Heresy, Inquisition and Life Cycle in Medieval Languedoc

188 Pages·2014·1.425 MB·English

by  Chris Sparks

Heresy, Inquisition_PPC 29/01/2014 09:14 Page 1
HERESY AND INQUISITION IN THE MIDDLE AGES
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eligion amongst ordinary men and women in Languedoc in DY
the High Middle Ages is the subject of this book. Focusing on I,

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laypeople attached to the Cathar movement, it investigates the
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interplay between heresy and orthodoxy, and between spiritual and
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secular concerns, in people’s lives, charting the ways in which these
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developed through life cycle: childhood, youth, marriage and death.
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This period was one of great upheaval in the region, brought about S
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by the Church’s response to the perceived threat of heresy, and the book
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also explores the effects of the Albigensian Crusaders and the GI
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inquisitors who followed in their wake. It draws on a large range of
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evidence, including civic and ecclesiastical legislation, contemporary N
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literature and chronicle, and broader scholarship on the region, but its D A
principal sources are the records of inquisitorial tribunals that operated ON
between 1190 and 1330: transcripts of interview and sentencing which CD
represent the closest thing that exists to an oral history of the period.
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The author teases out the vibrant detail with which these archives
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document people’s lives, developing and illustrating its argument F
through the recounting of their stories. E

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CHRIS SPARKSgained his doctorate from the University of York; he
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now works at Queen Mary University of London.
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Front cover: Detail of the devil leading off the soul of a dying lover.
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From the Breviari d’Amor, a fourteenth-century Occitan encyclopaedic poem.
©The British Library Board, Royal 19 C. I, f.204v.
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Heresy and Inquisition in the Middle Ages
Volume 3
Heresy, Inquisition and Life Cycle
in Medieval Languedoc
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YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS
York Medieval Press is published by the University of York’s Centre for Medieval
Studies in association with Boydell & Brewer Limited. Our objective is the promo-
tion of innovative scholarship and fresh criticism on medieval culture. We have a
special commitment to interdisciplinary study, in line with the Centre’s belief that
the future of Medieval Studies lies in those areas in which its major constituent
disciplines at once inform and challenge each other.
Editorial Board (2014)
Professor Peter Biller (Dept of History): General Editor
Dr T. Ayers (Dept of History of Art)
Dr Henry Bainton (Dept of English and Related Literature)
Dr J. W. Binns (Dept of English and Related Literature)
Professor Helen Fulton (Dept of English and Related Literature)
Dr K. F. Giles (Dept of Archaeology)
Professor W. M. Ormrod (Dept of History)
Dr Lucy Sackville (Dept of History)
Dr Hanna Vorholt (Dept of History of Art)
Professor J. G. Wogan-Browne (English Faculty, Fordham University)
Consultant on Manuscript Publications:
Professor Linne Mooney (Department of English and Related Literature)
All enquiries of an editorial kind, including suggestions for monographs and
essay collections, should be addressed to: The Academic Editor, York Medieval
Press, University of York, Centre for Medieval Studies, The King’s Manor, York,
YO1 7EP (E-mail: [email protected]).
Publications of York Medieval Press are listed at the back of this volume.
Heresy and Inquisition in the Middle Ages
ISSN 2046–8938
Series editors
John H. Arnold, Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck,
University of London
Peter Biller, Department of History, University of York
Heresy had social, cultural and political implications in the middle ages, and
countering heresy was often a central component in the development of ortho-
doxy. This series publishes work on heresy, and the repression of heresy, from
late antiquity to the Reformation, including monographs, collections of essays,
and editions of texts.
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Heresy, Inquisition and Life Cycle
in Medieval Languedoc
Chris Sparks
YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS
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© Chris Sparks 2014
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,
transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
The right of Chris Sparks to be identified as
the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998
First published 2014
A York Medieval Press publication
in association with The Boydell Press
an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
and with the
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
www.york.ac.uk/medieval-studies
ISBN 978–1–903153–52–9
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy
of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
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This book is about the importance of human relationships
It is dedicated to my friends
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Contents
List of Tables viii
Acknowledgements ix
List of Abbreviations x
A Note on Names xi
Introduction 1
1. Childhood 27
2. Youth 71
3. Marriage 94
4. Death 123
Conclusion 151
Glossary 157
Bibliography 159
Index 169
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Tables
1.1 Child initiates from Le Mas-Saintes-Puelles 54
1.2 Other child initiates: girls. 57
1.3 Other child initiates: boys. 59
2.1 Young deponents before Bernard Gui 86
viii
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Acknowledgements
The research on which this book was based would not have been possible
without the funding provided by an AHRC doctoral award. I am also grateful
to the Department of History at York, who supported my MA studies with a
Fee Waiver Scholarship, and whose faculty and staff have always been both
friendly and encouraging. Thanks are also due to Caroline Palmer at Boydell
& Brewer, and to Pete Biller and John Arnold who have been generous
and wonderfully efficient editors. A great many people have supported me
during the years that this book has been in development. Thanks are due to
the School of History at Queen Mary, University of London, and in particular
to Emma Yates, who is the most supportive boss, and friend, one could wish
for. I am also indebted to Miri Rubin, for her advice and guidance, and for her
careful and generous proof-reading. My parents have been, as ever, a source
of unwavering and unconditional support, for which I am more grateful than
I can say. The single largest debt I owe as an author is to Pete Biller. I have
often had cause to draw on Pete’s seemingly inexhaustible supplies of advice,
scholarship, encouragement, friendship, coffee, and all-round generosity of
spirit, without which this book would never have been written at all.
ix
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