o f the consolctm entum ' in that some dying believers survived for long periods after receiving the consolctm entum ,119 Usually, they did not expect to take anything other than water, but if they broke their fast, they would need to be re-consoled. As the numbers o f the p erfecti in Languedoc in the second half o f the thirteenth century dwindled, it was increasingly difficult to find another opportunity to do

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A TTRA CTIO N

OF C A T H A R ISM

this, so there was more pressure to maintain their abstinence after c. 1250, a situation which may convey the impression that the endum was a pecu­ liarity o f late Catharism when it was not actually the case. In one sense it depends upon how suicide is defined. Rainier Sacconi argued that this could be done passively. ‘Since many o f them when ill have sometimes asked those who nursed them not to put any food or drink into their mouths if the invalids could not at least say the Lord’s Prayer, it is quite evident that many o f them commit suicide.’ 120 This does not preclude the possibility that some believers chose deliberately to let themselves die in an action akin to a hunger strike: the woman from Coustaussa (south o f Limoux in the Aude) who, in c. 1300, fled from her husband and went to stay at the house o f Sibylla den Balle, a well-known Cathar supporter who lived at Ax in the Sabarthes, where she took twelve weeks to die, may be such a case, since there is no mention o f illness.121 In this she was surely not dissimilar to some ascetics in the monastic world.

The attraction of Catharism As they could find no virtue or truth in them, Catholic writers waste litde time trying to discern the attraction o f these doctrines to those o f their contemporaries who adhered to them. To them Cathar supporters were either fools or dupes, or probably both. The Piacenzan layman, Salvo Burci, writing in 1235, commenting on the Cathar practice o f breaking bread, thought it inconceivable that anyone could believe that Christ would have done this at the Last Supper if the bread had been created by the Devil. ‘How well even dullards may see that you are the worst o f heretics!’122 Even James Capelli believed that people had been fooled by ‘cunning serpents’ : ‘Because no truth adheres to the pernicious traditions o f the heretics, they flavour them in consequence with a certain seasoning o f simulated virtue so that the underlying poison is less perceptible through the pleasing sweetness o f the honey.’ 123 T o him ‘the underlying poison’ was obvious, but for many believers what he calls the ‘simulated virtue’ o f the Cathars seemed completely genuine. When the moral probity o f the perfecti was presented within a familiar context it is not difficult to understand the attraction to contemporaries. Borst has pointed out the parallels with the Catholic Church which provided that context: penitence (confession), confirmation ( consolamentum ), extreme unction (consolamentum for the

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dying), and priests (perfecti). Institutions such as dioceses, patterns o f the year in determining periods o f fasting, and the cults o f relics and prayers for the dead reflected in the memorial o f martyrs and the use o f their own cemeteries, all provided the comfort o f recognition.124 Although often denied by the polemicists on both sides, the extent to which the Catholic and Cathar worlds overlapped was often considerable. It might be thought that, for instance, Cathars would be uninterested in what happened to their earthly bodies after death, yet their use both o f local Catholic cemeteries and o f their own burial grounds contradicts this, while the inquisitors cannot have been wrong in every case when they ordered the disinterment and burning o f the bodies o f the dead, suspected o f heresy.125 Moreover, the Cathar stress on the Gospels in their preaching offered, as Raoul Manselli puts it, a yardstick by which the behaviour o f the Catholic priests could be measured, and in that sense did not invariably appear very different from reformist preachers within the Roman Church itself. Reinforced with colourful myths explaining the creation o f the world, it is not difficult to see the relevance o f Cathar evangelism to the daily lives o f many contemporaries. Even if Cathar theology did derive from a past dualistic tradition (and, as has been seen, many historians do not accept that it did), this need not have been o f great concern to many members o f the audience o f the Cathar preachers.126 This is, to an extent, encapsulated in the story told by William Pelhisson, a Dominican inquisitor from Toulouse, who describes how, on the Feast Day o f St Dominic, 5 August 1234, the friars had just finished celebrating mass in their house in the city, when a citizen came to tell Raymond o f Le Fauga, the Dominican Bishop o f Toulouse, that some heretics had been seen entering the house o f a sick woman who lived in a street nearby. This turned out to be the mother-in-law o f a man called Peitavin Boursier, apparently known for his services to heretics. The bishop hurried to the house and ‘seating himself beside the invalid, began to talk to her at length about contempt for the world and for earthly things and, perhaps because she understood what had been said to mean that it was the bishop o f heretics who visited her, for she had already been hereticated, she freely responded to the bishop in all things’. It is not surprising that the old lady was confused but, even when he revealed who he was, she remained obsti­ nate. The appropriate authorities were called and she was taken out o f the house, still in her bed, and was burned to death in a field outside the city.127

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REFERENCES

It would be superficial to argue that the majority o f Cathar adherents were attracted simply by what they saw as a Church similar to that o f Rome, but staffed by a better-behaved and less demanding elite, important as this was in gaining support. Sibylla o f Arques was a peasant woman from a small village in the Razes, far removed from the world o f men like John o f Lugio or Rainier Sacconi, yet she listened to and absorbed the teaching o f Peter Autier and his son, itself based on intensive study by literate and intelligent men among the Lombard Cathars. Women like Sibylla were not as dull as men like Salvo Burci liked to think. The attraction o f Catharism lay not only in the transparent morality o f most o f the perfecti, but also in the asser­ tion that the consolamentum would enable their souls to be readmitted to the heavenly kingdom and thus escape the miseries o f the world.128 Moreover, in an era when the Catholic Church itself vigorously promoted the cult o f the Virgin and the life o f the human Christ, the identification o f this figure with the avenging Jehovah o f the Old Testament was always likely to create problems for many thinking persons, whether they were peasants or lords.

Notes and references 1

2

Gervase o f Canterbury, The H istorical Works o f Gervase o f Canterbury, vol. 1, in The Chronicles o f the Reigns o f Stephen, Henry I I an d R ichard 7, ed. W. Stubbs (Rolls Series, 73) (Lon don , 1 879), p. 2 7 0 . See p. 54. B. H am ilton, ‘The Cathar Council o f Saint-Felix reconsidered’ , Archivum

Fratrum Praedicatorum 4 8 (1 9 7 8 ), pp. 3 1 -2 . 3

De heresi catharorum in Lom bardia , in A. D ondaine, ‘L a H ierarchic cathare en Italic, I ,’ Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 19 (1 9 4 9 ), p. 3 0 6 ; trans. W E, no. 2 3 , p. 160; Anselm o f Alessandria, Tractatus de haereticis, in A. D ondaine, ‘L a Hierarchic cathare en Italic, I I ’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 2 0 (1 9 5 0 ), p. 3 0 9 ; trans. W E, no. 2 4 , p. 169.

4

H am ilton, ‘Cathar C ouncil’ , pp. 2 6 - 7 . A lthough there is considerable debate about the nature and purpose o f this council, m ost historians accept that it took place. H ow ever, there is dissent: M . G. P egg, A Most Holy War:

The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle fo r Christendom (O xford and N ew York, 2 0 0 8 ), pp. 2 2 , 1 6 8 - 7 1 , 1 91, does not believe that there was ever an organised ‘Cathar Church’; see pp. 3 2 -3 , n. 3.

. 117 .

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5

Ibid., p. 52; E. Griffe, Les Debuts de Paventure cathare en Languedoc

(1140-90) (Paris, 1 9 6 9 ), pp. 6 7 - 7 6 . P. Jim enez-Sanchez, ‘Relire la charte de N iquinta’ , Heresis 22 (1 9 9 4 ), p. 18, regards the case for reading ‘agenense’ in place o f ‘aranense’ as not proven. 6

H am ilton, ‘Cathar C ouncil’ , pp. 4 2 , 5 2 - 3 .

7

See C . Taylor, Heresy in Medieval France: Dualism in A quitaine and the A genais, 1000-1249 (Lon d on , 2 0 0 5 ), pp. 166, 1 7 9 - 8 0 , 2 2 5 - 6 0 , and m aps 1 and 2.

8

See pp. 2 0 - 1 .

9

De heresi catharorum , pp. 3 0 7 - 8 ; trans. W E, no. 2 3 , pp. 1 6 2 -3 .

10

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus de Lugduno , in A. D ondaine, Un Traite neo-manicheen du X H Ie siecle: Le Liber du duobusprincipiis, suivi d ’un fragm ent de rituel cathare (R om e, 1 9 3 9 ), p. 70 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 336.

11

H am ilton, ‘Cathar C ouncil’ , pp. 3 8 -4 0 .

12

D ondaine, Un Traite neo-manicheen du X H Ie siecle, p. 62.

13

Anselm o f Alessandria, Tractatus de haereticis, p. 3 0 8 ; trans. W E, no. 2 4 , p. 168.

14

De heresi catharorum , p. 312; trans. W E, no. 2 3 , p. 167; PVC, vol. 1, para. 14, pp. 1 5 -1 6 ; trans. Sibly, p. 7 ; Salvo Burci, Liber Suprastella , ed. C. Bruschi (Fonti per la storia d ’ltalia medievale. Antiquitates, 15) (R om e, 2 0 0 2 ), Chap. XXXIV , Section 1 27, pp. 3 4 9 - 5 0 , trans. W E, no. 4 5 (B ), pp. 2 7 3 - 4 .

15

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 6 8 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 335. See A. Borst, Die K atharer (Schriften der M onum enta Germaniae historica) (Stuttgart, 1 9 5 3 ), pp. 2 0 2 - 1 3 , on the hierarchy. For the evidence for a Cathar hierarchy in a specific area, see C . Taylor, Heresy,

Crusade and Inquisition in M edieval Quercy (W oodbridge, 2 0 1 1 ), pp. 1 9 9 -2 0 2 . 16

Jam es Capelli, Summ a contra haereticos, in D . Bazzocchi, ed., L a Eresia catara: appendice (B ologn a, 1 9 2 0 ), pp. C X X XV II-C X X XV TII; trans. W E, no. 4 9 , pp. 3 0 2 - 3 . T he rather com plicated manuscript history o f this material means that it is not certain that Capelli was the author.

17

B. H am ilton, ‘The Cathars and Christian perfection’ , in P. Biller and R. B. D ob son , eds, The M edieval Church: Universities, Heresy and the Religious Life. Essays in Honour o f Gordon Lejf, Studies in Church History: Subsidia 11 (W oodbridge, 1 9 9 9 ), p. 16. See the Occitan Ritual, L. Cledat, ed., Le

Nouveau Testament trad u it au X H Ie siecle en langue provengale, suivi d ’un rituel cathare (Paris, 1 8 8 7 ), p. X II; trans. W E, no. 5 7 (B ), p. 4 8 6 . 18

A. Brenon, Les Femmes Cathares (Paris, 1 9 9 2 ), pp. 1 2 2 - 3 1 , 9 1 , on female houses; B orst, D ie K atharer , p. 2 1 1 , on speculation by historians about

. 118 •

NOTES

AND

REFERENCES

deaconesses; for the early Church practices, see E. Livingstone, ed., The

Oxford Dictionary o f the Christian Churchy 3rd edn (O xford, 1 9 9 7 ), p. 4 5 6 ; for research on the extent o f active involvement o f the perfectae, see R. Abels and E. H arrison, ‘The Participation o f W omen in Languedocian Catharism ’ , M edieval Studies 41 (1 9 7 9 ), pp. 2 2 6 -7 . 19 20

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 6 9 ; trans. W E, no. 51, pp. 3 3 5 - 6 . Latin: D ondaine, Un Traite neo-manicheen du X H Ie siecle, pp. 1 5 1 -6 5 ; trans. W E, no. 57(A ), pp. 4 6 8 - 8 3 . Occitan: C ledat, ed., Le Nouveau Testament trad u it au X H Ie siecle, pp. IX -X X V I; trans. W E, no. 5 7 (B ), pp. 4 8 3 - 9 4 .

21

Eckbert o f Schonau, Sermones contra haereticos, in PL, vol. 1 95, pp. 5 1 - 5 ; PV C , vol. 1, paras 14, 19, pp. 1 5 -1 6 , 1 9 - 2 0 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 7, 8 - 9 .

22

Jam es Capelli, Summ a contra haereticos, p. C X X X V III; trans. W E, no. 4 9 , p. 3 03; Anselm o f Alessandria, Tractatus de haereticis, pp. 3 1 3 - 1 4 ; trans. W E, no. 54, pp. 3 6 5 - 7 ; Bernard G ui, M anuel de PInquisiteur, ed. and trans. G. M ollat, vol. 1 (Paris, 1 9 2 6 ), pp. 1 2 -1 5 ; trans. W E, no. 5 5 , p. 3 8 3 , and Bernard G ui, The Inquisitor’s Guide: A Medieval M anual on Heretics, tr. J. Shirley (Welwyn Garden City, 2 0 0 6 ), pp. 4 0 - 1 .

23

See pp. 4 3 - 4 , and J. Feuchter, Ketzer, Konsuln und Biifier: Die stadtischen

Eliten von M ontauban vor dem Inquisitor Petrus C ellani (1236/1241) (Spatm ittelalter, H um anism us, Reform ation, 4 0 ) (Tubingen, 2 0 0 7 ), pp. 2 1 8 - 2 0 . 24

B. H am ilton, ‘W isdom from the E ast’ , in P. Biller and A. H u dso n , eds,

Heresy and Literacy , 1000-1530 (C am bridge, 1 9 9 4 ), pp. 4 6 - 9 . 25

See W E, p. 4 6 6 .

26

See ibid., p. 7 7 8 , n. 8.

27

See ibid., p. 4 6 7 .

28

See pp. 2 1 9 - 2 0 , on the issue o f terminal illness.

29

See the reference by the inquisitor, Bernard G ui, M anuel de PInquisiteur, ed. and trans. M ollat, vol. 1, pp. 2 0 - 3 ; trans. W E, no. 5 5 , p. 3 8 2 , and p. 7 5 6 , n. 5.

30

Jam es Capelli, Summ a contra haereticos, pp. C X L IX -C L ; trans. W E, no. 4 9 , pp. 3 0 3 - 5 , for blessed bread. See Livingstone, ed., Oxford D ictionary o f the Christian Churchy p. 5 2 2 , for eulogia, and H am ilton, ‘ Cathars and Christian perfection’ , pp. 1 7 -1 8 , for bread and prayer. See also A. Brenon, Le V rai

Visage du Catharism e , 2nd edn (Portet-sur-Garonne, 1 9 9 5 ), pp. 8 5 - 6 . 31

See W E, pp. 7 8 0 - 1 , n. 1.

32

H H , no. 2 5 , pp. 1 8 9 -9 0 . See p. 14.

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33

D ondaine, Un Traite neo-manicheen du X H Ie siecle, p. 4 9 . As D ondaine sees it, by this means som e Christians could ‘in all go o d faith believe that they were not renouncing the church o f their fathers, but only com mitting themselves to a m ore perfect state o f Christian life’ .

34

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 6 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 3 4 4 , says that ‘many o f them only recently came to believe correctly about the Blessed John the Baptist, whom they all formerly condem ned’ . This suggests that the Latin version o f the Ritual was that used at C on corezzo in the mid-thirteenth century.

35

The Ritual presupposes that there is a gathering present, but it also allows for the pressures o f circumstance. A t the beginning o f the ministration o f the prayer, the G o od M en wash their hands, and ‘the believers likewise, if there be any’ , Cledat, ed., Le Nouveau Testament trad u it au X H Ie siecle, p. X I; trans. W E, no. 5 7 (B ), p. 4 8 5 .

36

De heresi catharorum , pp. 3 0 7 - 8 ; trans. W E, no. 2 3 , p. 162.

37

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 0 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 336.

38

O n the m ethodology here, see H am ilton, ‘Cathars and Christian perfection’ , p. 6. D espite his great discoveries o f specifically Cathar works, Antoine D ondaine did not believe that ‘the conclusions already drawn from Catholic polem ic ough t to be seriously m odified’ , see ‘N ouvelles sources de l’histoire doctrinale du neo-manicheisme au moyen age’ , Revue des sciences

philosophiques et theologiques 2 8 (1 9 3 9 ), p. 4 8 8 . O n the challenge to the validity o f this type o f evidence, see P. Biller, ‘ Cathars and the Material W orld’ , in P. Clarke and T . Claydon, eds, God’s Bounty? The Churches and

the N atu ral World (Studies in Church H istory, 4 6 ) (W oodbridge, 2 0 1 0 ), pp. 9 1 - 8 , 109. 39

See L. J. Sackville, Heresy and Heretics in the Thirteenth Century. The Textual Representations (W oodbridge, 2 0 1 1 ), pp. 1 3 -1 4 , 3 9 - 4 1 .

40

Bernard Gui, M anuel de I’Inquisiteur, ed. and trans. M ollat, vol. 1, pp. 2 6 - 3 3 ; trans. W E, no. 5 5 , pp. 3 8 4 - 6 , and The Inquisitor’s Guide, trans. Shirley, pp. 4 3 - 6 .

41

L. Paolini, ‘Italian Catharism and written culture’ , in P. Biller and A. H u dson , eds, Heresy and Literacy, 1000-1530 (C am bridge, 1 9 9 4 ), pp. 8 3 - 1 0 3 . See also A. Roach, The Relationship o f the Italian and Southern French Cathars, 1170-1320 (DPhil diss., W olfson C ollege, O xford, 1 9 8 9 ), pp. 4 0 - 4 , w ho stresses the im portance o f the links which this part o f Italy had with the Byzantine and Dalm atian coasts. C ontact between Languedoc and Italy or Byzantium was m uch m ore irregular at this period.

42

See H am ilton, ‘W isdom from the E ast’ , pp. 5 6 - 8 .

• 120 •

NOTES AND

43

REFERENCES

Le Liber de duobus principiis, in A. D ondaine, ed., Un Traite neo-manicheen du X H Ie siecle: Le Liber de duobus principiis, suivi d^un fragm ent de rituel cathare (R om e, 1 9 3 9 ), pp. 9 5 - 7 ; trans. W E, no. 5 9 , pp. 5 3 1 - 3 . See W E, pp. 7 9 4 - 5 , n. 8 4 , for debate on the identity o f M aster William. O n this subject, see P. Biller, ‘T he Cathars o f Languedoc and written materials’ , in P. Biller and A. H u dson , eds, Heresy and Literacy, 1000-1530 (C am bridge, 199 4 ), pp. 6 1 - 8 2 , and L. Paolini, ‘Italian Catharism and written culture’ , pp. 9 5 - 7 . The story o f the Cathars studying in Paris com es from a letter o f Ivo o f N arbonne, a clerk, to Gerald, Archbishop o f Bordeaux, in 1 2 4 3 , reproduced by M atthew Paris. M atthew Paris, Chronica M ajor a, ed. H . R. Luard, vol. 4 (Rolls Series, 5 7 ) (Lon d on , 1 8 7 7 ), pp. 2 7 0 - 1 ; trans. W E, no. 2 7 , pp. 1 8 6 -7 . Ivo claimed inside knowledge derived from his time living with the Lom bard Cathars, when he him self was on the run, having been (unjustly in his opinion) him self accused o f heresy. H ow ever, while his story has been accepted by B orst, Die K atharer , p. 104, J. Duvernoy, Le

Catharism e , vol. 2 , L H istoire des Cathares (T oulouse, 1 9 7 9 ), pp. 1 8 4 - 5 , believes that it has m ore to do with the attem pt by the Imperialists to plant the label o f heresy upon Frederick I I ’s enemies in the cities o f the Lom bard League than with real Catharism . As he shows, the chronology will not stand up, although the concept o f ‘Cathar scholastics’ is not inherently implausible. 44

Caesarius o f H eisterbach, D ialogus M iraculorum , ed. J. Strange, vol. 1 (C ologn e, Bonn, and Brussels, 1 8 5 1 ), p. 3 03. See Sackville, Heresy and Heretics in the Thirteenth Century, pp. 5 4 - 6 0 , for an explanation o f the nature and context o f these exempla.

45

See pp. 1 0 0 -1 ; C . Thouzellier, Un traite cathare inedit du debut du X H Ie siecle d ’apres le Liber contra Manicheos de D urand de Huesca (Louvain, 1 9 6 1 ), pp. 8 7 - 1 1 3 ; trans. W E, no. 58, pp. 4 9 4 - 5 1 0 .

46

O n N azarius, see De heresi catharorum , p. 3 1 2 ; trans. W E, no. 2 3 , p. 167, and Anselm o f Alessandria, Tractatus de haereticis, pp. 3 1 0 - 1 2 ; trans. W E, no. 54, pp. 3 6 2 - 3 . See also H am ilton, ‘W isdom from the E ast’ , p. 55.

47

F or an analysis o f this text, see E. Bozoky, ed., Le Livre secret des cathares:

Interrogatio lohannis, edition critique, traduction, com m entaire (Paris, 1 9 8 0 ), pp. 9 7 - 2 1 7 . See also W E, pp. 4 4 8 - 9 , and H am ilton, ‘W isdom from the E ast’, pp. 5 3 - 6 . 48

H am ilton, ‘W isdom from the E ast’ , p. 5 3 , says Joh n the Divine.

49

See B. H am ilton, Religion in the M edieval West (L o n d on , 1 9 8 6 ), pp. 8 7 - 8 .

50

See W E, p. 7 7 4 , n. 20.

51

See ibid., n. 30.

52

Bozoky, Le Livre secret, pp. 5 8 - 6 3 ; trans. W E, no. 5 6 (B ), pp. 4 5 8 - 6 5 .

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53

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 6 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 344.

54

M oneta o f C rem ona, Adversus Catharos et VM enses libri quinque I

(Descriptio fidei haereticorum), ed. T . A. Ricchini (R om e, 1 7 4 3 ), p. 109; trans. W E, no. 5 0 , p. 317. O n the background and reliability o f M oneta o f Crem ona, see Biller, ‘Cathars and the Material W orld’ , pp. 9 2 - 8 . 55

Anselm o f Alessandria, Tractatus de haereticis, p. 3 1 0 ; trans. W E, no. 54, p. 362.

56

H am ilton, ‘W isdom from the E ast’ , p. 56.

57

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, pp. 7 2 - 6 ; trans. W E, no. 51, pp. 3 3 9 - 4 3 , on John o f Lugio.

58

Le Liber de duobusprincipiis, pp. 1 3 2 - 4 ; trans. W E, no. 5 9 , pp. 5 6 7 - 9 . For the acceptance o f Genesis, see Hamilton, ‘Cathars and Christian perfection’, p. 8.

59

H am ilton, ‘W isdom from the E ast’ , pp. 5 2 - 3 , for the argum ent that it was known before the schism. See W E, no. 56(A ), pp. 4 5 6 - 8 , for a retelling in the early fourteenth century.

60

R. H . Charles, ed., The Ascension o f Isaiah, Translated from the Ethiopic

Version, Which Together with the New Greek Fragm ent, the L atin Versions and the L atin Translation o f the Slavonic, Is Here Published in Full (Lon d on , 1 9 0 0 ), pp. 9 8 - 1 3 9 ; trans. W E, no. 56(A ), pp. 4 4 9 - 5 6 . 61

Thouzellier, Un traite, pp. 1 7 -8 4 . F or a detailed analysis o f the Liber contra Manicheos and its author, see C . Thouzellier, Catharism e et Valdeisme en Languedoc a la fin du X lle et au debut du X H Ie siecle, 2nd edn (Louvain and Paris, 1 9 6 9 ), pp. 3 0 3 - 4 2 4 . In 1208 D urand o f H uesca m ade a profession o f faith and was allowed by the papacy to form a religious society called ‘the Poor Catholics’ . From this base, he and other leading form er Waldensians, such as Erm engaud o f Beziers and Bernard Prim, launched a powerful polemical attack upon the Cathars. See PV C , vol. 1, para. 10, pp. 9 - 1 0 ; trans. Sibly, p. 11, for absolute dualism in Languedoc.

62

W E, p. 7 8 3 , n. 8.

63

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, pp. 7 0 - 1 , 7 6 ; trans. W E, no. 51, pp. 3 3 7 , 343.

64

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, pp. 7 7 , 7 2 ; trans. W E, no. 51, pp. 3 4 5 , 339.

65

Thouzellier, Un traite, pp. 1 0 4 - 5 ; trans. W E, no. 5 8 , p. 5 0 6 ; Le Liber de duobusprincipiis, p. 9 2 ; trans. W E, no. 59, p. 5 2 7 ; Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 2 ; trans. W E, no. 5 1 , p. 339.

66

Thouzellier, Un traite, pp. 8 7 - 9 5 ; trans. W E, no. 5 8 , pp. 4 9 7 - 5 0 0 .

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AND

REFERENCES

Le Liber de duobusprincipiis, p. I l l ; trans. W E, no. 5 9 , p. 5 4 7 ; Thouzellier, Un tm ite, pp. 1 0 1 -2 ; trans. W E, no. 5 8 , pp. 5 0 3 - 4 . Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 1 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 338.

69

Thouzellier, Un tm ite , p. 9 6 ; trans. W E, no. 5 8 , p. 501.

70

Le Liber de duobusprincipiis, p. 8 4 ; trans. W E, no. 5 9 , pp. 5 1 8 -1 9 .

71

Thouzellier, Un tm ite, pp. 1 0 2 - 3 ; trans. W E, no. 5 8 , pp. 5 0 4 - 5 , and com m ent, p. 7 8 7 , n. 1 38, and Brenon, Le Vm i Visage, pp. 5 8 - 6 2 . See also Biller,‘Cathars and the M aterial W orld’ , pp. 8 9 - 1 1 0 , w ho assem bles evidence from both M oneta o f C rem ona and depositions derived from the inquiry o f 1 2 4 5 - 6 to show that the Cathars did not believe that the G o o d G o d had m ade visible things.

72

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 1 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 338. The idea o f a third com es from Revelation 12:4. O n these events, see Borst, D ie K atharer, pp. 1 4 3 -6 .

73

O n transm igration, see R. Poupin, ‘D e m etem psycose en reincarnation ou la transmigration des am es des tem ps cathares a nos jou rs’ , in C EI, pp. 1 4 5 - 6 4 , where it is argued that, as there is no evidence for this in Cathar literature, it was largely a popular belief, presented to convey the idea that the perfects lived on the frontier o f the tenth heaven. Brenon, Le Vmi Visage, pp. 2 8 6 - 9 1 , also thinks that the idea o f transm igration through the bodies o f animals was specific to the ‘ Catharism o f the m ountains’ o f the early fourteenth century, but Sacconi obviously thought differently. Caesarius o f H eisterbach, D ialogus M iraculorum , p. 3 0 1 , tells his novice that the Albigensians all foolishly believed in transm igration, ‘that in relation to its merit the soul will pass through various bodies, even animals and serpents’ . H am ilton, ‘ Cathars and Christian perfection’ , pp. 2 1 - 2 , prefers to follow Sacconi, arguing that the strict Cathar prohibition on the killing o f animals largely derived from their belief that fallen souls were in the bodies o f animals and birds.

74

Thouzellier, Un tm ite, pp. 1 0 5 - 6 ; W E, no. 5 8 , pp. 4 9 6 , 5 0 6 - 7 .

75

Le Liber de duobus principiis, p. 9 1 ; trans. W E, no. 5 9 , p. 526. Im plicit in the ‘M anichaean treatise’ , Thouzellier, Un tm ite, pp. 9 6 - 7 ; trans. W E, no. 58, p. 501.

76

See Borst, Die K atharer, p. 1 4 5 -6 . O n angels, Livingstone, ed., Oxford Dictionary o f the Christian Church, pp. 6 1 -2 .

77

Le Liber de duobus principiis, pp. 8 9 , 9 3 , 9 7 - 8 ; trans. W E, no. 5 9 , pp. 5 2 3 , 5 2 8 , 5 3 2 - 3 ; M oneta o f Crem ona, Adversus Catharos et Valdenses, pp. 6 3 - 5 ; trans. W E, no. 50, pp. 3 1 3 - 1 7 , including his refutation.

78

Le Liber de duobus principiis, p. 142; trans. W E, no. 5 9 , pp. 5 7 7 - 8 . See Brenon, Le Vm i Visage, pp. 7 0 - 2 .

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79

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 1 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 338.

80 Le Liber de duobusprincipiis, p. 1 43; trans. W E, no. 5 9 , p. 578. 81 Rainerius Sacconi, Sum m a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 1 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 3 3 8 ; M oneta o f Crem ona, Adversus Catharos et Valdenses, p. 5; trans. W E, no. 50, p. 311.

82 H am ilton, ‘Cathars and Christian perfection’ , pp. 1 1 -1 2 . See also W E, p. 496. 83

Le Liber de duobusprincipiis, p. 145; trans. W E, no. 5 9 , pp. 5 8 1 -5 .

84 Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 5 ; trans. W E, no. 51, pp. 3 4 2 -3 .

85 Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 3 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 340. 86

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 1 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 338. See also M oneta o f Crem ona, Adversus Catharos et Valdenses, p. 3; trans. W E, no. 50, pp. 3 0 8 - 9 .

87

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 7 5 ; trans. W E, no. 51, pp. 3 4 2 - 3 .

88

H am ilton, ‘ Cathars and Christian perfection’ , p. 8.

89 Le Liber de duobus principiis, p. 128; trans. W E, no. 59, p. 564. 90 For L a Gleisa de Dio, see T . Venckeleer, ‘ U n Recueil cathare: Le manuscrit A .6 .1 0 de la “ Collection V audoise” de D ublin, I: U ne A pologie’, Revue beige de philologie et d ’histoire 38 (1 9 6 0 ), pp. 8 2 0 - 3 1 ; trans. W E, no. 6 0 (A ), pp. 5 9 2 - 6 0 2 . O n the m oral code in L a Gleisa de Dio , see A. Brenon, ‘Syncretisme heretique dans les refuges Alpins? U n Livre cathare parmi les recueils vaudois de la fin du moyen age: L e M anuscrit 2 6 9 de D ublin’ , H eresis7 (1 9 8 6 ), p. 11. F or the thirteenth-century Occitan Ritual, see C ledat, ed., Le Nouveau Testament trad u it au X H Ie siecle, pp. XIX , X X I-X X II; trans. W E, no. 5 7 (B ), pp. 4 8 9 - 9 0 , 4 9 1 .

91 PV C , vol. 1, paras 13, 17, pp. 1 3 -1 5 , 1 7 -1 8 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 2 -1 3 , 14. 92

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 6 6 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 332. See also, Borst, Die K atharer, pp. 1 7 3 -7 .

93 Jam es Capelli, Sum m a contra haereticos, pp. clvii—clviii, clxxvi-clxxviii; trans. W E, no. 4 9 , pp. 3 0 5 - 6 ; Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 6 4 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 330.

94 See H am ilton, ‘Cathars and Christian perfection’ , p. 2 1 , and J. Guiraud, Histoire de PInquisition au moyen age, vol. 1 (Paris, 1 9 3 5 ), pp. 8 5 - 6 . 95

Alan o f Lille, De fide catholica, in PL, vol. 2 1 0 , cols 3 7 7 - 8 .

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96

97

REFERENCES

Anselm o f Alessandria, Tractatus de haereticis, p. 3 1 5 ; trans. W E, no. 54, p. 36 7 ; Bernard Gui, M anuel de Plnquisiteur, ed. and trans. M ollat, vol. 1, pp. 1 8 -1 9 ; trans. W E, no. 5 5 , p. 381. M oneta o f Crem ona, Adversus Catharos et Valdenses, p. 3 9 7 ; trans. W E, no. 50, p. 328.

98

Roach, Relationship , pp. 3 7 - 8 , 4 7 - 5 0 . See, to o , Duvernoy, Le Catharism e , vol. 1, L a Religion des cathares, p. 3 9 , who warns that it w ould be erroneous to think that Cathar theology was imparted to the faithful ‘in the logical order o f a manual o f theology’, and M . G. Pegg, The Corruption of

Angels: Inquisitors and Heretics in Thirteenth-Century Europe (Ph.D . diss., Princeton University, N J, 1 997), p. 149, who argues that ‘heresy in the Lauragais loses all historical specificity through being seen as nothing m ore than a set o f stable ideas’ . 99

A. D ondaine, ‘ D urand de H uesca et la polem ique anti-cathare’ , Archivum

Fratrum Praedicatorum 2 9 (1 9 5 9 ), p. 2 7 1 ; trans. W E, no. 3 7 , p. 2 3 4 . The author may have been Erm engaud o f Beziers w ho, together with D urand o f H uesca, founded ‘the Poor C atholics’ . 100

D oat, vol. 2 2 , ff. 4 r-5 v . See the very similar list reported o f preachers at Villemur, south-east o f Castelsarrasin, D oat, vol. 2 2 , ff. 6 5 v -6 6 r.

101

See pp. 1 7 9 -8 0 .

102

D oat, vol. 2 2 , ff. llr - 1 2 v .

103

Ibid., f f 2 6 r-2 6 v . Com pare the version present am ong the Byzantine Bogom ils, as described by Euthym ius Z igabenus, H H , no. 2 5 , pp. 1 8 4 -5 . Stories o f this kind appear to be part o f both Bogom il and Cathar preaching.

104

D oat, vol. 2 2 , ff. 3 1 r-3 2 v .

105

Ibid., vol. 2 5 , ff. 3 8 v -4 4 r; P. Biller, C . Bruschi and S. Sneddon, eds,

Inquisitors and Heretics in Thirteenth-Century Languedoc. Edition and Translation o f Toulouse Inquisition Depositions, 1273-1282 (Leiden, 2 0 1 1 ), pp. 2 6 2 - 7 7 . O n Cathar attitudes to pregnancy, see P. Biller, ‘ Cathars and M aterial W om en’, in P. Biller and A. J. M innis, eds, M edieval Theology and the N atu ral Body (York, 1 9 9 7 ), pp. 9 9 - 1 0 3 . 106

See pp. 1 9 8 -2 0 0 .

107

See pp. 2 2 0 -2 1 .

108

R E, vol. 2 , p. 4 0 4 .

109

Ibid., p. 4 2 0 .

110

O n the books used and carried by the Autiers, see J.-M . Vidal, ‘D octrine et m orale des derniers ministres albigeois’ , Revue des Questions historiques 86 (1 9 0 9 ), pp. 2 3 - 5 .

111

See Vidal, ‘Doctrine et m orale’, Revue des Questions historiques 85 (1 9 0 9 ), p. 3 7 9 , for other occasions when they told this story.

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112

For a very full evaluation o f Cathar belief at this period, see ibid., pp. 3 5 7 -9 1 .

113 This, however, seem s to have been a com m onplace since at least the eleventh century, although it was popularised by the Cathars, see W. L. Wakefield, ‘Som e unorthodox popular ideas o f the thirteenth century’ , M edievalia et H um anistica 4 (1 9 7 3 ), pp. 3 0 -1 .

114 jRi7, vol. 2 , pp. 4 0 6 - 1 1 . 115 O n this, see Vidal, ‘ D octrine et m orale’ , Revue des Questions historiques 85 (1 9 0 9 ), pp. 3 6 6 - 7 .

116 See Vidal, ‘D octrine et m orale’ , Revue des Questions historiques 8 6 (1 9 0 9 ), pp. 3 9 - 4 0 , and below, ch. 6 , pp. 2 1 8 , 2 2 9 -3 1 . 117

See Borst, D ie K atharer , p. 197; H am ilton, ‘Cathars and Christian perfection’ , p. 14, and M . D . Lam bert, The Cathars (O xford, 1 9 9 8 ), pp. 2 4 0 - 4 .

118

S e e p . 2 20.

119 R F y vol. 1, pp. 2 3 5 - 6 , n. 9 3 , for D uvernoy’s com m ents. See pp. 2 1 9 -2 0 . 120 Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus, p. 6 8 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 334.

121 J. J. I. von D oellinger, Beitrdge zu r Sektengeschichte des M ittelalters, vol. 2 (M unich, 1 8 9 0 ), p. 2 5 . See Vidal, ‘D octrine et m orale’ , Revue des Questions historiques 8 6 (1 9 0 9 ), pp. 3 6 - 7 , on the cases o f Amiel o f Perles and William Belibaste after their capture in 1309.

122 Salvo Burci, Liber Suprastella , Chap. XXXFV, Sections 1 2 5 -6 , p. 3 4 9 ; trans. W E, no. 4 5 (B ), p. 2 7 3 .

123 Jam es Capelli, Summ a contra haereticos, pp. clxxvi-clxxvii; trans. W E, no. 4 9 , p. 306.

124 Borst, Die K atharer , pp. 2 1 8 - 2 2 . 125 W. L. W akefield, ‘Burial o f heretics in the M iddle A ges’ , Heresis 5 (1 9 8 5 ), pp. 2 9 - 3 2 .

126 See R. M anselli, ‘Evangelism e et mythe dans la foi Cathare’ , Heresis 5 (1 9 8 5 ), pp. 5 -1 7 . See also R. Abels and E. H arrison, ‘The Participation o f W om en in Languedocian Catharism ’ , M edieval Studies 41 (1 9 7 9 ), pp. 2 4 4 - 5 , on the levels o f knowledge o f Cathar beliefs. O n the appeal o f Catharism , see Taylor, Quercy, p. 37. As she points out, dualism offered ‘a m ore im m ediate and easily com prehended solution than that o f the Church Fathers’, even assum ing that either the local parish priest or his flock knew anything o f Patristic writings.

127 Pelhisson, pp. 6 0 - 5 ; trans. Wakefield, pp. 2 1 5 - 1 6 . 128 H am ilton, ‘Cathars and Christian perfection’ , pp. 1 2 -1 3 .

