Extract (#1) from Chapter Three of ‘Highly Holy’.

March 14, 2026

The following extract is taken from the third chapter of ‘Highly Holy’, in which both the phenomenon of pilgrimage and its relationship to various Marian shrines from across the Pyrenees is discussed. Another extract from this chapter will be given next month, focussing on lesser-known examples, however below is presented a brief analysis of the premier Marian site in the region, that of Lourdes, whose comparatively late origins in the nineteenth-century are belied by its rapid and enduring popularity.

Extract from Chapter Three, ‘Sacred Trails and Marian Tales’.

In the Winter of 1867, Irish author Denys Shyne Lawlor embarked on a tour of several pilgrimage sites within Landes, the Central and Western Pyrenees, recording her observations in 1870.[1] Whilst Lourdes was clearly the focus of her attention, a great many other shrines devoted to ‘Our Lady’ make an appearance, as well as sites devoted to Saint Savin, Saint Aventin d’Aquitaine, Saint Bertrand de Comminges and Saint Vincent de Paul; the majority holding foundational dates from the late Medieval to Early Modern period and host a steady flow of pilgrims from the local region and across France. Marian shrines appear to be the most popular form of pilgrimage site in the Central Pyrenees (as is generally the case in Western Europe) and the restoration of Catholicism across the Pyrenees in the seventeenth century (following the decline of the Huguenots) helps to explain the remarkable renaissance of Marian shrines in this area dating from this period.[2] In using Lawlor as the foundation for an analysis of many of these sites,[3] it is possible to present both first-hand accounts of pilgrim activity towards the latter half of the nineteenth century, thus presenting a living rather than merely an archaeologically extant tradition, and also information drawn from those priests and villagers who were involved in the direct care of these shrines at the time of Lawlor’s writing.

Having already addressed the phenomenon of Roncesvalles, the Marian site of Lourdes deserves close attention due to its rapid ascent as the premier Pyrenean pilgrimage site over the past century and a half, illustrating the fervour, faith and pageantry more typically associated with Medieval shrines in their heyday.[4] The details of the young shepherdess Bernadette Soubirous’ 1858 Virgin visions in the grotto of Massabielle are already briefly discussed in Chapter Two but can be summarised thus. Between the 11^th February and the 16^th July 1858 Bernadette saw the same vision eighteen times in the Grotto of Massabielle, a small cave which then lay outside of Lourdes on common ground, on the left bank of the Gave de Pau river. She would see a ‘lady’ standing on a rose bush in a niche above the cave’s opening. The ‘lady’ would command Bernadette to drink and wash herself in the water which flowed from a spring inside the grotto, and also to command the local priests to build a shrine within the grotto. The ‘lady’ eventually introduced herself as being the Immaculate Conception, which convinced one local priest named Dominique Peyramale that Bernadette’s visions were real; he bought the land (with the help of the local bishop) in 1861 and set about making the area accommodating to pilgrims.

With the growth of the communication network in the nineteenth century, news of Bernadette’s visions travelled far and wide across France, resulting in many visitors (both devout pilgrims and the curious) making their way to Lourdes in August 1858 ‘from as far away as Paris to see the peasant girl who was said to be in mysterious contact with the Blessed Virgin. Many came to pray and atone for their sins or to seek out the healing powers of a spring that Bernadette had discovered during one of her visionary encounters.’ [5] [6] At this point the visions had not been officially authorised by the Catholic Church, nor was a shrine built. Thus, the first Lourdes pilgrims were flocking to look upon and pray with the young girl to whom the Virgin Mary had apparently appeared no less than eighteen times between February and July that same year. This intensely direct encounter with a human intermediary between us and the divine is difficult for many to comprehend in the secular age, and it carries something from a far earlier and more miracle-imbued era, which no doubt played a role in the Church’s speedy recognition of Bernadette’s visions in their eagerness to capitalise on Lourdes’ sudden fame in the wake of France’s then-contemporary Catholic revival. By 1862 number of gathering crowds in Lourdes forced the hand of the local bishop to proclaim the apparitions authentic, and a mere decade later the Paris-based ‘Augustinian Fathers of the Assumption’ made Lourdes the site of their national pilgrimage, a move which was greatly aided by improvements in railway networks and the Catholic popular press. This transformed Lourdes into a site of mass pilgrimage and by the early years of the twentieth-century, nearly half a million pilgrims were making their way to Lourdes on church-sponsored pilgrimages, the bulk of which were made up of women from rural France. Very quickly the simple grotto shrine was transformed into something far more monumental which offered highly orchestrated rituals, and the sleepy town of Lourdes itself quickly became developed into a tourist city which offered every religious souvenir and service imaginable. Unlike many other pilgrimage sites referred to in this chapter, Lourdes does not reflect locally based devotional practises which gather and accrue fame, gradually responding to increased attention in their infrastructure and architecture; Lourdes was swiftly transformed by industrial ecclesiastical development from a place of localised religious interest into one of organised mass spectacle, aided not only by evolving transport networks but also by the Church’s use of contemporary advertising in the popular press. This makes it something of an anomaly in the story of Pyrenean pilgrimage, but by far its most successful example and reflective of the newly emerging commercial society of the late-nineteenth century.[7]

At the time of Lawlor’s visit in 1867, Lourdes had been a site of national religious interest for less than a decade and had yet to be recognised by the Augustinian Fathers as their pilgrimage site of choice. Thus it is an early Lourdes that we find in her writing and one in which Bernadette had, at that point, been absent from for only a year, having joined the Sisters of Charity of Nevers at their Saint Gildard Convent in Nevers.[8] [9]Interestingly, it would appear that Lourdes, whilst having remained relatively unremarkable in its civic status prior to Bernadette’s visions, possessed a culture of piety unequalled in the surrounding region. Lawlor quotes (and translates) a section of de Lagrèze’s 1866 ‘Chronique de la Ville et du Château de Lourdes’, in which it is reported that:

Almost the entire population [of Lourdes] belongs to some pious confraternity. The workmen, united under the name of brothers, place their trade under the Divine protection, and reciprocate Christian relief and temporal assistance. A common box receives a weekly offering from each workman, while in health, to be repaid when he is in sickness or poverty, or at his death, when his funeral expenses are discharged, and his remains conveyed by the confrères to their last home. Each confraternity has a chapel of its own in the church, from which it takes its name, and which it supports by a small collection on Sundays. The confraternity of Notre-Dame des Grâces is composed of labourers; that of Notre-Dame du Mont Carmel of slaters; that of Notre-Dame de Monserrat of masons; that of St. Anne the joiners; that of St. Lucy of dressmakers; that of the Ascension of stone-cutters; that of the Blessed Sacrament of the church-wardens; those of St. John and St. James of all those who have received those names in baptism […] This book has shown how numerous are her [the Virgin Mary] sanctuaries from Sarrance to Garaison; and at Lourdes, in the old parish church, all the altars are dedicated to the Virgin.[10]

It should be noted that the parish church referred to in this extract is that of St Pierre, which was located on the town’s market square (now called the Place Peyramale) but destroyed by fire in 1904. Thanks to the economic boost provided by pilgrimages a new parish church was already under construction in 1875 and was completed in 1903, housing Bernadette’s baptismal font and after the loss of the old parish church it immediately became the primary parish church in Lourdes.

To return to the first pilgrim building within the vision site, the original chapel sanctuary (which was located directly above the actual grotto itself and completed in 1866, later known as ‘the crypt’), soon became unable to deal with the sheer volume of pilgrims which flocked to Lourdes. In response to the ever-growing number of visitors, this first church at Massabielle had a Basilica built atop it between 1862 and 1871, being consecrated in 1876 and devoted to the Immaculate Conception. Lawlor provides us with a first-hand description of the Basilica during its construction and of crypt, the latter being (at the time) close to completion and already in use:

One enters [the basilica] by two large long vaulted galleries. The first impression is one of astonishment: a forest of pillars and arches, crossing each other at every point, supports a low ceiling. Through these multiplied archings the various altars are half seen, whilst the light of day streams dimly through the narrow windows. The effect is bewildering, until the eye gradually becomes accustomed to it, and then one discovers the most admirable harmony in all that apparent confusion. A line of confessionals is placed along the wall at the western extremity; and as these are generally surrounded by groups of penitents, words are not needed to impress upon the visitor the obligations and privileges of the place. The plan of the chapel is of that peculiar type of which the Cathedral of Alby is the best known example: a nave flanked by ten lateral chapels in place of aisles, and terminating in a chevet, with five polygonal chapels. Two sacristies are substituted for the chapels of the first or parallel bay of the choir, which is wider than the bays of the nave. The crypt, occupying the width of the nave above, is divided into a nave and aisles by fourteen pairs of coupled marble columns, with stone base and capital common to each pair. […] The architecture of the crypt is not overloaded with ornament. All is simple, grand and solid, such as befits a structure whose strength has been multiplied to sustain the immense weight overhead. The general character of the crypt is solemn and severe, producing upon the mind a profoundly religious impression. I know few places in which recollection and prayer seem to be more spontaneous and congenial.[11]

In 1899, the ‘Rosary Basilica’ or ‘Lower Basilica’ was completed in the Byzantine style, capable of holding up to one and a half thousand worshippers at any one time. This not only eased the strain on the ‘Upper Basilica’ but also goes some way to demonstrate the numbers of pilgrims which could be found circulating around the growing Lourdes pilgrim complex. The centenary celebrations of Lourdes in 1958 also saw the completion of the ‘Basilica of St. Pius X’, otherwise known as the ‘Underground Basilica’, which was constructed partly in expectation of the crowds drawn to the pilgrimage site during this anniversary event. In contrast to the delicate Neo-Gothic and Byzantine forms of the other two basilicas, this new largely subterranean basilica was constructed entirely out of concrete and is capable of hosting up to twenty-five thousand people.

