An Overview of the Albigensian Crusade

AN INTRODUCTION

This blog is mainly about the historiography of the Crusade, that is the ways in which the story of the Albigensian Crusade has been told, both by contemporary chroniclers and modern historians.  However, over the past two weeks I've been very pleased to gain some readers for whom the Albigensian Crusade is an unfamiliar chapter in medieval history.  I'm therefore writing this post to summarize some of the main events of the Crusade and hopefully begin to share my enthusiasm for examining it in more detail.

I'm also writing this because I know of no other site online to which I can direct my readers for a decent overview of many of the major topics.  In a future post, I will discuss why I disagree with just about every statement on the Wikipedia page for the Albigensian Crusade.  My previous post on the primary sources explains what the texts are that give us most of our knowledge about the events of the crusade.  I've also already written about how I was drawn in to the study of the crusade -- its story and its storytellers. I'll try to avoid repeating things from those posts here, except where they seem really necessary. 

I'm quite self-conscious as I write this.  I have examined rather critically the way other authors have gone about the task of telling this story and in posting this particular essay, I am joining their ranks in some sense and opening myself up to criticism about the way I tell it.  Probably the harshest of such criticism will be my own reflections on it, due to the very questionable choices I have to make as soon as I begin.

Hayden White, in his historiographical book Metahistory, pointed out that every historian constructs a narrative out of past events when he writes a history.  Beginnings, middles and ends are necessary features of stories, but they do not occur objectively in the series of events which constitute our knowledge of the past.  Instead, the historian makes selective decisions which immediately begin to transform the supposed events of the past into a sort of dramatic plot to which an audience can relate.  What follows is one of many possible emplotments.

A BEGINNING

In March 1210, a procession of one hundred men stumbled through the spring snows from the fortress at Bram towards that of Lastours.  Their faces were badly mutilated.  Their noses and lips had been cut off and their eyes had been gouged out, with the exception of one who had been left with a single eye and now led their macabre march.  They had been soldiers, captured after Bram fell in a short siege, and were now being sent as living warnings to Pierre-Roger de Cabaret, the lord of Lastours.

The man who ordered this spectacle was Simon de Montfort, the leader of a crusade called by the Pope against fellow Christians within Europe.  De Montfort had taken over the leadership of the crusade at the request of its previous leader, the papal legate Arnau Amalric, who had presided over the crusading army's first great atrocity almost a year earlier.  Arnau Amalric, the Pope's representative and the head of the Cistercian order of monks, had set the tone of terror which now continued to play out in gruesome fashion.

That previous summer, in 1209, the crusading army had begun a holy war.  At the command of Pope Innocent III they had gathered and marched into what is now southern France, although it was then separate, politically and linguistically -- its inhabitants spoke Occitan, not French, and were ruled not by King Philip Augustus of France, but by powerful Counts such as Raymond V, Count of Toulouse, Raymond-Roger Trencavel, the young Viscount of Beziers, Carcassonne, Agde and the Razes, and Raymond-Roger, the Count of Foix.  For convenience, I will refer to this area as the "Languedoc", although the term is not contemporary.

The Languedoc was also culturally quite different from its neighbours, although the poetic literature of the troubadours was widely admired and imitated.  The nobility of the Languedoc had, perhaps, less formal feudal control over their inferiors than elsewhere, territory was more often held communally and inheritances more often divided between many children.  More importantly, the Church reforms of the past century which had aimed to wrest control of the local churches and monasteries away from noble families and transfer it to Rome had been less successful here than elsewhere.  Preaching, public debates, replacement of bishops and threats of excommunication and interdict had together failed to produce the desired change and increasingly the Languedoc had come to be seen as a hotbed of religious dissent and opposition, a region whose people and their lords fomented independence from and therefore schism within the Roman Church.


The crusade had been called after the murder of Peter of Castelnau, another papal legate.  Crusade propaganda claimed that a vassal of Count Raymond of Toulouse had been the assassin, although Raymond protested his innocence and the Pope and his legates appear to have believed him.  Furthermore, Pope Innocent III had been urging military intervention in the area since at least 1204, long before the assassination.  Peter of Castelnau's murder, however, provided an invaluable propaganda tool to muster support for the war.  The Church not only sanctioned and preached the war, but offered the same benefits to crusaders in this war in Europe that were given to crusaders in the Holy Land.  Further, the wealth and territories of the crusade's enemies could be taken and held by crusaders with the sanction of the Church.

Although the crusade was ostensibly intended to combat "heresy", what that meant to the crusaders of the early 13th century might not be initially recognizable to us today.  "Heresy" was often seen less as theological difference or doctrinal error, but rather as opposition to the Church and especially its new efforts at consolidating its control over Christendom.  Pope Innocent III saw himself as the feudal overlord of all of Christendom and had made the greatest monarchs of Europe swear their loyalty to him and receive their crowns from his hands.  His legates had energetically carried his reforms throughout the diocese of Europe and, in the Languedoc had ruthlessly replaced established local bishops with Cistercian monks of proven loyalty and excommunicated anyone who opposed them, from the citizen consuls of towns, to the Count of Toulouse himself.  The Count of Toulouse and his neighbours were accused by the Church of supporting heretics but also, in the same breath, with supporting mercenaries and, in some cases, the demand to remove the mercenaries gained prominence over the demand to persecute heretics.  In actual fact, once the army arrived in the region, it did not engage in theological evaluations.  Anyone who opposed the crusaders was deemed a heretic and treated accordingly.

A MIDDLE

Count Raymond of Toulouse was the region's most powerful lord and the target of much of the Church's rhetoric.  As the crusading army gathered, however, he engaged in negotiations with the Pope and the legates and promised his submission.  He was ritually humiliated and made to confess past sins, to give specific promises and assurances of future obedience, and to hand over certain territories to the Church.  He was then admitted back into the Catholic church, after which he immediately joined the crusade.  This gave some safety to his own territories and people, who could now not be targeted by the crusading army.  Instead, the army turned towards the territories of the young Viscount, Raymond-Roger Trencavel.

When this army reached Beziers, the first of the young Viscount's cities, its leader, then still Arnau Amalric, was famously asked how the crusaders were to differentiate the heretics from the faithful and is said to have replied: "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius", that is "Kill them all.  God will know his own."  The city quickly fell and immense carnage followed.  The legate boasted in his letter back to the Pope that his army had "spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people."

Shortly thereafter, the young Viscount himself was besieged in his fortified city of Carcassonne.  He entered into negotiations with the crusading leadership and then, in circumstances never quite satisfactorily explained, was imprisoned within his own dungeon where he died some time later amid rumours of foul play.  It was when Carcassonne fell that Simon de Montfort was elevated to the position of "athlete of Christ" -- leader of the crusading army and paladin of its holy cause.

Over the next years of the war, de Montfort earned a reputation, not just for cruelty as a ruler but also for invincibility as a commander and personal courage as a warrior.  He presided over mass burnings of hundreds of civilians at a time, won battles against surprising odds and seemed never to hesitate to risk his own life to save the soldiers and knights who fought on his side.  The towns, cities, and castles which he conquered were taken from their former rulers and given over to him personally, not just by the right of military force, but by the formal sanction of the Church.  Raymond of Toulouse did not manage to maintain his exemption from the rapacity of the crusaders and was again excommunicated.  His territories and subjects were despoiled and conquered, despite staunch resistance.  

AN END

For twenty years, devastating warfare and genocidal oppression ravaged the Languedoc.  Some of the middle ages' most impressive sieges and pivotal battles were fought, and both sides faced sudden and unexpected reversals of fortune.  The war itself constitutes a fascinating tale, which I do not have adequate space to recount here.

In 1229, an exhausted Languedoc finally submitted to the French crown, which by then had taken over the prosecution of the war.  A generation had passed and the counts, kings and warlords who had figured prominently at the start of the conflict had mostly been succeeded by their children. Yet in this time, very little had been done about "heresy" as such.  Perhaps this was due to the general understanding of heresy as opposition, as described above, but once military opposition to the Church's armies had finally stopped, a new kind of persecution almost immediately began.

The Inquisition, as it is popularly known, had some basis in old Roman law and in individual instances of inquiries conducted by bishops in the preceding two centuries, but in Toulouse in the aftermath of the Albigensian Crusade, it came to resemble the formal institution with which the public is more familiar.  Dominic de Guzman, who had been involved in the preaching efforts before the crusade and had been a friend of De Montfort and the crusade leadership during it, was authorized to form his own monastic order and began an increasingly systematic and determined program in Toulouse and the surrounding area.

