Malcolm Barber. The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages. London and New York: Longman, 2000. vii + 282 pp. $79.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-582-25661-3.
Reviewed by Dawn M. Hayes
Published on H-Catholic (June, 2001)
The Medieval Heresy That Refuses to Die: Church's missionary eforts to spread its heresy to Catharism, Then and Now western Europe, most likely (though this is still The most recent contribution to the history of debated by scholars)by 1140. the Cathars has been made by Malcolm Barber, Leaving the broad scope of the frst chapter Professor of History at the University of Reading. behind, the second focuses on the Cathars and Employing a thematic approach within a chrono‐ their function in Languedoc, arguing that the logical framework, Barber ofers us what is per‐ powerbase of Catharism can be found in the re‐ haps the frst comprehensive authoritative, yet ac‐ gion's "network of interrelated lordships" (p. 43). cessible,English-language examination of the Writing against a good deal of earlier scholarship Cathars.[1] While frmly rooted in primary that maintains urbanization was crucial to the sources, supported by an ample amount of foot‐ spread of Catharism in Languedoc, Barber argues notes, and demonstrating an impressive com‐ that the interaction between the heresy and mand of the fairly extensive secondary literature southern French society was largely fostered by on the subject, the account is highly readable for the castra and villages of powerful local nobles, the non-specialist audience it targets. over whom the great lords had minimal control. The author begins with a chapter on the Though dualism had spread to many regions of spread of Catharism, discussing the probable ori‐ Europe along well-trodden trade routes, the de‐ gins of the heresy and links between early dual‐ gree of the heresy's success in Languedoc was ists, the Messalians and the Paulicians; and the largely determined by its communities' social Bogomils, dualist heretics in the Balkans whose structures. There networks of local nobles, linked derivative name, Bulgars, by the thirteenth centu‐ by marriage, exercised regional infuences that ry was used in the West as a general label for permitted Cathars to preach and establish reli‐ heretics. Barber then takes the reader through the gious communities over relatively large areas. question of the relationship between the Bogomil H-Net Reviews
The Cathar Church is the subject of chapter support (p. 173). Although there is evidence of three. By the late twelfth century Cathars and Bo‐ Cathar resistance to it, the inquisition proved suc‐ gomils had established sixteen bishoprics stretch‐ cessful. ing from Constantinople to Toulouse. Of note to The penultimate chapter focuses on the last those interested in feminist history is Barber's Cathars in Languedoc. In the late thirteenth cen‐ questioning of the popular notion that women tury the heresy experienced a brief revival, due to served as "deaconesses," running many of the the impetus provided by the brothers Peter and Cathar houses. Though this is possible, Barber ad‐ William Autier. Never on a frm foundation, the mits, he contends that is was unlikely since there revival was squashed, most notably under the di‐ is no solid evidence to support this idea. In fact, it rection of the infamous inquisitor Bernard Gui. appears that the perfectae were overall less active Perhaps the most intriguing chapter of the in and important to the Cathar Church than the book, however,is the last, "Cathars and perfecti. Also in this chapter is a discussion of the Catharism," which sets the heresy in its later his‐ consolamentum, which was the key ceremony of toriographical context. Barber notes at the end of the western Cathar Church between ca. 1140 and his introduction that "[e]ven more than most his‐ 1320. Though central to their identity, numerous torical subjects, the Cathars are viewed today controversies developed around this practice, in‐ through the many-layered flters of the more re‐ cluding a Cathar version of the Donatist heresy. cent past" (p. 5). He returns to this idea at the end More frequent were the controversies surround‐ of the book, exploring how these flters have in‐ ing Cathars who had received the endura and lat‐ fuenced the way various people have interpreted er recovered. Barber ends the chapter with a dis‐ the Cathars and their demise. Deodat Roche, cussion of the reasons why people were attracted founder of the Cahiers d'Etudes Cathares and a to the church. Ultimately, there were three: the twentieth-century magistrate of Limoux and Car‐ impressive morality of the perfecti; the encour‐ cassonne who was removed from his position by agement of the promise and power of the consola‐ the Vichy government for his interest in religion mentum; and the rejection of the Old Testament, and spirituality, wanted to lay bare to his contem‐ whose Jehovah, the Cathars maintained, was in‐ poraries the light which the Cathars had tried to compatible with the God of the New Testament. reveal to the medieval world. A self-proclaimed The Catholic reaction to Catharism, the infa‐ neo-Cathar, Roche believed deeply in the need to mous Albigensian Crusade of 1209-1229, is the uncover the true history of the Cathars, which subject of chapter four. Barber is careful to note had been obscured by an intolerant medieval that the crusade did not eliminate the heresy. It Church. did, however, usher in irreversible changes, Simone Weil, a French philosopher of the in‐ transforming Languedoc from a region that was ter-war