The grotto itself bears some evidence of enlargement, primarily in terms of masonry cuts along the walls and presumably to deal with pilgrim crowds, however all evidence points towards its essential form having been preserved since Bernadette’s visions. Lawlor provides another first-hand account of the grotto’s simple alterations in 1867:

By degrees the land about the grotto was made level and laid out with suitable taste: an esplanade created in front by the sand that was taken from the bed of the river was covered with green sods, and rendered an agreeable place of repose for the visitors; a large iron grating was placed before the grotto, and a handsome marble basin erected for the fountain, into which it now pours itself through three distinct spouts or tubes, pouring forth no less than 122,000 litres in the course of the day.[12]

Whilst the primary object of these waters to be drunk and ‘bathed in’ (i.e. rubbed on the appropriate body part), many litres would be carried away by pilgrims, initially in their own containers but it would not take long for Lourdes to being selling ‘pilgrim flasks’ designed and decorated specifically for this purpose. Today these range from sculpted glass flasks to simple plastic containers, the latter of which can carry anything up to five litres.[13] The spring itself is located at the rear end of the cave and above the entrance a statue of the Virgin Mary (in the form now known as ‘Our Lady of Lourdes’) stands in a niche where Bernadette claimed to have seen the ‘lady’. Originally, the wild rose bush which featured in her visions grew there. However, much like in early days of popular pilgrimage discussed above, it was quickly destroyed by the first Lourdes pilgrims, many of whom wanted a souvenir from grotto in the form of a thorny branch or blossom. A new bush was subsequently planted but this marked the beginning of the formalised and commercial pilgrim souvenir trade which now dominates Lourdes.[14] From the start, the grotto’s spring waters became subject to claims of curative properties, ranging from reversing the effects of blindness and badly reset joints after dislocation, unidentified illnesses in infants, sores, dyspepsia, cholera, swellings in the throat which prohibited swallowing and many other ailments. At that time, many of those who were cured were assessed by professional doctors who claimed to be both convinced of and baffled by the efficacy of the waters, which led to the grotto’s growing reputation as a site of divine healing.[15]

As can be seen, in one hundred years Lourdes had been transformed from a worshipful cavern outside of the town itself to a large pilgrim complex corresponding to its status as a site of national pilgrimage. Perhaps the greatest draw towards Lourdes lay in its allegedly curative waters, most particularly the baths, into which part of the Grotto’s spring was diverted, as well as to standpipes and fountains for drinking and for filling containers. Of all the ailments which were said to be cured by the Lourdes waters, those relating to eyes appear to be the most common, and an interesting linguistic suggestion has been put forward to explain this ocular preference:

The Pyrenean word for fountain or spring, hount,[16] also means an eye and there was a widespread folk belief that such places provided a window into the underworld. When a spring dried up, it was often said that the eye of the fairy had closed. The development of Lourdes as a healing shrine tapped into this rich local tradition that mixed pagan animism and Christian devotion.[17]

The first baths were built on the western side of the grotto in 1862; by 1880 a wooden bathhouse was in existence housing fourteen baths which serviced an almost continuous line of pilgrims. In a report which echoes something of the horror with which Erasmus’ Gratian encountered one of the relics of Saint Thomas Beckett in Canterbury many centuries earlier.[18] The author Emile Zola wrote in his 1893 novel ‘Lourdes’ that: ‘As some hundred patients passed through the same water, you can imagine what a horrible slop it was at the end. There was everything in it: threads of blood, sloughed-off skin, scabs, bits of cloth and bandage, an abominable soup of ills.’[19] This dubious level of hygiene did nothing to deter the faithful, who queued every morning and afternoon to enter the baths, which were renovated and extended in 1891, 1955, 1972 and 1980. Currently, there are seventeen separate bathing cubicles. Interestingly, the aforementioned tendency towards female pilgrims continues to this day, particularly with regard to bathing:

Pilgrims continue to queue every morning and afternoon at the bathhouses beyond the Lourdes grotto. Around 400,000 a year brave the cold waters, with female bathers greatly outnumbering men. After a long wait, they undress in a small changing area and then go behind the curtain into one of the small individual marble baths. Wrapped in a cold towel and prayed over, each bather is then guided down into the water by two or three helpers and, if able to do so, sits down in the bath. Many more pilgrims fill up containers at a row of standpipes beneath the basilica to which water from the grotto is piped. [20]

Lastly, it is worth briefly examining the element of spectacle at Lourdes, something which larger pilgrimage sites make full use of and which dramatically amplifies the experience for visitors in terms of elevating the sensation of being in the presence of the sacred. Direct interaction via the daily Mass as well as the very physical contact with Bernadette’s legacy through bathing form an important part of Lourdes’ attraction, however another form of ritual which constitutes a key aspect of sacrality is found in the twice-daily processions.[21] The first of these takes place at five o’clock in the afternoon with the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament, which begins in the meadow across the river from the grotto and is led by ailing pilgrims who are followed by a priest carrying the monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament. Around the Sacrament the pilgrims carry candles and censors, whilst behind others carry the banners of their various dioceses, and at the back of the procession are doctors. The entire procession crosses the river and parades down the wide avenue (or ‘esplanade’) towards the Basilica of St. Pius X, during which prayers, hymns and chants take place in several different languages. Once everyone has assembled within the Basilica the Adoration of the Eucharist is followed by the Blessing of the Sick by the priest. The first recorded instance of this procession took place in 1874.[22]

The Marian Procession or ‘Torchlight Procession’ first took place in 1872,[23] and due to its visual effect has become the more famous of the two daily events. Every evening at nine o’clock crowds of pilgrims gather outside of the grotto, each carrying a candle contained within a paper wind protector, on which the ‘Immaculate Mary’, the traditional song of Lourdes, is printed.[24] At the head of the procession a statue of the Virgin Mary is carried while behind the crowds of pilgrims walk in groups behind their pilgrimage banners. The rosary is recited throughout in a number of languages and all sing the ‘Immaculate Mary’ hymn, with intercessions and the Laudate Mariam periodically invoked. This takes place while the procession makes its way from the grotto to the square in front of the Rosary Basilica, where a Latin blessing is given by the priest and all exchange the sign of peace.[25]

Before leaving Lourdes for its Marian sanctuaries in the immediately surrounding area, it is worth quoting a lengthy and romantic description by Lawlor which sums up the large numbers of devout pilgrims that flocked to this town even in its infancy as a pilgrimage site:

The long days of the year are days of pilgrimages.[26] Then the winding road from the town resembles the course of a river, rolling along its waves of pilgrims. Never is the grotto left for an hour without a votary; the succession of the faithful makes prayer and thanksgiving, as it were, permanent. The edification among these diversified visitors is reciprocal. The greater part of them are on their knees, their eyes fixed on the statue of the Immaculate; others, who have finished their devotions, are seated by the banks of the Gave, recounting their pious impressions, while they admire the mysterious rock and the lovely landscape. All approach the fountain in their turn, drink its miraculous waters, or bathe in them their suffering limbs. Others, again, are scattered along the greensward, or repose under the flowering shrubs, while they partake, in picnic fashion, of the refreshments which they have brought with them from a distance. Differences of rank and condition disappear in this community of faith and piety. The countenances and attitude of all exhibit the same respect and confidence; all hearts seem inspired with the same sentiment – the Virgin was there! It would seem as if they never could grow weary of praying; and it rarely happens that the summer tourist, be he even sceptical and indifferent, visits the grotto and witnesses this spectacle without carrying away a salutary impression, and perhaps renewing the long-forgotten prayers which he had learned and lisped in innocent childhood.[27]

[1] Lawlor, Danys, Pilgrimages in the Pyrenees and Landes (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1870).

[2] Reinburg, Virginia, Storied Places: Pilgrim Shrines, Nature, and History in Early Modern France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), p. 57.

[3] In conjunction with archaeological and historical studies which provide both broader contexts and very particular details.

[4] It is worth noting that Lawlor visits Lourdes last in her tour of the Marian sites in the surrounding area of the Béarn, mentioning that she had followed ‘the penitential footsteps of many a former wayfarer’ and ‘mingled our orisons in loving supplication at many a sacred shrine with those of the pilgrim brothers who have preceded us’. This may indicate a tradition among the more devoted pilgrims, or at least those who travel from afar to Lourdes, to take in many of the smaller Marian shrines (discussed below) prior to their journey culminating at Lourdes itself. Lawlor, 1870, p. 295.

