Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 www.elsevier.

com/locate/jmedhist

Historiographical essay

On Cathars, Albigenses, and good men of Languedoc
Mark Gregory Pegg
Department of History, Washington University, Campus Box 1062, One Brookings Drive, St Louis, Missouri 63130-4899, USA

Abstract This essay proposes a re-evaluation of how Cathars, Albigenses, and the heresy of the good men are studied. It argues that some commonplace notions about the Cathars, virtually unaltered for over a hundred years, are far from settled — especially when inquisition records from Languedoc are taken into account. It is this historiography, supported by a tendency to see heresy in idealist and intellectualist bias, suggests how the history of the Cathars and the good men might be rethought.  2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
Keywords: Cathars; Albigenses; Good men; Languedoc; Heresy; Bogomils

The article on the ‘Cathars’ in the splendid 11th edition (1910) of the Encyclopædia Britannica, written with a kind of giddy elegance by Frederick Conybeare, begins ´ by noting that these medieval heretics ‘were the debris of an early Christianity’. The Cathars were, and Conybeare had no doubts about this, the direct descendants of late antique Manicheans who, after a long and hidden diaspora, resurfaced between the tenth and fourteenth centuries as Paulicians and Bogomils in the Balkans and, with somewhat less discrimination in western Europe, as just about any heretic with vaguely dualist tendencies. Catharism, in this epic narrative, reached its apogee in the heresy of the good men (boni homines, bons omes) of Languedoc.1 No matter
This essay condenses, refines, and occasionally expands, some of the arguments made in M.G. Pegg, The corruption of angels: The great inquisition of 1245–1246 (Princeton, 2001), esp. 15–19, 141–151. 1 F. Conybeare, ‘Cathars’, Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (Cambridge, 1910), vol. 5, 515–517. Conybeare, in: The key of truth: A manual of the Paulician Church of Armenia (Oxford, 1898), argued on lv–lvi that the Paulicians were the direct ancestors of the Cathars. Indeed, he included a translation ´ on pp. 160–170 of the Provencal Cathar ritual edited by Leon Cledat in Le Nouveau Testament traduit ¸ ` au XIIIe siecle en langue provencale, suivi d’un rituel cathare (Paris, 1897), 470–82. J.B. Bury discussed ¸
0304-4181/01/$ - see front matter  2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. PII: S 0 3 0 4 - 4 1 8 1 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 0 8 - 2

1903). 1898) vol. 1983.3 Yet. The Manicheans were ignored. ´ 3 See. erudition. 163–184 and B. ‘Bogom´ ils’. 98. to Selina Maitland. the anonymous author of the half-page entry on the ‘Cathari’ says almost exactly the same as Conybeare did eighty years earlier — but without the latter’s erudition or flair. The anonymous author of the entry ‘Katharer’ in (what is usually considered to be the German equivalent of the 11th ed. Gibbon himself. and ‘Bogomilen’ ibid. finally immi´ grated to the Toulousain in the early twelfth century. ‘Albigenses’. initially appearing in the Limousin between 1012 and 1020.G. Alphandery. 543.: Harvard University Press.R. ´ ´ 329–330. argued for a broad chain of ideas. Conybeare’s other publications which mentioned the Cathars: ‘A hitherto unpublished treatise against the Italian Manicheans’. ‘Un initiateur: Charles Schmidt’. The Hibbert Journal. all were one and the same heresy. ed. 3. Wakefield’s comments on Conybeare in ‘Notes on some antiheretical writings of the thirteenth century’. Facts and documents illustrative of the history.D.H. 1901). On Lea. Schmidt. 805–18. 4 In the far from splendid The New Encyclopædia Britannica.2 Conybeare and Alphandery neatly abridged what was assumed about the Cathars. Lea. Journal of medieval history. ‘Fragments of an ancient (? Egyptian) Gospel used by the Cathars of Albi’. 191–214. Alphandery. ‘Henry Charles Lea (1825– 1909)’. Damico and J. thought the Albigensians (as he called the good men) were descended from the Paulicians as well. . and rites of the ancient Albigenses and Waldenses (London.. vol. 951. vol.) Brockhaus’ Konversations=Lexikon (Berlin. Hamilton. 22 Nov.4 A powerful intellectualist and idealist bias is what unites the historical assumptions of the last century with the techniques used. 704–28 and. 1832). 92. indeed all medieval heresies.. ibid. vol. in the century before them.D. esp. S. 124–5. 1965). vol. at the start of this this work of Conybeare’s. 505–506. and his La chretiente et l’idee de croisade. with F. 1902). Brockhaus’ Konversations=Lexikon (Berlin. 14 (1979). vol. and H. the heresy of the good men. in an appendix to his edition of Edward Gibbon’s The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire (London. Peters. 24 (1998). 11 (1913). 14. 2 vols). through time and over space. Encyclopædia Britannica. Gaster. Again. Fifoot (Cambridge. Maitland. Zavadil (New York. though not ignoring. American Journal of Theology. Mass. argued for similar continuities. Badham. vol. Biographical studies on the formation of a discipline. C. 27 (1967). Texte etabli par Alphonse Dupront (Paris. 89–92. C. in: Medieval scholarship. no matter the place.. 98. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 the time. anticipated what a great many historians have thought since. 1. Franciscan Studies. Dossat. made the same connections through history and over geography as Conybeare (and the bibliography is a short but learned list of exemplary nineteenth-century scholarship). 229–230. 285–321. see E. 1849. vol. ‘The state of research: the legacy of Charles Schmidt to the study of Christian dualism’. the Albigenses. (Chicago. 5. 1–54. ibid. vol. ed. esp. 285 n. 89–100. Alphandery. A history of the inquisition of the middle ages (New York. these two Edwardian scholars in their verve. see P. 10. and agreed with his notion of Paulician ancestry for the heretics of Languedoc. Now. also wrote the balanced and learned entry on ‘Inquisition. see ‘Albigenses’. 4.S. the influence of the Bogomils and Paulicians taken seriously. and the Albigenses.C. doctrine. Now see W. On Schmidt. 3 (1899). B. as Catharist heretics. 1: history. 1954). 2. 1. for example. 2 ´ P. Micropædia. Cahiers de Fanjeaux: Historiographie du catharisme. orig. 173. 1. consciously or not. 1887). and M. 587–596. in a manner similar to Conybeare’s. see Y. Histoire et doctrine des Cathares (Bayonne. 1995). who thought that the southern French Albigensians were Paulician immigrants. 5. 1891. The’. Les idees morales chez les ` ´´ ´ ´ ´ ´ heterodoxes latins au debut du XIIIe siecle (Paris. Five volumes earlier in the eleventh edition (skipping. Moses Gaster’s pithy sketch of the ‘Bogomils’ as the heirs of the Manicheans and frequent tourists in northern ´ Italy) the entry on the ‘Albigenses’ by Paul Daniel Alphandery adopted a slightly more restrained tone than Conybeare. 119–120.P. No. and sheer wrong-headedness. 15th ed.182 M. The great Frederic Maitland wrote a very revealing letter about his grandfather Samuel Roffey in The letters of Frederic William Maitland. H. somewhat more surprisingly. esp. 1987).

