Sutton Publishing first edition - 2002
I found this hard-going for two reasons. First, the sheer horror of what man can do to man (and woman); and, second, the book was not very well written. The tale of bigotry and deceit leading to unbridled bloodshed is horrific. The horror began in 1209, when the intemperate Pope Innocent III (what a misnomer) ordered a crusade against the obstinate heretics known as Cathars, 'the pure ones'. They believed in two gods, one spiritual and Good, the other earthly and Evil, and denied the physical reality of the Crucifixion. The Catholic Church demanded the extermination of such ungodly. An earlier debate (in 1165) between the two sides, organised by the Bishop of Albi, led to the heretics being termed Albigensian, even though the majority lived a long way from Albi itself. For over a century the area degenerated into near anarchy with external threats, internal disruption, outside orders, everything splintered the countryside creating distrust, petty feuds among minor knights agitating beneath the much larger disputes between counts and viscounts. There were years when the clear-cut intention to suppress heresy was corrupted by a decision to oppress a population.
Abominations were regular. At Lavaur, protected by steep cliffs above the river to the west, and heavy walls and towers to north, east and west, its fall led to one of the worst atrocities of all. The lord, Aimery, was hanged on an improvised gallows; it toppled due to the weight of his armour. De Montfort, impatient, ordered that Aimery and 80 or more of his surviving knights should have their throats cut. Aimery's wife, Guirauda, was discovered in the castle. Screaming 'she was offered for the amusement of the soldiery, stripped, abused and finally thrown down a well and buried under an avalanche of stones'.
Early on, I lost track of who was who, partly because of the way the book was written. There were too many Raymonds - Raymond de Baimiac, Bernard Raymond, Raymond de Termes, Raymonde Autier and Raymond (V and VI), Counts of Toulouse. Then there were the various Counts of Foix (one, inevitably called Raymond-Roger) and other noblemen. Papal legates came and went, but one sticks in the mind - the fanatical, vicious Arnaud Amauray, Abbot of Citeaux and, later, Archbishop of Narbonne; the author calls him the inflexibly arrogant prelate. Towering above them all was Simon de Montfort IV, at first a little-known knight, but soon to be a byword for terror in the region and de facto lord of the Languedoc.. He may have been a devout Catholic, monogamous and straightforward in character, but he was unforgiving and ruthless, eventually guilty of megalomania. What had been a holy war in 1209 had become corruption by 1218. As for his wife Alice de Montmorency, the daughter of the Constable of France, a 20th century Cathar apologist maligned her as a creature with rotting teeth, sallow skin the colour of Sicilian lemons and a big nose... She would have spoken highly of him too! Simon seemed to be here and everywhere, criss-crossing the unwelcoming land to lay siege to small castles and walled towns. Burl regards him as a military genius. His death, aged 53, occasioned an outbreak of jubilation, dancing on ramparts, candle lighting on altars and bells ringing across the region.
Reading the book further embedded anti-catholicism in my mind. As the author writes, hundreds of clerical kneecaps were calloused more by copulation than by prayer. Events took a darker turn when the Inquisition arrived in April 1233 under Pope Gregory IX. Religion is too often an umbrella/cloak for pure evil and cruelty. The cold, damp prison beckoned for the immurati (the ones lost inside the walls) and the stake dealt with countless others.
The author simply did not (could not?) control his sources. Admittedly with so many in the cast, the story is bound to be confusing. But he does not help himself, or the flow of the narrative, by injecting red-herrings or asides which not only impede the narrative but irritate the reader. Often these asides are about future events or characters or, guidebook-like, a poorly inserted description of what the castles and towns looked like in the late 20th century. He comments on Helen of Troy's beauty and Cleopatra's nose in a whole page full of non sequiturs; later he brings the Jews of Norwich, Kublai Khan and Christopher Marlowe on board. The book ends with an Appendix, which discusses Rennes-le-Chateau and its mysterious 'treasure'. The author is best known for 'several outstanding books on stone circles'; perhaps this wider canvas was a step too far?
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