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)