Nelson Goodman among the social sciences. Jahrhundert und uber die ¨ ¨ geschichtlichen Grundlagen der deutschen Mystik. n. 2nd ed. Hull. 503 [trans. 239–271. 1998). and the women’s religious movement in the twelfth and thirteenth century. with the historical foundations of German mysticism (Notre Dame. Now see J. Now see Evans. and moralising. The irony here is not only that Russell’s observation is still correct but that the somewhat older Russell. 87–125. R.H. ‘Comment: hunting the Pangolin’. under the confessed influence of Borst. ‘Interpretations of the origins of medieval heresy’. Nelli. as far as Catharism is concerned. 1–15. Rowan as Religious movements in the middle ages: the historical links between heresy. 1993). because the intellectualist bias takes it for granted that worlds are made from theories. 49. especially Grundmann. 1953) and. 25 (1963). ‘Rightness of categories’. Borst discussed the life and work of Grundmann (it reveals much about both men) in ‘Herbert Grundmann (1902–1970)’ in: Herbert Grundmann Ausgewahlte Aufsatze. n. 93–116 and J. (Edinburgh.s. 1973). 1992). 85–108 and C. in: Persecution and liberty. Significantly. 1994). Malcolm Lambert’s revised Medieval heresy: popular movements from the Gregorian reform to the Reformation. 1984) or A history of heaven: the singing silence (Princeton. in: J.H. either way it makes no difference. orig. Rosenwein. Douglas and D. 1976). sometimes mute and passive. ix–xxv].B. 342–352. see especially M. are understood to be nothing more than distinctive attitudes. Some useful insights on Grundmann. Cathares. ed. 41 (1971). 57.G. in: Monks and . the mendicant orders. 6 This attitude governed Arno Borst’s important Die Katharer (Stuttgart. like a habit or an action. Douglas. to refer. 1977). In the wilderness. restatement of the intellectualist approach to religion is B. le dualisme radical au XIIIe siecle (Paris. 28 (1993). intellectually pure entities. The devil in the middle ages (Ithaca. orig.S. ahistorical. The doctrine of defilement in the Book of Numbers (Sheffield. The repression of Catharism at Toulouse (Toronto. 1961. J. pristine representations. Douglas. esp. 126. clear philosophies. in works such as Lucifer. favoured intellectual or moral reasons for medieval heresy and implicitly rejected any thesis that wanted to include the material world. ‘Introduction’. Le vrai visage du Catharisme (Portet-sur-Garonne. On the idealist bias generally in the study of religion.. Brenon. though rather shrill. in his The interpretation of cultures. Untersuchungen uber die geschichtlichen Zusammenhange zwischen der Ketz¨ ¨ erei. never contaminated by material existence or historical specificity. Russell. 126. ‘African conversion’. ‘Social aspects of medieval heresy’. sometimes kicking and screaming. R. Selected essays (New York. Mundy. 1–25. 49. Duvernoy. Douglas. for instance. and see esp. 1931). able to be cleanly sifted out from other less coherent ideas and. Geertz. to Austin Evans’ not especially outlandish arguments about heresy as being based upon a ‘sozialistische These’. and the study of ¨ medieval religion in general. most crucially. simply because Evans thought that there was some relation between the society in which heretics lived and their beliefs. elaborate discourses. und 13. This guiding assumption caused Borst. esp. n. is just as intellectualist. den Bettelorden und der religiosen Frauenbewegung im 12. rather weirdly.M. 1988). 34. 1978). 161–164. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 183 one.5 Anything that is not the stuff of thoughts. in other words. Duvernoy. M. 1935). 1992.6 The heresy of the good men. 1976). La philosophie du catharisme. 26–29. Man. Lerner. All heresies. and that the elaboration of a philosophy is all the explanation a scholar need ever give. A recent learned. 1985). and A. is assumed to follow an idea wherever it may go. ‘Introduction’. 2nd ed. M. like all religions. in: How classification works. (Oxford. where he emphasised over thirty years ago that most modern writers. becomes nothing more than a set 5 This view was explicitly stated by Herbert Grundmann throughout his influential Religiose ¨ Bewegungen im Mittelalter. 396ff. esp. abstract doctrines. that cultures are hammered together from discourses. (Hildesheim. Farmer and B. a practice or a behaviour. Vaudois et Beguins. M. Teil ¨ ¨ 1 Religiose Bewegungen (Stuttgart. Africa. passionate. by S.E. Die Katharer. It is implicit. Salvation at stake: Christian martyrdom in early modern Europe (Cambridge. ‘Religion as a cultural system’. Two much cited anthropological justifications of an intellectualist and idealist attitude towards religion (and so heresy) are R. Essays in honor of George Lincoln Burr (New York. Mass. Gregory. Le catharisme: la religion des cathares (Toulouse. as the historians his younger self had once criticised. dissidents du pays d’Oc ` (Toulouse. 1995). are given in S. Medieval Studies. Horton. 1999).

‘perish not with their Authors. H. and Bernard Gui. rpr. fifty years later.184 M. Dialogus miraculorum. ed. C. 87–88. 1971–1997’. with excellent notes by him and David Morgan. so too those vacuum-sealed beliefs. 300– 303. 1949). that heresy had always lingered in the world. for the incident and a commentary ¨ on this Manichaean heresy]. Stoyanov in his The hidden tradition in Europe: the secret history of medieval Christian heresy (London. fifty years later again. as The mission of Friar William of Rubruck: his journey to the court of the Great Khan Mongke 1253–1255 (London. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 of stable dualist ideas (good God. ed. Douais . La Religion des ¨ ´ ˆ ´ Cathares: Etude sur le Gnosticisme de la basse antiquite et du moyen age (Uppsala. sermons. 1990). is a famous illustration of this assumption about being able to delineate original religious intent despite millennia and landscape. 2–3. Journal of Early Christian Studies. as The other God: dualist religions from antiquity to the Cathar heresy (New Haven. 1. 2000) assumes the same ability to follow dualist thought through time and space. Jackson. polemics. 12. always threatening. a realisation that the new was always revealed in the old. Y. ed. but heavily revised. exempla. under the chapter De haeresi Albiensium. evil matter) lodged in the heads of people — which. and that heretics were never isolated. Brown in ‘The rise and function of the holy man in late antiquity. Keynes (London. treatises. William of Rubruck. 295 [trans. A study of the Christian dualist heresy (Cambridge. 171–174. Soderberg. It was for this reason that labelling men and women accused of heresy as ‘Manichaeans’ — like the Cistercian Caesarius of Heisterbach in the early thirteenth century who compared the Albigensians to them or. Little. but always organised. ed. as Sir Thomas Browne gracefully encapsulated this idealist tendency three and a half centuries ago.7 ‘Heresies’. Essays in honor of Lester K. at one and the same time. 7 S. the Franciscan William of Rubruck knowing that the theological idiocies of a false Armenian monk at the Mongol court were undoubtedly the dualist errors of Mani or. to exist across the centuries’. but like the River Arethusa. all writings by intellectuals in the Middle Ages that seem to be describing dualist heresies.9 nuns. for want of a better phrase. in that the letters. G.H. Itinerarium Willelmi de Rubruc. 1982. inquisitorial manuals. 1968). no matter how great the geographical and cultural differences. actually demonstrate much more powerfully a rigid and inescapable anti-dualism. 6 (1998). On not wishing ‘to get mired in the monotonous and undifferentiated continuities assumed. 1994) and reissued. 9 Caesarius of Heisterbach. Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis. bad God. and which always present the ideas of heretics as coherent and articulate. 284–285.8 An important observation is warranted here. Runciman’s The medieval Manichee. that. Strange (Cologne. S. how the Dominican inquisitor Bernard Gui had no reservations about renaming the good men of the Toulousain with this soubriquet — was. V.G. without reflection. Bogomilism. orig. Sinica Franciscana I (Quaracchi. xxi. though they lose their currents in one place. by P. they rise up againe in another’. never unconnected to each other. Manichaeism. stays recognizably the same. 1851). ed. 1947). A. 8 Sir Thomas Browne. saw the potential for heresy in almost anything that was vaguely dissenting from the Church. benign spirit. esp. Van den Wyngaert. The original heresy. saints and outcasts: religion in medieval society. especially with regard to religion and epitomised by idealist methods of Religionsgeschichte. Religio medici (1636) in: Selected writings. if those minds move. and which are used by historians to demonstrate all kinds of dualist heterodox connections. 1929). first developing in the eleventh century and reaching fruition by the end of the thirteenth. 232. J. 2000). whether Mahayana Buddhism. or Catharism. Rosenwein (Ithaca. argued for such crystalline continuities. 62. no matter how many different societies rose and fell through the decades. Farmer and B. see P. 375.

