Daughters of the Inquisition

by Christina Crawford

  Duby further illuminates,

  The contradiction is obvious: marriage was proposed as the only context within which it was permissible to release sexual urges; marriage was denied to the majority of men. This contradiction fostered in the minds of all men, whether priests or warriors, the conviction that women were dangerous, agents of disorder, and there was an all pressing need to avert this peril by formulating a code of behavior which would arrange relations between men and women in a better way.”171

  The better way was the new literature of courtly love, drawn from classical Latin and Celtic legends, Arab and Islamic poetry. And, between 1160 and 1180, the courts of Henry II and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine were the productive focal point for poets and then troubadours. In 1189 Henry II died, but not before he’d instigated the murder of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, almost five hundred years before Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome completely.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine was a woman whose behavior, so much larger than life, and whose phenomenal inheritances of wealth generating power made her the focus not only of two countries’ political fortunes or foibles but also the proto-type for the most famous romance of her day titled Roman de Renart, of which she was the very sensual noble lady and Renard (Eleanor’s real life lover) the troubadour poet/knight. Over and above all the political intrigue with which Eleanor was embroiled over her long and tempestuous life as Queen in the courts of both France and England, some say she will be remembered most for this romantic fantasy with its comedic features. Perhaps the world was simply consumed with jealousy over her ability to behave according to her own inner guidance and to stay seemingly unaffected by the criticisms of her peers. Perhaps her ability to both rise above the fray, yet use every means of political cunning, feminine sexuality and physical endurance at her disposal, simply set her so far above the rest that they saw no other recourse than to belittle her for that which was irrevocably her female charm. At fifty, Eleanor was a matron, ignored by the king who not only sought sexual pleasure with younger women but also openly wished her to retire to a convent instead of being a thorn in the throne. But all of her life, Eleanor had been a woman who won. Now was no different. Her eldest son William had died in infancy. Of the remaining two, Henry was given associated power with his father on the throne at the age of fifteen. To Richard, now thirteen, King Henry II gave his mother’s inheritance. Eleanor, the primary heiress, stood firmly beside her teenager still considered a minor, still in effect the mistress of her ancestral patrimony. In the spring of 1173, Eleanor was seen as either instigating or supporting the rebellion of her sons against their father, Henry II. The rebellion of royal sons against an aging father was not uncommon, but society felt a sense of scandal that the Queen herself would be so directly involved.

  The archbishop of Rouen in France tried to make this clear to her in his remonstrance, according to Duby: “… and what goes beyond the bounds, you allow the offspring of the lord king and your own to rise up against their father … return to your husband, if not, in accordance with canon law (church of Rome) we will make you return to him.”172 In about six months, King Henry II resolved the uprising and captured Eleanor who was attempting to flee for refuge to her former husband, still the king of France. When captured, Eleanor was disguised wearing men’s clothing, which was yet another in a list of offences against her. Henry incarcerated her, a sort of house arrest, in a castle at Chinon and restricted her to one fortress or another against her will, until shortly before his death in 1189, approximately sixteen years!173

  Eleanor lived long enough to preside over the burial of Henry II at the Abbey Fontevraud, an establishment where both she and her grandfather William the Troubadour had bestowed gifts. There she took the veil for her last years on earth.

  Today, Eleanor may be referred to as the first female role model and/or the patroness of Occitanian independence. Then, she was seen as the quintessential Queen of lust by church fathers and used as justification for the further repression of womankind. Duby goes even beyond that by saying that in his opinion, “At the end of the twelfth century, every man who knew how the duchess of Aquitaine had behaved saw her as the exemplar of what both tempted and disturbed him in femininity.”174

  But it is also true that women of nobility such as Eleanor were vexed continuously by the incessant demands of men, despite their own personal wealth. Duby says,

  Eleanor’s fate, in fact, differed little from that of the women of high birth whom by chance, by depriving them of a brother, had made them heiress to a lordship. Hopes of the power which they transmitted excited greed. Would-be husbands quarreled over them, competing to gain a foothold in their house and exploit their patrimony until the sons they would give them came of age. They were (the noble women), consequently, relentlessly married and remarried as long as they were capable of giving birth.175

  While this scenario reminds one of a description of high-priced animal breeding stock there is, nevertheless, a sadness permeating it because lives, which looked privileged when seen from a distance, were actually beset with stress, were loveless, had a constant loss of children and of spouse, and difficulties with self-respect. Until becoming elderly, these women had very little freedom of choice, and by then may have felt completely worn out physically and emotionally. In a very real sense, their lower status contemporaries-both townswomen merchants and rural peasant farmers-were able to maintain a greater sense of integrity as individuals and as women.