The monks who followed him were known as the Dominicans or, in Latin, Dominicani, giving rise to the pun Domini Cani or "hounds of God".  The Church was finally able to command the cooperation of secular authorities in the Languedoc to arrest, hold and punish those whom it named, and the Dominican order carried out its mandate with zeal.  Although the creation of false accusations and false confessions is generally well known, it is more often popularly attributed to torture than perhaps it should be.  The real engine driving the apparent success of the Inquisition at finding new victims was social and economic in nature.  The property of a condemned heretic was forfeit and was divided between the Church, the secular authority, and the accuser.  In the all too frequent cases where an already deceased person was accused of heresy, their inheritors could be dispossessed.  When faced with the dreaded accusation of heresy, mere protestations of orthodoxy were insufficient -- the accused could be obliged to accuse others in order to demonstrate cooperation.  It is easy to see how such a flawed methodology produced constant false accusations, turning up heretics everywhere they were sought.  Nor were contemporary people blind to the problem -- criticism of the Inquisitors was surprisingly rampant, despite the danger it brought with it, and violent opposition was not uncommon.

It was during this organized persecution that broader and more fanciful descriptions of heretics began to be produced by monastic authors.  Relying on descriptions of heretics written many centuries earlier, they conceived of their victims as belonging to a Satanic conspiracy stretching back to the time of the Roman Empire.  Often asking about events decades in the past, they viewed respected people who preached or who represented their communities as heretical priests sowing opposition to their theology.  They interpreted local cultural practices of courtesy as formal rituals of a secret rival Church.  When they interrogated local people, they asked formulaic questions in Occitan, but recorded the questions and answers in Latin, using a standardized set of terms which invariably confirmed the existence of heretical features which they assumed to exist.

Over time, engaging in the courteous practices which the Inquisitors documented became dangerous and the respected community members they repeatedly asked about, the "good men", became hunted fugitives.  Some vanished or abandoned their former habits, but others continued in their old cultural ways in secret and a new generation which had never known life before the crusade began to identify the culture of their parents and grandparents according to the paradigm of its persecutors.  Those who were nostalgic for the lost culture of the times before the crusade tried to emulate what they understood of it.  Thus, after a fashion the Inquisitors created something resembling what they had always suspected -- a secretive organization with hidden practices for them to root out and destroy.  No one yet called them "Cathars" -- that would come much later -- but the process by which general resistance to the Church's will was characterized as the hidden actions of a secret organization had begun.

Cathars, Witches, and Templar Diabolists

(and other figments of the medieval monastic imagination)

In his work on heresy, Occitan culture, and the Albigensian Crusade, Mark Pegg has proposed that no organized heresy, such as a "Cathar church", existed in the Languedoc, at least not prior to the Albigensian Crusade.  This statement flies in the face of the traditional understanding, not just of the Crusade and subsequent Inquisition, but also of heresy in general.  At first blush, the assertion seems to be contradicted by a substantial amount of contemporary evidence, such as the early persecutions of heretics in the Midi, papal condemnations of heresy and its supporters in the Toulousain, the raison d'etre of the Crusade itself, and the subsequent findings of the Dominican Inquisitors.

It is often noted that it is impossible to accurately construct an account of the "Cathars" from only the writings of their persecutors.  Oldenbourg in Massacre at Montsegur memorably likened it to reconstructing a history of the French resistance using only Gestapo interrogation records.  This caveat, however, usually does not prevent modern authors from going on to attempt just such a reconstruction.  Worse, the texts most often used to build such an account are usually not the individual interrogation records themselves (although they are plentiful) but rather broad monastic narratives which purport to tell the entire stories of heresies and heretical groups.  This is not reconstructing the French resistance from Gestapo interrogation records, but rather from general Nazi propaganda pieces.  Strangely, then, there is very little difference between the opinions of medieval monastic authors and modern academic historians.

What was alleged by contemporary Church chroniclers was that an international heretical organization existed which enabled heresy to spread from the East (usually Bulgaria or thereabouts) through northern Italy and, by the 12th century, into the Languedoc.  They also saw this heresy as being closely linked to, or identical to, 4th and 5th century heresies which were railed against by the early Church fathers.  Until quite recently this was more or less accepted by all historians.  The contemporary Church chroniclers also stated that the agents -- preachers, deacons, perfecti -- of this organization were the servants of the devil and the spread of this heresy part of a spiritual conflict destined to rage throughout Christendom.  This finding was more or less ignored by all historians, but perhaps it should not have been.  In fact, this avoidance of select features of the original accounting of events is a historiographical problem which I have addressed previously.

It should not, perhaps, be surprising that the history of heresy developed as it did.  In the centuries following the Albigensian Crusade, authors writing from within the Catholic church unsurprisingly based their assumptions and their accounts on earlier authors within the church.  In the early modern period, Protestant historians found the precursors to their own movement in the medieval heretics and transformed them into martyrs.  Since then, moral and methodological arguments have changed the discussion of the nature of the Crusade, of the Inquisition, and of the Church's role in dealing with heretical opposition in general, without truly reviewing the assumptions underlying the original accounts.  What has seemed clear to everyone is that the Catholic church found itself confronted with an organization teaching a theology fundamentally different from and opposed to its own and took measures, eventually drastic ones, to root out and destroy that organization.  A wealth of Church writings attest to this effort and report on its targets and it would seem foolish for any historian to discount such a detailed and documented reality.  Yet on two similar topics, at least, almost all historians find it quite easy to discount similar Church narratives. 

The persecution of witchcraft is perhaps better known to the general public than the persecution of heresy.  Many of the contemporary allegations are similar: furtive groups of individuals, secret meetings, forbidden and repulsive teachings, rites which are perversions of the sacraments, Satanic inspiration, evil traditions passed down from antiquity, and international conspiracy.  In both cases, the accounts of these groups and individuals are largely consistent across centuries, the movements were seen as direct threats to the Church and to society, they were condemned and specifically documented by the Church, inquisitors recorded voluminous testimonies of their practices, and large-scale persecutions were carried out based on these beliefs. No serious historian, however, suggests today that there was an organized, international conspiracy of witches.  It is simply accepted that the Church was wrong (sometimes accidentally, sometimes purposefully) and that poor methodology produced self-reinforcing, erroneous conceptions that innocent persons were demonically-driven enemies of Christendom. The first persecutions of witches certainly occurred before the persecution of heretics, although the two were not always completely separate.  Consider, for example, the "witch" who instructed the young "heretic" in the ways of "their sect" as reported by Radulph of Coggeshall, discussed in my previous post.  Eventually, the fear of witches outgrew that of heretics and endured for longer.  In fact, the construction of the idea of organized witchcraft was possibly informed by the previous construction of the idea of organized heresy -- a topic which deserves future attention in this blog.

The persecution of the Templar Order in France also shares many features with the Inquisition into the heretics of the Languedoc.  Like the "Cathars", the Knights Templar were said to reject and disrespect the cross, to conduct heretical rituals, and to secretly teach a theology opposed to Catholic teachings.  The scale was smaller, perhaps, but the same striking features present themselves.  Papal condemnation, monastic description, confessions obtained by inquisitors, large-scale persecution.  Although some historians posit that there was something odd or misunderstood about the Templars, perhaps some induction rite, it is generally agreed that the Templars had no doctrinal differences from the rest of the Catholic church, fostered no international conspiracy against it, and posed no threat to it.  The allegations, it is admitted, were false, the condemnations were political, the descriptions were fanciful, the confessions were coerced.  It is worth bearing in mind that although the persecution of the Templars began nearly a hundred years after the start of the Albigensian Crusade, inquisitors were still pursuing the heretics of the Languedoc for many years after the Templar Order was dissolved.

The phenomenon by which rumour turns into accusation, by which general hysteria targets individuals, by which poor investigative methods condemn innocents, is not unique to the cases of "Cathars", witches, or Templars.  It can be seen repeated again and again through history from the "blood libels" against Jews to the "Satanic ritual abuse" craze of the 1980s.  What is perhaps unique about the "Cathar heretics", then, is that so much modern scholarship continues to repeat the same accusations against them which have been discarded against so many others.  Rather than noting the tell-tale inconsistencies of the medieval narrative of heresy, many historians present the most repeated accusations as forming a rough description.  Rather than highlighting the most preposterous claims of contemporary chroniclers, such as heretics gathering to kiss the hindquarters of a cat, they quietly remove these details.  Rather than explaining how the Church might have once again seen an organized threat where none existed, they assume the accusations were correct and extrapolate from them.  The result is the story of the "Cathars", a fictional history like that of medieval witch covens, Templar worshipers of Baphomet, Jewish communities which sacrificed Christian children, or Satanic pedophile cults.  Such histories can be written and can be based on contemporary documentation of investigations, supposed eyewitness reports, and confessions, but to do so uncritically is to perpetuate error, to repeat poor methodology, and to continue to condemn the unjustly accused.