Bruschi (Woodbridge. Gallais. and confusing. ‘Aux origines de l’heresie medievale’. 103. 1996).Crkvi Bosanskoj’ i . Biller and C. 20 (1985). esp. ‘. C. American Historical Review. ‘Robert le Bougre and the beginnings of the inquisition in northern France’. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 185 Admittedly. col. 1–216. see M. forthcoming). Histoire de France: moyen age (Paris. J. 1976). 265–268. ` ´ vol. et permansisse in Graecia et quibusdam aliis terris]. and incorrectly. Douais. Kaelber. in the nineteenth century. 92. Jaffe (Berlin. for example. Pegg. H.les Cathares occidentaux etaient fils des Bogomils. 6. 109–110. R. In the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries see. Haskins. Heresis. 679) to Bernard of Clairvaux. 78. Sproemberg. 2. Part 5. though still found in all kinds of surprising places. it is tacitly understood. J. set vetera replicant]. 7 (1994). Crozet. esp. ed. eux-memes heritiers ´ du lointain Manicheisme. even though the assumption of such a connection between the two heresies has become a truism in almost all studies of medieval heterodoxy. L. A. H. in a letter (Ep. Leurs origines. 317–319. 440–441. 235–355. ‘Aspects sociologiques des religions ‘manicheennes’’. R. 472. Hamilton. esp. for example. 175. Eberwin. in Ep. 1886). Studije O. writing to Manegold of Paderborn in 1147. 1. ed. xv and 137. ´ ´ ´ 1948). ´ ´ ´ ´ ´ ‘La vision medievale du catharisme chez les historiens des annees 1950: un neo-manicheisme’. defended their beliefs by saying that their heresy had ‘lain concealed from the time of the martyrs even to our own day’.12 For a start. chronologically and geographically. The Bogomils: a study in Balkan neo-Manichaeism (Cambridge. 6 (1952). see F. 253. 1966) 1. Sanjak. 10 See. vol. where the ‘derivation of Catharism from Manicheeism is almost certainly correct. 11 See. D. ¨ in: Mittelalter und demokratische Geschichtsschreibung. ed.M. tracing the origins of the heretical good men all the way back to the Manichaeans. P. Rion (Poitiers. and. is far less common than a century ago. vol. the prior of Steinfeld’s Premonstratensian abbey. and on its long journey. 1. 278. when brought to trial. Interestingly. 119–134. where a confused. Michelet.. J. Unger (Berlin. passim. in: Trials and treatises: texts on heresy and inquisition. ‘Dernieres traces de catharisme dans les Balkans’. 82.. Schmidt. described a group of heretics (usually. ´ ` 85–102. were undoubtedly influenced by this late antique heresy. C. French and A.’ 12 ` On the Bogomils. Cunningham. The Benedictine Wibald of Corvey.. Rivista di storia della ´ ˆ ´ chiesa in Italia. Cahiers de Fanjeaux: effacement du Catharisme? (XIIIe–XIVe S. 1998). 1879).hanc haeresim usque ad haec tempora occultatam fuisse a temporibus martyrum. ‘Die Enstehung des Manichaismus im Abendland’. link appears to be made between Catharism and Manichaeism. Lea. and R. P. 1971). La Religion des ¨ Cathares. Monumenta Corbeiensia. 2000). The yellow cross: the story of the last Cathars 1290–1329 (London. in: Melanges offerts a Rene ´ ´ Crozet. for example. P. 7 (1902). Schools of asceticism: ideology and organization in medieval religious communities (University Park. 65–96. Before science: the invention of the Friars’ natural philosophy (Aldershot.G..10 A subtle scholarly variation on this theme has the gnosis of Mani sneaking back into medieval western Europe through the Byzantine Bogomils who. they went on to say that these hidden philosophies had apparently ‘persisted so in Greece and certain other lands [. the heresy has developed variations’. 1869).11 As for there being any genuine intimacy between the Bogomils and the heretical good men. 167. Abel. Sidak. A history of the inquisition of the middle ages. deftly stated the guiding principle of this explanatory technique (medieval and modern) when ´ he noted. labelled as Cathars) seized in Cologne who. 33–46. Sanjak. Jimenez. Obolensky. 1864). PL 182. Soderberg.’ On heresy and anti-dualism. P. any (Paris.).. ‘The state of research: the legacy of Charles Schmidt to the study of Christian dualism’.H. is a good survey of this issue and many others relating to the historiography of Catharism. esp. it is neither obvious nor irrefutable that such a liaison ever existed. Les chretiens bosniaques et le movement cathare XIIe–XVe siecles ´ (Brussels. and Y. ed. action de l’eglise au XIIe siecle (Paris. intriguingly. ‘Questions about questions: manuscript 609 and the great inquisition of 1245–1246’. Sproemberg and M. that so much had already been written ‘that it is impossible to say anything new [ut nichil iam possit dici novum]’ and that even heretics ‘do not invent new things but repeat old ones [non nova inveniunt. Les Albigeois.G. 194–195. Weis. F. thought there was no connection between the Cathars and the Manichees. and Antoine Dondaine. implies that a continuity may still be established between the Manichaeans and the Cathars.’ Three or four years earlier. Histoire et doctrine des Cathares.

