Sean Martin's 'The Cathars' 2005

 

Pocket Essentials first edition - 2005

This is part of a series of short books on history topics published by Pocket Essentials. The author, Sean Martin, had already produced The Black Death, Alchemy and Alchemists and The Knights Templar for them. Like Aubrey Burl (see last Blog), he is not a professional Historian, but a filmmaker, poet and writer. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as some 'professional' Historians are as boring as they come. I read this immediately after Burl's account - even though I have had Martin's book several years - simply to make a little more sense of the Cathars and the Albigensian crusade. It certainly helped.

What I found particularly useful was Martin putting the Cathars in the context of other 'dualist heresies'. I had never heard of Bogomilism until relatively recently. Founded by the priest Bogomil in the early 10th century, it not only influenced Catharism but considerably outlived the latter, with reports of Bogomils continuing up to the 19th century. Another dualist religion, founded by the Persian prophet Mani (216-75), was Manichaeism - it became a byword for heretic in the Middle Ages. This is not to be confused with Marcionism, a Gnostic dualist sect that taught the principle of the two gods, with Christ being the son of the true god, and the Jehovah of the Old Testament being seen as the evil god. I must admit I have a great deal of sympathy for this belief, as I admire the teaching of the Four Gospels (rather than the Pauline teachings) and dislike most of the Old Testament. Other dualist heresies included Paulicianism, which emerged in 7th century Armenia, and Nestorianism, founded by Nestorius (c.386-c.451), which proposed that Christ's person contained two separate beings, one human, the other divine. Apparently, this 'ism' survives to this day. Confused?  So am I!

Once the author has wended his way through the thickets of the various Dualist heresies, he turns to the Albigensian Crusade. It makes much more sense than Aubrey Burl's rather heavy-going account. Briefer, yet more analytical and explanatory, it is a better book. The Inquisition's development is also made clearer - a method for keeping clergy in line was to become one of the most effective means of thought control that Europe has ever known. However, even the early Inquisitors - Conrad of Marburg and his two henchmen, Conrad Tors and the one-eyed, one-handed layman called John,  send shivers down one's spine.  Conrad met an untimely - if deserving - end, stabbed to death by a Franciscan. Then there was Robert the Bulgarian, William Arnold and Stephen of St Thibery - the first eventually disgraced and imprisoned, the latter two murdered by Cathars.

The Cathars claimed to be part of an authentic apostolic tradition dating back to the time of Christ. It is no more capable of proof than the Catholic Church's claim to be descended from Peter. In March 2000, Pope John Paul II issued an apology for the Crusades. No mention was made of the Albigensian Crusade - will the papacy ever say sorry for that blot on its history? Unlikely.

Aubrey Burl's 'God's Heretics' 2002

 

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?

Susanna Gregory's 'The Chancellor's Secret' 2021

 

Sphere paperback edition - 2022

This is the 25th and final chronicle of Cambridge's Matthew Bartholomew - and I have collected the stories from the first and read the lot. Increasingly formulaic as time went on, Susanna Gregory was wise to call it a day. 

I recall buying the first volume on a bookstall outside Loughborough All Saints church in 1996. Two books came out that year; from 1997 onwards, it was an annual purchase. Only 2018 was a fallow year. It says much for Gregory that she kept up the imaginative story lines, admittedly usually on the rather claustrophobic canvas of the small town of Cambridge. Quite often the plot revolved round town v. gown; on other occasions it was inter-collegiate rivalry. Perhaps the reader got a little tired of the Benedictine Brother Michael's gluttony (he was of the opinion that a princely girth was a sign of healthy living, not because he ate too much), the Franciscan William's disreputable habit (the grubbiest friar in Christendom), John Clippesby (Michaelhouse's gentle Dominican...it was generally assumed that Clippesby was either insane or a saint in the making) talking to and surrounded by a variety of feathered and other animals. Others came and went - often by being murdered. The women rarely played other than bit parts - why Matilde kept hanging on for so many years hoping for marriage with Bartholomew (she got her man in this final volume) was very unlikely. Sometimes they were the murderers.

The 25th Chronicle sees Michael finally getting the job as Chancellor (he had been Senior Proctor controlling the previous Chancellor for some while) and Bartholomew finally leaving Michaelhouse. Not before a rather drawn out search by the latter for a murderer (then murderers) of a variety of unappealing coves. The book could have been fifty pages shorter and thus being much improved. Too many false alleyways or red herrings, which necessitated Bartholomew repeatedly criss-crossing the town and rarely uncovering anything. He didn't finger the evil genius until right at the end. I am not surprised as it seemed beyond belief that the youngster, bad as he was, could have choreographed such manoeuvres. The body count was rather high, but so it is in many 'modern' crime stories.