[5] Here again we see the popular link between springs or water sources and divine appearances.

[6] Kaufman, Suzanne, Consuming Visions: Mass Culture and the Lourdes Shrine (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), p. 2.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Bernadette Soubirous (born 1844, died 1879) would live the rest of her life at this convent, a span of time which was sadly very short. She died at the age of thirty-five, having contracted a sever bout of cholera as a child which left her with chronic asthma and later provoked attacks of tuberculosis in both her lungs and bones. She died whilst praying the rosary and was interred in the St Joseph Chapel within the grounds of the convent. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1921 and granted a feast day on the 16^th April in the Catholic liturgical calendar. For a comprehensive biography of Bernadette, see: Taylor, Thérèse, Bernadette of Lourdes: Her Life, Death and Visions (New York, NY: Burns & Oates, 2003).

[9] Various accounts of Bernadette’s time in Lourdes prior to her leaving for the convent, including the flocks of pilgrims which came to visit her and watch her pray within the grotto (thus inadvertently leading to her decision to leave Lourdes for the quiet of the cloister) can be found in Lawlor, 1870, pp. 352 – 373.

[10] Lawlor, 1870, pp. 299 – 300.

[11] Ibid., pp. 423 – 424.

[12] Ibid. p. 418.

[13] The town of Lourdes is filled with shops which sell a variety of traditional and very modern pilgrim souvenirs. These range from the more typical array of medals, incense, candles, water flasks, Marian statues (of varying sizes) and religious jewelry to hologrammatic posters of Jesus, the Virgin Mary etc., portable shrines illuminated by built-in by LED lights, keychains, t-shirts and more.

[14] Todd, Oliver, The Lourdes Pilgrim (London: Matthew James Publishing, 2003), p. 41.

[15] For the details of several of these curative accounts, see: Lawlor, 1870, pp. 377 – 402.

[16] By this the author is likely referring to a word in the Gascon variant of Occitan.

[17] Bradley, Ian, Water: A Spiritual History (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012), p. 182 – 183.

[18] ‘Some torn fragments of linen; and most of them retaining marks of dirt. With these, as they told us, the holy man used to wipe the perspiration from his face or neck, the runnings of his nose, or other such superfluities, from which the human frame is not free. There my friend Gratian ran into not the best favour. To him, who was at once an Englishman, a person well known, and of no small consequence, the Prior graciously offered to present one of the pieces of linen, imagining that he was making a present that would be most highly acceptable. But Gratian, not sufficiently grateful, drew it together with his fingers, and not without some intimation of disgust, and disdainfully replaced it.’ Erasmus, Desiderius, Pilgrimages to Saint Mary of Walsingham and Saint Thomas of Canterbury, John Gough Nichols (Trans.)(London: John Bowyer Nichols & Son, 1849), pp. 57 – 58. The identity of ‘Gratian’ has been linked with Erasmus’ friend Dr John Colet (born 1467, died 1519), an English scholar, Catholic priest, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London and Renaissance humanist.

[19] Zola, Emile, Lourdes, 1894, quoted in Bradley, 2012, p. 183.

[20] Ibid., p. 184.

[21] The feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes falls on the 11^th of February, commemorating the first day of Bernadette’s visions, during which the regular daily offices are said and processions are made with even greater numbers of pilgrims.

[22] Todd, 2003, p. 151.

[23] This is known locally as the ‘Procession aux Flambeaux’.

[24] This hymn, known in French as ‘Ô Vierge Marie’ was first written in 1873 by Father Jean Gaignet specifically for pilgrims to sing during their visits to Lourdes. Originally Father Gaignet composed eight verses, however he felt moved to expand this number to one hundred and twenty verses later in his life. Needless to say, the earlier, shorter version is more commonly encountered at Lourdes. The hymn has been translated into many languages and each version contains a slightly different aspect in an effort to render the emphasis meaningful in each linguistic culture. Miles, Margaret, Maiden ad Mother: Prayers, Hymns, Devotions, and Songs to the Beloved Virgin Mary Throughout the Year (London: Burns & Oates, 2001), p. 60.

[25] Todd, 2003, p. 155.

[26] Here we see that, even in the nineteenth century, Summer retained its primary position as the season of favour for pilgrim travel.

[27] Lawlor, 1870, p. 427.

Extract from Chapter Two of ‘Highly Holy’

February 13, 2026

Carnival is here and the various villages, towns and cities across the Pyrenees are gearing up for some wild celebrations. However, rather than delve into these at this time, the following ‘Highly Holy’ extract explores a rather different theme, that of the thirteenth-century heresy of Catharism in Languedoc (with some bleed over into Catalonia). It is taken from Chapter Two, which charts the major themes and events of Christianity in the Pyrenees from the twelfth to the twentieth century and, combined with Chapter One, provides a broad historical overview of the subject before analysing more specific themes such as pilgrimage, saint cults, Virgin apparitions, seasonal traditions and more. I hope everyone has a lovely celebration and we can all look forward (hopefully!) to the arrival of Spring.

Extract from Chapter Two, ‘Cathars, Crises and the Catholic Resurgence’.

By the twelfth century the Church could well be said to have taken on the role of a temporal lord, firmly enmeshed in all the political and economic spheres which come with high levels of power in society. This was a far cry from the earliest visions of the Christian Church and communities yet it was inevitable in the face of its implementation and comparatively swift merging with royal lineages and municipal hierarchies across Christendom. Correspondingly, several strains of thought emerged at the dawn of the Medieval period which protested this evolution, with some groups contesting that such a move had driven the Church away from its primary function and its original spirit. Many of these movements were combatted by the Church and deemed as heretical, either due to their doctrines, their potential to pose a threat to the supremacy of the Church’s power structure, or a combination of the two. Two such groups which can be said to be antecedents of the Cathar heresy, at least in terms of thought, were the Manichaeans (or rather, their legacy) and the Bogomils. Manichaeism emerged in the third century as a dualist religion within Sasanian Empire and served as a rival to early Christianity within the Aramaic-speaking regions before being suppressed as a movement by the Roman Empire in 382, who viewed it as a threat to their authority, as well as by the Christian Church. Manichaeism then began to spread further eastwards, reaching as far as China and Tibet, where it enjoyed some success in peasant movements, and it enjoyed a brief popularity in the early days of Islam however here too it was quickly suppressed. Manichaeism derived from the Iranian prophet Mani, who effectively aimed to synchronise and expand beyond the teachings of Zoroaster, Jesus and Buddha, as well as certain Gnostic strains of thought from the time. It has been suggested by some scholars that Augustine of Hippo, after converting from Manichaeism to Christianity, carried forth some of the former’s ideas into mainstream Christian thought, such as the nature of Good and Evil, the concept of Hell and his own dualistic theology.[1] However, Mani’s view of Jesus failed to find favour within the Church, not least because of their contradiction of the Nicene view. For Manichaeans, Jesus was ‘Luminous’ (a revelation and guide for the spirit trapped within its material cage, i.e. the body), ‘Messiah’ (wholly divine and not human born, thereby denying the concept of the ‘Virgin birth’) and ‘Suffering’ (representative of the suffering soul captive in the body).[2] Several of these ideas continued to find popularity in later centuries and the word ‘Manichaean’ became used by the Church as an umbrella term in application to doctrines which held broadly similar viewpoints, with many of those who wrote dissident treatise which they felt reflected the urge to lead a ‘true Christian life’ being labelled by the Church as ‘Manichaean heretics’. One example is provided by Adhemar of Chabannes in 1017 who wrote of ‘Manichaeans who are seducing the people’ in Aquitaine […] denying baptisms, the cross and the entire holy doctrine.’[3] This is but one example of a growing trend at the time of individuals and communities who were rejecting the hierarchal and intercessional nature of the Church in pursuit of other visions of leading a ‘Christian life’, who in turn were labelled as ‘Manichaean’ in synonymy with heresy.

