The Friar of Carcassonne Read online

  The Friar of Carcassonne

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Back to the Front

  The Perfect Heresy

  Sea of Faith

  The Friar of

  Carcassonne

  REVOLT AGAINST THE INQUISITION

  IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE CATHARS

  STEPHEN O’SHEA

  Copyright © 2011 by Stephen O’Shea

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  Douglas & McIntyre

  An imprint of D&M Publishers Inc.

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  Published in the United States of America by

  Walker Publishing Company, Inc.,

  a Division of Bloomsbury Publishing

  Published in the United Kingdom by Profile Books Limited

  Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

  ISBN 978-1-55365-551-0 (cloth)

  ISBN 978-1-55365-971-6 (ebook)

  Design by Simon Sullivan

  Jacket design by John Candell

  Jacket illustration: The Albigensian Inquisition. The Agitator of Languedoc

  Bernard Délicieux (1260–1318), a Franciscan Monk, during his trial, by Jean-Paul Laurens (1838–1921). © Scala/White Images/Art Resource, NY

  Maps by Jeffrey L. Ward

  Douglas & McIntyre gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

  To Kevin and Donal O’Shea,

  brothers, not friars

  CONTENTS

  Maps

  Usage

  The Combatants

  BROTHER BERNARD

  I. THE WORLD OF BERNARD DÉLICIEUX

  1. THE BRIDGE AT ROME

  2. THE KING’S MEN AT THE DOOR

  3. THE HOLY OFFICE

  4. THE UNHOLY RESISTANCE

  II. THE YEARS OF REVOLT

  1299

  5. THE AMBUSH AT CARCASSONNE

  1300

  6. THE BISHOP OF ALBI

  7. THE DEAD MAN OF CARCASSONNE

  1301

  8. THE BISHOP OF PAMIERS

  9. THE KING AT SENLIS

  1302

  10. AFTERMATH

  11. THE WEAVER OF BRUGES

  1303

  12. THE SERMON

  13. THE INQUISITOR GIVES A READING

  14. THE WALL

  15. TORTURE EXPOSED

  1304

  16. THE KING AND QUEEN IN LANGUEDOC

  17. INTRIGUE IN THE ROUSSILLON

  III. THE TIME OF REPRESSION

  18. SURVIVAL

  19. CATHARS AND SPIRITUALS, INQUISITORS AND CONVENTUALS

  20. THE TRIAL

  AFTERWORD

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  USAGE

  READERS FAMILIAR WITH THE PERIOD will note immediately that the word inquisition appears throughout uncapitalized. The use of the uppercase Inquisition, common until recently even in scholarly studies, leaves the impression that there was a well-oiled, centralized bureaucracy supporting the inquisitors, whereas in the early centuries of inquisition this was not the case. The inquisition as an institution did not exist, only inquisitors in limited jurisdictions for limited time periods. However, the idea of an institution certainly existed and its ephemeral manifestation in these years was often referred to as the Holy Office, an uppercase usage retained in the text.

  As for the vexed problem of names, I have made the usual stab at exception-riddled standardization that, I know from experience, falls short of being universally pleasing. As is customary, the names of monarchs and popes have been given in English. The exception is the king of Majorca, whose Catalan identity I wished to stress; thus Jaume, not James. The same stress on identity has led me to retain the Occitan names for the men of the south. The tension between the Occitan-speaking southerners of Languedoc and the French-speaking northerners of the Kingdom of France is central to the story. Using a historical figure’s Occitan name locates his background and his allegiances. Thus, for example, Peire Autier, not Pierre Authier. However, for those southerners already widely known by their Gallicized names—Bernard Saisset, Pierre Jean Olivi, and Guillaume de Nogaret, for example—I have retained the French so that readers who know something of these figures will not think they are reading about someone else.

  Complicating matters is the problem that much of my research involved French-language material, whose authors almost always use French names for everyone in history. Where an obscure Occitan figure appears only in French, I have not attempted the foolhardy task of reconstituting his name in his mother tongue. But I hope enough of the Occitan-French divide is left standing to shape the reader’s view of Bernard Délicieux’s Languedoc.

  As for the names themselves, I am acutely aware of their unfamiliarity and sheer number. Having been chided for a phone-book-like embarrassment of names in a previous work, I have tried to trim as many distracting names from the narrative as possible. Thus, unimportant figures who crop up but once or twice in the narrative are identified by name in the notes, not in the main text.

