Chapter 8 of 'Hatred in Print - Catholic Propaganda and Protestant Identity during the French Wars of Religion.'
The geographical coincidence of Protestant strongholds in the French Wars of Religion and former bastions of Albigensianism has given some historians food for thought, although few suggest that it was more than accidental. Nonetheless, it has led Michel Jas, a minister and historian of the Midi, to suggest that there was a continuous heterodox tradition between the end of the Albigensian Crusade and the beginning of evangelism in Languedoc. This view is consistent with the Protestant doctrine of the true Church which argued for the parallel existance of two churches from apostolic times to the beginning of the Reformation. The Protestant demand for identity and legitimacy was answered in the shape of martyrologies and histories of the true Church. Protestant martyrologists gradually came to terms with the Catholic comparison with medieval heresy and turned it to their advantage. The adoption by the Protestant Church of the Vaudois, who were thought to descend from the twelth-century Waldensians, was motivated in part by the need to find historical evidence for this doctrine. The Albigensians, on the other hand, were ignored by the French martyrologists until much later, when they could be considered as indistinguishable from the Waldensians.
Unlike the Hussites or the Lollards, who were given ample attention from the Protestant martyrologists of the first and second generation, the Albigensians were largely ignored. Luther is famous for having claimed the Hussites and Lollards as precursors of the Reformation, and these connections were emphasized in both the Lutheran and Anglican traditions in the face of papal supremacy. The Waldensians, for their part, had survived medieval persecutions until the beginning of evangelism and were claimed by Swiss and French Calvinists as their religious forebears.
This is particularly true of the Albigensians whose radical dualism made them akin to Manichees - an affiliation that was blown up out of all proportion by their Catholic opponents. Although there is some debate as to whether the Albigensians were moderate or radical dualists, the concensus is that they believed the Devil had created the world. Calvinism
The affiliation between these two groups was put forward by the Catholics. Indeed, Jean du Tillet asserted in 1562 that the Albigensians had branched off from the Waldensians and that they shared the doctrinal beliefs of the Protestants:
These very evangelical views had been associated with the Waldensians by the Protestants with the evident intention of portraying them as members of the true church. Du Tillet made a reference to the third Lateran Council of 1179 when Pope Lucius condemned the Waldensians for the first time; they were condemned again, along with the Albigensians, by Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. This may explain the confusion that emerged, in Protestant martyrologies and Catholic histories alike, between the two. According to Flacius Illyricus, the Waldensians had been ascribed false doctrines by the Catholic Church with the sole purpose of defaming them. The Albigensians had been treated with equal contempt by the Catholics which led Protestant authors to consider them as good as the Waldensians.
John Bale wrote about them both on equal terms in his 'Image of Both Churches' (1545) where he described them as 'men doubtless of a Godly zeal and spirit'. This view was reiterated and elaborated upon in his 'Scriptorum Illustrium maioris Brytanniae ... Catalogus (1557) where he argued that they had both been upholders of true doctrine in the face of the rise of the papal monarchy. Medieval heretics were interesting to John Bale insofar as they provided him with arguments against the Papacy and the Mendicant orders. It was thought that the Waldensians and Albigensians had accused the Pope of being the Antichrist. That was enough to justify their good stamding among Anglicans and Lutherans. John Bale was undoubtably responsible for writing the article concerning the Albigensians which appeared in the first vernacular edition of John Foxe's 'Acts and Monuments'. It was largely based on the medieval chronicles of Matthew Paris and Roger Wendover, the only sources available to Bale at the time. Matthew Paris' anti-papal stance made hime a useful source for the Acts and Monuments, but his account of the Albigensians was less than flattering. Bale decided to resolve this conundrum by dismissing these views as false accusations spread by the Papacy:
Flacius Illyricus had already argued that, because the Waldensians had accused the Pope of being the Antichrist, they had been ascribed false doctrines and persecuted. Bale simply extended this argument to the Albigensians.
The first edition of the Acts and Monuments was criticized by contemporary English Catholics writing from the Continent, notably Thomas Stapleton, who attacked Bale's treatment of the Albigensians:
This direct challenge was answered in the second edition the Acts and Monuments (1570), where and entire chapter was devoted to 'The historie of the Waldenses or Albigenses'. Surprisingly, Foxe treated the Albigensians and Waldensians indiscriminately where his Lutheran predecessors had marked a clear distinction. It was in the interests of martyrologists to blur doctrinal differences and hide discrepancies between Protestant doctrine and that of their adopted forebears.
