Rougemont’s catharist thesis in the light of statistics

Abstract

Rougemont's Catharist thesis brings the creation of troubadour lyric poetry into relation with the influence of the heresies of the Catharists who lived alonside the troubadours in the same country, Occitania, and during the same period, the 12th century. The actual possibility of such and influence might be confirmed by the numerical strength of the Catharists which can be expressed by data concerning the numerical proportion or disproportion between the number of heretics and true believers in the general population of Occitania in the 12th century. Since the Middle Ages were not an era for statistics, it is necessary to reconstruct one using numerical data sporadically scattered in: — chronicles, acts, registers, proceedings of the Inquisition courts, etc.; —documents and notes from the history of castles and cities in Southern France, notes of former exiles of persecuted Catharism —histories of the migrations of Catharists from Occitania to Italy and Spain containg a few numbers and significant dates. The article shows witn precision the historico-statistical elements of the Indicated multi-layered material and reaches the basic conclusion that statistical reconstruction constitutes a decisive step of the problematic at hand all with the purpose oh scientifically verifying Rougemont's Catharist thesis, which has not been done so far.