The Cathars

by Sean Martin

  5

  The Autier Revival

  Catharism was, in the years after the fall of Quéribus, a chimerical presence. According to the testimony of Stéphanie de Châteauverdun, a noble and Cathar Perfect from the Sabartès, what top-level Cathars remained were living in the mountains. William Prunel was one such Perfect, whose career stretched from around 1258 until 1283. Despite the tireless efforts of the Inquisition, the one thing that was hardest to eradicate from the Languedoc was the deep roots that Catharism had put down. Even after all the atrocities and hardships that the area had suffered over several decades, people still seemed unwilling to give up completely on the old religion. Evidence to support this comes from the fact that William once spent a month in Toulouse; he was recognised as a Cathar, but no one betrayed him. He continued to spread the faith, and was known to have nobility and clergy amongst his flock. Another Perfect, William Pagès, was also active during the same period, although he had managed to survive by spending time in Lombardy.

  Apart from the willingness – or otherwise, as in the case of William Prunel – to betray a known Cathar, the Inquisition faced other problems during this period. Foremost among them was the crucial relationship between Inquisitors, bishops and royal officers. Although the machinery of repression was generally efficient, its effectiveness did vary from area to area. In Narbonne, for instance, hostility towards the Inquisitors had diminished to such an extent by the early 1260s that they were called on to arbitrate on the town’s behalf in a secular dispute with Béziers. In Albi, however, the bishop and the Inquisitors were at loggerheads with royal officials for years over the issue of confiscating the property of convicted Cathars: the bishop favoured leniency to prevent families from being bankrupted, and was, remarkably, supported by the Inquisitors. Royal officials were attacked by crowds of locals; in return, the bishop’s bastides – small fortified new towns – were pillaged by royal forces.

  Matters deteriorated during the last two decades of the thirteenth century, with complaints against the Inquisitors rising. The Inquisition hit back, accusing royal officials of complicity with heretics: in the 50 years before 1275, there were only two such complaints, but between 1275 and 1306 there were thirty.82 Things were further complicated by the relationship – not always harmonious – between the French king, Philip IV, and the papacy. Philip took sides against the Inquisitors. As a result of these tensions, arrests for heresy in the period 1297–1300 were largely of a political nature. Once the pope, Boniface VIII, died in 1303, Philip withdrew his support and the Inquisitors got back to work relatively unhampered. As they did so, something quite unexpected happened: there was a Cathar revival.

  Peter Autier

  Peter Autier was from the small town of Ax-les-Thermes, up-country from Foix. He was born around 1240, and had made a comfortable life for himself as a notary. Notaries drafted legal documents – wills, contracts and the like – and were one of the pillars of mediaeval society. Peter had a wife, a mistress and families with both women, a fact which did not harm his good social standing. During the 1270s, the family firm had done work for Roger Bernard III of Foix, and had gone on to do more state work, which had increased the firm’s status and purse. Then in 1296, all that changed.

  One day, Peter was reading a book. He showed it to his younger brother William, and asked him what he thought. William replied, ‘It seems to me that we have lost our souls.’ Peter nodded his assent and said, ‘Let us go therefore, brother, and seek the salvation of our souls.’83 What book they were reading remains unknown, but René Weis conjectures that it ‘would almost certainly have been St John’s gospel.’84 They decided to go to Lombardy – where there were still active Cathar communities – to receive the consolamentum. There had been a history of Catharism in Peter’s family – the father and son Peter and Raymond Autier, who flourished in the 1230s, were probably collateral relatives85 – but what is remarkable is that Peter knew full well what he was letting himself in for, and that he was prepared to turn his back on a very comfortable existence.

  In early October 1296, he and William probably left for Lombardy. There is still a mystery surrounding their departure. Peter was apparently in a great deal of debt to Simon Barre, the hereditary châtelain of Ax. Simon was not above terrorising his debtors and – on occasion – calling for their deaths. In order to repay this debt, Peter Autier sold all his cattle at the Michaelmas fair in Tarascon. After that, it is sheer conjecture: Peter and William left for Lombardy around 4 October. It remains a possibility that the debt was deliberately engineered to make it seem as though Peter was fleeing Ax for financial reasons, rather than spiritual. If rumours of debt – rather than heresy – had spread around Ax, it would have bought the Autier brothers more time to make good their escape into Italy. This is all the more plausible when one considers that Simon Barre had Cathar sympathies.