The Bogomils hold a more concrete link to the Cathar story in terms of contemporary chronology and theology. Bogomilism emerged in the First Bulgarian Empire during the tenth century, founded by the priest Bogomil, whose name has been loosely translated to mean ‘dear to God’. Its tenets likely grew from an earlier fifth-century Armenian movement, Marcianism, and was potentially also influenced by the Armenien Paulicians who emerged in the seventh century,[4] however the degree to which the Paulicians were dualistic is highly debated. The Bogomils followed a form of Gnostic doctrine which was highly dualistic, in which (simply put) God ruled the spiritual realm and Satan ruled the earthly realm, existing as eternal opponents. They were also opposed to ecclesiastical hierarchy, which added to the danger the Church felt that they posed to the status quo. The peasantry were likely the first social group to come into contact with Bogomilism, and the movement was quickly driven out from what is now Macedonia into Serbia and Bosnia, and from there their influence extended into the Italian Piedmont region, where they also faced persecution. By the fifteenth century they had been eradicated, however many scholars believe that their combination of Gnostic dualism and antipathy towards ecclesiastical authority achieved a far-reaching influence well before their persecution was ultimately successful.[5] For instance, the Bogomil text ‘The Book of the Secret Supper’, in which John the Evangelist poses a series of questions to Jesus during a supper in Heaven, is said to have been adopted by the Cathars as one of the key texts in their theology, having been taken from Italy to Provence in the twelfth century by the Cathar ‘bishop’ Nazario, a fact written on a copy of the book in Carcassonne by Inquisitors during their stay there during the Albigensian Crusade.[6]

During the eleventh century, we find the first mentions of ‘Cathari’ in the historical record, primarily in Rhineland cities (especially Cologne), Northern France and Lombardy, as well as in Languedoc, and a ‘council’ of Cathar leaders was held in 1167 in Saint-Félix-Lauragais (Haute-Garonne), by the end of which council ‘bishops’ had been established for ‘dioceses’ in Toulouse, Carcassonne, Albi, Agen and Lombardy. Thus, it was in Northern Italy and Languedoc that the Cathars seem to have established the most embedded presence within the socio-cultural landscape.[7] In terms of Cathar writings, little survives and the few which too tend to have originated from Italy, where literacy levels where higher than in the Languedoc and its geographical proximity to the Balkans meant that books arriving from Bogomil sources would generally appear there first, including the ‘Book of the Secret Supper’ and ‘The Vision of Isaiah’, however both works were known in the West by the end of the twelfth century:

‘The Secret Supper’ elucidates the Bogomil/Cathar creation myth in which Satan is cast out of heaven for wishing to be greater than God. Satan pretended to repent, at which God forgave him and let him do what he wanted. With his new-found freedom, Satan created the world of matter, and formed human beings from the primordial clay. Each soul was a trapped angel from heaven. Satan then convinced humanity that he was the one true god, an action which caused the real god to send Christ – a spirit who entered Mary through her ear[8] – in order to alert humanity to the ways of the devil and to announce the existence of the true god. ‘The Vision of Isiah’ was accepted by both the moderate and absolute schools,[9] as it showed a material world and a firmament riven by the battle between Satanic and Godly forces.[10]

However, the most important surviving text from the Cathars comes from after the Albigensian Crusade and is also likely Italian in origin. ‘The Book of Two Principles’[11] is thought to have been written (or compiled) by John of Lugio near Lake Garda in the 1240s and indicates that the Cathars had placed their own unique interpretation on the nature of Dualism rather than being content to merely recycle Bogomil concepts verbatim. In ‘The Book of Two Principles’ we find a sustained polemic against those moderate schools whom the author asserts are no better than Catholics, a group which also receives a great deal of the author’s ire:

The work makes a case for there being two coeternal principles of good and evil, each of which created their own spheres – heaven and the material world respectively. The true god cannot be the author of evil. The verse in the Gospel of John which states ‘All things were made by it [the Word of God], and without it, ‘nothing’ – i.e. the material world – was made by Satan. The true world was the domain of the real creator god, which was not a world of matter, but a higher world that obeyed its own laws.[12]

These concepts demonstrate a distinctive evolution of the Bogomil heresy and around them a loose association of preachers would coalesce, primarily targeting the peasantry in Italy and southern France in which the Cathars’ antipathy toward the Church’s power and practise found a ready audience. The primary reason for this was in the socio-cultural attitudes towards the Church in both regions, with southern France (i.e. Occitania) having a complex system of lordly fiefdoms which viewed the King of France (and by extension the Church which supported him) with suspicion due to the persistent attempts by the latter to curtail their ancestral rights of power in their lands. ‘Occitan susceptibility to Catharism is perennially explained by the so-called fractured character of Occitan society: the relative absence of vassalic ties in favour of the non-hierarchical conventientiae, the resulting independence of the nobles reinforced by the topography of political forces and especially the weakness of the counts of Toulouse.’[13] In Italy a similar attitude derived from the primacy of the city states and the tension between them and the Church in terms of power and control over their subjects. To focus on Occitania, specifically Languedoc, it is also important to consider that a degree of religious ‘freedom’ was enjoyed, with Jews suffering less than in other regions of Europe, which grew from a general culture of artistic and philosophical inquiry that had emerged from the various occupants of these lands prior to the twelfth century i.e. ‘Celtic’, Roman, Visigothic, Frankish and Islamic. Occitania also enjoyed great wealth, at least in terms of resources and the aristocracy, which the French King and the Church found enviable after their coffers were depleted by the Crusades.[14] Perhaps one of the most celebrated examples of Occitan artistry which demonstrates this culture of inquiry and a tolerance for anti-clerical attitudes is found in that of the ‘Troubadours’, a term applied to a group of composers and performers of Occitan poetry found on both sides of the Pyrenees from the twelfth to the mid-fourteenth century and who often relied upon aristocratic sponsorship, financial support and hospitality. Their themes revolved mainly around chivalric and courtly love, however many examples of their poems contain social and satirical critiques of public figures, ranging from other famous troubadours to certain lords and clerics. Cathar ‘priests’ or preachers, known colloquially as ‘bonnes hommes’ who travelled the countryside holding outdoor services and preaching their dualist doctrines to the laity, were known to also enjoy aristocratic hospitality and it is popularly assumed from certain poetic lines in the works of individual Troubadours that both Cathars and Troubadours were known to each other, likely from sharing the same lordly halls.[15]

In terms of the organisation of the Cathars, at their head were the ‘Bishops’ who were elected for each Cathar community, ‘together with an ‘elder son’ and a ‘younger son’ who would succeed to the bishop’s office in the event of his death or deposition.’[16] The majority of Cathars were the credentes or believers, a version of the Catholic laity. They were not obliged to live the life of the Perfecti (‘Perfects’), the active representatives of Cathar dogma in the world who ‘eschewed all physical contact between men and women, and ate no product of sexual generation such as meat, milk, eggs and cheese […] Perfects fasted on certain days of the week and for three forty-day periods during the year […] Before the times of persecution they wore a characteristic black robe, which was afterwards replaced by a black thread worn next to the skin.’[17] The credentes supported the Perfecti with gifts of food and lodging, guided them from place to place during the time of persecution, listened to their preaching and attended their ceremonies. Deacons were also appointed to look after certain hospices, institutions which looked after the Perfecti and where they could find shelter, as well as providing training for credentes looking to become Perfecti.[18] The deacons also provided a level of pastoral care for their town or region and operated a monthly confessional service.[19] As can be seen, prior to the Albigensian Crusade the Cathars possessed a well-organised and relatively evangelical movement, one which held a large degree of support and tolerance from across the social classes in Languedoc and which quickly became a target for the Church.

Despite the more profane reasons given above, there can be no doubt that the Church objected to Catharism on purely doctrinal grounds and the first efforts to stamp it out occurred in 1147 when Pope Eugene III issued an order for the arrest of Cathars.[20] Under the watch of subsequent popes there was the mission of Cardinal Peter of Saint Chrysogonus in Toulouse in 1178 and the decision of the Council of the Lateran in 1179 to suppress Catharism, all to very little effect. It was Pope Innocent III[21] who applied a more robust approach to the Cathar problem, first attempting a peaceful solution by sending legates to talk not only with the Cathar bishops but also the nobles who protected them, as well as with Catholic bishops, several of whom he replaced with more zealous candidates to combat the heresy’s presence. In 1206 Diego of Osma (later Saint Dominic) embarked on a mission to Languedoc, holding several public debates with Cathar leaders, yet concluded that what was lacking in local Catholic preachers was humility, sanctity and asceticism; the mission was a failure. A papal legate was sent to Toulouse in 1208 to meet with Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse,[22] after which the Count was excommunicated for aiding the Cathars which led to a fierce argument. During his return to Rome, the legate was murdered, allegedly by one of Raymond VI’s knights. This became the spark for a violent recourse by the Church, one which would become known as the Albigensian Crusade.

