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Translations
The Inquisitor's Guide, A Medieval Manual on Heretics
by Bernard Gui. How to outwit heretics and pass judgement upon them. An insider's view of the infamous inquisition. Written in the 1320s, available for the first time in English.
This review of The Inquisitor's Guide was published in The New Statesman on 15th January 2007
By the early 1300s, papal authorities had stamped out the "worst excesses" of heresy in western Europe, but south-west France remained a stronghold of apostasy. Accordingly, the zealous and uncompromising Bernard Gui was despatched to the region. For over 20 years, the Toulouse-based inquisitor rooted out, tried and punished renegade Christians, lapsed converts, Jews and other transgressors. His methods were "methodical and exact", and this is the handbook he wrote for those in the same line of work. The first few chapters concern the largest renegade Christian sects: the Cathars, Beguines, Waldensians and false apostles. More colourful detail comes later, when Gui instructs on the "error and pestilence of sorcery, fortune-telling and the summoning of demons". He warns of female spirits who go about by night using "songs, fruits, plants, straps and other things" to lure their victims. He also devotes a chapter on the "intolerable blasphemies" of Jews, with a rather grim outline of the "special interrogatory" methods to be used with them. For all its kitch value - Gui's instructions are enlivened with drawings of scenes such as "The Torments of Hell" - this book is important. It is a timeless portrait of fear and ideological dogma, and an apt reminder of how ridiculous they are. MF
A Parisian Journal 1405-1449, OUP, 1968. Translated
from the Journal d'un Bourgeois, author unknown,
ed. Tuetey, Paris 1881.
Garnier's Becket, by Guernes de Pont-S-Maxence,
Phillimore, 1975, reprinted Llanerch 1998, ISBN 1 86143 023 X.
The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, by Jean Richard, Elsevier,
1979, 2 vols, ISBN 0-444-85092-9. Author, Jean Richard.
The Song of Roland, Llanerch 1996, ISBN 1 86143 005 1.
The Song of the Cathar War, by William of
Tudela and another, Ashgate 1996, ISBN 1-85928-331-4, and in paperback ISBN
0 7546 0388 1.
Daurel and Beton, Llanerch 1997, ISBN 1 86143 040 X.
Crusader Syria in the Thirteenth Century, Ashgate,
1999, ISBN 1-84014-606-0.
The Capture of Alexandria, by Guillaume de Machaut, Ashgate 2001, ISBN
0 7546 0101 3.
Booksellers can get you any of these except the Parisian Journal,
out of print but due for reissue. The Song of Roland, Daurel and
Beton and Garnier's Becket are all in paperback as is the Song
of the Cathar War.
Other translations, non-historical, include several children's books such
as those by Marcus Pfister and Hans de Beer published by North-South Books,
full of enchanting polar bears and glittering fish, and the weird and brilliant
Moroccan Myths and Legends written and illustrated by Philippe
Fix, Ragged Bears, 2004.
A
Parisian Journal 1405-1449
Covers local events in the first half of the fifteenth century - civil
war, prices and food, weather,
illness, songs, Joan
of Arc (not a saint, a witch), first European mention of gypsies,
English bad manners and poor cooking, etc. The author
changes sides from pro-Burgundian and therefore pro-English to being pro-'French'
without apparently ever noticing.
Author
His name is not known, as the oldest ms has lost its first and last pages.
Probably not a priest, as he comments during one plague on the number
of priests you would see about Paris, hurrying to take the sacrament to
the dying. But must have been a figure of some authority, as the gypsies
he went to see behaved discreetly when he was around. Interested in food
supplies, shortages, prices - perhaps did the catering for some college
or hospice? Internal evidence suggests a link with the Rue St Martin and
possibly with the church of St Merry. Compassionate, interested, outspoken
- parts of his biting remarks here and there have been scraped away, no
doubt for safety's sake.
Tuetey
Tuetey says he studied the main manuscript of the Journal in the
Vatican library, but can't have done so. No photocopies in his day, and
he must have depended on a copyist, as he has many footnotes saying that
such and such a word is missing from the manuscript, when there it is
plain as plain. He also leaves out whole phrases, and does not always
report prices correctly. Readers seriously interested in the violent economic
fluctuations of the period should use this English version to correct
Tuetey's.
Prices,
food
page 156 1420
'Corn was now so dear that a setier of good corn cost 32 francs or more;
a setier of barley, 27 or 28 francs; a 16-ounce loaf, made with the chaff,
8 blancs. As for peas and beans, no poor person ate any unless he were
given some. A quart of ordinary household wine cost at least 16 pence
parisis, the kind one used to get just as good or better for twopence.'
page
158 1421
'In April when milder weather came and people had used up all the winter
drinks they had made with apples or plums, they threw the fruit out into
the street for the St Antoine pigs to eat. But the pigs were not quick
enough; as soon as the stuff was thrown out, it was picked up by poor
people, by women and children who were glad to get it, poor wretches,
each for himself, eating what the pigs refused.'