  Peter and William travelled with Bon Guilhem, Peter’s illegitimate son, together with Peter de la Sclana, whom one assumes was a close associate of the Autiers. Later, they were joined en route by one of Peter’s daughters and her husband. Peter and William received the consolamentum from an Italian Perfect in Cuneo, a town in south-west Piedmont, which had been a centre for exiled Languedocian Cathars since the middle of the century. Then, around St Martin’s Day (11 November) 1297, Bon Guilhem reappeared in Ax. He informed the Autiers’ extensive network of family and supporters that Peter and William had become Perfect in Italy, and wanted to return as soon as it was safe for them to do so.

  It was Peter who returned first, reaching Toulouse in the autumn of 1299. That the purpose of his visit was to see a money changer suggests that securing the mission’s finances was his priority. For all his careful planning, Peter’s cover was blown almost immediately, when he was recognised by Peter, the son of Raymonde de Luzenac, a rich widow whom Peter Autier had attempted to convert to Catharism three years earlier. The young de Luzenac was studying law at the time, and had run up considerable debts. Peter Autier bought the young man’s silence by paying off the money de Luzenac owed.

  Meanwhile, William reappeared in Tarascon, preparing the way for the missionary work to begin. While the brothers had been in Lombardy, they had kept in touch with family back home and, by 1300, a wide network of safe houses had been established for the brothers to utilise on their return. During the winter and through into the spring of 1300, William and Peter Raymond of Saint-Papoul, another Perfect, lived in a dovecote that belonged to a family of Cathar Believers. Given the power of the Inquisition, Peter and William would need to mount a commando-style operation if they were to stand even a slim chance of success.

  Yet success is precisely what they achieved. The brothers recruited about a dozen others, whom they consoled, to help spread the word. Among their number were Peter Raymond of Saint-Papoul, the weaver Prades Tavernier, Amiel de Perles, Peter’s son James, James’s friend Pons of Ax and Aude Bourrel, the last known female Perfect. The group relied on the Autier family network for protection and support. Bernard Marty – possibly a relative of the great Cathar bishop Bertrand Marty, who died at Montségur – was a shepherd who frequently acted as a scout and escort for the Perfect (his father owned the dovecote that William and Peter Raymond stayed in), and his older brother Arnold would become one of the Autier Perfect. Martin Francès from Limoux acted as the group’s treasurer; his wife was a devout Cathar who would receive the consolamentum on her deathbed from Peter Autier. Bertrand of Taix was a minor noble who was also a lifelong Cathar Believer. He frequently supplied the Perfect with gifts, such as the barrel of wine he sent to the Autiers when they returned from Lombardy. He also let them stay on his estates when need arose. Bertrand’s wife was a devout Catholic, a fact he never ceased bemoaning. To her credit, she let him continue to support the Autiers and did not betray him. Sybille Baille had a secret room in her house in Ax for the Perfect to hide in, while the de Area brothers at Quié had the equivalent of a priest hole below their grain chest.

  Almost
as soon as the group began their work in the spring of 1300, they were in danger. They were approached by one William Dejean, who appeared to be a Cathar Believer. After apparently expressing some interest in joining the Autier group, the next day he visited the Dominican convent in Pamiers, offering to betray the Cathars to the Inquisition. What he did not realise was that the friar he spoke to, Raymond de Rodes, was Peter Autier’s nephew. Raymond immediately told his brother William, who then told Raymond Autier, the one Autier brother who was not a Cathar. William and Raymond realised that Dejean had to be dealt with at once. He was lured up a mountain pass, where four Believers beat him to a pulp. When questioned, he was able to answer that he had been intending to betray the Autiers to the Inquisition. The four then threw Dejean over the cliff into the ravine below. His body was never recovered.

