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 Hervé of Le Bourdieu at Déols 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 Hervé'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 Périgueux.
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 Déols. 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
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