Albigenses in the Antipodes

Mark Pegg, author of "A Most Holy War" and "The Corruption of Angels" sent me this article of his which appeared in the Journal of Religious History.  It contains many insights into the historiography of the Albigensian Crusade, especially in regard to the current controversy between historians over the understanding of the heretics called "Cathars".  The article is presented here with Dr. Pegg's kind permission.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7mSQjpXab_NZUxpYnJPQW40Ulk

The Primary Sources

Although there are several other texts which provide useful information relating to the Albigensian Crusade, there are three (roughly) contemporary documents from which most of our knowledge originates.  These are the Historia Albigensis by Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, the Canso de la Crozada by William of Tudela and the Anonymous Continuator, and the Chronicle of William of Puylaurens. The three texts are not always in agreement and are sometimes demonstrably in error.  Their authors often disagreed on facts and perspectives, and this allows the modern historian ample room to use the sources selectively to support particular narratives.  Collectively, however, they provide us with almost all of our information about the Albigensian Crusade. My previous posts, linked above, provide historians' views on the biography, style and reliability of each of the authors. 

As an overview, I would note the following:

Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay was a Cistercian monk closely linked to the leadership of the Crusade.  His chronicle can be read as the "official history" of the Albigensian Crusade from the Crusaders' point of view.  His Historia Albigensis has the earliest ending of the three sources, as the last events he records were in December of 1218.

The Canso de la Crozada is a truly remarkable document.  It is an epic poem in Occitan by two very different authors.  The eccentric priest William of Tudela began the story and wrote the first third of it, ending his story abruptly in 1213.  From there, an unnamed author (the "Anonymous Continuator") carried on the poem, literally in mid-sentence.  While William was a poor poet, the Anonymous was an inheritor of the Occitan troubadour culture and wrote brilliant vivid poetry.  What distinguishes his two-thirds of the story even more is that he wrote from the perspective of the southern opponents of the Crusade, thus providing our only surviving source of their views.  He ends his tale in the summer of 1219.  One bit of the Canso briefly references the death of Guy de Montfort in 1228, but it is not clear that it was an original part of the text.

William of Puylaurens was a churchman who looked back on the Albigensian Crusade from the 1270s.  Historians now debate his biography as there were several individuals of his name and it is not clear which, if any, he was.  His Chronicle includes much later information not available in either of the two previous texts.  However, he lacks the contemporary immediacy of the first three authors.

The Albigensian Crusade on the Web

Societe de l'Oriflamme:  http://www.xenophongroup.com/montjoie/albigens.htm

Cathar.info:  http://www.cathar.info/1206_crusade.htm

Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade

Crusades Wiki:  http://crusades.wikia.com/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade

Encyclopaedia Brittanica:  http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/12976/Albigensian-Crusade

Catholic Encyclopedia Online:  http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01267e.htm

The On-line Reference Book for Medieval Studies:  http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/crusade/albig.html
 

On Cathars, Albigenses, and good men of Languedoc:  http://usna.edu/Users/history/abels/crusades/Pegg_2001_Journal-of-Medieval-History.pdf
 

On the reliability of medieval sources

The debate over the reliability of a primary source is central to its interpretation, and thus to the liberty of the historian to follow or diverge from it.  Primary sources whose reliability is generally accepted are held up as approximating historical truth and narratives can be criticized for ignoring them or disagreeing with them.  On the other hand, primary sources whose reliability is often seen as poor can be safely left out of the story and even attacked when used to support a theory.

A chronicler's reliability is often strengthened by his claims to be an eyewitness to events, or by his inclusion of a level of detail which suggests to the historian that he was an eyewitness or heard it from eyewitnesses.  This assumption, however, may conflate the level of detail a chronicler included in the text with the level of detail a chronicler had available to him.  Another factor increasing estimated reliability is if the chronicler recounts events likely to be well-known to his audience or events involving famous persons to whom he may be accountable were he to misrepresent.  However, this assumption may ignore the propagandist nature of some sources, which seek to retell known events in a light different from that known to its audience, or in which famous persons wish events to be misrepresented.

Another estimate of reliability may be gained by attempting to interpret the bias of the chronicler and the intended rhetorical effect of the narrative in the text.  Reduced reliability can be attributed where the chronicler appears to be relating events in an attempt to convince his audience, but greater reliability can be attributed where the chronicler reveals information tangential to his narrative or despite his intended persuasive effort.  For example, the bloodthirstiness of the legate Arnau Amalric, the Abbot of Citeaux, can be determined with some reliability from his own letter to Pope Innocent III after the sack of Beziers: "To our wonderment, within the space of two or three hours they surmounted ditches and walls and the city of Beziers was captured and these ribalds of ours spared no order of persons (whatever their rank, sex, or age) and put to the sword almost twenty thousand people.  After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt, as divine vengeance raged marvellously" (translation from Pegg's A Most Holy War).  In this case, it is not Arnau Amalric's intention to depict himself in a bloodthirsty light -- he does so in passing while fulfilling his intention of assuring the Pope that the Crusade was accomplishing God's work.  If a critic of the crusade, such as the Anonymous, had depicted Arnau Amalric boasting of the number of women and children slaughtered by an army under his command, we might be more hesitant as to his reliability.

But what do we mean by reliability?  At first glance, reliability would be seen as congruence between the events as related by the source and what we know of those events independently.  Where sources agree, then, they are seen to reinforce each other's reliability.  Where they disagree, the reliability of at least one of them will be impugned.  But comparison between sources is not the only way we can know of events.  There is also our rational knowledge of what could and could not have happened in the past.  Yet I find that this basis for the evaluation of a source's reliability is almost never used.

First, an exception.  Medieval chroniclers were, we can now acknowledge, very poor at numerical estimation.  When describing the sizes of armies or the populations of cities, they count more men than we now deem possible and seem, in fact, to be off by a very large margin.  The phenomenon is commented upon by almost every historian who repeats the sources' claims about the size of the crusading army, the number of victims of the sack of Beziers (above), and so on.  Costen, in The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade, called it "the normal inability of commentators at this period to deal with large numbers", and the problem is so pervasive that while it is acknowledged as a general reliability issue, it is never seen as a problem with the reliability of an individual source.

Another, and perhaps more important, way in which we can consider the reliability of a source should be when the source recounts events which we know could not have occurred as described.  Many historians have the alarming habit of quietly editing out the impossible sections of a tale and then presenting the plausible remainder without further skepticism or comment.  Take the following infamous anecdote, retold by Zoe Oldenbourg in Massacre at Montsegur:

"The case of the young girl from Rheims is very typical in the light it sheds on the mentality of the Cathars' opponents.  Radulph, Abbot of Coggeshall, relates that one day the Archbishop of Rheims was taking a stroll outside the city accompanied by some of his clergy; and that one of these, Gervais Tilbury, noticing a young girl walking on her own through a nearby vineyard, went up and accosted her with amorous intent ('although,' as Radulph says, 'he was a Canon').  His proposals must have been blunt and direct in the extreme, since the girl, 'with modest and solemn mien, scarce daring to look at him', replied that she could not give herself to him; for, said she, 'if I were to lose my virginity, my body would be corrupted on the instant, and I should be damned irremediably for all eternity'.  From these utterances the holy clerk perceived that he had to do with a heretic, and denounced her as such to the Archbishop, who meanwhile had come up with his suite.  The girl herself, together with the woman who had instructed her in the Cathar faith, was condemned to the stake, and died with a courage that won great admiration from those who witnessed her end.  It is hard to know which element in this story is more surprising: the heroism of the anonymous martyr, or the moral callousness displayed by judges and chronicler alike.  It seemed quite natural to them that a cleric should not only try to seduce a young girl, but also that he should utilize the very fact of his shameless conduct as an argument against his victim.  A Church in which such moral decadence flourished was hardly qualified to cast the first stone against anyone else." (pp. 65-66)

If we could not know anything more about this tale than what Oldenbourg tells us, it would appear to be of good reliability.  It is not Radulph of Coggeshall's intention to demonstrate the "moral decadence" of the Church -- he seems to do so in passing while pursuing another rhetorical intention.  The individuals involved, such as the Archbishop of Rheims, would presumably be able to hold Radulph to account should he largely misrepresent their conduct.  The level of detail involved is considerable and, although Radulph was not likely an eyewitness to events, he wrote his chronicle starting in 1187 and the burning occurred only about ten years previously.  The author of his Wikipedia entry says of his chronicle that "the corrections and erasures of the autograph show that he took pains to verify his details; and his informants are sometimes worthy of exceptional confidence."  In addition, the burning is also mentioned by another source, thereby confirming our chronicler's apparent reliability -- at least from the information presented so far.

