Life on the Pog

Montségur was far from a monastic sort of enclave, such as we might think of today – i.e. as in a Buddhist monastery. In point of fact the fortress itself was a garrison and most of the people who lived in the village were not Cathars themselves. This can be said because large quantities of animal bones were found buried around and on the pog, and Cathars we are told did not eat meat except fish. The perfecti and credenti that lived there most likely lived in the village and only went into the fortress in times of siege for protection. Certainly the soldiers in the garrison were not Cathars, or they could and would not have been soldiers. Their wives and children may have been, but not the soldiers themselves.Village life was like life in any other village that supported itself and its people of the time. There were chores to be done, clothing to be made, things to be fixed and fashioned, as well as livestock to care for.

Cathars were spread all over the Languedoc-Rousillon and not all congregated in one area. There were even Cathars in Italy and other countries. They were however centered predominantly in what is now southern France. The lords of the Languedoc remained independent lords and answered to no king. This coupled with the fact that heretics lived in the lands of, and were protected by these lords was a recipe for trouble and a thorn in the sides of both Rome and the French monarchy. The monarchy wanted those lands and the Church wanted the heretics gone.

Given what we think the Cathars believe and the principles by which they lived, it is fairly well certain that the lords of the Languedoc were not Cathars themselves. They owned property and they engaged in warfare. They were powerful local lords fighting to keep control of their hereditary holdings and titles. We know they were at least nominally Catholic by the fact that several of them were excommunicated not just once but many times. That is not to say however that some of their wives and children were Cathars. We know that the daughter of Roger-Bernard I de Foix was a Cathar, Esclarmonde de Foix, who was a perfecti and is known as such in historical records. At the time she took her consolamentum, she did so with three other ladies of high rank, Aude de Fanjeaux, Fays de Durfort and Raymonde de Saint-Germain. Esclarmonde de Foix was present at the Conference of Montreal in 1207, an attempt at a peaceful debate and settlement with the Catholic Church, represented by Dominic Guzman. Dominic Guzman would become Saint Dominic, who later led the Inquisition. The year after the debate, Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade.

It is necessary as well to understand that women of noble status often retired to convents when they became widowed or divorced in these times and in times previous to this. By Salic Law women rarely inherited their husbands’ lands or titles upon the lord’s death, unless they were a ‘queen regent’ themselves – i.e. they were the daughter and heir of a king or a lord. Blanche of Castile was a queen regent, for she was the daughter of a king, Alfonso VIII of Castile and Eleanor of Aragon, who was also a queen regent. Even in this case, they acted only as regents in the kingly sense if the heir, a son, was in his minority – under aged. When the son reached his majority, he became king but his mother was still ‘the Queen Regent’, while his wife was simply ‘the Queen’. A ‘lady’ married to a king who became his widow was called a ‘dowager queen’, and inherited nothing unless it was her father’s lands and titles and she had no surviving brothers. While the lords of the Languedoc did not adhere to monarchies and their rules, they too inherited by Salic Law established by Clovis I, the first historically verifiable King of the Salian Franks, who came to be known as the Merovingians.

Esclarmonde de Foix was a widow in 1200 when she turned to the Cathar faith, which infers that before that she was probably a Catholic herself. It is therefore nothing exceptional or extraordinary in the fact that she ‘retired’ to live a more or less monastic life as a perfecti and spiritual leader. What is unique and extraordinary about her is that she became the symbol and the legend that she remains to this day. That however, is not entirely due to anything in particular that she did in her life. She was a good woman who made every attempt to help people: she established schools for girls and hospitals as well as a home for the elder parfaits. As far as anyone knows for certain, that is the extent of her doings. Such acts did qualify one for sainthood in those times on occasion, but Esclarmonde de Foix was not a Catholic. The story of her turning into a dove and flying away with the equally legendary Cathar Treasure, the Holy Grail, was most likely a fiction invented by Otto Rahn, the Nazi medievalist. To my knowledge, there is no mention of it before his telling of it. If indeed, as he claimed, he was told this by local shepherds it may have been a legend that had risen up around the fortress, the pog and the Cathars in the neighborhood. Places like Montségur tend to engender and invite legends, and not without good reason. But truly, it was the pog, the fortress and the crusade and its circumstances more than anything else that brought a certain fame, or infamy, upon the place – depending on whose side you’re on – and made it and Esclarmonde icons of the times and the Cathars themselves.

