The de Montfort Histories - The Dove and the Devil Read online

  The de Montfort Histories:

  The Dove and the Devil

  GRADYN

  BELL

  About the Author

  I now call England my home, once again, after having travelled extensively and lived in England, France, Canada and the USA.

  From a young age, I’d wanted to write and tell stories. Years of studying history, French and English, and reading - a great deal - give me the perfect background for writing my historical stories. I love to tell a tale and bring the past to life in what I hope you will find is a vivid and compelling manner.

  I visit (and often live!) in the places of that I write about. The De Montfort Histories begin with “The Dove and the Devil” where I was inspired by the tragic tale of the Occitanian people in 12th and 13th century France. Will goodness and love conquer evil?

  The Goodmount Chronicles are centered in England and begin with “The Lady of Lyngford” and the sufferings befalling the population during the time of The Great Pestilence (later known as the Black Death). How will life be lived and love be found throughout this tumultuous time in history?

  I would love to hear from you – please email me at: [email protected]

  All the best!

  Gradyn

  Contents

  Setting the Scene: An Historical Note

  List of Characters

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Excerpt from The de Montfort Histories: The Dove In Flight – Book Two of The de Montfort Histories.

  Setting the Scene: Historical Note

  Most people, in England especially, but also around the world have heard of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Indeed there are institutions and even a university named after him in England. The Simon they have heard of is counted a national hero because of his work to bring parliamentary rule to the people of England. He called his first Parliament in 1264. He was killed in 1265 at the battle of Evesham by Henry the Third’s son who would later become Edward the First. The first book in the de Montfort Histories concerns itself not with this Simon but with his father, also called Simon, and his younger brothers, Amaury and Guy.

  The de Montforts came from a fairly small estate in Northern France. They were connected to the Earl of Leicester through Amicia de Beaumont, who was Simon senior’s mother and the grandmother of the English hero, Simon. At the time of the opening of The Dove and the Devil, Simon senior had pledged himself to go on a Crusade to rescue Jerusalem from the so-called Infidels.

  As things turned out, the Crusade became a political football rather than a religious experience for the Crusaders who had set off for Venice where they intended to take ship for the Holy Land. Because they could not pay for the ships they had requisitioned, it was suggested they attack the nearby city of Zara where they would be able to refill their coffers and pay their debts. Simon was horrified at this suggestion and he declined to take part in an attack on a largely Christian city.

  Following this the Pope called another Crusade in 1208 against a group of people who lived mainly in the South of France. These people wished nothing more than to live in peace with their neighbours and worship in freedom. They called themselves Christian but the Church in Rome called them heretics. It was the first time ever that a Crusade has been called against a Christian people – although it was not the first time a Christian city had been attacked by the Soldiers of Christ, the Crusaders.

  The Pope was convinced that the heretical peoples of the southern part of France were poisoning the Church and weakening its considerable power. His very real fear that the Church’s authority was being undermined drove him to allow his flock - archbishops, bishops and priests - to pursue a course of human extermination, which might very well be called the first documented genocide in history.

  These people, the Cathars (from the Greek, meaning “pure ones”), were a group who could never agree with the doctrinal teachings of the Church and whose beliefs predated those of the Church of Rome. Their religion was pure and had not become adulterated by powerful, money-seeking clerics. The Cathars refused the sacraments of the Roman Church; they gave women a place in society equal to men; they insisted that to know God was to speak with Him personally through prayer, and not through a priest.

  The elders of the Cathar Church were great speakers who refused to take shelter behind vague religious principles; they sought to offer an explanation for our existence in clear and certain terms. There were no mysteries in the Cathar’s doctrine. Everyone could have access to the Almighty - the only requirement was to live as perfect a life as possible.

  It is true that the Crusade was patently about more than religion. The row was political in the extreme, and the King of France had much to gain when the independent area of France, now known as Languedoc, fell into his clutches. The Count of Toulouse - premier baron of the area, and himself a cultured and learned man – was one of the greatest princes of the western world. Tolerant of the Cathars who lived in his domains, and indeed tolerant of Muslims and Jews, he owed allegiance to kings and emperors alike, but because his lands were viewed by the Church as a hotbed of heresy, they were ripe for attack.

  Simon senior, because he was remembered by the Pope as the man of honour who would not attack the Christian city of Zara, was called to lead the army and put down the heresy. The religious war became a war of occupation, and by 1244, with the fall of the castrum of Montsegur, the heresy, as well as most of the heretics, was all but dead. The whole area, once rich, vibrant and above all tolerant, became French. The language of the southern peoples, the Langue d’Oc - language of poetry and songs of the troubadours – slowly but surely became consumed by the language of the northern conquerors, the Langue d’Oil, the ancestor of modern-day French.

