Review: Secret Files of the Inquisition (PBS Series)

[lunadelcorvo]

I am a big fan of PBS in general. So when a documentary series covering the history of the Inquisition and some of the major heretical movements in medieval Europe showed up on my Netflix recommendations list, I was cautiously optimistic. (I say cautiously because so far, in my experience, history documentaries tend to be dismal in terms of you know, actual history, having instead an alarming and overwhelming tendency to favor sensationalism over fact every time.) But being PBS, I thought the chances of some actual history leaking in were good. Ah, hope springs eternal! Sadly, I was disappointed.

After a predictably dramatic (and sensationalized introduction – almost de rigeuer for this sort of production), the series begins with the Cathar heresy. However, it glosses over the heyday of Catharism in Europe in the first ten minutes (badly, needless to say) and instead jumps right into the supposed account of the small town of Montaillou in the French Pyrenees. Now this in itself is odd for several reasons. One, the Inqusition (initially a body created for investigation, not murder and mayhem, as this series luridly suggests) was founded directly in response to what even the Vatican considered a disaster – the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars of southern France. Montaillou was a small remote town, and didn’t fall under the eye of the Church until some time after the Inquisition was founded.

What’s worse however, are the “experts” who appear on screen to give credence to the dramatized action (complete with overly dramatic voiceover). For this section, the main authority is a novelist, who, according to the website for her novel, read a French account of Montaillou while studying French literature in her undergraduate. From this, apparently entranced by the romanticism of it, she wrote the novel whose title appears with her name on screen. (The book is not noted as a novel, leaving the viewer to assume it is a volume of history rather than fiction.)

This is pretty much typical of the series )or at least as much of it as I could stomach watching). Part one, at least is a small handful of facts, picked seemingly at random, pasted together with a patois of drama and pseudo-history. I did look at the list of sources listed on the PBS site, but found little to convince me that later installments would be of any higher quality. The series lists among its bibliography James Carroll (of “Contantine’s Sword” fame, or perhaps infamy is the better term; my review of that is here),  Mark Pegg (author of “The Most Holy War,” which I reviewed here), and Michael Baigent, the fellow behind the Holy Grail, bloodline of Christ business that formed the basis for the DaVinci Code. All of these men are known for work on the medieval church which is spotty at best. Clearly PBS was not particularly rigorous in its research.
Yes, they did list a few more authoritative sources, among them Malcolm barber, one of the most respected historians on the subject of medieval heresy and the Episcopal Inquisition, but I saw little evidence of his work and far more of the influence of the former.

The series also seems happy to present events from a single (and somewhat myopic) viewpoint. For example, in presenting the Albigensian Crusade, it is suggested that the devastation of the Languedoc was the intent of the Church. Not only do they fail to mention the murder of the papal legate sent to the court of Raymond of Toulouse, which was the last in along string of provocations from the Cather side, they also utterly ignore the machinations of the French nobles, only to eager to sweep in and reclaim lands long under the control of English. It was this desire to recapture any territory possible which accounts for the awful brutality of the Albigensian Crusades at least as much (I would argue more) than any sentiment of the Church itself.

Another thing, minor, perhaps, but it bugged me – they showed the Inquisitors accompanied by Templar knights. But to my knowledge the Templars were not involved with the inquisition at all, that is until they were on the wrong end of it, and then only by virtue of being offered up as sacrificial fodder to placate the King of France and protect the name of Pope Boniface VIII. I suspect the Templar presence is inspired by Baigent and his ilk; I’m surprised they didn’t try to claim the Grail was being hidden in Montaillou, too.

It is just this convenient ignorance of the context of events, together with a seeming reliance on the same old sensationalism surrounding the Inquisition, which is itself a product of protestant and subsequent romantic literary and historic traditions that makes this series no better than anything the History Channel puts out (which may be damning with faint praise, or is that praising with faint damnation?). All in all, if you like hijinks and mayhem in the Middle Ages, enjoy this for entertainment value, but don’t look to this series for anything resembling actual history.

Comments

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

I believe the Raymond of Toulose who essentially got his butt handed to him by the Albigensian Crusade was the VI. His son, also Raymond (the VII), survived to fight another generation of the Cathar wars, and I don't recall how he ended his days, but it may have been in one of the much later Crusades.

Raymond the IV, on the other hand, was one of the leaders of the First Crusade. The Templars were founded after the first Crusade (around 1119, I think) but Raymond was never one of them. In fact, I don't think any of the Raymonds were ever associated with them.

You're not wrong - the Black Death decimated the ranks of the clergy at a higher rate than the rest of the population, leading to a shortage of qualified (read 'sane') clergy, who were overworked to boot. The growing severity of the inquisition coincides with a lot of other systemic problems in the Church at the time, and the almost fevered pessimism of the post-plague society made suspicion and paranoia constant factors. We see a surge in Jewish persecution at this time period as well.

In Spain, the Inquisition got out of hand because the Church wasn't really in control of it (having other problems on its hands) and because Ferdinand and Isabella, for all we praise them for funding Columbus, were a pair of egomaniacal zealots who were determined to make Spain a completely Catholic country. Almost all of the victims of the Spanish Inquisition were poor Jews or Muslims who could not leave, and were forced to convert but continued to practice their own faiths in secrecy.

I haven't read the book you mention, but if you are interested, Malcolm Barber's Trial of the Templars and The New Knighthood are both excellent. His book on the Cathars is also excellent, as are Edward Peter's Heresy and Authority in the Middle Ages and Inquisition.

(Hee! Thanks - I do so love going on about this stuff... I hope you don't mind...LOL)

[thewenchywiccan.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense - Clergy lived in such close quarters, their life expectancy would have been shorter in favorable conditions anyway, much less plague. And society wanted a scapegoat, yep, and found them in minority populations.

Ah, more crazy Spanish monarchs, what a surprise. XD hehehe

I will for sure look into those books, they all sound fascinating! YAY! ♥ and *hugs* I don't mind at all! YAY HISTORY! :D *HUGS* ♥