The reason for this will be revealed in the next installment. Until then, my friends, take care and be kind to one another.

Rayvn     

The White Lady

I’m going to digress briefly here, since the subject of Blanche of Castile has been raised. Her part in this drama is not just relegated to the Treaty of Meaux, signed by Raymond VII in 1229. She will reappear in the drama at a later date, in a similar situation.

In his book “Montségur and the Mystery of the Cathars” Jean Markale says this of Queen Blanche’s actions in 1229 and later:

“Blanche de Castille’s attitude remains inexplicable and prompts a number of questions. It could well be asked if Raymond VII might not have had secret means of applying pressure in order to receive such indulgence when, as an excommunicate and declared rebel, he was liable to the confiscation of his domains. In any event, we know that Queen Blanche has left a strange imprint in the popular memory of Cathar country, particularly in Razés, where a mysterious treasure is attributed to her. It is true that her name is also associated with the widespread belief throughout the Pyrenees in the existence of the White Lady; in other words, a female fairy who rules over the underground world of caves that are quite numerous in this region.” [pg. 34]

I have some revelations to relate that may explain her actions to a large degree. It’s not quite so mysterious and dark as Jean Markale would have it sound. As a member of a royal family, Blanche (b. 4 March 1188, d. 26 November 1252) likely would have been very much aware of her own ancestry. Her own ancestry was the stuff of legends, for she was the great-great granddaughter of Roderigo Diaz de Vivar, otherwise known as El Cid. His daughter, Cristina Elvira Rodriguez de Vivar was the wife of Ramiro Sánchez de Monzón  who was in turn the father of Queen Blanche’s grandfather García Ramírez the King of Navarre.

Cristina Elvira had a sister named Maria Rodriguez de Vivar, who was married to Raymond Berenguer II, the Count of Barcelona. They had a daughter named Jimena Diaz (b. 1101, d. 1169), who was married to Roger III de Foix. In turn, their son was Roger-Bernard I “the Great” de Foix, the father of Esclarmonde de Foix, who is also reputed to be the White Lady. Esclarmonde’s mother was Cecile de Trencavel and her brother was Raymond-Roger (Raimond Drut) de Foix, the father of the twins Esclarmonde d’Alion and Loup de Foix.

Of course, Blanche’s direct ancestors played no part in the Albigensian Crusade, but some portions of her family were heavily allied with the Counts of Toulouse. Possibly, Blanche was playing both sides against the middle trying to protect her relations and their heirs, as well as protecting her husband’s and subsequently hers and her son’s lands. No doubt she must have found herself in a strange and compromising position along with Raymond VII of Toulouse.

Raymond VII and his father were a shining example of what can happen when one goes against the wishes of the Pope and rebels against the Church. Blanche knew from what had happened with them that she couldn’t refuse to act against the rebels. She and her regency would be subject to excommunication by the Pope as well if she did not do so. This might in turn endanger her son’s eventual succession to the throne, because he was still in his minority. Louis IX was about 15 years old when she brought Raymond VII before her at Meaux and offered the treaty. The fact that she had Raymond flogged and ‘briefly’ imprisoned would seem to be for show more than anything else. This wouldn’t be the first time, or the last, that something was done for the sake of appearances in all of this – particularly in the person of Raymond VII himself. One might wonder if at the same time she was laying down stipulations to Raymond, she was also giving him a bit of queenly and ‘motherly’ advice. There is a relationship there of which no one seems to be aware, although it is historically verifiable if one might care to dig.

What comes next is a bit of a mind twister, because of the inter-relations of the royal families of Europe. I shall try to explain it as simply as possible. Raymond VII was the son of Raymond VI’s fourth wife, Joan Plantagenet, whose father was Henry II Plantagenet. Henry II was Queen Blanche’s other grandfather. Another of Henry's daughters was Eleanor of England the Queen of Castile, who was the mother of Blanche of Castile. Queen Blanche was Raymond VII’s great-aunt through her own aunt Joan Plantagenet. This might go a very long way toward explaining her actions toward him.

