REMISE

As we have seen, travelling Cathars were not the only heretics on the roads of Europe; nor were they the only target of Catholic strategic countermoves. Extreme heretical mobility is highlighted in all Catholic sources, both theoretical and judicial, and this mirrors the actual movements of individuals and groups. It also contributed to the creation of the topos of the wandering heretic in public opinion and collective mindset. In order to set our evidence on Cathar mobility in perspective and to make sense of it, therefore, we need to locate it in the wider panorama of heretical movements. In order to obtain a good overview of the problem of itinerancy (including itinerancy as the basis for an accusation of heresy), we must analyse these groups' own views of the meaning of travelling and set these alongside the Catholic sources’ depiction of the ‘illegitimate preacher’.

Ever since the twelfth century the presence of wandering preachers, both individuals and groups, had been recorded throughout Europe. All scholars agree on the unprepared and inconsistent attitude displayed by the Church before this unprecedented challenge to its monopoly of preaching. Some even detect the same ambiguity in Catholic writers’ depictions of approved wandering preachers, for example, Bernard of Tiron, Norbert of Xanten, Peter the Hermit and Robert of Arbrissel.