The Friar of Carcassonne

by Stephen O'Shea

  * a witness would claim under oath years later: The person impugning the integrity of Pope Boniface VIII was Bernard Délicieux. Testimony of Délicieux, in Duvernoy (ed. and trans.), Le procès, p. 105. Brother Bernard specifies that the withheld bribe was in the amount of 10,000 florins.

  5. THE AMBUSH AT CARCASSONNE

  * Some weeks after the signing of the accord: There is some confusion about the year of the ambush. Some place it as early as 1296. I have accepted Alan Friedlander’s chronology, as he has relied on Joseph Strayer, Les gens de justice du Languedoc sous Philippe le Bel, Toulouse, 1970, p. 61, to build a convincing argument for 1299 or early 1300: the royal judge accompanying Foulques de Saint Georges, Estève Auriol of Capestang, held office in Carcassonne only from September 1298 to August 1300. See Friedlander, The Hammer, p. 38.

  * The party arrived at the outer portal of the convent: Details of the ambush were provided during the 1319 trial. Duvernoy, Le procès: testimony of Bernard Audiguier (p. 175) and Pierre Camelin (pp. 178–179).

  * the names of those he sought: Guilhem André and Arnaud Vilaudégut.

  * Franciscans in Bernard’s mold: The major biographers of Délicieux have stressed his Franciscan identity. Indeed, Dmitrewski, a Polish Franciscan, was ideally placed to understand it. Yet it was his latest biographer, Friedlander, who has the most clearly underlined Bernard’s identity as a Spiritual Franciscan. Part of this emphasis was enabled by a fourteenth-century Dominican memoir unearthed in 1965, in which its author, Raymond Barrau, called Bernard the leader of the Spirituals in Béziers. Friedlander’s great contribution has been in stressing this underlying belief as a way of understanding the entirety of the Francisan’s career. Alan Friedlander, “Bernard Délicieux, le ‘Marteau des Inquisiteurs,’ ” Hérésis, 34, 2001, pp. 9–34, and Friedlander, “Jean XXII et les Spirituels: le cas de Bernard Délicieux,” Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 26, 1991, pp. 221–236.

  * “He did not consider the Cathars as diabolical enemies”: Biget, “Autour de Bernard Délicieux,” p. 90. In this passage Biget used the historic present tense, a common device in French prose to avoid the overly literary passé simple, but I saw fit to change all the verbs to the preterite to avoid confusion.

  6. THE BISHOP OF ALBI

  * The man behind the monument was a theocrat: Principal sources for Castanet’s career are Julien Théry, “L’évêque d’Albi Bernard de Castanet (v. 1240–1317), une politique de la terreur,” in Albaret, ed., Les Inquisiteurs, p. 71–87; Jean-Louis Biget, “Un procès d’Inquisition à Albi,” Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 6, pp. 273–341; and Louis de Lacger, “Bernard de Castanet, évêque d’Albi (1276–1308),” Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique, 1954, pp. 193–220.

  * one historian has drily termed his approach as “terrorist”: Julien Théry, “L’évêque d’Albi,” in Albaret, ed., Les Inquisiteurs, p. 78.

  * ejaculation must occur in the vagina of one’s wife: The commission of 1307–8 charged by Pope Clement V to investigate the inquisition-received testimony that Castanet had specified that the action was forbidden nisi in instrumento debito (outside the proper receptacle). Théry, “L’évêque d’Albi,” in Albaret, Les inquisiteurs, p. 79. Jean-Louis Biget, in “Un procès d’Inquisition,” p. 85, argues that Castanet was concerned with coitus interruptus, the sin of Onan in the Bible (Genesis 38:6–10), which the medieval French rabbi Rashi (RAbbi SHlomo Itzhaki) memorably defined as “threshing within, winnowing without.”

  * the Albi inquisition kept up a breakneck tempo: Aside from Biget’s “Un procès d’Inquisition,” the other major source for this episode is Georgene Webber Davis, The Inquisition at Albi 1299–1300, New York, 1948. She delivered a measured judgment on the actions of Castanet: “We shall, perhaps, come closest to the truth in concluding that the defendants of this particular process were to a greater or lesser degree adherents of Catharism, as charged, but that their practices were occasional, hardly flagrant, and possibly not much out of line with those of many of their neighbors. Their transgression might have escaped detection and prosecution had it not been that the man in whose power it stood to bring them to justice happened to be avid for money and not very scrupulous, so long as he kept within the law, as to the means he used to satisfy the need” (p. 90).