G. Written language and models of interpretation in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Princeton. searching within the handful of reported (and persecuted) incidents of heresy in western Europe before the middle of the twelfth century for pre-Catharism or proto-Catharism by simply unearthing what appear to be dualist .D. 43–78. Morghen. 324–340. J. Relics. 109 (1999). Diehl (Cambridge. 1979). in: Inventer l’heresie?: discours polemiques et pouvoirs avant l’inquisition. 272–308]. xe–xiie (Paris. 1996). Bulgarian historical review. Dondaine. to these opinions. and C.A. and J. 1–16. 1983). Higgitt as The feudal transformation. 1992). somewhat inconclusively. ‘The Letter of Heribert of Perigord as a source for dualist heresy in the society of early eleventhcentury Aquitaine’. Kaiser as Heretics and scholars in the high middle ages: 1000–1200 (University Park.G. without going into the ephemeral problem of millennialism around 1000. in his Sur le Manicheisme et autres essais (Paris. repeats his nuanced opposition. B.I. In fact … one would be justified in writing a history of medieval Bulgaria without the Bogomils at all. Furthermore. L’eresia del male (Naples. 1973. still condemns what he calls ‘reductionist’ arguments that dismiss the possibility of such Balkan visitors to western Europe. 55 (1970). that heretics in the early Middle Ages suffered from this ‘Manichaean scapegoating’ because such scapegoating ‘made sense of a confusing and disappointing world’. 1976). 1976). R. R. ‘The birth of heresy: a millennial phenomenon’. D. Bournazel.A. argues. ´ ´ ´ Landes. in P. Frassetto. quite weakly. Poly and E. and the deceits of history. 13–51].186 M. 336 (1966). A critical survey from the sixth to the late twelfth century (Ann Arbor. ´ ´ Taylor. 1st ed. 67–85. Puech. 989–1034 (Cambridge. Morghen. 1983). ou le vrai proces d’une fausse accusation’. ‘The Chiaroscuro of heresy: early eleventh-century Aquitaine as seen from Auxerre’. 2000). M. Revue Benedictine. Louvain May 13–16. La Mutation feodale. Other important arguments against Bogomil influence in the early Middle Ages were ` made by R. (London. 34–54. Bogomilism’s importance has been tremendously exaggerated in all historical works. notes. while not openly suggesting Bogomil missionaries before the twelfth century. Jr. Ketzer und Professoren: Haresie un Vernunftglaube im Hochmittelalter (Munich. ed. 395–427. Waugh and P. 13 See. ed. Revue Historique. 196–198. Proceedings of the International Conference. 118–38. 1995). Exclusion. Die Katharer. persecution. W..L.). 2 (1975). Fichtenau. repression. in: The concept of heresy in the middle ages (11th–13th C. H. Sidak. 117–18. Ademar of Chabannes. ‘The state of research: the legacy of Charles Schmidt to the study of Christian dualism’. 8–25. ´ 1980). 26 (2000). Landes. ‘Heresy. Runciman. for example. in: The peace of God: social violence and religious response in France around the year 1000. Lambert. Head and R. Stephenson’s recent Byzantium’s Balkan frontier: a political study of the northern Balkans. History. Hamilton. ed. 1025. 1977). Lobrichon. The early medieval Balkans. J-P. Moore. Landes ` (Ithaca.13 A Bogumilstvu (Zagreb. H-C. S. 24 (2000). 71–80. 900–1200 (New York. 1998). 382–427 [translated by C. ‘Ursprung und Wesen des Bogomilentums’. The implications of literacy. Stock. Mass. and ‘The birth of popular heresy: A Millennial phenomenon?’ Journal of Religious History. T. and his ‘Arras.. and rebellion. first articulated in ‘The origins of medieval heresy’. 24–36. 19–46. 1998). 26–43 (which is also a rather angry reply to Moore’s ‘The birth of popular heresy: a millennial phenomenon?’). ‘The sermons of Ademar of Chabannes and the letter of Heribert: new ´ ´ sources concerning the origins of medieval heresy’. ed. ‘[I]f we are analyzing Bulgarian history as a whole and significant movements and causes of historical developments in Bulgaria. D. R. 98–99. Fine. 1953). see R. ¨ 1992). Verhelst (The Hague. ‘Catharisme medieval et bogomilisme’. 343–348. 21–36. ‘Problemes sur l’origine ´ ´ ˆ ´ de l’heresie au moyen-age’. Journal of Medieval History. 313–349. 1000–1500. Angelov. Medieval heresy: popular movements from Bogomil to Hus. By contrast. 212–86. Journal of Religious History. 1991). 17–53 [trans. 102–103. the Bogomils receive no mention. Manselli. The medieval Manichee. 1963). and social change in the age of Gregorian reform’. 80–103.’ Indeed. the arguments for Bogomil influence in western Europe before the twelfth century by Borst. Zerner (Nice. 900–1204 (Cambridge. Lourdaux and D. 144–156. apocalypse. which really only exists if one has an intellectualist bias. ‘Der Bogomilismus in Bulgarien’. Now. in: Christendom and its discontents. M. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 suggestion that Bogomil preachers were in Europe from the first millennium onwards and that these Bosnian or Bulgarian seers were the cause of almost all eleventhcentury heresy is simply untenable because this argument rests. ‘Aux origines de ´ ´ ´ l’heresie medievale’. R. Medioevo Cristiano (Bari. 188–189. on the historian simply perceiving a similarity between one set of ideas and another. 179.V. 24 (2000).

2000). northern Italy and. Fichtenau. 1–26.G. 1–28. is probably (at best) a mid-thirteenth-century forgery by some good men or their followers rather than a seventeenth-century forgery or a late thirteenth-century collation of a number of disparate documents by an inquisitor in Toulouse. ‘The voice of the good women: an essay on the pastoral and sacerdotal role of women in the Cathar Church’.J. southwestern Languedoc with the apocryphal papa Nicetas distributing dualist doctrine in the Lauragais. Brenon. 38–60. recent summaries of the evidence (and scholarship) for missionary and doctrinal connections between the Cathars and the Bogomils. ‘A ´ propos du concile cathare de Saint-Felix: les Milingues’. Bentley (London. marquis et comtes de Narbonne. vol. 39–52. are all good. where a number of other apocryphal documents supposedly demonstrating eastern links were filed away by ´ inquisitors in the late thirteenth century. and A. Biller. autrement appellez princes des Goths. if it really existed. Barber. as well as nuanced. Hamilton. Christian dualist heresies in the Byzantine world c. proto-Catharism in earlier European heresies. 21–22. en l’an 1652’. 201–214. 71–73. 1660). for the present. The Cathars. Walker (Berkeley. Now. Caseneuue. 23 (1994). B. in: Heresy and literacy. Archivum fratrum praedicatorum. ed. Brenon. 1994). in: Companion to historiography. to Saint-Felix-de-Caraman in the Lauragais happened in 1167. Kienzle and P. Cahiers de Fanjeaux: Cathares en Languedoc. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 187 more nuanced (and more persuasive) vision imagines Balkan missionaries only coming to Europe in the twelfth century. 650–c. ed. Cf. the efforts to truly link the Bogomils and the good men remain unconvincing. Heresis. M. 1998) is a remarkable collection of translated sources on dualism and has a useful ‘Historical introduction’. see. 1–55. 1998). Hamilton. Hudson (Cambridge. B. ducs de Septimanie.M. and because one needs to already believe in connections between Cathars and Bogomils to see the evidence within the text (even though the text itself is the foundational proof underlying this belief about Catharism and Bogomilism). ‘The Cathar council of S. papa Nicetas. Also. because so much about this document resembles a story by Jorge Luis Borges. 45–59. 23–53. Still. ‘Les heresies de l’an mil: nouvelles perspectives sur les origines du catharisme’. esp. Pilar Jimenez. Felix reconsidered’. given to Besse by ‘M. 48 (1978). Ketzer und Professoren. 1990). ‘Wisdom from the East: the reception by the Cathars of eastern dualist texts’. who lean heavily toward searching for. ‘Relire la ´ Charte de Niquinta — 2) Sens et portee de la charte’. 1000–1530. in his Cathare. 1997). where it is argued that Besse’s document was a seventeenth-century forgery (and probably forged by Besse). or through recognizing an inherent sameness about heretical anti-clericism between one century ` and the next. as well as the small number of questionable references to heretical holy men journeying from the Byzantine empire to northern France. . 3. It has also been argued that Bogomil dualism was secretly carried back by crusaders returning from twelfth-century Outremer. 14 ¨ G. Lambert. The Cathars. The visit by the supposed Bogomil bishop of ´ Constantinople. J. 239–240. Duvernoy. are more exercises in the quixotic than in quiddity. The document that records Nicetas’ journey is lost and only exists as an appendix to Guillaume Besse’s Histoire des ducs. Prebendier au chapitre de l’eglisle de Sainct Estienne de Tolose. 1998). and M. 29–59. is generally assumed to have proven the historical validity of Besse’s appendix. 22 (1994). et ´ ` marquis de Gothie. and believing in. ‘Popular religion in the central and late middle ages’. Lambert. for example. B. Der Katherismus: Die Herkunft der Katharer nach Theologie und Geschichte (Bad Honnef. Rottenwohrer. it is more prudent. Dedie a Monseigneur l’Archevesque duc de Narbonne (Paris. to remain unconvinced about its historical veracity. 24 (1995). and B. 570–571. it should be pointed out. 115–116. M. 21–36. 483. ed. P. 74–114. A. ‘Relire la Charte de ´ Niquinta — 1) Origine et problematique de la Charte’.14 Paulician influence images. Yves Dossat. opens by stating that ‘[n]o reputable scholar now doubts that Catharism was an offshoot of medieval eastern dualism…’. Vaudois et Beguines. especially. 3 (1968). 6–33. J. in: Women preachers and prophets through two millennia of Christianity. 1994). 70–119 [Heretics and Scholars.M. dissidents du pays d’Oc (Toulouse. Hamilton. On such heretical transmissions from the Levant. The Cathars (Oxford. Heresis. and Barber. The Cathars: dualist heretics in Languedoc in the high middle ages (Harlow. 1450 (Manchester. ‘Le probleme des origines du catharisme’. despite some allusions to wisdom arriving from the east in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 483–486. This document. Biller and A. P. 70–126]. In support of Hamilton. Heresis. which. and her. it probably was preserved until the seventeenth century in the Dominican inquisitorial archives at Toulouse or Carcassonne.