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4

The Catholic reaction

The justification for force ‘Attack the followers o f heresy’, wrote Pope Innocent III in March 1208, ‘more fearlessly even than the Saracens - since they are more evil - with a strong hand and a stretched out arm.’ Thus, in militant Old Testament language, the pope called upon the nobility and people o f the ecclesiastical provinces o f Narbonne, Arles, Embrun, Aix, and Vienne, ‘to avenge this righteous blood’, by which he meant the murder o f the papal legate, Peter o f Castelnau, two months before, by a vassal o f Raymond VI, Count o f Toulouse. ‘Forward then soldiers o f Christ! Forward, brave recruits to the Christian army! Let the universal cry o f grief o f the Holy Church arouse you, let pious zeal inspire you to avenge this monstrous crime against your G od!’1 Consciously evoking the imagery o f the jealous God o f Deuteronomy, whose faithful shall have no other gods, he presents the crusade against the enemy within Latin Christendom as more vital than the war against the external enemy, Islam, which had dominated papal thinking for more than a hundred years. The pope’s resort to violence in these circumstances rested on respectable foundations. In the late fourth and early fifth centuries, St Augustine, faced with the widespread acceptance in Christian circles o f the necessity for warfare, had established specific criteria for the just war, which he had come to see as a regrettable necessity if the proper order o f society was to be maintained. The covenant that God had made with Moses and the Israelites showed that the faithful were obliged to act against those who rebelled against God. For Augustine bad will could not be left ‘to its own freedom’; if this were the case ‘why were the disobedient and murmuring

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Israelites restrained from evil by such severe chastisements, and compelled to come into the land o f promise?’2 Just as Augustine had responded to the threat o f Manichaeism to his own society, so in the early thirteenth century ‘the plague o f heresy’ had reappeared, creating ‘this unprecedented storm’ which was battering ‘the ship o f the Church’ . In this sense Innocent was returning to the original purpose o f the just war, developed more than two centuries before the rise o f Islam, but he was couching his appeal in the language o f vengeance easily comprehensible to those feudal lords he wished to attract to his crusading army.3 The call for ‘soldiers o f Christ’ was reinforced by a vigorous propaganda campaign. For Innocent, a pope deeply imbued with the idea o f personal sacrifice for the faith, Peter o f Castelnau was a Christian martyr; indeed, he presents his death quite overtly as the means by which Christians could be awakened to the danger which they faced:

we believe it is expedient that one man should die fo r it rather than that it should all perish; fo r it is indeed so contaminated by the contagion o f heresy that it may well be recalled from error more readily by the voice of the blood o f its victim than by anything he could have done had he gone on living. Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, who quotes this letter verbatim in his chronicle, eagerly followed the papal lead. According to him, when, after a long period, Peter o f Castelnau’s body was transferred from the monks’ cloister at St Gilles to the church proper, ‘it was found to be as whole and unimpaired as if it had been buried that very day. A marvellous perfume arose from his body and clothing.’4 In contrast the heretics were utterly depraved. Peter claimed that one, called H ugo Faber, ‘fell into such depths o f madness that he emptied his bowels beside the altar in a church and by way o f showing his contempt for God wiped himself with the altar cloth’ .5 For Peter, the count o f Toulouse was the evil counterpart to the good avenger, Simon o f Montfort who, after the fall o f Carcassonne in August 1209, became the leader o f the crusade.

Moreover, the Count was a vicious and lecherous man to the extent that - we can take it as an established fa c t - he abused his own sister as a way o f showing contempt fo r the Christian religion. A gain, from early youth

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FOR FORCE

he lost no opportunity to seek out his fath er’s concubines and fe lt no compunction about bedding them - indeed none o f them could please him unless he knew his fath er had previously slept with her. So it came about that his father frequently threatened to disinherit himyfo r this enormity as much as fo r his heresy.6 Just as the Church drew on its long tradition o f just wars to legitimise the crusade against heretics, so too were there many precedents for sala­ cious stories. Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay’s claim that Cathars believed they ‘could sin in safety and without restraint’ was the lineal descendant o f stories like that o f the Chartrain monk Paul o f St Pere de Chartres who, writing some half-century after the events, alleged that the heretics discov­ ered in Orleans in 1022 held orgies at night in which indiscriminate sexual intercourse took place and that the ashes derived from the cremation o f children born o f such unions were used as a viaticum for the terminally ill.7 Byzantine sources confirm that, for the orthodox, perverse behaviour was an inevitable concomitant o f foul heresy. Peter o f Sicily, writing his history o f the Paulicians in 870, claimed that their leader, Carbeas, ‘summoned to himself to the same place the greediest and most licentious and foolish people from the frontier areas near Tefrice, by promising freedom for their most shameful feelings’, and that ‘they sleep with both sexes without dis­ tinction and without fear. They say that some o f them abstain from their parents, and from them alone.’8 N ot all Catholics, though, were as convinced as Peter o f Les Vaux-deCernay. King Philip II o f France, aware that Raymond o f Toulouse had not been formally condemned as a heretic and, at the same time, determined not to allow King John the opportunity to regain Normandy and Anjou which he had seized from him between 1204 and 1206, did not respond to papal pleas in 1204 and 1205, nor was he willing ‘to eliminate such harmful filth’, as Innocent put it, when called upon directly in 1207.9 Moreover, Philip II had no great taste for crusading, especially after his experiences at Acre during the Third Crusade in the spring and summer o f 1191.10 Even so, the king was not voicing an objection in principle and, indeed, there is no evidence o f widespread opposition to the idea that a crusade could be used in this way, even among the troubadours where it might be expected.11 Those who did actually participate took the matter very seriously, making careful arrangements for their dependents and

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appropriate grants either to local monasteries or to important foundations in the south like St Dominic’s nunnery at Prouille.12 Thus two armies were assembled, the more formidable o f which mus­ tered at Lyon in July 1209, led by the papal legate, Arnald Amalric, Abbot o f Citeaux, and including two o f the king’s leading vassals, Odo III, Duke o f Burgundy, and Herve o f Donzy, Count o f Nevers, as well as Walter o f Chatillon, Count o f Saint Pol, and Rainald o f Dammartin, Count o f Boulogne. The three major narrative accounts o f the Albigensian Crusade all accept, with varying degrees o f enthusiasm, that the use o f force had become inevitable. Naturally, Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay was the most unequivocal.

With so many thousands of the faith fu l in France already taking up the cross to avenge the wrong done to our God, and others yet to join the Crusade, nothing remained but fo r the Lord God o f Hosts to dispatch his arm ies to destroy the cruel murderers - God who with his customary goodness and inborn love had shown compassion to his enemies, the heretics and their supporters, and sent his preachers to them - not one, but many, not once, but often; but they persisted in their perversity and were obstinate in their wickedness; some o f the preachers they heaped with abuse, others they even killed.13 William o f Tudela claims that he foresaw it all.

He [W illiam himself] had long studied geomancy and was skilled in this art, so that he knew that fire and devastation would lay the whole region waste, that the rich citizens would lose all the wealth they had stored up, and the knights would flee, sad and defeated, into exile in other lands, all because o f the insane belief held in that country. Thus it was in Rome that they (the pope, Arnald Amalric, and Master Milo, papal notary and legate from March 1209) ‘made the decision that led to so much sorrow, that left so many men dead with their guts spilled out and so many great ladies and pretty girls naked and cold, stripped o f gown and cloak. From beyond Montpellier as far as Bordeaux, any that rebelled were to be utterly destroyed.’14 William o f Puylaurens, who was born just before the crusade in c. 1200 and who did not die until at least 1274, was able to take a longer view than both the others, seeing the cam­ paign to extirpate heresy as covering a period o f seventy years, apparently

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dating its beginning to 1203 when Peter o f Castelnau was first appointed legate in the region. H e says that he was setting this down in writing, ‘so that from these events the great, the middling, and the low, might under­ stand, by the judgement o f God, how on account o f the sins o f the people, He decreed that miseries scourge these lands.’15

The campaigns against heresy in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries The fatalism o f these writers was rooted in the belief that it was axiomatic that heresy should be overcome, and in the knowledge that past efforts had failed to do so. From the time o f his accession to the papal throne ten years before Innocent III had given the matter high priority, for unity under Rome was essential in order to continue the just war against external enem­ ies, a war which was the path to salvation for all those who sincerely took up G od’s cause.16 Indeed, one o f his first acts had been to promise those who were willing to respond to his legates’ request for help when com­ bating heretics in Languedoc the indulgence ‘which we accord to those visiting the sanctuaries o f Sts Peter and James’, putting such activity on an equal footing with the great pilgrimages to Rome and Compostela, although it is most unlikely that he had yet formed the idea o f instigating a crusade in the manner o f 1209, as has sometimes been argued.17 There had been no lack o f previous demands for secular support in tackling heresy. In 1119 at Toulouse and in 1139 at the Lateran, there had been calls for the civil power to repress those who, ‘simulating a kind o f religiosity’, rejected the Eucharist, infant baptism, the priesthood, and marriage, while in 1148 at Reims, Pope Eugenius III had forbidden anyone to defend or help heretics in Gascony, Provence, or elsewhere.18 In 1145 Bernard o f Clairvaux himself went on a mission to Toulouse, apparently because he believed that Alfonso-Jordan, the reigning count, had neglected to make much effort to prevent the spread o f heresy. He succeeded in frightening away Henry o f Lausanne, but could not really confront the underlying problems o f the region, which suggests that dualist belief had already begun to find adherents there, even if it was not as evidently as at Cologne. At the Council o f Tours in 1163, ten years after St Bernard’s death, the exiled pope, Alexander III, again condemned heresy in the Toulousain and Gascony.19

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In 1177 Count Raymond V finally responded, asking for help against the ravages o f the heretics. Most historians see this as a piece o f opportun­ ism by an unsuccessful ruler anxious to gain some credit with the Church, but he did have reason to think that the threat was genuine.20 The mission, led by Peter o f Pavia, papal legate in France, and Henry o f Marcy, Abbot o f Clairvaux, did succeed in indicting and condemning the important Toulousan citizen Peter Maurand, as well as excommunicating two heretics who had been persuaded to come to Toulouse from Castres to put their views.21 This experience seems to have convinced Henry o f Marcy that more consistent pressure was needed and, in his report, he called for military action: ‘We know that the triumph will not be denied to those who struggle for us, if they are willing to fight in the love o f Christ.’22 He appears to have had some effect, for in canon 27 o f the Third Lateran Council, held in March 1179, there is a clear threat o f force. A s S t Leo says, though the d isciplin e o f the church should be satisfied with the ju d g m e n t o f the p riest a n d should not cause the shedding o f blood , yet it is helped by the law s o f catholic p rin ces so th at people often seek a salu tary rem edy when they fe a r th at a corporal pun ish m en t w ill overtake them. F o r this reason , since in Gascony a n d the regions o f A lb i a n d Toulouse a n d in other places this loathsom e heresy o f those whom some c a ll CatharSy others the PatareneSy others the Publicaniy a n d others by d ifferen t nam es, h as grow n so stron g th at they no longer p ractise th eir wickedness in secret, a s others do, b u t p roclaim th eir error publicly a n d d raw the sim ple a n d weak to jo in themy we declare th at they a n d their defenders a n d those who receive them a re u n d er anathem ay a n d we fo rb id u n d er p a in o f an ath em a th at anyone should keep or support them in th eir houses or lan d s or should trad e w ith them. I f anyone dies in this sin y then neither u n d er cover o f ou r priv ileges g ra n te d to anyone , nor fo r an y other reasony is m ass to be offered fo r them or a re they to receive b u ria l am on g C h ristian s 23

This canon lays down the framework for the use o f force at the very beginning, but then within this framework offers specific privileges to those who actually take up arms. They will receive two years’ remission o f penance and ecclesiastical protection o f their persons and lands, ‘as we do those who visit the Lord’s sepulchre’ . Moreover, ‘those who in true sorrow for their sins die in such a conflict should not doubt that they will receive

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forgiveness for their sins and the fruit o f eternal reward’ . The conventional view o f historians therefore is that, a generation before the Albigensian Crusade began, Pope Alexander III and the fathers at the council had already incorporated the language o f crusading ideology into the official policy o f the Church. However, the interpretation o f the canon is com­ plicated by the fact that it condemns not only heretics, but also routiers. Elie Griffe argues that the use o f force applies to the routiers, whereas the heretics are to be tackled by the traditional methods o f discipline and expulsion, so the decree o f 1179 cannot be regarded as the beginning o f the violent repression o f heretics.24 This is a possible interpretation o f the canon, but it is difficult to sustain given the initial statement o f intent which must apply to both heretics and routiers and the evident context provided by the report o f the legatine mission o f the previous year. Moreover, mea­ sures to impose the peace o f God, such as those promulgated by Bernard Gaucelm, Bishop o f Beziers, probably in the same year,25 are not dissimilar to those developed in the course o f the eleventh century and taken up by Urban II when preaching the First Crusade in 1095. In the past attempts to impose internal peace were closely connected to the development o f crusading, and the same presumably applied in the case o f heresy. The fathers at the council may well have been correct to connect the two; in an insecure society there was less chance o f any systematic repression o f heresy. Indeed, the decree illustrates the problem very well, for heresy had become so embedded in sections o f Languedocian society it was often impossible to avoid contact with it, even for the orthodox. Thus, in the November following, at the Council o f Narbonne, which was undoubtedly the prov­ ince most affected by Catharism, Archbishop Pons o f Arsace felt obliged to warn the Templars, Hospitallers, and other clerics, that burial o f excom­ municates would mean an interdict for the parish in which it took place and excommunication for those concerned until the body had been exhumed from sacred ground. The military orders in particular were obliged to take this seriously, for they were the institutions o f the Church most closely identified with the crusade. Although in his will in 1218 Raymond VI expressed his desire to be buried as a Hospitaller, and indeed they placed their mantle on his shoulders as he lay dying four years later, he was never allowed burial in their house at Toulouse.26 The intent o f the canon was clarified in 1181, when an attempt was made to put its provisions into practice in an action which certainly has some crusading characteristics.

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Henry o f Marcy now led an army into the Albigeois and attacked Lavaur. Two bonhommes were handed over and, apparently convinced o f their error, thereafter became canons in Toulouse.27 These initiatives suggest that the ecclesiastical authorities were about to embark upon a vigorous campaign against heresy, but circumstances pre­ vented this from happening. Five popes in the period between the death o f Alexander III in 1181 and the accession o f Innocent III in 1198 did littie to encourage continuity o f policy, especially as the chief causes for concern seemed elsewhere. The battle o f Hattin in July 1187, and the subsequent conquests made by Saladin, devastated the Latin states in the East, and their possessions were only partially rebuilt by the Third Crusade between 1189 and 1192. The Holy Sepulchre itself remained out o f Christian reach. Soon after, the problem o f the overweening empire o f the Staufen, Frederick Barbarossa, which seemed to have been solved by the peace set­ tlement made in 1177, reappeared in the person o f his son, Henry VI, who, in 1194, revived papal fears o f encirclement by conquering the Kingdom o f Sicily. The only papal lead given during these years predated these troubles, when Lucius III issued the decretal A d ctbolendam in 1184. This anathema­ tised a whole range o f heretics and their defenders, defining heresy under a wide variety o f names which included C a th a ri and P a ta r in i , and referred to those who favour ‘heretical depravity’ , whether they be called consolati, credentes, or p e rfe c ti28 However, it depended upon the episcopacy to enforce it by annual visits and, whatever his other qualities, a good example can hardly be said to have been set by Berengar, appointed to the arch­ bishopric o f Narbonne in 1191, but unable to find time even to visit his province for the first ten years o f his episcopate. Within his province lay the two key dioceses o f Toulouse and Carcassonne.29 The one prelate to have led a military expedition into the region, Henry o f Marcy, died in 1189. These years were crucial for the spread o f Catharism in Languedoc, for in the mid-1170s Nicetas had established a diocesan structure within which the bonhommes could operate and there seems no reason to doubt William o f Puylaurens’s view that they had become an accepted part o f the everyday scene (at least in the lands o f Toulouse and Trencavel) within a generation o f the Council o f St-Felix-de-Caraman.30 Here may lie the reasons for the difference in attitude between Raymond V and Raymond VI, with the for­ mer anxious to call in outside ecclesiastical help, while the latter was apparendy indifferent to the appeals o f the Church. By the time o f Raymond V i’s

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succession in 1194 there really was little he could do about Catharism in his lands. As Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay saw it: by 1203, ‘the root o f bitterness springing up was now so strongly and deeply embedded in the hearts o f men that it could no longer be easily dug out’ .31 When Celestine III died in 1198 he was about ninety-two years old and, not surprisingly, those prelates o f Languedoc who were alarmed at the spread o f Catharism were quick to petition Innocent III who, at thirtyseven, seemed to offer hope o f a more dynamic pontificate. The pope responded with a series o f legatine missions in 1 1 9 8 ,1 2 0 0 -1 , and 1203-4, the last o f which saw the appointment o f two Cistercians from Fontfroide, Peter o f Castelnau and Master Ralph. William o f Puylaurens’s view that this was a turning-point seems to be justified, for Bernard Hamilton points out that at this time the Bosnian and Bulgarian Churches recognised papal primacy and this may well have alerted the pope to the extent o f Bogomil belief in the Christian world and therefore given the matter much greater urgency. In 1199, soon after Innocent became pope, King Vukan o f Zeta (a son o f Stephen Nemanja, ruler o f Serbia) was claiming that ‘an uncontrolled heresy’ was spreading in Bosnia and that the ruler, Kulin, Ban o f Bosnia, ‘has introduced more than 10,000 Christians to this heresy’ . Innocent responded with vigour: in October 1200, he wrote to King Imre o f Hungary warning him that the disease would spread to the surrounding area if he did not act for, although Archbishop Bernard o f Split had already cleansed the city o f ‘Paterenes’, nevertheless they were finding that Bosnia was ‘an open shelter’ . By 1203 Innocent had also sent a legate to Bosnia where, in April, at Bolino-Polje, John o f Casamaris persuaded the local heretical leaders to renounce their beliefs and live in accordance with ‘the ordinances and commands o f the holy Roman Church’ .32 From Rome dualist heresy must have looked to be endemic in the lands east o f the Adriatic for, as well as Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria, the pope knew very well that a powerful Paulician community still existed in Philippopolis, for he was heavily involved in the affairs o f the Latin settlers in the former Byzantine lands following the fall o f Constantinople in April 1204.33 The legates in Languedoc had some initial success in persuading the consuls and people o f Toulouse to swear an oath to defend orthodoxy and expel heretics, although in the view o f Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay ‘treacherous Toulouse’ never had any intention o f keeping its promises.34 By 1204 Innocent III seems to have taken a similar view, for he had moved

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radically beyond his position o f 1198, increasing the status o f action against heretics from a minor good work to a major penitential act. In a letter to his new legate, Arnald Amalric, full o f the imagery o f the sword and blood­ shed, the pope told him that ‘those who will have laboured faithfully against the heretics, we wish to enjoy the same indulgences which we con­ cede to those crossing to the aid o f the Holy Land’ . T o the legate himself ‘we concede the power to destroy, ruin, and root out that which you know needs to be destroyed, ruined or rooted out’ .35 The next year in a letter to Philip II he said that the heretics were ‘raging so freely among Christ’s flock that they do not fear the amputation o f their right ear by means o f the sword which Peter himself wields’.36 From this time the pope did what he could to induce such dread. In May 1207, he told Raymond VI that his body was like any other man’s, vulnerable to fever, leprosy, paralysis, possession by demons, or incurable disease. That he was not immune to misfortune would soon be seen for we w ill enjoin a ll the n eighbouring prin ces to rise up a g a in st you a s a n enemy o f C h rist a n d persecutor o f the Church , re ta in in g fro m you w hatever lan d s o f yours they a re able to occupy, in case m ore o f those p laces u n d er you r lordship be infected with the sta in o f h eretical depravity. N o r in a ll these th in gs should the fu ry o f the L ord be averted fro m you; b u t alread y his h an d w ill be extended to strike you , a n d show how d ifficu lt it w ill be fo r you to fly fro m the fa c e o f his an g e r , which you have g rav ely p rovo k ed F

For William o f Puylaurens, Francia was the natural place to turn for there they were ‘accustomed to wage the wars o f the Lord’ .38 Simultaneously, however, there were continued attempts to engage the heretics directly in the form o f public debates, an activity which had never been seen as incompatible with the strident language o f the papal chancery and the ecclesiastical councils. William o f Tudela thought they were futile. At Carcassonne in 1204 there was a formal confrontation between the orthodox, led by Berengar o f Pomas, the bishop, and Peter II, King o f Aragon, the overlord o f the region, and ‘the Bulgars’, but the king soon abandoned the debate once he heard what the heretics had to say. They kept trying, however: ‘Led by Brother Arnald, Abbot o f Citeaux, friend o f God, the preachers travelled on foot and on horseback among the wicked and misbelieving heretics, arguing with them and vigorously challenging

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their errors, but these fools paid no attention and despised everything they said.’39 Yet, despite a long string o f disappointments, debates had been taking place since at least 1165, nearly half a century before, when a meeting had been convened at Lombers before assessors chosen by both sides. This was certainly taken seriously by the Catholic Church, whose assessors were led by William III, Bishop o f Albi (1157-85), in whose diocese Lombers was situated, supported by a bishop, three abbots, and a layman, as well as observers which included the archbishop o f Narbonne, three other bishops, and four abbots, and a range o f seculars, the most important o f whom was Raymond Trencavel, Viscount o f Beziers. It was claimed that almost the entire population o f Lombers and Albi was present. In the end, though, it fell into mutual recrimination with the Catholic bishops condemning the bonhommes and demanding that they prove their innocence, and the bonhommes calling their opponents ‘ravening wolves, hypocrites, and seducers, lovers o f salutations in the marketplace, o f the chief seats and the higher places at table, desirous o f being called rabbis and masters’ . The main stick­ ing points seem to have been the refusal o f the bonhommes (as the heretics are called on this occasion, apparently for the first time) to accept the Old Testament and their unwillingness to take oaths, although on a number o f other crucial points they were apparently not prepared to offer definitive answers. Written into the record is their statement o f belief in one God and in the humanity o f Christ which has led some historians to doubt whether they were actually Cathars as such, although it is clear from the line o f questioning adopted by the bishop o f Lodeve that the ecclesiastical author­ ities thought they were.40 The memory o f this confrontation may well explain the reluctance o f his successor as bishop, William IV (1185-1227), to participate in another debate at Lombers, at an unknown date, but prob­ ably fairly near the beginning o f his episcopate. According to William o f Puylaurens, one day, when he was visiting the town, the nobles and bour­ geois insisted that the bishop debate with Sicard the Cellarer, who had lived there openly as Cathar bishop o f the Albigeois since the time o f the Council o f St-Felix-de-Caraman. It is possible that this is the same person as Oliver, who had led the heretics’ side in 1165. The bishop thought that it was pointless, but agreed in order not to look as if he were afraid. It was not a meeting o f minds. As the bishop saw it, Sicard was intent on presenting everything the wrong way round, so that he believed that, whereas Abel,

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Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David were not saved, nevertheless the late William Peyre o f Brens, whom the bishop had known and described as ‘a man accustomed as long as he lived to rapine and evil deeds’, had been.41 More promising - if only because the Catholic participants were eager to be involved - were three debates described by William o f Puylaurens at Verfeil and Pamiers, probably in late 1206, and at Montreal, in April 1207. These were led by Diego, Bishop o f Osma, who pioneered this approach among the orthodox, supported by Dominic Guzman, then a canon o f Osma, and the Cistercian legates, Peter o f Castelnau and Ralph o f Fontfroide. William admired Diego and Dominic as they went out ‘not pompously and with a multitude o f horsemen, but along the footpaths, from castle to castle, walking with bare feet, to the disputations arranged’ .42 Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay knew o f four debates at Servian (just to the north o f Beziers), Beziers, Carcassonne, and the one at Montreal, held between September 1206 and April 1207. At Servian, Peter claimed that the two heresiarchs, Baldwin and Theoderic (formerly William o f Chateauneuf, a canon from Nevers) had been routed and the Catholic preachers had ‘succeeded in turning the whole population o f the town in hatred o f the heretics’, at Beziers the heretics were confounded, and at Montreal, the judges, who were supporters o f the heretics, refused to give a verdict ‘since they could see that the heretics had already lost the con­ test’ .43 These disputations were marathons, lasting eight days at Servian and Carcassonne, and fifteen days at Beziers and Montreal. Both Peter and William agree that the debates at Montreal had been recorded in writing, although they did not know what had happened to the documents after­ wards. William had asked Bernard, the co-seigneur o f Villeneuve la Comtal, who had been one o f the judges, about this, and he told him that they were lost when everyone fled at the time o f the crusade, which accords with Peter’s view that they had been in the possession o f the heretics. Despite this, according to Bernard, 150 heretics had been converted as a con­ sequence o f the debate.44 Indeed, for Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, it was not only the murder o f Peter o f Castelnau which had led to the crusade, but the collective impact o f the deaths o f the legate Ralph o f Fontfroide and Bishop Diego o f Osma within the space o f only eighteen months. According to Peter, the prelates o f the Narbonne province had come to the conclusion that, after this, this particular preaching campaign had run its course, for ‘the outcome they had looked for had almost entirely failed to

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materialise’ .45 Even so, although the violence o f the crusade inevitably stifled open debate during the next twenty years, the Church never relented in the intellectual battle. It is noticeable that when Raymond VII was even­ tually forced to come to a settlement in 1229 one o f the conditions was that he contribute 4,000 marks for the salaries o f professors o f theology, canon law, liberal arts, and grammar, who were to be established in Toulouse.46 With the war over, debates o f the kind seen before 1209 did not resume but during the middle decades o f the thirteenth century the Catholics did produce more comprehensive analyses o f the defects o f Cathar belief than ever before.

The Albigensian Crusades The pope had promised the crusaders not only a full indulgence equivalent to that received by those fighting for the cross in the East, but also the right to occupy lands confiscated from the heretics, including those o f the count o f Toulouse. The pope’s thinking here had already been formulated in the decretal Vergentis, issued to the clergy and people o f Viterbo at the begin­ ning o f his pontificate. In this decretal he had equated heresy with the Roman crime o f treason against the emperor, the punishment for which was confiscation o f property and the disinheritance o f descendants. In July 1200, he had extended this to cover Languedoc, although, significantly for the future, excluding the sanction against a heretic’s descendants 47 However, Raymond VI, after a fruitless attempt to persuade Raymond Roger Trencavel to make common cause with him, decided to cut his losses by undergoing a penitential scourging and then, in June, joining the cru­ saders 48 This was not altogether surprising, as previous relations between the two had been characterised by personal dislike and political rivalry.49 Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay calls the count ca false and faithless crusader’, using the crusading vow as a cover for his wickedness, although Innocent I l l ’s correspondence suggests that the pope thought that this mattered little as long as the southern lords were divided.50 Nevertheless, this did mean that the main force o f the crusade was initially directed against the two chief Trencavel cities o f Beziers and Carcassonne, despite William o f Tudela’s view that Raymond Roger was ‘certainly Catholic’, and despite the fact that, until this time, the pope had been almost exclusively con­ cerned with placing the blame on the shoulders o f Raymond o f Toulouse.51

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By turning to the weapon o f the crusade, the Catholic authorities had in practice abandoned the attempt to unpick the strands o f Languedocian society and thus isolate the heretics. (See Map 4.) The nature o f the conflict is encapsulated in the first and last acts. The attack on Beziers on 22 July 1209 was led by those described by Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay as ribands rather than the noble and knighdy leaders o f the army, a distinction which perhaps suggests that even this most grim and unforgiving o f Catholic observers felt a need to distance himself from the massacre which followed. Indeed, Peter knew very well that the bishop, Renaud o f Montpellier, had a list o f known heretics, and although the chronicler may not have seen the details, he must have realised that the numbers could constitute only a very small minority. In fact, as has been seen, a fairly generous extrapolation from this source cannot take the figure much above 700, whereas the total number o f inhabitants was between eight and nine thousand.52 Yet, according to William o f Tudela, ‘they killed everyone who fled into the church [cathedral church o f St Nazaire]; no cross or altar or crucifix could save them. And these raving beggarly lads, they killed the clergy too, and the women and the children. I doubt if one person came out alive.’ His conclusion suggests that he doubted many were actually heretics. ‘God, if it be his will, receive their souls in paradise.’53 Twenty years later, Fulk, Bishop o f Toulouse, is pictured by William o f Puylaurens feeding the populace o f the city, starving in a famine artificially created by the systematic devastation o f the vineyards and cornfields upon which Toulouse depended. The previous year, forces led by the royal seneschal, Humbert o f Beaujeu, and supported by the archbishops o f Auch and Bordeaux, attended mass at dawn each day and then, led by cross­ bowmen and followed by the knights, they advanced to the outskirts o f the town. Here they turned round and set off back to their camp, destroying the harvest all along the front covered by their forces, their rear protected by the crossbowmen. ‘And they proceeded in this manner every day, until almost three months having passed, on all sides almost everything was destroyed.’54 (See Table 1.) After the bloodshed at Beziers, the capture o f Carcassonne on 15 August was accomplished with relatively litde violence. Raymond Roger had decided to make his stand in his chief city, but he was effectively isolated after attempts by his overlord, Peter II o f Aragon, to mediate, broke down. After a siege o f two weeks Raymond Roger voluntarily gave himself up

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as a hostage, a decision which William o f Tudela described as ‘lunatic’, but was probably taken in the light o f what had happened at Beziers. ‘It’s nothing but a few fools and their folly that have brought you into such danger and distress’, Peter o f Aragon is supposed to have said, although this probably reflects William o f Tudela’s opinion more closely than that o f the king.55 If this was so, the mass o f the inhabitants o f Carcassonne paid dearly for these ‘few fools’, for the capitulation meant that they lost everything. ‘All the inhabitants came naked out o f the city’, says Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, ‘bearing nothing but their sins’ . Raymond Roger was imprisoned and died on 10 November, apparendy o f dysentery.56 This was a great success for the crusaders, for not only had they broken Trencavel power, but they had also secured a solid base in a powerful fortified city.57 Crusades, however, need constant renewal if the gains made are to be sustained and the lands conquered are to be permanentiy occupied. The fall o f Beziers and Carcassonne and the subsequent death o f the viscount destroyed the Trencavel fortunes for the foreseeable future and, by implica­ tion, posed a great threat to Raymond o f Toulouse, but the problem o f heresy remained. I f the crusade was to be effective against Catharism and its adherents, it needed not only one or two spectacular successes o f this kind, but also a prolonged and tedious war o f attrition aimed at destroying the social and political infrastructure which made the existence o f an organ­ ised Cathar Church possible. However, none o f the major secular lords and consequendy their vassals, most o f whom were obligated to forty days o f service only - were willing to stay in the south for the winter. These were the circumstances which led to the grant o f the Trencavel tides (and thus effective responsibility for the continuation o f the crusade) to Simon, lord o f Montfort l’Amaury, a ruler o f some local importance whose power was based mainly upon a group o f castles in the diocese o f Chartres, about forty kilometres west o f Paris. Although Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay liked to refer to him as ‘Count’ and he did have a claim to the earldom o f Leicester through his mother’s family, he was not a ruler o f regional status and he was certainly not known in Languedoc at this time. Nevertheless, in the north he had an established reputation as a crusader, having taken part in the Fourth Crusade during which he showed his independence o f mind by his refusal to take part in the Venetian-inspired attack on Zara in 1202-3. He was, moreover, well known to Odo III, Duke o f Burgundy, one o f the most important o f the crusaders in 1209; indeed, Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay

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says that it was the duke who had originally urged him to join the expedi­ tion.58 From late August 1209 until his death while besieging Toulouse nearly nine years later, Montfort personified the crusade, driven on by his conviction that he was doing G od’s work and his consequent belief that he was entitled to the lands which he had seized from a nobility which had forfeited all rights as fautors or protectors o f heretics. That Montfort quite consciously fused his religious and military roles can be seen in the striking ceremony he organised at Castelnaudary in high summer on the Feast o f John the Baptist, 1213. There his son, Amaury, was, as Peter o f Les Vauxde-Cernay expresses it, installed as 6a knight o f Christ’ . The initiative very obviously came from Montfort himself, for the Bishop o f Orleans, Maurice o f Seignelay, was at first reluctant to perform a ceremony which was ‘new and without precedent’, but was persuaded to do so by Montfort. It took place in the open before a huge crowd.

On the day o f the feast the Bishop of Orleans donned his robes o f office to celebrate a solemn Mass in one o f the pavilions. Everyone, knights as well as clergy, gathered to hear the Mass. A s the Bishop stood a t the a lta r performing the Mass, the Count took Am aury, his eldest son, by his right hand, and the Countess by his left hand; they approached the altar and offered him to the Lord, requesting the Bishop to appoint him a knight in the service o f Christ. The Bishops o f Orleans and Auxerre, bowing before the altar, pu t the belt o f knighthood round the youth, and with g reat devotion led the Veni Creator Spiritus,59 As the winter o f 1209-10 came on, Montfort was, according to Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, ‘left alone and almost unsupported’, for the core o f his forces amounted to no more than thirty knights, largely drawn from among his vassals and neighbours in the Ile-de-France. ‘Our people in Carcassonne were in such confusion and fear that they had almost aban­ doned hope and could think only o f flight; indeed they were surrounded on all sides by innumerable powerful enemies.’ Smaller fortresses and towns which had submitted to the crusader army now abandoned him and threw out or killed his representatives, so that ‘almost all the local people became affected by the same ill-will and deserted our Count’ . Peter o f Les Vauxde-Cernay could name only eight places, including Carcassonne and Albi, retained by the crusaders during this period.60 However, when new crusaders appeared in the successive springs o f 1210 and 1211 Montfort was able

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to return to the attack, steadily picking off the custm o f the local nobility one by one. Between the spring o f 1210 and the summer o f 1211, all the main castra o f the former Trencavel lords were either taken by siege or submitted voluntarily, including Minerve, Montreal, Termes, Cabaret, Lavaur, and Puylaurens. In the circumstances Peter o f Aragon at last accepted Montfort’s homage for these lords, confirming him as the Trencavel successor.61 The counts o f Toulouse and Foix though remained, both wicked defenders o f heretics in the eyes o f Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay. Indeed, in a diversion from his main narrative, Peter gave himself space for his pro­ longed tirade about the crimes o f Raymond Roger o f Foix, a man, he said, ‘who helped and encouraged them [heretics] as much as he could’,62 his anger perhaps exacerbated by the relative impotence o f the crusaders in the count’s lands. In the late summer o f 1211 the crusader army spent eight days in the region around Foix ‘doing all the damage it could’, but there was little opportunity o f establishing a permanent presence there.63 In fact, Montfort saw the count o f Toulouse as his more immediate problem and, as soon as he had taken Lavaur in May 1211, began to encroach upon his lands. Raymond VI had left the crusade after the fall o f Carcassonne and had then been excommunicated for his failure to show real commitment in the battle with heresy. If, as has been argued, Raymond VI and Peter II o f Aragon had quite deliberately stood aside while the Trencavels were ruined,64 then both were to pay heavily for their miscalculation. During the summer and autumn o f 1211 Montfort took Les Casses, Montferrand, and Castelnaudary, although in June he found his attack on Toulouse itself a step too far and abandoned the siege after two weeks. Nevertheless, the Trencavel lands remained under his control, and the city o f Toulouse could be weakened by attacking the count’s possessions to the east and the north. A foray north to Cahors in the late summer o f 1211 at the request o f the bishop showed the possibilities, for the crusaders were able to destroy the count’s castle o f Caylus en route. Retaliation was inevitable. In September Raymond attacked Castelnaudary and Raymond Roger o f Foix engaged some o f Montfort’s men at Saint-Martin-Lalande. Widespread defections followed on a scale similar to that o f the winter o f 1209-10. But neither succeeded and the arrival o f crusader reinforcements from the north unusually in December - ‘nobly revived His business which’, as Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay put it, ‘at that time had reached a low ebb’ .65

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The fou r castles o f L asto u rs from the south. C ab aret is the m ost northerly

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C abaret from the south-east

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Further reinforcements arrived in the spring; according to William o f Tudela from as far afield as Germany, Lombardy, and Slavonia as well as from the Auvergne.66 During the campaigns o f 1212 therefore the crusaders took Hautpoul and Soreze to the east, and a whole swathe o f towns to the north, including St Marcel, St Antonin, Montcuq, Penne, Biron, Castelsarrasin, and Moissac. By November Montfort had returned south to Pamiers, strong enough to enact a series o f statutes which were intended to replace southern customary law with the practices with which Montfort was familiar in Francia. Toulouse itself may have eluded him, but the tech­ niques which had brought the submission o f the Trencavel lords seemed about to work just as effectively in the Toulousan territories as well. These were the circumstances which at last provoked Peter o f Aragon, backed by the counts o f Toulouse, Foix, and Comminges, to draw Montfort to the battlefield at Muret (south-west o f Toulouse) on 12 September 1213. Despite the disparity in the size o f the forces - the allied army was probably three times the size o f the crusader contingent - Montfort nevertheless attacked and once again triumphed, leaving the king o f Aragon dead on the field.67 Confident now o f his military position, in the summer o f 1214, helped again by northern reinforcements, Montfort moved north again, attacking any town which allegedly held heretics or mercenaries from Morhlon to Mondenard and Marmande, and then back to Casseneuil. For the first time the crusaders took the war into the Dordogne valley. Tn this way’, says Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, ‘we achieved the subjugation o f four castm , Domme, Montfort, Castelnaud, and Beynac. For a hundred years and more Satan’s seat had been in these four places.’ In Peter’s view ‘the valour and skill’ o f Montfort had now restored ‘peace and tranquillity . . . not only to the inhabitants o f Perigord, but also to the people o f Quercy, the Agenais, and most o f the Limousin’ .68 Montfort then swept east into the diocese o f Rodez, capturing Capedenac (near Figeac) and Severac, before returning to the south to attend the Council o f Montpellier, held in January 1215. Despite the increasing papal doubts, such impressive military success was difficult to dispute and, at the Lateran Council held in November, Simon o f Montfort was confirmed as Count o f Toulouse by the pope and, at Melun, his homage for this position was accepted by King Philip II.69 But to Montfort Languedoc must have seemed like a pot which was never less than simmering and which all too frequently came to the boil.

