medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Fri, 12 Nov 1999 16:19:27 GMT0BST, R.I. Moore
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>I ought to have remembered in my comment yesterday to mention two
>very fine papers in Monique Zerner's Inventer l'heresie, in which
>
>(i) J-L Biget works out the construction of the "Albigensian"
>stereotype and building up of propaganda against Touolouse as a nest
>of heresy far better and more learnedly than I ever could, but to a
>similar conclusion (and, by the way, noticing the text again reminded
>me that it is the Toulousain, not Gascony, that the Conc. Tours
>identifies as the source of the heresy complained of: Gascony is
>just described as infected by it)
>
>(ii) Benoit Cursent describes fascinating events in Gascony which
>would undouibtedly have been labelled heresy if tehy had heppened in
>Touolouse, but weren't because it didn't suit anyone to call them so
>at the time
>
>
>Claire's new comments are intereesting and well worth considering,
>but I would urge a general caution against supposing that people
>called "heretics" might have been Cathars just because we don't have
>any other name for them (or because they disapprove of sex or meat).
> No doubt they might, but as V. H. Galbraith once remarked to me in a
>different context, they MIGHT have been archimandrites. The point
>from which we have to learn to start is that until the reorganised
>and Gregorianised church got hold of them, which in many regions was
>not until well into the thirteenth century (and of course some would
>say, much later) the people of Europe, especially in the countryside,
>disposed of an immense variety of religious beliefs and traditions,
>most of them (I would say, but some wouldn't) essentially Christian
>in origin and content, but containing all kinds of local bits and
>bobs that we mostly know nothing about. That an educated churchman
>coming across such beliefs for the first time (even as early as
>Robert of Arbrissel, though I don't know the episode to which Claire
>refers) was inclined to describe them as resembling some heresy or
>other that he thought he knew a bit about isn't in the least
>surprising, but it isn't evidence either.
>
> Many thanks to Bob Moore for his
>comments. I have some more of my own on the subject of the
>possibility of the Council of Tours and other sources of propaganda
>against `Gascon' heretics being most obviously related to heresy in
>the Agenais, as he suggests. The following evidence perhaps supports
>this, and also indicates that there were heretics, or those
>considered heretics, perhaps even Cathars, in the Agenais before the
>1160s:
>
>Sometime before 1150 Abbot Herve of Le Bourdieu at Deols refers to the
>existence of heretics called not only `Manichaean' but also `Agenais'.
>They opposed marriage and, perhaps more significantly, the eating of
>meat. If the Bogomil-derived heresy was gaining success in some parts
>of the west in the 1140s, this account certainly sounds interesting (I
>don't find convincing the view that Churchmen used terms like
>`Manichee' indiscriminately against heretics/dissidents - but thats
>another matter ). Why these became known as `Agenais' I don't know:
>As attached to the heretics of the Agenais as I am, I'm reluctant to
>boldly propose that they were the first Cathars in the Languedoc!
>
>We know a little more about two other incidents in the Agenais, one at
>Gontaud and one at Gavaudun, occurring in c.1155-60. Their position,
>and a reference to Saint-Bernard having preached against the latter
>group, make it possible that they could have been related to the heresy
>of Henry of Lausanne. But the same reference to Bernard, who also
>encountered `Arians' at Toulouse, and Abbot Herve's reference makes a
>connection with early Catharism also seem possible (notwithstanding
>and with respect for Bob Moore's views on the nature of the `Arians' at
>Toulouse). In c.1155 Agen's bishop made an appeal to the abbot of near-
>by La Grand-Sauve for help in restoring the lapsed faith of the people of
>Gontaud, and a religious community was established there. The castle of
>Gavaudun, in contrast, was thought irredeemable and was attacked in
>c.1160 by the army of the bishop of Perigueux.
>
>Then we have evidence which more clearly supports the thesis that
>Henry II was gunning for the heretics of the Agenais!: In 1178 Robert of
>Torigny referred to the Cathars of Toulouse as `heretics who are called
>Agenais'. However, as Bob Moore has suggested in relation to
>Toulouse in the same year, there is a problem asserting any grand plan
>for 1178 emerging as early as the council of Tours. Perhaps the account
>in fact originates with that from Deols. In either case, those in the
>Plantagenet sphere were under the impression that such beliefs were in
>the Agenais specifically before 1178, and, I suspect before the 1160s.
>
>But I would value opinions on the earliest - though unlikely - possible
>incidence of Catharism in the Agenais. There is a case, made by Bernard
>Hamilton for one, and which I find convincing, that Bogomils first
>transmitted their ideas westward in the early decades of the twelfth
>century (although I think there's no actual evidence for their
>transmission into the west of France specifically). Well, we know that in
>1114 Robert of Arbrissel preached at Agen against an unidentified
>heresy. If dualists were in France that early, could those at Agen have
>been early Cathars? Its seems unlikely of course, but its also rather
early
>for them have been related to the heresies of H. of Lausanne or P. of
>Bruys. Of course many of us make a case for the spontaneous arising of
>`heresy', or rather subversion, out of social discontent/alienation from
>the cleric elite. But I think that if these heretics were people of that
type,
>rather than doctrinal dissidents, Robert of Arbrissel would have been
>less likely to preach against them and more likely to attempt to recruit
>them.
>
>Claire
>
>
>
>
>
>
>%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Dear Professor Moore,
I address to you the same query I have sent to D-r Claire Taylor: could
you send me the references of the articles by Monique Zerner?
I shall transmit these data to Mrs. Krastina Getcheva. She is preparing a
second edition of her bibliography on Bogomilism (Sofia.1997).
(http://lollard.home.att.net/biblopri.html#bibs, or
http://www.geocities.com/bogomil1bg/BblgrphKGuetcheva.html)
So let's help her to augment her collection. That is my pleausre to tell
you that you largerly quoted in this bibliography.
Best regards:
Georgi Vasilev, Ph.D., D.Sc., Senior Researcher
StateAgency for Bulgarians Abroad
2a Al. Dondoukov bd, Sofia 1000 Bulgaria
Tel. +359 2 981 3539. Fax: + 359 2 986 7122
E-mail: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
Http: www.cl.bas.bg/Balkan-Studies/bogomilism/index.html or
www.geocities.com/bogomil1bg
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