Catharism (; from the grc, καθαροί, katharoi, "the pure ones") was a Christian
dualist
Dualism most commonly refers to:
* Mind–body dualism, a philosophical view which holds that mental phenomena are, at least in certain respects, not physical phenomena, or that the mind and the body are distinct and separable from one another
** ...
or
Gnostic
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
movement between the 12th and 14th centuries which thrived in
Southern Europe
Southern Europe is the southern regions of Europe, region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countrie ...
, particularly in
northern Italy
Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative regions ...
and
southern France
Southern France, also known as the South of France or colloquially in French language, French as , is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi ...
. Followers were described as Cathars and referred to themselves as Good Christians; in modern times, they are mainly remembered for a prolonged period of
religious persecution
Religious persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or a group of individuals as a response to their religion, religious beliefs or affiliations or their irreligion, lack thereof. The tendency of societies or groups within soc ...
by the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, which did not recognize their unorthodox Christianity.
Catharism emerged in Western Europe in the
Languedoc
The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France.
Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...
region of southern France in the 11th century. Adherents were sometimes referred to as Albigensians, after the French city
Albi
Albi (; oc, Albi ) is a commune in southern France. It is the prefecture of the Tarn department, on the river Tarn, 85 km northeast of Toulouse. Its inhabitants are called ''Albigensians'' (french: Albigeois, Albigeoise(s), oc, albig ...
where the movement first took hold. Catharism was initially taught by
ascetic
Asceticism (; from the el, ἄσκησις, áskesis, exercise', 'training) is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from sensual pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their p ...
leaders who set few guidelines, leading some Catharist practices and beliefs to vary by region and over time. The movement was greatly influenced by the
Bogomils
Bogomilism ( Bulgarian and Macedonian: ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", bogumilstvo, богумилство) was a Christian neo-Gnostic or dualist sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar P ...
of the
First Bulgarian Empire
The First Bulgarian Empire ( cu, блъгарьско цѣсарьствиѥ, blagarysko tsesarystviye; bg, Първо българско царство) was a medieval Bulgar- Slavic and later Bulgarian state that existed in Southeastern Europ ...
, and may have originated in the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
, namely through adherents of the
Paulician
Paulicianism ( Classical Armenian: Պաւղիկեաններ, ; grc, Παυλικιανοί, "The followers of Paul"; Arab sources: ''Baylakānī'', ''al Bayāliqa'' )Nersessian, Vrej (1998). The Tondrakian Movement: Religious Movements in the ...
movement in
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...
and eastern
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
who were resettled in
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to t ...
(
Philippopolis).
Among the most notable and controversial beliefs of the Cathars was the idea of two gods or deistic principles, one good and the other evil. The Catholic Church asserted this was antithetical to monotheism, a fundamental principle that there is only one God, who created all things visible and invisible, as stated in the
Nicene Creed
The original Nicene Creed (; grc-gre, Σύμβολον τῆς Νικαίας; la, Symbolum Nicaenum) was first adopted at the First Council of Nicaea in 325. In 381, it was amended at the First Council of Constantinople. The amended form is a ...
. Cathars believed that the good
God was the God of the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
, creator of the spiritual realm, whereas the evil God was the God of the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
, creator of the physical world whom many Cathars identified as
Satan
Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...
. Cathars believed human
spirit
Spirit or spirits may refer to:
Liquor and other volatile liquids
* Spirits, a.k.a. liquor, distilled alcoholic drinks
* Spirit or tincture, an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol
* Volatile (especially flammable) liquids, ...
s were the sexless spirits of
angel
In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God.
Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles include ...
s trapped in the material realm of the evil god, destined to be
reincarnated until they achieved salvation through the
''consolamentum'', a form of baptism performed when death is imminent, when they would return to the good God as "
Perfect".
The Catholic Church denounced Cathar practices, particularly the ''consolamentum'' ritual. From the beginning of his reign,
Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III ( la, Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216), born Lotario dei Conti di Segni (anglicized as Lothar of Segni), was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 to his death in 16 J ...
attempted to end Catharism by sending missionaries and persuading the local authorities to act against them. In 1208,
Pierre de Castelnau
Pierre de Castelnau (? - died 15 January 1208), French ecclesiastic, made papal legate in 1199 to address the Cathar heresy, he was subsequently murdered in 1208. Following his death Pope Innocent III beatified him by papal order, excommunicated ...