Karl Heisig in ‘Ein gnostische Sekte im abendlandischen Mittelalter’. 446. about why a particular society once thought certain ideas worth thinking. rely upon detecting likenesses between ideas irrespective of time and place. his ‘Wisdom from the East’. was the first to strongly suggest the importation of dualist beliefs by returning crusaders. Reconceptions in philosophy and other arts and sciences (Indianapolis. and forecast. Goodman.16 Piecing together the similar in time and space may be. while the meaning. 15 On the Paulicians see. 446. if one were to find. where she argues against Paulician influence in western Europe in the Middle Ages. 650–c. . also. representations. 18–21. the similarity would be. To study heresy. prove nothing conclusive in themselves ¨ about heresy in the Middle Ages. 16 (1964). 59–83. M. 271–74. Stalker (Chicago. 186–230. 1972). ‘Entrenchment’. she ¨ considers the original Paulicians to be nothing more than Armenian Old Believers — an argument that is perhaps as unconvincing. ed. Searching for what seems similar over the longue duree. all that the historian actually does. rather. or can safely predict certain continuities from today to tomorrow. arguments about the specific influence of the Bogomils upon western European heresy. Bernard Hamilton cannot let go of the notion that there must be some connection between the Paulicians and the Cathars despite the dearth of evidence in his ‘The origins of the dualist church of Drugunthia’. Elgin. therefore. The reasons why someone in the early twentyfirst century believes that two things truly resemble each other. 1967). ostensibly matching heresies from the thirteenth century in the very same region in the eleventh. cannot account for former predictive or inductive practices. fiction. two religious Zusam´ menhange. Two apparently similar Indo-European symbols. esp. N. 49 (1954). Douglas and D. though undeniably interesting. the concluding proof. See also N.188 M. 5–25. Goodman with C. two dualist discourses. suggested that crusaders brought ancient ¨ Gnostic practices back from the East to the Rhineland. also strongly rejects the Paulicians as descendants of Manichees.15 All in all. or between les vastes ´ espaces. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 upon the good men and good women. 1994). N. 193–224. ‘Heresie et croisade au XIIe siecle’. anthropological) essays in: How classification works. philosophical. N. 1984). in and of itself. Zeitschrift fur Religions und Geistesgeschichte. in his Fact. and the collected (historical. Of mind and other matters (Cambridge. in any case. 1983). either in the eleventh century or in the twelfth. (Cambridge. especially. I. two popular mentalites. Mass: Harvard University Press. ed. As such. the collected (philosophical) essays on the problem of ‘grue’ put forward in Goodman’s ‘The new riddle of induction’ in: The new riddle of induction. and his Christian dualist heresies in the Byzantine world c. Goodman. could not be the same. should never be confused with (or assumed to be the same as) the certainties that men and women in the thirteenth century knew (or attempted to know) about their world. Garsoıan. and certainly just as unprovable. Garsoıan. The Paulician heresy. 50–51. for example. ´ 855–872. A study of the origin and ¨ development of Paulicianism in Armenia and the eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire (The Hague– Paris. 115–124. esp. 1992). 4th ed. and symbols.G. Nelson Goodman among the social sciences. Goodman. whether through missionaries or through immigration. as though ideas wander over landscapes and centuries like loose hot-air balloons. in the end. superficial. D. ‘Seven strictures against similarity’. 1450. 1988). beliefs. as the one she rejects. Hacking. then even with the same words. in his Problems and projects (Indianapolis. Eastern Churches Review. Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique. as is often assumed. Hull (Edinburgh. at best. 6 (1974). so that the trick is to catch ´ ´ ` Christine Thouzellier. Along similar lines to Thouzellier. ‘The new riddle of induction’. has never been championed in the same way as Bogomilism. See. but it is only the beginning of an explanation about the past and not. 16 The ideas in this paragraph were derived from N.

had many affinities with the medieval vision of a Jules Michelet. xxii–xxv. village occitan de 1294 a 1324 (Paris.G. and additional Corrections. Pauperes Christi. in: Mittelalter und Moderne: Entdeckung und Rekonstruktion der mittelalterlichen Welt. Biller and A. not unlike something from the revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. explanations which treat heresy as solely a manifestation of purely economic or material problems. in: Medieval theology and the natural body. tying such dated Cold War Marxist–Leninist approaches to equally dated Victorian Romantic notions. if wayward. ed. esp. in: Eretici ed eresie medievali nella storiografia contemporanea: atti del XXXII Convegno du studi seilla Riforma e i movimenti religiosi in Italia. ‘La perspective de l’historiographie allemande’. M. Montaillou. see Andreas Dorpalen. and M.J. and so elevating both above the level of just curiosity value. Ketzer und Professoren. 47–64. P. 1994). 1993. whatever intellectual continuity. is that if the material world is thought to be unchanging. 196–202. Schools of asceticism. J. and trans. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 189 those drifting beliefs which look similar to each other. German history in Marxist perspective: The East German approach (Detroit. 115– 119]. are just as limited as the more prevalent arguments from the similarity of ideas. 307–364. 1981)]. ‘Le ricerche eresiologiche in area germanica’. 110–113 [Heretics and scholars. and resistance in Languedoc (Ithaca. Ideologische Probleme des Mittelalterlichen Plebejertums: Die freigeistige Haresie und ihre sozialen Wurzeln (Berlin. orig. and to see it as possessing unchanging qualities. sincere anti-Marxists. ed. stepping outside of this historiographic debate. Ketzer im Mittelalter (Stuttgart.M. Erbstosser and E. Malecsek. discipline. despite the Marxist materialism. where a tendency to romanticise life in the Occitan countryside. then the beliefs concerned with that world are assumed to be unchanging as well. For further discussions about German historians and heresy. 64–93. ¨ ¨ 1986). Muller. 1975) [translated and condensed by B. mostly using the same texts as Le Roy Ladurie.18 Rural communi17 For example. indeed an irony permeating much historical thinking about the Middle Ages. ¨ ¨ zur Entwicklung chiliasticscher Zukunftshoffnungen im Hochmittelalter (Berlin. 1964). Heresis. Das kommende Reich des Friedens. working within the idealist Religionsgeschichte tradition. see O. although this time . Topfer. Religious movements in the middle ages. 1960). Fraser as Heretics in the Middle Ages (Leipzig. and Kaelber. 7 (1994). Werner. as an expression of social or class discontent. Oexle.G. Le Roy Ladurie. Studien zu sozial-religiosen Bewegungen im Zeitalter des ¨ ¨ Reformpapsttums (Leipzig. Minnis (Woodbridge. Merlo (Torre Pellice. especially Karl-Marx University of Leipzig) way with history that. Kpngreßakten des 6. Likewise. ‘Cathars and material women’. Segl ¨ (Sigmaringen. ed. G. Erbstosser. promotes the same image of an unchanging rural landscape. E. ¨ Frauenfrage und Ketzertum in Mittelalter (Berlin. and West Germans after World War II. Koch.17 A peculiar irony about these theses. allows for whatever ideal contextualisation. Weis. ´ ˆ Eveque de Pamiers (1318–1325) ed. 1965. 18 ` See. Symposiums des Mediavistenverbandes in Bayreuth 1995. The yellow cross. ‘Die Moderne und ihr Mittelalter — eine folgenreiche Problemgeschichte’. see D. 1997). Fichtenau. has adopted a subtle neo-Marxist approach in his Inquisition and medieval society: power. 1972) ´ and L’inquisitor Geoffroy d’Ablis et les Cathares du Comte de Foix (1308–1309). M. 68–75. A. Erbstosser and E. 1997). It was also this East German treatment of medieval heresy and spirituality that Borst and Grundmann. P. On this (especially former East German. 1957). namely Le Registre d’Inquisition de Jacques Fournier. An informed observation on this issue is made by Lerner in his introduction to Grundmann. PalesGobilliard (Paris. Jean Duvernoy (Toulouse. Werner. Bray as Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French village 1294–1324 (Harmondsworth. Ketzer und Heilige: Das religiose Leben im Hochmittelalter (Vienna. 1962). 1984)]. Biller. P. E. esp. and for German ¨ historians and the Middle Ages. an erudite zepplin-chaser so chooses. 1997). B. 75–81.74–76. consciously reacted against. 1984). evocation of rural existence from a late-thirteenth–early-fourteenth-century inquisitorial register. Werner. 91–92. as physical existence in the medieval countryside is especially thought to be. is crucial to his brillant. for example. 1984) [trans. W. James Given.G. ed. G. 1985).

