46 hotly contested sources of money: The splintering effect of partible inheritances that worked wonders for low-maintenance female Perfect was disastrous for their petty noble kinsmen, on whom Raymond should have been able to call for support. By the first decade of the thirteenth century, many towns and villages had thirty to fifty “co-lords”—fifty in Lombers, thirty-five in Mirepoix (source: Walter L. Wakefield, Heresy, Crusade, and Inquisition in Southern France, 1100–1250, p. 52)—the result of successive pie splitting, and thus everyone involved was more or less broke or quarreling with each other over a few far-flung acres of vines. Not many nobles could stable a military establishment. The recourse to freelance routiers (armed mercenaries) as a means of resolving disputes only added to the anarchy. These routiers, often landless younger sons from the neighboring kingdom of Aragon, were notorious for overstaying their welcome and wreaking havoc with a terrified peasantry.
46 approximately 150 in all at the turn of the millennium: The estimate stands for the year 975 (source: Michael Costen, The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade, p. 5).
46 led the Christian armies into Jerusalem: Raymond IV of Toulouse wrote to the pope of the holy massacre perpetrated by his crusaders on storming the mosques and synagogues of Jerusalem in 1099: “And if you desire to know what was done with the enemy who were found there, know that in Solomon’s Porch and in his temple our men rode in the blood of the Saracens up to the knees of their horses.” Christian sources put the number of victims at 10,000; Arab sources claim 100,000 were killed. (Source: Friedrich Heer, The Medieval World, p. 135.)
51 “The chief cause of all these evils is the archbishop of Narbonne …”: Innocent’s famous feud with Archbishop Berengar lasted well over ten years. The corrupt prelate, who used mercenaries to collect his tithes, was able to hang on to his lucrative post so long in the face of papal displeasure primarily because of his splendid family connections. He was the illegitimate son of a count of Barcelona and the bastard uncle of King Pedro II of Aragon.
51 “I’d rather be a priest.”: The anecdote is told by William of Puylaurens in his prologue to the Chronica. William, perhaps exaggerating the plight of the Church in order to justify the subsequent calling of a crusade, went on to say: “When the clergy showed themselves in public they concealed their small tonsures by combing the long hair forward from the back of their head” (source: Zoé Oldenbourg, Massacre at Montségur, trans. Peter Green, p. 54).
52 Stadtluft macht frei: The expression also had the literal meaning of freeing serfs. In Germanic custom, any serf who took up residence for one year and one day in a town would automatically be exempted from his former manorial obligations (source: Charles T. Wood, The Quest for Eternity, p. 88).
52 “for reason of adultery …”: For scholarly evaluations of medieval Toulouse’s remarkable climate of freedom, see the work of J. H. Mundy, particularly his Men and Women at Toulouse in the Age of the Cathars.
4. The Conversation
56 “O dolorous case …”: The lamentation comes from William of Puylaurens. His chronicle is the major source for our knowledge of the debates.
56 “Go back to your spinning, Madame …”: Scholarly opinion is divided over whether the female Perfect so rudely addressed was Esclarmonde of Foix. Proponents of the “Cathar country” myths outlined in the epilogue naturally assume that it had to be Esclarmonde who was doing the talking. Others believe that it was her cousin.
56 “the mother of fornication and abomination”: In a debate of 1207, Arnold Hot loosed an impressive volley. The St. John to whom he refers is not the evangelist but John of Patmos, the mystic who authored Revelations: “[The] Roman Church is the devil’s church and her doctrines are those of demons, she is the Babylon whom St. John called the mother of fornication and abomination, drunk with the blood of saints and martyrs… . neither Christ nor the apostles has established the existing order of the mass” (cited in Joseph R. Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades, p. 22).
57 Innocent attempted again and again to organize a punitive campaign: Historian Michel Roquebert has effectively exploded the notion, long held by the apologists of orthodoxy, that Innocent’s hand was forced by the murder of Peter of Castelnau. In fact, Innocent was trying to organize a crusade against Languedoc from the very outset of his pontificate. See Michel Roquebert, L’Epopée cathare, vol. 1, pp. 132–33.
