Albigensian Crusade for the LOSE!!!!

[lunadelcorvo]

So I was out at the bookstore the other day, browsing the history shelves, when I found The Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom. Now one would think this would be right up my alley. So I grabbed it, ordered my mocha, and sat down in the cafe to look it over. (I am always suspicious of scholarly history I find in mainstream bookstores.)

On first look over I was impressed. Written by a professor of history at Washington University in St. Louis, published by Oxford University Press. Nice! Then I got to reading, and soon realized that even names like Oxford and Wash U are no guarantee of quality, or accuracy.

For those who may not be familiar with the Albigensian Crusade, it was a Crusade much like those to the Holy Land, but waged by Christians against Christians, albeit heretical Christians. It was preached (instigated) by Pope Innocent III as a desperate measure to address the growing problem of Cathar heresy in southern France. One of the principle strongholds of one particular variety of Catharism, the Albigenses, was centered, not surprisingly, in the city of Albi. While it was a long, bloody mess which raged from 1209-1229 and left southern France devastated, it was neither the first Crusade, nor (by a long shot) the first instance of sectarian violence in Christendom. It was due in large part to the utter disaster of the Albigensian Crusade that Pope Gregory IX created the Episcopal Inquisition (not at all like the Spanish Inquisition of which we hear so many horror stories) as a better method (better than war, to be sure!) of addressing the problem of heresy.

So, there you have the short version. This guy makes some extraordinary claims, however. Note, that I have not read the whole book, but I will share some of my favorite quotes:

• The Cathars, according to this author, did not exist. "Everything about the Cathars, down to the name, is utter fantasy. (p. x)
• Cathars, in the index, have a separate entry "Cathars, as historiographic fantasy" (p. 245)
• "The town of Albi was never considered a heretical stronghold by the crusaders, and 'Albigensian' does not derive from it." (p. 117)
• Only AFTER the war (10 years or more) were "Albigenses" implicated in it. (p. 171)
• The Albigensian Crusade was responsible for the introduction of genocide into the west. (p. 189)
• (my absolute favorite) "Anti-Semitism (rather, anti-Judaism) in the Middle Ages only occurred after the Albigensian Crusade" (p. 190)

No, no, a thousand times NO! OK, when he first says the Cathars didn't exist, he says it in terms of there not being a Cathar church with a similar structure as the Catholic church. Well, no, it wasn't *quite* like that, but it was damned close! Hell yes, the Cathars existed! Sure, there were political factors both leading up to and playing into the Crusade, but the whole business was still, at its heart, about the Cathars. And if "Albigenses" doesn't come from "Albi" where in heck does it come from, and can anyone explain the amazing coincidence that Albi was one of the towns that the Crusade was raised to regain?

And while I do appreciate the distinction between "anti-semitism" and "anti-Judaism," this bit about anti-Judaism not occurring before the Albigensian Crusades? WTF do you call the massacres of Jews in the First Crusade???? Or that of 1197, ten years before the Albigensian Crusade? Or any of the other dozen or so instances of anti-Judaism before then? Hello? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I can appreciate daring scholarship, challenging long-held notions, and reexamining old sources with new eyes. But come on, folks. There is a point at which it becomes clear that the author is really just making stuff up! I mentioned this book as a cautionary point to a student who is working on the Cathars, and he made an interesting comment: "If I ever really need to make money, I will write a book on history that is so wrong, and so outrageous, that I know everyone will buy it, just so they can get angry with it."

I think he hit the nail on the head.

Comments

[belleweather.livejournal.com]

Okay, that breaks my brain completely.

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

Doesn't it? Then again, I am noticing an awful lot of stuff co-opting history (middle ages in particular, at least recently) for the sake of XYZ agenda. I mean, this is nothing new really, but medieval stuff seems to be the hot commodity right now. But what really got me was seeing this from that caliber of academic, and on Oxford's label, no less! *mind reels*

[lucretiasheart.livejournal.com]

Um.... yeah. Totally.

I've studied the Cathars on my own because I found their "heretical" society fascinating and centuries ahead of the Xtians that surrounded them. They allowed women to be clergy for example, and were said to revere nature. That the Xtian leaders of the times considered things like this to be evil says a lot about Xtianity in general. (I'm not a fan. Can ya guess?)

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

Well, I wouldn't say they really revered nature, though women could hold most of the same positions as men. Their inherently dualist nature meant that ALL the physical world was considered evil, filthy, and corrupt. As dualists, Cathars held that there was a good God (Christ) and an evil God (Yahweh). The Old Testament God was evil precisely because he had created the physical world, and entrapped pure souls in filthy physical bodies.