, Innocent's
papal legate
300px, A woodcut showing Henry II of England greeting the pope's legate.
A papal legate or apostolic legate (from the ancient Roman title ''legatus'') is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic ...
, was murdered while returning to
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
after excommunicating
Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who, in his view, was too lenient with the Cathars. Pope Innocent III then abandoned sending Catholic
missionaries
A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
and
jurist
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...
s, declared Pierre de Castelnau a
martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
and launched the
Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown ...
in 1209. The nearly twenty-year campaign succeeded in vastly weakening the movement; the
Medieval Inquisition that followed ultimately eradicated Catharism by 1350.
There is academic controversy about whether Catharism was a real and organized movement or whether the medieval Church imagined or exaggerated it. The lack of any central organization among Cathars, regional differences in beliefs and practices, as well as the lack of sources from the Cathars themselves has prompted some scholars to question whether Catharism existed. Other scholars say that there is evidence of the existence of Catharism, and also evidence that the threat of it was exaggerated by its persecutors in the Church.
Though the term ''Cathar'' () has been used for centuries to identify the movement, whether it identified itself with the name is debated. In Cathar texts, the terms ''Good Men'' (), ''Good Women'' (), or ''Good Christians'' () are the common terms of
self-identification.
Origins
The origins of the Cathars' beliefs are unclear, but most theories agree they came from the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
, mostly by the
trade route
A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over bodies of water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a sing ...
s and spread from the
First Bulgarian Empire
The First Bulgarian Empire ( cu, блъгарьско цѣсарьствиѥ, blagarysko tsesarystviye; bg, Първо българско царство) was a medieval Bulgar- Slavic and later Bulgarian state that existed in Southeastern Europ ...
to the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
. The name of
Bulgarians
Bulgarians ( bg, българи, Bǎlgari, ) are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and the rest of Southeast Europe.
Etymology
Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars. Their name is not completely understo ...
() was also applied to the Albigensians, and they maintained an association with the similar Christian movement of the
Bogomils
Bogomilism ( Bulgarian and Macedonian: ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", bogumilstvo, богумилство) was a Christian neo-Gnostic or dualist sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar P ...
("Friends of God") of
Thrace
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to t ...
. "That there was a substantial transmission of ritual and ideas from Bogomilism to Catharism is beyond reasonable doubt." Their doctrines have numerous resemblances to those of the Bogomils and the
Paulicians
Paulicianism (Classical Armenian: Պաւղիկեաններ, ; grc, Παυλικιανοί, "The followers of Paul"; Arab sources: ''Baylakānī'', ''al Bayāliqa'' )Nersessian, Vrej (1998). The Tondrakian Movement: Religious Movements in the ...
, who influenced them, as well as the earlier
Marcionites, who were found in the same areas as the Paulicians, the
Manicheans
Manichaeism (;
in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian prophet Mani (AD ...
and the Christian
Gnostics
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
of the first few centuries AD, although, as many scholars, most notably
Mark Pegg, have pointed out, it would be erroneous to extrapolate direct, historical connections based on theoretical similarities perceived by modern scholars.
John Damascene, writing in the 8th century AD, also notes of an earlier sect called the "Cathari", in his book ''On Heresies'', taken from the epitome provided by
Epiphanius of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis ( grc-gre, Ἐπιφάνιος; c. 310–320 – 403) was the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gai ...
in his ''
Panarion
In early Christian heresiology, the ''Panarion'' ( grc-koi, Πανάριον, derived from Latin ''panarium'', meaning "bread basket"), to which 16th-century Latin translations gave the name ''Adversus Haereses'' (Latin: "Against Heresies"), is t ...
''. He says of them: "They absolutely reject those who marry a second time, and reject the possibility of penance
hat is, forgiveness of sins after baptism. These are probably the same Cathari (actually Novations) who are mentioned in Canon 8 of the
First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325, which states "...
those called Cathari come over
o the faith
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), plu ...
let them first make profession that they are willing to communicate
hare full communion">full_communion.html" ;"title="hare full communion">hare full communionwith the twice-married, and grant pardon to those who have lapsed ..."
