The Friar of Carcassonne Read Free

1301, during the king’s visit to Languedoc in 1304, and as a hostile witness to Délicieux at the trial of 1319. Eventually bought his freedom from the Wall in 1325.
    P HILIP III (“ THE B OLD ”). King of France; b. 1245, r. 1270–85. Father of Philip the Fair. Died in Perpignan at age forty following a disastrous war on the other side of the Pyrenees against the Kingdom of Aragon.
    *P HILIP IV (“F AIR ”). King of France; b. 1268, r. 1285–1314. Ruthless, powerful monarch, one of the great Capetians. Expanded the royal domain, despoiled many of his subjects to meet his ever-expanding need for revenue. Quarreled famously with Pope Boniface VIII, warred with England’s Edward I, fought rebellion in Flanders, brutally suppressed the Templars. Won over by Bernard Délicieux’s eloquence in 1301 at Senlis; appalled by his impudence in 1304 at Toulouse.
    P IERRE F LOTE (d. 1302). Lawyer, educated at Montpellier. Most powerful courtier of Philip the Fair at mid-reign. First non-ecclesiastic to be chancellor of France. Organizer and principal participant of the Estates-General in 1302. Stomped to death at the Battle of the Golden Spurs.
    P IERRE J EAN O LIVI (1248–1298) Franciscan. Theorist of the Spiritual Franciscans. Author of influential scholarly treatises on poverty and apocalyptic speculation. Many of his works subsequently condemned by the Church. Revered as an uncanonized saint by the Spirituals and Beguins of Languedoc.
    P IETER DE C ONINCK (d. 1332). Flemish weaver and rebel. Led the Bruges Matins of 1302. Associated with Jan Breydel, a baker of Bruges, as a co-conspirator, though Coninck’s role is on surer historical ground. Statues of both men adorn the marketplace in Bruges. The city’s football stadium is named after Breydel.
    R AIMOND C OSTA. Bishop of Elne, beginning in 1290. Lawyer educated at Bologna in late 1260s. Agitator against inquisition in Carcassonne in 1280s. House in Carcassonne used as meeting place for anti-inquisitorial party.
    R AIMOND DE M OSTUÉJOULS. Bishop of St. Papoul. Intimate of Pope John XXII. Judge at trial of Bernard Délicieux in 1319. Made a cardinal in 1327.
    R AMON L LULL (1232–1315). Majorcan polyglot scholar, artist, botanist, political theorist. Friend of Bernard Délicieux. Frequent traveler to the lands of Islam. Author of first major works in Catalan, including first European novel, Blaquerna . Pioneered the autobiography. Lay member of the Franciscan Third Order.
    *R ICHARD L ENEVEU (d. 1309). A bishop of Normandy, appointed with Jean de Picquigny to investigate Bishop Bernard Saisset of Pamiers. Subsequent ally of Bernard Délicieux. Died a leper in Béziers.

BROTHER BERNARD
    O N THE CRIMSON WALL of a gallery of nineteenth-century art in the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse, one painting stands out from its fellows. Amidst old-fashioned works depicting deeds of the great and poses of the idealized, a study of a medieval courtroom drama beckons the beholder to linger.
    It is the autumn of 1319. A Franciscan friar stands in a cold chamber facing a group of five dignitaries seated on a lofty stone bench. They are wrapped in fur and brocade; three wear the miters of episcopal authority. Their faces are closed, as stony as their surroundings. Between these petrified postures of hostility and the lone Franciscan is a low desk strewn with parchment rolls and open books. An official enrobed in ermine sits at it, glowering at the upright figure. His companions at the desk are two black-cowled and faceless scribes, one poring over what is undoubtedly a register of past condemnations, the other hunched over at his task, his quill scratching away, transcribing every damning word of the friar’s speech.
    For the Franciscan is indeed damning himself. His listeners are his judges, who have accused him of interfering with the inquisition in its quest to extirpate “heretical depravity” in the south of