They did not have a concept of hell; if they failed to achieve salvation, their 'hell' was essentially to be reincarnated to try again. And I don't mean this in the calm, serene buddhist sense; it was literally the worst thing they could imagine. They didn't have sex, not for moral reasons, but because the worst sin possible would be trapping another pure soul into the filth of a physical existence. That's why they wouldn't eat anything which was (visibly, anyway) produced by sexual reproduction, including not only meat, but fruits and vegetables. Think the most extreme vegan you ever heard of, go a few steps further, and you're almost there!

They also taught that the most noble thing to do, once one took the consolamentum and became a perfecti was to starve oneself to death. I certainly don't condone the extermination of anyone because of their beliefs or lifestyle choices, but I think it's a bit slanted to see these folks as being particularly enlightened. (No offense - there is an awful lot written about the Cathars that does rather attempt to ennoble them, but it's not particularly accurate. If you're interested I'd be happy to give you some more in-depth studies of Catharism.)

Incidentally, you refer to 'society;' if your source is, perchance, LaDurie's Montaillou, keep in mind that while Montaillou was sort of a Cathar community, it was a very muddled form of Catharism at best. The Cathars were largely an urban phenomenon, sustained by travel between urban areas by the perfecti. Once the urban centers had been largely suppressed, some escaped into rural areas in the Pyrenees (such as Montaillou) and over a generation or two, little of actual Cathar belief or practice remained.

But certainly this guy has his head you-know-where in trying to claim they never existed....

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

Oh, um... not to beat a dead horse, but this is something I feel pretty strongly about. I am by no means apt to defend the Church or Christianity for it's own sake. But, to be fair, while it seems outrageous to us in a post-enlightenment culture to imagine, we have to recognize that at least a majority honestly thought that heretics were in danger of going to hell, and they needed help. For the medieval mind, if the torments of the flesh could save your soul, they were wholly justified - look at the ascetic orders, for example.

I'm not trying to be relativist here, but it's not really accurate to say that they thought the Cathars were evil as such. They thought Catharism was like a disease that threatened the health of society, and would needlesly result in the damnation of countless souls to hell. Keeping in mind the state of medieval medicine at this point, they were prepared to do what they had to to save the 'body' of Christendom from the spread of a disease that would endanger it. I know from a modern perspective it sounds like I am trying to justify genocide, but even as we have to learn from the mistakes of the past, I think it is terribly important that we remember they simply didn't see the world like we do. To the medieval mind, this was not genocide.

If you are thinking this sounds much like the right wing rhetoric of today, you are not wrong. The difference is that we DO live in a post-enlightenment culture, we have wrestled with these problems for centuries, and WE should know better. In many ways, the issues of different beliefs and different peoples co-existing was a very new one in the medieval period. If we can demand of our own society that we 'live and let live,' we must recognize the sources of that ideal, and also recognize that the medievals didn't have the advantage of the enlightenment, humanism, etc. on which to draw.

Not to be preachy, or anything, but as I said, this is something I feel strongly about. And it's not like there isn't there is plenty on which to convict the Church anyway!

A book on Cathars turns out to be "cathartic"

[cernowain.livejournal.com]

At least the book helped you release some powerful anger energy! Talk about *cathartic*.

I guess when the author researched anti-Judaism, he never ran across John Crysostom's book "Against Jews" from centuries before that. It's almost as if he didn't do the required research. But, according to the readers' reviews on Amazon, he does have lots of footnotes and a lengthy bibliography. Evidently he uses lots of primary sources but fails to put it all into context.

At least its a good example of how *not* to write history.

bb,

Cern

Re: A book on Cathars turns out to be "cathartic"

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

It's a perfect example of how not to write history!

("cathartic" booooooo! LOL)

[celtickittenmew.livejournal.com]

Okay. I finally read this post and I see that you've run into the same god/s-forsaken tome I have stuffed on a shelf or lost to the abyssmal depths of a closet somewhere in my home. I picked it up to aid me in last semester's paper chase when I discovered that the author was a bleeding crackpot! I mean, suggesting that the Cathars had no formal "church" structure wasn't too bad. But the rest of that crap about Albi not being a cathar stronghold or anti-semitism being in existence only after the Albigensian Crusade is a load akin to claiming that Boris the Bulgar didn't lose to the Byzantines in 864. Or, if you prefer, claiming that racism in America didn't exist until after the Civil War. It's ludicrous. I think that Oxford Press should recall all known copies and apologize to the author's sources (assuming he bothered to use secondaries). Clearly this one was about making money. Sheesh!

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

It certainly seems to be more about sales than facts.... It seems that there is a lot of this going on right now, and the Middle Ages are the hot topic for such nonsense. Grrr! LOL

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

LOL! Icon twins! Hee...