![Routes des châteaux cathares](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Routes_des_ch%C3%A2teaux_cathares.svg)
The writings of the Cathars were mostly destroyed because of the doctrine's threat perceived by the Papacy; thus, the historical record of the Cathars is derived primarily from their opponents. Cathar ideology continues to be debated, with commentators regularly accusing opposing perspectives of speculation, distortion and bias. Only a few texts of the Cathars remain, as preserved by their opponents (such as the ) which give a glimpse into the ideologies of their faith. One large text has survived, ''The Book of Two Principles'' (), which elaborates the principles of dualistic theology from the point of view of some Albanenses Cathars.
It is now generally agreed by most scholars that identifiable historical Catharism did not emerge until at least 1143, when the first confirmed report of a group espousing similar beliefs is reported being active at
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
by the
cleric Eberwin of
Steinfeld. A landmark in the "institutional history" of the Cathars was the
Council
A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...
, held in 1167 at
Saint-Félix-Lauragais
Saint-Félix-Lauragais (; Languedocien: ''Sant Felitz de Lauragués'') is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern France.
History
The village was previously called Saint-Félix-de-Caraman or Carmaing. In 1167 the Cathars held ...
, attended by many local figures and also by the
Bogomil ''papa''
Nicetas
Nicetas or Niketas () is a Greek given name, meaning "victorious one" (from Nike "victory").
The veneration of martyr saint Nicetas the Goth in the medieval period gave rise to the Slavic forms: ''Nikita, Mykyta and Mikita''
People with the name N ...
, the Cathar bishop of
(northern) France and a leader of the Cathars of
Lombardy
Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...
.
The Cathars were a largely local, Western European/Latin Christian phenomenon, springing up in the
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
cities (particularly Cologne) in the mid-
12th century, northern France around the same time, and particularly the
Languedoc
The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France.
Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...
—and the northern Italian cities in the mid-late 12th century. In the Languedoc and northern Italy, the Cathars attained their greatest popularity, surviving in the Languedoc, in much reduced form, up to around 1325 and in the Italian cities until the
Inquisitions
The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
of the 14th century finally extirpated them.
Beliefs
Cosmology
![Paradise Lost 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Paradise_Lost_1.jpg)
Cathar cosmology identified two twin, opposing deities. The first was a good God, portrayed in the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
and creator of the
spirit
Spirit or spirits may refer to:
Liquor and other volatile liquids
* Spirits, a.k.a. liquor, distilled alcoholic drinks
* Spirit or tincture, an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol
* Volatile (especially flammable) liquids, ...
, while the second was an evil God, depicted in the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
and creator of matter and the physical world. The latter, often called ("King of the World"), was identified as the
God of Judaism, and was also either conflated with
Satan
Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...
or considered Satan's father, creator or seducer. They addressed the
problem of evil
The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyclope ...
by stating that the good God's power to do good was limited by the evil God's works and vice versa.
However, those beliefs were far from unanimous. Some Cathar communities believed in a mitigated dualism similar to their
Bogomil predecessors, stating that the evil god, Satan, had previously been the true God's servant before rebelling against him. Others, likely a majority over time given the influence reflected on the ''Book of the Two Principles'', believed in an absolute dualism, where the two gods were twin entities of the same power and importance.
All visible matter, including the human body, was created or crafted by this ; matter was therefore tainted with
sin
In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...
. Under this view, humans were actually
angels seduced by Satan before a
war in heaven against the army of
Michael
Michael may refer to:
People
* Michael (given name), a given name
* Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael
Given name "Michael"
* Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...
, after which they would have been forced to spend an eternity trapped in the evil God's material realm. The Cathars taught that to regain angelic status one had to renounce the material self completely. Until one was prepared to do so, they would be stuck in a cycle of
reincarnation
Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. Resurrection is a ...
, condemned to live on the corrupt Earth.
Zoé Oldenbourg
Zoé Oldenbourg (russian: link=no, Зоя Серге́евна Ольденбург) (31 March 1916 – 8 November 2002) was a Russian-born French popular historian and novelist who specialized in medieval French history, in particular the Crus ...
compared the Cathars to "Western Buddhists" because she considered that their view of the doctrine of "resurrection" taught by Christ was similar to the Buddhist doctrine of
rebirth.
