One of the great paradoxes of the medieval period is the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1225), in which monks of the Cistercian Order took an active and violent role in campaigning against the heretics of the Languedoc. Why, and how, did this order officially devoted to prayer and contemplation become one of the prime orchestrators of one of medieval Europe’s most gruesome affairs? This thesis seeks to answer that question, not by looking at the crusading Cistercians themselves, but at their predecessor Bernard of Clairvaux, who—I will argue—made the Albigensian Crusade possible by making it permissible for monks to intervene in the world outside the cloister. The logic of this thesis is as follows. Bernard of Clairvaux lived in a world in which monastics had a certain spiritual authority that granted them special privileges over ecclesiastics (Chapter II). The Cistercian Order itself, even before Bernard became their prime mover and shaker, used these privileges to cultivate contacts beyond monastic borders (Chapter IV), and once Bernard became a prominent abbot himself, his desire to do good and criticisms of the outside world (Chapter VI) led him to intervene in various endeavors (Chapter V). These interventions drew backlash from other monastics and ecclesiastics, which then required justification in order to reconcile the vita passiva and Bernard’s active lifestyle (Chapter VII). These justifications, along with Bernard’s justifications of violence (Chapter VIII), came to more broadly characterize the Cistercian Order as a whole (Chapters I, IV), and thus the ideological material to justify monastic holy war was all present in eloquently defended and rapturously accepted form by the time Henry of Clairvaux took a castle during his 1281 preaching mission turned mini-crusade (Chapter IX). With all of this built into the Cistercian DNA, Arnaud Amaury found it very easy to lead a crusade in 1212. Could he have done this without Bernard’s example paving the way and ingraining such lessons in Cistercian thought? It is my contention that he could not have.

La thèse propose une nouvelle édition critique du corpus lyrique du troubadour Guilhem Figueira (BdT 217), originaire de Toulouse mais actif principalement en Italie du Nord dans la première moitié du XIIIe siècle. Poète représentatif du climat historique et culturel toulousain à l’époque de la croisade contre les Albigeois, protagoniste de la diaspora de poètes et intellectuels et membre d’un cercle idéal de troubadours frédériciens, Figueira nous a laissé une chanson d’amour, deux sirventes contre la papauté de Rome et les faux clergés, deux sirventes pour Frédéric II et deux chansons de croisade. Il échangea aussi deux coblas et une tenson avec Aimeric de Peguilhan (BdT 10). Par rapport à l’édition de référence (Emil Levy, 1880) on a inclus une cobla esparsa anonyme contre Sordel (BdT 437) conservé dans le chansonnier P ; par contre, on a décidé de ne pas accueillir les deux pièces qui lui sont attribuées par le chansonnier a2. On a fourni une étude de la tradition manuscrite, qui compte aujourd’hui cinq nouveaux témoins, avec une mise à jour de la bibliographie ; une étude des thèmes, de la métrique et de la langue de Figueira, une traduction des pièces en italien et un commentaire ponctuel des textes ; un glossaire complet et deux annexes (l’édition du sirventes BdT 217.4a qu’on n’a pas jugé authentique mais qui sert pour l’interprétation d’une autre poésie et les premiers résultats d’une recherche sur Emil Levy éditeur de troubadours, avec l’édition de neuf lettres qu’il envoya à Ernesto Monaci entre 1879 et 1887 et que nous avons trouvé à Rome). / The thesis proposes a new critical edition of the lyric production by Guilhem Figueira (BdT 217), who was born in Toulouse and active during the first half of the XIIIth century, mainly in Northern Italy. Figueira’s corpus is representative of the historical and cultural climate in Toulouse during the Albigensian crusade; he was himself a protagonist of the diaspora of poets and intellectuals and a member of an ideal circle of Friderician troubadours. He left a love song, two sirventes against the papacy and the false clergy, two sirventes for Frederic II and two crusade songs. He also exchanged two coblas and one tenson with Aimeric de Peguilhan (BdT 10). In comparison with the critical edition by Emil Levy (1880), we have included an anonymous cobla esparsa against Sordel (BdT 437), preserved by the chansonnier P; on the other hand, we have decided not to accept two other poems assigned to him by a2. The thesis opens with a study of the tradition, which today includes five new witnesses, with an update of the bibliography; we have provided a study of themes, metric and language of Figueira, an Italian translation and a punctual commentary of the poems; a complete glossary and two appendices (the edition of sirventes BdT 217.4a, which we considered inauthentic but helpful to the correct interpretation of another poem; and the first results of a research on Emil Levy editor of troubadours, with the edition of nine letters he sent to Ernesto Monaci between 1879 and 1887 that we have found in Rome).