As with most military endeavours the details of the Albigensian Crusade are many and varied, comprising of sieges, sorties, battles, betrayals and butchery and it is not the intention of this chapter to provide a comprehensive narrative of this episode. To briefly summarise the events which led to the successful repression of Catharism in Languedoc and the Pyrenees, in 1209 the Pope declared a crusade against the Cathars and appealed to the King Phillip II of France for help. While the king declined to participate personally he did dispatch several of his barons to aid in the campaign, including Simon de Montfort. This effectively pitted nobles of France against the nobles of Languedoc and the call to arms was made popular by a Papal decree allowing for the confiscation of lands owned by Cathars and their supporters, causing something of a free for all among the French nobility eager to acquire new fiefdoms in the South. The first target were the lands of the Trencavels, a prominent and powerful Languedoc family, with Béziers, Albi, Carcassone and the Razes all falling to the crusading forces with a great deal of slaughter. Béziers was the scene of particularly indiscriminate violence and Carcassonne (the capital of the Trancavel lands) fell victim to a siege, which ended in the death of Raymond Roger Trencavel, Viscount of Carcassonne. Following the siege Simon de Montfort was designated as the leader of the Crusader army until he was killed nine years later in 1218 at the siege of Toulouse. The Treaty of Paris in 1229 brought about an official end to the crusade, in which the House of Toulouse and the House of Trencavel effectively lost either the majority or the whole of their fiefs to the king of France, marking an end to the relative independence of Languedoc nobility.[23]

However, at this point Catharism had not been fully extinguished and the Inquisition was established in 1233 to root out all remaining Cathars in the region, operating out of bases in Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne and other towns up until the mid-fourteenth century. The siege of the fortress of Montségur (where many Cathars had fled to in search of shelter) from May 1243 to March 1244 is seen as a symbolic end to the Albigensian Crusade due to the burning of over two hundred Cathars in the ‘Prat dels Cremats’(‘field of the burned’) at the foot of the castle, yet the final fortress to suffer was that of Quéribus in 1255, also a shelter for Cathars, sat atop a rocky outcrop in the Corbières.[24] With no further walls to hide behind, fugitive Cathars continued to meet secretly amid the forests, caves and mountains of the Ariégoise Pyrenees and many made their escape from Languedoc into Catalonia via mountain passes[25] and through southern France to Cathar communities in northern Italy well into the fourteenth century. In 1310, the leader of a Cathar revivalist movement which had begun to flourish in the Pyrenean foothills of Languedoc, Peire Autier,[26] was burnt in Toulouse and the last recorded execution of Cathar Perfecti in the region took place in 1321 at Pamiers, his name was Guilhèm Belibasta.[27]

[1] Van Oort, H., ‘Augustine and Manichaeism: New Discoveries, New Perspectives’, Verbum et Ecclesia, Vol. 27, No. 2., 2006. Available here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272649477_Augustine_and_manichaeism_new_discoveries_new_perspectives

[2] For a comprehensive examination of Manichaeism and its theology, see: Tardieu, Michel, Manichaeism (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2008).

[3] Roux, Julie (Ed.), The Cathars (Vic-en-Bigorre: MSM, 2006), p. 27.

[4] For a fulsome analysis of the Paulicians and their beliefs, see: Garsoïan, Nina, The Paulician Heresy: A Study of the Origin and Development of Paulicianism in Armenia and the Eastern Provinces of the Byzantine Empire (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967).

[5] Runciman, Steven, The Medieval Manichee: A Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 63 – 93. See also: Obolensky, Dmitri, A Study in Balkan Neo-Manichaeism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948).

[6] For a complete online version of this text, see: http://gnosis.org/library/Interrogatio_Johannis.html

[7] Lansing, Carol, Power & Purity: Cathar Heresy in Medieval Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

[8] It is worth considering that the use of the ear as an entry point for Christ into Mary may reflect the concept of ‘In the beginning was the word’, i.e. the prominence of logos in Gnostic thought which likely influenced Bogomil, Cathar and other dualistic heresies.

[9] This pertains to the variation in dualist heresies in terms of how staunchly dualist their doctrines were.

[10] Martin, Sean, The Cathars: The Most Successful Heresy of the Middle Ages (Harpenden: Pocket Essentials, 2005), p. 142.

[11] Available to read in full here: http://gnosis.org/library/cathar-two-principles.htm

[12] Ibid., p. 143.

[13] Paterson, Linda, The World of the Troubadours: Medieval Occitan Society, c. 1100 – c. 1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 338.

[14] This is, of course, a highly simplified and potted explanation of a complex cultural context.

[15] Linda Paterson’s book referenced above is highly recommended as a study of the Troubadour phenomenon and also of its potential connection with the Cathar presence in Occitania.

[16] Ibid., p. 336.

[17] Ibid., pp. 335 – 336.

[18] This would begin with a period of instruction and doctrinal tests, accompanied by bouts of asceticism, before being presented to the Perfecti and given the right to recite the Pater Noster with proper understanding of its meaning from the Cathar standpoint. Finally, the baptismal rite was administered, known as the consolamentum. This ritual broke the cycle of reincarnation which saw their angelic souls being recycled through various bodies after having been imprisoned in the material realm by Satan. However, by taking the consolamentum their souls would then be free to finally re-enter Heaven and return to the spiritual realm of the true god. It should be noted that a man could be ‘reincarnated’ as a woman and vice versa, which led to a level of opportunity for women in the Cathar movement which was unusual at the time; women could be Perfecti and it was not unusual for Perfecti of both sexes to travel together, preaching and ministering to the credentes. However, in the Languedoc it was believed that one’s final form prior to breaking the cycle had to be that of a man. See: O’Shea, Stephen, The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars (New York, NY: Walker & Company, 2000).

[19] Ibid., p. 336.

[20] Pope Eugene III (born 1080, died 1153) was Pope from 1145 until his death. In response to the capture of Edessa by Muslim forces in 144 he proclaimed the second Crusade, which lasted from 1147 to 1150. He was the first Cistercian monk to be elected as Pope and was generally considered to have been meek and spiritual in his approach to Papal matters.

[21] Pope Innocent III (born 1161, died 1216) was the most influential and powerful of the Medieval popes, greatly expanding the scope of the crusades in the Holy Land (namely by organizing the Fourth Crusade from 1202 to 1204) and against Muslim forces in Iberia, as well as instigating the Albigensian Crusade.

[22] Raymond VI (born 1156, died 1222) succeeded as Count of Toulouse in 1194, whereupon he re-established peace with Alfonso II of Aragon and the Trencavel family, an important noble house in Languedoc. He is said to have been the first target of the Albigensian Crusade and held a vast amount of territories, over which his control was complicated and tenuous due to a series of allegiances and vassalhoods. He died excommunicated.

[23] Martin, 2005, pp. 71 – 121.

[24] It is worth noting that almost all of the castles which were besieged during the Albigensian Crusade and subsequently claimed by the French crown were remodelled and used as bulwarks against the threat of incursions into Languedoc territory by Aragonese forces. Thus the castles presented today as ‘Cathar castles’ no longer hold their original form at the time of the crusade and bear many late-thirteenth and fourteenth century alterations, despite their now romantic presentation.

[25] Catharism appears to have been first introduced into the Catalan Counties during the early thirteenth century, and by 1226 the Cathar bishop of Toulouse had assumed charge of these nascent Cathar communities. The lands surrounding Castelbò in the Alt Urgel, near La Seu d’Urgell, seem to have developed a particular sympathy for Catharism. For an examination of the Cathars in Catalonia, see: Adroer i Tasis, Anne & Català i Roca, Pere, Càtars i Catamisme a Catalunya (Barcelona: Rafael Dalmau, 2005). For a brief discussion of the possible presence of Cathars in Andorra, see: Gascón Chopo, Carles, ‘El Catarisme a les Valls d’Andorra’, Els Correus a Andorra, una Història Inacabada (Andorra: Societat Andorrana de Ciències, 2009), pp. 128 – 135.

[26] In the testimony of Stéphanie de Châteauverdun, a noble and Cathar Perfecti from the Sabartès, he states that the few high-ranking Cathars who survived during this time were living in the mountains. Peire Autier was first introduced to Cathar theology by his younger brother Guilhèm via a book, possibly the ‘Gospel of St John’, which prompted both men to travel to Lombardy and receive the consolamentum in 1296. During their time in Lombardy a wide network of safe houses was established in their homeland to prepare for their return, with the aim of spreading the Cathar doctrine once again throughout Languedoc. Peire returned to Toulouse in 1299 and Guilhèm appeared in Tarascon shortly afterwards, the men then stayed with Peter Raymond of Saint-Papoul (Aude), a fellow Perfecti, in a dovecot throughout the Winter and Spring of 1300. For the decade that followed they recruited a handful of credentes to their cause and operated clandestinely, largely administering the consolamentum to the dying which was sometimes followed by the endura, a rare Cathar rite which involved a terminal form of fasting designed to act as a manner of suicide and allowed these secretly-baptised Cathars to ‘remain true to their faith before death’. Martin, 2005, 124 – 131. A Cathar text known as the ‘Lyon Codex’ or the ‘Lyon Ritual’ transcribes several prayers and rites of the Cathars in Occitan and is said to date to the early fourteenth century. Some have argued that it was written by Peire Autier, see: Brenon, Anne, ‘Le Codex Cathare Occitan de Lyon: Un Livre de Peire Autier?’, Archives Ariégoises, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2016, pp. 9 – 37. A transcription of the Lyon Codex can be found here: http://gnosis.org/library/Cathar_Ritual-full_text.html

[27] For a microstudy of an Ariégoise village during this period which faced persecution for supporting Cathar beliefs, see: Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel, Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294 – 1324 (London: Penguin Books, 2013). The book derives a great deal of information from a series of Inquisitional records known as the ‘Fournier Register’ and one can find the name Guilhèm Belibasta mentioned several times in interrogations of suspected heretics from Montaillou.

Extract from Chapter One of ‘Highly Holy’.

