Bad Things Afoot

On 13 April 1233, Pope Gregory IX officially established an inquisitorial system in France by announcing that he would be conferring unlimited authority upon the Preaching Friars (the Dominicans) to combat heresy. He appointed Fr. Robert le Bourge as General Inquisitor for the Kingdom. The Inquisition had come to the Languedoc. By the Treaty of Meaux, Raymond VII had ceded the Languedoc to the French Crown. French troops had also come to the Languedoc occupying what were now lands belonging to the monarchy and the Capetian dynasty.

Sworn to allegiance to the ruling monarchy and to be a good Catholic and take up again the fight against the heretics, Raymond VII made several half-hearted attempts to lay siege to the pog under the watchful eyes of the French troops and envoys of both Crown and the Inquisition in 1241. His forays yielded no result, and he declared that the pog could not be taken. This would be reported back to Paris and hopefully be the end of it. Raymond VII was stalling for time, and a window of opportunity to drive out the troops and take back his domains.

In addition, he had no legitimate male heir. He had only his daughter Joan, by Sancha of Aragon. By the Treaty of Paris (1229) with the French Crown, he had to give Joan in marriage to Alfonso, Louis IX’s brother. In this manner, the crown was assured of gaining these lands upon Raymond VII’s death. He was also trying to divorce Sancha so he could marry a woman who could give him a male heir, but the Crown and Church were balking this action to protect their own interests. It seems Raymond finally succeeded, for in 1241 he did divorce Sancha and married Margaret de Lusignan in 1243. Margaret was the daughter of Hughes X de Lusignan and Isabella d’Angouleme. Isabella had previously been married to John Lackland (‘evil King John’), who was a son of Raymond’s grandfather Henry II Plantagenet of England. The Church quickly played this trump card and declared Raymond’s marriage to Margaret void on the grounds of consanguinity. Even if he did have a son by Margaret or even another daughter, the child would not be a legitimate heir.

Whichever way he turned, things were looking bleak for Raymond. He must have felt tremendously frustrated, but he didn’t give up the fight. The question remains as to whether or not Raymond was ‘using’ the Cathars in his opposition to the French Crown having taken his lands. They represented resistance to the northern monarchy and there had to be a general cause to rally around. The Crusade and its results had left the local populace in opposition toward those who would take away their culture, their language and their lands. The ‘cause’ thus became more than something personal to Raymond and the other lords – at least outwardly. They were all struggling, however, to maintain their own titles and lands.

History has it that in 1242, Raymond was the architect of a plot that arose amongst the lords of the Languedoc against the Crown. This plot involved not only the counts of Foix, Comminges, Armagnac and Rodez, but the viscounts of Narbonne and Béziers, Hughes X de Lusignan (Comte de la Marche), and no less than Henry III Plantagenet. Reportedly, Frederick II the Holy Roman Emperor was also aware of it. Frederick was often at odds with the papacy himself over the Fifth Crusade, and was excommunicated four times. The plot was to form a rebellion against the Crown. It would seem however that Blanche and Louis became aware of the plot and determined to thwart it. It is thought that the following actions were deliberately undertaken to set the rebellion off before their adversaries could solidify their plans and positions. They had a previous model to work with in what happened with Pierre de Castelnau, and there was even more reason for the people of the Languedoc to hate the Inquisition since the Crusade.

In May of 1242, two inquisitors appeared at the castle of Avignonnet and set up a tribunal. The castle was commanded by Ramon d’Alfaro, the bailiff of Raymond VII. Ramon d’Alfaro sent a message to Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix at Montségur informing him of the presence of the inquisitors. Brothers Armand Guilhem of Montpellier and Étienne of Narbonne were both cruel and fanatical. They’d left many enemies and much bitterness in their wake. Pierre-Roger’s announcement of the news of the inquisitors’ presence at Avignonnet to the village and the troops of Montségur was the match that set fire to the planned rebellion. Those at Montségur had family and loved ones to avenge. Jean Markale reports:

“A group of about fifty knights and men-at-arms converged and made their way toward Avignonnet. While en route, their ranks were swelled by sympathizers who also had kinfolk to avenge. This expedition was in fact far from secret – everyone knew that the men were determined to murder the Inquisitors – but oddly enough, nobody alerted the future victims.” [Montségur and the Mystery of the Cathars – pg. 33]  

   

Ramon d’Alfaro guided the angry throng into the castle himself. The inquisitors, their notary and bailiffs were all murdered. The news spread rapidly as those involved returned home, and soon the whole region was up in arms. Moving quickly, Raymond took himself and his men to Albi and occupied it. Albi had once belonged to him, but the Crown had taken it. Like it or not, the rebellion had begun and he had no choice but to act on the plans that were in place.

What happened next happened very quickly, reinforcing the idea that the rebellion was deliberately provoked by the Crown. This will be told in the next installment.

Until then my friends!

Rayvn

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