Susanna has sensibly finished with Bartholomew and Michael but she still has the Thomas Chaloner Adventures on the go, only into his fourteenth spying service at the court of Charles II. Yes - I have all these too.

Casablanca 1943 DVD and a book

 

Simon & Schuster paperback - 1992

This week's jaunt to London included the usual stop at Judd's Books in Marchmont Street. I kept a tight rein on my spending hand but came away with a paperback on the making of the famous movie Casablanca. I read it at two evening sittings in the Caledonian Club. It proved to be a fascinating, well-researched account which included so many things I never knew. The aggressive, explosive, charming, irritating, egomaniacal, emotional Jack Warner, a dictator who ran Warner Bros. took the credit at the Oscars, whilst chagrined Hal Wallis, the producer and second in-command at Warner Bros had to sit and watch. The origin of Casablanca was a three-act play called Everybody Comes to Rick's, which Murray Burnett wrote with Joan Allison in 1940. Late in 1941 the script found its way to the New York office of Warner Bros. The rest is History. 

Reading about the 'obstacles' faced (no comparison with combatants in the War) - casting an all-star production, writing an acceptable version of the script (up until the proverbial 11th hour) - is also very interesting. Early ideas for the parts Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman would finally play, included Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan. For Bogart, following six years of studio build up, the time had come for a breakthrough - and the leap into the top ranks of Hollywood stars. Often playing parts rejected by George Raft, it was ironic that the latter, who had refused assignments such as box-office hits as High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon and The Sea Wolf, for once, tried to get the Rick part. Before Bergman, Wallis toyed with Hedy Lamarr but Bergman was chosen due to her natural beauty and gentle accent...and a warm, elegant presence unlike any other leading actress. For the part of Victor Laszlo, the Czechoslovakian underground leader, Joseph Cotten wasn't available, so the choice was Paul Henreid, an Austrian émigré - who agreed, as long as he got the girl in the end and received equal billing.

Gradually, the co-starring roles were filled: Dooley Wilson as Sam, whose singing voice Wallis wanted to dub; the solid theatre actor, Claude Rains, as Captain Louis Renault; and Conrad Veidt (in real life a violent anti-Nazi!) as Major Heinrich Straser. Veidt at $25,000 a week, was the highest paid performer on the payroll. Two further supporting roles were cast: Peter Lorre as Ugarte, the murderer of the two German couriers; and Sydney Greenstreet as Senor Ferrari, head of Casablanca's black market. 'Character' actors, to me, usually mean actors who can only play themselves. I never thought much of Lorre in any of his films. Madeleine LeBeau, the 19 year-old real-life émigré from France, only briefly appears as Rick's discarded mistress. In the 1990s she explained why: It wasn't that I was cut out, it was because they kept changing the script and each time they changed it, I had less of a part. It was not personal, but I was so disappointed.

Another key signing was Michael Curtiz as director - he had directed costume adventures (Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk), musicals (Yankee Doodle Dandy, White Christmas) and westerns (Dodge City), but his part in Casablanca's success led to an Academy Award. Curtiz was notorious for all-compassing work habits and a temperament that swung from calm to rage and back again within seconds. He was also renowned for his use and abuse of the English language: "Next time I send some fool for something I go myself"; "I'm worried because I'm so optimistic"; and "Bring on the empty horses". He also developed a reputation for an unyielding sexual appetite!

The script kept changing and falling behind schedule; Claude Rains was still on another assignment, as was Paul Henreid - this led to scene juggling; the actors often did not know what words they would be using - we were shooting off the cuff, Bergman recalled, Every day they were handing out dialogue and we were trying to make some sense of it; originally planned to be shot in the back, Strasser would now face Rick's gun; Captain Renault's sexual indiscretions were systematically downplayed to pass the censors; shortages of raw materials meant wall panels, flooring, window frames etc. were scavenged from recent productions

There was also the element of luck or good timing. Two immense coincidences occurred to assist the film's rise to success. Warner Bros. originally intended to release the movie during the 1943 summer season.  Then, in November 1942, the Americans invaded North Africa - one of the landing spots was Casablanca! The city was headlines in every newspaper, magazine and radio programme. The premiere was quickly set for 26th November - Thanksgiving Day - only 19 days after the Allied landing. Then, on 24th January 1943, a conference between the Big Three - Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin - was announced - location? Casablanca!

