Bernard Clergue

Last updated March 14, 2019

Bernard Clergue was the town bayle of the village of Montaillou in the south of France in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. A great deal about his life is recorded in the Fournier Register and has been studied by historians, most notably Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie in his book Montaillou .

A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian; a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. Bailiffs are of various kinds and their offices and duties vary greatly.

Montaillou is a commune in the Ariège department in the south of France. Its original, medieval location was abandoned and the current village is a short distance away.

The Fournier Register is a set of records from the inquisition into heresy run by Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers between 1318 and 1325. Fournier was later to become Pope Benedict XII.

Bernard was a member of the powerful Clergue family, the wealthiest in the village. He was the son of Pons and Mengarde Clergue and the brother of Pierre Clergue. While Pierre became the village priest, and thus the local representative of the church, Bernard became the bayle, the representative of the government. The bayle was the tax collector and the main enforcer of law and order in the town, reporting to the châtelain who ruled to town for the Comté de Foix.

Pierre Clergue was a priest in the village of Montaillou, France in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. He is the central figure in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's 1975 book Montaillou, a pioneering work of microhistory. Since then he has appeared in a number of other histories, and as the villain in the fictional work The Good Men by Charmaine Craig.

Châtelain, was originally the French title for the keeper of a castle.

While Bernard was one of the few educated and literate people in the town he was still a peasant and most of his work was farming. As bayle he farmed not only his own land, but also that of the Comté. This included the land seized from Cathar heretics. As with the rest of the family Bernard himself was a staunch Cathar, but was for a long time protected by his wealth and connections.

Peasant member of a traditional class of farmers

A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or farmer, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, peasants were divided into three classes according to their personal status: slave, serf, and free tenant. Peasants either hold title to land in fee simple, or hold land by any of several forms of land tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold, and copyhold.

While not as great a womanizer as his brother Pierre, Bernard did father a child out of wedlock: Mengarde Clergue, who later married Raymond Aymeric of Prades d'Aillon. Bernard later fell deeply in love with Raymonde Belot, whom he married.

Pierre was the unquestioned leader of the family and Bernard was devastated when he was arrested by the inquisition. Bernard reported that he had lost his "god" and his "ruler". He thus went to great ends to try to free Pierre, including dispensing some 14,000 sous in bribes, a great deal of money at the time.

The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the government system of the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy. It started in 12th-century France to combat religious dissent, in particular the Cathars and the Waldensians. Other groups investigated later included the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites and the Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges. The term Medieval Inquisition covers these courts up to mid-15th century.

The solidus, nomisma, or bezant was originally a relatively pure gold coin issued in the Late Roman Empire. Under Constantine, who introduced it on a wide scale, it had a weight of about 4.5 grams. It was largely replaced in Western Europe by Pepin the Short's currency reform, which introduced the silver-based pound/shilling/penny system, under which the shilling functioned as a unit of account equivalent to 12 pence, eventually developing into the French sou. In Eastern Europe, the nomisma was gradually debased by the Byzantine emperors until it was abolished by Alexius I in 1092, who replaced it with the hyperpyron, which also came to be known as a "bezant". The Byzantine solidus also inspired the originally slightly less pure Arab dinar.

Bernard himself was arrested by the inquisition in 1324, after a month in prison he died in the summer of that year.

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Emmanuel Bernard Le Roy Ladurie is a French historian whose work is mainly focused upon Languedoc in the Ancien Régime, particularly the history of the peasantry. One of the leading historians of France, Le Roy Ladurie has been called the "standard-bearer" of the third generation of the Annales school and the "rock star of the medievalists", noted for his work in social history.

Jean Pellissier (shepherd) French shepherd

Jean Pellissier was a shepherd in the Comté de Foix in the early fourteenth century, made notable by appearing in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. Pellissier was born in Montaillou to a family of poor peasants. One of a number of sons he became a shepherd as the family land would not enough to sustain all of them. At the age of twelve, as was the custom, he began tending his family's flock of sheep. Soon he was apprenticed in Tournon to a woman named Thomassia, likely a widow. He worked there for five or six years before returning home and living with his widowed mother and his four brothers Raymond, Guillaume, Bernard, and Pierre.