  Most of the characters in The Dove and the Devil were real. I have ascribed to them feelings and thoughts which are imaginary, though their actions are for the most part fact as we know it. What was reported in the writings at the time was largely biased in Simon de Montfort’s favour. The destruction wrought by this man and his armies in the name of the Church still rankles amongst some of the population of present day Languedoc, the old Occitania. I have heard people, to this day, refer to him as the “The Devil” and he has entered into the folklore of the area as the bogeyman with whom parents threaten their naughty children.

  The Cathar characters, except for one or two, are fictional. Esclarmonde was real and so was Dame Girauda. Guilhebert de Castres was a famous Cathar bishop who did indeed administer the consolamentum to Esclarmonde.

  Depending on where the reader looks, Simon de Montfort is portrayed as both an angel and a devil. In truth he was only a man, a loving family man, who was driven to excess by his religious ideals. That these excesses caused so much suffering and the near extermination of a people, is the price that has to be paid when moderation flies out the window and we are blind to anyone else’s point of view.

  As to the Shroud of Turin, the
re are many theories regarding the origin and provenance of this piece of linen. It is an historical fact that the material with the so-called imprint of the body of Jesus Christ disappeared from view in 1204 for a period of about 150 years. It reappeared in France about 1357 in the hands of one Geoffrey de Charny. It has been said that he was the nephew of the Geoffrey de Charny, Templar Master of Normandy, who had been burned at the stake in 1314.

  At the time of the main suppression of the Cathar heresy (1208-1244), many Cathar noblemen joined the Templars and much of their property was ceded to these bellicose religious knights. Although the Templars pretended to remain neutral during the Crusade, many of their high-ranking officials came from Cathar families. It is not beyond belief, therefore, that the Shroud, having been rescued by one or more Templar knights from the destruction of Constantinople, could have been brought to Occitania – the present day Languedoc – in order to prevent its falling into the hands of the Roman Catholic Church.

  When the fortress of Montsegur finally fell in 1244, it was said that a great treasure had been spirited away two weeks before! I leave it to the reader’s imagination to discern the identity of this great treasure…

  Major Characters

  Historical

  Simon de Montfort, Lord of Montfort L’Amaury, Northern France, a Crusader, “The Devil”.

  Alicia de Montmorency, wife of Simon de Montfort.

  Amaury de Montfort, eldest son of Simon and Alicia.

  Guy de Montfort, second son of Simon and Alicia.

  Domingo da Guzman, later St Dominic, founder of the Dominican Order.

  Esclarmonde, a Cathar Perfecta.

  Raymond-Roger, Count of Foix, brother of Esclarmonde.

  The Count of Toulouse, the principle nobleman of Occitania.

  Arnold Almeric, Papal Legate and religious leader of the Crusade against the Cathars.

  Pope Innocent III.

  Count Thibaut of Champagne.

  Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice.

  Fulques de Neuilly, Papal Legate who preached the Crusade of 1204.

  Fictional

  Maurina Maury, a Cathar, “The Dove”.

  Arnaud Maury, father of Maurina.

  Pierre and Saissa Boutarra, Maurina’s foster parents.

  Pons Boutarra, Maurina’s foster brother.

  Bertrand Arsen, a Cathar Perfectus.

  Alain de Toulouse, illegitimate son of the Count of Toulouse.

  Prologue

  Occitania, South of France, 1211 AD

  Estiers dama Girauda qu’an en un potz gitat:

  De peiras la cubiron, don fo dols e pecatz

  Que ja nulhs hom del segle, so sapchatz de vertatz

  No partira de leis entro agues manjat

  —Guilhem de Tudele. La Canso de la Crusada.

  The woman’s screams had finally ceased, silenced forever by the sheer weight of the rocks which had been hurled into the well after her body had been tossed there. A few of the soldiers standing around had the grace to look discomforted, but most of them were smiling at the thought of a job well done.

  Perhaps Dame Girauda had not minded dying; believing as she did most firmly that this life was only one of many she would live. She had undoubtedly received the consolamentum, as a Cathar of her standing would have done, and had the soldiers not finished her off in their brutish way, she would likely have starved herself to death anyway! As the inexorable tide of de Montfort’s army had swept towards the town of Lavaur, she had never once doubted that her life in this world was drawing quickly to a close.

  When the crusaders had stormed her chateau, capturing hundreds of Cathar heretics who had sought refuge there, she had begged for the lives of her ladies. One of de Montfort’s more noble knights had promised them safe conduct out of the town, but she had not lived to see him keep his promise, for she had been turned over to the common soldiery to be used as they wished. They had abused her mercilessly, several of them taking turns to rape one of the greatest and most charitable women in Occitania. They had made her watch the ignoble demise of her brother, Aimery of Montreal, as well as the company of knights who had fought valiantly to withstand the month-long siege of her town. Then they had begun to beat her. In the end, she, in common with the other heretics, had welcomed death. It was this fact more than any other that had annoyed the soldiers.

  “As to dame Girauda, they threw her into a well

  And covered her with stones

  This was a terrible crime for no one who turned to her

  Ever left her presence without help and bread to eat.”