Christology
Cathars venerated
Jesus Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
and followed what they considered to be his true teachings, labelling themselves as "Good Christians". However, they denied his physical incarnation. Authors believe that their conception of Jesus resembled
docetism
In the history of Christianity, docetism (from the grc-koi, δοκεῖν/δόκησις ''dokeĩn'' "to seem", ''dókēsis'' "apparition, phantom") is the heterodox doctrine that the phenomenon of Jesus, his historical and bodily existence, an ...
, believing him the human form of an angel, whose physical body was only an appearance. This illusory form would have possibly been given by the
Virgin Mary
Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...
, another angel in human form, or possibly a human born of a woman with no involvement of a man.
![File](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/File%22-Saint_Paul_Writing_His_Epistles%22_by_Valentin_de_Boulogne.jpg)
They firmly rejected the
Resurrection of Jesus
The resurrection of Jesus ( grc-x-biblical, ἀνάστασις τοῦ Ἰησοῦ) is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus on the third day after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring – his exalted life as Christ and Lo ...
, seeing it as representing reincarnation, and the Christian
symbol of the cross, considering it to be not more than a material instrument of torture and evil. They also saw
John the Baptist
John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...
, identified also with
Elijah, as an evil being sent to hinder Jesus's teaching through the false sacrament of
baptism
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...
. For the Cathars the "resurrection" mentioned in the New Testament was only a symbol of re-incarnation.
Most Cathars did not accept the normative
Trinitarian
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the Fa ...
understanding of Jesus, instead resembling
nontrinitarian modalistic monarchianism (
Sabellianism
In Christianity, Sabellianism is the Western Church equivalent to Patripassianism in the Eastern Church, which are both forms of theological modalism. Condemned as heresy, Modalism is the belief that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three diff ...
) in the West and
adoptionism
Adoptionism, also called dynamic monarchianism, is an Early Christianity, early Christian Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Diversity in early Christian theology, theological doctrine, which holds that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus was adopted as ...
in the East, which might or might not be combined with the mentioned docetism.
Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard of Clairvaux, O. Cist. ( la, Bernardus Claraevallensis; 109020 August 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templars, and a major leader in the reformation of the Benedictine Order through ...
's biographer and other sources accuse some Cathars of
Arianism
Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God ...
, and some scholars see Cathar Christology as having traces of earlier Arian roots.
Some communities might have believed in the existence of a spirit realm created by the good God, the "Land of the Living", whose history and geography would have served as the basis for the evil god's corrupt creation. Under this view, the history of Jesus would have happened roughly as told, only in the spirit realm. The physical Jesus from the material world would have been evil, a false messiah and a lustful lover of the material
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene (sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine) was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to crucifixion of Jesus, his cru ...
. However, the true Jesus would have influenced the physical world in a way similar to the
Harrowing of Hell, only by inhabiting the body of
Paul. 13th century chronicler
Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay Peter of Vaux de Cernay (died c.1218) was a Cistercian monk of Vaux-de-Cernay Abbey, in what is now Yvelines, northern France, and a chronicler of the Albigensian Crusade. His ''Historia Albigensis'' is one of the primary sources for the events of ...
recorded those views.
Other beliefs
![Hieronymus Bosch - The Fall of the Rebel Angels (obverse) - WGA2572](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Hieronymus_Bosch_-_The_Fall_of_the_Rebel_Angels_%28obverse%29_-_WGA2572.jpg)
Some Cathars told a version of the
Enochian narrative, according to which
Eve
Eve (; ; ar, حَوَّاء, Ḥawwāʾ; el, Εὕα, Heúa; la, Eva, Heva; Syriac: romanized: ) is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the ...
's daughters copulated with Satan's
demon
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, ani ...
s and bore
giants. The
Deluge would have been provoked by
Satan
Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...
, who disapproved of the demons revealing he was not the real god, or alternatively, an attempt by the Invisible Father to destroy the giants. The
Holy Spirit
In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as ...
was sometimes counted as one single entity, but to others it was considered the collective groups of unfallen angels who had not followed Satan in his rebellion.
Cathars believed that the sexual allure of women impeded a man's ability to reject the material world. Despite this stance on sex and reproduction, some Cathar communities made exceptions. In one version, the Invisible Father had two spiritual wives, Collam and Hoolibam (identified with
Oholah and Oholibah
In the Hebrew Bible, Oholah () and Oholibah () (or Aholah and Aholibah in the King James Version and Young's Literal Translation) are pejorative personifications given by the prophet Ezekiel to the cities of Samaria in the Kingdom of Israel and Je ...