January 16, 2026

‘Highly Holy’ is currently undergoing the proofreading process, which is slow but steady – with such an enormous topic it pays to be diligent! All things going well it should be published during the Summer/Autumn, and from now until then I will publish monthly excerpts from each of its seven chapters. We begin with Chapter One ‘From the Romans to the Romanesque’, which along with Chapter Two provides a broad historical overview of Christianity’s major territorial, theological and architectural trends from the Roman period to the twentieth century in the Pyrenees. Presented below is an excerpt which describes the role and importance of the Visigoths within Christianity’s Pyrenean story, tracing their movements, the role (and discarding) of Arianism in Visigothic beliefs, and their decline in the face of Frankish advances.

Extract from Chapter One ‘From the Romans to the Romanesque’.

The Rise and Fall of the Visigoths

At the beginning of the fifth century the Roman Empire’s control of its territories was in the process of fracturing, a process which one Germanic group in particular took full advantage of. This group was the Goths, first referred to as ‘Visigoths’ by Roman statesman Cassiodorus after their loss against Clovis I in 507. Whilst the emphasis of this section will be on their ecclesiastical influence on the Pyrenees, a brief contextualisation of their rise to power, conquest of Roman provinces such as Novempopulania, Narbonensis I and Hispania Citerior Tarraconensis and the creation of their empire will be of use.

The Goths were a people whose origins lay in Scandinavia but through a combination of overpopulation and conflicts with neighbours become a relatively settled and successful military power around the Black Sea. Inevitably, their success began to impinge on the presence of Roman territories in the area, with the Goths crossing the Danube in 238 to raid the province of Moesia,[1] taking several hostages and pillaging towns. Conversely, they acted as swords-for-hire in the Roman army, appearing in the legions assembled by Gordinian III during the war with the Persians in that same year, however when their subsidies were halted the Goths lost no time in turning against their employers and in 250 they joined the large-scale invasion of Roman territories, led by their king Cniva.[2] [3] Throughout much of the third century and well into the fourth century the Goths continued their policy of raiding Roman provinces throughout the Balkans, Greece and Anatolia with varying success until a peace treaty was signed in 332. This peace would last for less than fifty years as, after resettling on the banks of the Danube with the permission of Emperor Valens in an effort to escape pressures exerted by the Huns, the Goths were not provided with the lands promised nor were they helped by the Romans when they endured starvation, who encouraged them to trade their children in exchange for food. The Goths rebelled again against the Romans and started a six-year period of revolt and plundering throughout the Balkans which, whilst providing many victories for the Goths such as the Battle Adrianople in 378 (when Emperor Valens was killed), ultimately ended in their defeat and the necessity of another treaty in 382. In this treaty they became semi-autonomous, free from Roman legal structures and the owners of vast tracts of arable land in exchange for vows of loyalty to the Romans and, more concretely, the provision of troops for the Roman army from their ranks.[4]

Emperor Theodosius I presided over a decade of peace with the Goths,[5] however upon his death in 395 Alaric I made a successful bid for the Gothic throne and for the next fifteen years indulged in sporadic conflicts with the Romans, which came to a head in 408.[6] Following several struggles between Roman generals who wished to hold power in the newly divided Eastern and Western Roman Empires, the families of several thousand Germanic soldiers in the Roman army were slaughtered and Alaric I declared his intention to march on Rome. After a two-year campaign, Alaric’s forces entered Rome via the Salarian Gate on the 24^th August, 410, sacking the city and beginning what is classically regarded as the ‘beginning of the end’ for the rule of the Romans across Europe.

In 418 the Visigoths[7] were given land in Aquitania by the Western Emperor Honorius in reward for their help in repelling the invasion of Roman Hispania in 409 by their fellow Germanic tribes the Vandals, Alans and the Suebi.[8] This would form the nucleus of their later kingdom, with the primary capital being established in Toulouse. After a series of battles fought in support of the Romans against their Germanic rivals such as the Vandals and the Suebi, as well as expansion into Hispania and Gaul in defiance of the Romans, in 475 King Euric unified the various Visigothic factions and signed a peace treaty with Emperor Julius Nepos which effectively gave the Visigothic territory the powers of an independent kingdom in all but name.[9] By this point the Visigoths had captured vast swathes of southern Gaul and were swiftly becoming the dominant power in the Iberian Peninsula, forcing the Vandals into northern Africa and crushing the Alans. King Euric was also responsible for adopting many elements of Roman bureaucracy and taxation; under his reign the Visigoths emerged as independent from their nominal Roman masters and usurped Roman control of much of Gaul and Iberia. The first incarnation of the Visigothic kingdom was now fully established and in a prime position to expand its influence on both sides of the Pyrenees.[10]

The Visigoths were converted to Christianity around the period of 376 to 390, coinciding with events which preceded the beginning of the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Two factors which had been suggested for this swift transition are the assimilation of Christian captives into Gothic society and the equation of Christianity with participation in Romanised society, a process which the Visigoths were keen to engage with at this time.[11] However, rather than the Trinitarianism practised by most Romans, the Visigoths adhered to Arianism, which would lead to great religio-political conflicts with the Church once the Visigothic Kingdom was established. These conflicts would last until King Reccared I renounced the doctrine in favour of the Nicene Creed in 589 at the Council of Toledo, largely in an effort to pacify the situation and unify his kingdom under one single faith. With Arianism being a hallmark of what is referred to as ‘Gothic Christianity’ in the fifth and sixth centuries it is worth brief explorations as an interesting theological diversion which enjoyed two centuries of prevalence among the Visigoths throughout areas of the Pyrenees.

The original doctrine of Arianism was conceived by Arius, a presbyter from modern-day Libya who preached and studied in Alexandria during the third and fourth centuries. He held that Christ was begotten by the Father before the beginning of time and thus was not co-eternal with the Father yet did exist with him ‘outside of time’, as time applies only to the creations of God. This distinction was amplified and expanded by his disciple Eunomius during the fourth century, who founded the Anomoean school of Arian thought which taught that God the Father was ‘unbegotten’ and God the Son was the ‘only-begotten’. This heresy was condemned during the Council of Constantinople in 381 and whilst the term ‘Arianism’ became synonymous with a variety of nontrinitarian doctrines at this time, it was the Anomoean interpretation which gained most traction and stood in stark contrast to the orthodox Trinitarian view, which placed the Father and the Son as being one and the same in essence and was supported by the First Council of Nicaea in 325.[12] The key issue for theologians was one of salvation. If Christ was subordinate to the Father, essentially ‘less than God’, how then could the Son guarantee Mankind’s redemption through his death? Arianism gained traction in Constantinople, with several bishops adopting its perspective including the Gothic convert Ulfilas, who belonged to the ‘Homoian’ strand of Arianism, one which was less extreme than the Anomoean school but nevertheless claimed that the Father and Son were ‘similar but not identical in terms of substance.[13] Ulfilas was sent as a missionary to the Gothic tribes around the Danube and was extremely successful in converting them to Arian Christianity; thus when the Goths began settling in the provinces of the Western Roman Empire and eventually establishing a kingdom there, most of them belonged to this ‘heretical’ branch of Christianity.[14] The renunciation of Arianism among the Germanic tribes began in 496 with the Franks’ King Clovis I, then in 587 with the Visigothic King Reccared I and the Lombards’ King Aripert I in 653, after which the orthodox view of the Father and Son being ‘unbegotten’ and one held sway among the overwhelming majority of Christendom, with any divergent views being cast as heretical and subject to punishment.[15] However the ecclesiology of the Kingdom of the Visigoths began within this Arian doctrinal framework and was at odds with the orthodox creed held by many Christians within these territories, whose families had been converted prior to their arrival and formed part of the pre-existing Christian communities.[16]

To return to more earthly matters, by the beginning of the sixth century the Visigothic Kingdom encompassed the formerly Roman diocese of Septem Provinciarum and the majority of Hispania, excepting the regions now known as Galicia, Cantabria and the Basque Country. Since 420 Toulouse had acted the primary Visigothic stronghold in Aquitania and then the capital of their kingdom, although thanks to the efforts of the Franks in northern Gaul this would only be the case for another seven short years. The Frankish king Clovis I instigated a brief war with the Visigoths out of which the latter only just emerged victorious, however in 507 the Franks united with the Burgundians to attack the Visigoths again and this time the Visigoths were overwhelmed at the Battle of Vouillé near Poitiers. Toulouse was sacked and the Visigothic presence in Gaul was decimated, their only territorial holding being part of the original Roman province of Narbonensis I which had been ceded to them by in 462 under King Theodoric II. With their king Alaric II killed in the battle of Poitiers and their capital sacked, the Visigoths retreated over the Pyrenees into Iberia to consolidate their powerbase at Toledo, however this kingdom would be marred by a seemingly endless series of civil conflicts and vies for power by competing aristocratic factions, which may explain King Reccared I’s adoption of Nicene Christianity in the latter part of the sixth century in the vain hope that a unification of faith might soothe these eternally troubled waters.