DVD - 1999

Having read the book, I found watching the film even more enjoyable. It 'glued' together very well; the actors were naturals in their respective parts; the scenes were atmospheric; the periods of tension well directed. Why Bergman was already thinking of For Whom the Bell Tolls, I don't know. A much inferior film with inferior acting throughout. 

Andy McDermott's 'Rogue Asset' 2021

 

Headline Publishing paperback - 2022

I quote from an Amazon review: Alex Reeve, operative 66 agent of the secret organisation SC9, has been wrongly accused of treason and lives in Italy under a new name, but his opponents manage to track him down. He has material (on a memory stick) which could blow open deep knowledge of the clandestine organisation's trail of assassinations.

Far-fetched. That's the word (or hyphenated two words) I grasped for after finishing this thriller. I noticed on the page opposite the title page it gave a list of Andy McDermott's novels so far. There are 15, plus a digital short story, relating the exploits of Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase. The titles could easily have been from Scott Mariani's Ben Hope series - or the thrillers of Raymond Khoury and Chris Kuzneski. I see this was only the second featuring Alex Reeve and can only assume this is the start of a new series. I think it probably would have helped to have read the first novel, Operative 66, to get more of the 'back story' to Reeve. As it was, the reader had to take as read the hatred that Reeve had for his father, the set up of SC9 (well into the book we find out this refers, mundanely, to the room along the corridor - South wing, floor C, room 9 - in a block run for the Office for Interdepartmental Communications [OfIC] ), headed by its fanatical megalomaniac Sir Simon Scott, and the ambivalent Tony Maxwell, who wants to succeed Scott.

All this fits into the usual thriller style. However, the just-about-possible exploits of Jason Bourne, Ben Hope and others have jumped a further step, to highly unlikely or Mission Impossible. This is most palpable in the final pursuit of Reeve - in a slow-moving red-and-black hatchback Lancia Ypsilon - by a cadre of SC9 operatives, which lasts from page 348 to page 404. They use a silver 4 x 4 Discovery, a black 4 x 4 Discovery, a stolen Arbarth 124 Spider convertible sports car, and a stolen Suzuki SV650 motorbike to create havoc along the Italian autostrada. The writing is taut, tense, detailed - and descriptive of the impossible! Haring up a three-lane motorway, then a two-lane dual carriageway with no hard shoulder, against the flow of heavy traffic, Reeve finally gets to Venice, only to be catapulted off a bridge into the water. He survives to kill one of the most fanatical of operatives, Blake. As Scott exploded: He's just one man. How the hell have you not killed him by now? Three other operatives have lost their lives in the chase and, now, Scott himself is shot dead by Maxwell. Everyone seems to have remarkable powers of recovery - from beatings, fisticuffs, being shot at, car windows shattered - especially Reeve.

There are some believable cameos - Alison (Ally) Marks, one-time freckle-cheeked, curly-haired tomboy, Reeve's (or Dominic's) first girlfriend, still with a torch for him and willing to hide him away; Micky Rowland, his best mate as boys, now turned drug courier and rotten to the core; Deirdre Flynn, one of the operatives, keen and dedicated; and Garald Kazimirovich Morozov, member of the SVR, successor to the feared KGB, who worked for the Directorate S: the Illegal Intelligence department, whose job was simple - eliminate enemies of the Russian state. Both Flynn and Morozov are destined to die for their causes, by the machinations of Reeve.

McDermott is also quite good at delineating the inter-service rivalry between MI5, MI6 and GCSQ; but the dominance of Scott and the fictional SC9 is hard to take. There is a feeling that the ending is being twisted to make way for another book in the series. Maxwell is now head of SC9 - his view of Reeve? - Leave him alone...there was no reason to disturb the status quo. Unless Reeve himself disturbed it. Reeve decides to part with his girlfriend Connie, to save her from SC9 or the Russians. To be linked up with Jason Bourne, or Ben Hope or Alex Reeve (in fact, really Dominic Finch) means trouble or the worst. 

I read the book in two sittings - light relief in a way, but every so often I had to murmur not possible!

John le Carré's 'Silverview' 2021

 

Penguin paperback edition - 2022

I think this is the first John le Carré novel I have read; ironically it was his last and published posthumously by his youngest son, Nick Cornwell, who writes as Nick Harkaway. I was looking for a single word to summarise my feeling about the book and I think I found it in Dan Stewart's review of last October - muted. ...frustratingly, Silverview also feels unfinished - not in its narrative, but in the bits in between major plot points. Le Carré's  keen observational style and grasp of psychological depth seems muted here. Characters and locations feel only sketched out; the central character of Julian, the bookseller, is especially thinly drawn. The motive for the act of betrayal at the book's centre is never explained by the character responsible for it and only guessed at by others. Once you've completed the puzzle, it somehow feels as if some pieces are still missing. I couldn't put it better myself. Even though it is the only book of the author's I have read, I, too, felt it was almost going through formulaic motions - a serviceable but unambitious thriller. I particularly liked Stewart's summing up: Silverview, then, is more a drinkable blended whisky than the vintage malt.

