Sacred Sierra

by Jason Webster

  To begin with, he was a convicted murderer. Born into a wealthy family in Cubières in 1280, he had killed a Catholic man named Bartolomé Garnier during a fight at the Archbishop of Narbonne’s residence in the town of Villerouge-Termenès. He was tried and found guilty and his property was confiscated as punishment. At this point he joined the Cathars, although whether he was drawn in an act of penitence by their ideas of non-violence, or in desperation to find a way out of his predicament, is unclear. He changed his name to Pere and learned the ways of his new faith.

  In 1308 a new campaign to eradicate the last remaining Cathars began, and Belibaste was arrested and imprisoned at Carcassonne in a jail known as ‘the wall’. The following year, however, he managed to escape and crossed the Pyrenees into Catalonia. Having worked for a while as a shepherd, he eventually made it down to the Maestrat, where he settled with a small group of followers.

  In order not to raise suspicions, he took a ‘pretend’ wife – Raimonda, a fellow Cathar – to disguise his sexual abstinence. But the two soon ended up sleeping together, and not long after Raimonda became pregnant. Belibaste was in trouble: as the last Cathar ‘Perfect’ there was no one else to ‘absolve’ him and return him to a state of spiritual purity. So he persuaded one of his flock, Pere Mauri, to marry Raimonda instead, and act as father of the child. A few days after the wedding, though, racked with jealousy, he repented, and freed the new couple of their vows: Raimonda would have to be his, and he came up with some new theological tenets to defend his decision.

  The community lived on in this curious state of affairs, quietly carrying out their religious beliefs in secret, but without too much of a threat from the local authorities. Back over the Pyrenees, however, the inquisitors were still determined to root out the heretics once and for all. Jacques Fournier hatched a plan to lure this elusive band back into his own territory. And he had at hand the ideal double agent to carry out his scheme.

  Arnau Sicre was a cobbler from the Montaillou area who had lost his inheritance after his mother was exposed as a Cathar and burnt at the stake. Far from blaming the Church for murdering his mother, Sicre was more upset at losing his anticipated wealth and blamed his mother and her beliefs for his penury. Fournier promised Sicre that if he handed over the remaining band of Cathars hiding out in the Maestrat, he could have his inheritance back.

  Sicre crossed the Pyrenees in the autumn of 1318 and spent some time sniffing out his prey until one day, after arriving in Sant Mateu, near Morella, in October of that year, he bumped into a woman from Montaillou. Guillemeta Mauri was glad to see someone from home, and soon introduced Sicre to her friends. Hardly believing his luck, Sicre had fallen in with the very people he was hunting down.

  The group had heard of what had happened to his Cathar mother, and how she had died without betraying any of her fellow believers. Sicre came with good credentials; they could trust him. Nonetheless, Belibaste was surprised, when they first met, that Sicre didn’t know the ritual melhorament greeting a believer was supposed to offer a Perfect. But he didn’t attach any importance to the matter, and Sicre was welcomed into their little community.

  Over the next two and a half years, Sicre wheedled his way into their lives, offering them money and buying them presents. Belibaste was a tight-fisted man, and Sicre’s wealth, with promises of more to come, seems to have blinded him to any doubts he might have had about the young man. Sicre talked of other Cathar members of his family back in the Pyrenees, including a rich elderly aunt called Alazais who was being tended by his sister. Alazais, Sicre said, wanted to be given consolamentum, the blessing that only a Perfect could bestow. Belibaste should, he suggested, travel up to see her. The community was reluctant to make this move, however, for the inherent dangers it posed. Then Belibaste suggested that Sicre’s sister should marry the son of Guillemeta Mauri, that way joining the two fledgling Cathar communities. His sister couldn’t travel to the Maestrat, however, Sicre said, as she couldn’t leave her ailing Aunt Alazais – Belibaste himself would have to make the journey to her.

  It seemed there was no choice, and so, in March 1321, Belibaste left the Maestrat to walk back towards the Pyrenees, travelling along the transhumance routes through the mountains for safety. With him went Sicre, along with the supposed bridegroom-to-be and another member of the Mauri family, Pere. At this point suspicions of Sicre’s motives began to appear. Stopping off for the night en route, Pere decided to get Sicre drunk to see if he might betray his true motives. Realising what was happening, Sicre pretended to lose control very quickly, and when Pere took him outside and suggested handing in Belibaste to the authorities in return for a large reward, Sicre refused. He was, it seemed, trustworthy after all.

