The Perfect Heresy Read online

  ‘Stephen O’Shea certainly knows how to tall a story, and he has chosen a rousing tale to tell. Cruelty, loyalty, heroism, fanaticism and cynicism on an epic scale are its lifeblood … It is a story populated by knights and troubadours, saints and heretics, princes and the great anonymous crowds who suffered … Stephen O’Shea brings this lost world of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries alive with stunning vividness.’

  — Bernard Green, The Tablet

  ‘After nearly eight centuries, the memory — one might almost say the spirit — of the Cathars lives on in the land in which they lived, suffered and died. To anyone visiting the region for the first time, this book will be the ideal introduction to their story.’

  — John Julius Norwich

  ‘The Perfect Heresy is the fascinating story of an unorthodox movement in the south of France from the twelfth to the fourteenth century. After its flowering, its ideas were destroyed in Languedoc by a crusade led by the king of France and the barons from the north of the country; the last remnants of Catharism came together in the village of Montaillou, in the Pyrenees, at the dawn of the fourteenth century. Stephen O’Shea’s book is the work of a connoisseur of Languedoc, is written for a wide readership, and draws on his personal experience of France’s southern region.’

  — Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, author of Montaillou

  ‘Apart from a racy, vivid account of the Crusade and the events that followed, he offers an intelligent analysis of the heresy and the conflicting theories surrounding it … All the way O’Shea shows deep knowledge and love of the region. He writes with enthusiasm and immediacy of a contemporary chronicler … The book is unputdownable.’

  — Suzanne Lowry, Spectator

  ‘A very well-informed and highly readable account of one of the great religous and social crises of the Middle Ages. The Cathars have found in Stephen O’Shea a persuasive and passionate chronicler. This is a book to enjoy and ponder.’

  — Norman F. Cantor, Emeritus Professor of History, New York University, and author of Inventing the Middle Ages and Medieval Lives

  Stephen O’Shea is a Canadian writer and historian. He has lived for long periods in Paris and New York, and moved to southern France to research and write The Perfect Heresy. His first book, Back to the Front: an accidental historian walks the trenches of World War I, was published to great acclaim and his latest book, Sea of Faith is a magnificent narrative of the contacts and conflicts between Islam and Christianity in the Mediterranean world over a thousand years. He now lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

  The Perfect Heresy

  The Revolutionary Life and Death of

  the Medieval Cathars

  STEPHEN O’SHEA

  First published in Great Britain in 2000 by

  Profile Books Ltd

  3A Exmouth House

  Pine Street

  Exmouth Market

  London EC 1R 0JH

  www.profilebooks.com

  This edition published in 2001

  First published in the United States of America in 2000 by Walker Publishing Company, Inc

  10 9

  Copyright © Stephen O’Shea, 2000, 2001

  Printed in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-10 1 86197 350 0

  ISBN-13 978 1 86197 350 4

  To

  Jill, Rachel, and Eve

  Contents

  PRINCIPAL FIGURES IN THE CATHAR STORY

  INTRODUCTION

  1. Languedoc and the Great Heresy

  2. Rome

  3. The Turn of the Century

  4. The Conversation

  5. Penance and Crusade

  6. Béziers

  7. Carcassonne

  8. Bad Neighbors

  9. The Conflict Widens

  10. A Time of Surprises

  11. The Verdict

  12. Toulouse

  13. The Return to Tolerance

  14. The End of the Crusade

  15. Inquisition

  16. Backlash

  17. The Synagogue of Satan

  18. Twilight in the Garden of Evil

  19. Bélibaste

  EPILOGUE: IN CATHAR COUNTRY

  NOTES

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INDEX

  Principal Figures in the

  Cathar Story

  SPIRITUAL FOES

  Arnold Amaury (d. 1225): Head of the Cistercian order of monks. Papal plenipotentiary in Languedoc, he was later appointed archbishop of Narbonne. Arnold led the Albigensian Crusade at the infamous sack of Béziers in 1209.