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The only way that the lid could be kept down was by constant pressure which) in Montfort’s case, meant an unremitting war o f movement. At the Lateran Council Innocent III) deeply troubled by the legitimacy o f dis­ inheriting Raymond V i’s son, who had been only a small boy when the wars began and could hardly be held responsible for their development) had left the lands east o f the Rhdne within the count’s Provencal domains to be held in trust for the younger Raymond. The southerners took quick advan­ tage o f this concession: while Montfort was in the north securing his posi­ tion with Philip II) the younger Raymond besieged his troops in Beaucaire, and his father went to Spain to gather new forces. For the last twenty months o f his life Montfort was obliged to grapple with a double threat) on the west in Toulouse and on the east in Provence. Despite immense effort he failed to relieve the garrison at Beaucaire and an uprising o f the citizens o f Toulouse against the French forced him to turn west again. Although this was put down in March 1217, the French forces were insuf­ ficient to maintain a proper grip on the city and, in September) Raymond VI was able to enter and rally support. Montfort, who believed that he had gained time to return to the conflict in Provence, was obliged to invest Toulouse once again, although neither side had the strength to win a quick victory. It was during this siege, on 25 June 1218, that Simon o f Montfort was killed, struck on the head by a stone from a catapult.70 N ot surprisingly, the opinions o f contemporaries are sharply polarised. For Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, whose monastery was so closely linked to the Montfort family, he was the ultimate crusading hero:

he was eloquent o f speech, eminently approachable, a most congenial comrade-in-arms, of impeccable chastity, outstanding in humility, wise, firm o f purpose, prudent in counsel, f a ir in givin g judgm ent, diligent in the pursuit o f m ilitary duties, circumspect in his actions, eager to set about a task, tireless in completing it, and totally dedicated to the service o f God. Faced with the apparent inconstancy o f a God who only appeared to sup­ port Montfort sometimes, the chronicler presents the prolongation o f the wars as G od’s means o f preventing him from succumbing to the sin o f pride, while at the same time providing opportunities for the salvation o f sinners.71 This contrasts dramatically with the depiction o f Montfort which the anonymous continuator o f the Chanson puts in the mouth o f the count

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o f Foix when he speaks before Innocent III at the Lateran Council in November 1215. He was a man ‘who binds and hangs there [Provence, Toulouse, and Montauban], who destroys and devastates, a man devoid o f pity’ . After his death, the crusading army disintegrated. ‘The cross is broken in two’, says the author o f the Chanson, ‘and parts in hatred’ .72 Both these men were close to the time and the action. William o f Puylaurens lived through the crusade, but his viewpoint is shaped by the perspective o f fifty years.

See, he who was dreaded from the M editerranean to the sea o f B ritain fe ll under a blow from a stone, as a result o f which those who previously had stood firm were overthrown, and through him , who was good, was brought down the pride o f his subordinates. I say now what I heard in the course o f time that the count o f Toulouse who died last [Raymond VII], although he was his enemy, marvellously commended him fo r his faith , foresight, and strength, and in everything which is fittin g in a leader. Nevertheless, William o f Puylaurens presents Simon o f Montfort at the last as disillusioned and weary. ‘However, the count was burdened by toil and grief and worn down and exhausted by the expense, nor did he easily bear the constant goading o f the legate, who said he was careless and slack, which annoyed him very much. Thus, as was said, he prayed to God that he should give him peace by the remedy o f death.’73 Table 2 puts this in perspective, showing his constant movement over a wide area for the entire nine years which he was on crusade. His military activity consists almost entirely o f sieges and the skirmishing which was their inevitable accompani­ ment, for he was involved in only two battles, in one o f which (at SaintMartin-Lalande) he played a minor role at best. Between September 1209 and June 1218 he led thirty-nine sieges, all but six o f which were successful; some lasted no more than a few hours while others went on for months, culminating in the eight months spent in the fruitless attack on Toulouse in which he met his death. In addition, Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay lists another forty-eight places which either submitted voluntarily or capitulated as soon as he and his forces approached.74 This involved an area which extended from the Razes and the Sault in the south to the middle Dordogne in the north, and from Lourdes in the west to the Rhone in the east. Statistics cannot convey, however, that it was a war fought with par­ ticular brutality. Two examples are sufficient to gain some idea o f this. As

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might be expected, Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay claims that the other side started it, but whatever the truth o f this, it is clear from his narrative that both sides were involved. In the winter o f 1209, Guiraud o f Pepieux, a knight from Beziers who had apparently at first sided with the crusaders, suddenly seized the fortress o f Puisserguier from the crusader garrison. When Montfort brought up forces to threaten him, Guiraud fled, having left the sergeants for dead covered with debris in the fosse. The two knights who had commanded them were taken to Minerve where they were stripped naked, their eyes put out, and their noses, ears, and upper lips cut off. Thrown out in this condition, one died o f exposure, while the other was saved by a poor man who took him to Carcassonne. The defenders o f Bram paid for this the following March. When, after a three-day siege, the fortress fell, the captured men were blinded, and their noses were cut off and sent to Cabaret under the guidance o f a man who had been left with one eye for the purpose.75 The verdict o f William o f Puylaurens rings true. Montfort had endured nine years which would have taxed the resolution o f even so iron-willed and single-minded a man. However, while his determination is not in doubt, whatever may have been the views o f Cardinal Bertrand o f St Priscus, the legate, there remains the question o f what impact Montfort and his crusaders actually had on Catharism itself. Innocent III predeceased Simon o f Montfort by just under two years. He had, in his letter o f March 1208, presented the death o f Peter o f Castelnau as a necessary sacrifice if ‘the evil and corrupt gen­ eration’ o f heretics was to be overcome.76 Nevertheless, the relationship between Montfort’s unceasing military activity and the actual extirpation o f the Cathars is much more complex than the pope’s rhetoric suggests. As Table 2 shows, the main crusade chroniclers mention only three places from the thirty-seven (Toulouse was besieged three times) which he is known to have besieged, in which the existence o f perfecti is explicitly recorded. There were executions o f 140 perfecti at Minerve in July 1210, o f between 300 and 400 at Lavaur in May 1211, and, soon after, between fifty and one hundred at Les Casses.77 Nowhere else are heretics specifically mentioned, although it is probable that the crusaders took it for granted that the defenders o f places which resisted them must by definition at least be sympathetic to the heretics and their teaching. In this sense, Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay seems to be using Les Casses as a symbol for them all. ‘This was a clear demonstration o f the love o f the Count o f Toulouse for

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heretics - in this insignificant castrum o f his there were found more than fifty perfected heretics.’78 If this is an accurate reflection o f the mentality o f the crusaders, then another possible way o f measuring this is to compare the list o f the places which Montfort besieged or which voluntarily submitted to him with Michel Roquebert’s survey o f the heretic presence ‘on the eve o f the crusade’ .79 Roquebert found eighty-six places (excluding Carcassonne and Beziers), o f which Montfort held twenty-three at one time or another, having tried but failed to take one other, that o f Saint-Marcel. These figures are difficult to interpret. They suggest that, for all his dynamic activity, Montfort does not seem to have tried to gain control o f sixty-two places now known to have contained heretics at or before 1209. As some o f the evidence comes from inquisitorial records, however, it is possible that Montfort was unaware o f this at the time. They may, o f course, have been beyond his resources for, despite the revolution effected in crusade taxation during the pontificate o f Innocent III, the Albigensian Crusades were not properly financed, and Montfort found himself more reliant on private bankers like Raymond o f Cahors and upon booty than any regular incomes from clerical taxation.80 Even so, he did manage either to seize or to gain the submission o f another sixty-three places for which there is no evidence o f heresy during his nine years o f crusading and, at one point, in January 1213, following protests from envoys o f Peter o f Aragon, Innocent III himself accused Montfort, together with Arnald Amalric, o f extending ‘greedy hands into lands which had no ill reputation for heresy’ .81 This may be significant for assessing Montfort’s motivation, but it also suggests that there were distinct limits to the military solution o f ‘the contagion o f heresy’ since, in fact, it is highly unlikely that the Church could have found a secular champion o f greater commitment and military skill than Montfort. The failure o f his son, Amaury, after his father’s death in lune 1218, serves to underline this. Southern lords sympathetic to Catharism could not easily escape Montfort if he chose to turn his attention to them, but the figures show that there were in fact odds o f between three and four to one against being attacked. Individual bonhommes therefore had plenty o f places to take refuge from the butchery if they chose, which per­ haps explains why there are no mass burnings o f heretics by the crusaders after May 1211. However, there is another way to assess the impact o f Montfort’s cam­ paign upon Catharism. Although he only held just over a quarter o f the

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places listed as ‘heretical’ by Roquebert, the map shows that they are con­ centrated in the Trencavel lands and around Raymond V i’s chief city o f Toulouse. Montfort, for reasons o f his own, spent a proportion o f his time campaigning in Provence, the Agenais, and the Dordogne, where there were relatively few Cathars as far as can be seen, but by subjugating many o f the castm and fortified villages o f the Lauragais, the Toulousain, the Carcasses, and the Albigeois, where the Cathars were solidly established, he did try to break up at least part o f the infrastructure upon which the perfecti depended.82 I f the gaps in the Cathar hierarchy during these years are any indication, Montfort was at least partially successful. There are no known Cathar bishops o f Albi, Carcassonne, and Agen during the period he led the crusade, and only one deacon (in the diocese o f Carcassonne). Toulouse fared better in that here the continuity was maintained by Bishops Gaucelm (1204-r. 1220) and Guilhabert o f Castres (c. 1220-r. 1241), but they only survived because they were able to take refuge at Montsegur during the crusade, together with some o f the deacons from the diocese and other leading perfecti.83 Indeed, Montfort’s policy was doubly important after the fall o f major cities like Beziers and Carcassonne, for many o f those associ­ ated with heresy had fled to the castm before the crusade could catch them, only to find themselves facing further military pressure. Once gone, it was not easy for them to return, for any property was confiscated and granted to orthodox institutions: the house and property o f the heretical sym­ pathiser, Bernard o f Lerida, in Carcassonne itself and nearby Beriac, for example, were ceded to the Cistercians.84 Even so, this was not an infallible method. In Quercy there was no support for Catharism from the aristo­ cratic and urban elites until the crusaders intruded and attempted to impose outside overlords from whom the locals were expected to hold their fiefs. The result was revolt and defection in the years between 1214 and 1218, pushing the region towards identification with the enemies o f the crusade, despite past co-operation.85 In 1208, after the murder o f his legate, the pope had appealed to Philip II to establish ‘Catholic inhabitants who, in accordance with your orthodoxy will preserve the discipline o f the faith in holiness and justice under your felicitous governance in the presence o f G od’ .86 He failed to persuade the king, but Montfort did replace at least some o f the rural lords and cas­ tellans with the limited number o f crusaders willing to stay in the south for more than one campaigning season, men like Alan o f Roucy who gained

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Termes, Montreal, and Bram, and Bouchard o f Marly, who held Saissac and Cabaret. That he took this seriously can be seen by the enactment o f the statutes o f Pamiers in 1212 intended, as Claire Dutton says, to establish a ‘new order’ in the south. Among the provisions was the requirement for ‘robed heretics, even if reconciled’ to remove themselves from the town in which they had lived; they could resettle elsewhere, but only with Montfort’s permission. The stipulation that heiresses and widows o f ‘high rank’ who held fortresses needed licence to marry indigenous lords but not Frenchmen was obviously intended to reinforce this new orthodox environ­ ment. At the same time Montfort did begin to establish some kind o f administrative structure, although it appears fairly rudimentary in com­ parison with the practices o f more sophisticated contemporary regimes.87 Nevertheless, the problems o f resources and manpower remained. Few settlers survived to found long-term dynasties in the south and, indeed, in the early 1220s, the reappearance o f Cathar preachers in some o f the castm shows how limited such settlement had been.88 It was the royal conquest o f 1226 to 1229 which curtailed this revival, rather than any permanent legacy o f Montfort’s activities. The course o f the crusade, however, had never been solely in the hands o f the military. Montfort’s position had throughout been affected by the lobbying o f the various parties involved at the papal curia and by the vacil­ lations o f a pope who, for all his reputation as a man o f clear vision and decisive action, sometimes seems to have formulated policy on the basis o f the views o f the most recent lobbyist to have gained access to him.89 Innocent I l l ’s own troubled conscience was assaulted from two sides: on the one hand, the Aragonese-Toulousan axis, which sought to convince him that the crusade had achieved its objective and that therefore no further action need be taken; on the other, by vociferous papal legates on the ground who tried to persuade the pope that he was being misled by the cunning manoeuvres o f those who protected heretics. On three key occasions - in 1211, 1213, and 1215 - the pope’s decision finally favoured the crusaders, and each time that decision served to prolong the crusade. Arnald Amalric, who had always held Raymond VI personally respon­ sible for the death o f Peter o f Castelnau, believed that the conquest o f the Trencavel lands was insufficient while those o f the perfidious count o f Toulouse remained untouched. Although the legate can justly be charged with duplicity on more than one occasion in his dealings with

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Raymond VI,90 the pattern o f ‘heretical’ sites which emerges from Roquebert’s list seems to vindicate Arnald Amalric’s belief that, in the spring o f 1211, Catharism in Languedoc was far from conquered. Assiduous campaigning at the papal curia by Raymond VI combined with Montfort’s preoccupation with a stubborn Trencavel nobility delayed a direct attack upon him, but when at the Councils o f Narbonne and Montpellier in January and February 1211 the count once more refused to give a direct promise o f aid against the Cathars o f the Toulousain, the legates took the opportunity to excommunicate him and directed the crusade into his lands for the first time.91 At the same time, with the Trencavel resistance apparendy over, Peter o f Aragon finally accepted M ontfort’s homage for these lands. However, as Montfort increasingly squeezed Toulouse itself through his strategy against the count’s lands to the north and east o f the city, Peter o f Aragon’s doubts resurfaced. Taking advantage o f the prestige gained by his key role in the victory over the Moors at Las Navas de Tolosa in July 1212, the king sent his envoys to Rome and, on 17 January 1213, obtained a papal letter suspending the crusade and censuring Montfort for his indis­ criminate use o f force. For the king the moment was propitious, in that the pope had the ultimate goal o f a new crusade to the Holy Land at the fore­ front o f his mind. In April, he issued the encyclical Q uia m aior for this purpose, in the course o f which he revoked the privileges for the crusaders in Spain and Languedoc on the grounds that the reasons for them no longer existed 92 Although indicative o f Innocent’s increasing uncertainty about the direction and nature o f the Albigensian Crusade, his change o f attitude was brief. Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay describes the pope as ‘too ready to believe the false accounts o f the King’s envoys’, and records with satisfaction how the legates and prelates persuaded Innocent to change his mind. In May 1213, the pope wrote to Peter o f Aragon:

We are am azed and disturbed that, by using your envoys to suppress the truth and give a false account o f m atters you have extorted from us a papal letter ordering the restitution o f their territories to the Counts o f Comminges and Foix and Gaston de Bearn , bearing in mind that - to pass over their many other monstrous misdeeds - they have been bound with the chain o f excommunication fo r their support o f the heretics, whom they openly defend 93

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This failure o f his diplomatic efforts must have been a substantial element in the king’s decision to act against Montfort himself. As described by William o f Tudela, the king ‘announced to them all [his men] that he intended to go to Toulouse to fight against the crusade because it was wasting and destroying the whole country. Furthermore, he said, the count o f Toulouse had appealed to their compassion to prevent his land being burned and laid waste, for he had done no harm or wrong to any living soul.’94 The papal fear o f the political nature o f the crusade which had tem­ porarily influenced Innocent’s judgement in 1211, reappeared at the Lateran Council o f November 1215. The pro-southern continuator o f the Chanson includes a dramatic set-piece which purports to be an account o f the argu­ ments put forward before the pope at the council. All the participants are endowed with an eloquence seldom found in real life, but it is likely that beneath the vivid words the poet puts into their mouths, he is conveying a fundamental truth about their respective positions.95 A flavour o f this presentation can be gained from the confrontation between Fulk, Bishop o f Toulouse, and Raymond Roger, Count o f Foix. ‘My lords’, said the bishop,

you have a ll heard the Count o f Foix declare that he is free o f this heresy and untainted by it. But I tell you that his fie f is its m ajor root, that he has cherished, supported and been gracious to them, that his whole county is crammed and seething with heresy, that the peak o f Montsegur was deliberately fortified so that he could protect them, and he has made them welcome there. A nd his sister [Esclarm onda] became a heretic when her husband died and she then lived more than three years a t Pam iers where she converted many to her evil doctrine. Raymond Roger replied in language equally extreme. ‘And once he [Fulk] was elected bishop o f Toulouse, a fire raged throughout the land that no water anywhere can quench, for he has destroyed the souls and bodies o f more than five hundred people, great and small. In his deeds, his words and his whole conduct, I promise you he is more like Antichrist than a mes­ senger from Rome.’96 Nor were these the only parties striving to gain the pope’s ear, for King John o f England, anxious to protect his interests in the Agenais and to compensate for the defeat o f his allies at the battle o f Bouvines the previous year, had sent his own representatives. They argued that the young Raymond was entitled to the Agenais as it had been the dowry o f his late mother, Joan, John’s sister, and that, beyond this, he

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should also receive this inheritance o f the lands o f Toulouse, whatever had been the transgression o f his father.97 After considerable personal agonis­ ing the pope’s award o f the fiefs o f the count o f Toulouse to Montfort combined with his guardianship o f ‘the remaining lands, which were not obtained by the crusaders’ on behalf o f the count’s son until he came o f age, served once more to reignite the war.98 Simon o f Montfort excited extremes o f admiration and loathing from contemporaries, but whatever their opinion o f him they all recognised his key role in sustaining the crusade. This meant that, while he lived, the Cathars could no longer proselytise in the way that they had before 1209. The crusade did not eliminate heresy - indeed, as has been seen, there were many known heretical centres which remained untouched - but it did change the whole environment. After 1209 Languedoc would never be the same for the Cathar Church; from then, once expansionist and confident, it became defensive and beleaguered. Montfort’s death might have changed this, even if the world o f pam tge yearned for by the nostalgic poet o f the Chanson could never be revived.99 This did not happen because there finally occurred what Innocent III had wanted in the first place, which was the intervention o f the French Crown. The main interest came from Philip II’s son, Louis. He had already taken a force south in 1215 and did so again in the summer o f 1219, when he took Marmande from Raymond V i’s garrison and was involved in an unsuccessful siege o f Toulouse. The latter expedition did little to check the revival o f the Toulousan fortunes: by 1224 Raymond VII had recaptured most o f his dynasty’s hereditary lands. It was not an impressive record and even Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay admits Philip II’s lack o f enthusiasm, although he does not dare to criticise the king for what he obviously saw as a serious failing. When Louis took the cross in 1215, Peter describes Philip as ‘very sad to hear that his son had joined the Crusade, but it is not for me to explain the reasons for his grief’ .100 With his father’s death in 1223, Louis was much freer to pursue his own policies; the will for the continuation o f the fighting came less from Raymond VII and Amaury o f Montfort who, if William o f Puylaurens is correct, were close to compromise and a marriage alliance in 1223, than from Louis VIII and Pope Honorius III.101 Indeed, not only did Amaury lack his father’s dominant personality, he was also faced with declining enthusiasm for a cause which had been dragging on since 1209. He relied more on mercenaries than his father had done and this may have led, in

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1221, to an attempt to found a military religious order on the model o f the Templars but devoted to the fight against heresy.102 Honorius III at first showed some enthusiasm for the project, but the interest o f Louis VIII in the crusade may have overshadowed it. If, as seems likely, the initial impetus for such an order had come from Amaury o f Montfort, its total disappearance from the sources may be explained by his decision in 1225 to retire from the scene and to grant his rights in Languedoc to the king. At the Council o f Bourges in November 1225, the new papal legate, Romanus, cardinal-deacon o f Sant’ Angelo - a man firmly in the tradition o f Peter o f Castelnau and Arnald Amalric - refused to accept Raymond’s case and, early in 1226, excommunicated him. Romanus steered the very large assembly o f clergy at the council (perhaps as many as 880) to the conclusion that a new crusade was the only way that heretical perversity could be excised from Languedoc and a new peace established, and that this would only be possible if, over the next five years, a subsidy o f a tenth o f clerical incomes were devoted to it. This fulfilled a key condition for Louis VIII and, at the council o f Paris in late January 1226, he took the Cross, confident that he would receive the tenth, a sum amounting to around 60,000 livres parisis per annum.103 Louis could now begin his planned crusade, evidently intended to be on a much larger scale than his abortive efforts in the past. The king was initially baulked at Avignon but forced its submission, along with Beaucaire, in September 1226, and then moved on to Albi. Many southern lords then decided that they had no alternative but to accept royal authority. Although Louis did not follow up his gains by attacking Toulouse - perhaps because he was already under­ mined by the illness from which he died in October, or perhaps because o f his memory o f the frustrations o f the siege o f 1219 - he was able to leave a permanent presence under his cousin, Humbert o f Beaujeu, whose systematic ravaging o f the land was in turn made possible because he could draw on royal resources. It was this destruction o f the Toulousan hinterland which finally brought Raymond VII to negotiation.

Notes and references 1

Q uoted by PV C , vol. 1, paras 5 6 - 6 5 , pp. 5 2 - 6 5 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 3 1 -8 . Also Innocentii I I I Registrorum sive Epistolarum, in PL, vol. 2 1 5 , cols 1 3 5 4 -8 .

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REFERENCES

See R. A. M arkus, ‘Saint A ugustine’s views on the “ Ju st W ar’” , in W. J. Shiels, ed., The Church and War: Studies in Church History 2 0 (1 9 8 3 ), pp. 1 -1 3 , and F. H . Russell, The Ju st War in the M iddle Ages (C am bridge, 197 5 ), ch. 1.

3

See J. Gilchrist, ‘The L o rd ’s war as the proving groun d o f faith: Pope Innocent III and the propagation o f violence (1 1 9 8 - 1 2 1 6 )’ , in M . Shatzmiller, ed., Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria (Leiden, 1 993), pp. 6 5 - 8 3 , in which he argues that Innocent used the idea o f the just war as a means o f calling upon the faithful to prove their com m itm ent to the defeat o f Christ’s enemies. Innocent’s letters show that he had a clear idea o f past justification for using force in this way, although, o f course, he had no practical experience o f the effects o f such a policy, see R. Rist, The

Papacy and C rusading in Europe 1198-1245 (Lo n d on , 2 0 0 9 ), pp. 3 -9 , 1 9 -3 5 . O n Innocent’s own wish for m artyrdom on crusade, see R. Foreville, ‘ Innocent III et la Croisade des A lbigeois’ , in C F 4 (1 9 6 9 ), p. 185. See, too , C . D utton , Aspects o f the Institutional History o f the Albigensian Crusades, 1198-1229 (PhD diss., Royal H ollow ay and Bedford N ew C ollege, University o f L on don , 1 9 9 3 ), pp. 1 5 -2 4 . 4

PV C , vol.

1, para. 7 9 , p.

7 9 ; trans. Sibly, p. 4 5 .

5

PV C , vol.

1, para.4 0 , pp. 3 7 - 8 ; trans. Sibly, p. 2 4 .

6

PV C , vol.

1, para.4 1 , p.

7

PV C , vol. 1, para. 13, p. 15; trans. Sibly, p. 13; Paul o f Saint-Pere de Chartres, Vetus Aganon, ed. B .-E .-C . Guerard, in C artu laire de Pabbaye de Saint-Pere de Chartres (Collection des cartulaires de France, 1) (Paris, 1 8 4 0 ), p. 112; trans. W E, no. 3 (B ), p. 79.

8

H H , no. 7, pp. 9 1 - 2 , no. 8, p. 9 6 . For a general survey, see J. Duvernoy, ‘ L ’air de la calom nie’ , in C EI, pp. 2 1 - 3 8 .

9

Innocentii I I I Registrorum sive Epistolarum , in PL, vol. 2 1 5 , cols 3 6 1 -2

3 8 ; trans. Sibly, p. 24.

(1 2 0 4 ), 5 2 6 - 8 (1 2 0 5 ), 1 2 4 6 - 7 (1 2 0 7 ). There is a partial translation o f Innocent’s letter to Philip II in 12 0 7 , in L. Riley-Smith and J. Riley-Smith, trans., The Crusades. Idea and Reality, 1095-1274 (D ocum en ts o f M edieval H istory, 4) (L o n d on , 1 9 8 1 ), no. 15(i), pp. 7 8 - 8 0 , and o f Philip’s reaction to a further request following the death o f the papal legate, Peter o f Castelnau, in which the king stresses that Raym ond V I had not been condem ned for heresy, W. A. and M . D . Sibly, trans., The History o f the

Albigensian Crusade (W oodbridge, 1 9 9 8 ), Appendix F , pp. 3 0 5 - 6 (Latin text, H G L , vol. 8, no. 138(ii), cols 5 5 8 - 9 ). F or a discussion o f Philip I I ’s attitude, see D utton , Aspects, pp. 2 8 - 3 2 . 1 0 See M . G. Pegg, A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade an d the Battle fo r Christendom (O xford and N ew York, 2 0 0 8 ), p. 59.

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Like his predecessors, K ing John o f England was a genuine opponent o f heresy, but such an invasion was bound to im pringe on Angevin interests in the region. H ow ever, his country was under interdict and, in N ovem ber, 121 4 , he was excom m unicated, so he was in no position to intervene. See C. Taylor, ‘Pope Innocent III, Joh n o f England and the Albigensian Crusade ( 1 2 0 9 - 1 2 1 6 )’, in J. C. M oore, ed., Pope Innocent I I I and his World (Aldershot, 1 999), pp. 2 1 8 -1 9 , and N . Vincent, ‘England and the Albigensian C rusade’ , in B. K. Weiler and I. W. Rowlands, eds, England and Europe in

the Reign o f Henry I I I (1261-1272) (Aldershot, 2 0 0 2 ), pp. 7 2 -9 . 12

See E. Siberry, Criticism o f Crusading, 1095-1274 (O xford, 1 9 8 5 ), pp. 6 - 8 , 1 5 8 -6 8 . F or the participants, see D utton , Aspects, pp. 1 7 6 -7 .

13

PV C , vol. 1, para. 8 1 , pp. 8 0 - 1 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 4 5 - 6 .

14

Chanson, vol. 1, laisses 1 , 5 , pp. 3 - 5 , 1 8 -1 9 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 11, 13.

15

W P, pp. 2 3 - 4 and n. 2 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 7 , 21.

16

Gilchrist, ‘The L o rd ’s war’ , p. 8 3 , and Foreville, ‘Innocent IIP , pp. 1 8 4 -2 1 7 . Michel R oquebert has linked the stories o f the Grail cycle to this phase o f crusading history, for he sees a chronological convergence between the developm ent o f Church militancy tow ards the Cathars, which he dates from the Third Lateran Council o f 11 7 9 , and the appearance o f the Grail stories which, until c. 1215 at least, he believes prom oted the im portance o f the ‘soldier o f C hrist’ , fighting to defend the Church and assured o f eternal salvation if he is killed during that fight. Others have associated these stories with the crusades to the E ast; R oquebert believes they apply equally well to the Albigensian Crusades. Indeed, the stories were especially prom inent in areas associated with recruitment for the Albigensian wars, in particular Cham pagne and Flanders. M oreover, the assertion o f the dogm a o f transubstantiation at the Fourth Lateran Council o f 1215 was a direct answer to the anti-eucharistic views o f the Cathars and contributed towards the internalisation o f the concept o f the soldier o f Christ which R oquebert discerns around 1225. This ‘mystical stage’ in the Grail cycle he attributes to the crusading failures - both in the East and in Languedoc between 1218 and 1 225. See M . R oquebert, Les Cathares et le G raal (T oulouse, 1 9 9 4 ), esp. pp. 6 6 - 8 , 1 7 9 -8 8 .

17

Innocentii I I I Registrorum sive Epistolarum , in PL, vol. 2 1 4 , cols 8 1 -3 . Innocent uses the w ord accingantur, but this does not necessarily mean that the pope was calling on them to fight in a literal sense, although it has som etim es been interpreted in that way. See the discussions in Sibly, History, p. 316, n. 3, and D utton, ALspects, p. 2 5 , who points out that, at this time, the pope was chiefly concerned to recruit for his proposed crusade to the East.

18

See C . J. H efele and H . Leclercq, H istoire des Conciles, vol. 5 (i), 5(ii) (Paris, 1912 , 1 9 1 3 ), pp. 5 7 0 - 3 , 7 3 1 - 2 , and N . J. Tanner, ed., Decrees o f the

• 160 •

NOTES

AND

REFERENCES

Ecum enical Councils, vol. 1, N icaea I to Lateran V (L o n d on , 1 9 9 0 ), p. 2 0 2 , for canon 23 o f the Lateran Council o f 1139. 19

See pp. 2 3 , 2 9 -3 0 .

20

Pegg, A Most Holy War, pp. 5 0 -1 .

21

See pp. 7 0 -1 .

22

Epistolae Dom ni H enrici Claraevallensis quodam A bbatis postmodum Episcopi Albanensis, in PL, vol. 2 0 4 , cols 2 3 5 - 4 0 (quotation col. 2 3 5 ).

23

Tanner, ed., Decrees o f the Ecum enical Councils, vol. 1, N icaea I to Lateran V, p. 2 2 4 . Lucy Sackville shows that, in the course o f the twelfth century, heresy becam e an increasingly im portant conciliar topic, reflecting the degree to which the ecclesiastical authorities had becom e concerned ab out it. There is an evident shift from focus on individuals to m ore general condem nation,

Heresy and Heretics in the Thirteenth Century. The Textual Representations (W oodbridge, 2 0 1 1 ), pp. 8 8 -9 3 . 24

E. Griffe, Les Debuts de Paventure cathare en Languedoc (1140-90) (Paris,

25

Griffe, Les Debuts, pp. 1 2 2 - 3 , dates this 1179.

26

J. Delaville Le R oulx, ed., C artu lairegen eral de POrdre des H ospitallers

1 9 6 9 ), pp. 1 1 8 -1 9 . See also p. 63.

de Saint-Jean de Jerusalem , 1100-1310 , vol. 1 (Paris, 1 8 9 4 ), no. 5 7 2 , p. 3 8 8 ; vol. 2 , no. 1 6 1 7 , p. 2 4 6 . See also the discussion in Sibly, History, Appendix D , pp. 2 9 9 - 3 0 1 . See p. 57. 27

W P, pp. 2 8 - 3 1 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 1 -1 2 . See p. 4 7 .

28

J. Fearns, ed., Ketzer und Ketzerbekdmpfung im Hochmittelalter (H istorische T exte, M ittelalter, 8) (G ottingen, 1 9 6 8 ), pp. 6 1 - 3 .

29

See p. 7.

30

W P, pp. 2 2 - 7 , 4 6 - 5 1 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 8 - 9 , 2 4 - 5 .

31

PV C , vol. 1, para. 6 , p. 6 ; trans. Sibly, p. 8.

32

B. H am ilton, The Albigensian Crusade (H istorical A ssociation, 1 9 7 4 ), p. 17; H H , pp. 4 7 - 8 and no. 2 9 , pp. 2 5 4 - 9 ; R. M anselli, ‘Les “ chretiens” de Bosnie: le catharisme en Europe orientale’ , Revue d yhistoire ecclesiastique 72 (1 9 7 7 ), pp. 6 0 0 - 1 4 . Innocent may, to o , have been influenced by the presence o f Cathars nearer at hand, especially in central Italian strongholds like V iterbo and Orvieto, where opposition to the extension o f papal sovereignty m ust som etim es have appeared to the pope as linked to heresy, see C . Lansing, Power and Purity: C athar Heresy in M edieval Italy (N ew York and O xford, 1 9 9 8 ), pp. 3 3 , 4 1 . From the papal perspective dualism seem ed to be gaining groun d everywhere.

33

M . Barber, ‘W estern attitudes to Frankish Greece in the thirteenth century’ , in B. H am ilton, B. Arbel and D . Jacoby, eds, L atin s and Greeks in the

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Eastern M editerranean after 1204 (Lon d on , 1 9 8 9 ), pp. 1 1 1 -2 8 . In 1 2 2 3 , C onrad o f Prato, legate o f H onorius III in southern France, m isunderstanding the term pop, or papa, claimed the existence o f an anti-pope at the head o f the dualists o f the Balkans, w ho was in turn linked to the Cathars o f Lan guedoc, see B. H am ilton, ‘ Catholic perceptions o f East European dualism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’ , in

Crusaders, C athars and the Holy Places (Aldershot, 2 0 0 0 ), pp. 8 - 9 . 34

PV C , vol. 1, paras 7, 8, pp. 7 - 8 ; trans. Sibly, p. 9.

35

Innocentii I I I Rejyistrorum sive Epistolarum , in PL, vol. 2 1 5 , cols 3 5 8 - 6 0 . The offer o f 1198 had not, in any case, produced any results. See G. G. C oulton , The Death Penalty fo r Heresy from 1184 to 1917 (Lon d on , 1 9 2 4 ), p. 4.

36

Innocentii I I I Registrorum sive Epistolarum , in PL, vol. 2 1 5 , cols 5 2 6 - 8 .

37

Ibid., cols 1 1 6 6 -8 .

38

W P, pp. 5 4 - 5 ; trans. Sibly, p. 28.

39

Chanson, vol. 1, laisses 2 , 4 , pp. 8 - 1 1 , 1 2 -1 3 ; trans. Shirley, p. 12. See also p. 7.

40

A cta concilii Lum bariensis, in R H G , vol. 14, pp. 4 3 1 - 4 , trans. W E, no. 2 8 , pp. 1 8 9 -9 4 . F or the succession o f the bishops o f Albi, see J. D ufour, Les Eveques d yAlbi, de Cahors et de Rodez des origines a la fin du X lle siecle (M em oires et docum ents d ’histoire medievale et de la philologie) (Paris, 1 9 8 9 ), pp. 3 8 - 4 1 . O n doubts about the extent to which these m en can really be called Cathars, see M . C osten, The C athars and the Albijyensian

Crusade (M anchester, 1 9 9 7 ), p. 60. See also pp. 2 3 -2 4 . 41

W P, pp. 3 4 - 7 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 5 -1 6 . Duvernoy, n. 2 , for the possible identification o f Oliver and Sicard.

42

W P, pp. 4 6 - 5 1 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 2 3 - 5 .

43

PVC, vol. 1, paras 2 2 , 2 3 , 2 6 , pp. 2 4 - 6 , 2 8 - 9 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 8 ,1 8 - 1 9 , 20.

44

W P, pp. 5 1 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 2 5 - 7 .

45

PV C , vol. 1, para. 6 7 , pp. 6 5 - 6 ; trans. Sibly, p. 38, and n. 4 8 . Ralph died in early July 1 2 0 7 , and D iego on 30 D ecem ber, the same year. The form at endured in northern Italy, however, as can be seen from its use as a vehicle for the refutation o f Cathar beliefs by a layman called G eorge, probably in the 1240s. See Disputatio inter Catholicum et Paterinum hereticum , ed. C. H oecker (Edizione Nazionale dei testi mediolatini, 4 , serie 1 , 3 ) (Florence, 2 0 0 1 ). Trans, o f the prologue and chap. 1 in W E, no. 4 7 , pp. 2 8 9 - 9 6 .

46

A. T eulet, ed., Layettes du Tresor des Chartes, vol. 2 (Paris, 1 8 6 6 ), no. 1 9 9 2 , pp. 1 4 7 -5 2 (1 2 April), p. 149, for the masters.

• 162 •

NOTES AND

47

REFERENCES

PV C , vol. 1, para. 6 2 , pp. 6 0 - 2 ; trans. Sibly, p. 36. See also Sibly, n. 36, and the discussion in Appendix G , pp. 3 1 3 - 2 0 . F or Vergentis, see W. U llm ann, ‘The significance o f Innocent I l l ’s decretal “V ergentis” ’ , in Etudes d ’histoire

du droit canonique dediees d Gabriel Le B ras (Paris, 1 9 6 5 ), pp. 7 2 9 - 4 1 , and C . Thouzellier, Catharism e et Valdeisme en Languedoc a la fin du X lle siecle et au debut du X H Ie siecle, 2nd edn (Louvain and Paris, 1 9 6 9 ), pp. 1 5 5 -6 . 48

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 9 , pp. 2 6 - 7 ; trans. Shirley, p. 15; P V C , vol. 1, paras 7 7 - 8 , 80 , pp. 7 7 - 8 0 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 4 4 - 5 .

49

See E. Graham -Leigh, The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian

Crusade: The Trencavel Viscounts o f Carcassonne and Beziers (W oodbridge, 2 0 0 5 ), pp. 2 9 , 9 8 - 1 0 3 . 50

See J. Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades (N ew York, 1 9 7 1 ), pp. 5 8 - 9 .

51

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 15, pp. 4 4 - 5 ; trans. Shirley, p. 18.

52

S e e p . 71.

53

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 2 1 , pp. 5 8 - 9 ; trans. Shirley, p. 2 1 .

54

W P, pp. 1 4 0 -1 , 1 3 0 -1 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 8 6 , 7 8 - 9 . Cf. the standard Rom an m ethods as set ou t in the second h alf o f the tenth century by the Byzantines, G. T . Dennis, ed. and trans., Three Byzantine M ilitary Treatises (W ashington, D C , 198 5 ), pp. 3 0 3 - 5 .

55

Chanson, vol. 1, laisses 3 2 , 2 8 , pp. 7 8 - 8 1 , 7 0 - 3 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 2 5 - 6 , 24.

56

PV C , vol. 1, paras 9 8 , 1 2 4 , pp. 9 9 , 128; trans. Sibly, pp. 5 4 , 6 9 ; Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 37, pp. 9 4 - 5 ; trans. Shirley, p. 28. On the rumours that Raymond R oger had been poisoned and the later m ythology centred on the viscount, see G raham -Leigh, Southern French Nobility, pp. 1 -2 , 2 7 - 3 4 , 1 2 1 -2 .

