Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

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Excalibur is primarily an adaptation of Malory’s Morte d'Arthur (1469–70) recasting the Arthurian legends as an allegory of the cycle of birth, life, decay, and restoration.

 

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Arthur is presented as the "Wounded King" whose realm becomes a wasteland to be reborn thanks to the Grail.

 

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Perceval has a vision of the Grail during which he realizes that Arthur and the land are one. Upon answering the riddle he gains the Grail and takes it to Arthur, who drinks from it and is revitalized—as is the land, which springs into blossom.

 

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Perceval refuses to carry out Arthur's dying wish, that he throw Excalibur into a pool of calm water, reasoning that the sword is too valuable to be lost. Arthur tells him to do as he commands, and reassures him that one day a new king will come and the sword will return again. Perceval throws Excalibur into the pool, where the Lady of the Lake catches it.

 

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Perceval returns to see Arthur lying on a ship, attended by three ladies clad in white, sailing into the sun toward the Isle of Avalon.

 

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But where did the themes originate? Like all myths and legends, there is a historical source, and we need not refer to sensationalistic accounts in order to find it.

 

NEXT: "Kill them all. God will know his own."

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THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE

 

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Why art thou proud, O man? God for thee became low. Thou wouldst perhaps be ashamed to imitate a lowly man ; then at least imitate the lowly God.

St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 7

 

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In Christian theology, the Imitation of Christ is the practice of following the example of Jesus. In Eastern Christianity the term Life in Christ is sometimes used for the same concept.

 

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Augustine viewed Christ as both a sign of grace and an example to be followed, and in his later writings stated that the imitation of Christ leads to a mystical union with him.

 

 

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The responsibility lay with the individual to follow in Christ's footsteps as best suited to their nature and understanding.

 

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By the end of the 9th century, the physical imitation of Christ had grown in popularity among Christians and the 895 Council of Tribur considered triple immersion in Baptism as an imitation of the three days of Jesus in the tomb, and the rising from the water as an imitation of the Resurrection of Jesus. As though reborn, like Lazarus.

 

 

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By the 12th century, the church had become more rigid, constraining Catholics to adhere to a more literal understanding of the New Testament which left far less scope for individual interpretation, In part, this was for political reasons.

 

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Organized groups of dissidents, such as the Waldensians and Cathars, were beginning to appear in the towns and cities of newly urbanized areas. The Waldensians originated in the late twelfth century as the Poor Men of Lyons, a band organized by Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant who gave away his property around 1173, preaching apostolic poverty as the way to perfection.The Roman Catholic Church declared them heretics, stating that the group's principal error was contempt for ecclesiastical power. As a result there were many atrocities committed against them.

 

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In western Mediterranean France, one of the most urbanized areas of Europe at the time, the Cathars grew to represent a popular mass movement, and the belief was spreading to other areas. They became known as the Albigensians, because there were many adherents in the city of Albi and the surrounding area in the 12th and 13th centuries. Following the crusade the great St Cecile cathedral was built at Albi, which has a fresco of the last judgement.

 

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The Cathars believed in two equal and comparable transcendental principles; God, the force of good, and Satan, or the demiurge, that of evil. They held that the physical world was evil and created by this demiurge Rex Mundi ("King of the World"), who encompassed all that was corporeal, chaotic and powerful.

 

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Their understanding of God was entirely dis-incarnate: a being or principle of pure spirit and completely unsullied by the taint of matter. He was the god of love, order and peace. Jesus was an angel with only a phantom body, and the accounts of him in the New Testament were to be understood allegorically.

 

 

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Civil authority had no claim on a Cathar, since this was the rule of the physical world. The goal of a Cathar was to become perfect. Cathar missionaries would point out examples of clerical immorality and would contrast that behaviour with the uprightness of their own actions.

 

On becoming Pope in 1198, Innocent III resolved to deal with the Cathars. To them he would have been the representative on Earth not of God, but Rex Mundi.

 

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The Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) was a 20-year military campaign initiated by Pope Innocent to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, in the south of France.

 

By mid-1209, around 10,000 crusaders had gathered in Lyon before marching south.

 

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While discussions were still going on with the barons about the release of those in the city who were deemed to be Catholics, the servants and other persons of low rank and unarmed attacked the city without waiting for orders from their leaders. To our amazement, crying "to arms, to arms!" within the space of two or three hours they crossed the ditches and the walls and Béziers was taken. Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt…

Arnaud-Amaury