Ce travail de thèse de doctorat consiste en une analyse minutieuse du discours de propagande politique et religieuse dans la partie anonyme de la Chanson de la Croisade albigeoise, construite comme une suite qui détourne, fond et forme, le texte du premier auteur Guilhem de Tudela. Située dans le champ disciplinaire de la littérature médiévale, cette étude prend en compte les apports interdisciplinaires de la théologie chrétienne, l’histoire politique, militaire et religieuse, pour l’essentiel. Nous avons pu souligner les relations d’intertextualité entre les sirventés de la période du conflit albigeois et certains points importants du propos de l’Anonyme. Cette étude a permis de réorienter les recherches en vue de l’identification de l’auteur en démontrant la mention explicite d’un mécénat. L’Anonyme remplace l’argumentation de Guilhem de Tudela sur l’hérésie en pays d’oc qui justifiait la croisade, par la notion d’héritage lignager qui, elle, implique que les Méridionaux luttent contre leur dépossession sous la conduite des comte raimondins de Toulouse. Nous avons montré que le discours politique se fonde dans le religieux, car l’Anonyme a bien compris que seule la démonstration de la catholicité des Raimondins pouvait assurer le succès de l’entreprise de reconquête : il élabore l’idéologie d’une contre-croisade. L’auteur insiste sur une triangulation d’un lien à la terre qui vaut lien du sang entre les Méridionaux, leur seigneur raimondin et les territoires placés sous la garde d’un Dieu protecteur. Nous montrons que l’argumentation est fondée sur deux postulats : la trahison du suzerain français et ses barons, associés à un clergé menteur de faux prédicateurs. / This doctoral dissertation is a detailed analysis of the religious and political propaganda in the anonymously authored section of the Song of the Albigensian Crusade, a section generally thought of as reshaping the form and content of the text of its original author, Guilhem de Tudela. Anchored in the field of Occitan medieval literature, this study takes into account interdisciplinary contributions of Christian theology as well as religious, political and military history. This work highlights intertextual connections between sirventés from the period of the Albigensian war and certain aspects of the work of the anonymous author. This study permits a reorientation of scholarship on the identification of the author by bringing attention to the explicit mention of a sponsor. The anonymous author replaces Guilhem de Tudela’s arguments of heresy in the Occitan territories, which justified the crusade, with the notion of inherited lineage to imply that the Southerners were fighting against their dispossession under the command of the Raimondin count of Toulouse. The political discourse in the work is based on religious rhetoric, as the anonymous author understood that only a demonstration of the catholicity of Raimondins could ensure the success of the reconquest; as such he developed an ideology of a counter-crusade. The author insists on a threefold connection to the land consisting of a blood relationship between the Southerners, their lord Raimondin, and territories under the care of a protective God. The anonymous author’s argument is based on two postulates: the betrayal of the French suzerain and the association of its barons with a lying clergy of false preachers.

<p>This study presents a new reading of the <i>Perlesvaus</i>, an anonymous thirteenth-century Old French Grail romance bizarrely structured around an Arthurian restaging of the battle between the Old and the New Law. I construe this hyper-violent, phantasmagorical text as a profoundly significant work of “trauma fiction” encoding a hitherto-unrecognized crisis of religious ethics and identity in Western Europe in the first half of the thirteenth century. Combining literary and historical analysis and drawing on current trends in trauma studies, I tie what I term the “deranged discourse” of the <i>Perlesvaus</i> to the brutal onset of internal crusading in southern France (the papal-sponsored Albigensian Crusade, 1209-29), making the case that the collective trauma staged in its narrative perturbations was a contributing factor in the well-documented worsening of Western European antisemitism during this period. One key analytical construct I develop is the “doppelganger Jew”—personified in the <i>Perlesvaus</i> by its schizoid authority figure, Josephus, a conflation of first Christian priest and first-century Romano-Jewish historian—who functions as an uncanny embodiment of powerful, unacknowledged fears that Christians were losing their spiritual moorings and reverting into reviled, scapegoated Jews. Traces of this collective trauma are explored in other contemporary texts, and one chapter examines how the fourteenth-century <i>Book of John Mandeville</i> revives similar fears of collapsing Judeo-Christian identity and unfolds under the sign of the doppelganger Jew.</p>