1 The following is Mme Vourzay’s list, with corrections by me concerning Emersende Maury and her daughter Jeanne Befayt. The names of the people from Montaillou are given in italics.
Fatal illnesses or accident
Bernard Bélibaste, died in hospital at Puigcerda; Raymond de Castelnau, fell ill and died at Granadella; Raymond Maurs, fell ill and died at Sarreal; Bernard Marty (husband of Guillemette, née Maury), died in the mountains at Orta; Bernard Servel, died at Lérida; Guillaume Marty of Junac, died in Catalonia; probably another Marty brother, died in Catalonia; Bernard Befayt, died in an accident in the forest; Emersende Maury and her daughter Jeanne Befayt, died in an epidemic (iii.214).
Arrested by the Inquisition
Guillaume Bélibaste and Philippe d’Alayrac, burned at the stake; Pierre and Jean Maury, brothers, and Guillaume and Arnaud Maurs, brothers, arrested; Esperte Cervel and Mathena Cervel, mother and daughter, arrested.
Survived and not imprisoned
The family of Guillemette Maury, consisting of herself, her two sons, Arnaud and the other Jean Maury, and her brother, i.e. the other Pierre Maury (four people in all); Raymonds and Blanche Marty and Raymond Issaurat.
1 i.462. In addition, the following were given the consolamentum in places other than Montaillou: old Raymonde Buscailh of Prades (i.494; 503); Mengarde Alibert of Quié, mother of a grown-up married daughter (ii.307); the mother of a married man in Ax (ii.16); Arnaud Savignan of Prades, old enough to be a grandfather (iii. 149); a still very young man of Junac (iii.267); two heretic babies, against all the local Cathar rules. The person who broke these rules was the parfait Prades Tavernier, and the infants ‘consoled’ were the children of Sybille Pierre and Mengarde Buscailh respectively.
1 At the beginning of the first decade after 1300 the shepherd Bernard Marty visited the noble Castels brothers in their house at Rabat (three of them were legitimate and the fourth a bastard). All four were in bed, one in the kitchen, another in the cellar and the remaining two in the barn beside the courtyard. Three at least of the brothers (the ‘legitimate’ ones) were to die very soon afterwards (iii.281). The effect of epidemics was made worse by the fact that a deathbed was the occasion for social intercourse (ii.260; iii. 189, etc.).
1 On the suddenness of death, and the absence of any warning recorded in the Fournier depositions, Mme Vourzay gives an excellent series of passages from the Register. Equally striking is the suddenness of cures, when they do occur. The idea of convalescence did not exist. As soon as any one recovered from an illness he took to the road again or went out ploughing once more. See ii.484 and above, Chapter IV.
1 But a man who lost someone near to him was supposed to show discretion in his lamentations (ii.289).
1 ii.484. In general, there is no evidence in the Register of any tendency towards suicide as we understand it. But the endura was really tantamount to a peculiar form of suicide. It was regarded as a purely religious act, designed to ensure salvation. But we cannot say how far the subconscious entered into it.
2 A heavy Mediterranean downpour was more likely even than snow to deter the goodmen from hurrying across country with the consolamentum (iii.308).
3 i.488. The records for survival in a state of endura were thirteen days and thirteen nights (iii. 131), and a fortnight (i.235). Compare, in the seventeenth century, fourteen days entirely without food in time of famine: see Le Roy Ladurie (1966), p. 499.
1 See also ii.426, for the deathbed of Huguette de Larnat who, while suffering the pains of the endura, cried out and asked those around her (in particular the parfait who was watching over her last moments, hidden in a barrel), ‘Will it soon be over?’
1 The facts about Guilhabert are divided up among various witnesses and scattered from i.390 to i.430.