In Search of a Thesis

Montaillou seems to be such an appropriate way to begin a study of microhistory because it is so indisputably about a microcosm of the fourteenth century French society it studies.  Not having much experience with microhistory, I am wondering whether the micro scale itself of this book is a part of the author's thesis.  In other words, by exploring new details and elements of the culture of this medieval society on a minute scale, can the thesis of the book simply be the factual history of these ordinary people?  Obviously readers can postulate a number of lessons about the period from these factual details.  For myself, the first thing that comes to mind is how much human nature and behavior has remained the same 700 years later (preoccupations with religion, wealth, family, betrayal, and sex).  Although I had trouble finding a more explicit thesis, and Ladurie gives us no formal conclusion, perhaps his comments at the end of the book are instructive when he noted that fourteenth century repression and contagion were unable to destroy the ancient habitat, and that fourteenth century Montaillou culture was directed toward a self-preservation that still exists (but perhaps is under threat from the modern world).

The index of families was very helpful in sorting our the various Montaillouians with similar names.  It would have also been helpful to have had a traditional index for terms, usually French terms, for which I found myself wanting to return to the page where they were originally defined, but having no index, could not find them.    

Mi casa es su casa

I also found the part about the domus to very interesting. It is more than a house, more than four walls, and even more than the immediate family that lives within it's walls. The concept of the domus allowed for a variety of formats for the "family" and included servants, concubines, in-laws, and guests. It was a community that chose itself to a degree larger than is allowed to families today. Or maybe we are coming back around to the fluid concept of family, or domus, that was more convenient in a far away, if not more simple, time?

No One Expects the Occitan Inquisition!

In this detailed interrogation of a 'normal exception' in the form an Inquisitor later to be Pope in Avignon, Ladurie's Montaillou brings the physical and social environment to life of this sleepy mountain town into focus. The influence of Fernand Braudel is strongly evident in his style; although certainly reduced in scale. Ladurie's unique method is what separates the work from other medieval history. Through a detailed reading of the inquisitorial investigations of Jacques Fournier, Ladurie reconstructs for us the daily life of this village in addition to the values, social relations, sexual liaisons, and heterodox beliefs of Montaillou's inhabitants.

In my opinion the author is at his best when describing the social relations of peasant families. This includes examining the importance of the domus, and revealing attitudes towards sex that would shock modern readers such as the desirability of incest in order to preserve the wealth of the ostal. (31) The sheer variety of family types that are described leads him to conclude that the status of the family house was more important than exactly who inhabited it; although he also notes that testimonies reveal, "the importance of the domus itself, with its possible extension into other institutions," most notably marriage, and thus the household was never an island but a conduit of social interaction. (79) Somewhat surprisingly local customs and personal relationships took priority in this environment, but customs themselves depended on the membership status of each person. Ladurie tells how the heretical shepherd Pierre Maury, "had no house, he lived everywhere, detached from the goods of this world." (121) Here I felt Ladurie leaned on his own abilities as a psychoanalyst when interpreting the origins of the shepherd's attitude, but found his reasoning convincing overall. However the later sections on sexuality and gender specific relationships did raise some questions about the how the nature of the source (heretic hunting) might influence responses from the subjects. Can Cathar influenced beliefs be distinguished from local attitudes objectively?

Overall I found Montaillou incredibly rewarding to me as someone who does not read much medieval history, but has always been curious. As far as concerns over microhistory go, I wonder exactly how much a historian must know about the source he/she is working with in order to make effective use of it. Ladurie seems to know quite a lot about the material he is working with, but his insistence that, "the whole Pamiers Inquisition Registar bears the brand of [Jacques Fournier's] constant intervention," causes me to question whether this makes the source more or less accurate in its accounts of people's mentalities. (xiii)     

  

Sex, Corn, and six friends named Pierre

Critique of Ladurie’s Montaillou

Montaillou is a wonderfully detailed history, taking the reader inside the often dramatic lives of the residents of this tiny 14^th century village in the Pyrenees. In many ways it reads like a novel, albeit a novel in which the author was weirdly restricted to using about a half-dozen names, so that almost all the characters are named Pierre, Guillaume, Bernard, Jean, Raymond, or Arnaud, or the feminine versions of these names. Still, the stories are compelling (once you figure out who the author is talking about), and the details provided by this micro view of history would not be possible at a broader level.