Was Blanche the White Lady? Certainly, her name means ‘white’, but it would seem that Markale must be referring to the treasures and records of the Cathars. These are said to have been placed beneath either the fortress or the settlement on the pog upon the request of Guillabert de Castres to Raymond de Périella, the seigneur of the fortress at Montségur. Guillabert de Castres was the head of the Cathar church during this time. In this case, if that is indeed the treasure to which Markale is referring, then that would be more associated with Esclarmonde de Foix (the first Esclarmonde) than Blanche of Castile. His reference there is rather vague, but the so-called ‘treasure of the Cathars’ is the most well-known and sought after treasure in the region. The name of the Albigensians broken down also means ‘the white people’, from albi or alba  - 'white', and gens - a family line or just ‘people’.

Was the White Lady – whoever she may be – a Queen of the Fey? That is a whole other subject that encompasses a few thousand years, as well as a horrendous number of ‘begats’ that are as complicated as the genealogies of the royal families of Europe. They are a precursor to those royal genealogies. These genealogies are historically attestable up to a point, and then fall off into the murky realm of myths and legends such as the Grail, and the Merovingians. The Merovingian genealogies are only historically attestable up to Clovis I. Not even his paternity is a sure thing – variously said to be Merovech after whom the lineage was named,  Chlodio the Long Haired King of the Salian Franks or a creature of myth known as ‘the Quinotaur’.

Often these myths and legends are taken for ‘gospel truths’ that people like to take for fact when they are myths and legends. As they say however, “where there is smoke, there is fire”. These myths and legends do seem to have some basis in the lives of several historical groups of people and their propensity to worship certain deities brought westward from the Middle East in times past. From these same groups of people came the royal houses of Europe, but not always and necessarily by the routes some would have you believe.

In spite of all of this or perhaps because of it, there is a great deal of strangeness and other-worldly intrusions that are attendant with these stories. This includes Montségur and the Cathars. Recall, if you will my own tale at the beginning, regarding my vision of the girl running through the forest. I am not the only one to have such visions of or on that fateful pog of Montségur. We can only guess at the significance and meaning of it and how it relates to those who’ve had these experiences as individuals. I can only reveal what I have about the hitherto overlooked relationship between Queen Blanche and Raymond VII, because of where my own vision led me - not without a lot of research that I probably would not have undertaken - were it not for that vision.     

Au revoir my dears and thank you for coming by!

Rayvn

The not so innocent Pope & the Cathars

Before going any further with this, I want to reiterate that I went into this all as a skeptic and a bit of a cynic because there were too many holes in the things I’d read – at least as near as I knew. I am a dogmatist’s nightmare. I live by Fox Mulder’s credos of “Question everything!” and “The Truth is Out There.” I have since before Fox Mulder even existed. My father raised me to be like that.

This tends to be a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. I consider it one of my strengths, but it’s also one of my weaknesses. I will seldom take anyone’s word for anything – unless I know from experience that they do their homework fairly thoroughly. This leaves me room to learn and figure out things for myself, which is the whole point of undertaking one’s own ‘grail quest’. You don’t find your own grail by reading about someone else’s adventure. That is to say, you can use these things as sign-posts and maps, but the map is not the territory, and you shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. For you see, there are bits of truth mixed in with all the fallacies and outright fictions.  On the negative side, it takes a lot longer to ‘get there’ but once you have arrived, the journey and the conclusions are yours and yours alone. You made them and you ‘own’ them. They don’t belong to anyone else but you. This is the difference between ‘knowledge’ and ‘wisdom’. Knowledge is knowing the things other people say. Wisdom is learning and knowing it for your-self and therefore equal to ‘understanding’.   

 

That being said let us continue now with the story.

Albi is a commune in Southern France in the department of Tarn. It is also a city on the Tarn River, located about 85 kilometers northeast of Toulouse. Albi is an Occitan word but it is also a Latin word, meaning ‘white’ or ‘fair’. This word is the root of other words like Albany, and Alban – another name for Scotland. The root word gens means ‘people’ or a lineage of people. Albi is also an Arabic word that means ‘my heart’ or ‘beloved’.

This region was first settled in historical times in the Bronze Age, somewhere between 3000 and 600 BCE. It would seem that those who came there were coming back to a place buried deep in their ancestral memories from the days when people lived in caves and drew interesting pictures on the walls. That period of time was, ironically enough, called “the Magdalenian.” The Magdalenian period was named after the type site of La Madeleine, a rock shelter located in the Vézère valley, in the commune of Tursac, in the Dordogne department of France. Before it was called the Magdalenian period, it was originally termed "L'âge du renne" (the Age of the Reindeer). This might seem an odd bit of information to throw in at the moment, but it becomes a link to the Scythians later on in the story. Or perhaps I should say ‘earlier on’ in the story.