The problem is that Zoe Oldenbourg has been quite selective about the portion of Radulph's story which she relates.  Consider this account of the same from R. I. Moore's The War on Heresy:

"It [Ralph of Coggeshall's famous story] tells how Gervase of Tilbury, an English clerk in the service of the archbishop of Reims, was attracted by a young girl whom he saw working alone in a vineyard.  When she declined his amorous advances, pleading that the loss of her virginity would bring her to certain damnation, 'Master Gervase realised at once that she belonged to the blasphemous sect of the Publicani, who were being searched out and destroyed all over France.'  The girl was arrested and taken to the archbishop's palace for questioning.  It transpired that she had an instructress in the city, who, she was confident, would be able to answer the arguments that were being advanced against her beliefs.  Found and brought before the court,

the woman was bombarded by the archbishop and his clerks with questions and citations of the holy scriptures to convince her of the greatness of her errors, but she perverted all the authorities which they brought forward with such subtle interpretations that it was obvious to everybody that the spirit of all error spoke through her mouth.

The two women, refusing to recant their errors, were condemned to the stake, but the elder escaped:

When the fire had been lit in the city, and they should have been dragged by the archbishop's servants to the punishment that had been allotted to them, the wicked mistress of error called out, 'Madmen!  Unjust judges!  Do you think that you can burn me on your fire?  I neither respect your judgement nor fear the fire which you have prepared.'  So saying she took a ball of thread from her breast, and threw it through the great window, keeping one end of the thread in her hand, and calling loudly in everyone's hearing, 'Catch!'  At this she was raised from the ground in front of everyone, and flew through the window after the ball of thread.  We believe that she was taken by the same evil spirits who once lifted Simon Magus into the air, and none of the onlookers could ever discover what became of the old witch, or whither she was taken.

The girl, who had not yet achieved such madness in the sect, remained behind.  No reason, no promise of wealth, could persuade her to give up her obstinacy, and she was burned.  Many admired the way in which she let forth no sighs, no wailing, and bore the torment of the flames firmly and eagerly, like the martyrs of Christ who (for such a different reason!) were once slain by the pagans for the sake of the Christian religion." (pp. 3-5)

As Moore then asks, "What is the relation between what really happened and what the sources tell us?  It is easy to accept the burnings and dismiss the ball of thread ...."  Perhaps it is too easy.  That is what Oldenbourg has done, lamenting the "martyrdom" of the young woman as fact while obscuring the escape of the older woman, saying only that she was also condemned.  But when Oldenbourg rhetorically states that "it is hard to know which element in this story is more surprising", this is not the case.  Clearly the flying woman with the ball of string is the really surprising element.  The rest surprises us so little as to seem somewhat plausible.

Now Radulph or Ralph of Coggeshall had an explanation for this surprising element, namely "evil spirits", which he presumed would provide an adequate explanation for his audience.  As modern historians, however, we must find this explanation inadequate and so conclude that nothing even remotely like the event described did, in fact, occur.  Nor can any of the hypothetical attestations to the chronicler's reliability prevail upon us in this situation.  In the case of the ball of thread escape, we know that the chronicler is completely unreliable. 

The question then, is whether we can "accept the burnings and dismiss the ball of thread" and if it is appropriate to edit out the ball of thread from the narrative and to present just the burning as coming from a reliable source.  We can not know if the young woman actually was obstinate in her error and eager for the flames, nor if she was actually given any "promise of wealth".  What large financial incentive could, in fact, credibly be offered to a convict sentenced to be burned alive?  Would we not be rather more surprised to hear that a formerly obstinate young heretic became wealthy by accepting an offer to recant and avoid the stake?  The notion seems so preposterous as to cast doubt on whether any such offer could be made or considered.  The level of distortion between any actual event and the chronicler's retelling of it is so large that we can no longer distinguish fact from fiction unless the fiction becomes so fantastic as to no longer be remotely plausible.

Some historians will argue that medieval authors were ill-suited to judge the credibility of miraculous stories, such as the escape of the witch, above.  To a certain extent, this is no doubt true.  But chroniclers then and now were capable of being reliable or unreliable; of making an effort to discern truth from rumour, or of choosing to uncritically pass on dubious information.  There are accounts which do not challenge our credulity in any places, and there are those which pass seamlessly from obvious falsehood to stories of uncertain truth.  I think it is a worthwhile, but too seldom performed, exercise, to distinguish between these types of accounts.

In future posts, I will compare our primary sources for the Albigensian crusade through this lens, and note the differences, especially between Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay and the Anonymous.

Views on William of Puylaurens

William of Puylaurens' biography

Zoe Oldenbourg in Massacre at Montsegur (1959)

"The historian William de Puylaurens, who from 1241 was notary to the Toulouse bishopric, and from 1242 to 1247 chaplain to the Counts of Toulouse, speaks of this Bishop [Foulques] (who had been dead for at least forty years at the time when William composed his narrative) with admiration and reverence: Foulques must have left a good reputation behind him among ecclesiastical circles in the Toulouse area." (p. 99)

Malcolm Barber in The Cathars (2000)

"... William of Puylaurens, who was not an outsider like Peter but brought up in a town little more than a day's journey to the east of Toulouse, ...." (p. 44) 

"William of Puylaurens, who was born just before the crusade in c. 1200 and who did not die until at least 1274, was able to take a longer view than both the others, seeing the campaign to extirpate heresy as covering a period of seventy years, apparently dating its beginning to 1203 when Peter of Castelnau was first appointed legate in the region." (p. 111)

 W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (translators) in The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens (2003)

"... William of Puylaurens was a native of the city [Toulouse], who served two successive bishops, and later Count Raymond VII." (p. xv)

 "William lived from about 1200, or a little before, to about 1275.  He was thus a contemporary of most of the events covered in his work, and he also had the benefit of a long perspective.  He served in the household of Bishop Fulk of Toulouse (d. 1231), who clearly had a major influence on him, and is much eulogised in his Chronicle.  William served Fulk's successor, Raymond de Falgar, for a time, and was also for some time rector or prior of the church at Puylaurens, about 50 kilometres east of Toulouse.  In the 1240s he was chaplain to Count Raymond VII himself." (p. xvi)

"The author's name does not appear in the Chronicle itself, but the earliest surviving manuscript ... states 'Incipit cronica a magistro Guillelmo de Podio Laurenti compilata', and other MSS refer to the author in similar terms.  Duvernoy (p.1) quotes from De fundatione et prioribus conventuum, the work of Bernard Gui, the Dominican historian of the early fourteenth century (and a prominent inquisitor), a reference to our author as ... 'A man veracious and worthy of praise and eternal memory above all others of this generation, Master William, rector of the church of Puylaurens, but a Toulousain by origin'....

We do not know when William was born.  On the basis of the reference in ch. I to William having seen, whilst he was still a child, Isarn Neblat the former lord of Verfeil, then a centenarian, Duvernoy argues that he was probably born in the very early years of the thirteenth century.  However, in ch. II William refers to himself as having been an infans when he heard mention of Bernard Raymond 'the Arian', which he says was long before ... the arrival of the crusaders at Beziers (1209); this might suggest that he was born somewhat earlier than 1200.

E. Griffe affirms (Languedoc, cathare, 1190 a 1210, p. 14 n. 5) that in his youth he lived 'dans la familiarite' of Bishop Fulk; his later career and his knowledge of Latin confirm that he will have received a thorough and privileged education in Church circles from an early age.  References in the Chronicle tseem to confirm his presence in Toulouse during his early years....

Moving forward some years Duvernoy reasonably surmises that -- having by this time achieved a certain standing in the Catholic Church -- William was during the period 1228-30 in the entourage of Bishop Fulk, since the Chronicle gives a great amount of detail in describing matters involving Fulk at this time. ... There are other cases when William recounts episodes about which he had clearly been told in person by Fulk.  Indeed Fulk obviously made a great impression on William and parts of his Chronicle verge on a panegyric of the Bishop.....

It is also reasonable to assume that William was fairly close to Fulk's successor Bishop Raymond de Falgar, following the latter's election in 1231.  .... On the other hand he does not seem to have been as close to Raymond de Falgar as he was to Ful,ann gies fewer details of his episcopate.

