3 - ‘How do you Pray to God?’ Fragmentation and Variety in Early Medieval Christianity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
Summary
Introduction
In his statement to the Inquisition court at Pamiers, Arnaud Sicre distinguished his religious beliefs and practices from that of the Cathar perfect, Bélibaste. Both considered themselves to be good Christians.
And you, how do you pray to God? Bélibaste asked Arnaud Sicre, son of a notary of Tarascon and of a lady of Ax. I cross myself, answered Sicre, I commend myself to God who died for us on the cross, and to the Virgin Mary, I say the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria, I fast on the vigil of the Virgin.
(Ladurie 1978: 306)
Bélibaste's reply is noted as (predictably) sarcastic and cuts straight to the point:
The sheep bleats because it does not know how to speak. Let me tell you that the Ave Maria is worthless. It is an invention of the priests. As for your fasting, it might as well be the fasting of a wolf! (ibid.)
As a heretic and murderer, passionate in his opposition to a single Christian doctrine broadcast from Rome, Bélibaste was eventually consigned to the stake in 1321, the last Cathar perfect in Languedoc (O’Shea 2000: 246). From a generalised perspective, definitions of ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ were polarised and finally expressed in the persistent elimination of the Cathars at the hands of the Dominican Inquisition. Yet documented heretical ideas and sects continued to harass the Church, before and beyond the schism of the Reformation. These were only a few strands within the web of shifting theological amendments and clarifications of doctrine, political fluctuations between Church and State and the filtering of effective influence and communication with distance from the great centres of religious administration in medieval Europe: Rome, Byzantium and later Avignon. This dynamic web was itself set against a rich tapestry of local saints’ cults, feast days and regional customs whose variations owed something to the differential and often staggered pace of religious conversion from pagan to Christian, or from Christian to Christian.
During the conversion period, Christianity encountered a variety of different cultures and mentalities as it moved north and changed what it could with varied success. Subsequent modifications took place through further Christianisation, pagan reintroductions, localised ideological mutations and social upheavals.
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- Information
- The Cross Goes NorthProcesses of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300-1300, pp. 29 - 58Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2002
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