  A friend, after having finished reading my earlier work on the Cathars, The Perfect Heresy, exclaimed to me: “I get it! Everyone in the first half of the book is called Raymond, and everyone in the second half is called Bernard!” As this present work deals with the latter half of the Cathar story, there are indeed a lot of Bernards. I have taken special care to keep them from bumping into each other, but the reader will have to be the judge of whether I succeeded.

  THE COMBATANTS

  Figures of exceptional importance in the story of Bernard Délicieux are marked with an asterisk.

  ANGELO CLARENO (1247–1337). Franciscan. Leader of the Spirituals. Exiled at various times to Armenia, Greece, and remote Italian provinces. Argued for the Spirituals at the Council of Vienne (1311–12). Witness to Bernard Délicieux’s arrest in Avignon in 1317.

  *ARNAUD GARSIE. Wealthy lawyer. Consul of Albi in 1302 and 1303. Of a heretical family. Ally of Bernard Délicieux. Attended audience at Senlis in 1301, disputation at Toulouse in 1304. Testified against Délicieux in 1319. Imprisoned in 1319, bought his freedom from the Wall in 1325.

  ARNAUD DE VILANOVA (1235–1311). Prominent Catalan physician, alchemist, oenologist, scientist, and Arabist. Translator of Avicenna and Galen. Friend of Bernard Délicieux. Supporter of the Spiritual Franciscans. Suspected, along with Délicieux, of using black magic to kill Pope Benedict XI in 1304.

  *BENEDICT XI. Pope. Born Niccolò Boccasini in Treviso in 1240. Pontificate 1303–4. Dominican scholar. Called for arrest of Bernard Délicieux. Pressured by Nogaret to annul anti-French bulls of his predecessor (Boniface VIII). Imprisoned Arnaud de Vilanova. Sudden death a source of suspicion.

  *BERNARD DE CASTANET. Bishop of Albi from 1276 to 1308 (d. 1317). Fearless autocrat. Sponsor of inquisition. Builder of the Cathedral of Ste. Cécile. As cardinal at the Avignon curia, drew up charges against Bernard Délicieux in 1317.

  *BERNARD DÉLICIEUX (circa 1265–1320). Franciscan. The Friar of Carcassonne.

  *BERNARD GUI (1261–1331). Dominican. Prolific memoirist of the unrest in Languedoc. In
quisitor at Toulouse from 1307 to 1324. Author of influential inquisitor’s manual. Drew up the second, more exhaustive list of charges against Bernard Délicieux for the trial of 1319 in Carcassonne. Strong advocate for the canonization of Thomas Aquinas, which came to pass in 1324.

  *BERNARD SAISSET. Bishop of Pamiers from 1295 to his death in 1314. Arrested in 1301 for sedition by royal agents Jean de Picquigny and Richard Leneveu. Temporary incarceration led to royal-papal dispute culminating in the Outrage of Anagni. Found shelter in Rome, then reassigned to Pamiers.

  *BONIFACE VIII. Pope. Born Benedetto Caetani in Anagni circa 1235. Pontificate 1294–1303. Imperious pope of the Jubilee. Acceded to the papacy after counseling his predecessor (Celestine) to abdicate and then imprisoning him. Hated for this reason by the Spiritual Franciscans. Abrasive, brilliant believer in a maximalist monarchical papacy. Engaged in furious fight with Philip the Fair over jurisdiction that culminated in the Outrage of Anagni in 1303. Vilified by Guillaume de Nogaret, who called for him to be posthumously tried.

  *CASTEL FABRE (d. 1278). Wealthy burgher of Carcassonne, treasurer of the royal seneschal, cause célèbre. Attempt to convict him posthumously of heresy in 1300 thwarted by Bernard Délicieux. Eventually convicted, disinterred, and burned in 1319, amid accusations by the Dominicans that the Franciscans deliberately jumbled his bones with those of others.

  CELESTINE V. Pope. Born Pietro del Morrone in Molise circa 1210. Pontificate July–December 1294. Ascetic holy hermit whose followers (later called Celestines) had links to the Spiritual Franciscans. Viewed as “angel pope” in subsequent Spiritual apocalyptic prophecy. Abdicated papacy after proving too unworldly for the position. Died imprisoned by his successor, Boniface VIII. Canonized by Clement V in 1313.

  *CLEMENT V. Pope. Born Bertrand de Got in Villandraut, Gironde, circa 1260. Pontificate 1305–14. Moved the papacy to Avignon. Succumbed to humiliating French pressure to approve the dissolution and trial of the Templars at the Council of Vienne (1311–12). Equitable in his approach to inquisition and the Spiritual Franciscans. Supporter of missionary work, founded chairs of Oriental languages at Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca. Notorious for his lavish nepotism.