  Still, as they approached the Pyrenees and the jurisdiction of Jacques Fournier, Belibaste’s fears grew. A chattering magpie crossed the path in front of them three times before flying away – a bad omen. Heading towards the town of Tirvia, in the Pallars district, he called out to Sicre, ‘Beware of false prophets, Arnau. God grant that you take me to a good place.’

  The following morning, at dawn, Belibaste was arrested by the French Inquisition. He was taken to Castellbo, then back to Carcassonne, and the prison he had escaped from years before. He offered no resistance, and even gave Sicre the chance to redeem himself before it was too late. ‘If you could return with better sentiments and repent for what you have done to me,’ he said at their last interview at Castellbo, ‘I would give you the consolamentum and the two of us would throw ourselves from the top of this tower and our souls would rise to God in Heaven. I do not fear for my body, because it means nothing to me; it belongs to the worms. Neither does the celestial father care for my body; he does not want it in his Kingdom, for the body of man belongs to the lord of this world, who made it. The heavenly Father wants nothing to do with what has been made by the god and prince of this world.’

  Sicre, needless to say, refused his offer of joint suicide.

  Guilhem Belibaste, the last-known Cathar Perfect, was burnt alive at Villerouge-Termenès on 24 August 1321. With his death the last man able to pass on the message of Catharism was lost, and the religion quickly withered and died. A few remaining Cathars were executed some years after, but Belibaste’s death is commonly regarded as the final chapter in the history of the sect.

  On completion of his task, Sicre received his mother’s confiscated wealth from Fournier, as promised, along with more money and special privileges. Nothing is known about what happened to him afterwards.

  *

  The curious Latin chant that had so transformed the landscape intensified as the singer emerged from the bushes and out along the path in front of us. He was a middle-aged man, dressed in a white tunic and holding a large cross. Behind him walked two other men in similar robes, occasionally punctuating the chant with an amen. They passed in single file as the horsemen had done before, a look of fixed concentration on their faces, as though nothing else existed for them at that moment save the song and path they were traversing.

  Moments later, the pilgrims themselves appeared, at the rear of the great procession. Dark-skinned, and with heavy black beards, they pounded the earth as they passed by with long sturdy staffs. Rosaries with wooden beads the size of golf balls hung like chains around their neck, while a dozen or more smaller, brightly coloured ones were slipped through their belts – carried, you suspected, at the behest of relatives and friends hoping they might thereby be bestowed with a special blessing incurred during the performance of the pilgrimage. All twelve of them strode along with their heads slightly bent, as though in penitence, or prayer. If it was rain they were asking for, they couldn’t pray enough: the land was still bearing the signs of our waterless winter, the plants seeming to scream out for something to relieve the drought. I looked carefully as each one passed: none went barefoot: all wore shoes. Only the last of them – the thirteenth, the guide – walked with his head held high, eyes scanning the path ahead: it was his job to see the pilgrims
to their destination and then back the following day.

  At a respectful distance, a crowd of ramblers came along in the pilgrims’ wake.

  ‘Right,’ said El Clossa, jumping to his feet. ‘We’ve got to go.’

  We joined the throng and set off along the path with them, El Clossa pushing his way through where people weren’t going fast enough for him. Some were amused to see this Speedy Gonzalez on crutches racing past, but most were concentrating too hard on negotiating the difficult terrain to take too much notice. Along with the young and relatively fit, there were plenty of the infirm and elderly, bravely taking to the hills on this holy day.

  Further along, near a spring nestling beneath a mas, the pilgrims were making their first stop along the route, standing in a circle while the singers chanted a new song – this time more harmonious, more like ‘church’ music.

  ‘We’ll pass them there,’ El Clossa said.