  Peter Autier (c. 1245–1309): Cathar holy man. Until middle age a wealthy notary in the mountain town of Ax-les-Thermes, Autier received heretical religious instruction in Italy and returned to Languedoc to spread the faith.

  William Bélibaste (d. 1321): The last Languedoc Perfect. Sought by the authorities on charges of heresy and murder, Bélibaste exercised his ministry for over a decade among fellow exiles in Catalonia.

  Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153): Cistercian monk, founder of the abbey of Clairvaux in Champagne in 1115, canonized in 1174. Bernard advised popes, preached the Second Crusade, and sounded the alarm about the growth of Catharism.

  Blanche of Laurac: The greatest matriarch of Languedoc Catharism. Two of her daughters made prominent marriages, then became Perfect; another ran a Cathar home in Laurac. Blanche’s fourth daughter and only son were murdered at Lavaur in 1211.

  Domingo de Guzmán (1170–1221): Founder of the Order of Friars Preachers, or Dominicans, canonized as St. Dominic in 1234. A native of Castile, Dominic preached tirelessly in Languedoc in the years preceding the crusade. During the Cathar wars he became a confidant of Simon de Montfort.

  Esclarmonde of Foix: Sister of Raymond Roger, the count of Foix. Esclarmonde embraced Catharism in 1204 at a ceremony attended by Languedoc’s leading families. She ran a heretical convent and, centuries later, became the object of an eroticohistorical cult.

  Jacques Fournier (c. 1280–1342): Cistercian monk of Languedoc peasant stock. Fournier, a peerless inquisitor, uncovered the Cathar revival at Montaillou. He was elected pope Benedict XII in 1334.

  Fulk of Marseilles (1155–1231): Bishop of Toulouse from 1205 until his death. Immortalized by Dante in canto IX of the Paradiso, Fulk showed uncommon eloquence and ruthlessness in combating Catharism.

  Gregory IX (1170–1241): Ugolino dei Conti di Segni, elected pope in 1227. His appointment, in 1233, of the Dominicans to lead the fight against heresy is usually cited as the founding act of the Inquisition.

  Guilhabert of Castres (d. c. 1240): The greatest of the male Languedoc Perfect. Although in constant danger as the Cathar bishop of Toulouse, Guilhabert eluded capture and organized the strategic retreat of the faith into the Pyrenees.

  Innocent III (1160–1216): Lotario dei Conti di Segni, elected pope in 1198. He launched the Albigensian Crusade in 1208 and convoked the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. One of the most feared and admired medieval pontiffs, Innocent died in Perugia en route to brokering a peace between Genoa and Pisa.

  Peter of Castelnau (d. 1208): Cistercian monk and papal legate whose demise prompted the call to crush the Cathars.

  TE
MPORAL RIVALS

  Amaury de Montfort (1192–1241): Eldest son of Alice of Montmorency and Simon de Montfort. Embattled lord of Languedoc from 1218 until the cession of his rights to King Louis VIII of France. Captured by the Muslims at Gaza in 1239, held captive in Babylon for two years, Amaury died in Calabria on his homeward journey.

  Blanche of Castile (1185–1252): Queen of France, then regent after the death of Louis VIII and during the minority of her eldest son, Louis IX (St. Louis), as well as during his extended crusading absences in Palestine. Arguably, France’s greatest thirteenth-century ruler.

  Bouchard de Marly (d. 1226): First cousin of Alice of Montmorency and comrade-in-arms of her husband, Simon de Montfort. Held hostage for a time by Cathars in Cabaret, Bouchard subsequently led the second corps of cavalry at the battle of Muret.

  Louis VIII (1187–1226): King of France after the death of his father, Philip Augustus, in 1223. Louis ordered the massacre of Marmande and launched the decisive royal crusade of 1226.