  7. THE DEAD MAN OF CARCASSONNE

  * Fabre had been the royal seneschal’s treasurer in Carcassonne: His predecessor, the first royal treasurer, had been a rich Jewish merchant, Astruguetus of Béziers; his successors, a series of Lombard bankers. Friedlander, The Hammer, p. 42.

  * his son Aimeri was a prominent trader: Aimeri was an ally of Bernard’s in the revolt. He did not, however, approve of Hélie Patrice, perhaps out of class resentment, and took no part in the plot to secede from France. The inquisition eventually caught up with him and imprisoned him in the Wall in 1318. His mother’s bones were dug up and burned a decade after his father’s remains had received the same indignity in 1319.

  * (partly because defending a heretic cast a cloud of suspicion on the defender): The inquisition was not the first, and will not be the last, tribunal or committee before whom testifying in favor of a target of prosecution amounts to an implicit admission of guilt. Once an enemy of the people has been designated, seeing his or her defenders as accomplices occurs as a reflex. A sterling example of this process concerns the seventeenth-century witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts, as dramatized by Arthur Miller in The Crucible.

  * On July 4, 1300: Testimony of Bernard Délicieux, in Duvernoy, Le procès, pp. 50, 124. Friedlander, The Hammer (pp. 55–56), relies as well on the Latin text of the appeal published in Hauréau, Bernard Déli–cieux, pp. 167–175.

  * the Franciscan believed that the registers contained a mountain of lies: See the Afterword.

  * Bernard Délicieux . . . nailed his appeal to the door: Dmitrewski, “Fr. Bernard Délicieux, O.F.M,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicam, 17, p. 196. Citing Hauréau, Bernard Délicieux, p. 167.

  * He then addressed the crowd that had gathered: Hauréau, Bernard Délicieux, p. 7.

  8. THE BISHOP OF PAMIERS

  * They absented themselves frequently . . . , according to Bernard at his trial, laboriously recopying and “fixing” the registers: Testimony of Bernard Délicieux, in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 112.

  * The leadership of the Bourg had lived up to the letter, if not the spirit, of its conditions: Friedlander, The Hammer, p. 38.

  * carved out of the diocese of Toulouse in 1295: Jacques Paul, “Jacques Fournier inquisiteur,” Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 26, 1991, p. 43.

  * “more handsome than any man”: Cited in Read, The Templars, p. 257.

  * a bastard, a counterfeiter, and a statue: Georges Digard, Philippe le Bel et le Saint-Siège de 1285 à 1304, Paris, 1936, p. 53.

  * “useless to the Church”: Digard, Philippe le Bel, p. 61.

  * The first enquêteurs had been Franciscan friars: Burr, Spiritual Franciscans, p. 5.

  * the great magistrate from Amiens fell under the spell of the friar of Carcassonne: Testimony of Bernard Fenasse, in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 182. Fenasse stated that in 1302 Picquigny was, rather incredibly, dissuaded from rushing back to his king to help in the campaign in Flanders. Délicieux came in on him as he was preparing his armor and persuaded him to stay and deal with the problems of Languedoc. Also, testimony of Arnaud Garsie (p. 78), Bernard Audiguier (p. 175), Peire Pros (p. 194: “You couldn’t bring up any matter with [Picquigny] unless in the company of Brother Bernard”).

  * He first traveled to meet Picquigny and Leneveu in Toulouse: Duvernoy, Le procès: testimony of Raimond Baudier (p. 179) and Bernard Fenasse (p. 183).

  * The dwelling still belonged to Raimond Costa: Friedlander, The Hammer, p. 16.

  * one of their recalcitrant witnesses emerged from the dungeon to testify with both arms irredeemably broken: Digard, Philippe le Bel, p. 59.

  9. THE KING AT SENLIS

  * a series of accusations concerning his sexual proclivities: These accusations were amplified
by the people of Albi during the investigation of the inquisition called by Pope Clement V in 1307–8.

  * Bernard possessed a trump, in the person of Jean de Picquigny: Alone among Bernard’s biographers, Friedlander makes the case that Picquigny and Délicieux crafted the friar’s manner of presentation beforehand. The inference makes perfect sense: the stakes were high, no expense had been spared, this was the south’s one best chance. The Hammer, p. 93.

  * Picquigny, Délicieux, and the men of Albi and Carcassonne entered the great hall in Senlis: Details of the audience contained in Duvernoy, Le procès: testimony of Guillaume Fransa of Albi (p. 59), Pierre de Castanet of Albi (p. 65), Bernard Délicieux (pp. 106, 125).