63 The paper then wafted upward, charring a ceiling beam: When I visited Fanjeaux in the summer of 1998, a Korean Dominican nun kindly showed me around her convent and indicated where the miracle had taken place. As I was leaving, she asked me to sign the guest book. I saw that the last visitor had been a Spaniard, whose entry dated from several months previously. He/she had written: “Te perdono, Domingo, burro, no supiste lo que hacías” (I forgive you, Dominic, you mule, for you knew not what you did).
64 “the conversation of old ladies …”: Dominic’s deathbed admission about liking the company of pretty young women is related in Georges Bernanos’s Les Prédestines, p. 77.
64 The Spaniard’s ceaseless wanderings … brought him deep within dualist country: Those old enough to remember the warbling Belgian nun who performed a hit song of 1963 about St. Dominic may be surprised to learn that one verse dealt with the Cathars. The chorus and verse in the original French: “Dominique, nique, nique/ S’en allait tout simplement/ Routier pauvre et chantant/ En tous chemins, en tous lieux/ Il ne parle que du bon Dieu/ Il ne parle que du bon Dieu…. A l’epoque ou Jean-sans-Terre/ D’Angleterre était le roi/ Dominique, notre Pere/ Combattit les Albigeois.” The same again, in the English version: “Dominique, nique, nique/ Over land he plods along/ And sings a little song/ Never asking for reward/ He just talks about the Lord/ He just talks about the Lord.... At a time when Johnny Lackland/Over England was the king/ Dominique was in the backland/ Fighting sin like anything.” Unfortunately, Noel Rigney’s English adaptation neglects the mention of Albigeois found in the original. Then again, finding a snappy rhyme for the English equivalent—Albigensian—is not terribly obvious.
64 “I should beg you not to kill me at one blow …”: Dominic’s first biographer, a Dominican friar named Jordanus of Saxony, emphasized the Spaniard’s saintly pacifism. Others were not so sure. Stephen of Salagnac, a Dominican from the middle of the thirteenth century, wrote that an exasperated Dominic once preached at Prouille: “For several years now I have spoken words of peace to you. I have preached to you; I have besought you with tears. But as the common saying goes in Spain, Where a blessing fails, a good thick stick will succeed. Now we shall rouse princes and prelates against you; and they, alas, will in their turn assemble whole nations and peoples, and a mighty number will perish by the sword. Towers will fall, and walls be razed to the ground, and you will all of you be reduced to servitude. Thus force will prevail where gentle persuasion has failed to do so.” Whether Dominic actually said something this prescient can only be a matter of conjecture. It sounds like the invention of someone who is looking back on, and perhaps trying to justify, the Albigensian Crusade.
5. Penance and Crusade
67 the northern chronicler who recorded the episode … must have been pleased to see Raymond so thoroughly humiliated: There can be no doubt that our source, Peter of Vaux de Cernay, would have been delighted at Raymond’s predicament. Elsewhere in his Hystoria albigensis, the chronicler calls the count of Toulouse “a limb of Satan, a child of perdition, a hardened criminal, a parcel of sinfulness.”
68 an unsolved murder mystery: The question of who, if not Raymond, ordered the killing of Peter of Castelnau can still inflame some imaginations, in much the same way that Oliver Stone got overheated with JFK. In Jean-Jacques Bedu’s historical novel, Les Terres de feu, the conspiracy theory circulating in neo-Cathar circles is clearly outlined. The accused stands as none other than Arnold Amaury, Peter’s colleague. If Arnold was at Peter’s side on that day—as some believe—then why did the murderer kill just one legate? And how did the murderer know who to stab? And why
didn’t he get rid of the witnesses? Who sprang the perjury trap so that Raymond could not clear his name? And why wasn’t Raymond charged? Finally, who profited most from the murder? Certainly not Raymond. Who, as a result of the murder, got to lead a crusade, crush the Trencavels, and use armed force to place himself in a very lucrative position as archbishop of Narbonne? Arnold Amaury. It’s not impossible, though no jury outside of Languedoc would convict.
68 Innocent called for a crusade: The clergy did not use the term crusade. It was known as negotium pacis et fidei (the enterprise of peace and faith).
70 “naked in front of the tomb of the blessed martyr …”: The source is Vaux de Cernay. The tomb can still be viewed.
73 the Christian city of Zara: It is now known as the Croatian port of Zadar.