Raymonde Arsen née Vital was a servant in the Comté de Foix in the early fourteenth century. She was made notable by appearing in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. Born in Prades d'Aillon to a poor peasant family in 1306 she left to work in the home of Bonet de la Coste in town Pamiers.

Arnaud Vital was a cobbler in the Comté de Foix in the early fourteenth century. He is notable for appearing in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. Originally from a peasant family in Prades d'Aillon, he moved to Montaillou living as a boarder in the house of the Belot family. He was later joined by his sister Raymonde who came to work as a servant in the Belot home.

Raymonde Vital was a woman who lived in the Comté de Foix in the early fourteenth century, she was made notable when Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie wrote about her in his 1975 book Montaillou. Working as a servant in the home of the Belots, one of the wealthier families of the village of Montaillou, she met Arnaud Vital, a cobbler who was boarding there. She married him and the two set up house together, but the marriage was unhappy as Arnaud ignored her in favour of a series of mistresses. After Arnaud died, Raymonde married Bernard Guilhou. For a time she was also the mistress to priest Pierre Clergue.

Pierre Maury was a shepherd in the Comté de Foix. His life is known through his deposition, and the depositions of his friends and associates, to Bishop Jacques Fournier who was hunting for Cathar heretics. He plays a prominent role in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's study Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324 and in some ways is that book's protagonist.

Raymonde Testanière, known as Vuissane, was a servant in the Comté de Foix in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. She is known to us through her testimony recorded on the Fournier Register and examined in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. Vuissane was a servant in the Belot household from 1304 to 1307. She was also a mistress to Bernard Belot and had two children with him. Vuissane reported to have hoped to marry Bernard, but he was only interested in a wife from a wealthier family and eventually married Guillemette Benet. He also rejected Vuissane as she did not believe in Albigensianism.

Béatrice de Planissoles, was a Cathar minor noble in the Comté de Foix in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. She was born circa 1274, probably in the mountain village of Caussou.

Grazide Lizier née Fauré was a peasant in the Comté de Foix in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. A number of facts about her life are recorded in the Fournier Register, and her life, along with those of her fellow villagers, was analyzed in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou.

Brune Pourcel née Tavernier was a woman who lived in the Comté de Foix in the early fourteenth century, she was made notable by appearing in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. A bastard daughter of Prades Tavernier she became a servant in the house of the wealthy Clergue family of Montaillou. She left their employ upon being married but her husband soon died leaving her a poor widow. She could not even afford her own oven, being forced to use that of her aunt Alazaïs Rives.

Arnaud Baille/Sicre was a cobbler in the Comté de Foix in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. A number of details about his life are known to us through the Fournier Register, and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's analysis of those records.

Prades Tavernier was a weaver and then Cathar parfait in the Comté de Foix in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. Tavernier was originally from Prades d'Aillon, and he was named after the town. There he became a successful and prosperous weaver. Though unmarried, he had a bastard daughter named Brune Pourcel.

The Château de Montaillou is a ruined castle in the French village of Montaillou, in the Ariège département. The village of Montaillou, standing on the slope of Mount Allion, was made famous in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's history, Montaillou, village occitan.

Guillaume Bélibaste is said to have been the last Cathar parfait in Languedoc. He was burned at the stake in 1321, as a result of the Inquisition at Pamiers led by Jacques Fournier. Much of Bélibaste's biography can be found in the pages of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou; although Bélibaste never lived at Montaillou, he is frequently mentioned in the interrogations of suspected heretics from Montaillou.

Jean Duvernoy was a French medievalist. Born in 1917 in Bourgoin to a Protestant family, he began to study the Waldensians and later Catharism. He edited and translated a great number of sources, including Jacques Fournier's inquisition register, from which the French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie extracted Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error.

<i>Montaillou</i> (book) book by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie

Montaillou is a book by the French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, first published in 1975. It was first translated into English in 1978 by Barbara Bray, and has been subtitled The Promised Land of Error and Cathars and Catholics in a French Village.

References

Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error. translated by Barbara Bray. New York: G. Braziller, c1978.

Barbara Bray was an English translator and critic.

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