battlements, Raymond Roger rushed back to Carcassonne, to the heart of his territory, to raise an army from his vassals in the Corbières and the Montagne Noire. He planned to return to Béziers as soon as waspracticable and attack the crusaders. Raymond Roger was escorted to Carcassonne by all of Béziers’s Jews. Crusades spelled doom for Jews, even if they were not directly concerned with either the cause or the outcome.
The next day was July 22, 1209, the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene.
The date was not without poignancy. From the eleventh century to the present day, the gypsies living near Béziers and farther up the coast toward the Rhone have had a predilection for Mary Magdalene. They believe that Mary was forced to flee Palestine by boat shortly after the disappearance of her beloved Jesus and that she, Martha, and the raised-from-the-dead Lazarus made landfall near Marseilles, from which they spread the good news about the Nazarene into the pagan countryside of Rome’s provincia Narbonnensis. It is this Mary, the flawed penitent, the once fallen woman, the one to whom proof of Jesus’ resurrection was first given, who has stoked the fires of popular piety among the common people along the Mediterranean coast.
Mary Magdalene had an even better reputation among the gnostics, the classical ancestors of the Cathars. According to many of these thinkers, Mary was actually the foremost among the apostles, outranking Peter and all his successors in Rome. The gnostic gospels were suppressed in the editing of the collective work that came to be known as the New Testament, but those that survived elsewhere often gave her an exalted, pastoral position. Even the gospel of John—admittedly, the oddity when compared with the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke—assigns Mary a staggeringly important role, in which sheis singled out to pass the first message from the resurrected Christ to the apostles. Orthodoxy subsequently played down her status and threw its weight behind Peter; many heretics were not so sure. Certainly, the implications of her apostolic primacy—women could be leaders, not just breeders—found an echo in the tentative parity between the sexes allowed in some dualist faiths. The Cathars, who prized the Gospel of John for its gnostic elements, would not have found Mary as antipathetical as other figures in orthodoxy’s communion of saints.
It was fitting, then, that the most important date in the history of Béziers, an acropolis of Catharism defended by its Catholic majority, should coincide with the feast day of a saint so rich in ambiguity and gnostic significance. Fitting, perhaps, but not particularly auspicious; for all her many attributes, Mary Magdalene was never equated with Lady Luck.
By July 22, the crusade had swarmed all over the flats to the south of Béziers. As the Biterrois on the walls watched, tens of thousands of men pitched tents, watered their horses, and lit campfires. Stretching to the distant horizon was an ocean of changing shape and constant movement, ceaselessly shifting in the summer sunshine. Trees were felled, enclosures built, flagstaffs erected. Hundreds of banners, garishly dyed for the gray monotony of the north, fluttered near the pavilions of the lords. The singing of monks could be heard, as could the braying of beasts of burden. The army prepared for a long stay before Béziers.
Just how long was the question. Arnold Amaury had already summoned the crusading lords to a meeting. During his daysalongside Peter of Castelnau and Raoul of Fontfroide, Arnold had stayed in Béziers frequently. On the monthlong march down the Rhône, the leader of the crusade would have told the French barons that the city looked impregnable. Now they could judge for themselves; their siege experts rode out to a respectful distance from the city walls and trotted around the entire circumvallation of the ramparts to look for flaws. In the view of the clergy, these French
The next day was July 22, 1209, the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene.
The date was not without poignancy. From the eleventh century to the present day, the gypsies living near Béziers and farther up the coast toward the Rhone have had a predilection for Mary Magdalene. They believe that Mary was forced to flee Palestine by boat shortly after the disappearance of her beloved Jesus and that she, Martha, and the raised-from-the-dead Lazarus made landfall near Marseilles, from which they spread the good news about the Nazarene into the pagan countryside of Rome’s provincia Narbonnensis. It is this Mary, the flawed penitent, the once fallen woman, the one to whom proof of Jesus’ resurrection was first given, who has stoked the fires of popular piety among the common people along the Mediterranean coast.
Mary Magdalene had an even better reputation among the gnostics, the classical ancestors of the Cathars. According to many of these thinkers, Mary was actually the foremost among the apostles, outranking Peter and all his successors in Rome. The gnostic gospels were suppressed in the editing of the collective work that came to be known as the New Testament, but those that survived elsewhere often gave her an exalted, pastoral position. Even the gospel of John—admittedly, the oddity when compared with the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke—assigns Mary a staggeringly important role, in which sheis singled out to pass the first message from the resurrected Christ to the apostles. Orthodoxy subsequently played down her status and threw its weight behind Peter; many heretics were not so sure. Certainly, the implications of her apostolic primacy—women could be leaders, not just breeders—found an echo in the tentative parity between the sexes allowed in some dualist faiths. The Cathars, who prized the Gospel of John for its gnostic elements, would not have found Mary as antipathetical as other figures in orthodoxy’s communion of saints.
It was fitting, then, that the most important date in the history of Béziers, an acropolis of Catharism defended by its Catholic majority, should coincide with the feast day of a saint so rich in ambiguity and gnostic significance. Fitting, perhaps, but not particularly auspicious; for all her many attributes, Mary Magdalene was never equated with Lady Luck.
By July 22, the crusade had swarmed all over the flats to the south of Béziers. As the Biterrois on the walls watched, tens of thousands of men pitched tents, watered their horses, and lit campfires. Stretching to the distant horizon was an ocean of changing shape and constant movement, ceaselessly shifting in the summer sunshine. Trees were felled, enclosures built, flagstaffs erected. Hundreds of banners, garishly dyed for the gray monotony of the north, fluttered near the pavilions of the lords. The singing of monks could be heard, as could the braying of beasts of burden. The army prepared for a long stay before Béziers.
Just how long was the question. Arnold Amaury had already summoned the crusading lords to a meeting. During his daysalongside Peter of Castelnau and Raoul of Fontfroide, Arnold had stayed in Béziers frequently. On the monthlong march down the Rhône, the leader of the crusade would have told the French barons that the city looked impregnable. Now they could judge for themselves; their siege experts rode out to a respectful distance from the city walls and trotted around the entire circumvallation of the ramparts to look for flaws. In the view of the clergy, these French
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