  DOMINGO DE GUZMÁN (1170–1221). St. Dominic. Founder of the Order of Friars Preachers, the Dominicans.

  DURAND DE CHAMPAGNE. Franciscan. Confessor of Queen Joan of France. Influential ally of Bernard Délicieux. Author of a widely read “courtesy” book for princesses, Speculum dominarum (French Le miroir des dames).

  *FERRAN OF MAJORCA (1278–1316). Third son of King Jaume II of Majorca. Warrior. Intended monarch of a new Kingdom of Languedoc. Later Lord of Catania (Sicily). Died in battle trying to secure control of the Principality of Achaea (the Peloponnese).

  *FOULQUES DE SAINT-GEORGES. Dominican. Inquisitor at Carcassonne and at Toulouse. Ambushed at the Franciscan convent in the Bourg in 1299. Accused of abuse and depravity at Senlis in 1301. Forced out of office the following year by an angry Philip the Fair.

  FREDERICK II (1194–1250). Stupor Mundi. Germanic emperor, ruled from his multicultural court in Palermo. Important figure whose fame reverberated well down into Bernard’s day. Enemy of the papacy, prophetic figure in Joachite and Spiritual literature, in his lifetime often called the Antichrist.

  *GEOFFROY D’ABLIS. Dominican. Inquisitor at Carcassonne from 1303 until his death in 1316. Attempt in 1303 to quell unrest at Carcassonne backfired and led to rioting. Discovered and prosecuted the Autier revival of Catharism.

  GILLES AYCELIN. Archbishop of Narbonne from 1290 to 1311 (d. 1318). Of the influential Aycelin de Montaigu family of the Auvergne. As king’s prelate, arbitrated in favor of Jean de Picquigny over Foulques de Saint-Georges in Senlis and held Bernard Saisset in custody on behalf of the king in 1301; in 1303, favored bringing Pope Boniface to Paris for trial; in 1304, laid out the king’s position to Bernard Délicieux at the disputation of Toulouse. Later archbishop of Rouen and investigator of the Templars for Pope Clement V.

  *GIOVANNI FRANCESCO DI BERNARDONE (1181–1226). St. Francis of Assisi. Founder of the Order of Friars Minor, the Franciscans.

  GREGORY IX. Pope. Born Ugolino di Segni in Anagni circa 1155. Pontificate 1227–41. Religious and energetic, favored the development of the mendicants. Canonized Francis in 1228, Dominic in 1234. Founded the papal inquisition, conferring it on the Dominicans. Set up the university in Toulouse, 1233. Pontificate marked by sharp conflict with Frederick II (Stupor Mundi).

  GUI SICRE. Prominent consul of Carcassonne in the 1290s. Signatory to the accord of 1299, which he subsequently kept hidden until 1303. Raced to Toulouse in 1303 to alert the inquisitor of Bernard Délicieux’s incendiary sermon. Testified against Délicieux in 1319.

  *GUILLAUME DE NOGARET (1260–1313). Succeeded Pierre Flote as the principal councillor of King Philip the Fair. Present at the Outrage of Anagni in 1303, for which he was excommunicated. Excommunication lifted in 1311 in exchange for resolving his campaign of vilification against the late Pope Boniface VIII. Mastermind of the suppression of the Knights Templar and other brutal royal policies.

  *HÉLIE PATRICE (d. 1305). Shadowy figure. Effective leader of the Bourg of Carcassonne 1303–5, powerful ally of Bernard Délicieux. Hanged for high treason.

  INNOCENT II. Pope. Born Lotario dei Conti di Segni at Anagni circa 1160. Pontificate 1198–1216. Made pope at age thirty-seven, a brilliant, capable ruler, arguably the greatest pope of the Middle Ages. Preached the Fourth Crusade of 1204. Set in motion the Albigensian Crusade in 1209. Presided over the important Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Tireless legislator. Far-seeing, gave his approval to the mendicant initiatives of Dominic and Francis.

  INNOCENT IV. Pope. Born Sinibaldo Fieschi in Genoa circa 1195. Pontificate 1243–54. Authorized torture in inquisition. Papacy almost entirely taken up by quarrel with Frederick II (Stupor Mundi) and his Hohenstaufen succession. Preached St. Louis’s Seventh Crusade. Sent several emissaries to the Mongols in hope of alliance against Islam.

  JACQUES DE CHTILLON (d. 1302). Philip the Fair’s haughty viceroy in Flanders. Unsuccessful in quelling rebellion in Bruges. Died at the Battle of the Golden Spurs.