Toulouse, located in the department of Albi was the capitol of the Languedoc, a region that was once separate from France. It was the seat of Catharism and in fact the flag and coat of arms of the Languedoc is the Cathar cross. The name Languedoc comes from “langue d’oc”, for the people there spoke the Occitan language.

Catharism (from Greek: katharos, pure) was a name given to a Christian religious sect with dualistic and gnostic elements that appeared in the Languedoc region of France and other parts of Europe in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. Catharism had its roots in the Paulician movement in Armenia and the Bogomils of Bulgaria which took influences from the Paulicians. Though the term "Cathar" has been used for centuries to identify the movement, whether the movement identified itself with this name is debatable. In Cathar texts, the terms "Good Men" (Bons Hommes) or "Good Christians" are the common terms of self-identification.

Like many medieval movements, there were various schools of thought and practice amongst the Cathari; some were dualistic (believing in a God of Good and a God of Evil), others Gnostic, some closer to orthodoxy while abstaining from an acceptance of Catholicism. The dualist theology was the most prominent, however, and was based upon an asserted complete incompatibility of love and power. As matter was seen as a manifestation of power, it was believed to be incompatible with love.

The Cathari did not believe in one all-encompassing god, but in two, both equal and comparable in status. They held that the physical world was evil and created by Rex Mundi (translated from Latin as "king of the world"), who encompassed all that was corporeal, chaotic and powerful; the second god, the one whom they worshipped, was entirely disincarnate: a being or principle of pure spirit and completely unsullied by the taint of matter. He was the god of love, order and peace.

According to some Cathars, the purpose of man's life on Earth was to transcend matter, perpetually renouncing anything connected with the principle of power and thereby attaining union with the principle of love. According to others, man's purpose was to reclaim or redeem matter, spiritualising and transforming it.

This placed them at odds with the Catholic Church regarding material creation, on behalf of which Jesus had died, as being intrinsically evil and implying that God, whose word had created the world in the beginning, was a usurper. Furthermore, as the Cathars saw matter as intrinsically evil, they denied that Jesus could become incarnate and still be the son of God. Cathars vehemently repudiated the significance of the crucifixion and the cross. In fact, to the Cathars, Rome's opulent and luxurious Church seemed a palpable embodiment and manifestation on Earth of Rex Mundi's sovereignty.

The Catholic Church regarded the sect as dangerously heretical, although the actual reason for its spread was most likely the discredit of the Church itself in the medieval society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism]

Pope Innocent III, reigned as Pope from 1198 to his death in 1216. He was one of the most powerful and influential popes in the history of the papacy. He claimed supremacy over all the kings and royal houses of Europe. He used his position well to his advantage and that of advancing the interests of the Church of Rome. A strong opponent of anything that threatened the Church, he declared the Third Crusade, to once again attempt to stop the intrusion of the Muslims into the Holy Land. He also knew about the Cathars and knew that this ‘heretical’ movement was growing uncomfortably popular – not only amongst the people, but amongst his own clergy. He himself estimated that probably 80% of his clergy were at least sympathetic to the ideas of the Cathars. The royal houses of the Languedoc were also very sympathetic to the Cathars, if not Cathars themselves. Not only was the Roman form of Christianity being threatened, but he feared the Church itself would implode from within, if he did not stop this heresy dead in its tracks.

The Lords of the Languedoc and Toulouse moved into his sites, because of their Cathar allegiances and sympathies. Being the cunning, ambitious, power-mad and clever man that he was, he devised a plan to enable him to declare yet another crusade – this time on European soil. We shall learn more of that in the next installment.

Have a beautiful day/evening my friends!

Love, Rayvn

The Vision and The Word

I could begin by saying this story started half a lifetime ago for me, but that wouldn't exactly be true. It wouldn't even be true if I said it began when I was born, because it began long, long ago in a far away place and time. It began so long ago, as a matter of fact that I barely know where to begin, for it encompasses a great deal of the eastern hemisphere as well as thousands of years and the history of that thing we refer to as 'civilization'. Given those parameters, I think I'll start at 'half a lifetime ago' and go from there.