), and would himself have provoked the war in heaven by seducing the wife of Satan, or perhaps the reverse. Cathars adhering to this story would believe that having families and sons would not impede them from reaching God's kingdom.
Some communities also believed in a
Day of Judgement
The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Reckoning, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Day of Resurrection or The Day of the Lord (; ar, یوم القيامة, translit=Yawm al-Qiyāmah or ar, یوم الدین, translit=Yawm ad-Dīn, ...
that would come when the number of the just equalled that of angels who fell, when the believers would ascend to the
spirit realm, while the sinners would be thrown to everlasting fire along with Satan.
The Cathars ate a
pescatarian
Pescetarianism (; sometimes spelled pescatarianism) is the practice of incorporating seafood into an otherwise vegetarian diet. Pescetarians may or may not consume other animal products such as eggs and dairy products. Approximately 3% of adul ...
diet. They did not eat cheese, eggs, meat, or milk because these are all by-products of sexual intercourse. The Cathars believed that animals were carriers of reincarnated souls, and forbade the killing of all animal life, apart from fish, which they believed were produced by
spontaneous generation.
The Cathars denied transubstantiation, purgatory, prayers for the dead and prayers to saints. They also believed that the scriptures should be read in the vernacular.
Texts
The alleged sacred texts of the Cathars, besides the New Testament, included the
Bogomil text ''
The Gospel of the Secret Supper'' (also called ''John's Interrogation''), a modified version of ''
Ascension of Isaiah'', and the Cathar original work ''The Book of the Two Principles'' (possibly penned by Italian Cathar John Lugio of Bergamo). They regarded the Old Testament as written by Satan, except for a few books which they accepted, and considered the
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of R ...
not a prophecy about the future, but an allegorical chronicle of what had transpired in Satan's rebellion. Their reinterpretation of those texts contained numerous elements characteristic of
Gnostic
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
literature.
Organization
Sacraments
Cathars, in general, formed an anti-
sacerdotal Sacerdotalism (from Latin ''sacerdos'', priest, literally one who presents sacred offerings, ''sacer'', sacred, and ''dare'', to give) is the belief in some Christian churches that priests are meant to be mediators between God and humankind. The und ...
party in opposition to the pre-Reformation Catholic Church, protesting against what they perceived to be the moral, spiritual and political corruption of the Church. In contrast, the Cathars had but one central rite, the
Consolamentum
''Consolamentum'' (called heretication by its Catholic opponents) was the unique sacrament of the Cathars.
Cathars believed in original sin, and – like Gnostics – believed temporal pleasure to be sinful or unwise. The process of living thus i ...
, or Consolation. This involved a brief spiritual ceremony to remove all sin from the believer and to induct him into the next higher level as a
Perfect.
Many believers would receive the Consolamentum as death drew near, performing the ritual of liberation at a moment when the heavy obligations of purity required of Perfecti would be temporally short. Some of those who received the sacrament of the consolamentum upon their death-beds may thereafter have shunned further food or drink and, more often and in addition, expose themselves to extreme cold, in order to speed death. This has been termed the . It was claimed by some of the church writers that when a Cathar, after receiving the Consolamentum, began to show signs of recovery he or she would be smothered in order to ensure his or her entry into paradise. Other than at such moments of , little evidence exists to suggest this was a common Cathar practice.
![Berruguete ordeal](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Berruguete_ordeal.jpg)
The Cathars also refused the sacrament of the
eucharist
The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instit ...
, saying that it could not possibly be the body of Christ. They also refused to partake in the practice of
Baptism
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...
by water. The following two quotes are taken from the
Inquisitor Bernard Gui's experiences with the Cathar practices and beliefs:
Social relationships
Killing was abhorrent to the Cathars. Consequently, abstention from all animal food (
sometimes exempting fish) was enjoined of the Perfecti. The Perfecti avoided eating anything considered to be a by-product of sexual reproduction. War and
capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
were also condemned—an abnormality in Medieval Europe. In a world where few could read, their rejection of oath-taking marked them as rebels against social order.
To the Cathars, reproduction was a moral evil to be avoided, as it continued the chain of reincarnation and suffering in the material world. Such was the situation that a charge of heresy leveled against a suspected Cathar was usually dismissed if the accused could show he was legally married.