The thought process
The massacre of St. Bartholemew's Day provoked a transformation of Huguenot identity that favoured the inclusion of medieval predecessors in the Histoire des Martyrs. Although Jean Crespin died in 1572, his work was taken up by Simon Goulard who published four editions in 1582, 1597, 1608 and 1619. In a section devoted to the massacre on St. Bartholemew's Day, Goulard introduced a distinction between individual and collective martyrdom:
Jean Crespin had primarilly been concerned with compiling a list of individual martyrs whose names and examples are consigned in the Histoire des Martyrs. By contrast, Simon Goulard extended the status of martyr to anonymous medieval heretics who, like the victims of the St. Bartholemew's Day massacre had been persecuted collectively. Unlike individual martyrs who had died at the hand of the king's justice, medieval heretics had died in open defiance of temparal andspiritual authority. Their inclusion in the Histoire des Martyrs from 1582 onwards marked the beginning of a new militancy perhaps more eloquent than the tracts of the Monarchomachs.
This new militancy was no doubt motivated by the perceived involvement of the Papacy in the massacre of St. Bartholemew's Day, as reflected in Theodore Beza's own words:
'No-one can doubt that these events are the result of a plot worked out at the Council of Trent.'
Although it is doubtful that the Papacy was directly involved in the massacre, this was one of the enduring myths that emerged at this time. As a result, the Histoire des Martyrs became increasingly anti-papal, following the lead of those English and Lutheran works that had lambasted the Papacy for several decades.
As in the Acts and Monuments, anti-popery was a determining factor in the inclusion of the Albigensians in the Histoire des Martyrs:
As regards those they call heretics, namely the enemies of the Papacy, they are accused of the most horrid crimes in the world, in order to tarnish their reputation further ... From the moment the bishop of Rome declared himself to be the universal leader of the Church, there has been people of all kind ... who have denounced ... the corporeal and spiritual tyranny of the Popes.
If we call martyrs those who were executed one by one by justice, what shall we call so many thousands of excellent figures who were martyred in one fell swoop, not by one executioner, but by a multitude of commoners whose swords were the plaintiffs, witnesses, judges, sentences and executioners of the strangest cruelties that have ever been perpetrated against the Church?
Since those times have we seen more horrendous butchery and more cruel persecutions exerted against the Saints? It is true that medieval persecutions cannot be compared to those of Nero, Domitian, Decius or Diocletian; because the latter were but physical, whereas the former were spiritual as well as physical. The first persecutions were interspersed, and lasted but a few months, or a few years. But the medieval ones continued unabated for several centuries. The first ones took several thousand martyrs, whereas the later ones took innumerable multitudes. A chronicler counts 17 thousand Christians killed in one month under Diocletian. While Bellarmine ... counts 100 000 Albigensians killed in one day under the Papacy of Innocent III.
- Nicolas Vignier, L'Antichrist Romain
In their doctrines we have seen little evidence to place the Waldenses amongst the precursors of the Reformers. In terms of the education and backgrounds, the ministers had more in common with priests (from whom many, for instance in Germany, were converted) than with popular heretics. Since the heretics had traditionally rejected the tulelage of priests and learned religious figures, we are forced to conclude that only their hostility to Rome made the Vaudois suitable subjects for conversion to Calvinism.
The heresy of the Albigensians was born out of two preceeding diverse sects, condemned under Pope Lucie III, the one and the worst having taken the name of humble, the other the title of poor of Lyon, because they reproved property of goods, and as much as Valdo from Lyon was its author they were also called Waldensians after his name. The Albigensians, although they had other errors by all means conform to those of our times, since they condemn most of what the Roman Church observes, and to lure the Christians from it call it the congregation of hell, and the throne of Rome the beast described in the Apocalypse .... According to this heresy the sacraments are annihilated, confirmation, extreme unction, auricular confession and imposition of penance are held frivolous things, the Sacred Host of God called bread, Mass abomination, crucifixes and images of the churches idolatry.
What these Albigensis wer, it cannot be wel gathered by the olde popish histories. If there were any that did holde, teache, or maintaine against the Pope ... the histories of that tyme ... doe so deprave them, and misreport them, suppressyng the truthe theyr artycles, that they make them and paynt them foorth to bee worse than Turkes and infidels ... Otherwise it is to be thoughte, and so I fynde in some recordes, that the opinions of the sayde Albigenses were sounde ynought.
Now for the other secte of the Albanenses or Albigenses, springing of the loins of the holye brother Waldo, beside the common and usuall errours of the Waldenses ... they preciousse (sic) martyrs with M. Foxe ... Now let Mayster Foxe make an accompte of his holy martyrs, and see how many he can find, that have not mayntayned the sayd errours, of these Albigenses, Paterans, or Waldenses: and he shall fynde his holye cataloge altogether voyde and empted.
- Simon Goulard, on the St. Bartholemew Day Massacre of the Huguenots
in the Histoire des Martyrs