Having mentioned the microanalysis Ladurie applied to this study, it is important to acknowledge that he did not allow himself to be entirely constrained by the microhistorical approach. At several points in the book the author ventures beyond the Montaillou microcosm to explore the external forces at play, as when discussing the idea that the “communal spirit, far from being a survival from pre-history, must have developed in upper Ariège between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries…” (pg. 106), and when offering a comparison of the Occitan and Mediterranean notions of fate (pgs. 132 & 288). Much as a more conventional history might include minute details to clarify some aspect of a broader story, a microhistory can “zoom out” to provide large-scale context for particular actions or events.

Montaillou illustrates some of the benefits of the microhistory approach, but it is not without its shortcomings. Like all authors, Ladurie is a man of his times, and when he was writing in the 1960s and 70s he was necessarily shaped by his environment. Conclusions he reached then might not be reached by someone writing this story in the 21^st century, and it is likely that an historian writing today might key into different topics for deeper exploration. For example, Ladurie writes about Arnaud de Verniolles, a boy between 10 and 12 years old, who was sexually abused at a boarding school (pg. 145). “[T]he harm was done,” Ladurie writes. “A latent tendency was awakened, and Arnaud de Verniolles was doomed to become a homosexual.” Not only would a modern author be lambasted for concluding that sexual abuse would “doom” a child to become a homosexual, but this story might well serve as a segue to zoom out, as described above, for a discussion about how common such an occurrence would be in 14^th century Europe.

Another concern with Montaillou has to do with translation. The primary sources Ladurie consulted for the book were originally spoken in Occitan, recorded in Latin, developed into a history in French, and then (in the version we read) translated again into English. Readers must keep this in mind, and recognize that this chain of translations can produce errors. For example, Montaillou includes dozens of references corn, cornfields, reaping corn, etc., but corn as we know it (maize, or maïs in French) is indigenous to the Americas and was not introduced to Europe until the Columbian Exchange of the 16^th century, so could not have existed in Montaillou in 1308. It is likely that the crop in question was actually wheat or some other grain, which, along with corn, can be generically translated as blé in French. This is obviously a minor and somewhat nitpicky point in terms of the larger story of Montaillou, but it highlights the fact that such errors occur, and if it could happen with corn, what else may have been translated incorrectly?

Overall, Montaillou is an excellent introduction to the concept of microhistory. It is well written, intimate, and provides a view of life in medieval Europe that would not be possible in a conventional historical survey. Most of all, it made me look forward to the other microhistories we will read in this course.

Source Use in Ladurie's Montaillou

Montaillou is a fascinating depiction of the way of life in a fourteenth-century L’languedocien village. I found his use of the Fournier inquisition registers fascinating. As Ladurie explains, the sources are dictations of essentially a conversation between inquisitor and suspected heretics that produced long responses. The fascinating aspect is the unexpected information that Ladurie was able to obtain through what must have been very close reading of the material. It would seem that inquisitorial papers would be rife with information on religious practices and beliefs. The goal of the inquisitor is to understand what the suspected heretic believed, so such questions seem in order. Indeed, Ladurie produces multiple chapters on these issues. In addition, one might expect the relationships that come out in the book (for instance between Bélibaste and Pierre Maury) since the inquisitor would be interested in finding other heretics, so social relations were important to him as well and would likely find their way into his papers.

Ladurie in addition to discussing these topics in depth, reads much further into the sources. He used them to draw out information on birth rates, coupling strategies (legitimate and illegitimate), gender roles, and leisure activities. Mining this wealth of information from his sources is a testament to how close and careful reading of our sources can produce unexpected results. Ladurie draws out the information on the mundane aspects of life that might go overlooked (on simply not present) in much of the other sources available from the Medieval era, especially in a village like Monataillou. It is a welcome deviation from the norm. The recounting of stories and conversations used to pass the evening while around the kitchen fire or the afternoon around elm tree in the village center, and the adventures and business decisions of the shepherds moving from Montaillou to Catalonia and back are the everyday aspects of life that are frequently lost.

There were times when I wonder if Ladurie overextended what the sources were capable of sharing. He states that history was completely unknown in the village (282). I wonder if the inquisitorial papers produced enough context that might provide a large enough sample size that would permit such a statement. In another moment, he argued that women only half-heartedly accepted Catharism (258). The context of the inquisition makes me wonder if the women might have taken advantage of their social position below the males as a strategy to alleviate themselves of an amount of guilt during the interviews. Perhaps, there is not enough evidence in the sources to go that deep, but I find it hard to believe and the women in the village generally were as passive of actors as he frequently makes them out to be (especially in issues of religion).

Nevertheless, I found Ladurie’s use of his source base to be exceptional. 

Welcome to the HIST 535/615/635 blog for Spring 2016!