ed.G. never change the way they do things. Hollingsworth (Cambridge–Paris. Duvernoy (Paris. 1992). . and not through making doubtful deductions. but supremely ahistorical. 1985). thoughtfully. Gurevitch. that is Bosnians’. Northern Europe in the early fourteenth century (Princeton. 93. ‘Nocturnal enquiry: Carlo Ginzburg’. 19 A. Storia Notturna (Turin. mistaking bonomios sive bonosios in Guilhem de Puylaurens. Ecstacies. 8–8e. 32. Rees (Alantic Highlands. once more. Fentress and C. and so the Cathars. ‘[A]n [historical] explanation as an hypothesis of the development. 100. 98. trapped in the cyclical movement of the seasons. ‘Wisdom from the east’.20 it is populated with more individuals possessing many more anachronistic attitudes. trans. tied to the soil. reinforces the idealist bias. 13. of their synopsis. J. G. 207–229. 20 As in Lambert. founded upon intellectualist predilections. preconceived notions about what a testimony really was saying even if it did not say it (as in mistaking a scribal variation of bons omes for ‘Bosnians’ and misreading et hoc in vulgari in a seventeenthcentury copy of an inquisition record as et hoc in Bulgaria). involving scores of rural communities. where one can jump about all over the place. W. about timeless verities.C. 1989) [translated by R. R. Or Hamilton. Collection Doat 25. as referring to the ‘‘Bonosii’. reviews Ginzburg’s unchanging rural world and the materialist assumptions such an idea embraces. all too often just get concertinaed to fit a priori Cathar-templates. All these assumptions. 62. with revised trans. 1976). though clean and neat. ed. all these often unwitting biases. 57 and n. 1979). 1992). fol. Ginzburg’s remarkable. The records of the inquisition. Coincidently. ignoring temporal and cultural specificity in the proving of a point. J. Bibliotheque nationale. heretical or not. in his A zone of engagement (London. Anderson. 99. the worlds in which the heretics actually dwelt. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 ties. is only one kind of summary of the data. and. for instance.190 M. about outside causes. an anti-gravity world of long duration is imagined. The Cathars. justifies the lack of gravity in Ginzburg’s universe.L. Wickham. Bak and P. and Medieval popular culture: problems of belief and perception. Deciphering the witches’ sabbath (Harmondsworth. The same is true for C. are thrown into high relief when the records of the thirteenth-and-fourteenth-century inquisition in Languedoc are taken into account. Such equations. Campbell (London. in the end. where Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘seeing connections’ — from Bemerkungen uber Frazers Golden Bough [Remarks on ¨ Frazer’s Golden Bough]. numbering in the thousands. We can equally well see the data in their relations to one another and make a summary of them in a general picture without putting it in the form of an hypothesis regarding temporal development’. but severely. do not support the general historiographic tendency. P. and which provide the most detailed documentation about the heresy of the good men and good women. Testimonies given to the inquisitors into heretical depravity. 1992). Jordan in his The great famine. never change the way they think things. Rosenthal. misreading et hoc in vulgari (about a book) in a seventeenth-century copy of an inquisition record ` (in Paris. has expressed these views in his Categories of medieval culture. frequently a string of fragmentary confessions interspersed with a handful of longer narratives. trans. presuppose a deeply unconvincing passivity on the part of medieval men and women. and trans.19 The overt materialist. and the consequent downplaying of historical change and specificity. The answers to the whys and wherefores of the heresy of the good men must be sought within these specific communities. who dismiss such views of time and memory in rural communities. Cf. 217r. forever dwelling in an eternal present and so denied the virtues of linear time. 1991)].) as et hoc in Bulgaria. from the Balkans to the Pyrenees. Chronica Magistri Guillelmi de Podio Laurentii. esp. has attacked the general prevalence of such timeless notions about the tempo of rural life in the middle ages. Social memory (Oxford. J. 1996). from century to ´ ´ century.

no fundamental hot-wiring. but what usually relegates them to be strip-mined for footnotes. D. see S. The past as text: the theory and practice of medieval historiography (Baltimore. one must never approach inquisition documents from Languedoc with the Cathari in hand. and such like. her final argument that texts mirror society. or remain buried in eternal folkways. routines.21 Equally. See also Rot¨ tenwohrer. towards any particular theories. 173–193. behaviours. Comparative studies in history and society. towards any particular actions. what is being suggested. What is being argued here is not that metaphors. 3–28. whether they be six hundred years old or a mere six weeks. while the good men and good women themselves frequently referred to each other as ‘the friends of God’. ‘Introduction. Maybury-Lewis. so communally strengthening. is that ideas and habits never hibernate. lie dormant.23 ‘Cathar’ (apparently first used in the middle of the twelfth century by a group of heretics from Cologne. 1–18. where each one argues (under the influence of Claude Levi-Strauss) that dualism is inherent in the human perception of the world. 19–32. The Cathars.22 To begin any meditation upon the past with an assumption that some things simply are universal in humans or are always just there in human society. whether mendicant inquisitor or the men. 1994). and P. and the social logic of the text in the middle ages’. The quest for harmony’. is that they only make any sense. because this would be no more than the historian simply noting what he or she finds similar between one set of (usually lively) discourses. ever used the noun ‘Cathar’ to describe heretics in. so individually intimate. with no exceptions. The corruption of angels. the Lauragais. Dual organization reconsidered’. for instance. 529. Der Katherismus: Die Herkunft der Katharer nach Theologie und Geschichte. Almagor. it was always. merely mirror social structures. Almagor (Ann Arbor. and one set of (often dull and unchanging) practices. ideas. texts. because of an interweaving of thoughts and actions. in: The attraction of opposites. they only come alive. ‘Introduction.29. faults Duvernoy for the same misreading of Doat 25. never changing. 21 Despite agreeing with much of what G. habits. Ortner. where religion is natural and innate to human thought. is to retreat from attempting an historical explanation about previous rhythms of existence. good men and good women. Individuals and their societies possess no inherent tendencies. and so forth. 23 Pegg. To grasp this deep intimacy. Boyer. Now. 55 n. that the relations a person (or thing) maintains in the material realm entrenches the relations he or she (or it) maintains in the metaphoric. ‘Resistence and the problem of ethnographic refusal’. language. symbols. More prosaically. boni homines. immobile. women. 1989). and U. 22 For example.G. The naturalness of religious ideas: a cognitive theory of religion (Berkeley. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 191 What is so fascinating about inquisition records. This means turning aside from the intellectualist bias and so recognizing that communities actively survive. bone femine. and vice versa. ed. vol. or that language mirrors social locations. No person. or in the pays de Foix. from one day to the next. Spiegel has to say in her influential ‘History. Maybury-Lewis and U.B. 95–97. D. historicism. at once collective and particular. inert.M. is to grasp the meaning of heresy in the Middle Ages. bons omes. the Toulousain. and children they questioned. Instead. . Thought and society in the dualist mode. 37 (1995). 1997). 3. if an attempt is made to evoke the world in which they were created.M. Lambert. from one decade to another. bonas femnas. for a discussion on how frequently inherent (and far from theoretical) assumptions often underwrite overtly theoretical scholarship.