  Inquisitors who later questioned a number of the Cathars’ key supporters recalled Peter Autier’s sometimes idiosyncratic brand of teaching. He was a radical dualist who took Docetism a step further. While Docetic doctrine ordinarily denies Christ’s corporeality, Peter also believed that the Virgin Mary was similarly non-physical, being instead a manifestation of the will to do good. He also believed that, for a woman to enter heaven, her soul would first have to become that of a man. Despite this strain of misogyny, Peter was a popular and successful preacher, not without humour. He once remarked that crossing oneself was only good for batting away flies, while on another occasion he advised Believers that, if they had to cross themselves while in the company of Catholics, they should mentally say to themselves ‘Here is the forehead and here is the beard, here is one ear and here is the other.’86 On the Eucharist, he pointed out that Christ’s body would need to be as big as a mountain if it were to feed all the communicants. Furthermore, if Transubstantiation was a reality, priests and Believers would, after digesting, have God in their bowels, a God who would inevitably be expelled from the body on their next visit to the water closet.

  The Endura

  Autier Catharism was different from that of earlier eras in that it was operating clandestinely. There was no hierarchy: Peter Autier was not a bishop or a deacon, he was simply a Perfect, and that was enough. His Perfect travelled at night, being guided by the likes of Bernard Marty over the mountainous terrain of the Sabartès. If they travelled by day, they did so disguised as merchants or pedlars (Peter and William travelled back from their consoling in Lombardy posing as knife salesmen). They slept and taught in cellars, attics, dovecotes, sheds and grain silos.

  The group’s principal activity was in administering the consolamentum to the dying. In a society deeply damaged by the Inquisition, where husbands concealed their Cathar beliefs from their wives and vice versa, the visits of the Perfect had to be discreet and expertly timed. If they arrived too soon, they would not have the time to wait until the consoled Believer died, while obviously if they arrived too late, there was nothing they could do. Some of the consolings were remarkably audacious. A woman by the name of Gentille d’Ascou was dying in the hospital at Ax in September 1301. By the time William Autier arrived late one evening, she was too weak to walk or sit upright unsupported. As the hospital was also an unofficial brothel – prostitutes plied their trade at the town’s nearby thermal spa pool – William had no choice but to risk carrying out the consolamentum in the field at the back of the hospital.

  Three years later, William performed perhaps the most celebrated of these derring-do consolamentums for Peter de Gaillac’s mother Gaillarde in Tarascon. Around 50 people came to Gaillarde’s bedside to pay their last respects. As William needed total privacy for the consolamentum, Peter’s aunt Esclarmonde urged him to find some excuse to get the well-wishers out of the house while there was still time to console Gaillarde. Peter announced that the heat (it was August) was proving too much for his mother, and that she would be much more comfortable if everyone left. The ruse worked, and only Esclarmonde and Peter’s grandmother Alissende were left alone in the room with the dying woman. They then locked the door from the inside, and Esclarmonde entered the house next door via a secret passageway where William Autier was waiting. She gave him her cloak and cape to wear, and William entered the house disguised as Esclarmonde and performed the consolamentum.

  In the first of these cases, the consolamentum was followed by a practice called the endura. This required the newly consoled Cathar to refrain from taking anything except cold water while they lingered in this world. As fear of betrayal meant that the Perfect could not remain with the consoled to ensure that they did not deviate from the stipulated diet of a Perfect, the endura was the practical answer that ensured the newly Perfected Cathar would remain true to the articles of the faith. Taking nothing but cold water, Gentille d’Ascou lasted for another six days after her consolamentum. Guillemette Faure, a woman from Montaillou, lasted 15 days in endura when she was on her deathbed in December 1299. The longest endura known was that of a woman from Coustaussa, who took 12 weeks to die. (However, this seems to be an extreme case of a woman who wanted to die, and used the endura as a means of starving herself to death.)87

