Friday, May 21, 2004
Should I thank his popness I don't talk French?! Methinks Not!
The Albigenses and other sects springing up at her door were more dangerous foes of the Papacy than the Saracens of the distant East. For a while the Popes saw with comparative indifference the growth of these religious communities; they dreaded no harm from bodies apparently so insignificant; and even entertained at times the thought of grafting them on their own system as separate orders, or as resuscitating and purifying forces. With the advent of Innocent III., however, came a new policy. He perceived that the principles of these communities were wholly alien in their nature to those of the Papacy, that they never could be made to work in concert with it, and that if left to develop themselves they would most surely effect its Crusades against the Albigenses overthrow. Accordingly the cloud of exterminating vengeance which rolled hither and thither in the skies of the world as he was pleased to command, he ordered to halt, to return westward, and discharge its chastisement on the south of Europe.
Let us take a glance at the region which this dreadful tempest is about to smite. The France of those days, instead of forming an entire monarchy, was parted into four grand divisions. It is the most southerly of the four, or Narbonne-Gaul, to which our attention is now to be turned. This was an ample and goodly territory, stretching from the Dauphinese Alps on the east to the Pyrenees on the south-west, and comprising the modern provinces of Dauphin?, Provence, Languedoc or Gascogne.
But better things than poetry and feats of mimic war flourished here. The towns, formed into communes, and placed under municipal institutions, enjoyed no small measure of freedom. The lively and poetic genius of the people had enabled them to form a language of their own?namely, the Proven?al. In richness of vocables, softness of cadence, and picturesqueness of idiom, the Proven?al excelled all the languages of Europe, and promised to become the universal tongue of Christendom.
No, I don't think gratitude is a word I could readily bring to mind, when thinking of the Papacy. Corruption, power hungry and several other adjectives, (well that term is a guess... it could be a noun..but tis one of those words..sheesh... I ain't brain of Britain you know!) Including Anti-Christ!
But as I was reading this, was reminded of a U.K. TV programme of about ten years ago, based on the Book called "A year in Provence" it was a hoot. Tho was said to be the biggest disaster for the BBC in recent memory. It had a top line up of big names in it, yet most people blanked it. But I recall this one, of a goat going into a French store, and Roy Orbison singing Pretty Woman was playing on the radio, and the goat caused havoc. It was probably too tame for most people which is maybe why it wasn't a hit. But I liked it. But then I like odd things. But that was also set in the town of Province in France. While the writer of the book and his wife and their dogs spent a year there while he wrote a book.
But, as for ever having a feeling of gratitude with my dislike for the French that we dont' now all talk French... well, I'm sorry, but that would be a lot of Papal Bull!
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