  The Dissidents

  About as far from the royal, politically exciting life of Queen Eleanor are the lives of women who, at this same time, joined groups of some Christian sects which did not agree with the doctrines, policies, hierarchal structure or sacraments of the Christian church headquartered in Rome. Services, called the Mass, were conducted in Latin, which was the official language of the Church, but not understood by the village people. There were no bibles, and, in fact, bibles were prohibited from being given to the local population. It may have been a mute point, because local people were generally unable to read and write, even in their own language. All religious education was transmitted verbally in the oral tradition through sermons or before baptisms of adults. Many, many people wanted more than this experience. But to obtain it meant going outside the orthodoxy. And, traveling outside the realm of orthodoxy made that traveler into what the Church called a “heretic,” and the movement they joined called “heretical.” Heresy literally means “religious opinion or doctrine at variance with the orthodox or accepted doctrine.” To the Roman Catholic Church it means “the willful and persistent rejection of any article of faith by a baptized member of the Church.” The word itself is derived from the Latin haeresis: school of thought (Random House College Dictionary). Now, it was not permissible to belong to any “school of thought” independent of Catholicism. Nevertheless, such schools of thought existed, attracting scores of followers throughout Europe. While it may not be possible to determine the exact number of followers, there is supposition that they far outnumbered Catholics and were, in fact, the majority population, not minority fringe groups. The following examples are not a complete list, but represent the major groups and a brief description of their beliefs.

  In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, women belonged to a number of “proto-dualist” groups for whom precise doctrines and rites have not been ascertained but among whom there are similarities to the beliefs and customs of the largest and most wide-spread group called Cathars. Women also belonged to groups created by men such as Henry of Le Mans and Peter of Bruys, as well as Peter Waldo. The Waldenses are the only one of these groups that arose in the late Middle Ages around 1100 that was not completely eradicated, surviving to join the Reformation movement of the sixteenth century. Peter Waldo, or Pierre Waldo, was a wealthy merchant (burgher), who called his followers to give up their possessions and live in the poverty modeled by a life based on the original apostles of the New Testament. Both men and women were to wander and preach. They did not
begin as an anticlerical sect, actually asking the Pope for permission to preach. When that permission was denied by the Pope, they dismissed the disappointment and continued their work, continuing to preach anyway. For this behavior, the movement and its followers were both excommunicated and outlawed.

  By far, the largest and most active movement was the Cathars. They were so popular that they were rapidly becoming the majority preference for religious affiliation in Southern France. From records we know that Cathar Perfects, men and women, traveled together, although not married to one another, and maintained a code of chastity.

  Although the Cathars did not evolve a new theology, they did develop a category of clergy to which women could belong, called Perfects following all the religious customs of the sect, including chastity and renunciation of private property ownership. Female Perfects were permitted to preach, conduct services such as blessing of the bread in the communal meal, and administration of the sacraments.176 Preaching women had been in direct violation of the Roman Catholic canon law since the 398 CE Church Council held at Carthage, North Africa.177 This movement, as it grew over the centuries, attracted members of the lower middle class (townspeople), peasants, shepherds and artisans, mostly those lacking much formal education and, therefore, not the prime converts to the form of Christianity being touted by the Church of Rome, which preferred the classes of the rich and powerful.

  Peter Waldo himself rejected the beliefs of the concurrently existing Cathars, but although holding to most orthodox Catholic beliefs in the Jesus story, he did not elevate Mary as Mother of God, did not celebrate her feast day nor adapt her prayer, the Ave Maria. Why did women enjoy a more equitable place in the practice and community life of the Waldenses? Was it their return to the earliest idea of spiritual equality and the relationship of Jesus to women of all strata? Or was it that, in a state of persecution, all outgroup members see salvation in one another, as they meet with external pressures? Or, perhaps it was an unintentional consequence of their insistence on greater participation by members and less reliance on any clergy, narrowing the gap between believer and hierarchy in order to achieve spiritual progress.

  As a rule, because neither Waldenes nor Cathar women who became Perfects married, they had no family ties, were not dominated by the external world’s ideas of a “woman’s place.” The movements gave women who were not Perfects places to live called haspicirem, where widows and girls, whose families were too poor to provide a dower enabling the daughter to marry, could reside. These girls could not enter a Catholic convent either, for the same reason that marriage was out of bounds for them: money.

  The Cathars attracted followers from all social classes in Southern France and also appealed to women of all status. Far from being an outcast movement, the Cathars were openly supported by the nobility of the area, and many widowed women of the nobility joined as Cathari, who established houses for other widows, women and girls who were Believers, receiving the instruction of the Perfects. These were small, self-sustaining communities; the houses usually included workshops, clinics, and schools. Later, as Catharism was forced into secrecy, its survival depended on rural peasant women who joined, preserving its traditions. All Cathar women Believers were taught to bring relatives and their children into the movement. In the twelfth century, women Cathari were sometime missionaries. Once again, as Perfects, women could preach, bless and administer consolamentum. Generally, female Perfects administered these final rites to women, but could in the absence of any male Perfect, administer them to men also.

  Cathars were vegetarians, refusing to eat meat or animal products, totally rejected marriage and procreation, refused to take or swear oaths, and regarded absolute chastity as their paramount value, believing that the one who had no sexual desire had neutralized sin and was, therefore, a pure soul who would not have to reincarnate ever again.