  Enduras did not always go according to plan, however. When Bernard Marty fell sick with a fever in early 1300, he was consoled and then put into the endura. After three days he couldn’t stand it anymore and demanded to eat something; he recovered to become one of the Perfect’s most loyal allies.88 In 1302, Sybille Autier lay dying in her house in Ax. Her mother was with her, as were William, her Catholic brother-in-law, and Esclarmonde, the wife of Raymond Autier. Sybille’s husband, who was not a Cathar, was not aware of his wife’s intentions to be consoled, and was asleep in his bed. William lingered on at the dying woman’s bedside a trifle too long for comfort, and Esclarmonde became desperate to get rid of him so that William Autier – who was waiting in a house nearby – could come in and perform the consolamentum. She asked the Catholic William to walk her home, which he agreed to do. As soon as they were gone, Sybille’s mother hurriedly went to fetch William Autier. By the time the Perfect got to Sybille’s bedside, she was delirious and was incapable of making the necessary responses that the consolamentum required. William said that he would perform the consolamentum if she regained her faculties, but she didn’t and died unconsoled. It is possible that the Catholic brother-in-law suspected what the women were planning, and deliberately stayed at the dying woman’s bedside long enough to ensure that a consoling would not be possible.

  As not all the Perfect agreed with Peter Autier on doctrinal matters, so the same held true with the consolamentum. Unlike William Autier, Prades Tavernier performed a number of consolings for Believers who were not capable of the response, either due to the fact that they were too ill, or, in one case, because the person to be consoled was a baby only several months old. Once Prades, who was evidently a bit of a soft touch and could often be persuaded to console people who were in no fit state to receive the sacrament, had left the house, the baby’s mother almost immediately invalidated the consoling by giving her baby the breast. The little girl, Jacqueline, lived for another year, but died without being reconsoled.

  Geoffrey d’Ablis and Bernard Gui

  Things began to go wrong for the Autier group in 1305. Upon his release from prison, William Peyre, a trusted confidant and Believer, wanted money to pay off a debt he had run up while incarcerated. For reasons unknown, the Autiers refused him the money, and Peyre lured James Autier and Prades Tavernier to Limoux on the pretext of performing a consolamentum. It was a trap, and the two Perfect were arrested. It could have spelt the immediate end for the Autier network, but James and Prades managed to escape almost immediately. Nevertheless, the damage was done. Peyre told the Inquisition everything he knew about the group’s operations, and how widespread it had by then become – at least 1,000 Believers were part of the Autier flock, scattered over 125 locations.89 But the Autiers still had a great deal of support; Peyre’s brother was murdered in Carcassonne in retaliation for his treachery, and Peyre was still living under the e
quivalent of a witness protection programme as late as 1321.

  A much greater challenge was to come from the Inquisition. Either side of the arrests, two men were appointed to run the Inquisition in the Languedoc who would go down in history as two of the most able churchmen ever to hold down the job: Geoffrey d’Ablis and Bernard Gui, presiding over Carcassonne and Toulouse respectively. The confessions they extracted from suspects – and those extracted by James Fournier, bishop of Pamiers from 1317 – are so detailed that they are the best record we have of any period of Catharism. Despite their fearsome reputation, d’Ablis and Gui received appeals for clemency, and often granted it. Of Gui’s 930 convictions, only 42 were death sentences.90 Perhaps the most notable example of the efficiency of the new Inquisitors occurred at Montaillou. On 8 September 1308, the whole village was arrested on suspicion of heresy.

  The Last Perfect

  With the renewed vigour inspired by Geoffrey d’Ablis and Bernard Gui, the Inquisition eventually caught up with nearly all of the Autier Perfect. They were arrested, interrogated and burnt during 1309–10.91 Sans Mercadier, a young weaver who had only been consoled in 1309, was not caught but committed suicide in despair. Peter Autier spent eight months in prison before being burnt on 9 April 1310 in Toulouse. Now in his late sixties, he remained defiant to the very end. As he was being tied to the stake, he asked to be allowed to preach to the crowd which had come to watch him die; Peter announced that he would convert all those present to Catharism. His request was denied, and, with his passing, there remained only one Perfect still at large in the Languedoc.