When I was in public school in Montreal, we learned an old hymn that began “Follow follow, follow the gleam, Banners unfurled, for all the world…” It had a wonderful melody, and I still sometimes find myself humming it mindlessly. I had no idea, then, that I was singing a hymn to the legend of the Grail, one of the mythic objects of Christian Europe. Even less did I know that this symbol inspired the early romances, precursors of the modern novel, not to mention Wagner’s triumphal Ring cycle, or that it formed a shadowy backdrop to the troubadours’ lyrics about courtly love that would inspire modern poetry and the invention of romance. Back then I certainly could never imagine that decades later I’d be on a quest of my own, entering the territory of the Grail, the troubadours, and courtly love.
In a few days I’ll be in what’s now called Languedoc, in the southwest corner of modern France. I’m on the trail of Isaac the Blind, father of kabbalah, who lived in Posquieres, not far from Montpellier. Travelling from Barcelona, I’ll be moving through a cultural tradition that defies modern national borders – France and Spain may be two separate countries in present-day Europe, but the Catalan identity precludes them both, and is enjoying contemporary cultural resurgence. Perpignan and Narbonne may fly the French flag and lie north of the Pyrenees, that natural demarcation between two modern nation states, but back in Isaac’s day, in the 12th and 13th century, they were one continuous cultural zone, and usually under the control of the counts of Barcelona or even the Crown of Aragon.
Mostly, though, and especially in the towns around Montpellier, the feudal lords were relatively self-governing. Even the influence of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy was weak here, and many local bishops joined their local lords in unusually tolerant, liberal, even free-thinking, virtually autonomous enclaves. Something went on here in the 12th and 13th centuries, something that was separate from the conventional hegemony of the Holy Roman Empire; and it was something that had a divergent view of the feminine, that even to a certain extent glorified it.
Here is a partial list of the cultural phenomena that arose to prominence in that time and place, before the politics of Church and state imposed cultural conformity and orthodoxy via military and spiritual suppression, through the Albigensian Crusade and the invention of the Inquisition:
- the cult of the Virgin Mary
- the cult of Mary Magdalen (and the production of innumerable ‘Black Madonnas’, like the one in the monastery at Montserrat, sometimes linked to Magdalene)
- the Cathar ‘heresy’, with its doctrine of equality of the sexes
- the tradition of courtly love, with its knightly chaste dedication to the admired lady
- the tradition of the Holy Grail (linked by some in recent times to Mary Magdalene and a fully human Jesus)
- the appearance of kabbalah, with its doctrine of the Shechinah, or female attribute of the divine
In our time we lend credence only to ‘truth’ or facts that can be documented. Oral history is trusted only when we know the teller. Legend, like ‘old wives’ tales’, is considered mere invention. In the Jewish tradition, on the other hand, Talmudic commentary or interpretation is conducted on two main forms of text. There is the so-called ‘law’, or precepts for conduct, called Halacha; and then there is story, or narrative, called Aggada. Both form part of spiritual thought.
With kabbalah, we will enter yet another realm of ‘truth’, the highest form of spiritual commentary or interpretation, expressed as myth and poetry. Is it any surprise that it emerged in early medieval Provence?
The Cathars are my favorite Europeans. Of course they were eradicated completely.
Some say there are remnants still…
hi kitty
liked it! liked very much the fourth “cultural phenomena” … 🙂
…and have you found the connection between the Cathar “heresy” and the Bulgarian Bogomils? It seems the Bulgarians got there first.
From Prof Wikipedia: “It is a complicated task to determine the true character and the tenets of any ancient religion, considering that almost all the information that has reached us comes from their opponents. Much of the heretical literature has been thoroughly persecuted and burned by the Bulgarian state, the Roman Empire (Byzantine) and the Holy Roman Empire (Vatican). Some has survived in changed forms in other countries like France or Italy where Bogomilism was spread under the name Catharism.
“The Bogomils were the connecting link between the so-called heretical sects of the East and those of the West. In the 12th and 13th century, the Bogomils were already known in the West as “Cathars” or in other places as “Bulgari”, i.e. Bulgarians (българи) In 1207 the Bulgarorum heresis is mentioned. In 1223 the Albigenses are declared to be the local Bougres, and in the same period mention is made of the “Pope of the Albigenses who resided within the confines of Bulgaria.” The Cathars and Patarenes, the Waldenses, the Anabaptists, and in Russia the Strigolniki, Molokani and Doukhobors, have all at different times been either identified with the Bogomils or closely connected with them…The popes in Rome whilst leading the Crusade against the Albigenses did not forget their counterpart in the Balkans and recommended the annihilation of the heretics.”