If memory serves, it was a warm afternoon in the late summer of 1983. I was sitting on my couch minding my own business. Truthfully, I don't remember what it was I was doing because something happened then that has stuck with me all these years. It was one of those bolts out of the blue kinds of things - the ones where you have no idea where they came from. They simply decide to drop in an pay you a visit, whether you're ready or not. I had a vision. Now, I'm not usually given to this sort of thing - especially spontaneously and without some external provocation. It was as if everything else before my eyes had disappeared and the vision was all I could see.

I saw a girl and I took her to be a gypsy for the way she was dressed. She looked to be 14 or 15 years old. She had long dark hair that flew out behind her as she ran through the darkness of a dense forest past a tree. She looked scared - scared for her life. Behind her was a man that I took to be her father. He looked scared too, but I had the feeling he wasn't one that scared easily. The girl turned to look back to make sure he was behind her. He reached out silently and pushed her on with a gentle shove. Who or what was it they were running from, I wondered to myself. As if in answer to my question, a vision within the vision appeared - like a vignette. I saw men dressed like knights in armor. They were riding horses and carrying torches. The visors were up on their helmets as they picked their way through the trees, searching.

That was pretty much the extent of my vision, except for the one word that I heard from some disembodied voice. The word was "Albigensians". It didn't last very long really, but as I previously indicated it was somewhat akin to being hit by a bolt of lightning out of the blue for me.

I had no idea what the word meant, or what it was I'd just seen. Had there been an internet back then, I would have gone and looked it up, but there wasn't and I didn't. I was profoundly disturbed for the rest of the day, but life goes on and there were more important things to think about. I spoke of it to only a few people in the months that followed and then didn't think of it again for many years. I did remember it though, very clearly.

It wasn't until I did have access to the internet in late 1999 that it reared it's head again. Not right away. It was actually some years after that - rekindled by things people said to me and subjects that seemed to be related to my website that I was building. That was largely about fallen angels. In fact, I wrote a book about them called "Sons of Darkness ~ Sons of Light".

I started reading a lot of books that people recommended on these subjects. I read them and I learned from them, but it didn't really sink in exactly how it was related to that vision until perhaps 2004 or 2005, more than twenty years after the fact. I finally did learn what that word meant - Albigensians. It was about that time a new word got added. That word was "Merovingians". I was directed toward a website called "Dagobert's Revenge" otherwise known as "Ordo Lapsit Exilis" - the Order of the Stone that came down from Heaven. It referred to the stone that was said to have fallen from Lucifer's brow as he fell to earth.

The more I read, the more I really didn't quite know what to think about it all. When the Priory of Sion was declared to be a hoax perpetrated by one Pierre Plantard and company, that seemed to put a lid on the whole thing. It didn't go away, however. It was about that time Dan Brown came out with his book, "The DaVinci Code". I read the book. I saw the movie. I read a few more books and saw a few more movies too - but still, it didn't all gel for me. I watched Richard Stanley's documentary "Secret Glory" which is mostly about Otto Rahn, the reluctant Nazi, who was an anthropologist, mythographer and dreamer and his search for the Grail. I was profoundly touched by the story, because it's just one of those stories that does that to you - both Otto's and the story of the Cathars.

I think the reason it didn't gel was because I kept finding things I couldn't accept as fact due to some artful and strange manipulations of facts by these people writing these things. Laurence Gardner's "Genesis of the Grail Kings" left me wondering what sorts of drugs these people were taking - that and some of his dates absolutely contradicted his supposed sources. It all seemed a lot of wishful thinking and mythology attempting to look 'for real' like so much other 'new agey' stuff.

But all that changed, when I went back to an old bit I'd been pointed to early on in web-life about Abraham having come from India. So, I started looking at India again, virtually speaking. You can read and look at things many times over and each time they come with new revelations. I began to do research for "The Shining Ones" segment on my website. This time, I took a better look at the Mahabharata. I found that there were scholars who had a grip on translating the mysterious Harappan 'script' of the Indus Valley civilization. And then there were those strange Caucasian mummies who wore and wove plaids and silks, found in the Takla Makan dessert. There was another word that kept cropping up. That word was "Scythians". I became fascinated with them. Who were they and where did they come from? Things began to come together. Still, it took about a year and a half before they truly did.

What happened from there will be addressed in the next installment. Stay tuned and remember to smile, in spite of it all!