Before addressing the second phase of the Visigothic Kingdom up to the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula by Islamic forces in the eighth century, it is time to address its built and ecclesiastical legacy in the ‘Kingdom of Toulouse’. Toulouse was a vital site for the Visigoths, so much so that it quickly became their capital before being sacked and thus it is logical to assume that this city and others like it across southern France would bear distinctive traces of a near-century of Visigothic occupation. However, the reality is quite the opposite, as summed up by Herwig Wolfram:

The Gothic ‘guests’ left barely any traces in the language and place-names and virtually none in the archaeological finds of Aquitaine. But modern scholars even quarrel over the meagre remains. The modern significance of the problem is slight. There never was in France a large-scale settlement of Goths comparable to that of the Franks.[17]

In fact, the Visigothic legacy in France seems to consist less of bricks, mortar and faith but rather in given names, some place-names which emerge after the Frankish conquest (referring to former inhabitants) and legal structures.[18] Across the former Kingdom of Toulouse, one could still ‘profess the Gothic law’ until the twelfth-century and in 964 there is a record of a mother in ‘the Gothic South’ naming all eight of her children in the Visigothic fashion. Several villages and landmarks adopted names following the collapse of the Kingdom of Toulouse which have been translated as ‘the village of the Goths’ or ‘the mountain of the Goths’, which may possibly relate to the positive relationship enjoyed between the Visigoths and their Gallo-Roman subjects.[19] Toulouse enjoyed continued prosperity during this period, unlike many other cities in Western Europe given the political instability of Rome’s fracturing and collapse, and the local population found great security in the protection offered by the Visigoths, who preserved Roman law and created ‘The Breviary of Alaric’ in 506. This was a codified collection of Roman legal frameworks issued by Roman jurists which applied both to the Visigoths and their Gallo-Roman subjects, which enhanced the feeling of stability and continuity. In the North, the Franks had broken this tradition and instigated their own laws which existed outside of the Roman system.

It is worth noting that during this time there existed a ‘parallel universe of Arian and Catholic churchmen’ and whilst great friction existed between them no attempt was made by the Visigoths to suppress the pre-existing Church organisation. There was also the latter’s continuing campaign of suppressing paganism and the reorganisation of the archdiocese of Narbonne (in which the bishoprics of Nîmes, Uzès, Lodève and Béziers were revived, and those of Elne and Carcassonne created) has been cited as illustrative of their success in this area within the Pyrenees.[20]

Another ephemeral legacy of the Visigoths in the French Pyrenees is possibly that of the Cagots, although the etymology of the term is vigorously debated. The Cagotsare a mysterious yet socially distinct group which are traditionally found in the Pyrenees from Gascony to the Basque Country, as well as in Aragon, the northern Navarre and Asturias. As far back as the fifteenth century laws were in effect which relegated to them to live outside of town or city walls, restricted the professions they could practise and were excluded from social and political rights, including the right to marry non-Cagots.[21] [22] Among the many interpretations of this historically persecuted minority’s etymological origins are a controversial suggestion that it arises from a blend of canis (dog) and the Old Occitan term for Goth, Gòt, in reference to their being the descendants of those Visigoths defeated by the Frankish king Clovis I.[23] The nineteenth-century French historian and pastor Antoine Court de Gébelin presented a similar interpretation, asserting that Cagotderived from the Latin caco-deus, loosely translating to ‘false god’ and linking this to the possibility that the Cagotsdescended from practitioners of the Arian heresy beyond the Visigothic renunciation. Thus de Gébelin posited that the shunning of the Cagotsderived ancestrally from a continuing belief in the nontrinitarian doctrine under the Franks, who were Catholic in their creed since the days of Clovis I.[24] These interpretations and many others have been the subject of small but fierce debates in the past two centuries, often amid the continuing persecution of the Cagots and with no common accord being reached. [25] However, it is an intriguing thought that the most enduring legacy of the Visigoths and their period of Arianism in the Kingdom of Toulouse may be that of the Cagots who, like their potential Gothic ancestors, traditionally lived apart from the local population, albeit with a much diminished reputation for protection and stability.

The eighty years in Iberia preceding King Reccared I’s official rejection of Arianism could be loosely be termed the ‘Arian Kingdom of Hispania’ for the Visigoths and was a tangled web of regicide, competing Visigothic and Ostrogothic factions and tensions between the Arian Visigoths and the Hispano-Roman population.[26] Further complications were added by the fact that the Visigoths did not control the entirety of the Iberian Peninsula, with the Suebi Kingdom existing in Galicia, the Basques and Cantabrians holding independent territories in the North and the Byzantine Empire[27] taking advantage of Visigothic civil wars to carve out a territory in the South. It was only around the seventh century when the Peninsula would be fully in control of the Visigothic dynasty, with Toledo acting as the capital and the host of the infamous ‘Councils of Toledo’ between the fifth and seventh centuries.[28] These eighteen synods would decide various doctrinal issues with regard to the application of orthodox Christianity (an evolving concept) across the Iberian Peninsula and further afield. With regard to the Pyrenees, the territory of Tarraconensis was carried over from the Roman era as a defined province, and in terms of closer examination it is this region which concerns us in terms of ecclesiastical culture and diocese organisation under the Visigoths during the sixth and seventh centuries; the ‘pre-’ and ‘post-Arianism’ timeframe prior to the Umayyad conquest.

Much like their ecclesiastical legacy in southern France, the survival of Visigothic churches in Spain is meagre, with a handful of examples present largely across the North and West of the Peninsula. This is largely due to their destruction during the Umayyad conquest and, in those which escaped, extensive renovations in the following centuries which largely obliterated the original Visigothic architecture. However, some churches from these two centuries survive and reveal a very defined style.

[Visigothic architecture is characterised by] the horseshoe arch and the employment of large blocks of superbly crafted ashlar, fitted together without the use of mortar… While familiar with the basilican models, the Visigoths tended to prefer the Greek-cross plan, with the side compartments taking on the appearance of mini-transepts… Historians have for long been intrigued by the way in which Visigothic buildings foreshadow the emergence of Romanesque architecture four centuries later, for the decorative carving, the use of barrel vaults, and the presence of the ‘regular crossing’ all seem to point toward the future. How Visigothic architecture might have developed we shall never know, for in 711 the Iberian Peninsula was overrun by Moslems [sic] from North Africa. Christian building came to an abrupt halt.[29]

Of the few Visigothic churches in Spain which still survive, either in full or in part, examples include the church of San Juan Bautista (Palencia, Castile and Léon), the church of Santa Comba (Ourense, Galicia), the church of Santa María de Melque (Toledo, Castile-La Mancha), Suso Monastary (San Millán de la Cogolla, La Rioja), the Hermitage of Santa María (Burgos, Castile and Léon) and the crypt of the Monastery of San Salvador de Leyre (northern Navarre). The latter is the only example which falls within the broad area of the Pyrenees however its classification as a ‘Visigothic monument’ is unclear, for while traces of a pre-Romanesque (likely Carolingian) church was discovered beneath its nave, Saint Eulogius of Cordoba was recorded as visiting the monastery in 848 and a flourishing monastic community is attested to have existed here prior to the founding of the complex, it would appear that the Visigothic elements within the crypt may be a matter of style rather than chronology with there being no documented evidence of the structure having been built prior to the eighth or ninth centuries. It is also worth noting that many of the examples given above are present along the route of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, a pilgrimage route which would begin to be promoted in the tenth century but find its full expression as a pilgrim destination in the later Middle Ages as a rival to Jerusalem and Canterbury.

The paucity of surviving Visigothic churches and cathedrals does not necessarily indicate that few were built between the sixth and eighth centuries; the creation of new dioceses and the expansion of existing ones, combined with the appointment of new bishops, would often be accompanied by renovation or new constructions. One such example can be found with the documented existence of the Bishop of Urgell in 527, when a ‘Bishop Just’ is recorded as attending the second Council of Toledo, and it seems that his successors also took part in later synods. [30] According to Isidore of Seville, Justus had three brothers: Nebreidius of Egara, Elpidius of Huesca and Justinian of Valencia, all of whom were also bishops and from an aristocratic family based in Tarraconensis. Since the Late Antique period, La Seu d’Urgell had played a notable role as a crossroads on the roads from the plains of Lleida to Cerdanya and Roussillon, as well as through the valleys of what would later be known as Andorra into Gaul, thus it had already enjoyed a degree of small but dense occupation by the formation of the Diocese of Urgell in the sixth century. This was a time when the Visigoths were involved in the reorganisation of ancient Roman territorial divisions in the Pyrenees, albeit without abandoning them, in an effort to strengthen their defences against their new neighbours across the mountains, the Franks. The appropriation of pre-existing fortifications and construction of new sites for this purpose also took place, as exemplified in the parochial Andorra context of Sant Vincenç d’Enclar. This was originally a hilltop fortification on El Roc d’Enclar which controlled an important pass from North to South. Whilst the church’s origins are dated to the end of the eighth century, the founding of the fortification has been dated to the second half of the fourth century and early fifth century and it remained within use during the Visigothic era ‘as proven by the discovery of metal items, primarily bronze, used for personal ornamentation as part of the military uniforms […] The importance of the pass through the valleys of Andorra most likely determined its control from the city of Urgell, from which the military offensive against the Franks could be coordinated.’[31]

