I never would have thought I'd be fascinated by history. As a young man, I had more than a passing interest, perhaps, in medieval warfare, in knights and sieges, but I never considered historiography as a subject which would absorb me. To be honest, I wouldn't have known what the word meant. (It means both the way that history is written and the body of work on a historical topic). I thought that history was fixed; that what had happened in the past was clearly known to authoritative scholars who reproduced facts in more accessible formats. I was vaguely aware that there were some debates and disagreements among historians, but I didn't think they'd be very interesting.
Love at First Sight
It must have been a little over ten years ago that I stumbled across Zoe Oldenbourg's book "Massacre at Montsegur". I read, with mounting excitement and horror, her account of the Albigensian Crusade -- the huge scale of the conflict, the shocking atrocities, the acts of heroism, the unexpected turning points. I was also struck by the importance of the events she described and surprised that I had never heard of them before. Here was the Catholic Church waging a genocidal war on fellow Christians in Europe and somehow it had been skipped over in whatever overviews I had been given in school.
Here was holy war seen in a whole new light. Here were abbots and other holy men conducting massacres of civilians and preaching more. Here was the formation of the notorious Inquisition.
And through it all the mysterious figures of the "Cathars" courageously following their modest and appealing religion despite persecution. Although not a religious person myself, I was deeply moved by their quiet faith and their martyrdom.
In particular, I took to heart the story of one Jean Tisseyre (p. 288) who was falsely accused of Catharism by the Toulouse inquisition and imprisoned, awaiting execution, despite being a known loyal Catholic. The citizens of Toulouse rioted against the imprisonment of a man known for his orthodox beliefs and would have succeeded in winning his freedom but, in the prison, he made the acquaintance of several "Cathar perfecti" and converted to the religion. So strong was his newfound conviction that, although he could have walked free, he chose instead to burn alive along with the "perfecti" rather than abjure their faith.
What an impressive martyrdom! Across the gap of eight centuries, the story of Jean Tisseyre's courage spoke to me. His sacrifice, I decided, should not be in vain and his story should not be forgotten. I resolved to delve deeper into the tale of his faith and of the secret Church into which he had been initiated and for the sake of which he had given his life.
Delving Deeper
Over the next few years I read other, similar books. Although the account of the "Cathars" was much the same in every one, I found I liked the new details of the story that emerged with each book as I found some new part of the grand story which a different historian had decided to research and include. I enjoyed the new insights I gained into the "Cathars" and their persecutors, their defenders and their implacable foes. While finding new books on the subject, I also came to realize that there were authors telling a different story -- of an insidious and dangerous upstart religion which threatened Christendom and compelled a reluctant and loving Church to harsh measures which then got out of hand. I read some books about related topics -- the formation of the Catholic Church and the establishment of orthodox and heretical beliefs, the role of the Inquisition in society, the better-known Crusades in the Holy Land, the nuances of medieval warfare. My taste for this sort of thing now confirmed, I decided to go back to university and make a career of it.
After my third-year undergraduate studies at my local university, I was disappointed. I had exhausted the undergraduate curriculum looking for courses which covered the topics I loved and I hadn't found them. I had taken a course entitled "The History of the Christian Church" and found that over an academic year there was a total of fifteen minutes of lecture time on the Inquisition -- an institution that I considered to have greatly affected intellectual life in the West for half a millenium. I had taken all of the History department's undergraduate courses which covered the middle ages and had found two which mentioned the Albigensian Crusade: one for about ten minutes and the other just long enough to mention that it wasn't on the curriculum. More importantly, perhaps, I had found that there were only four or five professorships which opened up every year in North America teaching medieval history. I was running low on enthusiasm for spending the next several years studying historical topics other than the ones I was passionate about so that I could eventually earn a Ph.D. and compete for career opportunities which seemed less likely than those for garage musicians wanting to become rock stars. I re-entered the professional work force and decided to keep reading history only as a hobby.
Now, I don't mean to say that my academic studies were pointless. I learned a great deal about history, about what is known, is not known, or perhaps can't be known. I learned about historiography (the philosophy and methods of writing history), about codicology (the study of books and manuscripts themselves), forgery, and other intriguing topics. I gained some important skills about how to think about primary sources (texts written by those with personal knowledge of events) and their transmission (how those texts are copies and preserved and passed down to us). I realized that history is not fixed by infallible authorities, but is constantly changing as new information and interpretation is developed. I also began to understand that history is not a science -- it has no inherent methodology of hypothesis testing, verification and self-correction -- and that sometimes errors and misunderstandings can be perpetuated indefinitely. I'm a big fan of science, especially the way that old and respected theories can be overturned by any upstart with solid data and clear analysis. History, it seemed, could be a little less accommodating although major paradigm shifts could, and did, happen. I had a wonderful professor who captured my imagination, challenged me to rigorously formulate and defend my positions, and never failed to get back to me with answers and further information no matter how odd or frequent my questions. But his interests lay four centuries before mine on a different set of topics, and those of his local colleagues even farther still.