As we have noted, William's name begins to appear in various acts from 1237 onwards, and he is usually referred to as a priest or rector of Puylaurens, east of Toulouse.  The earliest record shows him as a witness to the will of Sicard of Puylaurens in October or November of 1237; he is described as magister and rector of Puylaurens.  In the following March he appears again as magister, but described as prior of Puylaurens, in connection with some ecclesiastical causes.  We have already mentioned his appearance in an act of 1241 as notary to the Bishop of Toulouse.

A change in William's position then occurred about the beginning of the year 1245, since between March of that year and February 1248 we find him appearing in various acts as the Chaplain ('capellanus') of Count Raymond VII of Toulouse.  We may also note that on 17 July 1245 a Master William, undoubtedly our author, appeared before Cardinal Octavian in an enquiry into the validity of the marriage between the Count and Marguerite of la Marche ....

In July 1247 William, Chaplain to the Count, appears as a witness to an act in which Raymond VII designated Raymond d'Alfaro to represent him in the enquiry into whether the body of his father (Raymond VI) could be allowed to receive a Christian burial.  In the text of the Chronicle itself, he gives what appear to be first hand accounts of some events in Raymond's last years, and his close knowledge of the circumstances of Raymond's death in September 1249 suggest that he may have been present with the Count.... In December 1249 William appears as a witness to the oaths of loyalty sworn by nobles and consuls before representatives of Alphonse of Poitiers, Raymond's successor.
William was involved in the enquiries conducted by papal inquisitors in Languedoc in 1253 and 1254.  There is then a considerable gap in references to him until 1273 when 'master William of Puylaurens' is cited as a witness by Aimeric de Rouaix (a member of the prominent Toulousian family) in a case in which his rights to certain lands given to him by Raymond VII were being contested by Royal officials....

The last events recorded in the Chronicle ... relate to the years 1273-6.  In that chapter King James I of Aragon is referred to as still living; he died on 26 July 1276, and it is thus reasonable to assume that the Chronicle itself was completed in 1275/6, and that William probably died at about this time." (pp. xxi-xxiv)

Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)

"The author of the chronicle, who is anonymous in the text, identifies himself as a native of Languedoc, quoting at one point a memory of himself in the streets of Toulouse as a child.  At some point he was probably associated with the Bishop of Toulouse's household, as he refers to having spoken personally to both Bishop Foulques of Toulouse and Bishop Guillem Peire of Albi.  The earliest surviving manuscript of the chronicle names its author as Guillaume de Puylaurens in an incipit added by either the owner of the copyist of the manuscript and this attribution has been accepted by modern scholars of the work.  The only problem has been locating the correct Guillaume de Puylaurens.
The author of the chronicle is usually linked with the master Guillaume who was rector of the church of Puylaurens in the 1230s and 1240s and a notary to successive bishops of Toulouse who also worked with the Toulouse Inquisition.  However, a master Guillaume was also chaplain to Raimond VII of Toulouse at around the same time, and there has been considerable debate about whether these two Guillaumes were, in fact, one and the same.  Neither Duveroy nor Sibly and Sibly, the modern editors of the chronicle, have seen any difficulty with viewing Guillaume de Puylaurens as associated with both the bishops and the count of Toulouse; Sibly and Sibly comment that Raimond VII was reconciled to the Church and the French Crown after 1245 and had made some efforts against heresy.  On the other hand, it is certainly the case that throughout his chronicle Guillaume showed himself firmly in favour of the crusade and entirely unsympathetic to those, including the counts of Toulouse, who opposed it.  In this view, Guillaume's Toulousan origins did not give him any identification with the victims of the crusade.  Dossat commented of Guillaume that he was 'a royalist writer ... Guillaume de Puylaurens represents the opinion of those who were easily reconciled to the loss of their independence [to the French Crown]', an impression of the author which sits uneasily with the idea that he was chaplain of any count of Toulouse, however chastened and reformed.
The debate about the notary and the chaplain in Toulouse in the 1240s has, however, obscured some problems with the identification of either of these figures as the author of the chronicle.  Master Guillaume the notary was probably born in or before c. 1200 as, if he was a different person, would master Guillaume the chaplain of the count of Toulouse have been.  The chronicle was probably composed in 1275/1276, which would place the author in his late seventies when it was written.  It is no wonder that Sibly and Sibly conclude that he 'probably died at about this time'.  While it is perfectly possible for master Guillaume to have lived to this age, it is an unlikely age to have begun such an ambitious and complex work.
In the chronicle, the author made great efforts to imply the authority of personal memory for everything which he related; as he said in his introduction, he would only relate 'those things which I have either seen or heard or have heard from the closest sources or have extrapolated from other writings left for posterity'.  This echoed Pierre des Vaux's similar statement in the prologue to the Historia Albigensis, demonstrating how personal memory was seen, even in the later thirteenth century, as more reliable than the written sources on which the author would otherwise have been dependent.  It was therefore important for the author to create the impression that he had a personal connection to all the events he described, and this extended even to the period long before the crusade.  Although he cannot possibly have been an eyewitness to either St Bernard's preaching at Toulouse in 1145 or Henry of Marcy's attack on Lavaur in 1178, the description of both events is given a personal connection to the author and the implication that these were also based in personal recollection.
It is these connections which have been used to support the idea that the author of the chronicle was born in c. 1200.  On Bernard of Clairvaux's preaching, the author related how St Bernard cursed the lords of Verfeil and commented that as a child (infans) he has seen the principal lord of the place, Isarn Neblat, then a cententarian, living in great poverty in Toulouse.  Similarly, he described how he remembered people talking as a child about a heretic, Bernard Raimond the Arian, whom Henry of Marcy had converted back to orthodoxy and who had become a canon, and commented how this was 'a long time before the crusade came to Beziers'.  However, it is not necessary to read either of these passages as confirming an early birth date for the author.
Isarn de Verfeil was still a lord of Verfeil in 1202, when he witnessed an agreement between the counts of Foix and Toulouse and it is most likely that he lost his lands as a result of the crusade.  The author of the chronicle himself attributes the problems of Verfeil under Bernard's curse not only to weather and barrenness, but also to war.  If Isarn was a young lord of Verfeil in 1145 and was one hundred years old when the author saw him as an infans, usually meaning a child under seven, this could have been as late as 1225 and is unlikely to have been earlier than 1215.  In the same way, the passage on the 1178 attack on Lavaur attempts to connect the author to the events he describes but does not necessitate his birth in c. 1200.  Sibly and Sibly have argued that this means that the author heard the gossip about Bernard Raimond the Arian as a child in c. 1204, not a very convincing explanation for the author's statement that this was a long time before the crusade.  This comment is the last sentence of the entire passage and it is more likely that it refers to the events of 1178 and not simply to the author's memory of hearing about them; 1178 being more legitimately regarded than 1204 as a long time before 1209.
Bishop Foulques of Toulouse died in 1231 and Bishop Guilhem Peire of Albi in 1230.  If the author of the chronicle was born c. 1210-1215, it is perfectly possible that he encountered them while attached to the episcopal household as a young man, possibly acquiring the 'thorough and privileged education in Church circles' that Sibly and Sibly argue the quality of his Latin indicates he must have received from an early age.  As Duvernoy commented, the level of detail in the passages relating to Foulques in the last years of his episcopate imply that the author was connected to his household in 1228-30.
The references to master Guillaume the notary, who was hitherto active in episcopal and Inquisition circles, cease in 1254 and the records are then silent for almost twenty years.  In 1273, however, a master Guillaume de Puylaurens was named as a witness for Aimery de Rouaix in a case against the royal authorities.  The most likely explanation for this gap is that the master Guillaume who had been the notary to the bishops of Toulouse and possibly chaplain to Raimond VII of Toulouse died in c. 1255 and that another Guillaume, who unlike the first used de Puylaurens as his toponymic, was active in Toulouse in the 1270s and wrote the chronicle of the Albigensian crusade.  In so doing, Guillaume went to great lengths to imply that he had witnessed the entire seventy years' war, but it is unlikely that he did so.  While the claim to authenticity echoes that of the Historia Albigensis, Guillaume de Puylaurens' chronicle was not a contemporary account of the early years of the crusade.  While his focus on Toulouse provides valuable details not contained in other sources, his account is that of a man of the later thirteenth century, looking back on events from before he was even born." (pp. 37-39)

Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)

