5 - Heresy: a social and cultural life

Summary

Here we begin to piece together an impression of the impact of the Cathar and Waldensian heresies on everyday life in Quercy. To begin with we look into the question of the relationship between the family and heresy, examining some families in detail and drawing on the full range of evidence we have for them in order to suggest the scope and scale of heretical adherence in the sorts of families that played a part in Quercy's political and religious development by c.1240. First we observe some further families at relatively close quarters. They are interesting in terms of the devotional and secular networks of which they were part. They are not necessarily typical of some of the wider patterns describing heresy, the individual and the family in Quercy. Those will be explored later.

The Sectarian and the Family

Some ‘heretical families’

The Pellegri are interesting for several reasons. Duvernoy identifies them as notables of Gourdon. They were already growing in significance in our period and Bulit describes how they continued to grow in importance in Gourdon right into the fourteenth century. They seem to be among those families that had risen from more humble status, like the Grimoards; non-noble but significant nonetheless. They are also part of a set of only four families represented in Doat 21 by two or more people, of which all deponents admitted contact with the same sect and only that sect.