73 European Jewry, in particular, was subject to slaughter: The First Crusade initiated what would become a sorry tradition. In marching across Europe in 1096, the crusaders murdered 12 Jews in Spier, 22 at Metz, 500 at Worms, and 1,000 at Mainz (source: Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, p. 245).
73 “You ask us urgently …”: This duplicitous scheme of Innocent’s was followed to the letter. The correspondence is cited in most works on the Cathars. I have used Joseph R. Strayer’s translation from The Albigensian Crusades, pp. 58–59.
6. Béziers
75 he had rebuffed Count Raymond’s proposal of a defensive alliance: The deviousness of Raymond of Toulouse was not bottomless. In the winter of 1208–9, he tried to reach a common defensive agreement with Raymond Roger Trencavel, but, for reasons unknown, the negotiations broke off and each man went his own way. Whether Count Raymond was sincere in trying to form this alliance still divides historians of the crusade.
78 one of them, William of Tudela, conceded: The three chroniclers for Beziers were Tudela, Vaux de Cernay, and Puylaurens. None of them was an eyewitness to the events. In this chapter, unless otherwise stated, the fullest account—that of William of Tudela in the Canso—forms the basis of the narrative. I have used Janet Shirley’s excellent translation (pp. 19–22) for direct quotations about the incidents at Beziers.
79 222 names: Debate rages over whether this list included all of the Cathars of the town or just the Perfect. Most believe that the number is too low to encompass all the credentes of Béziers, which was a fairly sizable town at the time. Notations appear alongside a couple of names indicating that some of the heretics sought may have been Waldensians rather than Cathars.
80 Mary Magdalene had an even better reputation among the gnostics: As described in Elaine Pagels’s landmark The Gnostic Gospels, the ancient writings unearthed in 1945 at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, attest to the wide range of Christian beliefs that were squelched by the emergent orthodoxy of Rome. Of particular interest concerning the Magdalene’s status as the first of the apostles are the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Thomas, and Dialogue of the Saviour, the last stating that Mary was “the woman who knew the All.”
85 Not even Count Raymond: There is a rock-solid consensus among historians that Raymond did not participate actively in the actions of the crusaders. Given his subsequent military incompetence, it is unlikely that he saddled up and rode anywhere when battle beckoned. Also, he seems to have been universally beloved in Languedoc; had he joined in the massacre at Béziers, there would have been Occitans who bore him a grudge. Lastly, Raymond always showed a reluctance to harm fellow southerners.
7. Carcassonne
90 “To horse, my lords!”: The direct speech is reported by William of Tudela, author of this section of the Canso (p. 22 in Janet Shirley’s translation). Unless indicated in the text, the quotations are from the Canso.
90 Peter Roger of Cabaret: Cabaret is now called Lastours, after the ruins of the four castle keeps (towers) that dot its hillside.
90 “stupider than whales”: The expression is William of Tudela’s. Translator Shirley wryly states in a footnote: “La balena, the whale, is the rhyme word; there is no reason to suppose medieval whales were a byword for stupidity” (p. 20).
95 “In Jesus’s name, baron …”: Again, the direct speech is reported by William of Tudela in the Canso.
100 the discretion of the pro-crusade chroniclers: Although all sources skate suspiciously fast over the incident, they are at variance over what precisely was offered to Raymond Roger. In the Chronica, William of Puylaurens states it was the young Trencavel who lost his nerve and agreed to be held hostage. Peter of Vaux de Cernay, who makes no mention of King Pedro’s failed attempt at mediation, implies that the crusade always intended to keep the viscount a captive indefinitely. The Canso seems to be missing a passage at this crucial juncture. For a full discussion of the incident, see volume 1 of Michel Roquebert’s L’Epopée cathare, pp. 275–78.
8. Bad Neighbors
104 “Et ab joi li er mos treus …”: The Occitan text is taken from Ernest Hoepffner’s Le Troubadour Peire Vidal, sa vie et son œuvre (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1961). The French translation is in Michel Roquebert’s L’Epopée cathare, vol. 1, p. 314. The English translation, from the French, is my own.
106 the grotesque march: Some of Simon’s defenders, most recently Dominique Paladilhe in Simon de Montfort et le drame cathare (pp. 115–19), point out that it was not the northerner who started this awful practice of mutilation during the crusade years. In the winter of 1210, a particularly ferocious Occitan noble by the name of Gerald of Pepieux cut off the facial features of a handful of crusaders he had captured. The sheer scale of Simon’s riposte at Bram—as well as his presence at the sack of Beziers—has usually silenced those who seek excuses for his behavior.