When
Bishop Fulk of
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
, a key leader of the anti-Cathar persecutions, excoriated the
Languedoc Knights for not pursuing the heretics more diligently, he received the reply, "We cannot. We have been reared in their midst. We have relatives among them and we see them living lives of perfection."
Hierarchy
It has been alleged that the Cathar Church of the Languedoc had a relatively
flat structure, distinguishing between the baptised (a term they did not use; instead, ) and ordinary unbaptised believers (). By about 1140, liturgy and a system of doctrine had been established. They created a number of
bishoprics, first at
Albi
Albi (; oc, Albi ) is a commune in southern France. It is the prefecture of the Tarn department, on the river Tarn, 85 km northeast of Toulouse. Its inhabitants are called ''Albigensians'' (french: Albigeois, Albigeoise(s), oc, albig ...
around 1165 and after the 1167 Council at
Saint-Félix-Lauragais
Saint-Félix-Lauragais (; Languedocien: ''Sant Felitz de Lauragués'') is a commune in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern France.
History
The village was previously called Saint-Félix-de-Caraman or Carmaing. In 1167 the Cathars held ...
sites at
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
,
Carcassonne
Carcassonne (, also , , ; ; la, Carcaso) is a French fortified city in the department of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is the prefecture of the department.
Inhabited since the Neolithic, Carcassonne is located in the plain of the ...
, and
Agen
The communes of France, commune of Agen (, ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Lot-et-Garonne Departments of France, department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. It lies on the river Garonne southeast of Bordeaux.
...
, so that four bishoprics were in existence by 1200. In about 1225, during a lull in the
Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown ...
, the bishopric of
Razès
Razès (; oc, Rasés; ca, Rasès) is a historical area in southwestern France, in today's Aude ''département''.
Several communes
An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of ...
was added. Bishops were supported by their two assistants: a (typically the successor) and a , who were further assisted by deacons. The were the spiritual elite, highly respected by many of the local people, leading a life of austerity and charity. In the apostolic fashion, they ministered to the people and travelled in pairs.
Role of women
![Cathars expelled](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Cathars_expelled.JPG)
Catharism has been seen as giving women the greatest opportunities for independent action, since women were found as being believers as well as Perfecti, who were able to administer the sacrament of the ''consolamentum''.
Cathars believed that a person would be repeatedly reincarnated until they committed to self-denial of the material world. A man could be reincarnated as a woman and
vice versa. The spirit was of utmost importance to the Cathars and was described as being immaterial and sexless. Because of this belief, the Cathars saw women as equally capable of being spiritual leaders.
Women accused of being
heretics in early
medieval Christianity
Christianity in the Middle Ages covers the history of Christianity from the fall of the Western Roman Empire (). The end of the period is variously defined. Depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman ...
included those labeled
Gnostics
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
, Cathars, and, later, the
Beguines, as well as several other groups that were sometimes "tortured and executed". Cathars, like the Gnostics who preceded them, assigned more importance to the role of
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene (sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine) was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to crucifixion of Jesus, his cru ...
in the spread of early Christianity than the church previously did. Her vital role as a teacher contributed to the Cathar belief that women could serve as spiritual leaders. Women were found to be included in the Perfecti in significant numbers, with numerous receiving the after being widowed. Having reverence for the
Gospel of John
The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...
, the Cathars saw Mary Magdalene as perhaps even more important than
Saint Peter
Saint Peter; he, שמעון בר יונה, Šimʿōn bar Yōnāh; ar, سِمعَان بُطرُس, translit=Simʿa̅n Buṭrus; grc-gre, Πέτρος, Petros; cop, Ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲟⲥ, Petros; lat, Petrus; ar, شمعون الصفـا, Sham'un ...
, the founder of the church.
Catharism attracted numerous women with the promise of a leadership role that the Catholic Church did not allow. Catharism let women become a Perfect. These female Perfects were required to adhere to a strict and ascetic lifestyle, but were still able to have their own houses. Although many women found something attractive in Catharism, not all found its teachings convincing. A notable example is
Hildegard of Bingen, who in 1163 gave a rousing exhortation against the Cathars in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
. During this discourse, Hildegard announced God's eternal
damnation on all who accepted Cathar beliefs.