  Pedro II (1174–1213): Monarch of the unified kingdom of Aragon and county of Barcelona, victor over the Moors at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. King Pedro the Catholic allied himself to the cause of Languedoc and led the greatest army ever assembled to fight the crusaders.

  Philip Augustus (1165–1223): King of France. He successfully whittled down the Plantagenet continental presence of Kings Richard (Lionheart) and John (Lackland) of England to a small corner of Aquitaine. Philip’s barons were the principal leaders of the Albigensian Crusade.

  Raymond VI (1156–1222): Count of Toulouse. Three times excommunicated and five times married, the leader of Languedoc was formally dispossessed at the Lateran Council of 1215.

  Raymond VII (1197–1249): The last count of Toulouse of the Saint-Gilles clan. Despite having driven the French from his lands, Raymond was eventually forced to agree to a harsh peace that obliged him to subsidize the Inquisition.

  Raymond Roger of Foix (d. 1223): The most belligerent of the southern nobles opposed to the French invasion. Brother and husband of Cathar holy women, he distinguished himself for ferocity on the battlefield and bluntness before the pope.

  Simon de Montfort (1165–1218): Champion of the Catholic cause in the south. After showing conspicuous bravery in battle, he was made viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne in 1209. Years of brilliant, brutal generalship led to his becoming lord of all of Languedoc.

  Raymond Roger Trencavel (1188–1209): Viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne, suspected of strong Cathar sympathies. He stood alone during the summer of 1209 against the might of the north.

  The Perfect Heresy

  Introduction

  ALBI, AS IN ALBIGENSIAN, the most notorious heresy of all time. On a bright summer afternoon several years ago, I found myself walking the silent streets of Albi in the company of my brother, surprised at having stumbled across a town whose name was familiar. We had come to Albi by chance, having rented a car in Paris a week earlier for an aimless drive southward through the French countryside. It was our version of what the English call “a mystery tour,” a trip with an unknown destination. Once the slate roofs and off-white walls north of the Loire had given way to the warm terra-cotta of the Midi, we began feeling pleasantly disoriented. In Clermont-Ferrand, we had our first confirmed beret sighting; in Aurillac, we backed into an accident; in Rodez, we watched as our waitress fell out of her dress. We had reached Languedoc, France’s Mediterranean southwest.

  After a long lunch at a truck stop, we cruised into Albi, the town with a whiff of infamy to its name. The Albigensian Crusade, we knew, was a cataclysm of the Middle Ages, a ferocious campaign of siege, battle, and bonfire during which supporters of the Catholic Church sought to eliminate the heretics known as the Albigenses, or the Cathars. That thirteenth-century crusade, directed not against Muslims in distant Palestine but against dissident Christians in the heart of Europe, was followed by the founding of the Inquisition, an implacable machine expressly created to destroy the Cathar survivors of the war. As a result of the upheaval, Languedoc, once a proudly independent territory, was annexed to the kingdom of France. Crusade, Inquisition, conquest—Albi’s place in history, if not in fond memory, was assured.

  To our eyes on that summer day, the town looked as if it had opted for drowsy amnesia about its past. We strolled through a deserted old quarter, past siesta-shuttered shops and homes, the wine-red bricks of walls and windowsills bathing us in a rosy glow. A white cat slept on a doorstep, undisturbed by any ghosts. It was hard to square Albi’s blush of forgetful well-being with its singular legacy. I needed only think back a decade or so to remember a college instructor describing the Albigensian Crusade as nascent colonialism and, in a more obsessive vein, a potheaded roommate rambling on and on about how the heretics had been hunted down by the original thought police. Now that I was actually in Albi, such recollections seemed inappropriate, a rude intrusion into the town’s pink dream.

  On a height above the River Tarn, the narrow streets opened up into a wide plaza. My brother and I glanced at each other. This was more like it.