  They were eating a snack of hard-boiled eggs and olives washed down with some wine when we sped past them. I paused for a second to catch a glimpse of them. Already, only a few hours into their two-day travail, there was an air of fatigue about them, but also something else, something unusual. They sat in a line along the edge of the spring, their faces shaded by the fringes of their black hats, barely paying attention to the crowds passing them by, many of whom were snapping photographs of the scene. There was nothing arrogant or haughty about them; rather, they were simultaneously present and somewhere else, as though a combination of the intense concentration on the task at hand, the landscape and the curious chant that had accompanied them since dawn was already inducing an altered state in them. It was an expression I had occasionally come across in other religious people: meditative, present, but also absent at the same time. It was said the participants were never quite able to describe what they felt carrying out this pilgrimage. Looking at them now, I could almost understand why.

  We raced on and within a few minutes had entered a new valley where a stone building with Gothic arches crowned a small hill lying at the bend in a stream.

  ‘Sant Miquel de les Torrocelles,’ El Clossa said. ‘Our next stop.’

  Lombardy poplars giving off a sweet-sap smell lined the gorge as we walked down the path before fording the stream and then climbing back up towards the sanctuary. The place was packed, people crowding into this small, castle-like structure waiting for the pilgrims to arrive. Journalists from the local TV station were there and several stalls had been set up serving coffee and snacks.

  Sant Miquel had a walled courtyard with a large, ancient olive tree growing in the middle, while beside it, to one side, stood a chapel, and at the other a tiny lodging where once monks had lived. It was whitewashed, a handful of geraniums placed in pots on one of the windowsills. It had started life as a Moorish castle, and was later used to secure this area during the land disputes of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Later, it had become a prison, then a religious sanctuary.

  ‘There are two theories about the name, though,’ El Clossa said. ‘Torrecelles, meaning a prison tower – torre-celles. Or the other, local spelling, Torrocelles, which some say comes from the poppies that grow in abundance round here – tot roselles – “all poppies”.’

  I immediately liked the place: there was a good feeling about it, and I could tell why a different etymology had been sought for it: there was none of the heaviness and deadness that former prisons often retained. It felt light, positive, a place you would choose to be rather than be sent by force. The fact that the pilgrimage passed through here paid testament to its special character, you sensed.

  We stood in the shade of a tree and waited for the pilgrims to arrive. There was more of a carnival feeling about the event here, young teenagers climbing on to the sanctuary walls in excitement to watch out for the procession. People pushed and shoved to get a good view in a constant, wave-like scramble for positions. Cries from the older spectators for quiet were consistently ignored as the tension mounted: only a few of us had already seen the pilgrims; for the rest this was going to be their first glimpse of the day.

  The càrregues arrived first, as earlier, passing by with their horses and mules laden with supplies. The buzzing of the crowd continued regardless, barely parting to let them through: they wanted to see the pilgrims, and were leaning in so as to get the best view. Only when one of the horses circled frantically in response to the press of the people around it did a pathway emerge through which they could make their way. All at once a silence descended and order of some sort was established when the first notes of the chant from the singers accompanying the pilgrims reached our ears. As though a spell had been cast, the crowd stood still and quiet, captured by the song. They waited patiently at the crest of the hill for the first members of the procession to appear along the track. The singers arrived first, three abreast, the two at the sides carrying long poles with what looked like metal lanterns perched on the top; the singer in the middle was holding the cross. Afterwards came a priest, long purple robes flowing over his white tunic, a relic of St John the Baptist encased in a silver reliquary clasped in his hands. The singers were chanting in unison now, but more softly. The only other sound was the metallic clang of the chapel bell ringing every few seconds or so. After the priest, three figures who hadn’t been present before emerged dressed in seventeenth-century-style long, black capes with broad brimmed hats. Each one held a long candle in his hand. A few moments later the pilgrims appeared. A low murmur of emotion circled through the crowd, as though witnessing a minor miracle at the sight of these blue-clad men, with their staffs and beards and heavy wooden crosses hung from their necks. Ahead of them the singers had reached the chapel and their chant had become something more like a song, the same one that they had sung on reaching this point every year for the past three or four centuries. The pilgrims, in single file and with several paces separating each one, halted, heads bent down, their eyes covered by the brims of their hats. Then slowly, one by one, they marched forwards. Moments later they were inside the chapel and the special mass that was held at the Sant Miquel stage of their route could begin.