"The last major source comes from William of Puylaurens, who did not witness the Occitan War and wrote at least a generation later than the other three authors.  Though we have a name for him he never actually mentions one in his work, so the name we have may be a later addition.  His name and background are actually more problematic than first appears, as there was a William of Puylaurens who was priest of the church of the same name during the mid-thirteenth century.  He also may have been a notary in Toulouse, or a chaplain of Raimon VII, or perhaps all three.  At certain points his writing suggests he knew the people he was talking about, as in his recounting of the battle of Muret. He states that the young Count Raimon related that he was not allowed to participate in the battle because of his age (he was about sixteen at the time), but observed it from the hills west of the battlefield.  Since Raimon VII died in 1249 and William's chronicle goes to 1275, William would have been fairly old to have served the last Count of Toulouse and still be writing more than twenty-five years later.  Still, it is not impossible to believe that the count's chaplain and the chronicler was one and the same person." (pp. 26-27)

William of Puylaurens' bias


Jacques Maudale in The Albigensian Crusade (1967)

"... Guillaume de Puylaurens, a good Catholic, related to Bishop Foulques of Toulouse, but also a good patriot ..." (p. 91)

Malcolm Barber in The Cathars (2000)

"William of Puylaurens, a cleric from Toulouse who offers an overview of events from a mid-thirteenth century perspective, even though a much less biased commentator than Peter, was equally provoked [by the heresies spreading from Lavaur]." (p. 34) 

W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (translators) in The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens (2003)

"William was unquestioningly opposed to heresy, and he was unswervingly loyal to the Catholic Church and especially to the bishops of Toulouse.  He supported the Crusade and the efforts of the crusaders and later of the French Crown to extirpate heresy from the Midi, just as he supported the work of the early inquisitors.  In his Prologue he blames the people, prelates and princes of the Midi for their neglect, which allowed heresy to become implanted in the South, and he regarded the Crusade, and all the destruction it brought, as the inevitable consequence.

Nevertheless, as will appear from our discussion later in this Introduction, he was no blind partisan.  He can see the faults of the crusaders, including even Simon de Montfort, the great hero of the Crusade.  He was clearly an intelligent man, able to appreciate the complexities of the events he describes without losing sight of his overall loyalties.  He takes no pleasure in the warfare and disruption of these years, which he regrets; and the tone of his narrative is in marked contrast both the simplistic and naive support for the crusaders which characterises Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay's Historia, and to the pro-southern stance of the anonymous writer of the second part of the Chanson.  Sometimes his partiality, and perhaps his devotion to Bishop Fulk of Toulouse in particular, leads him to take what we might see as a one-sided view, but in general he gives much more of a sense of critical detachment than the other contemporary narratives." (p. xvi)

"Overall therefore an impression emerges of a discerning and fair-minded man, inclined by nature to give a true rather than a distortedly partisan account.  We have mentioned his high regard for Bishop Fulk, whom he frequently represents as a generous and compassionate man, and it is perhaps not too much to suggest that the Bishop served as his role model."  (p.xxviii) 

William of Puylaurens' style


W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (translators) in The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens (2003)

"... William is no 'Dryasdust': the Chronicle, as the product of an intelligent and knowledgeable man, is also very readable in its own right." (p. xvi)

"Like very many writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries William had a good knowledge of Latin, and a wide vocabulary.  However his prose does not flow freely.  His style is frequently condensed and very tortuous, less straightforward than that of many of his contemporaries and often incapable of being rendered literally into English.  William enjoys indulging in rhetoric -- especially when he is commenting on events rather than merely relating them."  (p. xviii)

William of Puylaurens' reliability

Jonathan Sumption in The Albigensian Crusade (1978)

"With Simon's strong hand removed, they [Amaury de Montfort's vassals] plundered and murdered at will, and according to William of Puylaurens publicly flaunted their concubines and ill-gotten luxuries.  The exaggerations of this strait-laced notary must be treated as such, but they were certainly symptoms of a profound malaise in the crusading army." (p. 202)

W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (translators) in The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens (2003)

"Much of the chronicle is based on a close knowledge of the people and events being described, which adds greatly to its importance." (p. xv)

"He himself undoubtedly witnessed many of the vents he describes and was closely connected with Bishop Fulk and Count Raymond VII of Toulouse.  Taken together, this all means that he is greatly to be valued as a source." (p. xvi)

"Bearing in mind what we know of William's life it seems reasonable to suppose that many of the episodes which receive particular attention were those which he witnessed personally, or played a part in, or knew about from the testimony of eyewitnesses.  This would apply to some of the earlier content of the Chronicle and to most of the content covering the period from, say, 1220 at least to the death of Raymond VII in 1249" (p. xxv)

"William's chronology is sometimes problematic.  At times it can clearly be demonstrated that he is wrong (for instance over the question of which legate was in office when the Dominicans were appointed as inquisitors, ch. XLI, n. 49).  ... At other times his ordering of events is confusing, as in his account of events in 1210-11 (ch. XVII) or in the mid-1220s (ch. XXXII).
The Chronicle differs very much in its general approach from the other two main narrative sources for the Albigensian Crusade (Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay (PVC) and the Chanson), but where the three accounts can be directly compared there is general agreement on factual matters: we tend to find differences in detail and presentation rather than of substance.  It is possible that William may have been familiar with both PVC and the Chanson....
It is then appropriate to consider whether William's sincere Catholic beliefs, his loyalty to the Church, and his consequent dislike of heresy justify any strong reservations about his reliability.  The basic answer is 'no', and here we may contrast the attitude of Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, who regarded anyone who opposed the Crusade as utterly evil, with that of William, whose approach is quite different and much more moderate, critical, and measured. 
...
However, a close study of the Chronicle would not support a view that William in general allowed his faith or his loyalties to induce him to falsify or distort his record of events, inadvertently or otherwise.  On the contrary, a strong impression emerges of an intelligent and fair-minded man, keen to give a true account ... and aware of the complexity of the Church's problems in the Midi." (pp. xxvi-xxvii)

Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)

"Even if the composer lived later than traditionally believed, or was actually more than one person, he or they provide many original details not available in the other major sources ....  On most events William of Puylaurens is a valuable supplement, but obviously his account gets better the closer it draws to his own era.  Therefore his greatest strength lies in events after 1218." (p. 27)

Views on the Anonymous

The Anonymous' biography

Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)

"Nothing is known about the author save what can be deduced from the work itself.  The author has been described as a Toulousan: he refers to Bishop Foulques of Toulouse as 'our bishop' and his stress on the battles for Toulouse has been held to indicate a Toulousan perspective.  This is not, however, the only possible interpretation of the author's allegiance, since the focus of the passages on Toulouse is not on the citizens but on the Count of Foix and his sons.  This interest in Foix also shaped the earlier passages on the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, some of the most important passages in the continuation of the Chanson which give unique details of the debates over Toulouse and Foix and in which the only lord from Languedoc to speak at any length is the Count of Foix.

The complimentary epithets heaped on Roger Bernard, son of Raimond Roger of Foix and himself Count of Foix from 1223, in the later part of the Chanson imply a particular connection between him and the author; an implication strengthened by the passage referring to him as 'valiant Roger Bernard, who gave me gold and glory'.  It is possible that the continuator of the Chanson was a court poet at Foix; since Foix was in the diocese of Toulouse, this presents no contradiction with the reference to Bishop Foulques as 'our bishop'." (p. 34)

Mark Pegg in A Most Holy War (2008)

"He was most likely a soldier of Toulouse or Foix ..." (p. xxii)

The Anonymous' bias

Janet Shirley (translator) in Song of the Cathar Wars (1996)

"His [William of Tudela's] anonymous continuer, however, is whole-heartedly on the side of the southerners.  This does not mean that he supported heresy; on the contrary, he indignantly denies that any of his heroes were guilty of such an error and asserts their orthodoxy." (p.1)

"The Anonymous is a passionate opponent of the crusade, thinks no villainy too evil to be ascribed to its commander, Simon de Montfort, and shouts for joy at each success won by Count Raymond or by his son, 'the brave young count'." (p.2)

"There are several asides in the text expressing gratitude to generous donors, as for example the reference by the Anonymous in laisse 194 to Roger Bernard, son of the count of Foix, que m daura e esclarzis, 'who gave me gold and glory'.  The last few laisses, too, display an astonishing command of adjectives: not one of the lords mentioned but is valiant, heroic or generous, and never does the Anonymous repeat himself; he has several new epithets ready every time.  Surely this gives us a clue to the likely composition of his audience, among whom he intends shortly to be passing round his hat." (p.5)

Malcolm Barber in The Cathars (2000)

"As the anonymous author of the Chanson saw it, the crusade destroyed this world.  Writing in the late 1220s he looked back nostalgically to a time when what he called paratge had been the central element in aristocratic society." (p. 55)

Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)

"A connection for the continuator with the counts of Foix provides a context for his wholehearted opposition to the crusade, an opposition which shows a clear difference in approach between his perspective and that of Guillaume de Tudela and places his work squarely within the tradition of later vernacular writing about the crusade." (p. 35)

Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)

"The Anonymous is actually the most partisan of the three writers already mentioned [Peter of Les Vaux de Cernay, William of Tudela and the Anonymous], yet he provides us detail for the latter stages of the war which would be unavailable otherwise.  Probably from Toulouse, he most likely accurately reflects Toulousan attitudes during the second half of the war.

