The Treasure of Montsegur: A Novel of the Cathars [Paperback]

Sophy Burnham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2003

One woman's unforgettable quest for freedom, love, and god.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The extermination of the Cathars, a medieval religious sect settled in southern France that condemned the Catholic Church, provides heavy historic drapery for this somewhat lightweight novel. Having barely escaped burning on a pyre along with hundreds of fellow Cathars and Cathar sympathizers following a brutal year-long siege at the mountain fortress of Monts‚gur, Jeanne is on the run from the Inquisition. Posing as a homeless madwoman, Jeanne recalls her past as an impulsive, sexually driven young woman raised by the saintly Cathars. When a stranger, Jerome, risks his life vouching for Jeanne to the inquisitors, Jeanne is forced to live with him, or else both will face heresy charges. Predictably, romance ensues. This contrivance allows Jeanne to tell her life story, including her survival at Monts‚gur, amid snuggles and pillow talk. Jeanne's mood swings from brash, intelligent and determined to innocent and meek make her seem more disjointed than complex. Burnham, author of a number of books on spiritual phenomena, including the New York Times bestseller A Book of Angels, is at her best describing mystic and spiritual matters. Jeanne's spiritual transformations ("The soldiers grab me, strip me to the waist: my breasts exposed. They beat me with their leather whips, but oh, my Lady! Each blow brings only exquisite joy. I am transported, for I am filled with Christ and yet I gaze into the glowing eyes of Christ") feel vital and immediate. Despite its flaws, Burnham's novel is an energetic, psychological imagining of the Cathar legend.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

There seems to have been an explosion of novels about medieval women in the past year or so (e.g., Susann Cokal's Mirabilis, Kate Horsley's Confessions of a Pagan Nun), and this contribution by Burnham (The Book of Angels) is a fine addition to their ranks. Jeanne is a foundling taken in by the 13th-century French Cathars and raised as one of their own. After growing up in the Cathar tradition, she must turn her back on her order for their own safety, for they were considered the worst of heretics in those dark days of the Inquisition. She is asked to guard the treasure of the order - not jewels or gold but a Bible written in the vernacular. This was the real sin of the Cathars and many other sects defined as heretics in the Middle Ages: bringing religion down to a level that could be understood by all and thereby demystifying the hierarchy of the medieval Church. Jeanne is a fierce yet tender heroine, and the quality of the writing makes what could be an obscure topic - the Albigensian Crusades - enjoyable to read. For all public libraries. - Wendy Bethel, Southwest P.L., Grove City, OH
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1st edition (June 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060000805
• ISBN-13: 978-0060000806
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,094,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There's so much to praise about this novel !, June 6, 2002

By 

Maurice Williams "mauricewms" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Treasure of Montsegur: A Novel of the Cathars (Hardcover)

I am absolutely delighted with this novel. Rarely do I come across a novel that fully engages me on so many levels. Even more rare that such a novel would be set in 1200 France, as my tolerance for historical fiction in general is pretty low. Yet this novel captivated me. From the first paragraph I was hooked and wanted to know more. In the midst of a very busy work and life schedule, I found myself stealing time to read a page here, a chapter there. Excited about getting to the end but not wanting to really finish the book. "The Treasure of Montsegur" is written in the tradition of a tragic love story, yet its historical relevance is not diminished. The author provides a well-researched background on the Catholic Crusades in France that tortured and killed thousands of people during the 1200s. The novel is framed in the axiom that history repeats itself and is richly layered with historical, religious, spiritual, and tragic elements of the period.

Burnham tells the story in voices as layered as the storyline. The novel centers on the life of a woman named Jeanne. Found in a field by Cathers after the Crusaders raid her village. Jeanne is raised in the Cather faith and eventually becomes a revolutionary in the struggle to maintain the faith despite the Catholic Inquisitions. Jeanne is a fully realized character who loves, sins, betrays, falls, rises, heals. Using both narrative and first person (Jeanne), the author educates the reader on the horrors of the Cather annihilation while at the same time inviting the reader on a spiritual journey of love.

Burnham's writing is absolutely superb. The rhythm of the language and choice of words creates a reading space that provides immediate access to the period and the conditions under which people lived and tried to navigate their way through religious domination and spiritual fulfillment. On many occasions I had to research words and go beyond the first definition to find an archaic definition that would provide greater meaning to the sentence. At times, the reading experience was very much like piecing together a puzzle. The satisfaction of completing a puzzle comparable to the delight experienced each time I found a definition that fit. The story further motivated me to research the actual massacre at Montsegur, leaving me much better informed on the subject than I was prior to reading the novel.

I certainly hope that this novel finds its way into the classroom. What a wonderful way to initiate discussion on the Catholic Inquisitions. After having found an advanced reader's copy of the novel at a thrift shop, I consider this to be one of my greatest reading treasures. Highly recommended!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Light in a time of darkness, August 9, 2003

By 

Jenna Paulden (Taos NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Treasure of Montsegur: A Novel of the Cathars (Hardcover)

