Benoît XIII

Benedict XIII, the treasure of the Catalan pope

The book presents under a new perspective a long occulted, or treated with great bias subject : the fight lead by the pope of Avignon Benedict XIII (1394-1422) to recognize his legitimacy over the pontiffs of Rome and Pisa who were challenging him during the Great Western Schism. The second part unveils the truth on the action of the cardinal Jean Carrier and the survival of Benedict XIII’s line of descent in the Viaur valley (near Rodez), where the partisans of the pope Luna, tracked down by the Inquisition, were taking refuge. On this neglected episode, the author brings up various new testimonies, found in the sources that have escaped from destruction.
Around the great figure of Pedro de Luna, several connected subjects work together and light up each other : the political stakes of the period, which often dictated the choice of minds and eventually gave the victory to the Roman party ; the methods implemented by the Church after the council of Constance to erase the memory of Benedict XIII ; the Viaur papacy, from the years 1430 to the trial of the Trahinier family (1467) or even beyond ; and finally the history of the treasure and the library of the popes of Avignon.
Gérard Touzeau has studied the prolongations of the Great Western Schism over ten years. Basing himself on a rigorous investigation, he casts here a new perspective on a page of History that has suffered various attempts of erasing. From Avignon to Perpignan, Collioure to Barcelona, Peñiscola to Rodez, he takes us in the wake of the Pope of the Sea and his secret successors in the Viaur valley, in pursuit of the forgotten truth and treasure.