period, was moved by Roche's work, par‐ once "expansionist and confdent" to one that be‐ ticularly by his discussion of the Cathar's rejection came "defensive and beleaguered" (p. 139). The of the Old Testament Jehovah (whom she saw as a ensuing decline of Catharism is the topic of the god of "pitiless cruelty" and, like the medieval following chapter. It was achieved via two strate‐ Cathars, believed was incompatible with the God gies: the Treaty of Paris of 1229, which helped un‐ of the New Testament). Living during some of the dermine the social and political infrastructures of darkest days of Europe's history (she died of tu‐ the Cathar Church in Langue doc, and the inquisi‐ berculosis in 1943), Weil saw the Roman Empire tion unleashed against the remaining Cathars. By and its child, the Catholic Church, as the original the 1250s the Cathars had "been driven down the social scale," ultimately losing much of their noble
2 H-Net Reviews sources of European totalitarianism, brutally ex‐ Cathars who, after seven centuries, were yet ercised by the Ofce of the Inquisition. again fghting for their cultural independence. To the twentieth-century German writer Otto Though the occitaniste movement was ultimately Rahn, the Cathars were able custodians of a dual‐ unsuccessful (actually, it was the French govern‐ ist tradition that predated Christianity. In fact, to ment that was responsible for the popularization Rahn, the Cathars carried on traditions that can of regional languages in the 1980s), the legacy of be traced back to the Celts and the Iberians. Pub‐ these ideas can be seen in modern television, ad‐ lished in Germany during the late 1930s Rahn's vertising and tourism where local towns present second book, Luzifers Hofgesind (1937), argues their Cathar credentials to gullible visitors. that the Cathars were disciples of Lucifer, the Hautes-Corbieres has become le pays cathare and Bringer of Light, whose church was an enemy of a commemorative stone which reads "[a]t Lavaur, the "Judaic" Catholic Church. An instrument of the occitan people lost their independence but Nazi propaganda (Rahn worked for Heinrich seven centuries later the laurel grows green Himmler, chief of the Schutzstafel and later head again" can be seen at the Esplanade de Plo. Barber of all German police forces, during these years), concludes that "superstition and credulity" have Luzifers Hofgesind argues that until the thir‐ enabled modern audiences to distort the history teenth century the Cathars maintained a Euro‐ of the Cathars and manipulate it for fnancial gain pean tradition that did not have to be purifed of or the satisfaction of personal fantasies (p. 225). "Jewish mythology" (p. 210). Although it didn't The historian Norman F. Cantor has long been have a major impact during the war years, in the arguing that among the modern educated reader recent past Luzifers Hofgesind has stimulated a is a vast and relatively untapped interest in the genre of books employing unconventional histori‐ Middle Ages. And he challenges professional me‐ cal approaches, such as Jean and Michel Ange‐ dievalists to write the kinds of works that will tar‐ bert's 1971 work Hitler et la tradition cathare, get this readership. This is not a simple task; that claims to uncover secret relationships be‐ many people prefer to imagine the Middle Ages tween the Cathar tradition and the Nazi regime. rather than read responsible reconstructions of The chapter concludes with discussions of the period. As Barber has noted, during the recent Protestantism and Catharism and the role of the past various people with less than honest motives Cathars in modern Occitan identity. Until the mid‐ have hijacked the subject of the Cathars. It ap‐ dle of the eighteenth century, some ffty years af‐ pears, though, that he has written a book that can ter the publication of Jacques Benigne Bossuet's efectively and responsibly meet the needs of lay Histoire des variationes des eglises protestantes, readers who want to learn about the Cathars and many Protestants believed that they were succes‐ the heresy for which many lived and died. With sors to a Cathar tradition, which for centuries the its three tables, seven maps, bibliography, ade‐ Catholic Church had been trying to destroy. It was quate footnotes and suggestions for further read‐ around this same time that perceptions of thir‐ ing this is a solid work. Yet at the same time it is teenth-century Languedoc began to gel as French highly readable and a potential antidote to the writers cultivated an image of the Albigensian tendencies toward invention and distortion. Crusade as a barbaric papal attack against an in‐ Notes nocent people and their highly developed culture. [1]. Though it is not the frst comprehensive As regionalist movements became popular in examination of the history of the Cathars, as the France during the 1970s, their adherents in publisher's WWW site maintains. For example, Languedoc began to see themselves as neo- readers who are interested in an account that tar‐
3 H-Net Reviews gets a scholarly audience can pick up Malcolm Lambert, The Cathars (Oxford, England and Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1998). Comprehensive foreign language accounts may be gleaned from Barber's bibliography.
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Citation: Dawn M. Hayes. Review of Barber, Malcolm. The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages. H-Catholic, H-Net Reviews. June, 2001.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=5235
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