A Presence in Languedoc (12th–13th Centuries)

Taylor, Claire

Abstract

The expression above was attributed to Pérégrine Gasc, an inquisitorial deponent of Moissac, a town in the diocese of Cahors and the medieval county of Quercy, in 1244. She is referring to her experience of Waldensians in the town of Toulouse and elsewhere in the period before 1230, which is to say, before the birth of the medieval inquisition. Waldensians had operated relatively freely and openly then. Indeed, once expelled from Lyons, anathematised and excommunicated by Pope Lucius iii’s decree Ad abolendam in 1184, when the vast historical Waldensian diaspora began to take shape, the sect had flourished unopposed for some decades to the north of the Pyrenees. Pérégrine’s approach had already been taken by James Carbonnel of Montauban in 1241. He had “believed them to be good people up until the time when the Church had condemned them.” Although he was not entirely believed, that such excuses might conceivably be acceptable to inquisitors is illustrative of the fact that Ad abolendam had been implemented with any success only where secular rulers were opponents of heresy, which was far from the case in Southern France.

Citation

Taylor, C. (2022). A Presence in Languedoc (12th–13th Centuries). In M. Benedetti, & E. Cameron (Eds.), A Companion to the Waldenses in the Middle Ages (35-77). Brill Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004420410_004

• Online Publication Date: Jun 27, 2022
• Publication Date: Jun 30, 2022
• Deposit Date: Jul 10, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 28, 2023
• Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
• Pages: 35-77
• Series Title: Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition
• Series Number: 103
• Series ISSN: 1871-6377
• Book Title: A Companion to the Waldenses in the Middle Ages
• Chapter Number: 2
• ISBN: 9789004410886
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004420410_004
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4757416
• Publisher URL: https://brill.com/view/book/9789004420410/BP000007.xml
• Contract Date: Jul 1, 2017