  *JACQUES FOURNIER. Bishop of Pamiers from 1317 to 1326. Gifted and relentless inquisitor. Judge at trial of Bernard Délicieux in 1319. Captured Guillaume Bélibaste, last Cathar Good Man of Languedoc in 1321. Became the third Avignon pope, Benedict XII (pontificate: 1334–42). Began the building of the Palais des Papes.

  JAUME II. Lord of Montpellier and king of Majorca, his capital Perpignan. Born 1243, reigned 1276–1311. Uncovered the plot to attach Languedoc to his kingdom. Created the irrigation systems to make the Roussillon a fertile cornucopia. Opened consulates in Muslim world. Ally of France. Cousin to kings of Aragon.

  JEAN D’AUNAY. Royal seneschal of Carcassonne from 1305 to 1309. Uncovered the plot to switch southern allegiance from the Capetians of France to Prince Ferran of Majorca. Tortured, tried, and hanged the lay conspirators. Dismissed in 1309 on charges of corruption and venality.

  *JEAN DE PICQUIGNY (d. 1304). Noble of Amiens, experienced courtier. Royal réformateurenquêteur (viceroy-investigator) of Languedoc. Arrested Bishop Bernard Saisset in 1301; subsequently became a strong supporter of Bernard Délicieux and freed the prisoners from the Wall in 1303. Died an excommunicate in Perugia.

  JEAN GALAND. Dominican. Inquisitor at Carcassonne from 1278 to 1286. Compiler of controversial inquisition registers, which, he claimed, heretical citizens had plotted to steal. Active at Albi (1286) with Bishop de Castanet and the Dominican Guillaume de Saint-Seine, who succeeded him as inquisitor at Carcassonne (1286–1293).

  *JOAN OF NAVARRE. Joan I, queen of France; b. 1273, r. 1285–1305. Wife of Philip the Fair. Sympathetic to the cause of Bernard Délicieux. Mother of three kings of France, Louis X (“the Stubborn”), r. 1314–16, Philip V (“the Tall”), r. 1316–22, and Charles IV (“the Fair”), r. 1322–28, and of one queen of England, Isabella (“the She-Wolf of France”), wife of Edw
ard II, r. 1308–30, d. 1358.

  *JOHN XXII. Pope. Born Jacques Duèse in Cahors circa 1245. Pontificate 1316–34. Second Avignon pope. Able administrator and organizer. Had Bernard Délicieux arrested in 1317 and tried in 1319. Declared Spiritual Franciscans heretics. Attacked Conventual Franciscan poverty as well, creating a powerful opposition that included William of Occam and Marsilius of Padua. Spiritual Franciscan Pietro Rainalducci crowned ephemeral antipope Nicholas V (1328) in opposition to John’s tumultuous pontificate.

  LOUIS IX. “Saint Louis.” King of France; b. 1214, r. 1226–70. Grandfather of Philip the Fair. Able administrator, dogged crusader (Seventh and Eighth Crusades), pious monarch, canonized 1297 by Boniface VIII. Built the Wall at Carcassonne. Patron of the arts in France’s glittering thirteenth century; had the Sainte-Chapelle constructed in Paris.

  MONETA OF CREMONA (circa 1180–1238). Dominican. Philosophy professor at Bologna turned influential friar in the fight against heresy. Author of five-volume treatise, Adversus catharos et valdenses. In other works, a vehement proponent of a Christianity of fear and the virtues of persecution.

  *NICOLAS D’ABBEVILLE. Dominican. Inquisitor at Carcassonne from mid-1290s until 1303. Negotiated the accord of 1299 with the consuls of the Bourg. Prosecutor of the controversial inquisition at Albi in 1300 with Bishop de Castanet. Outwitted by Bernard Délicieux in the Castel Fabre affair.

  NICOLAS DE FRÉAUVILLE (1250–1323). Dominican. Confessor of King Philip the Fair. Refused admission to the king’s presence following Bernard Délicieux’s presentation at Senlis in 1301. Accused at the 1304 disputation in Toulouse of spying for the Flemish. Principal inquisitor in the trials of the Templars. Subsequently powerful cardinal, nearly elected to succeed Clement V as pope.

  PEIRE AUTIER (circa 1245–1310). Notary of Ax in the Pyrenees turned Cathar Good Man late in life. Voyaged to Italy in the late 1290s to receive instruction and the consolamentum. Returned to Languedoc in 1300, recruited a dozen other Good Men to lead the last revival of Catharism there. Burned at the stake in Toulouse, April 10, 1310.