(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.
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