57

See G raham -Leigh, Southern French Nobility, pp. 8 4 - 9 , 1 6 6 , on the possible reasons for m aking Raym ond R oger the initial target.

58

PV C , vol. 1, para. 1 03, p. 1 02; trans. Sibly, p. 56. O n M ontfort and his family see Y. D ossat, ‘Sim on de M ontfort’ , in C F 4 (1 9 6 9 ), pp. 2 8 1 - 3 0 2 , and Sibly, History, Appendix C , pp. 2 9 4 - 8 .

59

PV C , vol. 2 , paras 4 2 9 , 4 3 0 , pp. 1 2 2 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 9 6 - 7 . See the com m ents o f M . Keen, Chivalry (N ew H aven, C T and L on d on , 1 9 8 4 ), pp. 7 4 - 5 .

60

PV C , vol. 1, paras 1 1 5 , 1 28, 1 3 6 , pp. 119, 1 3 2 - 3 , 1 3 9 - 4 0 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 6 3 - 4 , 7 1 , 7 4 ; Innocentii I I I Registrorum sive Epistolarum , in PL, vol. 2 1 6 , cols 1 4 1 -2 . D u tton , Aspects, pp. 12, 9 3 - 4 , 2 1 3 , argues that the idea o f a limited 40-day service was the invention o f the legates and had not been intended by the pope.

61

PV C , vol. 1, paras 1 5 1 -7 (M inerve), 167 (M ontreal), 1 6 8 - 8 9 (Term es), 2 1 4 (C abaret), pp. 1 5 4 - 6 1 , 1 7 0 - 9 2 , 2 1 2 - 1 4 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 8 2 - 5 , 9 0 ,

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9 0 - 9 , 1 1 0 -1 1 . See also M . Barber, ‘ Catharism and the Occitan nobility: the lordships o f C abaret, Minerve and T erm es’ , in C . Harper-Bill and R. Harvey, eds, The Ideals and Practice o f M edieval Knighthood 3: Papers from the Fourth

Strawberry H ill Conference, 1988 (W oodbridge, 1 9 9 0 ), pp. 1 -1 9 . 62

P V C , vol. 1, paras 1 9 7 - 2 0 9 , pp. 1 9 9 - 2 0 8 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 0 3 - 7 . See also pp. 5 7 -8 .

63

PV C , vol. 1, para. 2 4 5 , pp. 2 4 4 - 5 , trans. Sibly, p. 1 2 5 ; Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 84 , pp. 2 0 2 - 3 ; trans. Shirley, p. 4 8 . Bearn presented a similar problem ,

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 126, pp. 2 8 0 - 1 ; trans. Shirley, p. 63 (autum n 12 1 2 ). 64

See F. L. Cheyette, review o f J. Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades, Speculum 48 (1 9 7 3 ), pp. 4 1 1 -1 5 .

65

PV C , vol. 1, paras 2 5 1 - 8 6 , pp. 2 5 0 - 8 3 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 2 9 - 4 3 ; Chanson, vol. 1, laisses 8 7 - 1 1 1 , pp. 2 0 4 - 4 9 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 4 9 - 5 6 .

66

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 1 11, pp. 2 4 8 - 9 ; trans. Shirley, p. 57.

67

F or these events, see PV C, vols 1 and 2 , paras 2 3 1 - 4 8 6 , pp. 2 3 0 - 9 3 , 1 -1 7 9 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 1 9 - 2 1 9 , and Chanson, vol. 1, laisses 7 9 - 1 3 1 , pp. 1 9 0 - 2 9 1 , vol. 2 , laisses 1 3 2 - 4 1 , pp. 2 - 3 7 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 4 6 - 7 2 (paras 132 ff. are by the anonym ous continuator). See A. P. Evans, ‘The Albigensian C rusade’ , in K. M . Setton, R. Wolfe and H . H azard, eds, A History o f the Crusades, vol. 2 (Philadelphia, PA, 1 9 6 2 ), p. 3 0 2 , for an estimate o f the num bers involved. O n the circumstances which led Peter II to take this action, see E. Griffe, Le Languedoc Cathare au temps de la Croisade (1209-1229) (Paris, 1 9 7 3 ), pp. 7 5 - 9 7 , and Graham -Leigh, Southern French Nobility, pp. 1 1 3 -2 1 .

68

PV C , vol. 2 , para. 5 3 4 , p. 2 2 9 ; trans. Sibly, p. 2 3 9 .

69

PV C , vol. 2 , paras 5 3 7 - 4 9 , 5 7 0 - 3 , pp. 2 3 0 - 4 2 , 2 5 9 - 6 5 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 2 3 9 - 4 5 , 2 5 3 - 6 ; Chanson, vol. 2 , laisses 1 4 3 - 5 0 , pp. 4 0 - 7 7 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 7 2 - 8 0 . See C . Taylor, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in M edieval Quercy (W oodbridge, 2 0 1 1 ), pp. 9 7 - 1 0 1 , for these cam paigns.

70

P V C , vol. 2 , paras 5 7 4 - 6 1 2 , pp. 2 6 6 - 3 1 6 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 2 5 7 - 7 7 ; Chanson, vol. 2 , laisses 1 5 2 -8 6 , pp. 8 2 -3 0 9 , vol. 3, laisses 1 8 7 -2 0 5 , pp. 8 -2 1 2 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 8 2 -1 7 3 . F or a detailed account o f the cam paigns during M ontfort’s time, see L. W. Marvin, The Occitan War:

A M ilitary and Political History o f the Albigensian Crusade, 1209-1218 (C am bridge, 2 0 0 8 ). 71

P V C , vol. 1, paras 104, 109, pp. 1 0 4 - 5 , 1 1 3 -1 4 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 5 6 - 7 , 60.

72

Chanson, vol. 2 , laisse 144, pp. 4 6 - 7 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 7 3 - 4 . See vol. 3, laisse 2 0 8 , pp. 2 2 8 - 9 ; trans. Shirley, p. 176, for this author’s fam ous epitaph on M ontfort as a m an o f blood, who slaughtered m en, w om en, and children, and seized the lands o f others. See also pp. 2 5 1 -2 .

• 164 •

NOTES AND

73

REFERENCES

WP, pp. 1 0 2 - 5 ; trans. Sibly, p. 61.

74 See Table 2. The list is not definitive. PVC refers to other, unnamed places which were taken or submitted. 75

PV C, vol. 1, paras 1 2 5 - 7 , 142, pp. 1 2 8 - 3 2 , 1 4 7 - 9 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 6 9 - 7 0 , 7 8 -9 .

76

PV C , vol. 1, para. 6 0 , pp. 5 6 - 8 ; trans. Sibly, p. 33. See p. 128.

77

See pp. 4 8 - 9 . William o f T udela, Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 8 4 , pp. 2 0 0 - 1 ; trans. Shirley, p. 4 8 , says that there were at least ninety-four heretics at Les Casses.

78

PV C , vol. 1, para. 2 3 3 , pp. 2 3 2 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 1 9 -2 0 .

79

M . R oquebert, UEpopee cathare , vol. 1, 1198-1212: U Invasion (T oulouse, 1 9 7 0 ), appendice, pp. 5 2 5 - 3 7 .

80

O n crusade financing, see D utton , Aspects, ch. 6 and p. 2 9 9 .

81

Innocentii I I I Registrorum sive Epistolarum , in PL, vol. 2 1 6 , cols 7 4 1 - 3 ; trans. Sibly, History, Appendix F, pp. 3 0 9 -1 0 .

82

The evidence for the ‘heretical’ places identified by R oquebert (see p. 165, n. 79 ) is largely drawn from a report o f the papal legates and the inquisitorial registers, which are concentrated in these areas, so that the argum ent can becom e circular. H ow ever, as will be seen, there does not seem to have been a necessity for extensive inquisitorial activity outside these areas. I f Catharism really was strong to the north and east, then the historian is left with the unlikely hypothesis that it died out spontaneously there in the years after M ontfort’s death in 1218 and that the same w ould have happened in the regions in and around T oulouse and Carcassonne w ithout any need for inquisitors or political changes.

83

See M . R oquebert, L ’Epopee cathare, vol. 4 , 1230-1249: M ourir a Montsegur (T oulouse, 1 9 9 4 ), pp. 1 0 7 - 8 ; J. Duvernoy, Le Catharism e , vol. 2 , L ’H istoire des Cathares (T oulouse, 1 9 7 9 ), appendice II, pp. 3 4 7 - 5 1 ; S. Nelli, ‘L ’Eveque Cathare, Guilhabert de C astres’ , Heresis 4 (1 9 8 5 ), pp. 1 1 -2 4 . The vicissitudes o f the career o f Guilhabert are a g o o d index o f the structural state o f the Cathar Church in Languedoc during the first four decades o f the thirteenth century.

84

See Griffe, Les Debuts, p. 160 and C osten , The Cathars, pp. 6 8 - 9 .

85

See Taylor, Quercy, pp. 9 7 - 1 0 2 , 2 3 0 - 6 .

86

Innocentii I I I Registrorum sive Epistolarum , in PLy vol. 215 , col. 1359.

87

As D utton , Aspects, pp. 1 7 3 - 4 , points out, settlem ent in the south was ‘not a m ajor m otivation for the crusaders’, see esp. her ch. 7 on this subject. T ext o f the Statutes o f Pamiers, H G L, vol. 8 , no. 1 65, cols 6 2 5 - 3 5 , trans. Sibly, History, Appendix H , pp. 3 2 1 -9 . Clause XV concerned robed heretics. This

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prefigures the conditions laid down by the Cardinal, Rom anus o f Sant Angelo, at the Council o f T oulouse, sixteen years later, see pp. 1 7 0 -1 . 88

See Evans, ‘Albigensian C rusade’ , p. 2 9 4 , esp. n. 23.

89

Rebecca R ist’s study o f the p o p e’s letters dem onstrates that he had ‘an unrealistic expectation o f what a crusade could achieve’ , Papacy and

C rusading , p. 4 9 . 90

The legates seem to have felt that the circumstances justified such conduct. See PV C , vol. 1, paras 163, 164, pp. 1 6 6 - 9 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 8 8 - 9 , on the legate Thedisius in 1210.

91

See Evans, ‘Albigensian C rusade’ , pp. 2 9 1 - 2 , and Strayer, Albigensian

92

G. T angl, Studien zum Register Innocenz I I I (Weimar, 1 9 2 9 ), pp. 8 8 - 9 7 ; Riley-Smith and Riley-Smith, trans., The Crusades, pp. 1 1 8 -2 4 . See the analysis o f D utton , Aspects, pp. 3 8 - 4 4 .

93

PV C , vol. 2 , paras 4 0 0 , 4 0 6 , pp. 9 7 - 8 , 1 03; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 8 5 , 1 8 8 - 9 .

94

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 1 3 1 , pp. 2 9 0 - 1 ; trans. Shirley, p. 65.

95

Chanson, vol. 2 , kisses 1 4 4 - 5 2 , pp. 4 4 - 8 9 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 7 3 - 8 3 . See pp. 5 9 -6 0 .

96

Chanson, vol. 2 , laisse 145, pp. 5 4 - 5 ; trans. Shirley, p. 75.

97

See Taylor, ‘Pope Innocent III, Joh n o f England and the Albigensian

Crusades, pp. 7 4 - 9 .

C rusade’ , pp. 2 2 5 - 6 . She believes that the p op e’s decision to award T oulouse to M ontfort was influenced by his fear that John had plans to create an Occitan empire, which would have done nothing to help the crusade. 98

T eulet, ed., Layettes du Tresor des Chartes, vol. 1, nos 1 1 1 3 -1 5 , pp. 4 1 3 - 1 6 (award o f fiefs to M ontfort) (April 1 2 1 5 ), no. 1 1 3 2 , p. 4 2 0 (saving rights o f the young Raym ond) (D ecem ber 1 215). Trans, no. 1132 in Sibly, History, Appendix F, pp. 3 1 1 -1 2 .

99

Chanson, vol. 2 , laisse 137, pp. 1 6 -1 7 ; trans. Shirley, p. 68.

100

PV C , vol. 2 , para. 4 1 7 , p. 1 10; trans. Sibly, p. 191.

101

W P, pp. 1 1 4 -1 5 ; trans. Sibly, p. 68. H onorius III had continued to support the Albigensian cam paigns even during the Fifth Crusade. See R. Rist, ‘Papal Policy and the Albigensian Crusades: Continuity or C hange?’ , Crusades, 2 (2 0 0 3 ), 9 9 - 1 0 8 .

102

See D utton , Aspects, pp. 2 2 6 - 3 2 .

103

See R. Kay, The Council ofBourges, 1225. A documentary history (Aldershot, 2 0 0 2 ), pp. 1 0 6 - 7 , 1 1 5 -4 6 . R om anus continued to be fully involved in the expedition itself, which can be seen as an attem pt by H onorius III to maintain legatine guidance. Crusades could be called by popes, but so often slipped out o f their control once under way (p. 174).

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chap ter

5

The decline o f Catharism

The Treaty of Paris, 1229 ‘For, just at the moment when the church thought to have peace in that land, heretics and their believers girded themselves more and more for numerous ventures and stratagems against her and against Catholics, with the result that the heretics did more harm by far in Toulouse and that region than they had even during the war.’1 William Pelhisson was a Dominican from Toulouse who, writing probably in the mid-thirteenth century, recalled the work o f the inquisitors appointed to investigate heresy in Languedoc - o f whom he was one - in the early 1230s. Naturally, he wished to show the achievements o f his order, so he was certainly not interested in underplaying the opposition to the forces o f orthodoxy; nevertheless, he was often an eye-witness, sometimes himself directly involved in events, and his evaluation o f the problem o f heresy at that time is significant. In 1229 the Church had been well aware that the Cathars were not beaten; the clauses o f the Treaty o f Paris, forced on Count Raymond VII o f Toulouse in April, show how the authorities intended to tackle the prob­ lem from now on.2 In one sense, this document underlined the political and military defeat o f the house o f Toulouse: Raymond conceded the marquisate o f Provence to the Church in perpetuity and most o f the southern and eastern parts o f his lands in Bas Languedoc to the Crown. M ost import­ antly, he agreed that his daughter, Jeanne, would marry one o f King Louis IX’s brothers (this took place in 1236 or 1237 when she married Alphonse o f Poitiers), the remaining lands falling to them and their heirs after

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Raymond’s death. However, in another sense, the treaty was an attempt to solve the problem o f Catharism which had frustrated both Innocent III and Simon o f Montfort. The Catholic powers needed to undermine the political and social infrastructure which enabled the Cathar Church and its ministers to continue to operate. The war had manifestiy failed to do that, for there were evident signs o f a reviving Cathar hierarchy. In 1223, the new Cathar bishop o f Carcassonne, Peter Isarn, had had copies made o f key records o f the Council o f St-Felix-de- Caraman, so that he could re-establish the jurisdictional boundaries o f his diocese after the intervening disruption. Two years later, a new council held at Pieusse, on the River Aude just downstream from Limoux, created a new bishopric, that o f the Razes, apparently because Peter Isarn had been unable to sort out the problem. Peter Isarn’s interest in these records was not simply jurisdictional, however, for at the same time he was determined to combat an attempt to reintroduce moderate dualism into Languedoc, and he needed the authority o f St-Felix to help him to do this.3 While the council at Pieusse was not on the scale o f St-Felix and the threat o f schism a real worry for Peter Isarn, for the historian nevertheless there are evident signs o f the continuing intellectual vitality o f Catharism in the mid-1220s. Therefore, in the lands which Raymond VII was allowed to retain during his lifetime - that is those within the diocese o f Toulouse, including the city itself, the dioceses o f Agen and Rodez, and those o f Albi, north o f the Tarn, and Cahors, including the cities o f Albi and Cahors themselves - it is revealing to see the places which were particularly targeted. Toulouse itself was to be overseen by the royal officials who were to garrison the Chateau Narbonnais for ten years, partly financed by Raymond himself with a sum o f 6,000 marks. Yet again, the walls were to be removed and the ditches filled. Verfeil, on the River Agout east o f Toulouse, and the village o f Lasbordes and its dependencies to the north-west o f Carcassonne were to be ceded to the bishop o f Toulouse and the son o f the crusader, Oliver o f Fillers, in conformity with a grant previously made by King Louis VIII and Amaury o f Montfort, although the count still retained certain rights over them. Equally significandy, twenty-five named castm were to receive the same treatment as Toulouse, plus five others to be chosen by the legate. The twenty-five were: Fanjeaux, Castelnaudary, Labecede, Avignonet, Puylaurens, Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux, Lavaur, Rabastens, Gaillac, Montegut, Puycelci, Verdun, Castelsarrasin, Moissac, Montauban, Montcuq,

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Agen, Condom, Saverdun, Auterive, Casseneuil, Pujols, Auvillar, Peyrusse, and Laurac. Five o f these - Castelnaudary, Lavaur, Montcuq, Peyrusse, and Verdun - together with three others - Penne d ’Agenais, Cordes, and Villemur - would, however, be garrisoned by royal forces for ten years, five o f which would be paid for by the count. The king reserved the right to destroy four o f them - Castelnaudary, Lavaur, Villemur, and Verdun although the count would still be required to pay the expenses o f garrisons. These provisions must give a good idea o f the perceived geography o f Catharism in the diocese in 1229, even if some were included as much for their past record (and therefore their potential rather than actual danger) as for their present heretical population. Indeed, there was an ominous sign for the Church: one o f them, Penne d’Agenais, was still holding out, and Raymond had to commit himself to capturing it by force. If the Cathars could be deprived o f their customary refuges, they would be vulnerable to an active policy o f heresy hunting. ‘We will purge’, prom­ ised Count Raymond, ‘these lands o f heretics and o f the stench o f heresy, and we will also aid the purgation o f the lands which the lord king will hold.’ Bounties were to be offered to those who took the hunt seriously. ‘In order better and more easily to unmask them [these heretics], we [the count] promise to pay two marks o f silver for the next two years and, after that, one mark to every person who causes a heretic to be arrested, on condition that the heretic is condemned as such by the bishop o f the place or by a competent authority.’ At the same time Raymond would provide solid support for the Church both by establishing peace through the expulsion o f routiers, and by defending the rights and property o f indi­ vidual churches. The count’s full administrative system was to be deployed to make this a reality, especially in enforcing sentences o f excommunication; indeed, his officials were to give bite to these sentences by confiscating the property o f those who obstinately ignored excommunication for more than a year. Nobody would be employed as a bayle therefore if there was any doubt about their commitment, including Jews and anybody suspected o f heretical sympathies. All ecclesiastical lands and tithes were to be restored to the Church. All this was to be sustained out o f the count’s own pocket: 10,000 marks were to be paid to the Church as reparation for damage done to its property, 4,000 marks to specific monasteries, and another 4,000 marks to support fourteen masters in a new university to be established at Toulouse.

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The land would therefore be filled with bastions o f orthodoxy where heretics could find no comfort or protection. Deprived o f an infrastructure, they could more easily be isolated and identified and appropriate measures could then be taken to stop their activity. In the new post-crusade Languedoc, Toulouse would be transformed from a city which Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay had believed to be The chief source o f the poison o f faith­ lessness’ into what John o f Garland, a Parisian grammarian who came to take up a post at the new university, described as ‘a second promised land’ .4 Even so, past experience had taught that reliance on local secular powers was often misplaced, especially when the principal figure belonged to the house o f Toulouse; the difference in 1229 was that now the royal power had a substantial interest in the direct government o f Languedoc. Initially, at least, it does not seem as if Raymond VII was expected to play much o f a role once he had financed the required structure. Clause fourteen o f the Treaty o f Paris laid down that sometime between August 1229 and August 1230 he was to leave for Outremer, from which he was not to return for five years. This would have left the royal officials as the predominant influ­ ence in the region, especially as they occupied key centres in the count’s designated lands. Nor was this confined to casdes, for the promulgation o f the treaty was immediately followed by the statute Cupientes, which gave The barons o f the land, our officers and other subjects present and future’ the obligation to work ‘with diligence and fidelity to search out and dis­ cover heretics and when they have discovered any, to deliver them without delay to the ecclesiastical authorities’ .5

The inquisitors These measures attempted to address the basic problem o f lay support for Catharism in Languedoc, but it was the task o f those ‘ecclesiastical author­ ities’ to deal with the heresy itself. M ost historians see the influence o f the papal legate, the Cardinal Romanus o f Sant’Angelo, behind the issue o f Cupientes^ he was certainly the guiding hand in November when he con­ vened a council at Toulouse. Here, eighteen o f the forty-five canons o f the council dealt with the pursuit o f heretics, giving the authorities very explicit powers o f search and arrest.6 These canons give some insight into the Church’s perception o f where its past weaknesses lay in the pursuit o f Cathars. Preaching, debate, and even military action could all be avoided

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by those who wanted to escape detection; the measures taken at Toulouse were devised to uncover what the legate evidendy saw as the hidden structure o f heresy by creating the mechanisms for the active pursuit o f individuals. The local prelates should swear in a priest and two trustworthy laymen in every parish, who should search for heretics in their area. This seems to have been based on a similar idea instituted at the Council o f Narbonne in 1227. It leaves no doubt about the seriousness o f intent, for it was to be no infre­ quent episcopal parade; from 1229 homes could be systematically turned over, their cellars, roofs, and outbuildings inspected, as well as anywhere else which might be used as a hiding place. Anywhere in which a heretic had been found was to be destroyed, a provision which must have acted as a consid­ erable deterrent to any casual hospitality. The cardinal was determined to follow up the attack on communal support presaged in the Treaty o f Paris. Bonhommes who had voluntarily confessed were to be resettled in Catholic towns where heresy had never been suspected. Once there, they were to wear two crosses, ‘in detestation o f their recent error’ . The detail is signi­ ficant because o f what it reveals about how the Church thought heretics might react to this legislation. The crosses had to be a different colour from the garments and written permission was needed from the bishop before a former heretic could stop wearing them. There was to be no public role for such persons, for they could not hold any office, nor play a part in any legal process until they had, in the eyes o f the pope or his legate, performed suffi­ cient penance. N o trust was placed in heretics whose confessions were not accepted as voluntary: they were to be imprisoned and do penance. The prison was ‘to prevent them having the power o f corrupting others’, and was to be paid for by the person who had obtained the confiscated property. Once heresy had been excised from the community, no opportunity was to be offered for it to creep back in again. Everybody who reached the ‘years o f discretion’ was obliged to swear an oath against heresy and to go to confession three times a year. The possession o f an Old or New Testament was in itself seen as grounds for suspicion and was forbidden; only the Psalter and a Breviary were allowed and then not in translation. It was thought particularly important to cut off access to the sick and dying, because it was claimed that this was the most likely time for the occurrence o f ‘wicked and abominable things’ . Thus heretics or suspected persons could not act as physicians and wills were not valid unless witnessed by a priest and other ‘men o f good credit’.

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William o f Puylaurens may have been present at the council, judging by his detailed account o f the way that, at its end, the cardinal brought for­ ward a man whom he evidently considered to be his star witness, William o f Solier, a former Cathar perfectus who had now re-established his reputa­ tion. The purpose was ‘in order that his witness should be efficacious against those about whom he knew the truth’ . Other witnesses were produced by Fulk, Bishop o f Toulouse, and the bishops at the council were invited to interrogate them. The results were to be written down and stored so that they could ‘expedite much in a short time’. In the past some bishops had shown little grasp o f what was needed; this looks like an attempt to persuade them to practise this approach under supervision before they returned to put the legislation into effect in their own dioceses. Some witnesses deposed freely but others remained obdurate. Similarly, while some put themselves at the mercy o f the legate and were given a full indulgence, others had to be forced to attend and were given heavy pen­ ances. Some wanted to mount a defence in law and asked for the names o f the witnesses deposing against them. The legate appears to have been reluctant to do this, for they had to pursue him to Montpellier before they could obtain an answer. In the end he gave them a general list o f witnesses, rather than those who had deposed against them specifically, for he assumed ‘that they would kill the witnesses whom they knew had specially deposed against them’ . They should then see if they recognised any o f their enemies from the entire list. The list must have been formidable for, according to William, they then gave up the litigation and submitted to the legate.7 Contemporaries could see that the Albigensian wars had not elim­ inated heresy, but it was equally evident that post-crusade Languedoc no longer offered the hospitable environment which the Cathars had once enjoyed. The actions o f the Church and Crown in 1229 created a world which thereafter became more and more uncomfortable and dangerous for the Cathar Church. Nevertheless, although the framework had changed, the conflict between orthodoxy and Catharism had not disappeared. Indeed, as William Pelhisson saw it, the strategy for eliminating heresy formulated in 1229 engendered a new wave o f resistance, and the Church’s drive in the 1230s was only sustained by the efforts o f his own order, the Friars Preachers. As one who became an inquisitor himself, he presents the Dominicans as the front-line in an assault upon a society which was soon found to be less than

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accommodating. William did not think very highly o f the newly arrived professors at Toulouse, whom he castigates as ‘ineffective in uprooting heresy’, and he remained deeply suspicious o f the court o f Raymond VII, whose entourage he believed to be ‘notably corrupted in the faith’ . For him the real keepers o f the flame were the Dominicans, who had first been established in Toulouse in 1215. They had received three houses near the Narbonne Gate, given to them by a wealthy citizen called Peter Seila, who later joined the order himself, and the church o f St Romain, granted to them by Bishop Fulk. In 1230 they moved to a new site along the Saracen Wall, called Garrigue’s Garden, again benefiting from the patronage o f a wealthy citizen, Pons o f Capdenier. By 1234 there were more than forty friars in residence, forming a powerful preaching cohort in the city. They were supported in this by Bishop Fulk, ‘father and friend o f the order’; when he died in 1231 he was replaced by a Dominican, Raymond o f Le Fauga, a former provincial prior.8 At the same time, Pope Gregory IX who, until his temporary reconcili­ ation with the Emperor Frederick II in 1230, had been deeply preoccupied by his battle with the Staufen, turned his mind to the campaign against heresy. The Dominicans were well suited to his purposes, since they had been founded primarily to combat heresy, they were well educated in the­ ology and law, and, in several places, had already taken the initiative. Real or imagined threats to the faith had been discerned in Germany and France, as well as in Languedoc; in 1231 the pope had authorised the Dominicans to act in Germany and, two years later, in France, although to an extent he was regularising an already existing situation. At La Charite-sur-Loire the leader o f the heresy hunters was himself an ex-Cathar, Robert ‘the Bulgar’, a man who seems to have interpreted his mission entirely in his own terms.9 In Languedoc inquiries were set up by two papal bulls, issued in April 1233, which informed the archbishops o f Bourges, Bordeaux, Narbonne, and Auch that Dominicans would be sent to support episcopal action against heresy, and then ordered the Dominican priors to find suitable persons to fulfil this role.10 Historians have stressed that the inquisition which developed from this was never an entirely Dominican affair for, over time, it involved both Franciscans and local prelates,11 and William Pelhisson himself was anxious to counter any claim by ‘a detractor or rival or envious person’ that he was describing these events for ‘the exaltation o f members o f our order’ . Nevertheless, the work had already been started in

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Languedoc before the papal instructions and it took little time for the Dominicans to find appropriate personnel.

Also, F riar Pons o f St Gilles was chosen as prior a t Toulouse. He bore himself courageously and vigorously in the business o f the faith against heretics, together with F riar Peter Seila, who was a Toulousan, and F riar William Arnold, a ju rist, who was from Montpellier. Them the lord pope appointed as inquisitors against heretics in the dioceses of Toulouse and in Cahors as well. The lord legate, archbishop o f Vienne [John of Bernin], also made Arnold C atalan , who was then o f the convent a t Toulouse, an inquisitor against heretics in the diocese o f Albi, where manfully and fearlessly he preached and sought to conduct the inquisition as best he could}2 The impact o f this new system now became a matter o f crucial import­ ance for the Cathars. The first surviving manual o f procedure seems to have been compiled by the Dominican inquisitor, Friar Ferrier, in 1244,13 although, as will be seen, this cool and methodical textbook often belies the reality o f actually conducting such inquisitions in the face o f hostile communities and uncooperative secular rulers. Judging by the account o f William Pelhisson, who was appointed to the circuit in and around Albi together with Arnold Catalan, the manual reflects methods which had been developed as a result o f the experiences o f the inquisitors during the 1230s and early 1240s. The first step was to drive a wedge into the facade o f com­ munity solidarity, so that the loyalties and fears which had held it together could be undermined. Under the year 1235, Pelhisson describes how

all the inquisitors came to Toulouse and called many to confess, givin g them a time o f grace. If, within this period, they made a good and fu ll confession without deceit, the inquisitors offered solid hope that they would not be imprisoned, be exiled, or lose property, because Lord Raymond had agreed with the fria rs that any penitent who confessed the truth would lose nothing. Subsequently, those who had honestly confessed found this to be true.14 In these circumstances the temptation to denounce others was almost overwhelming, if only for defensive reasons. In a community that had had frequent contact with heretics - and the provisions o f the Treaty o f Paris show how well known were these places - nobody was likely to be innocent

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in the eyes o f the Church, and therefore anybody could have been written into the inquisitors’ copious records. Evidently such records were kept: in 1234 many o f the living had received penances as a consequence o f the names given by William o f Solier at the Council o f Toulouse, while some o f the dead, previously thought orthodox, had been disinterred and their bones burnt. Conversions o f former heretics like William o f Solier were especially valuable. In April 1236, Raymond Gros, whom William Pelhisson says had been a perfected heretic for about twenty-two years, suddenly went to the Dominican house at Toulouse, even though he had not been summoned or cited, and made such an extensive confession that it took the friars several days to write it all down. William Pelhisson can offer no reason for his conversion, beyond a feeling that it must have been divine provi­ dence, but instead is content to celebrate the huge catch this netted. ‘Many came o f their own volition, fearing arrest’, he says.15 T o keep quiet in the hope o f evading the notice o f the inquisitors was an immense gamble, for the penalties for silence or dissembling once the period o f grace had been announced were far greater than early confession and ready denunciation o f others. Speaking o f an inquisition conducted by Peter Seila and William Arnold at Moissac in 1234, when various men were condemned as con­ tumacious heretics, William Pelhisson says that ‘great fear was aroused among the heretics and their believers in that land’ .16 The manual o f 1244 reflects the experience gained through adopting these methods. Having chosen the place at which they wished to begin, the inquisitors assembled the people and clergy and presented a general sermon, before issuing citations to appear to the entire population o f the parish from the age o f fourteen in the case o f males and twelve in the case o f females, ‘or younger if perchance they shall have been guilty o f an offence’ . The device described by Pelhisson to force open the can o f worms is here built into the system. If no previous inquisition had been there ‘we will grant indulgence from imprisonment to all from that place who have not been cited by name or who have not yet earned the indulgence, if, within a specified time, they come voluntarily as penitents to tell the exact and full truth about themselves and about others’ . All those who presented them­ selves were to abjure all heresy and swear to take active steps to aid in the pursuit and seizure o f other heretics. Then the persons concerned were to be ‘diligently questioned’, that is an attempt was made to cover all possible contacts with heretics including listening to preaching, guiding, providing

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hospitality, eating and drinking with them, holding deposits o f money, or making gifts.

A nd when a region is widely infected we make general inquisition o f all persons in the m anner ju st described, entering the names o f all o f them in the record, even of those who insist that they know nothing about others and have themselves committed no crime, so that i f they have lied or i f subsequently they commit an offence, as is often found true o f a number of persons, it is on record that they have abjured and have been interrogated in detail. Summonses were set out according to a prescribed legal formula, which included ‘a limit o f delay without contempt’, obviously intended to cut off another possible avenue o f excuses. A legitimate defence was allowed, but the names o f witnesses remained secret. Penance and condemnations were then issued, following another abjuration. Penances for those who were not to be imprisoned meant wearing yellow crosses, attending mass and vespers on Sundays for the remainder o f one’s life, following processions, and pilgrimage to a set number o f sanctuaries. A prohibition on molesting penitents suggests that this was in fact another form o f pressure, albeit an indirect consequence o f inquisitional condemnation. Those, however, who could not be recalled from their heresy they relinquished to ‘secular judge­ ment’, as well as condemning deceased heretics whose bones were to be burned ‘in detestation o f so heinous an offence’ . Finally, they caused the goods o f heretics and those imprisoned to be confiscated. This, they stated, was their legal obligation, but they stressed its importance because ‘it is in this way that heretics and believers are particularly confounded’ .17

Resistance The subtle construction o f this system was such as to leave little possibility o f legal evasion; the alternative was much more direct and, at times, violent resistance. It is not surprising to find, therefore, that the enduring theme o f William Pelhisson’s chronicle is that o f the heroic triumph o f his order in the face o f the blows o f the wicked. ‘I write so that successors in our order and whatsoever other faithful persons who examine these matters may know how many and what sufferings came to their predecessors for the faith and name o f Christ.’18 Exhumations, which started in Toulouse as

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early as 1230 and continued throughout the decade, were particularly pro­ vocative. One incident in Albi in 1234, described by both William Pelhisson and an anonymous contemporary, encapsulates the type o f reaction to this sort o f inquisitorial activity. Here, a crowd attempted to throw the inquisi­ tor Arnold Catalan into the River Tarn, although in the end some o f them relented, leaving him badly beaten, his face bloody and his clothes torn.19 The anonymous account (possibly by Isarn o f Denat, a priest who was caught up in the incident and injured as a result) gives an idea o f the atmo­ sphere an order for exhumation created. The officials were too frightened to go to the cemetery to carry out Arnold Catalan’s sentence on a deceased woman called Boyssene, so he himself went there and struck the first sym­ bolic blows with a mattock, leaving the actual digging to the bishop’s ser­ vants. Almost immediately they were back to say that they had been driven out by a crowd led by a knight called Pons Bernard. He had at least twentyfive people with him (whose names are carefully recorded in the anonymous account), and was soon joined by others. When Arnold Catalan confronted them, they turned on him and beat him, ‘some striking him with their fists on the chest, some slapping his face; some dragged him by the hood, others tore his cloak, as was to be seen for many days thereafter’ . Only the intervention o f others prevented him being thrown into the Tarn. By the time the inquisitor had struggled back to the cathedral the crowd had grown to two or three hundred, some demanding that they cut off his head, put it in a sack, and throw it into the river. Arnold Catalan’s reaction was to excommunicate the town’s inhabitants, a move which led to an attempt to make amends. Arnold’s reply was that he forgave the attack on his person, but could not do so on behalf o f the Church. However, he did withdraw the sentence.20 The speed and apparent spontaneity o f the reactions to exhumation suggest that a climate o f confrontation already existed. This was particularly true o f Toulouse, where the consulate claimed that respectable Catholics were being wrongly accused. This came to a head when, in mid-October 1235, William Arnold, whose high profile as an inquisitor in Toulouse and Carcassonne during the 1230s may have contributed to his murder in 1242, cited twelve believers o f heretics from the city, including Maurand the Elder, a member o f a leading family with a record o f heretical sympa­ thies who had crossed swords with the authorities before.21 They refused to appear and ‘uttered threats and dire warnings to make him desist from his

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activities’ . When he would not he was literally marched out o f the city. An attempt to issue the citation a second time from Carcassonne led to the expulsion o f the priests entrusted with the task. Although the Dominicans were allowed to stay, their convent was effectively placed in quarantine, cut off from water and food, except for what could be lowered over the walls by their supporters. As this applied to the bishop as well, he too left the city, as ‘no one dared to take him bread or do other such things’ . Eventually, the Dominicans were also expelled: dragged from their cloister by the sergeants o f the consuls, according to William Pelhisson. Only at the beginning o f March 1236, after a protest before the pope at Perugia and consequent papal pressure upon Raymond VII, were the inquisitors and other Dominicans restored to the city.22 The bitterness o f the conflict was a reflection o f the importance o f the matters at stake for, as John Mundy shows, the inquisitors rightly perceived that the most wealthy and powerful families in the city were disproportionately important in the sustenance o f Catharism there. They therefore seem to have adopted a conscious policy o f pursuing these families from the outset. At the same time, Raymond VII, although no friend o f the inquisitors, had his own agenda, for he was anxious to reassert comital power in the chief possession left to him under the terms o f the Treaty o f Paris. N ot surprisingly, the consuls found themselves far more seriously squeezed than their contemporaries in the Italian cities. The tension continued throughout the 1230s: on the one hand, the consuls accused the inquisitors o f bringing false accusations against ‘decent married men’, while on the other, William Pelhisson claims that the consuls were prompted by the heretics among whom ‘great fear’ had been aroused.23 Resistance by vested interests like the consuls o f Toulouse, whatever their motives, was quite overt; however, it was underpinned by a more clandestine violence, frequent enough to give threats uttered publicly real menace. William o f Puylaurens claims that this began soon after the depar­ ture o f the legate, Romanus o f Sant’Angelo after the Council o f Toulouse in November 1229. An immediate victim was Andreas Chaulet, a royal seneschal, ambushed in a wood at La Centeniere, near Coudons, south o f Carcassonne, apparently in retaliation for his conversion o f a Cathar perfectus, whom he was holding in prison. Many others, he says, were assassinated on ‘suspicion alone’, so that Raymond VII was accused o f crass negligence. As William o f Puylaurens saw it, these people sought to lead the land back to the bad times o f the past,