I found that The Treasure of Montsegur spoke to me deeply on many levels. First of all, the story is immensely compelling; all the more so because the facts that it is based on are historically accurate. It's a passionate love-story with a courageous heroine. It's about chase and pursuit-- running for your life at a time of political terror, and yet all throughout, there's this hopeful and optimistic joy that comes with the search for God. Jeanne de Beziers, the main character, filled my heart with her humanity, her brokenness, and the beautiful light which streamed from her in moments of grace.
Burnham's use of language is a delight. Her words spill from the page with the vivid intensity of light itself, yet her language is spare and lucid, the images turning in one's mind like a smooth stone in clear water. All through the book you are aware of the question: what was the treasure of Montsegur? I won't give away the end, but the answer leaves you stunned in it's simplicity and truth.
This book speaks not only to historical oppression, but has chilling echoes in our own times. Far too many innocents have suffered under the banner of 'national interests', or religious fundamentalism. Separated by the distance of time, we can clearly see how wrong the Inquisitors in the 1200's were to be so intolerant of the Cathars. The Treasure of Montsegur helped me to reflect on our own times, when the narrow righteousness found in all kinds of fundamentalism still continues to be meshed with greed and economic power. At this point in history, the voices of thinking people, the voices of the disenfranchised, and the voices of artists are calling so loudly for humanity to wake up. This book is a brilliant note in that clarion call.
Sophy Burnham wrote those beautiful books on angels and also on prayer (The Path of Prayer, another life-changing book!) Montsegur is a treasure worth reading because it points a vivid ray of light toward the kernel of love and spiritual truth hidden in human beings. You come away thinking a long time about these historical events, and about Jeanne, this haunting heroine. Without being obvious or awkward, The Treasure of Montsegur deftly shines a light on our own times, and on the spiritual nature of the human being. It gave me not only food for thought, but inspiration as well.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but flawed, July 8, 2003

By 

Les Whiteley (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Treasure of Montsegur: A Novel of the Cathars (Paperback)

After reading some very enthusiastic reviews, I expected to like this book a lot more than I did. Although I did enjoy it, I found it far short of the sort of enduring quality that would set it apart in my reading experience as great literature.

It is an interesting story - bloody and violent religious persecution, within religions very close to our own, has an immediate fascination. The writing is good, and the central character is complex and excites our interest and sympathy. Yet for all that the book was for me a much undelivered potential.

My first objection would be that while the central character - Jeanne Beziers - is quite complex and hence a satisfyingly real personality, the remainder of the cast of the novel are rather mono-dimensional. Jerome - the farmer who befriends and "marries" Jeanne - is consistently kindly and gentle. Even his cupidity towards the treasure that Jeanne may be able to (or willing to) bring to him is expressed more as a benign curiosity about possibility rather than malevolent greed.

Other characters - her long-time lover William, her "sister" Baiona, the monk/bishop Guilhabert de Castres, and so on - generally play very predictable roles in a sort of caricature fashion. Generally they continue with no development from their first introduced role to their passing out of the novel. One might exclaim that Baiona "develops" from a fliberty-gibbet girl to a martyrdom embracing zealot, but I really saw her change from the character at the start of the novel to a different one at the end rather than trace a sense of intellectual and personality development throughout the book.

My plea is not so much for characters to act out of character - as is so often the staple of crime writers who engender interest by having people act out the unexpected - but rather the development of the personality of the characters of the novel through the experiences they are given within it.

My suspicion is that the motivation for the book arises not from a wealth of characterization, nor for a sense of how people change with experience, but a love of writing of intense religious experience, and a wish to proselytize for a religion of love that extends beyond and across the conventional structures of an organised church - especially one ready to indulge the horror if the Inquisition in the name of religious correctness. When Jeanne is in the throes of a religious experience, Brophy's writing indulges great adjectival vigour, and often carries us into a well-written out-of-body experience for the main character/narrator. We are offered the possibility that the character is insane - but that is a fictitious option. We know that actually there is a moral if not factual validity in her recalled experiences of miraculous light and transcendental happiness.

But these episodes are really quite specific to the one lead character and provide very little insight into the general behavior of the others of the same religious disposition. Historical fiction can either give us a biographical insight into a personality in history or an analytical insight into an event - but if it focuses its energy on characterization on just one fictitious witness of events, the margin for success and satisfaction is slim.

The core historical event of the novel - the willing martyrdom of several hundred Cathars at Montsegur - becomes almost inexplicable. Jeanne herself is quite hestitant to follow Baiona's invitation to commit to certain death - rationalized as short agony, eternal bliss - before she is prevailed upon to escape for good cause. While there remains a moral tension of weakness versus duty in Jeanne's decision, the tension exists only in respect to her actions, and we are left with almost no first hand insight into the energies that compel her associates to their horrible fate - apparently willingly embraced.

There are other quirks that distract from the book. The most puzzlingly annoying being the episode wherein a mistrel enjoys some future visions of 20th Century life - characterised by electric light, jumbo jets and submarines. As a vision of a better world it does have a slight justification coating of greater happiness for all, but it is a superficial coating. Fundamentally the episode has very little impact on the characters in the plot - and left this reader puzzled as to its writers intent.

But for all the complaint I enjoyed the read.

The story is horrificly fascinating. The terror of the Inquisition and its lack of a moral mandate from the common man are adroitly captured - together with the moral corruption on him by the invitation to cooperate with it - for the sake of his own body, if not his soul.

The main character, Jeanne, is a puzzlingly complex and realistically inconsistent human - a sad victim of both circumstance and her own imperfections. But blessed with a vision of right that is almost inspirational. But in the end that "almost" is what erodes the reading experience to an interesting story. The book has one central character - it fails to really unravel the moral details of its core events, and the lesser characters are never rich enough in their characterization to do more than support the story of Jeanne. And that one central character never comes quite close enough to our struggles with life to connect intensely.