La guerre d’Albi (1434-1462). Un parcours historiographique

Abstract

Between 1434 and 1462, two prelates fought over the bishopric of Albi : Bernard de Casilhac, elected by the Albigensian chapter, supported by the consuls, the local nobility and the Council of Basel, and Robert Dauphin, appointed by Pope Eugene IV on the recommendation of Charles VII. The two rivals opposed each other in court, at the Council of Basel and at the Parliament of Paris, and in arms, especially between 1434 and 1437. The affair is mentioned in several contemporary documents, in France and in Germany. However, it is not mentioned in almost any current book on the history of France, the Hundred Years War or Languedoc. In order to understand this oversight, we have reconstructed the historiographical genealogy of the conflict, from the most current works to the first historical studies of the 18th century. Three milestones can be identified. First, the conflict was “invented” by Joseph Vaissete, in his Histoire générale de Languedoc, from a monarchist and provincial perspective. Then, in the second half of the 19th century, it was the republican historians, Émile Jolibois and Jules Quicherat, who established an account strongly tinged with anticlericalism. Finally, since the 1970s, church historians, particularly in Germany, have interpreted this conflict as a symptom of the malaise and divisions of the French church, but also of the vigor of reformist currents. The “ Albi War” has its place in neither of the two great narratives of national and Languedoc history and memory, the Hundred Years War and the Albigensian Crusade. In fact, the Albi War is mainly situated in the context of the reform of the Church in the fifteenth century, which has interested German historians more than French historians. It is this issue that should be explored in greater depth in order to measure and understand more completely the impact of the event in the fifteenth century.