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so that once the peace was disturbed they were able to indulge in their accustomed rapine and to support heretics and , although they pretended to love him , prepare the fa ll of the count. Consequently, these sons o f Belial burst out from their hiding places, disrupted the tithes o f the bishop, persecuted his clergy, and infected his territory o f Verfeil.24 As a native o f the area, William knew the territory to the east o f Toulouse very well, which suggests that the pays around Verfeil still contained many Cathars and their supporters, despite the inquisitorial circuits and the presence o f a royal garrison at Lavaur. Cardinal Romanus had been well aware o f the dangers and, when he had returned to Rome in November 1229, he had taken the entire docu­ mentation o f his inquiry with him, ‘since, if at any time it had been found by evil-doers in that land, it might result in the death o f witnesses who had deposed against such persons’ .25 Inexperienced heresy hunters were, however, more vulnerable, especially those such as the vicar o f Toulouse and the abbot o f Saint-Sernin, drafted in to help the Dominicans in Toulouse at Easter 1235, at that time overwhelmed by the numbers o f those want­ ing to make their confessions. A wine-seller called Arnold Dominic, under pressure from the vicar o f Toulouse, led him and the abbot to Les Casses in the Lauragais about half-way between Toulouse and Carcassonne. There they captured seven heretics, but some escaped with the help o f local peasants. Arnold Dominic then made his confession and was released, in accordance with the procedures described by William Pelhisson, but he was now a marked man whose identity was well known, and he was murdered in his bed at Aigrefeuille, near Lanta, which is about twelve kilometres north o f Verfeil. The abbot and the vicar were similarly thwarted when they arrested Peter William Delort in the bourg o f Saint-Sernin, whom William Pelhisson says was ‘a noted believer o f heretics’ . He was snatched away from them by his friends and fled, although he was later condemned as a heretic.26 This violence culminated in a direct attack upon inquisitors themselves when, on the night o f 28 May 1242, an entire inquisitorial team led by a Dominican, William Arnold, and a Franciscan, Stephen o f St Thibery, was wiped out at the small town o f Avignonet, about forty kilometres to the southeast o f Toulouse. The inquisitors were on circuit from Toulouse, covering the eastern part o f the diocese. Between November 1241 and the date o f their murder they had covered most o f the region from Lavaur in

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the north to Fanjeaux in the south) so their presence must have been well known. Their stay in Avignonet was communicated to the Pyrenean castle o f Montsegur, another seventy kilometres to the south, by a message from Raymond o f Alfaro, the comtal bayle. Montsegur had been rebuilt by Raymond o f Pereille in c. 1204 and it had developed into a focal point for Cathars from all over Languedoc. By 1242 it was one o f the few places left which offered the kind o f environment which had been commonplace before 1209. The message evoked an immediate response from Peter Roger o f Mirepoix, its lord and son-in-law o f Raymond o f Pereille. Peter Roger gathered more men from Gaja en route, and from Avignonet itself, who vented their hatred o f the inquisitors by smashing their victims to death with swords, axes, and lances. Several o f them claimed to be person­ ally responsible for the deaths o f William Arnold and Stephen o f St Thibery themselves. Afterwards pillage ranging from horses to books was distributed among the murderers, some o f which was later sold on. Nevertheless, profit was not the motive. As one participant, William Golairon, later said, they hoped that by this means ‘the affair o f the inquisition could be extinguished, and the whole land would be freed, and there would not be another inquisition’ .27 Indeed, although the attack may have been opportunistic, the target may not have been random. In William Pelhisson’s account, William Arnold appears as the single most active inquisitor during the 1230s, when he led inquiries in Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Cahors, and his attackers may have imagined that his elimination would have broken the backbone o f the campaign. The idea that this measure would put an end to inquisitions for ever appears, in retrospect, to have been a naive hope. In fact, inquiries were reinstituted within months, led by the Dominican, Friar Ferrier. Between December 1242 and September 1244, together with various colleagues Peter o f Ales, William Raymond, Pons Gary, and Peter Durand - he ques­ tioned at least 700 people. Significantly, in the aftermath o f Avignonet, they showed litde interest in actual belief, concentrating instead largely upon actions. Ferrier was the most experienced inquisitor o f his time, having been involved in the prosecution o f heresy since 1229 and remain­ ing active in Narbonne, Caunes, and Fine throughout the 1230s. He had a reputation for severity and was no stranger to the violence his actions could provoke. His appointment so soon after Avignonet therefore was clearly meant as a signal that the inquisitors would not be intimidated, and

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certainly helped make possible the huge inquiry conducted by Bernard o f Caux and John o f St Pierre in 1245 and 1246. The only real effect that the murders seem to have had was - temporarily at least - to restrict the inquisitors’ itineracy, for Perrier’s investigations were largely based at Conques, Limoux, and Saissac, to which witnesses were required to travel.28 Peter Roger and his men may also have been encouraged to act by the political circumstances prevailing in the late spring o f 1242. At that time Raymond VII had entered into a coalition o f the enemies o f the French Crown, which encompassed the English king, Henry III, and H ugh o f Lusignan, Count o f La Marche in Poitou. All three at their different levels saw themselves as victims o f Capetian rapacity, although they had little else in common. William o f Puylaurens’s claim that the violence o f the Cathar supporters in fact prepared the way for The fall o f the count’ once more highlights the dilemma o f the house o f Toulouse ever since Catharism had penetrated its territories. Raymond VII was caught between the orthodox authorities who saw Languedoc as an evil land which needed to be purged, and his subjects, among whom a substantial minority at least were sympa­ thetic to heretics and who, even if they were not pro-Cathar, were prepared to resist to protect their own patrimonies. William o f Puylaurens is both hostile to heretics and pro-Capetian in his sympathies, positions which make his view o f Raymond’s situation all the more valuable. In his opinion, the conditions o f the Treaty o f Paris were such that, if the king had defeated the count in battle and made him his prisoner,6any one on its own should have sufficed as the price o f redemption’ .29 Raymond’s actions in the 1230s and 1240s reflect these conflicting pressures and it is understandable that they could have been misinterpreted by those southerners so filled with zeal for their own cause that they would fail to see the wider con­ sequences o f their actions. Raymond had failed to fulfil his promise to remove himself to Outremer for five years and, in 1236, he had been reproved by the pope for not preventing the expulsion o f the inquisitors from Toulouse. Yet, in 1238, Gregory IX, harassed by the Emperor Frederick II, was appar­ ently sufficiently persuaded by Raymond’s complaints about the conduct o f the inquisitors to suspend their activities. The count then refrained from involving himself in the revolt o f Raymond Trencavel in September 1240, and the revolt failed, leaving Trencavel no alternative but to retreat once more to exile in Catalonia. Raymond must have seen the coalition o f 1242

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as a better opportunity than TrencavePs isolated effort, but it can hardly have gone unnoticed by the Cathars that he seemed unwilling to act once the inquisitions had restarted in 1241. However, by October 1242, the coalition too had fallen apart and, in January 1243, Raymond had been obliged to make a new settlement with Louis IX.30 During the decade following, some o f the Cathars, as William o f Puylaurens expressed it, ‘wished to return to the vomit o f war’.31 If so, the following ten years must have extinguished even that hope. The failure o f the revolts o f 1240 and 1242 left no figureheads in which they could invest any faith, however misplaced, and, more importantly for the Cathar cause, Avignonet provoked a royal attack upon Montsegur itself. The siege o f Montsegur, which began in mid-summer 1243, and ended with its fall in mid-March 1244, has been invested with immense significance by his­ torians o f Catharism. There are good reasons for this. If, as seems likely, the ultimate decline o f Catharism in Languedoc can be partially explained by the destruction o f its supporting infrastructure, then Montsegur can be seen as the last real representative o f the traditional refuge o f a Cathar community. It had been a Cathar redoubt from the time o f its rebuilding. Raymond o f Pereille’s mother, Fourniere, wife o f William Roger o f Mirepoix, was a perfected heretic, and at the time o f the siege forty o f the 415 inhabitants, spanning four generations, belonged to the family o f MirepoixPereille.32 The castle was situated on top o f a rocky outcrop in the Ariege region o f the Pyrenees, 1,216 metres above sea level. It is by no means inaccessible, but evidently it is not so close to the main centres o f popu­ lation as to be an obvious target o f military action. It had been well known as a heretical centre since the era o f the crusade. At the Lateran Council o f 1215, Fullc, Bishop o f Toulouse, had tried to prove that Raymond Roger, Count o f Foix, was a heretic by accusing him o f giving his protection to the castie. Raymond Roger was equally vehement in his denial, rightly pointing out that he was not its overlord.33 Both sides, though, accepted that association with Montsegur was evidence o f Cathar sympathies. In the view o f William o f Puylaurens it remained ‘a public refuge for all sorts o f malefactors and heretics, like “ the synagogue o f Satan’” .34 When it fell, its significance for Catharism became very evident. Over half the population were perfecti or perfectae, that is 210 o f the 415 persons who were in the castie, including Bertrand Marty, Bishop o f Toulouse, and

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Raymond Agulher, Bishop o f the Razes. The presence o f the bishop o f Toulouse is a measure o f the pressure which had been exerted upon the Cathar Church since 1229, for this position had been maintained in the much more vulnerable Lauragais, albeit intermittently, at Saint-Paul-Cap de-Joux in the Tarn region, throughout the crusades and even beyond the peace down to 1232, when Bertrand Marty’s predecessor, Guilhabert o f Castres, had been forced to make his base at Montsegur.35 According to William o f Puylaurens, ‘about 2 0 0 ’ perfected heretics, men and women, were burned to death in March 1244, a figure largely confirmed by William Pelhisson. Those executed included Bertrand Marty.36 The viability o f the Cathar hierarchical structure in Languedoc was undermined, and those who escaped or were not present were forced to take refuge in Lombardy where they formed a Church in exile, which meant that they could hardly expect to influence and encourage their supporters in the Toulousain and the Carcasses in the way they had done in the past. Montsegur therefore represents the type o f lordship which had been common in Languedoc in the past, controlled by powerful but local seigneurs, little concerned by outside authority. As at Lavaur, these lords favoured heretics, allowed them to live and preach within the enclosure, and had several family members who were ‘clothed heretics’ . Lavaur, how­ ever, was too close to Toulouse and to the main arena o f crusading action to survive, whereas an attack on Montsegur would not have seemed worth the resources when there were more pressing matters. In 1243-44, how­ ever, Hugh o f Arcis, Seneschal o f Carcassonne, put together a powerful force, supported by such prominent ecclesiastics as Peter Amiel, Archbishop o f Narbonne, and Durand, Bishop o f Albi, which suggests that they now thought that Montsegur represented Catharism in a way which could not be allowed to continue. An attempt had been made to persuade Raymond VII to take action against it in 1241; the murder o f the inquisitors the next year was the trigger for a serious campaign. Indeed, historians from Henry C. Lea in the late nineteenth century to Jean Duvernoy and Elie Griffe in the 1970s and 1980s have seen the expedition as having ‘the character o f a crusade’ .37 Even so, the fall o f Montsegur needs to be kept in perspective. N ot all historians accept that contemporaries saw it in crusading terms; indeed, some are sceptical that the executions after the fall o f the castle ever took place, suggesting that this is too reminiscent o f ‘the Beziers mentality’ and thus quite unlikely in the circumstances prevailing in 1244.38 Moreover,

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as Delaruelle has pointed out, the chronicles o f ‘Capetian France’ and o f the reign o f St Louis paid no attention to the event. The St Denis monk, William o f Nangis, for example, devotes half a chapter to the Trencavel revolt and the siege o f Raymond Trencavel in Montreal by royal forces, but does not mention Montsegur. For the northerners the event o f the year was the taking o f the cross by the king to fight Muslims in the East.39 Yet, for the Cathars, Louis IX’s momentous decision to take the cross and the localised war being fought on his behalf in the mountains o f the Ariege were in fact connected, for the two events together determined the future o f the Languedocian heretics. The fate o f the lordships which under­ pinned Catharism had been in the balance since 1209; after 1244 almost all those lords who still survived saw no alternative but to accept what the king was prepared to offer. The history o f the lords o f Termes in the thir­ teenth century illustrates how these outside pressures shaped their fate and therefore that o f the Cathars they protected. The castle o f Termes is about twenty-eight kilometres south-east o f Carcassonne as the crow flies, but because o f its position in the mountains o f the Corbieres it is nearly twice that distance by any feasible modern road. Consequently, its lords, who were Trencavel vassals, had been accustomed to their independence, con­ fident that they could not be successfully attacked. Even when under threat from the crusade in the summer o f 1210, the head o f the family, Raymond o f Termes, together with Peter Roger o f Cabaret and Aimery o f Montreal, had been unwilling to allow that independence to be eroded, so that nego­ tiations intended to lead to the rendering o f homage to Peter II o f Aragon failed when it became clear that the king was insisting upon the rendability o f their castles as a condition o f acceptance.40 The place itself clearly terri­ fied Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay who describes with awe the precipitous terrain and the climatic extremes, while William o f Tudela believed that Simon o f Montfort was only able to take what he called 6a wonderful castle’ after a siege lasting four months between late July and late November 1210, because o f divine intervention.41 As far as Peter o f Les Vaux-deCernay was concerned, Raymond o f Termes was a manifest heretic, fully deserving his ultimate end, which was to die in prison in Carcassonne. Whether or not this was true, he certainly tolerated Cathars in his castle. Men like Benedict o f Termes, a garbed heretic since 1207 who, in 1226, became Cathar bishop o f the Razes, came from this community, while during the siege Bernard Raymond o f Roquebert, the Catholic Bishop o f

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Carcassonne, had tried to mediate, since his mother and brother, who were both heretics, were in the castle at the time.42 Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay had a particular hatred o f William o f Roquebert, the bishop’s brother, whom he describes as ‘a most tenacious persecutor o f the Church’, holding him responsible for the murder o f a party o f unarmed Cistercians from the abbey o f Eaunes (between Toulouse and Foix) in late 1209 43 The castle was eventually abandoned on 22 November 1210, after an outbreak o f dysentery, and Raymond was among those captured while trying to flee. This had an immediate effect on the Cathars o f the region since, according to William o f Tudela, ‘When it was known that Termes had fallen, all the strongest castles were abandoned, and Le Bezu [between Coustaussa and Puivert] was taken, without any need for sieges.’44 In 1213, Termes, together with Montreal and Bram the following year, was granted to Alan o f Roucy, a vassal o f the count o f Champagne, who joined the crusade in 1211 45 However, Raymond’s sons, Oliver and Bernard, had regained their father’s lordship by 1220 or 1221, apparently as a consequence o f Alan o f Roucy’s death while fighting at Montreal 46 Thereafter, the vicissitudes o f Oliver’s long career, which lasted until his death in Outremer in 1275, are a good reflection o f the shifting politics and changing military fortunes o f the people o f Languedoc 47 Under pressure from Capetian power in 1219 and 1228, he and his brother submitted to the king’s marshal, Guy o f Levis. Between these dates Oliver had supported first Raymond Trencavel and then, when Trencavel had been forced to leave Carcassonne in 1226, he had joined Raymond VII. It was on the count’s behalf that he had helped in the unsuccessful defence o f the fortress o f Labecede in the Lauragais just to the north o f Castelnaudary in 1227. Here again there were important Cathars: the deacon, Gerard o f Lamothe, was burnt to death after the fall o f the fortress to Humbert o f Beaujeu. It had a history o f heretical association since a former lord, Pagan o f Labecede, had been a

perfectus 48 This miscalculation cost Oliver Termes itself, as well as a promise that he and Bernard ‘would always remain fideles to the lord king o f the French and his heirs’ . In fact he no more remained faithful than he had in 1219. Although he no longer held Termes, he retained lands and influence in the Corbieres where, together with a fa id it lord, Chabert o f Barbera, he held the castle o f Queribus, perched on a mountain-top 729 metres above sea level in a situation not dissimilar to that o f Montsegur. Here they provided a refuge for Benedict o f Termes, who probably died there in

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about 1241, as well as other Cathar deacons and perfecti who fled there, especially in the early 1240s.49 Moreover, together with another o f the Pyrenean lords, Gerald o f Niort, he took an active role in the prolonged and sometimes violent opposition to the inquisitional activities o f Friar Ferrier in the bourg o f Narbonne between 1234 and 1237.50 Most serious o f all, he played a leading part in both the Trencavel revolt o f 1240 and that o f Raymond VII in 1242. The price o f the first was the loss o f another o f his fortresses, that o f Aguilar, a short distance to the north-east o f Queribus, while the second led to his excommunication. After 1240 Capetian power was able to extend itself into the Corbieres more effectively than ever before: one o f Raymond Trencavel’s other leading supporters in the revolt, William o f Peyrepertuse, whose castle was about equidistant from Aguilar and Queribus, also suffered confiscation.51 Oliver o f Termes had broken oaths to the Crown three times over a period o f twenty-two years, he had defended fortresses containing leading Cathar ministers, and he had joined major uprisings against the king. All these efforts had been defeated: Raymond VII submitted in 1243 and Raymond Trencavel in 1247. This time there was no escape and it is there­ fore not surprising to find that, in 1247, he agreed to join Louis IX’s crusade to Egypt, from which he did not return until 1255. This time the king retained his fidelity and, in 1250, he was rewarded with the return o f Aguilar and other lands in the Corbieres, together with revenues o f 250 livres tournois,52 Thereafter, he three times campaigned in Outremer on behalf o f the Crown - in 1264, 1267-70, and 1273-75 - and he was with Louis IX in Tunis when the king died on crusade there. As early as 1257 he expressed a wish to be buried at the Cistercian abbey o f Fontfroide. Oliver o f Termes knew that he would not have had another chance: in the charter by which some o f his lands were restored in July 1250, it is stated quite explicitly: That if any o f them [i.e. members o f the family] should be held to be suspect o f heresy or commit another enormity, we do not wish any restitution o f the aforesaid lands to be made to them’ . He may have had to pay in another way as well. It was his ambush and capture o f his former co-lord o f Queribus, Chabert o f Barbera, which enabled Peter o f Auteuil, Seneschal o f Carcassonne, to take over Queribus and probably its western neighbour, Puylaurens, as well in the winter o f 1255-56, in return for Chabert’s freedom.53 After this there were no more independent Pyrenean castles for Cathars driven down from the north to fall back on.

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► The castle o f Peyrepertuse from the west

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Peyrepertuse from the north

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P la te 11 4 T he chapel at Peyrepertuse

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The Italian connection By the mid-1240s the Cathars o f Languedoc were oppressed from three sides: by the weight o f royal military and bureaucratic power, by the loss o f their traditional secular supporters, and by the determined and systematic prosecutions o f the inquisitors. As a result almost all their surviving minis­ ters fled to Lombardy so that neither instruction nor spiritual comfort could be obtained near at hand. In these circumstances recruitment for the next generation was severely impeded. Ties which the violence o f Montfort’s crusaders had failed to sever were now stretched to breakingpoint. However, in contrast to Languedoc, the Cathar Church in Italy, although far from united, had retained its shape. Rainier Sacconi thought that in 1250 there were less than 4,000 perfected heretics in west and east, but that about 2,550 o f them were in Italy. This compares with his estimate o f about 200 in the Churches o f Toulouse, Albi, and Carcassonne, formerly the most active o f the western Cathar communities.54 In Lombardy, despite the inquisitors, the four main Churches o f Concorezzo (near Milan), Desenzano (on Lake Garda), Bagnolo (near Mantua), and Vicenza, were still operating.55 (See Map 5.) Moreover, there appears to have been at least one colony o f Cathars in Apulia as well. William o f Puylaurens claimed that under Frederick IPs son, Manfred, the region was 6a “ hood” and a refuge for every kind o f infidel and evil-doer’, but that this was brought to an end with the defeat and death o f Manfred by Charles o f Anjou, Louis IX ’s brother, in 1266.56 In fact, the Staufen had been notably active in their pro­ mulgation o f anti-heresy laws, ever since the decrees issued by Frederick II in 1224, which predated the papacy’s use o f especially designated inquisitors. In 1264 Manfred also acted against the Cathars grouped around Vivent, Cathar Bishop o f Toulouse, at the bastide o f Guardia Lombardi, near Naples.57 It is even possible that some were living in Rome: William Pelhisson describes how, in 1234, the inquiries conducted by Peter Seila and William Arnold in Cahors had caused the flight o f Raymond o f Broelles, 6an important believer o f heretics’, to Rome where, he claimed, Raymond had drowned in the River Tiber.58 Nevertheless, Lombardy remained the most active Cathar area in west­ ern Christendom in the mid-thirteenth century and therefore the main place o f refuge. References in William Pelhisson’s account show that, from 1234 at least, the threat o f the inquisitors had already caused targeted indi­ viduals in Toulouse and Moissac to escape to Italy, while Bertrand Marty,

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the Cathar Bishop o f Toulouse who was executed after the fall o f Montsegur in 1244, had previously been offered a haven at Cremona by the Cathar bishop there.59 Bertrand Marty may have preferred to risk mar­ tyrdom rather than abandon his responsibilities, but the fall o f Montsegur in 1244 and Queribus in 1255 left no alternative but to look elsewhere if any kind o f hierarchy were to be maintained. Both Bernard Oliba, Cathar Bishop o f Toulouse, and Aimery o f Collet, Cathar Bishop o f Albi, are known to have been in Lombardy in 1272-73. Bernard Oliba had been at Sirmione, on the southern shore o f Lake Garda, since at least 1255. By this time Sirmione, which was part o f the Church o f Bagnolo, had become a major Cathar centre. In 1255, apart from Bernard Oliba, a witness had seen William Peter o f Verona, Bishop o f France, and Henry, described rather vaguely as ‘Bishop o f the Heretics o f Lombardy’ .60 Money was collected among the believers in Languedoc to help maintain this Church in exile.61 Believers visited the bishops and ‘the good men’ on a regular basis. Some, like Peter o f Beauville and Bertrand o f Quiries, had been directly involved in the Avignonet massacre, and when the inquisitional effort did not collapse as they appear to have hoped, had to flee at once. Peter o f Beauville went first to Clermont and then to Lagny in Champagne before travelling to Cuneo in the Alpine foothills in western Lombardy. In an exile which lasted until 1277, he lived and worked at Cuneo, Pavia, Piacenza, and Cremona, as well as visiting many other cities, including Alessandria, Genoa, and Milan.62 Peter o f Beauville’s departure had been hasty and unplanned, but others saved up for visits to ‘the good men’, to see relatives, or to transact business.63 Traffic was great enough to provide a full-time living for men like Peter Maurel, who acted as a guide, called a nuntius or ductor in inquisitional documents. Peter Maurel was sufficiendy skilled and discreet to have survived in this hazardous occupation for at least nineteen years between 1255 and 1274, when he was finally caught by the inquisi­ tors.64 Although the existence o f such persons was known to the inquisitors from an early date - William Pelhisson, for example, knew that Peitavin Boursier had, even in 1234, ‘for a long time been something o f a general courier for the heretics in Toulouse’ and that he was ‘a messenger and agent o f heretics’65 - they developed a structure o f sufficient strength as to make them difficult to catch. Peter Maurel, for instance, utilised ‘safe houses’ in both Languedoc and Lombardy, in the latter case making use o f a family network based upon his brothers. The most frequent route appears

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to have been along the Via Domitia, the old Roman road which linked Narbonne, Beziers, Montpellier, and Nunes across Bas Languedoc. Travellers from Toulouse and Carcassonne could join it at Narbonne and those from Cahors at Beziers. The Rhone was crossed by ferry from Beaucaire and from there they went over the Alps to Cuneo, from which they could reach all the important northern Italian cities, as well as the smaller towns which the Cathar hierarchy seems to have preferred.66 This was, o f course, only a makeshift solution to the problems faced by the Cathars o f Languedoc. The journeys were risky in themselves, while those exiles who returned to see their families or conduct business were often arrested, since the inquisitors had created an environment in which no one could regard themselves as ‘safe’ once their presence was known to anyone. In 1274 the career o f Peter Maurel ended in this way, causing panic among the many known to him.67 Indeed, it is possible that by the 1270s the Cathar Church was being squeezed at both ends, for in November 1276 the members o f the heretic community at Sirmione were seized, and in February 1278 ‘about 2 0 0 ’ were burnt at Verona, which must have dealt a huge blow to the Toulousan Church based there.68 Moreover, the inquisitors had been operating in Italy as long as they had been in Languedoc, although the effects had been mitigated by the presence o f urban governments more powerful than the consuls o f Toulouse, which were jealous o f their jurisdictional rights.69 A measure o f the perceived threat among the Cathars can be seen by the murder o f the inquisitor Peter o f Verona and his companion Dominic while travelling from Cuneo to Milan on 6 April 1252, victims o f a conspiracy planned and financed in several Lombard cities, including Milan, Cuneo, Lodi, Bergamo, and Pavia. Like William Arnold, Peter o f Verona had drawn attention to himself because o f his exceptionally energetic pursuit o f here­ tics, which he combined with a talent for publicity. Peter o f Verona’s own parents were allegedly Cathars, but he himself became a Dominican in the convent o f St Eustorge in Milan; by the early 1230s he was already well known as a public preacher and debater with heretics. He was inquisitor in Milan from 1234 and in Florence between 1244 and 1246, where he con­ verted the former Cathar, Rainier Sacconi, who himself became an inquisitor. In 1234 in Milan and ten years later in Florence he was responsible for founding orthodox militias to fight heresy, thus encouraging popular par­ ticipation. The idea was taken up in other cities. In 1251 he was commissioned

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to operate across all o f northern Italy from Genoa to Venice. The plot was also aimed at Rainier Sacconi, working then at Pavia, but it failed.70 The Dominican Order duly received its reward for its first martyr, when Peter was canonised in 1253. By the late 1250s he had already reached legend­ ary status, included in James o f Voragine’s Golden Legend., where he is described as ‘a radiant light in a cloud o f smoke’, and his miracles are described in detail. The explanation for his murder, however, may well lie beneath the hagiography. According to The Golden Legend the heretics in Milan were very numerous, occupying positions o f power where they ‘made effective use o f their fraudulent eloquence and devilish knowledge’, but when Peter o f Verona arrived he gave them ‘neither rest nor quarter’.71

The operation of the Inquisition The demeanour o f the inquisitors in Languedoc during the 1240s suggests an increasing confidence that they were winning the batde with heresy. M ost o f the evidence indicates that they were correct, although sporadic acts o f violence still occurred: late in 1247, for example, a clerk and a courier working for the inquisitors at Carcassonne were murdered at Caunes, near Narbonne, and significandy, the register they were carrying was burned.72 During this period inquisitors were based in the two cities o f Toulouse and Carcassonne. Those operating from Toulouse also took in part o f Quercy and the Agenais, while the Carcassonne inquisition covered most o f the province o f Narbonne except for the diocese o f Toulouse. The dioceses o f Albi and Rodez appear to have been divided between them.73 Both tribunals were backed by secular power, although perhaps with vary­ ing degrees o f enthusiasm. In Toulouse, Raymond VII, despite a continu­ ing feud with the Dominicans, saw little alternative after 1242 but to co-operate with the Church, and at Beziers in April 1243 took an oath to this effect, while in Carcassonne the inquisitors could call upon royal officials established there by a resolute monarchy. An idea o f how this operated in practice can be gained from Jorg Feuchter’s study o f the work o f the Dominican inquisitor Peter Cellani in the town o f Montauban between 1236 and 1241, and that o f Walter Wakefield on the inquisition carried out by Bernard o f Caux and John o f St Pierre in 1 2 45-6 in the village o f Mas-Saintes-Puelles.74 Montauban had been founded by Alfonso-Jordan, Count o f Toulouse, in 1144, mainly as a

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counter to the rising power o f his Trencavel rivals in the area although, following objections from the abbey o f St Theodard, soon after the lordship had been divided between the counts and the abbey. Situated on the east bank o f the River Tarn, about thirty-five kilometres upstream from the confluence with the Garonne, it lay on the borders o f the county o f Toulouse, but close enough to the Angevin lands to benefit from an important role in the southern wine trade. It developed rapidly, gaining its own consulate by 1195 and, in September 1212, had strong enough fortifications to deter a siege by Simon o f Montfort. It was never taken by the crusaders, although a small force bivouacked inside the walls came into conflict with the inhabitants in late 1217 or early 1218, and a part o f the town was set on fire, perhaps confirming Montfort’s suspicion that Montauban had been supporting the resistance in Toulouse.75 Montauban did indeed harbour both Cathars and Waldensians. An interest in dualism was particularly prevalent among the elite families and it was upon this sector o f society that Peter Cellani concentrated his efforts. Initially, he met resistance, but the draconian penances imposed upon recalcitrants in Toulouse seem to have led to a change o f heart and increas­ ingly advantage was taken o f the period o f grace both to confess and to implicate others. By this means the harshest punishments were avoided (such as life imprisonment and confiscation o f property), as well as gaining partial commutation o f the penances that were imposed. Nobody seems to have fulfilled the most onerous o f these which was an obligation to help defend the Latin Empire o f Constantinople. In return, they performed a collective expiation by financing and building a new church which, to the detriment o f the influence o f the abbey o f St Theodard, rapidly became the centre o f religious activities in the town. While it is clear that the town’s autonomy was more restricted from 1245 under the rule o f Alphonse o f Poitiers, nevertheless new opportunities arose under Capetian overlordship. The elites o f Montauban had therefore been forced back to orthodoxy by the work o f the inquisitor and had regrouped around the new church. Moreover, many o f them gave their support to the Franciscans, established in the town after the mid-century, and many were buried in the Franciscan church. Although Peter Cellani had found it necessary to impose penances on as many 256 persons (a third o f whom were women) in 1241, in the following years there were only a very few individual cases o f heresy, the last o f which was in 1276.

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Wakefield’s study o f the two surviving registers o f the inquisition carried out by Bernard o f Caux and John o f St Pierre in Toulouse in 1245-46 shows how this affected one village, Mas-Saintes-Puelles in the Lauragais just to the west o f Castelnaudary, where 420 persons deposed, which was probably about two-thirds o f the inhabitants. This is more than any other place in the surviving records o f this inquiry, but then, as the depositions show, this had been a village where, since at least 1180, heresy had been accepted by most people as part o f everyday life. Moreover, a substantial minority had been fully committed to it, handing the beliefs on to their children, and marrying within a defined group. The scale o f the summonses in 1245-46 may have been because the authorities already knew this to have been the case, for seventy-five o f the witnesses said that they had already confessed to other inquisitors in the past, reflecting the fact that investigations had been made and confessions gained on several occasions going back to 1209. In fact, as Wakefield points out, the two inquisitors did not follow up potential lines o f inquiry as rigorously as might be expected. This is not surprising given the sheer scale o f the inquiry overall, since even the two surviving registers encompass over 5,500 persons from 104 different places, and it is known that there were once ten registers.76 Nevertheless, the inquisitors seem to have secured at least an outward acquiescence to orthodoxy thereafter which, in this case at least, suggests that the circumstances undermining Catharism across the region as a whole were crucial in creating a context in which inquisitors could operate effectively. Examples taken from the sentences issued by these two inquisitors between March 1246 and June 1248, following this inquiry, show how they applied what they had learned.77 On 24 June 1246, they took mea­ sures to prevent what they evidently saw as heretical infection within the convent o f Lespinasse o f the Order o f Fontevrault, where Joanna, widow o f Bernard o f Latour, who had probably been a consul in Toulouse, was living as nun. This was not itself any protection from inquisitorial sentence.

Since Jo an n a . . . saw and adored many heretics and heard their preaching in many places, received them many times, gave them things from their own property, believed them to begood men, gave alm s to Waldensians, and denied the truth against her own oath, she is to be enclosed within the precincts o f the monastery o f Lespinasse in another

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separate room, so that others cannot g a in access to her nor she to them; but necessities are to be administered to her from the outside; and we order the prioress ofLespinasse to make provision fo r her in accordance with the aforesaid m anner78 I f even entry into the Order o f Fontevrault did not enable a former believer to evade the eye o f the inquisitors, there was little likelihood that other widows who admitted that they believed the heretics to be ‘good men’ could avoid a sentence o f perpetual prison. A list o f seven people condemned at Toulouse on 18 August 1247, for instance, included Berengaria, widow o f Assalit o f Monts, who ‘had given a legacy o f a certain perfecta to the heretics’, and Marin, widow o f Hugh, ‘who sought to buy cloth in which a certain dead heretic could be buried’.79 In these cir­ cumstances flight was the only alternative, a course followed by William Gamier, a doctor from Mas-Saintes-Puelles, who was excommunicated on 16 February 1248, having been condemned for seeing and ‘adoring’ heretics and bringing them food.80 These sentences represent only a fraction o f the total handed out, yet they show that 190 people were condemned, not only for their belief in Catharism and their respect for the ‘good men’, but also for the help they gave in the form o f food, shelter, clothing, and money. Each time these tribunals completed their work they cut off more possible sources o f sustenance for the ministers o f the Cathar Church. The same process was taking place in the Carcasses, where the register o f the greffier or clerk o f the inquisitors at Carcassonne recorded sentences and depositions o f tribunals operating over a seventeen-year period from 1250 to 1267. It is possible to reconstruct from these records something o f the life o f a Cathar perfect, Bernard Acier, who, from at least 1241 down to his arrest in 1259, attempted to keep the Cathar faith alive in a small part o f the Razes just to the south o f Carcassonne (see Map 6). Bernard Acier came from the village o f Couffoulens on the right bank o f the Aude River about seven kilometres from Carcassonne. He appears to have been careful to have stayed within a quite specific area: there is no record o f him further east than Rieux-en-Val or further west than Belveze-du-Razes, a distance o f only about forty kilometres, while the most southerly place he was seen in was Limoux, about fifteen kilometres from his home village. Within this rather narrow band o f territory he knew he could find places to stay, food and clothing, and guides whom he could trust. The inquisitors had made

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it dangerous to venture further afield or to stay too long in one place. Even then, although he was on home ground, he often seems to have been very uncertain o f the situation, which suggests a man forced to react to events rather than initiating them. In October 1254, Bernard Acier was at Belveze, from which he sent a message to a believer called William Sicred, a near neighbour o f his at Cavanac, only about two kilometres from Couffoulens. William therefore went to Belveze, where he found Bernard Acier and his companion. Bernard then asked him ‘about the state o f the land and o f the believers o f heretics’, apparently because the itinerant and clandestine life he had been forced to follow had given him little opportunity to assess the general condition o f the Cathar Church even in this relatively small region. William Sicred and other witnesses show that, over an eighteen-year period, Bernard Acier, as well as other perfecti, had moved from one hiding-place to another, sometimes finding shelter in houses, but also in cellars, sheds and barns, often meeting sympathisers at night in a local wood or vineyard before being taken to the next place. Where possible Bernard Acier performed the spiritual functions o f his office at small gatherings o f believers or, on one occasion, at Limoux in 1257, he was called in by a man whose wife was dying, apparently to administer the consoltwientum . However, these activities were done very much on an individual basis, for there was little left o f the organisational structure o f the Cathar Church. Bernard Acier did sometimes travel in a party o f as many as half a dozen perfecti, but they did not form a consistent or coherent group, while the only reference to Peter Pollan, Cathar Bishop o f the Razes, in October 1258, was when a perfectus called Bernard o f Montolieu (a village just to the north o f Carcassonne) told William Sicred that the bishop had secretly left them and ‘absconded with all the money and all the treasure’ . In fact, after some searching on a mountain above a wood near La Bezole, about ten kilometres south-west o f Limoux, William Sicred found three bottles buried in the ground containing various sums o f money which, a couple o f days later, he gave to Bernard o f Montolieu and Bernard Acier. Eventually, Bernard Acier seems to have decided he could carry on no longer in this manner and, together with another perfect, Peter o f C am ia, met William Sicred at Correze, another village on the Aude about three kilometres upstream from Couffoulens, and proposed that he went with them to Lombardy. William, though, told them that he could not go as he did not have any money ready. Bernard Acier himself never reached Lombardy.

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This discussion took place about the middle o f Lent in 1258; within the year he had been captured and taken to Carcassonne. There he had been converted and made confessions which implicated others, including William Sicred. With some o f the others, William therefore left for Rocamadour To visit the church and oratory o f the Blessed Virgin Mary’, which may possibly have been a belated attempt to undertake a penitential pilgrimage he had promised when previously questioned by inquisitors in 1250. However, by October 1259, William Sicred too was in the hands o f the inquisitors.81 The profound change in the milieu o f the Cathar Church in the moun­ tains south o f Carcassonne offers in microcosm a view o f what had hap­ pened in the wider world. In the early thirteenth century this region had been dominated by powerful Trencavel vassals such as the lords o f Termes, o f Fanjeaux, and o f Montreal. Such men allowed Cathar ministers to travel openly in their territories, welcomed them in their castm , listened to their preaching, and even permitted family members to become perfecti or per­ fectae. By the 1250s all that had been swept away: a perfectus like Bernard Acier lived in a state o f constant insecurity and fear, unable to rely on either the local nobility or the Cathar hierarchy. Catharism had been driven down the social scale, leaving few noble supporters, while most o f its ministers had been captured or had fled to Lombardy. Bernard Acier, even if he had had the capability, was in no position to study the literature o f his faith or to convey such learning to others; instead, he functioned only in small and uncoordinated gatherings o f believers or in meetings with individuals.82 The history o f the inquisitors in Languedoc during their first twenty-five years was not, it is true, an unqualified success; violent attacks on inquisi­ tors, on the one hand, and periodic suspensions o f activity, on the other, highlight the problems. Nevertheless, the inquisitional machinery func­ tioned well enough and often enough to make successful resistance ever more difficult. Again, the case o f Bernard Acier is instructive. When the perfectus was captured, William Sicred had rushed to Carcassonne to try to find out what he had said. Here he was told by another Cathar believer, Vital o f Paulmiano, that Bernard Acier had already told the inquisitors about him [Vital] and that ‘he presumed that, if he had not yet spoken about this witness [William Sicred], he would do so now and would expose this witness and his doings; and he advised him to flee and go away from this land’ .83 I f the Cathars had been successful because o f their ability to

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offer believers access to the ‘good men’, then the inquisitorial deployment o f the means to cut off or severely restrict this access must have been a key reason for the decline o f the heretics’ support.84 At the same time as the Cathar Church was trying and largely failing to maintain a coherent structure and ideology, the forces o f orthodoxy were rapidly gaining strength. Although the structure o f the Italian city-states was less favourable to the Catholic Church than the political and religious settlement imposed on Languedoc in 1229, nevertheless even in Italy there is a noticeable inquisitorial drive, backed by powerful refutations o f Cathar belief. Sometimes the two were combined in the person o f impressive indi­ viduals like the former Cathar Rainier Sacconi or the professor o f theology, Moneta o f Cremona. Even the murder o f a leading inquisitor like Peter o f Verona could be turned to advantage: Peter ‘the Martyr’ was rapidly promoted to cult status as a symbol o f good struck down by evil. More mundanely, the Catholic Church in Languedoc, so often despised and impotent before 1209, was now heavily patronised by a king who regarded Simon o f Montfort as a hero o f the faith, and benefited both from royal generosity and the restoration o f its tithes.85 The most obvious effects were seen in the cities and towns, particularly those with episcopal seats, where confident bishops took a role in inquisitorial proceedings beside the spe­ cialists from the preaching orders.86 However, rural areas were also affected, particularly by the enactment o f synodal statutes from the mid-thirteenth century onwards. Such statutes reflect prescriptions laid down at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and are part o f a general trend o f French episcopal legislation since that time. They aimed to set standards both for the clergy and for the practice o f the faith throughout the diocese, not only through ordinance but by visitation and the calling o f clerical assemblies as well.87 These changes took place in a surprisingly favourable economic climate. In his study o f charitable provision in Toulouse in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, John Mundy has shown that recovery from the Albigensian wars was remarkably rapid, enabling new charitable institutions to be founded and sustained between 1230 and 1250.88 It is often the case that economic prosperity does much to reconcile the populace to a new regime. Louis IX reinforced this by a shrewd series o f restitutions, particularly between 1259 and 1262,89 as well as rehabilita­ tions o f nobles like Oliver o f Termes. Although he continued to complain about the Dominicans, Raymond VIPs resistance effectively ended after

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1242; when he died in 1249 the whole region fell to Alphonse o f Poitiers, obliterating the ambivalence o f the house o f Toulouse. Alphonse was a zealous promoter o f orthodoxy whose opposition to pecuniary substitu­ tions for inquisitorial penalties manifested itself in the much greater provi­ sion o f prisons. His officials followed this up with a rigorous enforcement o f the confiscations o f the property o f convicted heretics.90 Moreover, the accession o f the new government o f Alphonse o f Poitiers coincided with the concession o f greater freedom o f action to the inquisitors, after a period when they had withdrawn their co-operation in 1248 and 1249. This had been a protest against what they considered to be Pope Innocent IV’s leniency towards convicted heretics and it had been maintained until 1254 when the new pope, Alexander IV, had acceded to their demands. M ost significantly, in 1256, they were even granted permission to absolve each other from irregular actions in canon law.91 In fifty years the environ­ ment had been transformed, changing the Cathars first from reformers to m aquisards, and then from m aquisards to fugitives.