As politically sympathetic as I am toward the Cathars (I got a good dose of the official statist French position on this history when I was visiting in and around Carcassonne), I am utterly hostile to their dualist (Manichean) doctrine of the material world as a Satanic creation. Certainly the Orthodox Church, of which I am a member, teaches that the created world is a glory (as confirmed by the physical Incarnaton of Christ and his “wholly human” as well as “wholly divine” nature). But maybe Protestants think otherwise? What does Kabbalah teach?
Myrna
Myrna, it’s always so interesting how our obsessions intersect — apparently the latest scholarly thinking is that the Cathars were quite distinct from the Bogomils, although dualism (popularly labelled ‘Manichean’) is present in both…sadly, too often minorities were lumped together when labelled ‘heresies’ by the Church asserting its hegemony…
Kabbalah, like everything in the Jewish tradition, is just too varied to allow one simply ascribed tendency — there is a strain that could be loosely described as dualistic, but it was a very minority tradition and definitely not normative. There was also, for a time, scholarly interest in the theory that there may have been connections between early medieval Kabbalah and the Cathars; current thinking is contrary.
I must say, there does seem to be (unless I misunderstand) a certain anti-materialist, anti-body strain in Christianity — original sin and all that — that is by and large missing in the Jewish tradition, where the emphasis is more on the ‘appropriate’ or consecrated expression of all aspects of life
This time I venture further than Wikipedia, namely to the website of the Greek Orthodox Diocese in New York (it has amazing content, including Iconograms by email).
Here I find a saying from among the Desert Fathers (3-4 c) who rejected the lovely world:
One of the Fathers at a certain skete had the gift of clairvoyance. When a gathering (monastic council) took place and the Fathers discussed spiritual matters, he would see angels around him, applauding them. When the discussion turned to worldly matters, the angels withdrew, saddened.”
Thank heavens, the good Father didn’t have the last word.
“…the ‘enthusiastic element’ in the church led to some abuses, of which those around Eustathios of Sebastia (d. 380) are good examples. Eustathios introduced monasticism into Asia Minor from Egypt. His followers became overzealous; they taught that marriage and meat-eating made salvation impossible; they were, in fact, advocating monasticism for all Christians. The Council of Gangra (343) condemned these over-enthusiastic practices.”
Finally, Eastern Christians are not Augustinians, as I understand it. “…the Greek Orthodox perceive Augustine as a saint whose doctrines have been deformed or distorted by the West and that as a human being he erred on certain teachings.”
This gets complicated, especially when certain theologians have argued for the superiority of the Greek vs the Latin to convey theological refinements. I won’t go there. Instead:
“The Orthodox Church believes that the corruption of the God-like image of man was not complete, that man’s will became blurred, but did not disappear. Man’s desire for salvation implies that man feels his inner emptiness and turns to God for forgiveness and redemption. Almighty God in His compassion and love prepared for this regeneration of man by sending His Son, Jesus Christ the Savior….In that respect, the Church fought against the theory that the human soul is totally corrupted and man’s salvation is God’s work alone, predestining man to salvation or to perdition (Augustine).”
Whew…sorry for all this Orthodoxy, but I am myself still on a learning curve.
Myrna, I just love the quote — ‘meat-eating and marriage’ as the sure route to damnation!
One of the things I appreciate about the Jewish tradition is the firm and consistent focus on action in this world, on deeds rather than belief, as the primary locus of attention. The Kabbalists carried this further, with the notion of humans as the partners of the divine in tikkun olam (repair of the world — not viewed as ‘fallen’ so much as ‘shattered’, and hence the requirement to work towards unification). This of course is implicit in the notion of a ‘covenant’, and the idea of ‘partnership’ is explicated in various ways by the Talmudic fathers, one famous passage even ending with God’s joyous laughter because humans have surpassed him in their interpretative acts.
Here are my all-time favorite words from Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Ari, Kabbalist of Safed and source of normative contemporary Kabbalah (if such a thing even exists in the decentralized and commentary-based Jewish tradition) — ‘No body without its tikkun, no tikkun without a body’ — this world in all its materiality, and our actions within it, are the only locus of salvation.
This is so interesting Kitty. Its so full of information I need to go back to post 1 already and re-read. I love the pictures too. Sara