  Chapter One

  Northern France, Twelve Years Earlier

  1199 AD

  The de Montforts

  Amaury de Montfort, woken by the unaccustomed noise in the castle, sat up rubbing his eyes, taking care at the same time not to disturb his younger brother Guy, whose presence, he judged, could sometimes be a nuisance. Clambering out of the goose down bed he shared with the four-year-old, he padded barefoot over the icy floor of the tower room and tugged at the heavy oak door of their bedchamber.

  The steps leading from the bedroom to the battlements of the castle that belonged to his father’s friend, Count Thibaut of Champagne, were even colder than his bedroom floor had been on this early winter’s morning. Amaury ran quickly, his feet scarcely touching the stone slabs. He was just tall enough to peer over the crenulations of the sturdy castle walls and what he saw caused him to draw in his breath and stare, his mouth agape.

  Below him on this cold and misty November morning was a village that had sprung up overnight whilst he had slept. Spread out beneath him in the field below was what looked like an enormous tapestry, rather like those that hung on the walls in his father’s chateau back in Montfort. Brilliantly hued pennants floated idly above dozens of multicoloured pavilions. To the little boy, they seemed like fantastic ships sailing across an ocean of haze. As he watched, the sun rose gradually and the tendrils of mist that had at first enveloped the field began to clear, revealing the small village that had sprouted from nowhere! He was sure there had been nothing in the meadow when he and his family had arrived the night before. The whole world must be here, the eight year old thought, as his eyes took in the market traders, the farriers, the beer sellers, the men at arms, some of the local militia and even servants whom he recognized from the great hall at last night’s dinner.

  Past the immediate foreground he could see young squires attending to the palfreys that had transported him and his family, the de Montforts, here to this region of the Ardennes in Northern France. Beyond them he could hear the snorting of the gaily caparisoned destriers, huge horses especially bred to carry armed knights on to the battlefield. They had accompanied their owners here to take part in what promised to be the most celebrated tournament of the year. They stamped their feet and moved about restlessly, impatient to show their mettle to a crowd that was growing by the minute. Everyone, from the noblest of lords to the lowliest of servants, was looking forward to the exciting entertainment that this last great tournament of the twelfth century would surely provide.

  Amaury shivered with excitement, hardly able to contain himself. He had been woken by the noise from the kitchens and clatter of the preparations being made for the banquet that evening. Work had begun in the great hall before sunrise that day and the kitchens had already been transformed from comfortable places to be on a cold November morning to places of purgatory, as the great fires built to roast the huge carcasses of pigs, and even bigger carcasses of bullocks, began their effort. The faces of the servants destined to turn the spits were already scarlet from the heat, and tempers were beginning to rise as the servants bellowed uncomplimentary remarks to each other.

  Outside the castle the noise was even greater. Amaury could hear the sound of hammering as market stall owners constructed their flimsy shelters under which they would display their goods. The lines of colourful booths resembled a small town bedecked with all manner of local produce. Great cheeses
vied for space with flagons of wine and butts of beer. Clearly, some of the vendors were already guilty of sampling the beer for which this part of the country was so famous. Their good-humoured voices rang out as they called to each other, cheerfully insulting the quality of each other’s goods.

  Although Amaury had been practically asleep when he and his family had arrived last night, he vaguely remembered that he had had to greet some very important people staying in the castle; he had been warned that it wouldn’t do to offend any of them. He wasn’t really very interested in the guests, no matter how exalted they were. This was his first real tournament and he wanted to take part in the preparations. He adored horses and anything to do with them. He loved his own little palfrey, but his real loves were his father’s warhorses. Simon was unaware that his son had already spent some time helping to groom the great beasts. It was a secret between the boy and his father’s squire!

  Amaury loved the warm smell of the stables and the feel of the enormous animals’ glossy coats as he rubbed his hands over their flanks. True, he needed a tall stool to reach the tops of their great domed heads, but time would take care of that. For now, he could content himself with helping to polish their shoes and currying their hindquarters. He felt in his bones that there might possibly be some opportunity to get near the huge beasts whilst he was here, and he shivered in delight at the thought. He knew both his parents would be distracted by other matters here in the domains of Thibaut of Champagne and that they would be paying scant attention to him and his little brother.

  Although he could not see clearly where the destriers were stabled from this height on the battlements, he could at least hear the clash of steel and the whinnying of the great beasts. He even thought he could smell the leather of the harnesses and saddles from where he stood, and was certain he could pick out his father’s favourite animal, caparisoned as it was in the de Montfort colours of vermilion and silver. Hopping up and down in an effort to get a better view, he saw Walter, his father’s squire, in the distance, for he wore the same livery as the destrier. The young man moved backwards and forwards between the beasts carrying bits of equipment, the sun glinting now and again on the arrogant silver lion embroidered on his tunic. That’s what I’ll be wearing soon, Amaury thought proudly.