While women Perfects rarely traveled to preach the faith, they still played a vital role in the spreading of Catharism by establishing group homes for women. Though it was extremely uncommon, there were isolated cases of female Cathars leaving their homes to spread the faith. In Cathar communal homes (ostals), women were educated in the faith, and these women would go on to bear children who would then also become believers. Through this pattern, the faith grew exponentially through the efforts of women as each generation passed.
Despite women having a role in the growth of the faith, Catharism was not completely equal; for example, the belief that one's last
incarnation
Incarnation literally means ''embodied in flesh'' or ''taking on flesh''. It refers to the conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or the appearance of a god as a human. If capitalized, it is the union of divinit ...
had to be experienced as a man to break the cycle. This belief was inspired by later French Cathars, who taught that women must be reborn as men in order to achieve
salvation
Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...
. Toward the end of the Cathar movement, Catharism became less equal and started the practice of excluding women Perfects. However, this trend remained limited; for example, later on, Italian Perfects still included women.
Suppression
![Garotte - Excerpt from Pedro Berruguete - Saint Dominic Presiding over an Auto-da-fe](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Garotte_-_Excerpt_from_Pedro_Berruguete_-_Saint_Dominic_Presiding_over_an_Auto-da-fe.jpg)
In 1147,
Pope Eugene III sent a
legate
Legate may refer to:
*Legatus, a higher ranking general officer of the Roman army drawn from among the senatorial class
:*Legatus Augusti pro praetore, a provincial governor in the Roman Imperial period
*A member of a legation
*A representative, ...
to the Cathar district in order to arrest the progress of the Cathars. The few isolated successes of
Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard of Clairvaux, O. Cist. ( la, Bernardus Claraevallensis; 109020 August 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templars, and a major leader in the reformation of the Benedictine Order through ...
could not obscure the poor results of this mission, which clearly showed the power of the sect in the Languedoc at that period. The missions of Cardinal
Peter of Saint Chrysogonus to Toulouse and the Toulousain in 1178, and of
Henry of Marcy
Henry of Marcy, or Henri de Marsiac, (c. 1136 –1 January 1189) was a Cistercian abbot, first of Hautecombe in Savoy (1160–1177), and then of Clairvaux, from 1177 until 1179. He was created Cardinal Bishop of Albano by Pope Alexander III ...
,
cardinal-bishop of Albano, in 1180–81, obtained merely momentary successes. Henry's armed expedition, which took the stronghold at
Lavaur, did not extinguish the movement.
Decisions of Catholic Church councils—in particular, those of the Council of
Tours
Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 ...
(1163) and of the
Third Council of the Lateran
The Third Council of the Lateran met in Rome in March 1179. Pope Alexander III presided and 302 bishops attended. The Catholic Church regards it as the eleventh ecumenical council.
By agreement reached at the Peace of Venice in 1177 the bitter ...
(1179)—had scarcely more effect upon the Cathars. When
Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III ( la, Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216), born Lotario dei Conti di Segni (anglicized as Lothar of Segni), was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 to his death in 16 J ...
came to power in 1198, he was resolved to deal with them.
At first Innocent tried peaceful conversion, and sent a number of legates into the Cathar regions. They had to contend not only with the Cathars, the nobles who protected them, and the people who respected them, but also with many of the bishops of the region, who resented the considerable authority the Pope had conferred upon his legates. In 1204, Innocent III suspended a number of bishops in
Occitania
Occitania ( oc, Occitània , , or ) is the historical region in Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe where the Occitan language, Occitan language was historically spoken and where it is sometimes still used as a second language. This ...
; in 1205 he appointed a new and vigorous
bishop of Toulouse, the former
troubadour
A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a ''trobairit ...
Foulques. In 1206
Diego of Osma
Diego de Acebo (also known as ''Diaz de Osma'', ''Alphonsus Didacus'', ''Didacus Acebes'') was bishop of Osma (Castile, Spain) from 1201 to 1207.
Life
Diego de Acebo was prior of the cathedral chapter of the Burgo de Osma Cathedral, ''Catedral de ...
and his canon, the future
Saint Dominic
Saint Dominic ( es, Santo Domingo; 8 August 1170 – 6 August 1221), also known as Dominic de Guzmán (), was a Castilian Catholic priest, mystic, the founder of the Dominican Order and is the patron saint of astronomers and natural scientis ...