  There were other movements such as Lollards in England and Hussites, both of whom sought to bring ordinary faithful into closer contact with the church organizations which was, in effect, a politically transformative process, directed at the distance, impiety and arrogance of Catholic priesthoods. They used the local language – Lollards in English, Hussites in Czech – to read scriptures, and although women did not preach or administer sacrament in these movements, they enjoyed being treated in a more egalitarian state than they were in the Catholic Church.

  Then there were others: Society of Paupers, Brothers of the Free Spirit, Beguines, Spiritual Fransicans, Taborites–all of whom recognized the right of women to leave their husbands and go to one of five towns where their movements were centered. Most did not seek to overtly overthrow the establishment but wanted to transform their own spiritual life. However, since the establishment of the Catholic Church was set against any independence, any plurality, any diversity in belief or practice, every one of these movements, although Christian, were declared heresy and any of their followers labeled heretics.

  The initial phases of control over these independent thinkers were relegated to excommunication and persecution. When these formidable methods had too little effect and the movements continued to flourish, albeit with added discretion, more extreme means were sought by the Roman Catholic Church, for whom the situation was becoming a source of anxiety. Considering that the wars of the Crusaders were a terrible failure, and the Cathars were becoming a majority of the population of Southern France, and the Church of Rome had lost influence over the entire Eastern Orthodox Christian Church in the acrimonious split of 1054, and Islam had successfully spread so rapidly as to be knocking at the door of Rome itself, the so-called Holy Roman Empire found itself in a quandary. On all sides of an empire they had hoped would be as glorious as the one on which they had molded themselves, they were continuously thwarted in exercising complete control and beginning to feel the sting of recrimination, sometimes even direct rejection.

  It was as though the Church, rather desperate to be seen as victorious again, even though beset internally by corruption, which was rampant and openly practiced, nevertheless determined in the most self-righteous and arrogant reasoning, not to reform themselves in order to allay fears of moral calamity, but rather to destroy all opposition as though they were the army legions of old rather than the religious body ostensibly founded on love, charity and equality.

  The Knights Templar

  Out of noble families in the Champagne region of France, a very famous and mysteriously organized society of knights arose. Founded in 1118 by nobleman Hughes de Payen, they were called the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and later The Temple of Solomon. There were only nine men who presented themselves to the Papal emissary in Jerusalem and to the king, younger brother of another knight Godfroi de Bouillion, who had captured the city nineteen years earlier. Their official mission was to keep roads and highways safe, and protect pilgrims. No one seems to have questioned how nine men could accomplish such a feat. Nevertheless, one entire wing of the king’s palace was designated for the knights’use. This palace and particularly the knights’quarters, according to legend, were constructed on the same site as the Temple of Solomon. From this ancient foundation also sprang their popular name: Knights Templar.

  The mystery begins immediately, because for nine years this order admitted no new recruits, and nothing whatsoever was written about them, nor their conduct. While the king had a scribe/historian in his employ, which was common practice, and the knights were also in the employ of this king, no records at all were kept. But apparently, the nine met with rather extraordinary favor. In their homeland, the romantic notions of courtly love, chivalry, mixed to create popular fame for the Knights Templar. It is almost as though they were created by the church to produce a positive public relations counter reference to the actual reversals of the crusade.

  The man who was touted as the chief spokesperson for the Church of Rome, Bernard Abbot of Chairvaux said that the Knights Templar were the epitome and apotheosis of Christian values.178 Bernard’s uncle had joined th
e Order and became Grand Master.179 So, in 1127, after nine years in the Holy Land without any written documentation as to any brave actions, but royally housed in the palace of the king, the Knights Templar returned to the European continent to heros welcome! This celebration was orchestrated by the same Abbot Bernard who created their original public image. A year later in 1128, a church council was held in the court of the Count of Champagne at which Bernard was the most influential. As a consequence, the Templars were officially recognized and incorporated as a religious-military Order. Their leader and founder, Huges de Payen was now titled “grand master.” He and the followers were designated “warrior-monks,” soldier mystics, a “militia of Christ,” combining the monastic and the military. These Templars swore to adhere to vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, required to cut their hair but not their beards, which immediately made them recognizable in a society where the social fashion for men favored the clean-shaven face. They wore white cloaks and mantles, which later (1146) added the splayed red cross. In 1139, Pope Innocent II, protégé of Abbot Bernard, issued a papal decree ordering the Templars to obey no other than the Pope.

  All this publicity now drew hundreds of new recruits, who were to resign title to their lands and personal property, and give all to the Order. In short time, the Knights Templar were not only the richest but also the most disciplined fighting force in the Western world. Within one year of being officially recognized, they owned estates in France, England, Scotland, Flanders, Spain and Portugal. In ten years their holdings spread to Italy, Austria, Germany and the Holy Land. The Templars gained immense political power and influence across Europe and into Muslim lands. Their Grand Master was diplomatically associated with lords and kings, standing beside King John of England at his signing of the Magna Carta.180