  95 An inquisitor had even preached that heresy had spread through the malevolence of the king of France: Duvernoy, Le procès, Charge #6 of the forty-four-item accusation drawn up by Castanet (p. 35), testimony of Guillaume Fransa (p. 60).

  * Bernard cited the swath cut by Foulques de Saint-Georges through the honest womanhood of Languedoc: Duvernoy, Le procès, Charge #4 of the forty-four-item accusation drawn up by Castanet (p. 35), testimony of Guillaume Fransa (p. 60).

  * the king did not consent to receive the Dominicans until five days after the friar’s speech: Final judgment on Bernard Délicieux, in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 125.

  * Délicieux testified that when they had tried to enter the hall earlier, the king shooed them away with an angry gesture: Testimony of Bernard Délicieux, in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 109.

  * The constable of France and the archbishop of Narbonne, Gilles Aycelin . . .were charged with the investigation: Testimony of Bernard Délicieux, in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 125.

  * “Fr. Foulques, of the Order of the Preaching Friars”: King Philip’s letter cited in Hauréau, Bernard Délicieux, p. 39, and Friedlander, The Hammer, p. 96.

  10. AFTERMATH

  * the king’s displeasure with their bishop was so great as to render any further inquisition in Albi unlikely: Testimony of Arnaud, Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 201 (“Yes, and since then [Senlis] no one’s been arrested for heresy in Albi”).

  * His flock awaited him in the square before the construction site of Ste. Cécile . . . the portraits of St. Dominic and St. Peter Martyr were torn down by a mob: The source for Castanet’s return and the woes of the Dominicans of Albi is Bernard Gui, De fundatione et prioribus conventum Provinciarum Tolosanae et Provinciae ordinis Praedicatorum. Duvernoy translated the relevant passages and thoughtfully included them in an appendix to the trial of Bernard Délicieux. Le procès, pp. 219–224.

  * If the transfer of the famous friar was meant as a diplomatic sop thrown to the Dominicans: Dmitrewski, “Fr. Bernard Délicieux, O.F.M.,” 17, p. 198.

  * he set about increasing his renown . . . by going on extensive preaching tours to the smaller centers of Languedoc and Périgord: Hauréau, Bernard Délicieux, p. 51.

  * The people of Albi, however, had no doubt that Fresquet had been murdered on Castanet’s order: Given, Inquisition and Medieval Society, p. 132. Also, testimony of Peire Pros, in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 193.

  * Once settled near the royal court: Testimony of Bernard Délicieux, in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 115.

  * Bernard had been delegated to attend the Estates General in place of the Franciscan provincial of Languedoc: Testimony of Bernard Délicieux, in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 125.

  11. THE WEAVER OF BRUGES

  * “I thought that I alone was Queen”: George William Thomson Omond, Belgium, London, 1908, p. 41.

  * one itinerant preacher of Antwerp . . . stated that the rich man, even if he be virtuous, was no better than a whore: Henri Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, vol. 1, Brussels, 1909, p. 373.

  * Leliaert, or “Lilies” . . . Clauwerts, or “Claws:” David Nicholas, Medieval Flanders, London, 1992, p. 190.

  * “a violent and haughty man”: Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, vol. 1, p. 406.

  * the thick muck riddled with waterlogged traps set by the Flemish: The great Belgian historian Pirenne complained that almost immediately after the debacle French chroniclers began making excuses for their defeat by claiming that the Flemings had set traps, of which there was no evidence aside from the assertions made by these sore-loser apologists. Worse, these stories launched a French historiographical tradition in which Flemish trickery is often cited as the main cause of the setback for Philip the Fair. However annoying that tradition, there really is no reason why the Flemings would not have set traps. They were the underdogs faced with heavily armed knights, they knew the terrain, and, as had been shown in the Bruges Matins, the townsmen were clever and ruthless.

  * five hundred of these items retrieved from the fallen noblemen: Nicholas, Medieval Flanders, p. 193.

  * Pieter de Coninck . . . was now King Peter of Flanders: Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique, vol. 1, p. 425. Also, testimony of Albert de Lavalette at Bernard’s trial, in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 167.

  * holding on to only the prizes of Lille, Béthune, and Douai: By the Treaty of Athis-sur-Orge, June 23, 1305, thereby ensuring the existence of a French Flanders.

  12. THE SERMON

  * King Philip sent a letter in the spring of 1303 to his subjects in Cordes and Albi: Friedlander, The Hammer, p. 113.