Weather
page 157 1421
'This was indeed the longest winter anyone could remember for more than
forty years; all through the Easter holidays it snowed, froze, and was
unbearably cold. Some of the good inhabitants of the good town of Paris,
seeing this extreme poverty and suffering, arranged to buy three or four
houses and turn them into hospitals for the poor children who were dying
of starvation all over Paris. Here they had food, good fires and good
beds.'
Songs,
illness
page 84 1414
'There was a song at this time that little children used very often to
sing as they went to fetch wine or mustard in the evening; it ran: 'What
a cough you've caught in the cunt, old girl, What a cough, what a cough
in the cunt!' And it pleased God that a foul corrupt air should fall upon
the world, an air which reduced more than a hundred thousand people in
Paris to such a state that they could neither eat, drink nor sleep. They
had very sharp attacks of fever two or three times each day, especially
whenever they ate anything. Everything seemed very bitter to them, very
rotten and stinking, and all the time, wherever they were, they shook
and trembled. Even worse, they lost all bodily strength so that no one
who had this disease could bear to touch any part of his body, so wretchedly
ill did he feel. ... People who had not caught it or who had got better
would say by way of a joke, 'Have you got it? You've been singing "What
a cough you've caught in the cunt", that's what it is!' The reason being
that as well as all the misery described above, people had with it such
a fearful cough, catarrh and hoarseness that nothing like a high mass
could be sung anywhere in Paris.'
Joan
of Arc
page 263 1431
'She was soon dead and her clothes all burned. Then the fire was raked
back and her naked body shown to all the people and all the secrets that
could or should belong to a woman, to take away any doubts from people's
minds. When they had stared long enough at her dead body bound to the
stake, the executioner got a big fire going again round her poor carcass,
which was soon burned up, both flesh and bone reduced to ashes. There
were many people there and in other places who said that she was martyred,
and for her true lord. Others said that she was not, and that he who had
supported her so long had done wrong. Such things people said, but whatever
good or whatever evil she did, she was burned that day.'
Gypsies
This is the first known mention of gypsies in European literature
pages 216-219 1427
'On the Sunday after mid-August day, August 17th 1427, twelve penitents
as they called themselves came to Paris - one duke, one count and ten
other men, all on horseback. They said that they were good Christians;
that they came from Lower Egypt. Also they said that they had been Christians
formerly ... [but that later] the Saracens made war upon them. As they
were but weak in our faith, they, for very little cause, enduring but
a brief attack ... became Saracens again and denied Our Lord. [In punishment
of this, the emperor of Germany and the king of Poland sent them to Rome].
There they all went, old and young, and a hard journey it was for the
children. ... The Pope imposed on them this penance: that for seven years
they should go to and fro about the world without ever sleeping in a bed.
He also ordered, it was said, that so as to provide some means for them
every bishop and every abbot who bore a crosier should give them, once,
ten pounds tournois.'
The 'penitents' were lodged outside Paris, some hundred or so, and 'people
went from Paris, from St Denis and from all around the city. And indeed
their children were very very clever, both the girls and the boys. Most
of them - almost all of them - had their ears pierced and wore a silver
ring in each ear, or two rings in each. This, they said, was a mark of
good birth in their country. The men were very dark, with curly hair;
the women were the ugliest you ever saw and the darkest, all with scarred
faces and hair as black as a horse's tail. They had no dresses but an
old coarse piece of blanket tied on the shoulder with a bit of cloth or
string; under this all their covering was a wretched smock or shift. In
short, they were the poorest creatures that anyone had ever seen come
into France. But in spite of their poverty they had sorceresses among
them who looked at people's hands and told them what had happened to them
or what would happen. They brought trouble into many marriages, for they
would say to the husband, 'Your wife has cuckolded you', or to the wife,
'Your husband has deceived you'. What was worse, it was said that when
they talked to people they contrived - either by magic arts or by other
means or by the devil's help or by their own skill and cunning - to make
money flow out of other people's purses into their own. I must say I went
there three or four times to talk to them and could never see that I lost
a penny, nor did I see them looking into anyone's hands, but everyone
said they did.'
The
Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
The Latin Kingdom is a translation of Le Royaume latin de Jérusalem
by Jean Richard, Paris, 1953. As well as a narrative of events, it presents
an analysis of the way the crusader kingdom functioned, its laws, social
structures, ecclesiastical rivalries and economy.
Crusader
Syria in the Thirteenth Century
The 'Rothelin' Continuation of the History of William of
Tyre and part of the Eracles or Acre text; includes a description
of Jerusalem, prose narratives of events, and songs composed by angry
crusaders lamenting their commanders' laziness and incompetence. Vivid
descriptions of e.g. irresponsible crusaders striking deep into enemy
territory and then settling down to a picnic.
The
Capture of Alexandria
Translates into English blank verse the mid-14th century octosyllabic
Prise d'Alexandrie of Guillaume de Machaut, a sparkling work telling
of the life, adventures and gruesome death of Pierre de Lusignan, king
of Cyprus and titular king of Jerusalem. Classical gods and goddesses
co-operate obligingly with God Almighty, and He with them. Introduction
and notes are by Peter Edbury.
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