Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village, 1294-1324
by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie.
Penguin Books, 1980 (1975).
I’m not going to attempt a lengthy discussion of this famous and worthwhile book, first published in 1975 as Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324 and translated by Barbara Bray in 1978 subtitled The Promised Land of Error, and later Cathars and Catholics in a French Village. Instead I’ll just focus on a couple of points.
Ladurie’s study was based on the Register of an Inquisition conducted in the early 14th century by the Cistercian Bishop of Pamiers, Jacques Fournier; he later became Pope Benedict XII and was responsible for transforming the old bishops palace in Avignon into the Palais des Papes before his death in 1342.
Described as “a sort of compulsive Maigret,” he rooted out Catharism in his diocese, which covered the medieval Comté de Foix – now Ariège – eighty years after Catharism had been officially destroyed in 1244 at the siege of Monségur.
Due to the efforts of Cathar missionaries the dualist heresy enjoyed a revival in the northern Pyrenees where it was kept alive by certain households and by migrant mountain shepherds. Because Montaillou is a study of real human beings and not heretical dogmas and practices per se, we learn more of the medieval peasant mind than of secret traditions – or of a Gnostic grail, real or imagined – but as such it makes extremely compelling reading.
“The prisoners of Montaillou were the last Cathars,” writes Le Roy Ladurie, and essentially Catharism as practised by these Languedoc peasants was Christian, not pagan or Gnostic. Any non-Christian elements which crept into their beliefs seems to have infiltrated Catholicism in equal measure (bar the obvious differences like reincarnation and dualism).
But any notion of a holy grail expounded by troubadours and the like (an ‘alternative history’ believed by many New Age thinkers) passed these occitan villagers by.
Adapted from a review first published in 1981 in Pendragon, the Journal of the Pendragon Society XIV No 1, 13. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie died November 2023 aged 94.
Calmgrove 
That comparison with Maigret is an interesting one.
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As you’d expect with a French author! 🙂
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Indeed 🙂
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Absolument! 😁
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Today I learned what a “Cathar” was – by reading Wikipedia 🙂
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Heh, it was very much a thing back in the 1970s and 1980s when it was a trend for people to imagine they were reincarnated Cathars, and author Kate Mosse later gave interest in Catharism a reboot with her irritating novel Labyrinth (2005).
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I remember a copy of this lying around my parents’ house and while I knew what it was about – as in a medieval French village – I never knew the rationale was concern over the Cathars, of whom I knew very little about until recently. The Rest is History did a couple of episodes about them, more or less concluding that they weren’t really a thing. By extension, that the various historical documents suggesting otherwise (ie, an organised, hierarchal cult) were forgeries or the product of wishful thinking. Fascinating stuff!
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They were indeed a sort of thing, more especially before this time when it was believed the heresy had been eliminated by the so-called Albigensian Crusade, if rather less by the time of the events in this book.
What I remember of this nasty Crusade was a determined effort by ecclesiastics and nobles from Northern France (those who spoke langue d’oil, sometimes called Francien) to crush Provençals (who spoke langue d’oc or occitan) who at this time happened to favour Catharist dualism. If you remember, a particular ecclesiastic before the massacre at Béziers in 1209 uttered the chilling command “Kill them all; God will know his own.”
This later mopping-up operation may have eradicated Catharism as an organised religion but didn’t in any way reconcile the people in the Languedoc region with the rulers from the Île de France, a feeling which I believe persists to the present day.
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It’s always nice to get a different perspective, Calmgrove. Like I say, I knew very little about the Cathars prior to hearing the podcast. I wasn’t entirely convinced, but had no way of knowing how accurate their interpretation was. It’s a fascinating historical chapter whichever way you look at it.
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Unfortunately I haven’t listened to any The Rest is History podcasts so can’t comment specifically but my limited experience of podcasts is that while getting across factual information and stating a viewpoint they’re also designed to be entertaining – no bad thing but not a substitute for personal research. That said, it certainly fascinating, I agree! 🙂
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I remember a discussion about this book with a history professor during my university days (in Sociology Dpt, but we crossed the borders into neighbouring provinces, including social history). A very interesting one, going beyond statistics and political history.
I think popes choose their papal names, and it’s probably no accident why the latest Benedict chose that one…
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My abiding memory of this is definitely more sociological than theological, Piotrek, centring on the sense of community in these isolated hilltop villages and dispersed settlements and in the clandestine lines of communication maintained by itinerant shepherds in the Pyrenean foothills.
I know the name means ‘blessèd’ but are you implying the late pope chose his name in part because of Benedict XII, who tried to strengthen the papacy by establishing it in the refurbished palace at Avignon?
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Benedict was, among recent popes, definitely the one who’d find inquisitor’s robes most fitting…
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Ah, I see. 🙁
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He ran the modern day equivalent, but it’s just not as fun as in the middle ages, you can fire liberal theologians, but not burn them at the stake 😉
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Loss of status replacing the stake, yes I get that 😬
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I have only read his Carnival in Romans book for some class in college but I remember my mother having this one from the library before that and commenting that the author was Catholic but had lost his faith. I don’t imagine that is in the book so it must have been in a review.
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I never became aware of this later book but after a little online research it does sound tempting! Nor was I aware of Ladurie’s loss of faith, or at least it never came across to me when I read it forty years ago.
I suppose a good scholar like Ladurie would try not to expand on their personal beliefs and opinions in their published work, but I can’t imagine that delving into the inhumanity the Catholic Church inflicting on so many inoffensive individuals wouldn’t have had an effect on him.
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