26 (Intriguingly. D. 18.25 This relentless naming of almost all heretics. Sermones contra Catharos. Lea admitted that there was no comprehensive institutional ‘Inquisition’ throughout the European middle ages. 62–63. as a respectful title for a good man. stress the existence of a ‘Cathar Church’.’ Now. 36–61. see Richard Kieckhefer. and the evidence that does not warrant such usage. and H. 439–451. Or A. ‘Henry Charles Lea (1825–1909)’. for their warnings about not confusing the medieval inquisition with the institutional early modern Inquisition. 1999). The Cathars. It seems that perfectus. a ‘Nicholas. Barber. liii–lxxvi. the intellectualist approach. Now. Glaubenszeugnis und Arburteilung der Deutschen un Franzosi¨ schen Katharerinnen (Mainz.)27 This remorseless relabelling also applies to perfectus. by tagging one of them. and this is Del Col’s only evidence. 1990). and B. Hamilton. are at best problematic. Camille. 1977). has only survived in the Collection . in The medieval church: universities. Weis. a useless term. but the very justification for. 1981) argues for the existence of a medieval inquisition. A. particularly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. ‘The office of inquisition and medieval heresy: the transition from personal to institutional jurisdiction’. though worth pondering. 1989). is a nuanced study marred by a tension (largely between footnotes and text) between using terminology like ‘perfect’. 46 (1995). England. P. in that if the word is used enough times by enough scholars to describe enough heretics in enough places then. a great heretical ‘Cathar Church’ with a systematically similar doctrine comes into being. The word is thrown about as though it were Cathar-confetti. Cartelleri (Leipzig. 56–57. The corruption of angels.I. northern France.A. Muller. 1976) — were clearly derived from Catharism because. historians convinced of Catharism as an institution usually accept that the medieval inquisition was much more institutional than ever was the case. 28 Pegg. and taken for granted by modern scholarship. from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. as ‘Cathars’ (with the exception of the Waldensians) is not only the product of. they were so similar. Lea’s admission is in his A history of the inquisition of the middle ages. Catalonia. once again. the famous painter in all of France’. ‘perfect’.G. deeply misleading and applied in such an indiscriminate way by modern historians as to make it. and ¨ always has been. Ginzburg in Il formaggio e i vermi: Il cosmo di un mugnaio del 500 (Turin. northern Italy. where the fact that Jacques Fournier’s inquisition did not record this title is put down to spite on the part of the bishop-inquisitor. Journal of Ecclesiastical History. if it was transcribed. with no evidence at all. 1. 89–100 and his Inquisition (New York. ‘Inquisition and the prosecution of heresy: misconceptions and abuses’. Mennocchio — the same Mennocchio made famous by C. ¨ see R. in what can only be called a self-fulfilling prophecy. ¨ Frauen vor der Inquisition: Lebensform. passim. Hamilton. 25 For example. ed. eds. 1996). 31: ‘Catharos. whose connections with one another. 287–292. Biller and B. Dobson (Woodbridge. where a group of infideles were examined and burnt in 1204. 5–23. ‘The Cathars and Christian perfection’. 1988). Kelly.192 M.28 Simi24 Eckbert of Schonau. vol. and Languedoc. 397ff. Church history 58 (1989). Even H. 176–182. see Peters. for all intents and purposes. 26 For example. The yellow cross. it is a designation not found in the original records of the Languedocian inquisition. with all that this implies. The Gothic idol: ideology and image-making in medieval art (Cambridge. M. 2. but. Del Col. PL 195. glosses the Chronicon universale anonymi Laudunensis (1154–1219). and the religious life: essays in honour of Gordon Leff. brightly decorating all sorts of individuals and groups accused of heresy in the Rhineland. Dominico Scandella detto Mennocchio: I processi dell’Inquisizione (1583–1599) (Pordenone. heresy. where the ideas of that sixteenth-century miller from Friuli. id est mundos.C. 1909). 211. col. as a Cathar. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 or so Eckbert of Schonau wrote in his Sermones contra Catharos of 1163)24 is. Moore. in his The Medieval inquisition (New York. On Lea’s thoughts about the medieval inquisition. The origins of European dissent (London. 27 B. for example.

see L. as boni homines and probi homines in Latin. 441–442. 29 ´ ´ ´ On the meaning of Albigenses. if nothing else. Biget. On Jean-Baptiste ` Colbert’s commission and Doat’s copying. 37–39. 7 (1979). fol. 77. and his. L. Now.M. Doat 26. ‘‘Les Albigeois’: remarques sur une denomination’. ‘Colbert und die Entstehung der Collection Doat’. vol. Thouzellier. Albigeois (Rome. 223–262. not only was ‘Cathar’ never uttered. see C. 1939). ´ ´ ´ in: Inventer l’Heresie?: Discours polemiques et pouvoirs avant l’inquisition. 4–5. in a sharp and rather telling contrast. 1982). 188–190. Heresie et Heretiques: Vaudois. while in Occitan they were bons omes. but there is nothing in this brief afterthought except an opinion that the langue d’oc heretics were obviously connected to the langue de si dualists. especially in the first half of the thirteenth century in the Toulousain and the Lauragais. Delisle. M. and prodomes. 30 Pegg. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 193 larly. 258r–259r). two other Dominican inquisitors. Omont. in their respective ways. . or in any of the testimonies Doat (e. p. Conybeare and Alphandery. 12–15. heretical or not. 19–26. ‘Albigensi´ an’ was almost always the term for the good men. should shake our complaisancy about using ‘Cathar’ and suggest that research into the specific communities questioned by the inquisition will reveal a very different world than the one now taken for granted. Patar´ ins.29 On the other hand. Summa de Catharis et Pauperibus de Lugduno. Die Ketzerbekampfung in Sud-frankreich in der ersten Halfte des 13. Histoire generale de Paris (Paris. The corruption of angels. and J-L. Lansing. This apparent fact. oaths. esp. were described in charters. 95. where almost six thousand men and women from the Toulousain and the Lauragais were questioned in two hundred and one days. H. 15–16. illustrate this terminological shift from the somewhat inappropriate Albigenses (though still with some sense of specificity) to the incredibly inappropriate Cathari (with its wildly imperial and immigrant connotations). prozomes. should suggest that the seventeenth-century copyists employed by Jean de Doat perhaps took more transcribing liberties than is often realised.g. court appearances. Ad Capiendas Vulpes.30 This fact. Yet. Catharisme et Valdeisme en Languedoc. 1. 463–489. what will be consistently found in inquisition registers is the epithet ‘good man’ for a heretic. and those of Albi and Carcassonne’ towards the end of his detailed treatise about the Cathari of Lombardy. in histories and encyclopedias until the beginning of the last century. connection to the heretics of Languedoc) in: C. and the more general discussion of Italian heresy (and one which assumes a strong. 1998). see Thouzellier. ed. the Dominican inquisitor (and former ‘heresiarch’ at Piacenza) Rainier Sacconi in his Summa de Catharis et Pauperibus de Lugduno of 1250 did add a tiny appendix about the ‘Cathars of the Toulousain church.31 Only five years earlier. ‘La Collection Doat a la ´ ` Bibliotheque Nationale: Documents sur les recherches de Doat dans les archives du sud-ouest de la France ` ` de 1663 a 1670’. Le Cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque ´ ´ ` Imperiale. communal decisions. Jahrhunderts und die Ausbil¨ ¨ ¨ dung des Inquisitionsverfahrens (Bonn. is in the preface of Antoine Dondai` ´ ´ ´ ne’s edition of Un Traite neo-manicheen du XIIIe siecle: Le Liber de duobus principiis suivi d’un fragment ´ de rituel cathare (Rome. Zerner (Nice. in everything and anything. the heretici were never called Albigenses in the registers of the inquisition. 31 Rainier Sacconi. 286–336. 219–256. To be sure.G. Power and purity: Cathar heresy in medieval Italy (New York. Bernart de Caux and Joan de SantPeire. and obvious. 1969). in the largest inquisition of the middle ages. 1868). 1998). wills. Francia. Bibliotheque de l’Ecole des Chartes. This is terribly important because all men. 77 (1916). in stark contrast to original manuscripts surviving from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Kolmer. Cathares.

