Heresy, inquisition and society: southern c. 1150-1300

Special Subject paper E

Professor John H Arnold

The south of France – modern day and Languedoc - was, in the central middle ages, a society both rural and urban, mercantile and ‘feudal’, almost totally independent of outside rule, possessed of a strong local Troubadour culture, but accustomed also to the international passage of pilgrims and merchants. During what we might call the ‘long thirteenth century’, a heretical sect arose there that frightened the Catholic Church more than any other: the Cathars. Between 1209 and 1229 northern French crusaders, led initially by a papal legate, attempted to crush the south. By the mid thirteenth century, papally-appointed inquisitors had questioned literally thousands of ordinary people about their beliefs. Inquisitors and townsfolk clashed repeatedly in the coming decades, but by the third decade of the fourteenth century, the heresy was eradicated, whilst the process of inquisition had been refined into a powerful tool with a variety of applications. But did ‘Cathars’ really exist? That name was never used by the heretics themselves (they called themselves ‘good men’ and ‘good women’) and it has been argue that they did not actually hold the dualist beliefs alleged against them by orthodox theologians. Moreover, how much power did inquisitors really wield? They were small in number, were thrown out of various towns at different points in time, and were even murdered on occasion. And how did the particular contours of southern French society relate to faith and persecution? This was a period in which lordship was often shared and divided within families; in which notaries and a vernacular written culture were very important; and where women held a somewhat more equal status in certain regards than one would find in northern Europe. This Special Subject makes use of a range of evidence, including chronicles, literature, civic customs and charters to explore southern France in the central middle ages; and in particular, allows us to form our own understanding of both ‘heresy’ and inquisition through the extensive records left by the process of inquisition.

Across Michaelmas and Lent terms, this Special Subject will be taught via 16 two-hour classes, accompanied by 8 one-hour lectures on specific aspects of documentary analysis, and of historiographical context; with two further two-hour sessions focussed specifically on gobbets in the Easter Term. The main format will be seminar style document discussion throughout. Very short student presentations, based upon the analysis of particular documents, will be a feature of most weeks, aimed at opening up collective discussion. This will also provide a thoroughly integrated form of ‘gobbet’ preparation.

We start in media res, with a taster from the vast inquisition records of the mid thirteenth century; then look ‘back’ to examine the growth of heresy, and reactions to heresy, in the later twelfth century, leading up to the Albigensian crusade. We then look ‘sideways’ at key aspects of southern French society, particularly lordship, orthodox lay piety, and notarial culture; and then (through Lent term) examine the beginnings of inquisition in the aftermath of the crusade, leading to a sustained focus on , society, and resistance to inquisition, from the mid thirteenth to the early fourteenth century.

Source material

There are two key volumes of sources in translation, from which selections will be made, as well as additional material made available via moodle:

• John H. Arnold and Peter Biller, eds, Heresy and inquisition in France, 1200-1300 (Manchester University Press, 2016) • Walter Wakefield and Austin Evans, eds, Heresies of the High Middle Ages (Columbia University Press, 1991)

Students will need regular access to these two books. Both are available as electronic books via the UL catalogue, and they are also found in various college libraries. Given how frequently one will be working on them, you may wish to consider purchasing them (they cost about £22 and £39 respectively if bought new, but you may well be able to find them second hand).

Other translated materials will include: Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, History of the Albigensian Crusade, trans. W A and M D Sibly (Boydell, 1998) R. Rist, C. Taylor and C. Léglu, eds, The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade: A Sourcebook (Routledge, 2013) J. Shirley, trans., The Song of the Cathar Wars (Ashgate, 2000) and a variety of materials translated by myself, made available via moodle

Indicative bibliography:

Christine Caldwell Ames, Righteous Persecution: Inquisition, Dominicans and Christianity in the Middle Ages (Penn, 2009) Malcolm Barber, The Cathars (Longman, 2000) Peter Biller and Caterina Bruschi, eds, Texts and the Repression of Medieval Heresy (York Medieval Press, 2003) James B. Given, Inquisition and Medieval Society (Cornell, 1998) Herbert Grundmann, Religious Movements in the Middle Ages, trans S Rowan (Notre Dame, 1995) Malcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy, third edn (Blackwell, 2002) Malcolm Lambert, The Cathars (Blackwell, 1998) R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society (Blackwell, 1985) R. I. Moore, The War on Heresy (Profile, 2012) John Hine Mundy, Society and Government at in the Age of the Cathars (Brepols, 1998) Linda Paterson, The World of the Troubadours: Medieval Occitan Society c. 1100-1300 (CUP, 1995) Mark Gregory Pegg, The Corruption of Angels: The Great Inquisition of 1245-46 (Princeton, 2001) Andrew Roach, The Devil’s World: Heresy and Society 1100-1300 (Longman, 2005) Antonio Sennis, ed, Cathars in Question (York Medieval Press, 2016)

A variety of journal articles pertaining to particular topics will also be included. Although there will be no requirement to read French to take the paper, some key francophone work (by Jean-Louis Biget, Uwe Brunn, Yves Dossat, Jean Duvernoy, Pilar Jiminez-Sanchez, Henri Maisonneuve, Julien Théry, and Monique Zerner) will be listed for those able to pursue it independently. The various arguments made by those Francophone scholars are, however, adequately represented and reported in the current Anglophone literature listed above.

March 2021