Notes and references 1

Pelhisson, pp. 3 6 - 9 ; trans. W akefield, p. 2 0 9 . See the view o f A. Roach, The D evil’s World: Heresy and Society 1100-1300 (H arlow , 2 0 0 5 ), p. 107, that ‘the policies o f the early thirteenth century did not so m uch defeat heresy as stimulate it’ .

2

H G L , vol. 8, no. 2 7 1 , pp. 8 8 3 - 9 4 .

3

See B. H am ilton, ‘The Cathar Council o f Saint-Felix reconsidered’ ,

Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 4 8 (1 9 7 8 ), pp. 4 3 - 9 . 4

PV C , vol. 1, para. 6, p. 6 ; trans. Sibly, p. 8; H . Denifle, ed., C hartularium U niversitatis Parisiensis, vol. 1 (Paris, 18 9 9 ) (reprint Brussels, 1 9 6 4 ), no. 7 2 , p. 129.

5

J. D . M ansi, ed., Sacrorum conciliorum nova et am plissim a collection vol. 23 (Florence, Venice, and Paris, 1 7 9 9 ), cols 1 8 5 -6 .

6

M ansi, ed., Sacrorum conciliorum , vol. 13, cols 1 9 2 -3 . See C. J. H efele and H . Leclercq, H istoire des Concilesy vol. 5(ii) (Paris, 1 9 1 3 ), pp. 1 4 9 4 -5 0 1 .

7

W P, pp. 1 3 8 - 9 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 8 4 - 5 .

8

Pelhisson, pp. 3 8 - 4 9 ; trans. Wakefield, pp. 2 0 9 - 1 2 . See also pp. 1 3 7 -4 0 .

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9 See A. Brenon, Le Vrai Visage du Catharism e , 2nd edn (Portet-sur-G aronne, 1 9 9 5 ), pp. 4 9 - 5 0 , on the destruction o f the Cathar bishopric o f ‘France’ , which had effectively disappeared by c. 1240. 10

11

T . Ripoll, ed., Bullarium ordinis fratru m praedicatorum , vol. 1 (R om e, 1 779), nos 71 and 7 2 , p. 4 7 . B. H am ilton, The M edieval Inquisition (Lo n d on , 1 9 8 1 ), pp. 3 6 - 9 . It may be m ore accurate to speak o f ‘inquisitors’ rather than o f ‘the Inquisition’ in that, initially, there was a lack o f institutional structures and set procedures. It has therefore been argued that, for the thirteenth century at least, the Inquisition is a historical construct, see R. Kieckhefer, ‘The office o f inquisition and medieval heresy: the transition from personal to institutional jurisdiction’ , Jou rn al o f Ecclesiastical History 4 6 (1 9 9 5 ), pp. 3 6 - 6 1 . However, the appearance o f a manual o f procedure as early as 1 2 4 4 and the continual emphasis on the need for proper record-keeping does su ggest an awareness o f the need for consistency and a strong sense o f com m on purpose.

12

Pelhisson, pp. 3 4 - 4 7 ; trans. W akefield, pp. 2 0 8 - 1 1 .

13

A. Tardif, ‘D ocum ent pour l’histoire du processus per inquisitionem et de

Yinquisitio heretice p ravitati? , Nouvelle revue historique du droit fran gais et etrangcr 7 (1 8 8 3 ), pp. 6 6 9 - 7 8 ; trans. W. L. Wakefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, 1100-1250 (L o n d on , 1 9 7 4 ), A ppendix 6, pp. 2 5 0 - 8 . F or dating and attribution, see L. Kolm er, A d capiendos Vulpes. Die Ketzerbekdmpfung in Siidfrankreich in der ersten H dlfte des 13. Jahrhunderts und die A usbildung des Inquisitionverfahrens (D eutsches H istorisches Institut in Paris, H istorische Studien, 19) (B onn , 1 9 8 2 ), pp. 1 9 8 -2 0 3 . 14

Pelhisson, pp. 6 8 - 9 ; trans. W akefield, p. 2 1 7 .

15

Ibid., pp. 5 2 - 5 , 9 2 - 5 ; trans. W akefield, pp. 2 1 3 , 2 2 3 - 4 ; W P, pp. 1 3 8 - 9 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 8 3 - 4 .

16

Ibid., pp. 5 8 - 9 ; trans. W akefield, p. 2 1 4 .

17

The use o f im prisonm ent and social stigm atisation were effective means o f detaching a heretic from the com m unity which had enabled him to sustain his beliefs and role in the past. Individuals isolated in this way often found they had little alternative but to work for the inquisitors. See J. Given, ‘The inquisitors o f Languedoc and the medieval technology o f pow er’ , Am erican

H istorical Review 9 4 (1 9 8 9 ), pp. 3 3 6 - 5 9 , and ‘Social stress, social strain, and the inquisitors o f Medieval L an gu ed oc’ , in S. C . W augh and P. D . D iehl, eds, Christendom and Its Discontents: Exclusion, Persecution, and Rebellion, 1000-1500 (C am bridge, 1 9 9 6 ), pp. 6 7 - 8 5 ; H . A. Kelly, ‘Inquisition and the prosecution o f heresy: m isconceptions and abuses’ ,

Church History 58 (1 9 8 9 ), pp. 4 3 9 - 5 1 , argues that originally the procedural

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rules for heresy cases ‘did not privilege heresy cases’ over others, except in the use o f summary procedure and the concealm ent o f the nam es o f witnesses. H ow ever, he also shows that the rules were often abused to the extent that such abuses seem to have becom e ‘norm al’ in the course o f the thirteenth century. W hat is evident is the skill with which the inquisitors developed the means which were available to them to obtain the results they sought, see J. Given, Inquisition and M edieval Society: Power, Discipline and

Resistance in Languedoc (Ithaca, N Y and L on don , 1 9 9 7 ), esp. chs 1 -3 .

18 Pelhisson, pp. 3 6 - 7 ; trans. W akefield, p. 2 0 8 . F or an analysis o f violent resistance, see Given, Inquisition and M edieval Society, pp. 1 1 2 -1 7 .

19 Pelhisson, pp. 4 6 - 7 ; trans. W akefield, p. 2 1 1 . 20

Ibid., pp. 1 1 2 - 2 2 ; trans. Wakefield, pp. 2 2 6 - 8 .

21 See, pp. 7 0 -1 .

22 Pelhisson, pp. 5 2 - 3 , 7 2 - 8 7 ; trans. Wakefield, pp. 2 1 3 , 2 1 8 - 2 3 . See also E. Griffe, Le Languedoc Cathare et VInquisition (1229-1329) (Paris, 1 9 8 0 ), p. 56, and Y. D ossat, ‘L a Crise de l’Inquisition toulousaine en 1 2 3 5 -1 2 3 6 et l’expulsion des Dom inicains’ , Bulletin philologique et historique (jusqu’d 1715), annees 1953 et 1954 (Paris, 1 9 5 5 ), pp. 3 9 1 - 8 , who revises the chronology o f these events.

23 Pelhisson, pp. 5 2 - 3 , 5 8 - 9 ; trans. Wakefield, pp. 2 1 3 , 2 1 4 . See J. H . M undy, The Repression o f Catharism a t Toulouse: The Royal Diplom a o f1279 (Studies and Texts, 7 4 ) (T oron to, 1 9 8 5 ), esp. pp. 2 8 - 3 2 , 5 0 - 5 . In his view, ‘the back o f Toulousan Catharism had been broken by the end o f Septem ber 1 2 3 7 ’ , a success which he believes m ade the attack on the rural lordships m uch easier. H ow ever, not all historians are convinced by M undy’s analysis, see M . D . Lam bert, The C athars (O xford, 1 9 9 8 ), p. 140 and n.33. E. Griffe, Le Languedoc Cathare au temps de la Croisade (1209-1229) (Paris, 1 9 7 3 ), pp. 1 6 0 - 6 , presents a very similar social profile to that o f M undy.

24 W P, pp. 1 4 0 -1 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 8 5 - 6 . 25 Ibid., pp. 1 4 0 -1 ; trans. Sibly, p. 85. 26 Pelhisson, pp. 6 6 - 7 ; trans. W akefield, p. 2 1 7 . 27 F or an account o f Avignonet, see Y. D ossat, Les Crises de VInquisition toulousaine en X H Ie siecle (1233-1273) (Bordeaux, 1 9 5 9 ), pp. 1 4 6 -5 1 . F or the pillage, D oat, vol. 2 4 , ff. 1 6 5 r-1 6 5 v , and for William Golarion, Bibliotheque municipale, T oulouse, M anuscript 609 (hereafter Ms. 609), f. 140v.

28 See J. Duvernoy, ‘Confirm ation d ’aveux devant les Inquisiteurs Ferrier et Pons Gary (Juillet-A out 1 2 4 3 )’, Heresis 1 (1 9 8 3 ), pp. 9 - 2 3 ; W. L. Wakefield, ‘Friar Ferrier, Inquisition at Caunes, and escapes from prison at

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REFERENCES

Carcassonne’, Catholic H istorical Review 58 (1 9 7 2 ), pp. 2 2 0 - 3 7 , and ‘Friar Ferrier, Inquisitor’ , H eresis7 (1 9 8 6 ), pp. 3 3 - 4 1 . 29 30

W P, pp. 1 3 2 - 5 ; trans. Sibly, p. 81. See Wakefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition , pp. 1 5 3 - 6 1 , for an outline o f these events.

31

W P, pp. 1 4 0 -1 ; trans. Sibly, p. 86.

32

M . R oquebert, ‘Le Catharism e com m e tradition dans la “ familia” languedocienne’ , in C F 2 0 (1 9 8 5 ), pp. 2 2 6 - 8 . See also A. Brenon, Les Femmes Cathares (Paris, 1 9 9 2 ), pp. 2 4 2 - 9 , on the nature o f M ontsegur and the com m unity there.

33

Chanson, vol. 2 , laisse 1 45, pp. 4 8 - 5 5 ; trans. Shirley, pp. 7 4 - 5 . See pp. 5 9 - 6 0 , 156. There is an ambiguity about the feudal position o f the lords o f Pereille, since the suzerainty o f this region was divided between the counts o f Foix, and the viscounts o f Carcassonne. Ultim ately, however, the overlord was the count o f T oulouse, see M . R oquebert, UEpopee cathare , vol. 4 ,

1230-1249: M ourir a Montsegur (T oulouse, 1 9 9 4 ), pp. 3 2 - 3 . 34

W P, pp. 1 7 4 - 5 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 0 7 -8 .

35

These are D uvernoy’s figures, W P, p. 174, n. 4. R oquebert, Utipopee cathare, vol. 4 , pp. 3 6 6 - 7 , calculates that there were 211 perfecti and at least 150 lay persons, so that the m inimum figure was 361.

36

W P, pp. 1 7 4 - 7 ; Pelhisson, pp. 5 6 - 7 ; trans. W akefield, p. 2 1 4 . Duvernoy has gathered together the texts o f the depositions o f the survivors o f the fall o f M ontsegur, as well as references to the castle in other inquisitorial testim onies, J. Duvernoy, ed. and trans., Le Dossier de Montsegur: Interrogatories d ’inquisition (1242-1247) (T oulouse, 19 9 7 ).

37

H . C . Lea, A History o f the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, vol. 2 (N ew York, 1 8 8 9 ), p. 4 2 ; Duvernoy, W P, p. 173, n. 4 ; Griffe, Le Languedoc Cathare et VInquisition , p. 80.

38

D oat, Vol. 2 5 , f.2 6 8 r; Inquisitors and Heretics, pp. 7 1 6 - 1 7 .

39

See E. Delaruelle, ‘Saint Louis devant les C athares’ , in Septieme Centenaire

de la M ort de Sain t Louis. Actes des Colloques de Royaumont et de P aris (21-27 m ai 1970) (Paris, 1 9 7 6 ), pp. 2 7 7 - 8 0 . For an assessment o f the contem porary im portance o f M ontsegur, see R oquebert, L ’tpopee cathare , vol. 4 , pp. 2 1 - 2 . 40

See pp. 4 4 - 5 . See, too , G. Langlois, ‘L a Form ation de la seigneurie de T erm es’ , Heresis 17 (1 9 9 1 ), pp. 5 1 -7 2 .

41

PV C , vol. 1, paras 1 7 1 -9 0 , pp. 1 7 3 - 9 3 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 9 1 - 1 0 0 , and Chanson, vol. 1, laisses 5 6 - 7 , pp. 1 3 2 - 4 1 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 3 6 - 7 , for accounts o f the siege.

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PV C , vol. 1, para. 1 85, pp. 1 8 7 - 9 ; trans. Sibly, p. 9 8 . O n Benedict o f Term es, see Duvernoy, W P, p. 5 0 , n. 3.

43

PV C , vol. 1, para. 130, pp. 1 3 4 - 6 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 7 1 -2 .

44

Chanson, vol. 1, laisse 5 8 , pp. 1 4 0 -1 ; trans. Shirley, p. 57.

45

PV C , vol. 1, para. 2 7 9 , pp. 2 7 4 - 5 and n. 1; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 3 9 - 4 0 , n. 58.

46

H G L, vol. 8, no. 2 6 9 , p. 8 7 7 , for the act o f subm ission which refers to their cession o f the lands in 1228. W P, pp. 1 1 0 -1 1 , gives 1 2 2 0 /2 1 .

47

See A. Peal, ‘ Olivier de Term es and the Occitan nobility’ , R eading M edieval

Studies 12 (1 9 8 6 ), pp. 1 0 9 -2 9 . 48

W P, pp. 1 2 4 - 7 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 7 5 - 6 .

49

See p. 191.

50

See R. W. Em ery, Heresy and Inquisition in Narbonne (N ew York, 1 9 4 1 ), pp. 7 7 - 1 0 1 ; W akefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition , pp. 1 4 3 - 6 ; Peal, ‘Olivier de T erm es’ , pp. 1 1 6 -1 7 .

51

H G L , vol. 8 , nos 3 33 and 3 3 4 , cols 1 0 4 5 -6 .

52

H G L , vol. 8 , no. 4 2 0 , pp. 1 2 7 6 -7 .

53

See M . R oquebert, Les Cathares: De la chute de Montsegur au x derniers

buchers (1244-1329) (Paris, 1 9 9 8 ), pp. 2 8 8 - 9 2 . 54

Rainerius Sacconi, Summ a de C atharis et Pauperibus de Lugduno , in A. D ondaine, Un Traite neo-manicheen du X H Ie siecle: Le Liber du duobus principiis, suivi d ’un fragm ent de rituel cathare (R om e, 1 9 3 9 ), p. 7 0 ; trans. W E, no. 51, p. 336.

55

See E. Dupre-Theseider, ‘Le Catharism e languedocien et l’ltalie’, in C F 3 (1 9 6 8 ), pp. 3 0 2 - 3 ; A. Roach, The Relationship o f the Italian and Southern

French Cathars, 1170-1320 (D Phil diss., W olfson C ollege, O xford, 1 9 8 9 ), pp. 1 2 9 -4 7 . 56

W P, pp. 1 9 0 -1 ; trans. Sibly, pp. 1 1 7 -1 8 .

57

B o a t, vol. 2 5 , ft'. 1 4 0 v -1 4 3 r; P. Biller, C . Bruschi and S. Sneddon, eds,

Inquisitors and Heretics in Thirteenth-Century Languedoc: Edition and Translation o f Toulouse Inquisition Depositions 1273-1282 (Leiden, 2 0 1 1 ), pp. 4 6 6 - 7 1 . See Roach, Relationship , pp. 1 8 5 - 7 , w ho argues that, in 1 2 6 4 , M anfred was under threat from the papal ally, Charles o f A njou, and therefore did not wish to alienate his orthodox friends by appearing to protect heretics. H e sees the fall o f Guardia Lom bardi as a great blow to the Languedocian Church in exile, since it appears to have been an attem pt to establish a stronghold in Apulia not dissimilar to that o f M ontsegur. There is no d ou bt that the Cathars had been well established in southern Italy, as they had provoked a violent outburst against them as long ago as c. 120 0 by

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REFERENCES

the Calabrian abbot, Joachim o f Fiore. See C. Thouzellier, Catharism e et Valdeisme en Languedoc d la fin du X lle siecle et au debut du X H Ie siecle, 2nd edn (Louvain and Paris, 1 9 6 9 ), pp. 1 1 4 -1 7 . 58

Pelhisson, pp. 5 6 - 7 ; trans. Wakefield, p. 2 1 4 .

59

Pelhisson, pp. 5 0 - 1 , 5 8 - 9 ; trans. W akefield, pp. 2 1 2 , 2 1 4 ; J. J. I. von Doellinger, Beitrdge zu r Sektengeschichte des M ittelalters, vol. 2 (M unich, 1 890), pp. 3 4 - 5 , for the contact with Crem ona. See also Roach,

Relationships pp. 1 3 9 - 4 4 , who points out that there was no known C athar ‘bishop o f C rem ona’ and suggests that this offer probably came from Languedocian exiles rather than from Cathars o f the Italian Church. 60

D oat, vol. 2 5 , ff. 5 r-7 r, 2 4 4 v -2 4 6 v ; vol. 2 6 , ff. 1 5r-15v ; Inquisitors and

Heretics, pp. 1 8 2 - 7 , 6 7 6 - 8 1 , 8 6 2 - 5 . 61

D oat, vol. 2 5 , ff. 7 1 v -7 2 v , 2 64v, 3 1 1 r-3 1 1 v ; Inquisitors an d Heretics, pp. 3 3 4 - 7 , 7 1 0 - 1 1 , 8 0 0 - 1 . Dupre-Theseider, ‘L e Catharism e languedocien et l’ltalie’ , p. 3 1 0 , believes that they had a proper treasury.

62

D oat, vol. 2 5 , ff. 2 9 7 v -3 1 3 r; Inquisitors and Heretics, pp. 7 7 4 - 8 0 5 . See J. Guiraud, H istoire de ^Inquisition au moyen age, vol. 2 (Paris, 1 9 3 8 ), pp. 2 4 7 - 8 , 2 5 3 - 9 , and G. Boffito, ‘Gli Eretici di C u n eo’ , Bullettino Storico-Bibliografico Subalpino 1 (1 9 8 5 ), pp. 3 2 9 - 3 2 .

63

For exam ple, William Raffard o f Roquevidal, D oat, vol. 2 6 , ff. 15 r-1 5 v ;

Inquisitors and Heretics, pp. 8 6 2 - 5 . 64

D oat, vol. 2 5 , ff. 18r-19v; Inquisitors and Heretics, pp. 2 1 4 - 1 7 .

65

Pelhisson, pp. 6 0 - 3 ; trans. Wakefield, pp. 2 1 5 - 1 6 .

66

See P. A. Clem ent, Les chemins a travers les ages en Cevennes et Bas Languedoc (M ontpellier, 1 9 8 4 ), esp. pp. 8 9 - 9 1 , 1 1 2 -1 3 , 1 3 0 - 6 , 1 7 2 - 6 , 189, 2 1 3 - 2 4 , and Y. R enouard, ‘Les Voies de com m unication entre la France et le Piem ont au m oyen age’ , Bullettino Storico-Bibliografico

Subalpino 61 (1 9 6 3 ), pp. 2 3 3 - 5 6 . See also M . Barber, ‘M oving Cathars: the Italian C onnection in the thirteenth century’ , Jo u rn al o f M editerranean Studies 10 (2 0 0 0 ), pp. 5 -1 9 . 67 68

D oat, vol. 2 5 , ff. 122v-1 2 3 v; Inquisitors and Heretics, pp. 4 3 0 - 3 . See D upre-Theseider, ‘Le Catharism e languedocien et l’ltalie’ , p. 3 0 3 , and Roach, Relationships pp. 2 1 8 - 1 9 . Roach attributes this coup to the desire o f M astino della Scala, capitano del popolo at V erona since 12 6 2 , to gain favour with the papacy, which had laid an interdict on the city in 1267.

69

Dupre-Theseider, ‘Le Catharism e languedocien et l’ltalie’ , p. 306. F or example, the regim e o f O berto Pelavicino, an ally o f the Em peror Frederick II, who dom inated C rem ona and Piacenza between 1 2 5 0 and 1 2 66. H is opposition to the inquisitors m eant that they could not operate in these

. 205 •

THE

D EC LIN E

OF C A TH A R ISM

cities during this period, see Roach, Relationship , pp. 1 6 3 -6 . Imperial anti-heresy laws were less effective than diligent inquisitors and therefore the Cathars, both Italian and southern French, tended to survive best in cities with Ghibelline (anti-papal) sympathies. 70

O n his career, see A. D ondaine, ‘Saint Pierre M artyr’ , Archivum Fratrum

Praedicatorum 23 (1 9 5 3 ), pp. 6 6 -1 6 2 . 71

Jacobus de V oragine, The Golden Legend. R eadings on the Saints, trans. W. G. Ryan, vol. 1 (Princeton, N J, 1 9 9 3 ), pp. 2 5 4 - 6 6 .

72

D ossat, Les Crises, p. 169.

73

Ibid., p. 152.

74

J. Feuchter, Ketzer, Konsuln und Buffer. D ie stadtischen Eliten von M ontauban vor dem Inquisitor Petros C ellani (1236/1241) (Spatm ittelalter, H um anism us, Reform ation, 4 0 ) (Tubingen, 2 0 0 7 ); W. L. Wakefield, ‘H eretics and inquisitors: the case o f Le M as-Saintes-Puelles’ , Catholic H istorical Review 69 (1 9 8 3 ), pp. 2 0 9 - 2 6 , based on Ms. 609.

75

See L. W. Marvin, The Occitan War: A M ilitary and Political History o f the Albigensian Crusade, 1209-1218 (C am bridge, 2 0 0 8 ), pp. 1 5 3 - 4 , 2 7 8 - 9 . The new town occupied an elevated position at the end o f a ridge and was protected on three sides by rivers; see Feuchter, Ketzer, Konsuln und Biifiery pp. 1 1 5 -2 9 .

76

W akefield, ‘H eretics and inquisitors’ , p. 2 0 9 ; C . D ouais, ed., Documents pour servir a Thistoire de PInquisition dans le Languedoc (Societe de l’histoire de France), vol. 2 (Paris, 1 9 0 0 ), p. ccxlviii. M oreover, as J. H . M undy, ‘Village, town and city in the region o f T ou lo u se’ , in J. Raftis, ed., Pathways to Medieval Peasants (T oron to, 1 9 8 1 ), p. 156, shows, such villages were no longer served by com pliant or timid priests, for the parish system had been comprehensively overhauled. F or a thorough analysis o f Ms. 609, see M . G. Pegg, The Corruption o f Angels. The G reat Inquisition o f1245-1246 (Princeton and O xford, 2 0 0 1 ).

77

D ouais, ed., Documents pour servir, vol. 2 , pp. 1 -8 9 . All the sentences are within this period, except for one anomaly, no. X V I, which seem s to have been given at C ahors on 2 6 A ugust 1 2 44. N either place nor date is consistent with the rest o f the register.

78

Ibid., p. cclxi and no. X I, p. 31.

79

Ibid., no. X V III, pp. 4 4 - 5 .

80

Ibid., no. X X XV II, pp. 7 4 - 5 .

81

Ibid., pp. 2 5 5 , 2 5 6 , 2 6 4 , 2 6 5 , 2 7 2 , 2 7 7 , 2 7 9 - 8 5 . See also Griffe, Le Languedoc Cathare et PInquisition, pp. 1 1 0 -1 4 , who suggests that the flight to R ocam adour m ight have been an unfulfilled pilgrim age.

• 206 •

NOTES

82

AND

REFERENCES

See R. Abels and E. H arrison, ‘The participation o f w om en in Languedocian Catharism ’ , M edieval Studies 41 (1 9 7 9 ), pp. 2 3 8 - 5 4 0 , for the steep decline in the num bers o f both perfecti and perfectae in the 12 4 0 s and 1250s. The itinerant life made perfectae particularly conspicuous and they were frequently captured. See A. Borst, Die K atharer (Schriften der M onum enta Germaniae historica) (Stuttgart, 1 9 5 3 ), pp. 2 1 1 - 1 2 , for the decline in the num bers o f deacons.

83

D ouais, ed., Documents pour servir, vol. 2 , no. X X X II, p. 2 8 4 .

84

See Roach, D evil’s World, p. 8, and A. Brenon, ‘Catharism in the family in Languedoc in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: an investigation based on inquisitorial sources’ , in Urban and R u ral Communities in M edieval France. Provence and Languedoc, 1000-1500, ed. K. Reyerson and J. Drendel (Leiden, 199 8 ), pp. 2 9 7 - 8 , 3 0 6 - 7 . Brenon quotes the case o f Saint-M artinLalande in which there had once been a ratio o f one ‘g o o d man or w om an’ to every ten believers.

85

See Griffe, Le Languedoc Cathare et Plnquisition , pp. 1 2 3 - 5 , and Delaruelle, ‘Saint L ou is’ , pp. 2 7 5 - 6 .

86

T he greffieP s register o f 1 2 5 0 - 6 7 (p. 2 0 6 , n. 7 7 ), for exam ple, records not only the work o f the D om inicans and Franciscans, but also that o f two successive bishops o f Carcassonne as well.

87

See, for exam ple, J. Avril, ed., Les Statuts Synodales Frangais du X H Ie siecle, vol. 4 , Les Statuts Synodaux de PAncienne Province de Reim s (C am brai, A rras, Noyon, Soissons et Tournai) (Collection de D ocum ents inedits sur l’histoire de France, Section d ’H istoire M edievale et de Philologie, vol. 2 3 ) (Paris, 1995).

88

J. H . M undy, ‘Charity and social work in T oulouse, 1 1 0 0 - 1 2 5 0 ’ , Traditio 22 (1 9 6 6 ), esp. p. 2 3 6 . This view o f the post-crusade econom y o f Languedoc is confirmed by P. Wolff, ‘ Role de Lessor econom ique dans les ralliement social et religieux’ , in C F 2 0 (1 9 8 5 ), pp. 2 4 3 - 5 5 .

89 90

See Griffe, Le Languedoc Cathare et Plnquisition , p. 123. D ouais, ed., Documents pour servir, vol. 1, pp. ccxiii-ccxix, on the policy o f Alphonse o f Poitiers.

91

See D ossat, Les Crises, pp. 1 7 5 -8 8 .

. 207 •

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Soderberg, M., La Religion des Cathares: Etude sur le Gnosticisme de la basse antiquite et du moyen age (Uppsala, 1949). Stoyanov, Y. P., The Hidden Tradition in Europe (Harmondsworth, 1994). Stoyanov, Y. P., The Other God: D ualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy (New Haven, 2000). Strayer, J., The Albigensian Crusades (New York, 1971). Sumption, J., The Albigensian Crusade (London, 1978; reprint 1999). Taylor, C., Tope Innocent III, John of England and the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1216)’, in J. C. Moore, ed., Pope Innocent III and his World (Aldershot, 1999), pp. 205-28. Taylor, C., ‘The letter of Heribert of Perigord as a source for dualist heresy in the society o f early eleventh-century Aquitaine’, Journal of Medieval History, 26 (2000), pp. 313-49. Taylor, C., Heresy in Medieval Prance: Dualism in Aquitaine and the Agenais, 1000-1249 (London, 2005). Taylor, C., Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Quercy (Woodbridge, 2011). Thouzellier, C., ‘Heresie et croisade au Xlle siecle’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique 49 (1954), pp. 855-72. Thouzellier, C., Catharisme et Valdeisme en Languedoc a la fin du X lle siecle et au debut du XHIe siecle, 2nd edn (Louvain and Paris, 1969). Tillmann, H., Innocent III , trans. W. Sax (Amsterdam, 1980) (originally 1954). Touraine, A., ‘Sociological interaction and the internal dynamics o f the Occitanist movement’, in E. A. Tiryakion and R. Rogowski, eds, New Nationalisms of the Developed West (London and Boston, MA, 1985), p p .157-75. Ullmann, W., ‘The significance o f Innocent I ll’s decretal “Vergentis” ’, in Etudes d’histoire du droit canonique dediees a Gabriel Le Bras (Paris, 1965), pp. 729-41. Venarde, B., Women’s Monasticism and Medieval Society. Nunneries in France and England, 890-1215 (Ithaca and London, 1997). Vicaire, M.-H., ‘Les Albigeois ancetres des protestants: assimilations catholiques’, in C F 14 (1979), pp. 23-46. Vicaire, M.-H., ‘Le Catharisme: un religion (1935-1976)’, in CF 14 (1979), p p .381-409.

• 303 •

REFERENCES

Vidal, J.-M., Un Inquisiteur juge par ses cvicrimes’: Jean Galand et les Carcassonais, 1285-1286 (Paris, 1903). Vidal, J.-M., ‘Les Derniers ministres de l’albigeisme en Languedoc’, Revue des Questions historiques 79 (1906), pp. 57-107. Vidal, J.-M., ‘Doctrine et morale des derniers ministres albigeois’, Revue des Questions historiques 85 (1909), pp. 357-409; 86 (1909), pp. 5-48. Vidal, J.-M., ‘Esclarmonde de Foix’, Revue de Gascogne 11 (1911), pp. 53-79. Viguier, M. C., ‘Otto Rahn entre Wolfram von Eschenbach et les neo-Nazis’, in C E J pp. 165-89. Vincent, N., ‘England and the Albigensian Crusade’, in B. K. Weiler and I. W. Rowlands, eds, England and Europe in the Reign of Henry III (1216-1272) (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 67-97. Wakefield, W. L., ‘The family o f Niort in the Albigensian Crusade and before the Inquisition’, Names: The Journal of the American Name Society 18 (1970), pp. 97-117, 286-303 (and revised version, privately circulated in typescript, 1989). Wakefield, W. L., ‘Friar Ferrier, Inquisition at Caunes, and escapes from prison at Carcassonne’, Catholic Historical Review 58 (1972), pp. 220-37. Wakefield, W. L., ‘Some unorthodox popular ideas o f the thirteenth century’, Medievalia et Humanistica 4 (1973), pp. 25-35. Wakefield, W. L., Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, 1100-1250 (London, 1974). Wakefield, W. L., ‘Heretics and inquisitors: the case of Le Mas-SaintesPuelles’, Catholic Historical Review 69 (1983), pp. 209-26. Wakefield, W. L., ‘Burial o f heretics in the Middle Ages’, Heresis 5 (1985), pp. 29-32. Wakefield, W. L., ‘Friar Ferrier, Inquisitor’, Heresis 7 (1986), pp. 33-41. Walther, D., ‘A survey of recent research on the Albigensian Cathari’, Church History 34 (1965), pp. 146-77. Walther, D., ‘Were the Albigenses and Waldenses forerunners of the Reformation?’ Andrews University Seminary Studies 6 (1968), pp. 178-202. Weil, Simone, Selected Essays, 1934-43 , trans. R. Rees (Oxford, 1962).

• 304 •

REFERENCES

Weil, Simone, Gateway to Godyed. D. Raper (London, 1974). Weis, R., The Tellow Cross: The Story of the Last Cathars 1290-1329 (London, 2000 ). Wolff, P., ‘Role de l’essor economique dans les ralliement social et religieux’, in C F 2 0 (1985), pp. 243-55. Zambon, F., ‘Le Catharisme et les mythes du Graal’, in C E f pp. 215-43. Zeldin, T., France, 1848-1945 , vol. 2, Intellect, Taste and Anxiety (Oxford, 1977). Zerner, M., ed., L ’Histoire du Catharisme en discussion: Le ‘concile>de Saint-Felix (1167) (Collection du Centre d’Etudes medievales de Nice, 3) (Nice, 2001).

• 305 •

TABLES

T a b le 1 ♦

T h e A lbigensian C rusades: chronology

1208

14 January 28 March

1209

18 June 22 June Late June 22 July 1 August 15 August Late August 10 November Early June-22 July July-22 November 22 January

1210 1211

6 February March 1 April-3 May April May 17-29 June September

1212

1213

September 12 March April 20-21 May 3 June-26 July 14 August-8 September 1 December Mid-January 15 January

1214

1215

21 May 12 September February 28 June-18 August Early November January April-June November 30 November

Murder o f Peter of Castelnau, papal legate Arnald Amalric, Abbot o f Citeaux, appointed leader o f crusade Reconciliation of Raymond VI o f Toulouse Raymond VI takes the cross Crusaders assemble at Lyon Sack of Beziers by the crusaders Crusaders reach Carcassonne Surrender of Carcassonne Montfort chosen as Viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne Death of Raymond Roger Trencavel Siege and capture of Minerve by the crusaders Siege and capture of Termes by the crusaders Conference at Narbonne between Peter o f Aragon, Raymond VI, Montfort, and the papal legates Excommunication of Raymond VI at the Council of Montpellier Submission of Cabaret to Montfort Siege and capture of Lavaur by the crusaders Massacre o f crusaders at Montgey (near Puylaurens) by Raymond Roger, Count o f Foix Puylaurens submits to Montfort. Siege and capture of Les Casses Montfort besieges Toulouse, but gives up Defeat o f the count o f Foix by the crusaders at St-Martin-Lalande Count o f Toulouse fails to take Castelnaudary Arnald Amalric becomes Archbishop o f Narbonne Siege and capture o f Hautpoul by the crusaders Montfort captures St Antonin Siege and capture o f Penne dAgenais by the crusaders Siege and capture o f Moissac by the crusaders Statutes of Pamiers Council o f Lavaur, attended by Peter o f Aragon, Montfort, and the legates Innocent III instructs Montfort to return territories o f counts o f Foix, Comminges, and Gaston de Bearn Innocent III revokes bulls o f January Battle o f Muret Capture and hanging o f Count Baldwin Siege and capture of Casseneuil by the crusaders Fall o f Severac to Montfort Council o f Montpellier recommends that Montfort be invested with the county o f Toulouse First expedition o f Louis o f France Fourth Lateran Council Innocent III confirms Montfort as lord o f Toulousan lands

• 306 •

TABLES

T a b le 1 ♦ 1216

1217

( Contfd)

8 March April June-August 16 July September 6 February-25 March 13 September

1218

25 June 25 July Winter

1219

June

1221

16 June-1 August February

1222 1223

August March 14 July Summer

1224 1225 1226

January 30 November-December June-September 10 June-9 September September

1227 1228

8 November Summer Summer

1229

12 April

Toulousans promise homage to Montfort Simon of Montfort in Melun and Paris Siege and capture o f Beaucaire by Raymond, son of Raymond VI Death o f Innocent III Montfort establishes control over Toulouse Siege and capture o f Montgrenier by the crusaders Raymond VI enters Toulouse. French confined to Narbonnais castle Simon of Montfort killed at the siege o f Toulouse Crusaders depart from Toulouse Battle o f Baziege. Young Raymond defeats the crusaders Second expedition o f Louis o f France. Fall of Marmande Failure o f Louis’s siege o f Toulouse Capture of Montreal by the forces of young Raymond Death of Raymond VI, Count o f Toulouse Death o f Raymond Roger, Count o f Foix Death of Philip II, King o f France Truce between Raymond VII and Amaury of Montfort Raymond VII enters Carcassonne Council o f Bourges rejects claims o f Raymond VII Crusade of Louis VIII Siege o f Avignon by Louis VIII Submission of the Marquisate o f Provence, most of Languedoc east o f Toulouse, the Gevaudan, Rouergue, and much o f Quercy to Louis VIII Death o f Louis VIII, King of France Siege and capture o f Labecede by royal forces Destruction of the land around Toulouse by Humbert o f Beaujeu Peace o f Paris

• 307 •

September 1209 November 1209 March 1210 March 1210 c. 18 April 1210 April 1210 May 1210 Early June-22 July 1210

Late July-22 November

Preixan (Aude) Puisserguier (Herault) Montlaur (Haute-Garonne) Bram (Aude) Alaric (Aude) Foix (Ari£ge) Bellegarde (Aude) Minerve (H6rault)

Termes (Aude)

• 308 •

Hautpoul (Tarn)

La Pomarede (Aude) Les Touelles (Tarn) Cahuzac (Tarn) Saint-Marcel (Tarn)

May 1211 May 1211 17-29 June 1211 July 1211 July 1211

Les Casses (Aude) Montferrand (Aude) Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) Caylus (Tarn-et-Garonne) Unidentified, near Pamiers (Ari&ge) Castelnaudary (Aude) Saint-Martin-Lalande (Aude) (B)

December 1211 January 1212 January 1212 Late February-23 March 1212 8-12 April 1212

September 1211 September 1211

23-26 November 1210 1 April-3 May 1211

Puivert (Aude) Lavaur (Tarn)

1210

Date

Siege/Batde

Fails

Fails

Fails

Result

Before 1209 Before 1209

Before 1209 Before 1209

Before 1209

Before 1209 Before 1209; 300-400 heretics burnt; 80 knights hanged Before 1209; 50-60 perfecti burnt

Before 1209; 140 perfecti burnt; 3 women reconciled; all other inhabitants renounce heresy

Before 1209

Heretics

Table 2 ♦ The Albigensian Crusades: Simon of Montfort’s campaigns

PVC, 253-76; Mem. 1209; Roquebert, 527 PVC, 270-3; WT, 94-103; WP, XVIII; Mem. 1209; Roquebert, 534 PVC, 288 PVC, 291 PVC, 292; Mem. 1209; Roquebert, 526 PVC, 294-6; WT, 113; Mem. 1209; Roquebert, 534 PVC, 301-4

PVC, 192; Roquebert, 533 PVC, 214-16,222-7; WT, 67-8, 71; WP, XVI; Roquebert, 530 PVC, 233, 392; WP, XVII; Roquebert, 527 PVC, 235 PVC, 239^13; WT, 80-3; Roquebert, 536 PVC, 247 PVC, 250

PVC, 168-89; WT, 56-7

PVC, 120 PVC, 126 PVC, 141 PVC, 142; Roquebert, 526 PVC, 145 PVC, 147 PVC, 150 PVC, 151-7; WT, 49; Roquebert, 531

Source

TABLES

• 309 •

AC Mem. 1209 PVC WP WT Before 1209

Early summer 1214 Early summer 1214 28 June-19 August 1214 October-early November 1214 Late summer 1215 6 June-24 August 1216 November 1216 6 November 1216 6 February-25 March 1217 Mid-summer 1217 Mid-summer 1217 Mid-July 1217 September 1217 1 October 1217-25 July 1218 (Montfort killed 25 June)

12 September 1213 13-16 April 1214

Settlement Fails

Fails

Fails

513 518 519-27 538—41

PVC, 594; AC, 180 PVC, 594; AC, 180 PVC, 595 PVC, 598-9; AC, 180 PVC, 600-14; AC, 187-207; WP, XXVIII

PVC, 569 PVC, 579-84; AC, 156-71; WP, XXVI PVC, 585-7; AC, 171-9;WP, XXVII AC, 180 PVC, 589-90; AC, 180

PVC, PVC, PVC, PVC,

PVC, 448-83; AC, 140-1; WP, XXI PVC, 505

PVC, 337; WT, 116 PVC, 340-53; WT, 117-24

July 1212 14 August-8 September

Fails

PVC, 321-33; WT, 114-15

3 June-25 July 1212

1212

PVC, 314-16

20-21 May 1212

Anonymous continuator of the Chanson Memorandum of 1209, in Cartulaire du Maguelonne , vol. 2, ed. J. Roquette and A. Villemagne (Montpellier, 1913), no. CCC, pp. 59-60. Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay William of Puylaurens William of Tudela M. Roquebert, Vtpopee cathare , vol. 1, 1198-1212: L}Invasion (Toulouse, 1970), Appendice, pp. 525-37.