  El Clossa had wanted us to do the whole day’s walk with the pilgrims, but we’d had to rein him in. Now, as we drove away from the crowds and headed up towards Penyagolosa and our next rendezvous with the procession, I was glad we had done so: the clouds that had been blowing in most of the morning were turning a threatening shade of grey. If the pilgrims didn’t stop praying for rain soon they were going to get drenched during the second half of the day.

  We drove up deep into the Maestrat towards Vistabella, a village lying to the north of Penyagolosa. There was a shift in the landscape as we rose higher and higher: at first greener and more wooded before bare, high plains began to appear, stretching away to the north. The weather on this northern side of the mountain was harsher than on the southern and eastern slopes where our mas was, and the thick, dark clouds were clinging to the summit, smothering it from view.

  We sat at a crude wooden table in a bar outside the village on the edge of a wide, flat expanse of land. At over 3000 feet it was curious to see something so open and level here, ringed by mountains on almost all sides.

  ‘The Condor Legion – the German troops Hitler sent to help Franco – used this as an airstrip during the civil war,’ El Clossa told us as we waited for plates of lamb and snail stew – tombet – to be placed in front of us. ‘There’s still a swastika visible up where they had their base.’

  We slurped the hot, thick food down greedily, a buffer against the increasingly cold and wet world outside. The clouds had suddenly descended and it had started to rain. One bottle of wine was quickly dispatched: El Clossa ordered another.

  ‘The pilgrims will be getting soaked,’ Salud said, looking out of the window. By now they would be passing by Xodos and the land of the Truffle King, and heading up the slopes of the Marinet mountain towards the Pla de la Creu – the Plain of the Cross. Yet they still had a few hours ahead o
f them.

  ‘Some years it’s blisteringly hot,’ said El Clossa, ‘others it rains. They’re prepared for all kinds of weather. Have to be, walking at this time of year – have to expect snow, even. Snowed on them a few years back, I remember.’

  His face was reddening with the wine. Perhaps it came from being so fit, I wondered: the booze went straight to his head.

  ‘You’ve never,’ he said, raising a finger, ‘had a carajillo if you haven’t had the ones they make here.’

  And before we knew it he’d ordered a round for our table.

  Carajillo is a great Spanish institution, a gloriously alcoholic coffee typically taken after a particularly indulgent meal, although some drink it on a regular basis, hence the term ‘a carajillero voice’ for the gravelly, cement-mixer type voices of so many Spanish men – and women, too, in some cases. The proper way to make it is by dissolving sugar in rum or brandy which is warmed with a coffee bean and a tiny slice of lemon peel floating in it, the coffee then mixed in before being served. Pieces of cinnamon stick are also a common ingredient. The problem is that this is a rather elaborate process, with the result that in many, if not most, bars in Spain, what is called a carajillo is simply an espresso with a splash of liquor. What we were going to get here, El Clossa assured us, was ‘even better than the real thing’.

  It arrived in terracotta cups, rough-edged and rounded so they sat comfortably in your hands, slowly warming you through before a drop had been drunk. A light foam sat on the top, almost like a cappuccino, quickly dissipating as I blew down to cool it. Aromas of sweet black coffee, lemon and sharp spirits rose up to greet me. Already I was being seduced by the claims that this was the best carajillo you could get. It is normal for the Spanish to claim that anything that comes from their local area is ‘the best in the world’: the best wine, olive oil, food, bread, weather, water, whatever, always comes from within no more than a five-mile radius of where they live or were born. It was a natural prejudice I had grown used to over the years. This time, though, it seemed it might be justified. Raising the carajillo to my mouth for a first sip I was met by a velvety, rich, hot liquid that seemed to slip effortlessly over my tongue. Immediately there was a sense of being wrapped in a warm, comforting eiderdown, sinking, relaxing: a feeling that you would never want to cast off the protective veil it had magically cast over you. Outside, the rain was intensifying, and the poor pilgrims up on the mountain, whose path we were meant to be following, would be getting drenched. Yet here inside, with hot, thick carajillo sliding down our throats, it was an easy and happy business to forget all about them for a few moments. It had more than just the usual flavours: the tiny piece of cinnamon stick floating on top next to the lemon peel showed they took the preparation seriously, but there was something else.