Moore's War On Heresy

III. Heresy “Even today,” writes Burnham, “Langeudoc’s best-known products – besides wine – are heretics, and dominant in both contemporary and historical accounts are the Cathars.” The “Cathar” heresy has continued to dominate the scene in the study of medieval heresy whether one elects to believe in their existence or not. There is no doubt to any of the scholars under examination here that heresy was real to the Latin Christian intellectuals who charged many souls to being heretics. Indeed, heresy needed to be real to them in order to define their very existence. “The fact that it was an invention,” writes Pegg, “makes it no less real for a Cistercian preacher or Dominican inquisitor, but it was not real for those they accused or persecuted.” …show more content…
Moore’s War on Heresy is a masterful work that brings to light his years of grappling with this very issue. Early in his career Moore argued in support of the “Cathar” heresy, but his views gradually began to change and his study is the culmination of his new thoughts and ideas on medieval heresy, particularly in the twelfth century. Moore is highly skeptical that there were any “real” heretics living in the lands between the Rhone and Garonne Rivers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Indeed, the scope of his book seems to grapple with how Latin Christian intellectual began to believe that heresy existed and constituted a vital threat to Christian society. The very people who wished to repress it, therefore, constructed heresy, and any attempt by historians to label to people who preachers and inquisitors labeled as heretics is misinformed and creates the very reality in which they wish to …show more content…
More research is required in order to really understand this vibrant phenomenon. The historians under study here all approached the study of heresy in their own way, even if some of their ideas or methods were similar in some aspects. The study of heresy for Pegg and Moore has been cloaked by the “Cathar” heresy. If this is the case, more studies are required to really grapple with the fallout of losing “Catharism.” That is, if we are to take out “Cathars” from the picture of heresy where does that leave the other heresies that have been studied under similar circumstances? For Pegg, we must completely rewrite the history of medieval heresy; indeed he even argues medieval religion. I do not quite agree that this step is necessary. A study of medieval heresy can (and has been done even if Burnham is at times occupied with “Cathars”) be done by removing “Cathars” from the picture. But if we are going to continue to write a history of medieval heresy with the “Cathars” then more work is necessary to really illuminate their world as too much of the evidence for “Catharism” is rooted in arguments from silence. More work, like that of Caterina Bruschi, is sure to be done on evoking the world of the “Cathars.” Furthermore, there are more inquisitorial records out there that can – and most likely currently – be mined for more fruitful information about medieval heresy. We must take into account the methodological