Posquieres (Gard) Bernis (Gard) Port St Saturnin (Vaucluse) Crest (Drome) Toulouse (Haute-Garonne)

Muret (Haute-Garonne) (B) Le Mas d’Agenais (Lot-et-Garonne) Morlhon (Aveyron) Marmande (Lot-et-Garonne) Casseneuil (Lot-et-Garonne) Severac-le-Chateau (Aveyron) Castelnaud (Lot-et-Garonne) Beaucaire (Gard) Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) Lourdes (Hautes-Pyren6es) Montgrenier (Ariege)

Saint-Antonin (Tarn-et-Garonne) Penne dAgenais (Lot-et-Garonne) Biron (Dordogne) Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne)

TABLES

TABLES

Table 3 ♦ The A utier revival: chronology 1234 1295 1296 1299 c. 1299 1299 or 1300 1300

1301 1302

c. 1303 1303-5 1305

1306 1307 1308

1309

1310 1314 c. 1315 1317

Peter and Raymond Autier named as Cathars Bernard Saisset becomes first bishop of Pamiers Peter and William Autier, brothers, leave for Lombardy The Autier brothers return to Ax from Lombardy The Autiers console Trades Tavernier Peter Autier goes to Toulouse The Autiers are denounced to the Dominicans in Pamiers by William Dejean, a beguin, but escape after a warning. William Dejean later murdered by two believers Peter and William console James, Peter’s son, and Pons Bayle o f Ax March Peter Autier consoles Roger Bernard III, Count of Foix, on his death-bed. Peter Autier goes to Cahors to hereticate two believers Geoffrey of Ablis becomes Inquisitor at Carcassonne Extensive coverage o f the Lauragais, and the valleys o f the Agout and the Tarn by Peter Autier Peter Autier at Toulouse, where he holds a meeting o f believers at the church o f Sainte-Croix 8 September James Autier and Trades Tavernier betrayed and imprisoned at Carcassonne, but they escape Christmas Believers from Arques reconciled by Pope Clement V at Lyons All Saints Peter Autier consoles Peter Sanche, former nuntius 16 January Bernard Gui becomes Inquisitor at Toulouse September A1 the adult population o f Montaillou taken to Carcassonne to depose about the Autiers 29 SeptemberPeter Autier and Peter Sanche forced to hide 18 May 1309 for eight months because of the pressure o f the Inquisition Spring Capture of William Belibaste and Philip o f Aairac. Imprisoned at Carcassonne, but escape soon after, and flee to Catalonia. Peter Autier consoles Sanche Mercadier 23 May Inquisition goes to the farm of Bertrand Salas, near Verlhac-Tescon (south-west o f Montauban), where Peter Autier and Peter Sanche have been hiding, but they have gone May-end August Peter Autier hiding at Beaupuy, the home o f the Maurel brothers 10 August Bernard Gui issues mandate for the arrest o f Peter Autier, Peter Sanche, and Sanche Mercadier Early September Peter Autier delivered to Inquisition by betrayal of Peter o f Luzenac. Taken to Toulouse and then Carcassonne Late Most o f the rest o f the group arrested December William Autier burnt to death 9 April Peter Autier burnt to death Death o f the bonhomme, Raymond o f Toulouse William Belibaste settles at Morelia in Valencia 19 March James Fournier becomes bishop o f Pamiers

• 310 •

TABLES

T a b le 3 ♦

(C on t’d )

1318 1320

Early

Christmas 1321

Mid-Lent Spring

1322

13 January

1324

12 August

Beginning of the Fournier investigations Arnold Sicre makes contact with William Belibaste Arnold Sicre goes to James Fournier at Pamiers and receives commission from him to bring back William Belibaste William Belibaste agrees to travel to the Palhars to see Alazais, aunt of Arnold Sicre Capture o f William Belibaste at Tirvia (west o f Andorra) William Belibaste burnt to death at Villerouge-Termenes (south of Carcassonne) Arnold Sicre exonerated o f all blame for association with heretics Peter and John Maury sentenced to perpetual prison

• 311 •

Map 1 ♦ The Bogomils in the Byzantine Empire

MAPS

• 312 •

MAPS

Map 2 ♦ The political structure of Languedoc before the Albigensian Crusades

• 313 •

MAPS

M a p 3 4 T he geography o f C atharism in Languedoc

• 314 •

Map 4

Territories affected by the Albigensian Crusades

MAPS

• 315 •

Map 5 4 The Italian connection: the links between Languedoc and Lombardy in the thirteenth century

MAPS

• 316 .

MAPS

M a p 6 4 T he m ilieu o f the C athar Bonhom m e, B ern ard Acier o f Couffoulens,

1241-59

• 317 •

Map 7 ♦ The world of the Autier revival, 1299-1321

MAPS

• 318 •

Index

Acmonia, diocese, 19 Acqui, 224 A d abolendam , papal decretal and bull (1184), 134 Adelaide, wife o f Roger II Trencavel, 47, 54, 57 Adelbert o f Uzes, Bishop o f Nimes (1141-80), 67 Adhemar o f Chabannes, chronicler, 28 Adriatic 116 Agde, diocese, 66 Agen, 72, 73, 169 Cathar diocese, 21, 66, 86, 88, 153 Catholic diocese, 66, 168 consuls, 223 Agenais, 48, 53, 148, 153, 156-7, 193 UAgonie du Languedoc (music), 256 VAgonie d ’une civilisation vue a travers un poeme epique (Weil), 241-2 Agout, river, 46, 47, 168, 213 Aguilar, 186 Aigrefeuille, 179 Aillon, 213 Aimery o f Collet, Cathar Bishop o f Albi, 191 Aimery, lord o f Montreal, 43, 4 4 -5 , 49, 1 8 4 ,2 5 7 Aix, archbishopric, 127 Alan o f Lille, theologian, 106 Alan o f Roucy, crusader, 153, 185 Alashehr, see Philadelphia Alazais, sister o f Sibylla den Balle, 230, 231 Alazais o f Vernaux, 231-2

Albanenses, 101 Albi, 72, 73, 2 24-5 during the crusades, 142, 158 after the crusades, 168, 177, 223 -5 Cathar diocese, 66, 85, 153, 193 cathedral o f St. Cecilia, 223, 2 2 6 -7 Catholic diocese, 168 consuls, 223, 225 Hospitaller commandery, 67 Albigensian crusades (1 2 0 9 -2 9 ), 3^1, 7 -8 , 42, 70, 105, 107, 127-31, 139-58, 172, 194, 199 at Lavaur, 4 2 -3 , 4 8 -9 chronology, 306-9 justification for, 127-31, 139 modern views of, 242, 244, 245, 252, 2 5 3 -5 , 256 Albigeois, 7, 43, 49, 134, 153, 221, 224 Aldricus o f Bando, 31 Alessandria, 191 Alexander III, Pope (1 1 5 9 -8 1 ), 67, 131, 133 Alexander IV, Pope (1 2 5 4 -6 1 ), 200, 222 Alexander, Abbot o f Citeaux, 54, 85 Alexiopolis, 17 Alexius I Comnenus, Byzantine emperor (1 0 8 1 -1 1 1 8 ), 17, 19-20 Alfonso II, King o f Aragon and Count o f Barcelona (1 1 6 2 -9 6 ), 54 Alfonso-Jordan, Count o f Toulouse (1 1 0 5 -4 8 ), 30, 52, 57, 193 Alice o f Montmorency, wife o f Simon o f Montfort, 46, 142 allods, 62

• 319 •

INDEX

Alphonse o f Poitiers, Count o f Toulouse (1 249-71), 110, 167, 194, 200,

221 Alps, 52, 192, 233 Alpine communities, 232 Alzalais, Cathar perfecta, 126n. Amanianus o f Grisinhac, Archbishop o f Auch (1226 -4 2 ), 140 Amaury o f Montfort, son o f Simon (d. 1241), 142, 157-8, 168 Amiel ofPerles, Cathar perfectus, 126n. Anatolia, 10 Andorra, 230 Andreas Chaulet, royal seneschal, 178 Andreas o f Prades, see Prades Tavernier Angebert, Jean-Michel, H itler et la tradition cathare (trans. The Occult and the Third Reich), 246 Angelarius, missionary to Bulgaria, 15 angels, 1, 8, 18, 9 6 -7 , 103 Angevin dynasty, 5 2 -3 , 129, 156, 160n. Angold, Michael, historian, 19 Anguelou, Dimitur, historian, 16 animals, 3, 102, 109, 123n. Anjou, 129 Anna Comnena, The A lexiad, 17, 19, 20 Anselm o f Alessandria, inquisitor in Milan and Genoa (d.after 1279), 26, 31, 39n., 74, 88, 90, 96, 98, 106 anthroposophy, 240 Antichrist, 233 anti-clericalism, 65, 110-11, 209, 251 anti-Semitism, 246 Apennines, 224 apparellam entum , 90 Apulia, 190 Aquitaine, 28, 86-7 Aragon, Aragonese, 54, 63 kings, 61, 73, 76n. Arians, Arianism, 25, 30, 68 Ariege, valley, 110, 182, 184, 209, 211, 2 1 3 ,2 1 4 , 2 2 1 ,2 3 0 Arles, archbishopric, 127 Armenia, 10 Armeniakon, theme, 10

Arnald Amalric, papal legate, 45, 65, 66, 1 3 0 ,1 3 6 , 152, 154-5, 158, 247, 252, 262n., 264n., 265n. Arnaud Guiraud, Cathar perfectus, 44 Arnaud, knight o f Montreal, 43 Arnaud Oth, Cathar deacon o f Laurac, 43 Arnauda o f Lamothe, perfecta , 48 Arnold Catalan, inquisitor, 174, 177 Arnold Dominic, wine-seller, 179 Arnold Lizier o f Montaillou, 212 -1 3 Arnold Maurs, shepherd, 218 Arnold Piquier o f Tarascon, 229 Arnold Sicre, son o f Sibylla den Balle, 2 3 0 -1 , 232 Arnold Textor, son-in-law o f Peter Autier, notary, 212, 2 14, 217 Arques, 110, 214, 217, 218, 220, 229, 239 Arras, 28, 29 artisans, 71, 74 asceticism, 106, 243 Ashford, Kent, 240 Asia Minor, 10, 17, 88 Assalit o f Mons, 196 Asti, 212 Auch, archbishopric, 66, 173 Auda o f Mazerolles, Cathar perfecta, 43 Aude, 113, 115 river, 45, 110, 168, 196, 197, 213, 216 auditors, 11, 2 2-3 Augier, Marc (Saint-Loup), Nouveaux Cathares pour Montse^ur, 246 Augustine, St, 9, 11, 22, 24, 28, 127-8 De M anichaeis, 24 Austorga o f Montauban, 48 Auterive, 169 Autier brothers, perfecti, 5, 110-14, 210, 2 1 1 - 2 1 ,2 2 5 , 2 2 8 ,3 1 8 chronology, 310-11 Auvergne, 52, 148 Auvillar, 169 Ava, wife o f Isarn o f Taix, 208 Aveyron, 53

320 •

INDEX

Avignon, 72, 158 Avignonet, 168 murder o f inquisitors at (1242), 5, 108, 179-80, 182, 191 Ax, 115, 210, 212, 214, 216, 231, 265n. Aymeric o f Naregina, 109 Bagnolo, Cathar diocese, 190 Baldwin, heretic, 45, 138 Balkans, 9 -1 0 , 20, 87, 135, 232 Ballard, Jean, 241 banking, 72-3 baptism adult, 89 heretic rejection of, 23, 25, 28, 93, 113, 221

see also consolamentum Barcelona, 86 Bartholomew Barravi o f Tarascon, 210 Bartholomew o f Carcassonne, Cathar perfectus, 100 Bartholomew Vezian, notary, 224 Basil, Bogomil leader, 17-19, 36n., 96 Basil I, Byzantine emperor (8 7 6 -8 6 ), 10 Basil II, Byzantine emperor (9 7 6 -1 0 2 5 ), 19, 31 Basques, 63 bayles, 53 Bearn, 164n. viscounts of, 58, 6 0 -1 , 155 Beaucaire, 149, 158, 192 Beaupuy-en-Lomagne, 213 Belesmanza, Cathar Bishop o f Verona, 101 Belperron, Pierre, historian, La Croisade

contre les Albigeois et Vunion du Languedoc a la France (1209-49), 253-5 Belveze-du-Razes, 196, 197 Benedict o f Termes, Cathar Bishop o f the Razes, 184, 185 Benedictine monasteries, 68 Berengar, Abbot o f Mount Aragon, Bishop o f Lerida, and Archbishop o f Narbonne (11 9 0 -1 2 1 2 ), 66, 134

Berengar o f Pomas, Bishop o f Carcassonne (1 2 0 1 -7 ), 136 Berengaria, widow o f Assalit o f Monts, 196 Bergamo, 192 Beriac, 153 Bernard Acier, Cathar perfectus, 196-8, 213, 221, 317 Bernard Arquie o f Ax, 2 1 9 -2 0 Bernard Castelnou o f Dreuilhe, 222 Bernard o f Castenet, Bishop o f Albi (1 2 7 5 -1 3 0 8 ), 2 2 3 -4 Bernard the Catalan, 86 Bernard o f Caux, inquisitor, 181, 195 Bernard, Abbot o f Clairvaux (d. 1153), 22, 29, 30, 54, 131 Bernard Coldefy, Cathar perfectus, 44 Bernard IV, Count o f Comminges (1 1 8 1 -1 2 2 5 ), 58, 6 0 -1 , 155 Bernard Fabri o f Albi, tailor, 224 -5 Bernard o f Farges, Archbishop o f Narbonne (1 3 1 1 -4 1 ), 231 Bernard Gaucelm, Bishop o f Beziers (11 6 7 -8 2 ) and Archbishop o f Narbonne (1 1 8 2 -9 1 ), 67, 133 Bernard Gui, inquisitor in the Toulousain (d. 1331), 9 5 ,2 1 2 , 228, 231 Bernard o f Latour, consul o f Toulouse, 195 Bernard o f Lerida, 153 Bernard o f Luxembourg, inquisitor, 248 Bernard o f Montolieu, Cathar perfectus, 197 Bernard Oliba, Cathar Bishop o f Toulouse, 191 Bernard Oth o f Niort, 4 5 -6 Bernard Prim, Waldensian, 4 3 , 122n. Bernard Raymond, Cathar Bishop o f Toulouse, 4 7 , 86 Bernard Raymond o f Roquebert, Bishop o f Carcassonne (1209), 184-5 Bernard Saisset, Bishop o f Pamiers (1 2 9 7 -1 3 0 8 ), 2 0 9 -1 0 ,2 1 1 Bernard, son o f Sibylla den Balle, 230 Bernard o f Simorre, heretic, 45

• 321 .

IN D EX

Bernard, Archbishop o f Split (1198— 1217), 135 Bernard o f Termes, 185 Bernard o f Tilhol, Cathar perfectus, 222 Bernard, lord o f Villeneuve la Comtal, 138 Bernart Sicart Marjevals, troubadour, 256 Bernward, Master o f the xenodocium at Hildesheim, 4 In. Bertolph, friend o f Eckbert o f Schonau, 24 Bertrand Marty, Cathar Bishop o f Toulouse, 182-3, 190-1 Bertrand o f Monte Acuto, merchant o f Albi, 224, 225 Bertrand o f Quiries, 191 Bertrand o f St Priscus, papal legate, 151 Bertrand, lord o f Saissac, 59 Bertrand o f Taix, knight o f Pamiers, 208-11 Besse, Guillaume, 32n. Beynac, 148 Beziers, 3, 9, 43, 49, 7 0 -2 , 73, 77n., 138, 140, 152, 192, 193 Catholic bishops, 66, 67 consuls, 73 fall (1209), 45, 139-40, 141, 153 Hospitaller commandery, 67 list o f heretics, 71 St Nazaire, cathedral church, 140 viscounts (see also individual viscounts), 45 , 51, 53, 68, 73 viscounty, 44, 49 Bible, 32, 102, 104-5, 116, 241 Biget, Jean-Louis, historian, 34n. Binkley, Thomas, musician, 256 Biron, 148 bishoprics, see dioceses Bitterois, 43 Black Mountain, 42, 86 ‘Black Order’ o f the SS, 246 Blanca o f Larnat, wife o f William o f Rodes, 2 0 9 ,2 1 1 Blanca o f Laurac, 43, 45 Bogomil, priest, 13, 34-5n.

Bogomils, 2, 9, 12-20, 22, 25, 3 0 -1 , 57, 75, 93, 95, 232, 237n., 2 44, 312 Bolino-Polje, 135 Bonacursus, Catholic convert, 33n. Bonet Davy o f Pamiers, 209 ‘bonhomme’ labels, 258 bonhommes, 2 4 -5 , 51, 8 8 -9 1 , 93, 97, 101, 1 0 5 -6 ,1 0 7 , 108, 110, 114-17, 134, 137, 152, 171, 190, 196-7, 2 0 8 -2 2 , 2 2 4 -5 , 2 2 8 -9 , 235n, 236n., see also perfecti Boniface V III, Pope (1 2 9 4 -1 3 0 3 ), 210 Bonn, 24 The Book o f St. John (Secret Supper), 9 6 -8 The Book o f the Two Principles, 95, 9 8 -9 , 100-1, 102, 103, 104 Bordeaux, 7, 9, 29, 66, 72 archbishopric, 66, 173 Boris, Bulgarian Khan (8 5 2 -8 9 ), 15 Borst, Arno, historian, 12, 249 Bosnia, 9, 20, 87, 135, 232 Bogomil diocese, 26 Bossuet, Jacques Benigne, Bishop o f Meaux, H istoire des variations des eylises protestantes, 249 Bouchard o f Marly, crusader, 42, 154 Boulbonne, Cistercian abbey, 60 bourgades, 46 Bourges, 66 archbishopric, 66, 173 council (1225), 158 Bouvines, battle (1214), 156 Boysenne, suspected Cathar, 177 Braida o f Mazerolles, 44 Bram, 151, 154, 185 Brenon, Anne, historian, 22, 27, 33n., 46, 76n. Brian, river, 49 Britain, 150, 246 Buddhism, 11 Bugarach, mountain, 113 Bulgaria, Bulgars, 15-16, 19, 31, 87, 135 Bogomil diocese, 87, 95 ‘ Bulgars’, 9 Burgundy, 67

322 •

IN D EX

burial (and exhumation), 5 8-9, 116, 133, 176-7 Byzantium, Byzantines, 9 -1 0 , 15-16, 19-20, 31-2, 312 Cabaret, 42, 86, 143, 144-7, 154 Caesarius o f Heisterbach, The D ialogue on M iracles, 95, 261-2n. Cahiers d yEtudes Cathares, 239 Cahiers du Sud , 241 Cahors, 143, 168, 192, 206n., 213 diocese, 168, 174, 180, 190 Caltabellotta, Treaty (1302), 234n. Calvinism, 249 Cambrai, synod (1025), 28, 29 canon law, 68 Capedenac, 148 Capestang, 66 Capetian monarchy, 3, 4, 52, 53, 129, 157-8, 170, 181, 184, 185, 186, 194, 2 23-4 Cappadocia, 10, 37n. Carbeas, Paulician leader, 129 Carbonell, Charles-Olivier, historian, 252, 257 Carcasses, 7 Carcassonne, 2, 7, 42, 48, 60, 61, 70, 72, 73, 80n., 89, 136, 138, 139, 142, 151, 152, 153, 165n., 168, 178, 179, 184, 185, 192, 193, 196, 197, 198 Cathar diocese, 21, 86, 153, 168, 190 Catholic diocese, 21, 26, 54, 66, 134, 180, 207n. consuls, 73 crusaders at, 44 , 140-1, 142 debates at, 136-7, 138 fall (1209), 3, 44, 128, 140-1, 143, 153 inquisition at, 178, 193, 196, 223 rebellion (1304), 224 St Nazaire, church, 251 viscounts (see also individual viscounts), 51, 53-4, 73, 203n. viscounty, 44, 49, 53-4

Carolingian empire, 52 Carthusians, 30 Casseneuil, 87, 148, 169 Castelbo, 231 Castelmoron-sur-Lot, 87 Castelnaud, 148 Castelnaudary, 142, 143, 169 battle (1211), 80n. Castelsarrasin, 108, 148, 168 Castres, 47 Catalonia, 60, 86, 229 ‘Cathar’ wine, 258 Catherine de Medici, Regent o f France (d. 1589), 249 Caunes, 193 Cavanac, 197 Caylus, 143 Celestine III, Pope (1 1 9 1 -8 ), 135 Celts, 244 cemeteries, Cathar, 116 Cesse, river, 49 Chabert o f Barbera, co-seigneur o f Queribus, 185, 186 Chalons-sur-Marne, 28 Champagne, 23, 27, 160n., 191 L a Chanson de la croisade contre les Albigeois, anonymous author, 7 on the Albigensian crusades, 149-50, 1 5 6 ,2 5 1 -2 on the Fourth Lateran Council, 5 9 -6 0 modern views of, 241 on paratge , 6 1 -2 , 63 recording, 256 see also William o f Tudela Charlemagne, emperor (d. 814), 52 Charles o f Anjou, King o f Sicily (1 2 6 6 85), 190 Chartres, diocese, 141 Chateauverdun, 214 children, 97, 102, 110 Cistercians, 60, 67 Clement V, Pope (1 3 0 5 -1 4 ), 223, 228, 247 Clement o f Ochrida, St., missionary to Bulgaria, 15

323 •

IN D EX

Clermont, 191 Cologne, 24 Comminges diocese, 66 counts, 49, 58, 6 0 -1 , 73, 155 Com o, 212 Compostela, 131 Concorezzo, 31 Cathar diocese, 87, 93, 98, 120n., 190 Condom, 169 Conques, 181 Conrad o f Urach, papal legate, 162n. consolamentum, 1, 32, 90—4, 117 to the dying, 92, 114-15, 2 2 0 -1 , 235n. conspiracy theories, 2 4 6 -7 Constance o f France, wife o f Raymond V, Count o f Toulouse, 52 Constantine V, Byzantine emperor (741-75), 10 Constantine o f Mananalis, Paulician didaskalos, 12 Constantinople, 17, 18, 19-20, 2 5 -6 , 3 1 ,3 2 , 36n., 88, 135 Bogomil diocese, 2 0 -1 , 32, 85, 8 7 -8 , 93 Cathar diocese, 26, 32, 87-8 Latin Empire, 194 consulates, 53, 72 convenensa, 92

conveniently 62 convents, 68, 195 Corbieres, 84-6 , 257 Cordes, 169 Corinth, 10 Correze, 197 Cosmas the Priest, Treatise against the Bogomils, 12-17, 19, 22, 24, 25, 7 5 ,9 3 Coterelli, 63 Coudons, 178 CoufFoulens, 196 Couserans, 86 diocese, 66

Coustaussa, 216 craftsmen, 71, 74 creation, 1, 9 6 -7 , 102-3, 108 credentes, 1, 2 2 -3 , 7 3 -4 , 75, 134, 167, 175-7, 191, 197-9, 207n., 209, 2 1 2 -2 2 , 228-31 Cremona, 191

La Croisade contre les Albigeois et Punion du Languedoc a la Trance (Belperron), 253-5 crusades Albigensian, see Albigensian crusades to the Holy Land, 2 6 -7 , 129, 134, 141, 186 Cubieres, 229 Cumans, 17 Cuneo, 191, 192 Cupientes, statute (1229), 170 Cyril, St, missionary to the Slavs (d.819), 15 Dalmatia, 135 Cathar diocese, 20 De heresi catharorum , anonymous Lombard treatise, 8 -9 , 20-1 deacons, Cathar, 88, 89, 222 debates between Cathars and Catholics, 43, 45, 54, 67, 136-9 between Cathars and Waldensians, 43 Delaruelle, Etienne, historian, 184 demons, 11 Desenzano, Cathar diocese, 87, 101, 190 Desiderius, Elder Son o f the Cathar Church o f Concorezzo, 98 Devil, the, 8, 9, 13, 18, 4 2 , 51, 58, 9 5 -7 , 100, 102-4, 1 0 7 ,1 0 9 , 111-12, 115 Diego, Bishop o f Osma (1 2 0 1 -7 ), 7, 9, 4 3 -4 , 100, 138 diet, 2 4 -5 , 106, 214 dioceses Bogomil, 20, 87 Cathar, 21, 66, 8 5 -8 , 168, 183 Catholic, 54, 66, 193

324 •

INDEX

D isputatio inter Catholicum et Paterinum hereticum , 162n. Domairon, Louis, historian, 71 Dominic Guzman, St (d.1221), 130, 138 Dominic, companion o f Peter o f Verona, 192 Dominicans, 17 2 -4 , 178, 180-1, 192 Domme, 148 donatist heresy, 21, 29, 94 Dondaine, Antoine, historian, 22, 33n. Dordogne, 148, 153 Dragovitsa, see Drugunthia Drugunthia, Bogomil diocese, 20, 33n., 36n. dualism, 9 4 -1 0 5 , 107, 111-13 absolute, 8, 20, 33n., 85, 100, 102 m itigated/m oderate, 8 -9 , 18, 20, 9 7 -8 , 233 spread o f belief, 2 -3 , 9 -3 2 ductores, see nuntii Dun, Cathar house, 59 Durand, Bishop o f Albi (1 2 28-54), 183 Durand o f Huesca (d.r.1237), Liber contra Manicheos, 100, 122n. Durand o f St Ybars, Vicar o f Toulouse, 179 Dutton, Claire, historian, 154 Duvernoy, Jean, historian, 84n., 114 Eaunes, abbey, 185 Eberwin, Premonstratensian Prior o f Steinfeld (near Cologne), 2 2-3 Eckbert, Abbot o f Schonau, Sermones contra Catharos, 24, 25, 90 Eco, Umberto, philologist and novelist, 247 Edessa, 10 Egypt, 239 crusade o f Louis IX (1 2 4 8 -5 0 ), 186 Eleanor o f Aquitaine, 52 Eleanor o f Aragon, fifth wife o f Raymond V I, Count o f Toulouse, 61 Elijah, 97 Elizabeth o f Schonau, St, 27

Elne, 86 diocese, 66, 180 Embrun, archbishopric, 127 Emma o f Provence, wife o f William III, Count o f Toulouse, 52 endogamy, 84n. Enoch, 97 En quoi consiste Vinspiration occitanienne? (Weil), 2 4 2 -3 endura, 1 1 4 -1 5 , 220 England, 23 Ermengaud o f Beziers, Waldensian, 122n., 125n. Esclarmonda, sister o f Raymond Roger, Count o f Foix, Cathar perfecta , 59, 245 Esclarmonda, wife o f William o f Niort, 43 Esshaura o f Larcat, 209 ethics, 105-7, 219 Eucharist, heretical views, 13, 23, 25, 28, 29, 113 Eugenius III, Pope (1 1 4 5 -5 3 ), 131 eulogia, 93 Euphrates, river, 10 Euthymius o f the Periblepton, Byzantine monk, 19 Euthymius, Bulgarian Bishop o f Trnovo, Life o f St H ilarion , 36n. Euthymius Zigabenus, Panoplia D ogm atica , 17-19, 125n. evil, 8, 10, 12, 102 exhumations, 133, 176-7, 228 Exsurge, Domine, bull (1520), 248 Fabian, inquisitor in Bosnia, 232 Fabrissa, neighbour o f Guillelma, wife o f Thomas o f St Flour, 109-10 Fabrissa, sister-in-law o f H61is o f Mazerolles, 44 Fais o f Durfort, Cathar perfecta , 59 Fanjeaux, 4 3 -4 , 168, 198 Cathar house, 43 fasting, 28, 106 Felibrige movement, 253

325 •

IN D EX

Fenouilledes, 213 Fernand, son o f James II o f Majorca, 224 Ferrier, Dominican inquisitor, 174, 1 80-1, 186 Feuchter, Jorg, historian, 193-4 feudal relationships, 62, 74 Fichtenau, Heinrich, historian, 27 Figeac, 148 First Crusade (109 5 -1 1 0 1 ), 27, 57 First World War (19 1 4 -1 8 ), 243 Flacius Illyricus, Matthias, Catalogus testium veritatis, 249 Flanders, 24, 74 Florence, 87, 192 Cathar diocese, 87 Flors, wife o f Bertrand o f Taix, 208 Foix, 66, 110, 143 counts, 49, 54, 58, 59-61, 73, 79n., 143, 156, 182, 203n., 208, 211,

221-2 county, 58, 80n., 110 Fontevrault, Order of, 195 Fontfroide, Cistercian abbey, 67 Foucaud o f Berzy, crusader, 70 Fourniere o f Pereille, wife o f William Roger o f Mirepoix, 182 Fourth Crusade (1 2 0 2 -4 ), 26, 141 France, French, 8, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 45, 68, 74, 82n., 85, 107, 130, 173, 184, 223, 251-5 Cathar diocese, 21, 23, 26, 27, 31, 85, 87, 201 histories of, 184, 251, 252-5 Inquisition in, 173 Franciscans, 173, 194, 207n. Franco-Prussian War, 255 Frederick I Barbarossa, German emperor (1152-90), 24, 134 Frederick II, German Emperor (1 2 1 2 50), 173, 190 Freemasons, 240 French Revolution, 251, 255 Fulcrand, Abbot o f Floreze and Le Thoronet and Bishop o f Toulouse (1179-1201), 6 4 -5

Fulk o f Marseille, Bishop o f Toulouse (1 2 0 5 -3 1 ), 65, 140, 156, 172, 1 7 3 ,1 8 2 modern views on, 245 Gadal, Antonin, teacher, 244 Gaillac, 168 Gaja-la-Selve, 180 Cathar house, 44 Galharda, mother o f William Escaunier, 216, 220, 221 Garatenses, 98 Garattus, Cathar Bishop o f Lombardy, 87, 94, 98 Garda, lake, 101, 190, 191 Garonne, river, 53, 72, 86, 194 Gascony, 52, 131 Gaston VI, Viscount o f Bearn (1 1 7 0 1215) and Count o f Bigorre, 58, 60-1 Gaucelm, Bishop o f Lodeve (1 1 6 2 r.1187), 67 Gaucelm, Cathar Bishop o f Toulouse, 153 Gaul, 245 Gay, Jean, lawyer, 249 Gebuin, Bishop o f Chalons (991 -1 0 0 4 ), 27 Genoa, 224 Geoffrey o f Ablis, inquisitor in Carcassonne, 2 1 1 -1 2 , 228 Geoffrey o f Auxerre, biographer o f St Bernard, 70 Gerald o f Malemort, Archbishop o f Bordeaux (1 2 2 7 -6 1 ), 121n., 140 Gerald o f Niort, 186 Gerard o f Labarthe, Bishop o f Toulouse (1 1 6 4 -7 0 ), 67 Gerard o f Lamothe, Cathar deacon, 185 Germany, Germans, heresy in, 24, 173 Nazi, 243, 2 4 5 -6 Gerona, 86 Giraussens, 48 Given, James, historian, 228

• 326 •

INDEX

L a Gleisa de Dio , Cathar text, 105, 233 Glosa Pater, Cathar text, 233 D ie Gnosis (Steiner), 240 Gnosticism, Gnostics, 2, 10, 12, 99, 240 Gothia, 52 Gouet, Amedee, H istoire nationale de France, 252 grace, period of, 174, 175, 194 Grail legends, 160n., 240, 244, 245, 246, 257 Grandselve, abbey, 67 Greece, Greeks, 242 Gregory V II, Pope (1 0 7 3 -8 5 ), Gregory IX, Pope (1 2 2 7 -4 1 ), 4, 173, 181 Griffe, Elie, historian, 133, 183 Guardia Lombardi, 190, 204n. Guibert, Abbot o f Nogent, 28 Guilhabert o f Castres, Cathar Bishop o f Toulouse, 4 3 -4 , 153, 183 Guillem Augier Novella, troubadour, 256 Guillem Figueiras, troubadour, 253, 256 Guillelma, daughter o f Peter Autier, 210, 2 1 1 ,2 1 4 Guillelma o f Tonneins, Cathar perfecta, 43 Guillelma, wife o f Thomas o f St Flour, 109-10 Guillemetta, cousin o f Peter Maury, 230, 232 Guiraud Mercer, Cathar Bishop o f Carcassonne, 86 Guiraud o f Pepieux, knight o f Beziers, 151 Guirauda, dame o f Lavaur, 43, 47, 49 Gundolfo, heretic, 29 Guy o f Cavaillon, knight, 63 Guy II, Count o f Clermont and the Auvergne (1 1 9 5 -1 2 2 4 ), 78n. Guy o f Levis, royal marshal, crusader, 185 Guy II o f Levis, 262n. Guyot o f Provins, poet, 245

Hagman, Yliva, historian, 12 Hamilton, Bernard, historian, 12, 1 4 -1 5 , 25, 32 Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph von, Orientalist, 247 Hattin, battle (1187), 134 Hautpoul, 148 Heaven, 1, 8 -9 , 18, 9 6 -1 0 4 , 111-17 Helis o f Mazerolles, 43—4 Henry II, King o f England (1 1 5 4 -8 9 ), 52 Henry III, King o f England (1 2 1 6 -7 2 ), 181 Henry IV, German emperor (1 0 5 6 1106), 39n. Henry VI, German emperor (1 1 9 0 -7 ), 134 Henry, ‘Bishop o f the Heretics o f Lombardy’, 191 Henry o f Marcy, Abbot o f Clairvaux (d.1189), 47, 57, 132, 134 Henry the Monk, o f Lausanne (d.after 1 1 4 5 )2 9 -3 0 , 131 Herault, 53, 66 ‘Heribert’, monk, 28 heritage industry, 6, 257 Herve o f Donzy, Count o f Nevers (1 1 9 9 -1 2 2 3 ), 130 Hesse, 244 Hilarion, St, Bishop o f Moglena (d.1164), 36n. Hildegard o f Bingen, St (d.1179), 27 Himmler, Heinrich, 246 H istoire des Frangais (Sismondi), 251 H istoire des variations des e£flises protestantes (Bossuet), 249 H istoire des Vaudois (Perrin), 249, 250 H istoire nationale de France (Gouet), 252 Hitler, Adolf, 243, 2 4 5 -7 Holy Land, 134 crusades, 2 6 -7 , 129, 134, 141, 186 Honorius III, Pope (1 2 1 6 -2 7 ), 157, 158, 162n. hospices, Cathar, 88-9 Hospitallers, 58, 61, 67, 74, 133