...

As good as he is on the siege of Toulouse, we have to be careful when the Anonymous talks about goings on in the crusader camp.  Simon of Montfort and some of the papal legates come off as stock villains in a melodrama in which the people of the south represent the heroine tied to a railroad track.  In that sense, however, the Anonymous is no different from Peter Vaux-de-Cernay, who does much the same thing inverted."(p.26)

Mark Pegg in A Most Holy War (2008)

"He ... was furious.  He hated the "French from France" and, less impressed with fate as a despot, saw all terror emanating from Simon de Montfort.  He was intensely nostalgic about the world destroyed by the crusade." (p. xxii)

"The anonymous troubadour's verses thrill with a moral clarity so sharp and sarcastic that even Christ Himself was briefly humbled by his wrath." (p. 130)

The Anonymous' style

Janet Shirley (translator) in Song of the Cathar Wars (1996)

"[The Anonymous] was a man of genius." (p.2)

"The Anonymous ... can toss showers of words into the air and catch them again, can make the morning air shimmer before our eyes as the knights ride to war along the riverbank with the sun glinting on their armour and on the waters of the Garonne.  More than this, he has great economy of style, never any hint of long-windedness or padding, and his command of dialogue is such that we read on in amazement, thinking, for example, 'How brave of that man to speak to Count Simon like that!' before we catch ourselves up and remember that the whole conversation can only be invented." (p.2)

Mark Pegg in A Most Holy War (2008)

"This rage and sentimentality were transformed into sublime and moving poetry ....  Guilhem de Tudela's canso was transformed by the anonymous troubadour into one of the great poems of the Middle Ages." (p. xxii)

The Anonymous' reliability

Janet Shirley (translator) in Song of the Cathar Wars (1996)

"The anonymous author who wrote the larger part of the Canso proves equally reliable [to William of Tudela].  Where he can be checked against such texts as the Hystoria albigensis of Peter of Les Vaux de Cernay ... he is accurate, and where he is the sole authority to mention the presence of individuals at such-and-such a scene, he is often supported by charter evidence.  His narrative is, however, to some extent uneven.  Some events, such as the siege of Beaucaire, are told in great detail, others are skated over or omitted.  E. Martin-Chabot, most recent editor of the Canso, claims that this unevenness indicates our author's presence at some events and absence from others and that this is in itself good evidence of his reliability ....

The lively speeches the Anonymous puts into his characters' mouths are of course not meant to be taken literally; they serve to set differing points of view before the audience in a vivid way and to keep the action of the poem moving.  Some of them also enable the partisan author to depict Simon de Montfort in a thoroughly repulsive light - here are all these admirable crusaders, we think, great men from the north like the count of Soissons, telling the wicked count to behave better, and yet he persists in his cruel ways!  It is easy to forget that these are literary devices and that in all probability the count of Soissons and the others never dreamed of uttering such remarks." (p.5)

Malcolm Barber in The Cathars (2000)

"The pro-southern anonymous continuator of the Chanson, who invents a series of colourful speeches for the participants in the Fourth Lateran Council held in November 1215, placed Raymond Roger at the forefront of the debate." (pp. 52-53)

The pro-southern continuator of the Chanson includes a dramatic set-piece which purports to be an account of the arguments put forward before the pope at the council.  All the participants are endowed with an eloquence seldom found in real life, but it is likely that beneath the vivid words the poet puts into their mouths, he is conveying a fundamental truth about their respective positions." (p. 138)

Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)

"Although it [the Chanson] was ... written some years after the events which it describes, the author seems to have been well informed about events in Languedoc, and does not appear markedly less reliable than either Guillaume de Tudela or Pierre des Vaux.  This is the case even when the author was describing events outside Languedoc, such as the proceedings of the Fourth Lateran Council.

 Although the debates over the counts of Toulouse and Foix at the Fourth Lateran Council are presented in dramatised and dramatic fashion which must have owed much to the imagination of the author, there is no reason to regard the continuation as essentially unreliable about the Council.  It is possible that the author had access to first hand sources of information about the proceedings in Rome in 1215, particularly if he had been associated with the court of the Count of Foix." (p. 35)

 Graham-Leigh then discusses the portrayal of the Pope at the Fourth Lateran Council and concludes:

"... the inherent unlikelihood of Innocent's behaviour as described in the continuation of the Chanson presents problems for this source's acceptance as a reliable and well informed account.  These problems are not, however, insoluble: it is possible to accept both the continuation's reliability and its presentation of the Pope if it is interpreted within the later tradition of anti-crusade writing of which it was undoubtedly a part." (p.36)

Graham-Leigh then notes "open criticism of the Church and the papacy would have been much more dangerous" for the Anonymous than for better-protected, later authors, "and it is possible that this consideration shaped the continuation of the Chanson."






Mark Pegg in A Most Holy War (2008)

"The anonymous troubadour, not surprisingly, cherished half-heard half-truths." (p. 143)

Views on William of Tudela

I am using Janet Shirley's translation of the Canso de la Crozada, where it is quoted.


William of Tudela's biography

William of Tudela in Canso de la Crozada (1210)

 "William is a clerk in holy orders and was educated at Tudela in Navarre.  From there he went to Montauban where he remained eleven years, but in the twelfth year he went away because he could foresee the tragedy which lay ahead.  He had long studied geomancy and was skilled in this art, so that he knew that fire and devastation would lay the whole region waste, that the rich citizens would lose all the wealth they had stored up, and the knights would flee, sad and defeated, into exile in other lands, all because of the insane belief held in that country.  For this reason, as you have heard, he left Montauban and went to join Count Baldwin -- may Jesus guard and guide him! -- at Bruniquel, where the count was delighted to welcome him." -- Laisse 1

"Baldwin later had William appointed, unopposed, to a canonry at Bourg St Antonin, which he had garrisoned.  Master Tecin and Geoffrey of Poitiers both did all they could to help Master William in this matter.

And then William composed and wrote this book.  Once he began it, he thought of nothing else till it was done and indeed scarcely gave himself time for sleep." -- Laisse 1

"My lords, listen to my song, for now the pace quickens.  Master William began it in the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1210 in the month of May when the trees put forth their leaves, while he was living in Montauban." -- Laisse 9

Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)

"Guillaume de Tudela came from a very different background [from Pierre des Vaux de Cernay].  A Spanish clerk in minor orders, he began the Chanson in Occitan in 1210 and stopped writing in late 1213.  The Chanson therefore covers only the early years of the crusade, from its inception in 1208 to the eve of the battle of Muret in 1213.
...
Guillaume of Tudela was also in Languedoc during many of the events which he described; he had left Spain by 1204 at the latest and was living in Montauban in 1211 and later at Bruniquel." (p.18)

Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)

"During the early years of the Occitan War, William of Tudela served in the household of Baldwin of Toulouse, half-brother of Raimon VI yet one of the most important allies of the crusade.  This means that, like Peter, William either witnessed many of the things he wrote about or knew those who did, and he served a noble who became a member of the inner circle of the crusade.  William's portion breaks off abruptly in 1213, suggesting that he died but that it was compiled soon after the events it covers." (p.25)

William of Tudela's bias

Jacques Maudale in The Albigensian Crusade (1967)

"... author of the first part of the Chanson de la Croisade and favourable to the Crusaders though a Southerner." (p. 67)

Janet Shirley (translator) in Song of the Cathar Wars (1996)

"William of Tudela, the first author, supported the papacy and the northern French and their allies, although with some qualms now and then at particular acts of cruelty." (p.1)

"William is emphatically a loyal Catholic who deplores la fola erransa of the heretics and thinks it an unfortunate necessity, indeed their own fault, if they are slaughtered." (p.2)

Malcolm Barber in The Cathars (2000)
"... pro-crusader in approach, but with an awareness of the suffering of the victims of the crusade as well." (p. 7)
Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)

"Guillaume de Tudela's loyalties lay with Baldwin, the younger brother of the Count of Toulouse."  (p. 122)

