The Heretic’s Handbag: Folk Magic and Survival in Medieval France

Eleanor Janega (0:02)

Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Janega, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots and murders that tell us who we really were, and how we got here.

The air in the Inquisitor's stone chamber at Pommier hung heavy and damp. Jacques Fournier, the bishop of Pommier and future Pope Benedict XII, presided over a heavy wooden table, his piercing gaze rarely missing a detail. He was feared for conducting the most meticulous and fastidious Inquisition of the Middle Ages. Opposite sat 46-year-old Béatrice de Planisolles, a widow from the Perinean region of Languedoc in southern France. Between them were strewn the contacts of her bag, the raw and intimate evidence of a forbidden life.

Fournier leaned forward and prodded a cluster of shriveled, leather-like scraps. And what are these, he asked? Those belonged to my grandsons, Béatrice replied, her aussitons tongue firm and unabashed. A Jewish woman she'd once met had shared a piece of advice, she explained. Carrying around the dried umbilical cords of her grandsons would guarantee that she would never lose a lawsuit. With disarming pragmatism, she added that since no one had ever brought a lawsuit against her, she had not yet been able to verify if the charm worked. Swift notes were made before the bishop prodded the next item. Rags stiffened with dark, dried stains. And flinching, Béatrice readily admitted the rags were soaked with her daughter's very first menstrual blood. She had been told, she said, that if she brewed a drink containing this blood for her new son-in-law, the man would never be unfaithful to her daughter. As Fournier's hand moved to a few unassuming morsels of dried, crumbling bread, Béatrice deliberately evaded them, offering no story or explanation. The Inquisitor noted her silence with quiet satisfaction. He needed no explanation. He understood what those crumbs represented. Definitive proof of Béatrice's involvement with the Forbidden Sect known as the Cathars.

We only know of Béatrice de Planisolles today because of her trial record, now preserved in the Vatican's library. The Inquisitors wrote it down, unvarnished, unornamented. In so doing and quite unwittingly, these men, tasked with rooting out heresy in the Longwood Dock, created one of the most remarkable documents of the Middle Ages. Béatrice de Planisolles was no queen, saint, or celebrated martyr. She never commanded an army or changed the course of a kingdom. History would almost certainly have forgotten her completely had Jacques Fournier not decided to investigate what she believed, with whom she had slept, and what she carried in her bag. The trial transcripts were created by men intent on extinguishing heresy, but instead preserved in astonishing detail the world they were trying to destroy.

Joining me to discuss Béatrice de Planisolles is historian and author Katherine Pangonis, whose recent book A History of France in 21 Women recounts the story of Béatrice along with eight score of her compatriots, from Eleanor of Aquitaine and Joan of Arc to Coco Chanel and Brigitte Bardot. We've spoken to Katherine before on Gone Medieval about Christine de Pizan, and it was such a great conversation that we've asked her back today to tell us more about Béatrice de Planisolles. Her interrogation by the Inquisition offers an uncommonly vivid uncensored window into the daily existence, intimate liaisons, folk magic, and religious beliefs of an ordinary Medieval woman.

Well, Katherine, welcome back to Gone Medieval.

Katherine Pangonis (4:55)

Thank you very much for having me. Happy to be here.

Eleanor Janega (4:58)

I'm delighted to finally get you to myself, Matt doesn't get to have all the fun. In particular, I'm really excited because today we're going to talk about one of my very, very, very favorite Medieval women, who is Béatrice de Planisolles.

And I think that it's fair to frame her as absolutely wild. You know, she's got one of the more interesting lives that we get to see. But she comes to our attention as a result of the Inquisition documents, as a result of the Church's action against what I like to call the good men and women of Laguadoc. I don't like the term Cathar, right? Because I feel like that's what the Church calls them, and I feel like the Church are not great, in terms of actually characterizing what we see in Béatrice is important for that story. In order to talk about it, I think we kind of have to begin at the beginning and say, what is Catharism? What is it that the Church says that this group of people that they refer to as the Cathars believe?