The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry

 The Albigensian Crusade, better known as the Cathar Crusade (1209-1229), was a 20-year military campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate holy men and women who were known collectively as the friends of God, in the southern region of today’s France known as Languedoc, and earlier as Provincia (the countryside). The war ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1229 and established terms that eventually annexed the county of Toulouse into the kingdom of France.

This story begins in 1241 with people still remembering the bloody crusades.

Dolssa is a young gentlewoman. As a young girl her visions begin. After the death of her father, her mother is set to send her to a cloister to be a nun, since her father was against it during his life. She is 13 and already knows that cloistered life is not for her. They quarrel bitterly until the mother relents and now tries to honor her husband’s wish for their daughter to marry and have a family. But Dolssa’s heart is not with a man of flesh and blood, but with the one above her. She sees destruction, “souls darkened by loss and bitterness,” result of crusades. Then she understands her purpose in life. She wants to speak in the city squares, but her mother forbids it. It’s too dangerous. She needs to speak within the limits of their house. People come and sit outside and listen under windows. And one of those listeners is an inquisitor. Soon she is called by Inquisition to be questioned. 

The story is intertwined with the story of Botille, a young peasant who is a matchmaker running a tavern with her two sisters in a tiny seaside town of Bajas. She makes her first match at the age of 13. “Make no mistake, I charged a fee. I never let qualms get in the way when money is involved.”

Her sister Sasia is a soothsayer, a gift she inherited after their mother. “Sasia woke up with visions of what would befall villagers; I woke up with wedding plans.” And one of those visions takes both sisters on a road, where they find a young girl, lying by the river, skinny and hardly alive. They take her home and by this act they endanger the whole town.

Both characters are very memorable, telling their own stories with original voices: one soft, the other sharp. The chapters are short, the story is engrossing, making the pages turn quickly.

Loved the sharp tongue of Botille. “Focho de Capa did a little of everything, and a whole lot of nothing, but whenever there was a party, there he was, lord of the revels, master of drink, player of fidel tunes, and caller of dance step.”

The main characters are fictional, but the story of Dolssa is “based on the lives of several medieval female mystics, set against one of medieval Europe’s most violent and disturbing conflicts.” Mystics such as: “Clare of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Theresa of Avila, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Julian of Norwich. (…) These women lived startling lives, attracting followers and reportedly performing miracles. They practiced seclusion or acts of charity. Most insisted on lives of chastity, wanting no husband but Jesus. This was a bold, defiant choice in a society that offered women few prospects other than marriage. (…) Those mystics who could write seemed compelled to record their experiences (…) Some were embraced by the Church and sainted after their deaths. Others were executed.”

Also, highly recommend, The Treasure of Montsegur: A Novel of the Cathars by Sophy Burnham

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