  There, looming over a terraced tumble of riverside dwellings, stood a red fortress, monolithic and menacing, a stupendous mountain of bricks piled 100 feet high and 300 feet wide. Sullenly rectangular, its windows little more than elongated slits, the building looked indestructible, like a glowering anvil hurled from the heavens. Its thirty-two buttresses, shaped like smokestacks cut in half lengthwise, ringed cyclopean walls on all four sides and rose as far as the flat line of an impossibly distant roof. In silhouette, it resembled an appallingly large change dispenser, of the type once worn by bus conductors and waitresses—one buttress holding pennies, another nickels, and so on. Yet that homely comparison was spoiled by an even taller structure, a tower, a red-brick rocket shooting 100 feet higher than the roof alongside the west wall.

  The Cathedral of Ste-Cécile, Albi

  The tower held bells that toll on Sunday. The building was a church.

  We had been dead wrong about Albi’s amnesia. The fearsome oddity that is the Cathedral of Ste-Cécile will never let the townspeople forget their Albigensian connection. Erected from 1282 to 1392, the building is a massive bully that dwarfs and dominates its neighbors. There is no transept; thus the church does not even have the redemptive shape of the cross. For centuries, it had just one small door. Unlike the other great French cathedrals in Paris, Chartres, Rheims, Bourges, Rouen, and Amiens, there were no messy markets under Ste-Cécile’s soaring vault, no snoring wayfarers on its floor, no livestock droppings to slop out in the mornings, no grand portals to let in the air breathed by ordinary men. The church’s exterior was—and still is—a monument to power.

  Bernard de Castanet was the medieval bishop who approved the plans, raised the money, and started the construction. As he was doing this in the 1280s, Castanet was also accusing many prominent townspeople of heresy, even though the Albigensian Crusade had ended two generations earlier and the inquisitors had been assiduously intimidating the populace ever since. The bishop’s opponents, particularly one outspoken Franciscan friar named Bernard Délicieux, claimed that Castanet was using the threat of Inquisition prisons to silence free men and to extort funds. Whatever the truth, the fortress church rose, brick by unforgiving brick, until its larger message became clear: Submit or be crushed.

  There was nothing subtle about the appearance of Ste-Cécile, nothing that demanded a specialized monograph detailing gargoyles, grace notes, and the like. We walked around the hulking giant, marveling that the midafternoon silence of Albi had been so deceptive. The red cathedral was, in the end, an enraged bellow from Bishop Castanet and his successors. They had seen their world—their power, privileges, beliefs—imperiled by the subversive creed of the Cathars, and they had roared out their anger in this monstrous mountain of brick. It filled our eyes and our ears. Only a disagreement over something as fathomless as the soul of a civilization could elicit a shout so loud that it was still audible across a cha
sm of 700 years.

  Not surprisingly, that afternoon echoed for a long time in my memory. In the years to follow, the Cathars and Albi came to mind again and again, appearing unbidden in books and magazines and the conversations of the Parisians in whose midst I lived. A lot of people had heard the shout. I began haunting the booksellers’ stalls by the Seine. Friends reached into their bookshelves, invariably producing yet another French-language study of the Cathars for me to discover. Specialized libraries contained hard-to-obtain translations of chronicles, correspondence, and Inquisition registers. In 1997, years after my first glimpse of Ste-Cécile, I moved to southwestern France to look—and listen—more closely in the places where the Cathars had lived and died. The Perfect Heresy, it turned out, was the destination of my mystery tour.

  “Kill them all, God will know his own.” The sole catchphrase of the Cathar conflict to be handed down to posterity is attributed to Arnold Amaury, the monk who led the Albigensian Crusade. A chronicler reported that Arnold voiced this command outside the Mediterranean trading town of Béziers on July 22, 1209, when his crusading warriors, on the verge of storming the city after having breached its defenses, had turned to him for advice on distinguishing Catholic believer from Cathar heretic. The monk’s simple instructions were followed and the entire population—20,000 or so—indiscriminately murdered. The sack of Beziers was the Guernica of the Middle Ages.