With the sixth-century formation of both the diocese and the bishopric of Urgell, it has been suggested through the use of comparative examples from elsewhere both in the Iberian Peninsula and in France, that the construction of a cathedral at this time was very likely. Construction of the present cathedral of La Seu d’Urgell was begun in 1116, making it very firmly Romanesque, however the scholarly consensus is that an earlier cathedral would have existed in a central location within the settlement, possibly near the location of the later cathedral. No archaeological evidence has surfaced regarding this potential building, however it has been suggested that it was destroyed in 793, along with the old town of La Seu, by the troops of Abd al-Malik during their return from raiding Narbonne. In the first half of the ninth century the town was re-sited to its present, lower location adjacent to the river, with the remains of the old fortified town became the headquarters of local counts; today this area is known as ‘Castellciutat’, the ‘castle town’. This may explain the need for the construction of a new cathedral in the twelfth century and the lack of material evidence for an earlier cathedral, a building which would logically be required in the town since it became the centre of the diocese. The importance of La Seu during the Visigothic period, at this point, is attributable to the Pyrenees being home to a significant population thanks to shifting centres of centralised power, the legacy of long-range trade which crossed the valleys and mountains and the agro-pastoral potential offered by the lower and upper pastures. With the replacement of the Romans it fell to the Visigoths to organise, structure and maintain the political and religious hierarchies which ensured the security and profitability of these mountains. A key aspect of this was in the continuity of old dioceses and the founding of new ones such as with Urgell and La Seu d’Urgell became the centre of a large Pyrenean bishopric, playing a major role in the process of maintaining both doctrinal and political order in the Visigothic borderlands, as illustrated by the control and use of Roc d’Enclar.[32]

[1] Moesia Superior and Moesia Inferior roughly equate to the eastern regions of modern-day Serbia and Albania, as well as northern Bulgaria and small parts of southern Ukraine.

[2] Marcus Antonius Gordianus (born 224, died 244) was the second youngest sole emperor of the Roman Empire. He was killed at twenty years old during the Battle of Misiche near Fallujah, Iraq.

[3] Cniva (birth date unknown, death date likely that of one ‘King Cannabaudes’, defeated in battle by Emperor Aurelian in 271) was a Gothic king who ran various invasions of the Roman Empire, successfully capturing Philippopolis in 250 (Plovdiv, Bulgaria) and killing both Emperor Decius and his son in 251 at the Battle of Arbitus.

[4] Todd, Malcom, The Early Germans (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 149 – 155.

[5] Theodosius the Great (born 347, died 395) ruled the Roman Empire from 379 to 395 and was the last Emperor to preside over the entire empire before its split into East and West. He was also responsible for establishing the Nicene Creed as the official orthodox doctrine for Christianity.

[6] Alaric I (born c. 370, died 411) was a Gothic king who helped Emperor Theodosius defeat the Franks during his time in the Roman army prior to gaining the throne. After his de facto assumption of leadership for the Goths he led several operations against the Western Roman Empire, culminating in the sacking of Rome 410. When he died from fever in Italy, he was buried under a streambed (the stream having been temporarily diverted for the purpose) and those who interred him were killed so that his grave would remain a secret.

[7] From this point on we shall refer to them under this moniker.

[8] This is a vast simplification but for the purposes of this book it will suffice. For a more in-depth discussion of these events, see: Heather, Peter, The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

[9] King Euric (born c. 420, died 484) was the son of Theodoric I and was the first Visigothic king to declare complete independence from Roman emperors, his predecessors being content to be legates and puppets for the dwindling Western Roman Empire.

[10] Katz, Soloman, The Decline of Rome and the Rise of Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1955).

[11] Heather, Peter & Matthews, John, The Goths in the Fourth Century (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1991).

[12] This was later applied to the concept of the Holy Spirit, forming the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit which was viewed in the Nicene Creed as being of the same essence.

[13] Ulfilias (born c. 311, died 383) was a Goth of Greek descent, his parents having being captured by the Goths. He was raised as a Goth in Transdanubia (now part of Wallachia in Romania) and became proficient in both Greek and Latin. He is credited with developing the Gothic alphabet and translating the bible into the Gothic language.

[14] However, it has been suggested that they were tolerant of believers in the orthodox Nicene creed and also Jews within their kingdom, see: Singer, Isidore & Adler, Cyrus (Eds.), ‘Arianism’ in The Jewish Encyclopaedia, Vol. I (New York, NY: Funk & Wagnalls, 1912).

[15] It is an interesting side note that these anti-trinitarian views resurfaced during the Protestant Reformation, leading to several persecutions by the Church and the recanting of these positions by several Protestant leaders such as John Assheton and Michael Sevetus, the latter being burned alive under the orders of John Calvin in 1553. See: Bainton, Roland, Hunter Heretic: The Life and Death of Michael Servetus, 1511 – 1553 (Boston, MA: The Beacon Press, 1953).

[16] For an authoritative history and explanation of Arianism, see: Wiles, Maurice, Archetypal Heresy: Arianism Throughout the Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

[17] Wolfram, Herwig, History of the Goths (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 1988), p. 226.

[18] This is not to suggest that there is no archaeological legacy at all relating to the Visigoths in the territories comprising the Kingdom of Toulouse, merely that these remains are not substantial enough in relating to the theme of this chapter, i.e., a summary of the development and spread of Christianity in the Pyrenees.

[19] Ibid, p. 230.

[20] Rush, Simon, The First Romanesque Architecture of Conflent, Pyrénées-Orientales, France (66). Tradition, System and Style. PhD Thesis. Birkbeck College, University of London, 2022. Unpublished, p. 58. Available here: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/49950/

It would also appear that paganism was endemic in the Iberian Visigothic kingdom well into the seventh century, see: McKenna, Stephen, Paganism and Pagan Survivals in Spain up to the Fall of the Visigothic Kingdom. A Doctoral Dissertation (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1938). Available here: https://libro.uca.edu/mckenna/paganism.htm

[21] Jolly, Geneviève, ‘Les Cagots des Pyrérnées: Une Ségrégation Attestée, une Mobilité Mal Connue’, Le Mond Alpin et Rhodanien. Revue Régionale d’Ethnologie, Nos. 1 – 3, 2000, pp. 197 – 222. Available here: https://www.persee.fr/doc/mar_0758-4431_2000_num_28_1_1716

[22] For a brief synopsis of the Cagots’presence in carpentry, see: Locker, Martin, Bountiful Borderlands (Andorra: Mons Culturae Press, 2021), pp. 137 – 138

[23] Delacampagne, Christian, L’Invention du Racisme: Antiquité et Moyen-Âge (Paris: Fayard, 1983), pp. 125 – 127.

[24] de Gébelin, Antoine Court, Dictionnaire Étymologique, Historique et Anecdotique des Proverbes et des Locutions Proverbiales de la Langue Française (Paris: P. Bertrand, 1842), pp. 1182 – 1183.

[25] For an antiquated but interesting exploration of the Cagots’ origins, see: Tuke, D., ‘The Cagots’, The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 9, 1880, pp. 376 – 385. Available here: https://zenodo.org/records/2119746

[26] The Ostrogoths were a branch of the Goths who held sway in Italy. For a comprehensive history, see: Burns, Thomas, A History of the Ostrogoths (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984).

[27] This was otherwise known as the Eastern Roman Empire.

[28] Collins, Roger, Visigothic Spain: 409 – 711 (London: Blackwell Publishing, 2004).

[29] Stalley, Roger, Early Medieval Architecture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 32 – 34.

[30] Justus of Urgell, or ‘Sant Just’ in Catalan (birth date unknown, died c. 527) was the first recorded Bishop of Urgell and is recorded in the Roman martyrology as having his feast day on the 28^th May. The details surrounding his life are largely unknown, however the archbishop of Seville and Hispano-Roman scholar Isidore of Seville (born c. 560, died 4^th April 636) described Justus as one of the ‘illustrious men’ of whose lives he wrote about. See: Torres i Amat, Fèlix, Memorias para Ayudar a Formar un Diccionario Crítico de los Escritores Catalanes y dar Alguna Idea de la Antigua y Moderna Literatura de Cataluña (Barcelona: Imprenta de J. Verdaguer, 1836), pp. 340 – 342.

[31] Godoy Fernández, Cristina, ‘Archaeology in the Eastern Part of the Tarraconensis Province in the Times of the Visigothic Kings’, Catalan Historical Review, Vol. 13, Nos. 9 – 25, 2020, p. 18. Available here: https://www.raco.cat/index.php/CatalanHistoricalReview/article/download/376409/469674

[32] Smith, Damian, ‘The Resignations of the Bishop Bernat de Castelló (1195 – 8) and the Problems of La Seu d’Urgell’ in Pope, Church and City: Essays in Honour of Brenda M. Bolton, Brenda Bolton (Ed.) (London: Brill, 2004),pp. 115 – 128.

Perennial Pyrenees

Posts tagged with christianity

Extract (#1) from Chapter Three of ‘Highly Holy’.

Extract from Chapter Two of ‘Highly Holy’

Extract from Chapter One of ‘Highly Holy’.