Blogetty Blog 21: Languedoc Obverse

I have written enthusiastically about my unforgettable experience of holidays in Saint-Pons-la-Calm where we owned a house thirty years ago. As is so often the case though the Languedoc story has a different side. For the Cathars it was a very different side. A very dark side.

I know little about the prehistoric inhabitants of Languedoc – although there is an extensive archeological record of occupation dating from 1.5 million years ago through to the Iron Age – before the Phoeniceans, the pioneer sailors and explorers of the Mediterranean, settled in Languedoc around 600BCE. And we know the Roman emperors seeking to establish safe transit to their rich colony in Spain took control of the area around 100BCE. The end of their great empire was sealed when the Visigoth leader Alaric concluded a long rampage across Eastern Europe by sacking Rome in 410CE.

Alaric – who probably deserves a blog to himself – was a Rumanian nobleman who had commanded the Gothic troops in the Roman army and in the event showed the city a considerable measure of restraint and respect after the conquest by withdrawing his men after three days of looting. However his followers and a succession of wild Germanic tribes ravaged the Languedoc region at will, returning it to chaos during hundreds of years of darkness until control of most of southern France was established by the Count of Toulouse. He was king in all but name with nominal fealty until 1271 when the French king’s superior authority was finally sealed.

I can only provide the barest outline of the complexity of European events at this seminal era and it is easy to forget that the countries we know today did not exist in the period 1100-1300. The former Vikings, now transformed into Normans, had established an iron-hard rule in England while retaining control of large chunks of France; Scotland and Ireland had separate kings; and an aggregation of German tribes ruled by a ‘Frankish’ king, controlled all the territory between the Rhine and the Loire.

Although Kingship procured absolute political authority, the real power in all these Christian societies lay in the hands of the Catholic Church. In essence everyone was persuaded to believe the doctrine that life on earth was merely preparation for judgement on each individual’s worthiness for the all important afterlife in Heaven or Hell. Unquestioning faith in Jesus’ message was obligatory. The problem lay in deciding exactly what Jesus’ message was. See Gibbon’s “The History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire” if you want to know the extent to which argumentative absurdity can be carried. (Alternatively you could consider the defense mounted in Trump’s impeachment trials.)

In Languedoc a gentle pacifist Christian cult had developed in the period before 1200. They were called Cathars, their leaders were ‘perfecti’ and their followers ‘credenti’. Probably influenced by the ancient religions of Asia Minor they believed there were two equal deistic principles: good and evil, God and Satan.

Such thinking was totally unacceptable to the monotheism of the orthodox Catholic Church and had to be eliminated. The French king, afraid of the Inquisition in his own right, was induced by Pope Innocent III to mount the Albigensian Crusade – named after the city of Albi where many Cathars lived – against the heretics. Its undisguised ruthless purpose was to eradicate a blasphemous creed without mercy.

After a siege in 1209 the Cathar city of Beziers surrendered to the royal crusaders. Their commander asked the Bishop how he could distinguish the heretics from the faithful and was instructed, “Put them all to the sword. God will know his own.” According to Church documents 20,000 prisoners were massacred regardless of age or sex.

In its detailed account Wikipedia explains that savage persecution continued for over thirty years until the last 200 Cathars were besieged in a remote mountain-top fortress at Montsegur. Surrounded by 10,000 royalist troops they resisted valiantly from May 1243 to March 1244 when they were forced to surrender by starvation. They were led down to the plain below and burned in the giant bonfire which awaited them – deservedly so according to the Church – anticipating in reality the horror of hellfire to which their blasphemy had consigned them.

During our first visit to France in 1983 my wife Vicki and I rented a ‘Gite’ near Albi, principally to see the Toulouse-Lautrec museum in his birthplace. I had always been interested in the tragic Cathar story and the siege of Montsegur and we spent one day driving two hours south to see the fortress. In the heart of the vast wilderness mountain landscape which is now the National Park of Midi Pyrenees Ariegeoise we found Montsegur on top of a sheer limestone pinnacle perched on an almost perfectly conical hill. I climbed the trail to the top alone because although well-used it was a difficult scramble at its steepest on the rock pinnacle. Nothing remained but the great curtain wall ringing the summit whose interior was totally bare apart from some blocks of fallen masonry.

I don’t consider myself fey, despite a big slice of Irish heritage, but still I was surprised that the negative vibes were not overwhelming. It did not seem a terrible place still cursed with woe. It was just an unusually extensive ruin, a derelict and empty space, almost unbelievably improbable in its existence in so remote and unlikely a situation. It was sad and forlorn, but not terrifying. Later I read that the ruins I saw were a subsequent 17th century structure, rebuilt over several centuries after the Cathar fortress was destroyed. Perhaps the Cathar ghosts had departed after 700 years?

The visit left me with other puzzles too. I don’t for a moment dispute the occurrence of an unimaginably dreadful event at Montsegur, the Albegensian Crusade and Inquisition by the Catholic Church was cruel beyond belief and abominable torture was commonplace at the time – vide the exhibits in the Tower of London. (And still is. What about Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib? Or worse still, the holocaust. What are we to make of them?)

But I do question some of the recorded details of the Montsegur story, because there’s something screwy here. It is hard to imagine how 200 people endured a 9 month siege by a force of 10,000. How could they have stored enough food for so long a period? How were they supplied with water? And the same goes for the crusaders? 10,000 of them? That’s a major army with huge logistic problems. How were they supplied? There is barely enough in those dry mountains to support a few wild goats and rabbits. Has some medieval monk embellished the story? It would not be uncommon. (And you can’t believe everything you read, even on Wiki…or here.)

Any old how… I often wonder, along with Michel, the Seigneur de Montaigne, about what is this or that? He wore his motto on a medal hanging round his neck. It said “Que sais-je?” What do I know?

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