We shall add to this as more novels come our way.

Historical Novels

A dated but still interesting introduction to historical fiction in general is Helen Maud Cam’s, Historical Novels, Historical Association Pamphlet no. 48 (London, 1961). For a modern online bibliography of medieval ones see here; and for the sub-genre of medieval historical crime novels, see this pdf.

Bibliography of novels about inquisition and heresy

Many English language Cathar / inquisition novels are listed at this site.

There is a flourishing trade in French comic-strip style graphic novels (bandes dessinées) about Cathars. There is a list of them at this site. In the website of an online bookshop, enter ‘BD’ (for bandes dessinées) and ‘cathares’ and/or ‘catharisme’.

Useful scholarship on these novels

i. Dotty novels about the Cathars

The last chapter in Malcolm Barber’s The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages, 2nd edn (Harlow, 2013), is entitled ‘Cathars after Catharism’. It provides a very interesting and attractively written account of the often mad modern constructions of the subject - treasure, Templars, people imagining themselves as re-incarnated Cathars – that form the context of many dotty Cathar novels; see also the ‘Further reading’ on this chapter, pp. 280-1, and J.-L. Biget, ‘Mythographie du catharisme (1870-1960)’, Cahiers de Fanjeaux 14 (1979), pp. 271-342.

ii. The genre in general

There will be some more scholarship on heresy and inquisition in novels, and when we have tracked it down we shall present it here! Historical Novels

Our brief list of novels

Derek Armstrong, The Last Troubadour (2007) and The Last Quest (2009), first two novels of a planned trilogy, Song of Montsegur; perhaps delayed or stopped by bankruptcy of the publisher, Kumati Inc?

Edward Burman, The Image of Our Lord (London, 1990). Features inquisitor Jacques Fournier, Templars and a relic.

Sophy Burnham, The Treasure of Montsegur: A Novel of the Cathars (New York, 2002).

Hannah Closs, The Tarn Trilogy: High are the Mountains (London, 1945), And Sombre are the Valleys (London, 1949, re-issued as Deep are the Valleys), and The Silent Tarn (London, 1955, published though incomplete): set in thirteenth-century Catharism.

Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, transl. (London, 1983). Because it’s translated from Italian, Bernard is Bernardo Gui. He appears on p. 300 & thereafter; interrogation, pp. 369-90. In the 1986 film he is played very villainously and with great relish by F. Murray Abraham.

R. Escholier and M. Gardelle, The Secret of Mont-Ségur, transl. (London, 1955). Looks back from second world war and 1870 towards the Cathar perfecti.

Catherine Jinks, The Inquisitor (Sydney, 2000); early 14th century southern France.

Catherine Jinks, The Secret Familiar Confessions of an Inquisitor’s Spy (London, 2006).

Catherine Jinks, The Notary (Sydney, 2000).

R.R. Merliss, The Year of the Death (London, 1965). Principally Black Death and medicine, but inquisition and Waldensians also feature; not recommended.

Kate Mosse, Labyrinth (London, 2005) – crosses between archaeology in 2005 and Cathar Languedoc in 1209.

Z. Oldenbourg, Destiny of Fire, transl. (London, 1961), from Les Brûlés, (Paris, 1960). It is set among southern French Cathars from the early 13th century to the fall of Montségur. An historical introduction is followed by a preface in which the author presents her own views directly.

Z. Oldenbourg, Cities of the Flesh: or, The Story of Roger de Montbrun, transl. (London, 1963) from Cités charnelles (Paris, 1963).

E. Peters, The Heretic's Apprentice. The Sixteenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael, (London, 1989). Heresy in the 1140s features a bit.

Saint-Loup (pseudonym of right-wing writer Marc Augier, Nouveaux cathares pour Montségur (Paris, 1969): cathars, mystery and Nazism.

H. Waddell, Peter Abelard (London, 1933): bk. 4, ch. 1 (on Abelard & heresy).

Films

See above, the film of Eco’s Name of the Rose.

In Luis Buñuel's 1969 film La Voie Lactée (The Milky Way) the travelling pilgrims meet on their way and sometimes argue with heretics who come from various stages in the Church’s history – they range from Priscillianists to Jansenists.