107 Simon’s fourth son, another Simon de Montfort: It is the younger Simon de Montfort who is better known to students of British history. A leader of the baronial party opposed to the foreign adventurism and spendthrift ways of King Henry III, Simon got his monarch to agree to the Provisions of Oxford (1258) and the Provisions of Westminster (1259), which held that a council of nobles would exercise some control over the treasury and royal appointments. The king broke the agreement, and civil war ensued in 1264. Before being killed in the decisive Battle of Evesham in 1265, Simon began summoning lesser knights and townsmen to his parliament—thereby initiating the institutional practice that would mature as the House of Commons.
107 a great mane of hair: The champion of homoerotic Montfort idolatry is without a doubt Peter of Vaux de Cernay. The author of the Hystoria albigensis speaks of Simon’s “elegant face,” his “broad shoulders,” “muscular arms,” “gracious torso,” “agile and supple limbs” (source: Paladilhe, Simon de Montfort, p. 25).
115 the more zealous northern pilgrims complained: In a nice lexical coincidence, the leader of the grumblers who were worried that the heretics might escape was a French baron, Robert of Mauvoisin, a name that resembles that of the infamous trebuchet, Malvoisine. Unless indicated in the text, all of the incidents and speeches following the surrender of Minerve are attributable to the Hystoria.
115 Three of the women, however, abjured the dualist faith: Curiously enough, the person responsible for changing their minds was Mathilde de Garlande, the mother of Bouchard de Marly, the crusader held captive in Cabaret. Mathilde apparently yanked them off the bonfire as the flames were just getting going.
9. The Conflict Widens
118 the Toulousains left for Rome: Before going to Rome to complain to the pope, Raymond had gone to Paris to complain to the king. Philip Augustus gave him a sympathetic hearing but did nothing to help out the beleaguered count.
119 “foxes in the vineyards of the Lord”: Innocent was not the only churchman to use this image. It was a fairly common trope for heresy in the Middle Ages, echoing a passage from the Song of Songs (2:15).
126 tears welled up in the count’s eyes: Peter of Vaux de Cernay notes the tears of Raymond but is quick to attribute them to “rage and felony” rather than “repentance and devotion.”
127 King Pedro of Aragon tried to prevent the war:
Pedro bent over backward to keep the peace and, in the process, keep both sides off-balance. He offered his son in marriage to Simon’s daughter. War would break this betrothal. At the same time, he wed his sister to Raymond’s son. Since Raymond VI was already married to another sister of Pedro’s, he (Raymond) and his son became brothers-in-law—a relation which raised a few eyebrows. In the Trencavel matter, Pedro behaved as decently as could be expected. In exchange for getting Simon to agree to pay a pension to Agnes of Montpellier—the widow of Raymond Roger Trencavel—Pedro recognized Simon’s legitimacy. Agnes and her infant son Raymond then moved to Aragon, where they lived with the royal family. The disinherited son would twice roar back over the Pyrenees and try to reclaim Carcassonne after he had grown to manhood.
128 Arnold did not disappoint: Arnold’s outrageous offer occurs only in the Canso, leading some historians to question the reality of the proposal. One of the more influential doubters is Joseph R. Strayer, who, in The Albigensian Crusades, calls William of Tudela a “not entirely trustworthy writer” (p. 78). In the same passage, however, Strayer concedes that the general tenor of the demands makes sense.
129 Enguerrand of Coucy: The great barons of the crusade of 1211 included Robert of Courtenay (a first cousin of Raymond VI of Toulouse), Juhel of Mayenne, Peter of Nemours, and Enguerrand of Coucy. The last should be familiar to readers of Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror, her account of the Coucy family in the “calamitous 14th century.” The Enguerrand at Lavaur is an ancestor of Tuchman’s hero of the same name. It was our Enguerrand who, in 1225, began the construction of the great castle at Coucy-le-Château-Auffrique that figures so prominently in Tuchman’s tale. The Coucy fortress—the grandest medieval castle in France—was blown up by the Germans during their strategic retreat from the Noyon Salient in 1917, in one of the most devastating, and gratuitous, acts of vandalism of the Great War.
The Perfect Heresy Page 25