see A. forever waiting to be found. P. is profoundly seductive. see M. The corruption of angels. ´ ´ ` Duranton. 1960). dissidents du pays d’Oc (Toulouse. O’Shea. 174 (1952).33 Occasionally. Chasing the heretics: A modern journey through the medieval Languedoc (St. Roche. Roche. The Cathars. ‘The just balance’ (Cambridge. is R. 17. still keeps. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 was an elaborate dualist theology expounded. 66–74 and 75–84. is good on Weil. no ‘Cathar Church’. ´ the Centre d’Etudes Cathares at Carcassonne. Roche also had a curious correspondence with Simon Weil. On Roche. perhaps unintentionally. On these early modern ideas about the Cathars. Klawinski. especially D. ‘Mythographie du Catharisme’. have been tied to the Holy Grail. Etudes Manicheennes et ´ Cathares (Paris. The origin and meaning of courtly love: A critical study of European scholarship (Manchester. and just as anachronistic. 1994). Barber. forever ready to rise and shine when things are just right. but no elaborate international heretical organization. 2000). hundreds of references to heretici and boni homines are persistently. The Cathars and reincarnation: The record of a past life in 13th century France (London. 203–212. and rather unashamedly. 77–81. see the excellent critical survey of R. 85–118. A southern French travelogue. 1978). was discovered by them or. 53–62. 15–38. and the odd Otto Rahn. for one. A. influencing everything and anything. Friesen. not surprisingly. 1952) and R. Winch. to the hidden secrets of the Knights-Templars. Biget. ‘Neue Funde und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Katharer’. 130. A. ‘Medieval heretics or forerunners of the Reformation: the Protestant rewriting of the history of medieval heresy’. Boase. ‘Les Albigeois dans les histoires generales et les manuels scolaires du XVIe au XVIIIe siecle’. translated as referring to ‘Cathars’ and ‘perfects’). Amour courtois. 14 (1979). wrong on just about everything. ‘Albigeisme ou Catharisme’. 1999). see J-L. Guirdham. Cahiers de Fanjeaux: Historiographie du catharisme. 308–310. esp. dissidents du pays d’Oc (Toulouse. Now see Duvernoy. heavily laced with Cathar fact and fancy. to courtly love. H. for example. in: Ecrits historiques et politiques (Paris. despite a good bibliography. and still is. The perfect heresy: The revolutionary life and death of the medieval Cathars (New York. Roche ` ´ was the founder of a neo-Cathar group at the turn of this century and of the journal Cahiers d’Etudes ´ Cathares. The Centre d’Etudes Cathares also publishes the serious and learned journal Heresis. that a hidden Church. Borst. S. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On Weil. need to see the good men and good women as Protestants before their time34 — like the irrepressible Conybeare. where he considers Weil’s notion that Catharism was a descendant of late antique neo-Platonic Christianity to be historically correct. for example. 1970). ´ ´ ´ See. was. of course. in The 33 32 . Duvernoy. such views were quite common amongst Catholic and Protestant thinkers. 1994). is really about the Albignesian Crusade and. Histoire secrete du Languedoc (Paris: Albin Michel. Vaudois et Beguines. to the magical lodges of late-nineteenth-century mysticism. ` Vaudois et Beguines. 369. 34 J. and this can never be emphasized enough. Les Cathares et le graal (Toulouse. 15 — that Catharism was ‘la derniere ´ ´ expression vivante de l’antiquite pre-romaine …’ Weil had more to say about Catharism and Occitanism ` ` ´ in her ‘L’agonie d’une civilisation vue a travers une poeme epique’.194 M. will such an entity be unearthed by historians (unless. ‘Albigeisme ou Catharisme’. and ‘En quoi l’inspiration occitanien´ ne’. he even argues for Catharism to be the offspring of Gnosticism because (and this is his only evidence) ‘of a ´ similarity of ideas’. the neo-Cathar flame ´ alive. these occult fantasies are grafted onto the related. the latter once wrote — and cited by J. The Cathars. see. Historische Zeitschrift. whose gift for Pegg. Duvernoy. even documents a fascinating case of an English woman who was convinced that she had experienced a past life as a crezen in the early thirteenth-century Lauragais. 1977). and even to the veracity of reincarnation. 1994). Simone Weil. in his Cathare. out of a vast and extremely popular literature. As for Catharism and the Holy Grail. Nelli.32 This desire to believe that secret heretical knowledge. basically sees the Cathars as proto-Protestants in ‘Cathares et vaudois sont-ils ´ ´ des precurseurs de la Reforme?’ in his Cathare. On the innumerable (and usually rather odd) theories about courtly love.G. Paul. and the Cathars. 14 (1979). Roquebert. Today. 1989). Cahiers de Fanjeaux: Historiogra´ phie du catharisme.

the systematic destruction of European Jews during the Holocaust or the genocidal violence in the former Yugoslavia. particularly for Languedoc. one that therefore makes them a useful past analogy to. A. on the Cathars and the Holocaust. Lerner. life and thought (Oxford. ed. heresy. Louis. His The corruption of angels: the Great Inquisition of 1245–1246 (Princeton. ‘In the footsteps of the Cathars’. from which charge Protestants generally acquit them. ‘Anabaptists’. on the killing of the Albigensians and the massacres in Bosnia. 2001) was recently published. 904. He is currently researching and writing a study on heresy throughout the middle ages. and witchcraft in the middle ages: Essays in honor of Jeffrey B. by Roman Catholics. to see these supposed heretics as not only having a ‘Church’ but also possessing what can only be called a distinct ethnicity along with their beliefs. 1998).G. deserves to be rethought. 19–32. devil. 75. and Barber. 165–190. who are not medievalists. 1. this Edwardian historiographic stillness. rests upon almost three centuries of extraordinary learning in a way that has been. see David Rieff. The scholarship on the Cathars. do suggest an intellectual languor whose apparent calm is much more stifling to the historical imagination than might at first appear. and still is. Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the failure of the West (New York. The Cathars. 1. 36 For example. once more. the Albigenses. Interestingly. Encyclopædia Britannica. say. allowed him to observe in his portrait of the ‘Anabaptists’ for the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica that their sixteenth-century zeal clearly had ‘an affinity to the Cathari and other medieval sects’. though with some limitations … At the time of the Reformation. their arguments. Ferreiro (Leiden. see G. and the good men. and. mistaken notions about the Cathars have led a number of historians. hopes to shake. the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica or. 1771). under ‘Albigenses’. . What has been attempted here is a rethinking of the Cathars and the good men that.M. and fiction about the Cathars. noted this: ‘… They [the Albigenses] are ranked among the grossest heretics. Conybeare.35 Further. questions about apparent continuities and similarities immediately present themselves — that the fact. though not quite ready to be pensioned off just yet. 1997). 27. those of the Albigenses who remained embraced Calvinism. 212–225. A dictionary of arts and sciences (Edinburgh. and the good men. fantasy. if only for a moment. Russell. 1995). just as one may admire the longevity of the erudite assumptions of ´ Conybeare and Alphandery. Nevertheless. the Manicheans. Pegg / Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 181–195 195 seeing the Cathars wherever he happened to look that day.’ 35 F. Mark Gregory Pegg is Assistant Professor of History at Washington University in St. Albigenses. in the end. in her Why history matters.36 It is because such comparisons are so important to historical research — though. rarely equalled in the historical study of the Middle Ages. vol.