"Guillaume de Tudela ... has been viewed as writing from an entirely different perspective [from Pierre des Vaux de Cernay].  Although it is clear that he was never a supporter of heresy, the fact that the Chanson was written in Occitan, coupled with the author's obvious connections to the family of St Gilles, have given the impression that Guillaume was presenting the Languedoc version of the crusade. ...  Guillaume was certainly never afraid to criticise the actions of the crusaders when he felt it appropriate, showing his disgust at the sack of Beziers in 1209, for example, in no uncertain terms: 'I believe that such savage butchery has neither been planned nor carried out since the time of the Saracens.'" (p. 19)

Graham-Leigh goes on to contrast Pierre Les Vaux De Cernay's description of Raimon VI's visit to Pope Innocent III in 1209 with William of Tudela's description, and she concludes:

"Neither of these accounts should be taken literally. ... Innocent is ... unlikely to have received the count as an honoured guest in the way that Guillaume relates.  To be shown the Veronica, let alone be allowed to touch it, was a signal honour and one not usually allowed to excommunicate suspected supporters of heretics and murderes of papal legates.  Evidently, both authors described Raimond VI's reception at Rome according to their own prejudices." (p. 20)

"Guillaume de Tudela's audience ... might have been expected to have approved of Raimond's attempts to obtain absolution from his excommunication and be received back into the Church. ... For Guillaume it was entirely appropriate that the Count of Toulouse should be well received at Rome and this was the only possible way in which Raimond's reception by the Pope could be described if Guillaume was to be able to continue to show the Pope in a good light.
The unanimity of Pierre and Guillaume in their attitude to the Pope is hidden by the requirements of their different audiences, so that both writers portrayed the Pope as their audiences would have liked him to have been.  This agreement in the underlying portrayal, if not in the surface details, of the Pope who called the crusade indicates a more general similarity in attitude between these two writers who are often regarded as completely opposed, and casts doubt on Guillaume de Tudela's status as an anti-crusade commentator."  (p.22)

"Guillaume's apparent identification with both the crusaders and the Count of Toulouse has led to the description of the Chanson as a work containing inherent contradictions and to the charge that Guillaume would change his support according to the victories of either side.  The assessment of Guillaume as a writer who was essentially confused by conflicting loyalties towards both the Count of Toulouse and the crusaders is somewhat unfair, the result of the persistent assumption that Guillaume's work is in some way representative of the Languedoc side in the Albigensian crusade.  In fact, the contradictory nature of the Chanson has been overstated; Guillaume's support for the crusade may have been more whole-hearted than has often been thought." (p.23)

"Guillaume's connection with the family of the counts of Toulouse, apparent throughout the poem, was not so much with Count Raimond VI, the opponent of the crusade, but with his younger brother Baldwin. ... Guillaume had the highest opinion of Bladwin, describing him as 'more valiant than Roland or Oliver', and his identification with the Count of Toulouse was plainly for Baldwin's sake.  When the brothers were at odds, Guillaume did not fail to take Baldwin's side, arguing that 'Baldwin would never have wanted to make violent war on Raimond, if the latter had not so very wrongly had his castle of Bruniquel sacked.'  Guillaume's identification with Baldwin was unproblematic as far as his support for the crusade was concerned, since by the time Guillaume was writing Baldwin had changed sides and surrendered Bruniquel to Simon de Montfort.  The only contradictions in his account originated from the split between Baldwin and his brother the Count of Toulouse.  In 1213, Raimond VI was to have his brother executed for his support for the crusade and it is possible to suppose that, had Guillaume been writing after this date, he would have taken a far harsher attitude towards the count." (p. 23)

"Guillaume de Tudela's work cannot be regarded as anything other than as pro-crusade and, while it was not written from within the crusade establishment, its approach differs less from that of Pierre des Vaux than has been supposed.  Guillaume de Tudela did not speak for all Languedoc, only for that part of it which, like Baldwin, actively supported the crusade." (p. 24)

Mark Pegg in A Most Holy War (2008)

"Although supportive of the crusade, he was no crude panegyrist.  Baudoin de Toulouse was his sometime patron ... and the loyalties of this lord partially shaped his outlook.  Nevertheless, there was much moral and metaphoric ambiguity in his attitude to the crusaders.  He was always trying to sing his way through events that seemed dictated by a providence too brutal to be completely benign." (p. xxii)

"Guilhem was like all those Provencal nobles who signed themselves with the cross; he believed in the rightness of the crusade and yet the massacres unnerved and disturbed him." (p. 130)

Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)

"William has traditionally been viewed as a loyal Christian but also a southerner who did not always approve of the way the crusade was conducted.  Actually, his background as a southerner but role as a cleric make William perhaps the least biased of any of the major chroniclers.  He often provides detail that Peter Vaux-de-Cernay does not, such as his recounting of the branch of the crusade which attacked Casseneuil in 1209.  In other cases he corroborates what Peter says, thus increasing our confidence in the way certain events probably took place." (p.25)

William of Tudela's style

William of Tudela in Canso de la Crozada (1210)

"The book is well made and full of good writing.  Listen  to it all of you, great and small, and you will learn both wisdom and eloquence, for the man who wrote it is brimming over with both." -- Laisse 1

Janet Shirley (translator) in Song of the Cathar Wars (1996)

"... William was a good competent writer ....  William can tell a good story and is careful to leave us in no doubt that he was a well educated literary man ('Never in the host of Menelaus from whom Paris stole Helena were so many tents set up on the plains below Mycenae...')" (p.2)

Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)

"The chanson de geste was a particularly pro-crusade medium and the choice of this model, unusual for a work in Occitan, by Guillaume de Tudela can be regarded as an indication of where he considered himself to stand.  In his introduction, he stated that his work was composed on the model of the Chanson d'Antioch, a poem which was part of the cycle celebrating the First Crusade, and this statement was undoubtedly intended as a signal to the audience of the stance taken by the Chanson towards the Albigensian crusade." (p. 24)

William of Tudela's reliability

Zoe Oldenbourg in Massacre at Montsegur (1959)

"He describes the scene [of the sack of Beziers] in such detail that he must have taken it from an eyewitness" (p. 113)

(but then on p. 115 states that what William of Tudela describes next "is somewhat hard to credit")

Janet Shirley (translator) in Song of the Cathar Wars (1996)

"William of Tudela used eye-witness testimony when he could, and quoted his sources ....  He also points out that he could have made his song much better if he had been able to ride with and get to know the crusaders ....  William's chronology lacks detail, but the only inaccuracies scholars have found is that he transposes the dates of the fall of Terms and the council at St Gilles (laisse 58) and exaggerates the duration of the siege of Termes.  He also locates at Arles a council which is porbably but not certainly the same as one that took place at Montpellier (laisse 59).  All the other events he describes are correct, in so far as they can be checked form other sources.  This means that we can trust him when he mentions events not recorded elsewhere, such as the crusade from Quercy and the Agenais (laisses 13 and 14), and the attempt made by Peter II of Aragon to achieve a settlement during the siege of Carcassonne (laisses 26-32)." (pp. 4-5)

Elaine Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade (2005)

"Both authors [He and Pierre des Vaux de Cernay] were keen to present their accounts as founded on reliable information and personal experience. ... Guillaume de Tudela was also careful to present himself as a reliable informant by admitting various instances when he was not able to speak from personal experience, as for example his comment in his description of Raimond Roger, Viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne that he had only met him once.

The credentials of both Pierre des Vaux and Guillaume de Tudela mean that their accounts can be regarded as generally well-informed and together they provide a large part of the information available on the Albigensian Crusade." (p. 18)

Laurence Marvin in The Occitan War (2008)

"He often provides detail that Peter Vaux-de-Cernay does not, such as his recounting of the branch of the crusade which attacked Casseneuil in 1209.  In other cases he corroborates what Peter says, thus increasing our confidence in the way certain events probably took place." (p.25)

William of Tudela's patrons

William of Tudela in Canso de la Crozada (1210)

 "Indeed, if he [Master William] had had the luck of many a foolish minstrel or wretched knave, he would not now be suffering for want of some good, honest man who would give him a horse or a Breton palfry to carry him pacing across the plain, or clothes of silk, precious embroideries or rich brocades!  But daily we see the world turning to perdition, and wealthy men who ought to be virtuous are evil and refuse to give away so much as a button.  For my part, I don't ask them for the value of the filthiest bit of ash lying on their hearths, and may God who made the heavens and the firmament confound them all, God and his blessed Mother!" -- Laisse 9

Mark Pegg in A Most Holy War (2008)

"Baudoin de Toulouse was his sometime patron (he gave him a canonry at Bourg Saint-Antonin in 1211 or 1212), and the loyalties of this lord partially shaped his outlook." (p. xxii)