  * Riot and murderous assault were by no means uncommon in the rough-and-tumble medieval city: Given devotes a large section to the use of riot as a means of resistance in Inquisition and Medieval Society, pp. 112–117.

  * The grand civic processions on holy days . . . which was hard-won but extremely fragile in the face of seething jealousy and status envy: A civic procession of the eighteenth century, a descendant of the medieval iteration, is brilliantly taken apart by Robert Darnton in the chapter “A Bourgeois Puts His World in Order: The City as Text” of The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes of French Cultural History, New York, 1985, pp. 145–190.

  * the Church sponsored a Truce of God movement: The first such agreement was signed in the year 1027, in the Roussillon village of Toulouges, the church of which proudly bears a plaque celebrating the Peace and Truce of God (Pau i Treva de Deu, in Catalan).

  * Henry II’s harsh penance over the killing of Thomas Becket: Walking barefoot, in sackcloth and ashes, to Canterbury, whipped by monks along the way. A similar public flogging was administered to him in Caen.

  * The inquisitor Bernard Gui contemptuously called Patrice “the little king”: Gui, De fundatione, Le procès, p. 223.

  * witnesses described the high-handed tactics and royal pretensions of Patrice: Duvernoy, Le procès: testimony of Albert de Lavalette (p. 167) and Drouin de Montchevrel (p. 169).

  * Picquigny summoned his guests to the house of Raimond Costa, the absentee troublemaker turned bishop in the Kingdom of Majorca: Testimony of Bernard Délicieux, in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 131.

  * “My good fellow, here is your agreement”: Testimony of Gui Sicre in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 163. In this deposition Sicre said he was about to leave the house when Délicieux entered and asked to see the document.

  * Each household of the town was instructed to have one or two members present to hear what Brother Bernard had to say: Hauréau, Bernard Délicieux, pp. 53–54.

  * His listeners were medieval men and women, prone to outbursts of emotion and sudden accesses of depair or joy: One of the foundation texts of medieval mentality remains Johan Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, trans. Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich Mammitzsch, Chicago, 1996. (Its original English publication is entitled: The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands at the Dawn of the Renaissance.) Although nearly a century old (it was first published in Dutch in 1919) with some of its conclusions debated, Huizinga’s study opens an imaginative window into the mind and emotions of late medieval man.

  * A tear welled up, then slowly rolled down his cheek: The remarkable sermon was clearly remembered in 1319. Duvernoy, Le procès: Charges #20, #21, and #22 of the sixty-item accusation drawn
up by Gui (p. 42), evidence entered in the court record (p. 49), testimony of Bernard Délicieux (p. 53), Pierre Vital (p. 153), Arnaud Marsend (p. 170) and Raimond Arnaud (p. 176).

  * A group of rams, he recounted, inhabited a verdant meadow: On the ram exemplum, Duvernoy, Le procès: Evidence entered in the court record, pp. 49–50.

  * Gui Sicre and two confederates from the town jumped on their horses: Testimony of Arnaud Marsend, in Duvernoy, Le procès, p. 170.

  13. THE INQUISITOR GIVES A READING

  * Bernard then began repeating a strange story of an extraordinarily unflappable fellow: Two lessons can be taken from this tale. First, wrongful prosecution must have been distressingly common in Carcassonne for such a story to gain traction. This lesson underscores how Bernard’s career was possible. If the inquisitors had acted all along with impeccable respect for the truth, then it would not have been credible for the unflappable fellow to have been faced with the baseless accusation of heresy in the first place. That he was, and that Bernard’s listeners immediately understood his plight, speak plainly of the abuse of inquisitorial power at the turn of the century. Délicieux was not a fantast—there was something deeply rotten within the inquisition, no matter how sincere individual persecutors might be.

  On a tactical level, the story of the unflappable man also shows a shift toward more robust resistance. Violence is not meted out by some talking ram on a hillside; it is a punch thrown in the street by a man angry with his lying neighbor. More important, it is not an allegory. In his sermon Bernard had spoken of two butchers leading sheep to the slaughter. That, after all, is what butchers do, so the metaphor works. But with this placid, collected man, there is no metaphor. The actions take place in a town that could be, or most certainly is, Carcassonne; the actors are Bernard’s listeners. The story hinges on one word: heresy. Heresy was the raison d’être of the inquisition, and the charges of heresy in the tale were necessarily without foundation. Bernard here is directly taking on the inquisitors and their helpers. The story is not a veiled attack— it is a bald invitation for the people of the town to roll up their sleeves and fight.