Manenta Rosa
	Translated by David Burr, History Department, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA.

Manenta Rosa is a sad case. She was one of the beguins sentenced at Lodève on July 3, 1323. The translation of that process provides her original confession, her sentence, and the subsequent commutation of that sentence on March 4, 1324. This confession explains how she found herself back in prison, where she died. On November 11, 1328, she was sentenced posthumously. The following confession and sentence are translated from the Collection Doat, vol. 27, ff. 79v-82r and 97r-98r. The Latin text of the confession is available here.

The confession is as follows:

Manenta Rosa, former wife of Bernard Arnaud Sabatier of Lòdeve, was formerly convicted of heresy or aiding the beguines and sentenced to wear crosses. She abjured, as is established in legally valid manner through her confession made in the year 1325. While she was detained in prison Amourouse Lauret , the wife of Amouroux Lauret, called out her name and when she responded told her that her husband was detained in the same prison. "Can my husband hear your voice?" Amoureuse asked; and when Manenta said he could she said, "Tell my husband he was arrested because of the alms given to Guillaume Serrallier. Tell him he should say he did not give the aforesaid alms, or agree to their being given." Hearing this, Manenta replied, "Willingly," and called to the aforementioned Amoureux as loudly as she could, telling him what his wife had asked her to say. She even had a certain man in another cell call out. The next day when the door of the cell was open she called out to him again. She thought that in doing so she did neither good nor ill, or so she says.

Again, she acknowledged that during the past Easter season, after she had accepted the crosses, she sent two sous to Raimunde Rigaude of Lodève at Montpellier, by means of Berenger Jaoul, who was still alive then (although he is now dead); for Berenger had said that Raimunde was ill. Even before she sent them she knew - for it was commonly known in Lodève - that Raimunde had left Lodève because she was afraid she would be arrested and brought into the bishop's court, as had happened to other beguins.

Again, she said that once before she accepted the crosses she, Raimunde and Berenger were talking, and they spoke of the beguins who had been condemned and burned, saying they were the best people and led the best lives in the world. But the time was, they said, like that of Christ's passion, when all persecuted Christ. Whoever thought seriously about Christ's passion and present events would recognize that the beguins who had been condemned were good people living the life of Christ.

Again, she confessed and acknowledged that after she had begun to wear the crosses and after the death of her husband, Berenger Jaoul once said much the same to her in her home and she replied that she had enough to think about in her children.

Again, on another occasion Berenger spoke to her about those who were burned at Lodève. saying that they bore their death well, neither crying out nor speaking one word, and that it was a beautiful thing to see. She said, however, that although before the time of her abjuration she thought the aforesaid condemned to be good people because of the beautiful lives they lived, from the time she abjured she never thought them to be good people or unjustly condemned. She swore that such was the case. When, after she had abjured, she heard Berenger say these things, she thought that he had spoken badly. Asked why, if she heard Berenger say these things and thought he had spoken badly, she did not accuse him, since she had sworn and promised in her abjuration to reveal such people or aid in their capture, she replied that she did not remember having promised or sworn to do so.

Having done these things, she hid them until she was arrested and put in prison, and even then she denied under oath what she later acknowledged. She says, however, that she repents.

Here is the sentence:

In the name of our Lord, amen. We, Friars Henri de Chamayou and Pierre Brun, by authority of the office of inquisitor given to us and acting in the place of B, the reverend father in Christ and lord bishop of Lodève, have discovered though inquiry made by us in legally valid manner and through her own confession that the defunct Manenta Rosa, former wife of Bernard Sabattier of Lodève, who died in the prison at Carcassonne, was seriously and repeatedly guilty of heresy, having first fallen into that crime and then, after being reconciled to the church and abjuring heresy, having damnably fallen into it yet again. Not fearing to add new crimes to the old or dreading the future divine judgment, but returning to the old heresy like a dog to its vomit, she showed by her action that her conversion was feigned and false and she was impenitent as well as manifestly incorrigible, unworthy of all grace and mercy. Although before her death she said she repented, she nonetheless died having lapsed into the old heresy and error, and thus she died with that relapse unpunished. The nature of the relapse is spelled out here clearly in the vernacular.

Justice demands that such a terrible crime and infamy, because of its frightfulness and enormity, should be punished not only in the living but in the death as well. Thus we, the aforesaid inquisitors, having God before our eyes and the holy gospels of Jesus Christ placed before us so that our judgment should proceed from God and our eyes should see what is just, and having cited before us the heirs of the deceased and those currently in possession of her goods so that they can hear our definitive sentence, sitting as a tribunal on this day and in this place and time assigned by us, having first diligently sought counsel on the matter, we pass this our definitive sentence: We pronounce the aforesaid deceased to have abjured and lapsed back into heresy, and thus, in detestation of such a wicked crime, we order that her bones be exhumed from their place of burial (insofar as they can be separated from those of the faithful) and burned.

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