It's again foggy today, grey and rainy. We allowed ourselves to sleep in until 8:30. But when Dave went for our morning bread, there were NO CROISSANTS! We should have bought extra yesterday, but then we're not good at thinking ahead here. So Dave made scrambled eggs. And we ate the almond croissants that are substituting for our usual butter croissants.
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| Almond croissants are sweet with almond paste in the middle. |
We sat long over coffee and just let the day unfold. Making a grocery list for tomorrow's market in Mirepoix raised our spirits. They were in need of raising as this is our patio view today.
The rest of the day moved slowly - some cleaning, aperos for dinner, catching up on this blog. But plenty of time to think about our experiences up to this point in the trip.
Reflections on Languedoc History
These are my personal thoughts about the Albigensian Crusade, so please forgive my rambling. Just something I need to unravel by writing.
But having this time to reflect on our experiences so far keeps bringing me back to the period of Catharism and the Albigensian Crusade that wiped out this sect. Every bastide town we've visited was built to replace unprotected villages ruined in the Crusade and its aftermath. Every castle has some connection to the war waged against the Albigensians. Churches, abbeys, and monasteries bear witness to this campaign against those who believed differently. And all this tragedy unfolded across a landscape that looks like the Garden of Eden - beautiful and bountiful. It's hard to believe that such a genocide could happen in this idyllic place. It's so incongruent.
Catholicism at this time (12th-13th centuries) had spread throughout Europe through both conversion and conflict. As well, there was a large contrast in wealth and power between monastic life and the lives of the church hierarchy. The church was wealthier than the kings and counts who ruled at the time.
Cathars, while Christian, were considered heretics because they did not accept the authority of the pope, only that of the Bible. (There are other theological differences, but not accepting the authority of the Pope was what sealed the deal.) Catharism spread broadly and openly in southern France, tolerated by the ruling nobility and even some bishops. Cathars and Catholics lived and worked together even though they didn't worship together. This worried Pope Innocent III. He declared Catharism heretical and called for a crusade to eliminate the Cathars.
We're used to Christians killing or converting by force pagan populations at this time (and still continuing today). But this was Christians killing other Christians because they practiced their faith differently. (This happened 300 years before the Protestant Reformation which, in France, erupted into Civil war with similar bloody outcomes.) The crusade quickly became political - a chance for the King of France to take over independent regions of southern France and bring them into his kingdom since Pope Innocent III offered to French nobles rewards of any lands taken to French noblemen who would take up arms against the Cathars.
A Fearful Time
Wherever we've gone in this region, we've run into the Albigensian campaign. Seeing ruined castles and their surrounding villages reminds me of how frightening it must have been for those Cathars and Catholics who sheltered them when the Pope's armies came marching through their landscape. With hilltop fortified castles as defenses, those inside must have been able to see the armies coming for a long way. Most who lived in this area were farmers and merchants, loosely tied to local councils, local nobility or to the powerful Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who refused to weed out the heretics. Sieges cut off water and food supplies, effectively starving out the population - Catholics and Cathars alike. What was valuable was looted by the Crusaders. What wasn't was often burned.
Corruption of the Catholic Church
We've also seen the contrast between the monastic life of poverty and manual labor and the wealth controlled by the bishops - enormous churches, palaces for the bishops, gold chalices, etc. It's clear that the ruling class invested in their church's hierarchy and vice versa. Not much different from religion today. The abbeys and monasteries we've visited often bear witness to both the poverty and the wealth of the clergy in the same locations. At the same time, Popes and Bishops were using their power and influence to build earthly kingdoms.
Maintaining Power
In a show of Papal power, the Albigensian campaign was openly genocidal. The villages whose residents were burned at the stake - often mutilated or tortured to get them to renounce their faith - cover most of southern France. Thousands of people were killed in this campaign that didn't hesitate to round up locals considered heretical, lock them inside the church, and burn the church down. We've seen so many scars of this time around the region. By late in the 13th century, Cathars and their religion had been eliminated from Languedoc.
Keeping History Alive
This history is also what draws many to this region of ruined castles and towns that maintain their medieval character. So it also benefits the area to make Catharism central to tourist literature. For hundreds of years after the Albigensian Crusade and the Wars of Religion, the south of France remained rural and sparsely populated. The Pyrenees and their foothills and the Black Mountains to the north made travel difficult. Bastide towns and medieval villages remained remarkably unchanged. Starting in the early 19th century, preservation of French history and culture became a national endeavor which has breathed life into many of these small villages and towns. Tourism has become an important industry for Languedoc.
For me, these stories are bittersweet and I can't just be a tourist looking at old medieval buildings and their towns. There's a romance and joy learning about troubadours, courtly life, artisans, and merchants whose lives weren't all tragedy. But learning the why behind the abbeys, castles, and fortified churches prompts me to say a prayer for the souls who sacrificed their lives for their beliefs.
I'm so grateful to be able to have these adventures that teach me lessons that I wish the world could learn.
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