327

•

INDEX

hospitals, 68 Huesca, 86 H ugeta o f Larcat, wife o f Bertrand o f Taix, 208, 209 H ugh o f A rds, Seneschal o f Carcassonne, 183 H ugh Eteriano, theologian, 19-20 H ugh o f Lusignan, Count o f La Marche and o f Angouleme (1 2 1 9 -4 8 ), 181 H ugo Faber, 128 Huguenots, 249 Humbert o f Beaujeu, royal seneschal, 140, 158 Hussites, 249 Iberia, 51, 52, 244 idols, 111, 113 Ile-de-France, 3, 79n., 142 Illuminati, Bavarian, 247 Imbert o f Salles, sergeant, 240 Imre, King o f Hungary (1 1 9 6 -1 2 0 4 ), 135 India, 242 indulgences, 131, 136, 175 Innocent III, Pope (119 8 -1 2 1 6 ), 3, 4, 9, 51, 127-8, 131, 135-6, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155 Innocent IV, Pope (1 2 4 3 -5 4 ), 200 Inquisition/inquisitors in Bosnia, 232 in Germany and France, 173 in Italy, 192, 199 in the Languedoc, 4 - 5 , 95, 170-81, 191, 193-9, 200, 208, 2 1 1 -1 2 , 22 2 -3 , 225, 2 2 8 -9 , 231 modern views of, 252 resistance to, 5, 108, 1 7 6 -8 1 , 191, 192, 193 Isarn o f Castres, Cathar deacon o f Mas-Saintes-Puelles, 43 Isarn o f Denat, priest, 177 Isarn o f Taix, father o f Bertrand o f Taix, 208 Isarn o f Taix, brother o f Bertrand o f Taix, 210

Isaurian dynasty, 10 Italy Catharism in, 2 0 -1 , 29, 31, 87, 95, 1 9 0 -3 , 316 Inquisition in, 192, 199 Languedoc Cathars in, 183, 190, 191-3, 212, 222, 2 2 4 -5 , 233 Ivo o f Narbonne, clerk, 95, 120n. Jacoba, d aughter o f Sibylla o f Arques, 220 -1 James Autier, Cathar perfectus, 111, 213, 214, 220, 225 James Capelli, Franciscan lector at Milan, 8 8 ,9 3 , 106, 115 James Fournier, Bishop o f Pamiers (1 3 1 7 -2 6 ), 110, 229, 231 James II, King o f Majorca (1 2 7 6 -1 3 1 1 ), 224 James o f Voragine, Golden Legend^ 193 Jeanne, daughter o f Raymond VII o f Toulouse, 4, 167 Jerusalem, 71, 104 Holy Sepulchre, 132, 134 kingdom, 247 Jews, 68, 246 Joachim o f Fiore (d.1202), 233 Joan, sister o f Richard I, fourth wife o f Raymond VI o f Toulouse, 53, 157 Joanna, widow o f Bernard o f Latour, 195-6 John XXII, Pope (1 3 1 6 -3 4 ), 232 John the Baptist, 93 John o f Beaune, inquisitor, 231 John o f Bernin, Archbishop o f Vienne (1 2 1 9 -6 6 ), 174 John o f Casamaris, papal legate, 135 John Davy, burgess o f Pamiers, 209 John, King o f England (11 9 9 -1 2 1 6 ), 129, 156-7, 160n., 166n. John Galand, inquisitor, 223 John o f Garland, grammarian, 170 John Judeus, Cathar Bishop o f Lombardy, 8

• 328 •

INDEX

John o f Lugio, Cathar writer, 9 8 -9 , 1 00-1, 104 John Maury o f Montaillou, shepherd, 232 John o f St Pierre, inquisitor, 181, 195 John o f Toulouse, house of, 108 John I Tzimisces, Byzantine emperor (969-76), 10 John Vital, 108 Joseph, smith, 31 Julien, Lucienne, historian, 240 just war, 9, 127-8 Justinian I, Roman Emperor (527-65), 12

Kreuzzug gegen den Gm al (Rahn), 2 4 4 -5 , 246, 257 Kulin, Ban o f Bosnia (r .ll8 0 - r .l2 0 4 ) , 135 Labecede, 168, 185 La Bezole, 197 La Centenaire, 178 La Charite-sur-Loire, 173 Lagny, 191 Lambert, Malcolm, historian, 26, 37n. Landulf o f Milan, chronicler, 29 Lanta, 47 Larnat, 212 La Rochelle, synod (1607), 249 Lasbordes, 168 Las Navas de Tolosa, battle (1212), 60, 155 Last Judgement, 1, 97, 103, 233 Lastours, 144 Lateran Councils Second (1139), 29, 131 Third (1179), 63, 132-3 Fourth (1215), 4, 5 9-60, 148, 149, 150, 156, 182, 199 Laurac, 4 3 -4 , 169 Lauragais, 7, 75 Lautrec, 47 Lavaur, 42, 4 6 -9 , 134, 143, 151, 169 council (1213), 58 Esplanade du Plo, 257

fall (1181), 47; fall (1211), 4 7 -9 modern, 257, 259 Lea, Henry Charles, historian, 183 Le Bezu, 185 Lebesque, Phileas, writer, 2 6 In. Leicester, earldom, 141 Le Mans, 29 Leo, St, 132 Leo X, Pope (1 5 1 3 -2 1 ), 248 leper houses, 68 Lerida, 86 Les Casses, 143, 151, 179 Lespinasse, nunnery, 195 Leutard o f Vertus (near Chalons-surMarne), 27 Liege, clergy, 23 Limousain, 148 Limoux, 181, 196, 218, 225 Lodeve, diocese, 66 Lodi, 192 Loire, river, 248, 253 Lombard League, 12In. Lombardy, 7, 1 0 9 -1 0 Catharism in, 2 0 -1 , 31, 8 5 -7 , 95, 100, 120n., 1 9 0 -3 , 316 Languedoc Cathars in, 183, 190, 191-3, 212, 222 Cathar diocese, 20 Lombers, 47 council (1165), 23, 57, 67, 79n., 137 London, Temple church, 57 Lordat, 212 Lot valley, 87 Louis V I, King o f France (1 1 0 8 -3 7 ), 79n. Louis V II, King o f France (1 1 3 7 -8 0 ), 52, 54 Louis V III, King o f France (1 2 2 3 -6 ), 46, 157-8 Louis IX, King o f France (1 2 2 6 -7 0 ), 182, 184, 186, 199 Louis the German, Carolingian ruler (8 1 7 -7 6 ), 15 Lourdes, 150 Lucifer, see Devil

• 329 •

IN D EX

Lucius III, Pope (1 1 8 1 -5 ), 134 Luther, Martin, 248 Luzifers Hofyesind (Rahn), 2 4 5 -6 Lyon, 225 Mabilla o f Laurac, Cathar perfecta, 43 Macedonia, 36n. M agre, Maurice, novelist, 245 Maguelonne, diocese, 66 Majorca, 232 Mandaeism, 11 Manfred, King o f Sicily (1 2 5 8 -6 6 ), 190 Mani (d.276), 1 0 -1 1 ,2 4 8 Manichaeism, Manichaeans, 1 0 -1 1 , 12, 248 modern views of, 240 Manselli, Raoul, historian, 116 Mantua, 87 diocese, 87, 190 Marcion, son o f the Bishop o f Sinope (d.160), 11 Margarita, servant o f Bernard o f Taix, 208 Marin, widow o f Hugh, 196 Mark, Bogomil Bishop o f Lombardy, Tuscany and Treviso, 2 0 -1 , 31, 85 Marmande, 148, 157 Marquesia, daughter o f Sibylla o f Arques,

221 Marquesia, sister o f William Escaunier, 218, 220 marriage, 23, 25, 28, 47, 113 Marseille, 72 Martel, Philippe, historian, 252 Marti, Claude, singer, 256 Martin Francissi o f Limoux, 2 18-19 Mary-Lafon, Jean Bernard, historian, 2 5 2 ,2 5 3 Mas-Saintes-Puelles, 75, 195 Mastino della Scala, capitcmo del popolo o f Verona, 205n. Matthew Bayard o f Tarascon, 217 Maurand the Elder o f Toulouse, 177 Maurand family o f Toulouse, 7 0 -1 , 177

Maurice o f Seignelay, Bishop o f Orleans (1 2 0 7 -2 1 ), 142 Melenguia (Milingui), Bogomil diocese, 20, 36n., 88 meliommentum , 91, 112 Melnik, 36n. Melun, 148 Mengarda Alverniis o f Lordat, 231-2 mercenaries ( routiers), 6 3 -4 , 74, 133 merchants, 74, 223 Mesopotamia, 10 Messalians, 10, 14 Methodius, St, missionary to the Slavs (d.885), 15 Michael, Archangel, 19, 100 Milan, 191, 192, 193 St Eustorge, Dominican house, 192 Millau, consuls, 73 Milo, papal legate, 51 Minerve, 4 8 -9 , 50, 143, 1 5 1 ,2 2 2 Cathar house, 4 8 -9 Minervois, 222 Mirande, 214 Mirepoix, 59, 79n. family, 59, 180, 181, 182 Mithraism, 239 Moissac, 148, 168, 175 monasticism, 67-8 Mondenard, 148 Moneta o f Cremona, Dominican theologian (d. after 1250), 98, 107, 199 monophysites, 17 Montaillou, 2 1 2 -1 3 , 2 1 4 ,2 1 5 Mont-Aime (Montwimers) (Champagne), 23, 27 Montauban, 48, 73, 168, 193-4 consuls, 73 Montcuq, 148, 168, 169 Montegut, 168 Montferrand, 143 Montfort, 148

• 330 •

INDEX

Montfort family, see Amaury o f Montfort; Simon o f Montfort Montforte (near Turin), 29 Montgey, battle (1211), 80n. Montpellier, 52, 61, 72, 192 archbishopric, 54 council (1211), 155 council (1215), 148 Montreal, 4 3 -7 , 138, 143, 185, 198 Cathar house, 4 3 -4 Montsegur, 59, 153, 180, 182-4, 254 modern views of, 240, 244, 245, 246, 247, 253 Moore, R.I., historian, 22, 30 morality, 105-7, 219, 229 Moravia, 15 Morelia, 230 Morghen, RafFaello, historian, 22 Morhlon, 148 Moses, 97 Mosio, Cathar assembly, 87 Mundy, John, historian, 68, 84n., 178, 199 Muret, 60 battle (1213), 3 ,6 1 , 148 Muslims, 10, 57, 60, 184 Muzerelle, Denis, historian, 34n. mystery cults, 239 Naples, 190 Narbonne, 52, 6 6 -7 , 72, 73, 8 In., 192 archbishopric, 54, 6 6 -8 , 82n. bourg, 186 consuls, 73 council (1179), 133 council (1211), 155 council (1227), 171 Naum o f Ocrida, St., missionary to Bulgaria, 15 Navarra, wife o f Stephen o f Servian, 43 Navarrese, 63 Nazarius, Cathar Bishop o f Concorezzo, 96, 98

Nazism, 243, 2 4 5 -7 The Need fo r Roots (Weil), 248 Neil, Fernand, historian, 247 Nelli, Rene, sociologist, 246 Nelson, Janet, historian, 33n., 35n. Neocastron, see Alexiopolis New Testament, 32, 102, 116 Nicetas, Bishop o f the Bogomil Church o f Constantinople, 8, 20, 21, 33n., 75, 85, 87 Nicholas o f Abbeville, inquisitor, 223 Nicholas Eymeric, inquisitor, 248 Nimes, 52, 53, 192 diocese, 66 Niort, 43 Niort family, 4 5 -6 Nissan, 66 Normandy, 53 Nova o f Cabaret, wife o f Bernard Oth o f Niort, 46 Nouveaux cathares pour Montsegur (Augier), 246 nunneries, 68, 195 nuntii, 191-2 Oberto Pelavicino, lord o f Cremona (d.1269), 205n. Obolensky, Dmitri, historian, 16 Occitan romanticism, 6, 2 4 9 -5 9 Occitania, 60-2 The Occult and the Third Reich (Angebert), 246 occultism, 2 4 6 -7 , 257 Ochrida, 15 O do III, Duke o f Burgundy (1 1 9 3 1218), 130, 141 Old Testament, 1 0 4 -5 , 241 Oliver, 137, see also Sicard Cellarer Oliver o f Tillers, crusader, 168 Oliver o f Termes, 185-6 Opsikion, theme, 17, 19 Orb, river, 67, 68, 71, 72 Orleans, 28, 29 Ornolac, 245 Orvieto, 161n.

• 331 •

INDEX

Ottomans, 232 Oxford, 23 Outremer, 57, 170, 181, 185, 186 Pagan o f Labecede, Cathar perfectus, 185 Palazi, troubadour, 256 Palestine, 134 Palhars, 231 Pamiers, 58, 60, 72, 138, 208 St Antonin, canons, 58 St Antonin, church, 210 Statutes (1212), 148, 154 papal reform, 68 paratge, 6 1-3, 157, 252 Paris, 42, 141 council (1226), 158 schools, 95, 12In. Treaty (1229), 4, 62, 167-70, 181 Patarenes, 32, 134, 135 P arzival (Wolfram von Eschenbach), 244 Paul, St, 96 Paul, monk o f St Pere de Chartres, chronicler, 129 Paulicians, 9 -1 0 , 12, 14, 129, 135 Pavia, 193 Pegg, Mark, historian, 33n., 39n. Peire Cardenal, troubadour, 253, 256 Peirona, sister o f Arnauda o f Lamothe, Cathar perfecta, 48 Peitavin Boursier, 116, 191 Peladan, Josephin, 245, 260n. Peleponnese, 88 penances, 71, 90, 103, 106, 110, 172, 175, 176, 194, 210 Peniscola, 232 penitent heretics, 171, 174-6, 194, 201n. Penne d’Agenais, 148, 169 Pereille, lords, 203n. perfecti/perfectae , 89, 151, 171 at Montsegur, 182-3 code o f ethics, 2 4 -5 , 105-6 during Cathar decline, 197, 198 initiation, 90—4 Perigord, 28

Perigueux, 29 Perrin, J.M ., Dominican, 243 Perrin, Jean-Paul, pastor o f Nyons, H istoire des Vaudois, 249, 250 Persia, Persians, 239, 242, 244 Perugia, 178 Peter o f Ales, inquisitor, 180 Peter Amiel, Archbishop o f Narbonne ( 1 2 2 6 ^ 5 ), 183 Peter II, King o f Aragon (1 1 9 6 -1 2 1 3 ), 44, 51, 6 0 -1 , 136, 140, 143, 148, 155-6, 184 Peter o f Area, 212 Peter o f Auteuil, Seneschal o f Carcassonne, 186 Peter Autier, ancestor o f Peter and William Autier, 211 Peter Autier, notary from Ax, Cathar perfectus, 5, 110-14, 210, 2 1 1 -2 1 , 2 2 5 ,2 2 8 Peter o f Beauville, 191 Peter o f Bruys (d.r.1139), 29 Peter, Tsar o f Bulgaria (9 2 7 -6 9 ), 13 Peter o f Cumin , Cathar perfectus, 197 Peter o f Castelnau, papal legate, 51, 128, 131, 135, 138 modern views of, 252 murder (1208), 3, 51, 127, 128, 138, 1 5 1 ,1 5 4 Peter, Cathar Bishop o f Florence, 87 Peter Cellani, inquisitor, 193, 194 Peter Clergue, priest o f Montaillou, 214 Peter Durand, inquisitor, 180 Peter Isarn, Cathar Bishop o f Carcassonne, 86, 168 Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, chronicler (d. after 1218), 42 on Catharism and Cathars, 90, 105-6, 1 2 8 ,1 3 5 , 185 on the clergy, 65, 67 on the crusade/crusaders, 128, 130, 140, 142, 143, 148, 149, 151, 157 on debates, 138 on the siege o f Lavaur, 43, 46 on southern cities, 70

332 .

INDEX

Peter o f Les Vaux-de-Cernay, chronicler (d. after 1218) ( continued) on southern nobles and lords, 44, 49, 51, 57-8, 60, 128-9 on Waldensians, 68 Peter o f Mala Fayda, Abbot o f St Sernin, 179 Peter Martyr, St, see Peter o f Verona, Peter Maurand o f Toulouse, 70-1 Peter Maurel, Cathar nuntius, 191, 192 Peter Maury o f Montaillou, shepherd, 214, 218, 220, 230, 232 Peter o f Montreal, 44 Peter o f Pavia, papal legate, 132 Peter Pollan, Cathar Bishop o f the Razes, 85-6, 197 Peter Roger, lord o f Cabaret, 42, 44, 184 Peter Roger o f Mirepoix, 59, 180, 181 Peter Seila, Dominican inquisitor, 173, 175 Peter, son o f Sibylla den Balle, 230 Peter o f Sicily, theologian, 129 Peter Soquerii o f Pamiers, 209 Peter o f Verona, inquisitor, 192-3, 199 Peter William Delort, 179 Peter, companion o f William Escaunier, 216 Petracius, Bogomil emissary, 21 Petrement, Simone, 241 Petronilla, titular Queen o f Aragon, Countess o f Barcelona, 54 Peyrat, Napoleon, pastor o f SaintGermain-en-Laye, historian, 2 5 2 -3 , 255 Peyrepertuse, 186, 187-9 Peyrusse, 169 Philadelphia, Asia Minor, Bogomil diocese, 88 Philip o f Alairac, Cathar perfectus, 228, 229 Philip o f Auriac, 222 Philip II, King o f France (118 0 -1 2 2 3 ), 3, 4, 53, 129, 148, 153, 157 Philip III, King o f France (1 2 7 0 -8 5 ),

221

Philip IV, King o f France (1 2 8 5 -1 3 1 4 ), 2 0 9 ,2 2 3 - 4 , 225 Philip o f Larnat, Cathar, 212 Philippa, neighbour o f Guillelma, wife o f Thomas o f St Flour, 109 Philippa, wife o f Raymond Roger, Count o f Foix, Cathar perfect0, 59 Philippopolis, 17, 135 Piacenza, 191, 205n. Piedmont, 233 Pierre Bremon Ricas Novas, troubadour, 256 Pierrepertuises, 66 Pieusse, Cathar council (1225), 168 pilgrimage, 131, 176, 247 Piphiles, or Piphles, 23, 24 Plato, 243 Poilhes, 66 Poitiers, 29 Poncius Esshaura o f Larnat, 209 Pons o f Arsac, Archbishop o f Narbonne (1 1 6 2 -8 1 ), 66, 67, 81n., 133 Pons Bernard, knight o f Albi, 177 Pons o f Capdenier, 173 Pons Gary, inquisitor, 180 Pons o f St Gilles, Dominican Prior o f Toulouse, 174 Pons, son o f Sibylla den Balle, 230, 234n. Poor Catholics, 122n., 125n. Prades Tavernier, Cathar perfectus, 114, 217, 218, 220, 221, 225 primogeniture, 62, 84n. Priscillian o f Avila (d.383), 12 prisons, 200, 223 Protestantism, Protestants, 2 4 8 -9 , 253 Prouille, nunnery, 130 Provence, 54, 149, 153, 167 Prussia, 255 Pseudo-Dionysius, 96 Publicans, 23 Puisserguier, 151 Puivert, 185 Pujols, 169 Puycelci, 168 Puylaurens, 47, 49, 143, 168, 186

333 •

INDEX

Pyrenees, 5, 43, 53, 54, 59, 61, 76n., 86, 93, 110, 182, 214, 229, 230, 231 Quatresoux de Parctelaine, Antoine, historian, 252 Quercy, 53, 148, 153 Queribus, 185, 186 Quia maior, papal encyclical (1213), 155 Quie, 214 Quillan, 216 Rabastens, 47, 168 Radoslav ‘the Christian’ , 237n. Rahn, Otto, historian, 2 4 4 -6 , 247, 255, 257 Kreuzzug jyegen den Graal, 244, 246, 257, Luzifers Hofyesind, 2 4 5 -6 Rainald o f Dammartin, Count o f Boulogne (1 1 9 9-1217), 130 Rainald o f Dassel, imperial chancellor and Archbishop o f Cologne (1159-67), 24 Raines o f Montreal, 44 Rainier Sacconi, Dominican Inquisitor and former Cathar (d. after 1262) as an inquisitor, 192, 193 on Cathar beliefs, 94, 98, 101, 102-3, 104, 106, 115 on Cathar churches, 21, 8 7 -8 , 89, 94, 190 Ralph o f Fontfroide, papal legate, 135, 138 Raoul Glaber, chronicler, 27, 29 Raymond Agulher, Cathar Bishop o f the Razes, 183 Raymond Aimeric, Cathar deacon, 48 Raymond o f Alfaro, bayle o f the Count o f Toulouse in Avignonet, 180 Raymond Andree, Cathar perfectus, 224 Raymond Arrufat, 8 On. Raymond Autier, ancestor o f Peter and William Autier, 211 Raymond Autier, brother o f Peter and William Autier, 212

Raymond o f Baimire, Cathar perfectus, 47 Raymond Berengar IV, Count o f Barcelona (1 1 3 1 -6 2 ), 54 Raymond del Boc, Cathar perfectus, 225 Raymond o f Broelles, 190 Raymond o f Cahors, banker, 152 Raymond o f Casals, Cathar Bishop o f Agen, 86, 87 Raymond Desiderii, Cathar perfectus, 225 Raymond Escaunier o f Ax, 2 1 6 -1 7 Raymond Fort o f Belpech, 65 Raymond Gros, Cathar perfectus, 175 Raymond o f Le Fauga, Bishop o f Toulouse (1 2 3 2 -7 0 ), 116, 173 Raymond Mauleon o f Arques, 220, 221 Raymond o f Niort, 46 Raymond o f Pereille, lord o f Montsegur, 5 9 ,1 8 0 Raymond Peter o f Arques, 110, 219,

220, 221 Raymond o f Rabastens, Bishop o f Toulouse (1202-C.1205), 65 Raymond o f Rodes, 211, 212 Raymond Roger, Count o f Foix (1 1 8 8 1223), 58, 59-60, 143, 156, 182, 244 Raymond Roger Trencavel, Viscount o f Beziers and Carcassonne (1 1 9 4 1209), 3 ,4 4 , 57, 59, 61, 80n., 1 3 9 ,1 4 0 -1 , 244 Raymond, lord o f Termes, 44, 184, 185 Raymond III, Count o f Toulouse (924-C.950), 52 Raymond IV, Count o f Toulouse (1 0 8 8 /9 3 -1 1 0 5 ), 52, 57 Raymond V, Count o f Toulouse (1 1 4 8 -9 4 ), 52, 53, 54, 57, 85, 1 3 2 ,1 3 4 Raymond VI, Count o f Toulouse (1 1 9 4 -1 2 2 2 ), 5 3 ,6 1 , 128-9 during the Albigensian crusades, 3, 139, 143, 149, 155 attitude towards Catharism, 5 1 -2 , 57, 134-5 death, 133

. 334

INDEX

Raymond VII, Count o f Toulouse (1222-49) during the Albigensian crusades, 4, 62, 63, 149, 157, 158, 185 terms o f the Treaty o f Paris (1229), 4, 139, 167, 169, 170 later life, 178, 181-2, 193, 199-200 Raymond o f Toulouse, Cathar perfectus, 214 Raymond Trencavel, Viscount o f Beziers and Carcassonne (1 1 2 9 -6 7 ), 53, 137 Raymond Trencavel II, Viscount o f Beziers and Carcassonne (1 2 0 9 47), 181, 185 Raymonda, sister o f Arnold Sicre, 231 Raymonda Marty, wife o f Arnold Piquier o f Tarascon, 229, 232 Raymonda, mother-in-law o f Peter, companion o f William Escaunier,

210 Razes, 53-4, 196 Cathar diocese, 88, 168 Rebenty gorge, 45 Reformation, 248 regionalism, 2 55-7 Reims council (1148), 131 council (1157), 23 Renaissance, 242 Renaud o f Montpellier, Bishop o f Beziers (1209), 67, 71, 140 rendability, 4 4 -5 , 62, 76n., 184 Rhine, Rhineland, 2 Rhone, river, 52, 53, 66, 192 ribauds, 140 Richard Bayard o f Tarascon, 217 Richard I, King o f England (1 1 8 9 -9 9 ), 53 Rieux-en-Val, 196 Rituals, Cathar, 32, 90^4r, 105, 233 Roach, Andrew, historian, 30 Robert ‘the Bulgar’, 173 Robert o f Spernone, Cathar Bishop o f France, 27, 86

Rocamadour, 198 Roccavione, 31 Roche, Deodat, historian, 2 3 9 -4 0 , 241, 244 Le Catharisme, 240

VEglise romane et le Cathares albigeois, 240 Rodez, diocese, 168, 193 Roger II, Bishop o f Chalons (1 0 4 3 -6 5 ), 28 Roger II o f Comminges, Viscount o f Couserans and Count o f Palhars (1 1 8 0 -1 2 1 1 ), 58, 60 Roger, Count o f Foix (1 2 4 1 -6 5 ), 265 Roger I Trencavel, Viscount o f Carcassonne (1 1 2 9 -5 0 ), 53 Roger II Trencavel, Viscount o f Beziers and Carcassonne (1 1 6 7 -9 4 ), 54, 59 Roger Bernard II, Count o f Foix (1 2 2 3 -4 1 ), 58, 60 Roger Bernard III, Count o f Foix (12 6 5 -1 3 0 2 ), 208, 211, 2 2 1 -2 Roman Empire, Weil’s views on, 241, 242, 247 Roman law, 62 Romania, Bogomil diocese, 20, 88 see also Philadelphia Romanus, cardinal-deacon o f Sant’Angelo, papal legate, 158, 170, 172, 179 Rome, 7, 190 Roquebert, Michel, historian, 152, 160n. Roquemaure, 48 Roquevidal, 222 Rosenberg, Alfred, 246 Rosicrucians, 2 4 6 -7 Roussillon, 61, 66 routiers, 6 3 -4 , 74, 133 Roy, Christiane, 257 Runciman, Steven, historian, 11, 22 Russell, Josiah, historian, 72 Sabarthes, 210, 213 sacraments, 2, 13, 23, 25, 28, 113

335 •

INDEX

St Antonin, 148 abbey, 58, 210 St Cecilia, Albi cathedral, 223, 2 2 6 -7 St Felix-de-Caraman, council (1167 or between 1174 and 1177), 3, 8, 2 0 -1 , 27, 32-3n., 47, 57, 6 5 -6 , 7 5 ,8 5 - 6 ,1 0 1 , 1 6 8 ,2 4 4 St Gilles, 29, 67 Hospitaller priory, 67 St Marcel, 148 Saint-Martin-Lalande, 207n. battle (1211), 143 Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux, 47, 168, 183 St Sernin, abbey at Toulouse, 68, 69 St Theodard, abbey at Montauban, 194 St Thierry, abbey, 45 Saissac, 154, 181, 222 Saladin, 134 Salette, Pierre, doctor, 265n. Salou Pass, 60 Sals, river, 110 Salvo Burci o f Piacenza (d. after 1235), 8 8 ,1 1 5 Sammartin, 60 Samson o f Mauvoisin, Archbishop o f Reims (114 0 -6 1 ), 23 San Mateo, 230 Satanael, 18 Sault Plateau, 43, 216 Saverdun, 169 Schmidt, Charles, historian, 253 Second Crusade (1 1 4 7 -4 8 ), 26, 52 Second World War, 243, 255 secret societies (modern), 2 4 6 -7 Secret Supper ( Book of St. John), 96-8 Septimania, 245 Servian, 45, 138 Severac, 148 Sibylla o f Arques, 110-14, 117, 217, 2 1 8 -1 9 , 220, 221 Sibylla, wife o f Peter Pauc o f Ax, 235n. Sibylla den Balle o f Ax, 115, 216, 219 Sicard Cellarer, Cathar Bishop o f Albi, 86, 137 Sicard II o f Laurac, 43

Sicard, lord o f Puylaurens, 49 Sicily, kingdom, 134, 214, 234n. Simon o f Montfort, Count o f Toulouse (1 2 1 5 -1 8 ), 3 - 4 ,1 4 1 - 5 5 ,1 6 8 , 184, 190, 194, 199 at Lavaur, 42, 49 chronology, 308-9 views on, 149-50, 157, 242, 2 5 1 -2 Simonde de Sismondi, J.C .L ., Histoire des Fmngais, 251 Sirmione, 191, 192, 222 Slavonia, 26, 148 Slavs, 15, 20 Societe du Souvenir et des Etudes Cathares, 240 Soderberg, Hans, historian, 11-12 Soissons, 28 Soreze, 148 Spain, 52, 54, 60, 86 Languedoc Cathars in, 229, 230-1, 232 Spoleto, Cathar diocese, 87 Staufen, 134, 173, 190 Steiner, Rudolf, philosopher, 240 Stephen Mascoti o f Albi, 224-5 Stephen, Prince o f Bosnia, 232 Stephen Nemanja, ruler o f Serbia (t.1166-96), 135 Stephen o f St Thibery, inquisitor, 179-80 Stephen, lord o f Servian, 45 Stephen o f Tournai, Abbot o f St Genevieve, Paris, 64 Stoyanov, Yuri, historian, 11 Studio der Frtihen Musik, 256 Syria, 10 Tanchelm o f Antwerp (d.r.1115), 29 Tarascon, 211, 214, 230 Tarn, river, 4 7 , 48, 53, 67, 68, 168, 177, 183, 184, 194, 213 Tarragona, 66, 86 Taygettus, Mount (Peleponnese), 20 Tefrice, 10, 15, 35n., 129 Templars, 67, 133, 247 bailli o f Aragon, Toulouse and Provence, 67

• 336 •

INDEX

Termenes, 231 Termes, 143, 154 lords of, 44, 184-6, 198 Texemnt/textores (weavers), 24, 71, 74 Thedisius o f Genoa, papal legate, 166n. Theoderic, see William o f Chateauneuf Theophylact Lecapenus, Patriarch o f Constantinople (9 3 3 -5 6 ), 13 Thierry, Augustin, 251 Third Crusade (11 8 9 -9 2 ), 129, 134 Thon, Hans, shepherd, 263n. Thrace, 10, 17, 20 Thule Society, 247 Thuringia, 263n. Tiber, river, 190 Tirvia, 230 tithes, 65, 68, 169, 179, 199 Toledo, 60 Tomier, troubadour, 256 Touches, les (Briatexte), 47 Toulousain, 62, 167 Toulouse, city, 2, 3, 8, 27, 2 9 -3 0 , 42, 47, 52, 68, 7 0 -3 , 83n., 131, 135, 167, 168, 170, 174, 176, 177, 179-81, 183, 185, 190-6, 199 Albigensian crusades, 140, 143, 149, 158 Autier brothers in, 213 capitouls, 65 Cathar diocese, 21, 26, 39n., 66, 86, 153 Catholic diocese, 49, 54, 6 4 -6 , 74, 168, 174 Chateau Narbonnais, 168 consuls, 57, 71-3 , 177, 178, 192, 195 council (1229), 166n., 170-2, 175, 178 counts, 51-3, 60, 167, 170, 181, 200, 203n. county, 49, 54, 57, 59, 63, 135, 194 Dominican house 173-5, 179 Garrigue’s garden, 173 Hospitaller commandery, 57, 133 Hospitals, 68 leper houses, 68

Narbonne Gate, 173

parlement, 249 post-crusade, 168, 170, 173, 177-8, 179, 192, 193, 196, 228 rue de L ’Etoile, 213 St Romain, church, 173 St Sernin, bourg, 179; church, 68, 228 Saracen Wall, 173 siege (1211), 143; (1218), 70, 149; (1219), 157 university, 139, 169, 173 Touraine, Alain, sociologist, 256 tourism, 255, 257 Tours, council (1163), 23, 67, 131 transmigration, 103, 106, 112, 123n. treason, 139 treasure, 197, 214, 240, 245 Treatise against the Bogomils (Cosm as), 12, 14 Trencavel family, 5 3 -4 , 57, 59, 137, 139 fall o f Carcassonne, 44, 140-1 revolt (1240), 46, 181, 185 Triaverdini, 63 Tripoli (Syria), 57 troubadours, 129, 253, 2 5 5 -6 Troy, 253 Tunis, crusade o f Louis IX (1270), 186 Turin Shroud, 257 Tuscany, 67, 72 United States o f America, 246 Urban II, Pope (1 0 8 8 -9 9 ), 133 urban society, 6 8 -7 3 , 74 Urgel, 86, 230 Ussat, 244 Utrecht, canons, 29 Uzes, diocese, 66 Valencia, 230 Varilhes, 208 Venice, 141, 193 Verdun, 168, 169 Verfeil, 47, 138, 168, 179 Vergentis, papal decretal (1199), 139

• 337

•

INDEX

Vernaux, 231 Verona, 192 Vertus, 27 Vezelay, 23

via de Balneis, 216 Via Domitia, 192 Vicenza, Cathar diocese, 87, 190 Vich, 86 Vichy France, 239 Vidal, J .M ., historian, 213, 229 Vielmur, 47 Vienne, archbishopric, 127 viguierSy 53 Villemur, 48, 169 Cathar house, 48 Villerouge-Termenes, 231 Virgin Mary, 13, 19, 25, 98, 104, 109, 117 Visigoths, 245 The Vision of Isaiah , 32, 9 9 -1 0 0 Vital o f PaulmianOy 198 Viterbo, 139, 161n. Vivent, Cathar Bishop o f Toulouse, 190 Voltaire, 251 Vukan, King o fZ e ta (c.l 19 0 -1 2 0 8 ), 135 Wakefield, Walter, historian, 193, 195 Waldensians, 68, 80n., 194, 195, 233, 249 Walter III o f Chatillon, Count o f Saint Pol (1205-1 9 ), 130 weavers, 24, 71, 74 Weil, Simone, philosopher, 2 4 0 -4 , 247, 2 4 8 ,2 4 9 - 5 1 ,2 5 3

VAgonie d’une civilisation vue a travers un poeme epique, 241 -2 En quoi consiste Vinspiration occitanienne? 242 The Need for Roots, 248 Weimar Republic, 245 White Brotherhood, 48, 71 William, Bishop ofA gd e (c.l 165-73), 67 William III, Bishop ofA lbi (1157-85), 67, 137

William IV, Bishop ofA lbi (1 1 8 5 -1 2 2 7 ), 137-8 William Arnold o f Montpellier, inquisitor, 174, 175, 177-8, 179-80 William Audebert, 108, 109 William Autier, notary from Ax, Cathar perfectuSy 5, 210, 211, 213, 217, 219, 2 2 1 ,2 2 5 ,2 2 8 ,2 3 1 William o f Auvergne, Bishop o f Paris (1228—48), 95 William Balle o f Montaillou, shepherd, 218 William Bayard o f Tarascon, 217 William Belibaste, Cathar perfectuSy 5, 2 2 8 ,2 2 9 -3 1 William Bernard o f Luzenac, 209, 210 William Bonus, son o f Peter Autier, 212, 214 William Botolh, brother-in-law o f Peter Autier, 213 William Carramati, tailor o f Tarascon,

210 William o f Chateauneuf, canon o f Nevers (Theoderic), 100, 138 William Dejean, beguin, 212 William Escaunier o f Arques, 213, 2 1 6 -1 7 ,2 1 8 -1 9 William Faure o f Pechhermer, 108-9 William Feraut, 108 William Gamier o f Mas-Saintes-Puelles, doctor, 196 William Golairon, 180 William Golferii, merchant o f Albi, 224, 225 William Marshal, Earl o f Pembroke, 57 William Maurs, shepherd, 218 William, lord o f Minerve, 49 William o f Nangis, chronicler, 184 William o f Newburgh, chronicler, 2Z-A William o f Niort, 45 William Pagani, Cathar perfectuSy 225 William Pages, Cathar perfectuSy 222 William Pelhisson, inquisitor, 116, 167, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 190

• 338 •

INDEX

William Peter o f Verona, Cathar Bishop o f France, 191 William Peyre o f Brens, 138 William, lord o f Peyrepertuse, 186 William Prunel, Cathar perfectus^ 222 William o f Puylaurens, chronicler (d. after 1274), 42 on the Albigensian crusades, 130-1 ,1 5 0 on Cathars, 134 on the clergy, 64, 65 on debates, 138 on the post-crusade situation, 172, 178-9, 181 on southern nobles and lords, 51-2, 58-9, 61 William Raffard o f Roquevidal, 205n. William Raymond, inquisitor, 180, 208 William o f Rodes, 209 William Roger o f Mirepoix, 182 William o f Roquebert, 185 William Saisset, brother o f Bernard Saisset, Bishop o f Pamiers, 210 William o f Seignelay, Bishop o f Auxerre (1207-20), 142 William Sicred o f Cavanac, 197-8 William o f Solier, former perfectus, 172, 175

William III, Count o f Toulouse (9 6 1 1037), 52 William o f Tudela, author o f the first part o f the Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise (d . after 1213), 7 -8 , 81n. on Aimery o f Montreal at Lavaur, 43, 44, 45, 46 on the Albigensian crusades, 130, 140, 185 on Catharism, 7, 9 on the clergy, 65 on Raymond Roger Trencavel, 59 William, Archbishop o f Tyre, chronicler, 57 Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, 244, 245 women Bogomils, 14 Cathars, 4 3 -4 , 4 6 -8 , 89, 109-15, 195-6, 207n., 2 1 6 -2 0 , 228 Catholic nuns, 68 Zara, 141 Zerner, Monique, historian, 33-4n. Zoroastrians, 12, 15

• 339 •