Silverview gained generally favourable reviews from literary critics. However, The New York Times noted that it finished abruptly and felt incomplete; whilst Time also commented on its feeling unfinished. It also suggested that le Carré's 2017 novel, A Legacy of Spies, was a more fitting swansong for his career.

Oliver Ransford's 'The Slave Trade' 1971

Readers Union first edition - 1972

Somewhere between 14 and 20 million Africans were forcibly transported to America during the course of the Atlantic slave trade; at least a similar number of black men, women and children perished during the wars initiated by the slavers or died from hardship while being driven from the African interior to the coast. From 1444, when six Portuguese caravels, dropped anchor in the Bay of Arguin, on the Guinea coast, until well into the 19th century this infamous trade went on. Ransford does not spare us the grisly details, but I came away feeling that the author had shown a sense of balance when it (however rarely) was due. The Slavers' coast of Africa stretched from the Bay of Arguin and the mouth of the Senegal River, past Cape Verde and Cape Palmas, taking in the Grain, Ivory, Gold and Slave Coasts, before turning south at the Gulf of Benin, to end up on the Angolan coast 2,000 miles or so onward.

Domestic slavery flourished long before the arrival of the white men although, generally speaking, the slaves were well treated. Urged on by Henry the Navigator from his base at Sagres, the Portuguese caravels travelled further and further in pursuit of gold, ivory and spices. The other valuable commodity was black slaves. Consciences were assuaged by the Bull of Pope Nicholas V which authorised them to attack, subject, and reduce to perpetual slavery the Saracens, Pagans, and other enemies of Christ...including all the coast of Guinea. Now, there's a surprise.

The Atlantic slave trade relied heavily for its prosecution on the co-operation of African middlemen. The slave trade was a partnership between African sellers and European buyers of slaves. Chapter 5, The Middle Passage, is particularly gruesome. Rounded up on slave hunting expeditions, the captives were held in barracoons until the next slave ship appeared. If not selected, the 'useless' ones were taken away and killed behind the palm trees.

The horrific 'packing' on a slave-ship

Packed like the proverbial sardines, the Africans experienced hell-like conditions on the voyage. Those who died in transit were simply thrown overboard. A 12% loss was accepted with equanimity by the slavers. Once they reached the West Indies, it was pot luck whether they were bought by tyrants or considerate owners. Islands like Barbados depended directly on slave labour. Meanwhile the West Indian sugar magnates became famous in Britain for their affluence. They dazzled society (similar to the Indian nabobs?) The author is good at describing the conditions on the islands, where most planters were both racists and racialists, often using professional floggers to maintain discipline.

Further chapters on the slave plantations in America and Brazil lead on to an account of the attempts by English abolitionists to end, at least, the trade in slaves. Three figures loom large in the story - Granville Sharp, the father of the abolition movement; Thomas Clarkson, who took over the 'torch'; and William Wilberforce, who brought the movement to Parliament.  A three-pronged attack developed: press propaganda, pamphlets and sermons; an attempt to embargo products derived from slave labour; and parliamentary reform. One chapter deals with the maelstrom that was Haiti (and Santo Domingo).  Toussaint L'Ouverture (b. 1746), Jean Jaques Dessalines, and Henry Christophe (b.1767) play the major roles in the tragic story of this benighted island. This chapter alone makes the reader recoil in horror at the goings-on.

A further chapter deals with the USA. Until 1860, eleven of the sixteen Presidents were slave owners. In the South it was the norm. Then came little Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe, with her Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851). She provided a mirror in which America could examine itself...for the first time had caused them to realise that a passive abstention from humanity was a vote to uphold these evils. The Vatican decided to include the book in its Index, since it was subversive of established authority. You couldn't make it up. It wasn't ignored in America and Civil War erupted (not  mainly due to the slavery question, but to save the Union). As Lincoln said, If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it.

This book was published in 1972, exactly 50 years ago. Yet its final paragraph could be written today:

The slave trade was the largest factor in producing the multiracial societies of the world in which we now live. Many of us may not very much like these societies, and even in a sophisticated country like England racial tension is increasing. But they are a fact of life today, and we have to live with multi-racialism. To find a peaceful way of doing so is presently mankind's most important task. So true.