Pegg - Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom (Pivotal moments in world history)

A Most Holy War

PIVOTAL MOMENTS IN WORLD HISTORY

This series examines choices made at historical turning pointsand the figures who made themand reveals the effect these choices had, and continue to have, on the course of world events.

Americanos

Latin Americas Struggle for Independence
John Charles Chasteen

A Most Holy War

The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom
Mark Gregory Pegg

Also by Mark Gregory Pegg

The Corruption of Angels
The Great Inquisition of 12451246

The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom

Mark Gregory Pegg

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pegg, Mark Gregory, 1963
A most holy war: the Albigensian crusade and the battle for Christendom
/ Mark Gregory Pegg.
p. cm.(Pivotal moments in world history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9780-19517131-0
1. AlbigensesHistory. 2. FranceChurch history9871515.
3. Heresies, ChristianFranceLanguedocHistoryMiddle Ages, 6001500.
4. Languedoc (France)History, MilitaryReligious aspects.
5. France, SouthernHistory. 6. Crusades. I. Title.
DC83.3.P45 2008
944.023dc22
2007027108

1 3 5 7 9 8 9 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

For Mary Douglas and William Jordan

I first climbed Montsgur in the spring of 1995. I was living in Toulouse, researching a dissertation on medieval heresy, and thought it about time I visited this hallowed mountain stronghold of the Cathars, who, wreathed in myth and tragedy, are the most famous heretics of the Middle Ages. I borrowed a tiny Citron that, if the carcinogenic purr of the engine was anything to go by, smoked at least sixty Gitanes a day, and headed for the Pyrnes. Two hours later the car wheezed into a cul-de-sac below Montsgur. Recent rains had washed away most of the nearly vertical track to the top. Scrapes and muddy shins on the way up did, if nothing else, recall why French soldiers had so much trouble assaulting this escarpment in 1243. At the summit I walked around the ruins of a small castle. It was all very picturesque, especially the view of snowy peaks and green valleys. You feel the sacred aura too? I turned with a start and saw a woman, handsome, late middle-aged, staring at me. You were feeling the energy of this place, werent you? The vowels were southern Californian. What do you think of the Cathars? The Cathars threatened the Catholic Church, right? The Albigensian Crusade wiped out the Cathar Church, right? As abruptly as my interrogator appeared, she vanished among the castle ruins, apparently satisfied that my stunned silence marked me as a fellow traveler in Catharism.

Over the years Ive had similar conversations (often as one-sided, frequently as bizarre) about the Cathars. The seductive appeal of these heretics is understandable, as they seemingly represent an alternative, more tolerant Christianity to that of the medieval Catholic Church. Catharism is usually cited as a form of Christian dualism in which the universe was split by a vast cosmic chasm where an active, malign Devil (or bad God) manipulated the earth, and a passive, good God quietly dwelt in heaven. Body and soul, matter and spirit, were irreconcilably divided. Day-to-day existence was an unrequited yearning for an indifferent God, and, if such longing was to be endured, then equanimity in mind and manner had to be practiced. Consequently, thousands of Cathars lived in spiritual and social tranquility (tinged with holy melancholia) between the Garonne and Rhne Rivers, that vast region encompassing all of southern France. This religious idyll was shattered by twenty years of savage holy war during the early thirteenth century. Some Cathars fled as refugees into northern Italy; most stayed behind, furtive and frightened, hunted down by the Inquisition. Montsgur was the last heroic stand of the Cathar elite. My spectral Californian probably knew all this and more. Although if she quizzed me now (and stayed for the answer) I would tell herpolitely, passionatelythat everything about the Cathars is utter fantasy, even down to their name. In fact, I would tell her that more than a century of scholarship on both the Albigensian Crusade and heresy hasnt been merely vaguely mistaken, or somewhat misguided, it has been breathtakingly wrong.

As much as I disavow this learned tradition of misreading and misprision, I do admire it. What I most deplore are the popular attempts to exploit it. I enjoy page-turnersthey distract during turbulence, they go with summer holidaysexcept when they pretend to historical truth. My bookshelves groan with novels and histories dedicated to the secret history of the Catharswhich leads directly to the secret history of Western civilization itself. The Da Vinci Code is the most widely known retelling of this untold story. This sub-rosa history usually goes something like this: Jesus survives the cross; He and Mary Magdalene have kids; they all go to southern Gaul; the medieval Church hates this bloodline because it fizzes with the Holy Feminine; the Cathars know the truth; and the Albigensian Crusade was the reactionary, repressive attempt to expunge that knowledge from the world. Swirling around this esoteric tale are troubadours, every dualist heresy under the sun, the Holy Grail, the Templars, the Inquisition, Montsgur, Rennes-le-Chteau, the Priory of Sion, Masonic Lodges, and enigmatic incunabula. What is so astonishing about this unlocking, decoding narrative is that it resembles the standard history to be found in many academic studies. Both accounts argue from silence (the Church suppressed all the evidence); see continuities where none exist (a nods as good as a wink); rely on documents of dubious provenance (or rather copies of copies of missing documents); and accept a priori a Cathar Church.

As clichd as it now is to see the Albigensian Crusade as a war against the Cathars, such a proposition was new around 1900. Until then the crusade was, rather straightforwardly, regarded as a campaign against the Albigensians. The legendary eleventh edition (1910) of the Encyclopaedia Britannica deftly illustrates (as it does with so much Victorian-into-Edwardian thought) the scholarly metamorphosis of