A Turning Point
In the months that followed my university studies, I sometimes thought back to the Albigensian Crusade and to the "Cathar church" and, although I was no longer certain I was the one to retell the story, I was still hungry for more. It was that summer, if I recall correctly, that I came across the second book about the Albigensian Crusade which profoundly affected me: Mark Pegg's "A Most Holy War". It was very different from Zoe Oldenbourg's "Massacre at Montsegur". Instead of telling a story about a war between two churches -- the Catholic, powerful and corrupt, and the "Cathar", secret and holy -- it told a story about a clash between two cultures -- the monastic, suspicious and vitriolic, and the Occitan, unique and misunderstood. Most importantly, it told the story of the Crusade without the "Cathar church" and without "Cathars" and made convincing arguments that they never existed, except in the minds of their persecutors.
As a would-be storyteller, I was taken aback. I had picked up the book to find out more about the "Cathars" as part of a years-long effort to get a clearer view of them. Now I was being faced with the assertion that not only had I been wrong, but every author I had read so far had been wrong, too. I found Pegg's arguments unwelcome, at first, but convincing. I'll go into more detail on why in other posts. It seemed to me that I had reached one of those paradigm shifts I had so admired in science -- that new evidence and analysis was demanding that I relinquish old and established hypotheses in favour of new ones which better fit the data.
I admit that it hurt a little at first. But even as my belief waned in the existence of a "Cathar church" in the Languedoc, and I was forced to bid farewell to the network of "perfecti" carrying out their secretive ministry, I found myself awakening to a new story. It was the story of the greatest pope of the middle ages, Innocent III, and his efforts to regain control over and unify his church. It was the story of heresy, not as stubbornly held theological differences, but as resistance to the authority of bishops, papal legates and crusaders. It was the story of monks carrying on a literary tradition in which they
imagined a satanic conspiracy of heretics against their church. After the shock of trying to reimagine the "Cathar wars" without "Cathars" in them, I was drawn back into the story in a whole new way.
I reread "A Most Holy War". Then I reread "Massacre at Montsegur". This time, I was struck by something new about Oldenbourg's book. I had not noticed before how often she admitted that the primary sources did not speak about the "Cathars", and that her descriptions were supposition or deduction. I began to see (and I do not mean to single out Oldenbourg of all of the traditional historians in this regard) how the notion of an organized heretical church changed the understanding of sources which would read differently otherwise, and so became self-supporting. Historians need to choose how they treat the statements of medieval observers and it is seldom wise to unquestioningly agree with them. There were certainly accusations of heresy and support for heretics in the Languedoc, but they often came well after the Crusade, during the subsequent Inquisition. There were also descriptions of heretical beliefs, before and after the Crusade, but they did not, taken altogether, tell the same story that I had been reading again and again.
Why I Write
Since my change in perspective, I've started reading more books about the heresy and about the Albigensian Crusade than ever before and with, I hope, a more critical eye. I'm increasingly convinced that we have reached a turning point in the historiography of the Crusade and that the bulk of historical work which has been done to date will eventually have to be rewritten. I have discovered that Pegg is not alone in his understanding of heresy, but that the traditional view of historians on the "Cathars" still holds sway and new books on the Albigensian Crusade continue to be written without any acknowledgement of this crucial debate.
Although that is perhaps the most important disagreement among historians of this time and place, it is not the only one. The ultimate purpose of my research on this subject, and of writing this blog, is to clarify and elucidate which assertions about the Albigensian Crusade are generally agreed upon and can hesitantly be called facts, and which assertions are the product of a particular chosen interpretation. In the latter case, I intend to examine those interpretations, the evidence upon which they are based, and the beliefs on which they rely. This is the examination of the historiography of the Albigensian Crusade.
As I pursue this topic, many unanswered questions also occur to me. I'm still drawn to the fascinating characters who populate this period and the unexpected links which connect them to each other and to the story. I plan to pose these questions and, eventually, find answers to some of them, and more interesting questions to follow them. If my work reaches others who share my interests, I hope that my findings will help them in drawing their own conclusions and reaching a clearer understanding of the story of the Albigensian Crusade and of the many historians who have retold it.
-- Sam Taylor
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