July 3, 2013
Minerve: Lot Casserot in Caunes-Minervois
Two things generally known about Languedoc-Rousillon are 1. that it is an area known for its reliance on animal fat, rather than butter (as in Normandy and the Île de France); or, olive oil (as in Provence); and, 2. that in the twelfth century it was the center of the Albigensian heresy and the twenty-year crusade against it.
While the marvelous products (meat pâtés, fish pies called tielles, Minervois wine) made by local producers are easily digested, the crusade against the Cathars, as the heretics of Languedoc-Roussilon were called, less so. Briefly, those local lords and their dependents became convinced of a teaching that rejected the validity, not of the soul, but of the body, preaching radical abstinence in reaction to the perceived excesses of the Roman papacy.
While the history of the extirpation of the Cathars is testament to the ruthlessness and zeal with which one man, Simon de Montfort, pursued them, as a modern, it is hard to appreciate the temper of the times without seeing the ruins of Minerve, (which was wiped out); or, the church of Saint Nazaraire in Carcassonne, where Saint Dominic preached against the Albigensian heresy.
A joke about a Dominican who meets a Jesuit (rival orders with long histories) has the Dominican boasting that his order brought the Albigensian heretics back to the Church. The Jesuit, on the other hand, says that his order brought the Protestants heretics back to the church.
The Dominican responds, "Do you see any Albigensians around here?"
Minerve, today a hamlet of one hundred and twenty people, is not just any village in Languedoc-Rousillon. Placed between deep gorges reminiscent of the Grand Canyon, Minerve is located at the very end of a limestone plateau, rock on all sides of its parameters. It is an eerie place, particularly when you know that on July 22, 1210, after six weeks of bombardment by Simon de Montfort's forces, Minerve capitulated. Capitulation meant renouncing Catharism and adhering to the Catholic faith, abandoning the Counts of Toulouse (the local powers in the region) and accepting the authority of the Capetians of northern France. It also meant a secondary role for Occitan, the language of the region, an offshoot of Catalan. In Minerve, one hundred forty villagers refused and were burnt at the stake, a collective immolation memorialized in Minerve by a column dedicated to their resistance to the Crusaders.
Today, Minerve, the drive to which is a test of will and nerves , is a must-see for knowledgeable visitors to l'Aude. Completely isolated, a few dedicated artists, a bookseller (with an enormous selection of books in French), and a few winegrowers planting on the plateau, keep the village going. While in the summer Minerve is awe-inspiring witness to human will, in the winter the weather must make the bones shake. Three-hundred-and-fifty out of three-hundred-sixty-five days a year, the wind blows in l'Aude, but in Minerve, it must have the force of a Crusader army.
I ask one of the artists, Jean Laffitte, a painter and sculptor who moved to Minerve from Caunes, what it is like in the winter.
"Very quiet", he says with a smile. "That is when I produce the work you see around you."
***
Minerve is not the only place in l'Aude whose history gives one pause. Caunes-Minervois, the lovely village with the Benedictine abbey, had a strange thing happen there. The story is related to the old cemetery, formerly located up the hill off avenue des Minervois in an area called Lot Casserot. Apparently, at some point, the local authorities decided that the old cemetery was no longer appropriate to the purpose and the hill ought to be developed for new homes. The remains of the interred were disinterred and transferred to a new cemetery outside Caunes-Minervois.
The only problem was that those who actually removed the dead from their resting places didn't do so carefully enough. For years after, village dogs would bring home bones and skulls they dug up at Lot Casserot.
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