, began a programme of conversion in Languedoc; as part of this, Catholic–Cathar public debates were held at
Verfeil,
Servian,
Pamiers
Pamiers (; oc, Pàmias ) is a commune and largest city in the Ariège department in the Occitanie region in southwestern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. It is the most populous commune in the Ariège department, although it ...
,
Montréal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-p ...
and elsewhere.
Dominic met and debated with the Cathars in 1203 during his mission to the Languedoc. He concluded that only preachers who displayed real sanctity, humility and asceticism could win over convinced Cathar believers. The institutional Church as a general rule did not possess these spiritual warrants. His conviction led eventually to the establishment of the
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...
in 1216. The order was to live up to the terms of his rebuke, "Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth." However, even Dominic managed only a few converts among the Cathars.
Albigensian Crusade
![Albigensian Crusade 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Albigensian_Crusade_01.jpg)
In January 1208 the papal legate,
Pierre de Castelnau
Pierre de Castelnau (? - died 15 January 1208), French ecclesiastic, made papal legate in 1199 to address the Cathar heresy, he was subsequently murdered in 1208. Following his death Pope Innocent III beatified him by papal order, excommunicated ...
, a
Cistercian
The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...
monk, theologian and canon lawyer, was sent to meet the ruler of the area,
Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse
Raymond VI ( oc, Ramon; October 27, 1156 – August 2, 1222) was Count of Toulouse and Marquis of Provence from 1194 to 1222. He was also Count of Melgueil (as Raymond IV) from 1173 to 1190.
Early life
Raymond was born at Saint-Gilles, Gard, ...
. Known for excommunicating noblemen who protected the Cathars, Castelnau
excommunicated
Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...
Raymond for
abetting heresy, following an allegedly fierce argument during which Raymond supposedly threatened Castelnau with violence. Shortly thereafter, Castelnau was murdered as he returned to Rome, allegedly by a knight in the service of Count Raymond. His body was returned and laid to rest in the
Abbey of Saint-Gilles.
As soon as he heard of the murder, the Pope ordered the
legate
Legate may refer to:
*Legatus, a higher ranking general officer of the Roman army drawn from among the senatorial class
:*Legatus Augusti pro praetore, a provincial governor in the Roman Imperial period
*A member of a legation
*A representative, ...
s to preach a
crusade
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were i ...
against the Cathars, and wrote a letter to
Philip Augustus, King of France
Philip II (21 August 1165 – 14 July 1223), byname Philip Augustus (french: Philippe Auguste), was King of France from 1180 to 1223. His predecessors had been known as kings of the Franks, but from 1190 onward, Philip became the first French m ...
, appealing for his intervention—or an intervention led by his son,
Louis Louis may refer to:
* Louis (coin)
* Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name
* Louis (surname)
* Louis (singer), Serbian singer
* HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy
See also
Derived or associated terms
* Lewis (d ...
. This was not the first appeal, but some see the murder of the legate as a turning point in papal policy. The chronicler of the crusade which followed,
Peter of Vaux de Cernay Peter of Vaux de Cernay (died c.1218) was a Cistercian monk of Vaux-de-Cernay Abbey, in what is now Yvelines, northern France, and a chronicler of the Albigensian Crusade. His ''Historia Albigensis'' is one of the primary sources for the events of t ...
, portrayed the sequence of events in such a way that, having failed in his effort to peaceably demonstrate the errors of Catharism, the Pope then began a formal crusade, appointing a series of leaders to head the assault on Catharism.
King Philip II of France refused to lead the crusade himself, and could not spare his son, Prince Louis VIII, to do so either—despite his victory against
John, King of England
John (24 December 1166 – 19 October 1216) was King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216. He lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the collapse of the Angevin Empi ...
, as there were still pressing issues with Flanders and the empire along with the threat of an
Angevin revival. While King Philip II could not lead the crusade nor spare his son, he did sanction the participation of some of his barons, notably
Simon de Montfort and Bouchard de Marly. There followed twenty years of war against the Cathars and their allies in the Languedoc: the Albigensian Crusade.
![Carcasonneouterwall](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Carcasonneouterwall.jpg)
This war pitted the nobles of France against those of the Languedoc. The widespread northern enthusiasm for the Crusade was partially inspired by a papal decree that permitted the confiscation of lands owned by Cathars and their supporters. This angered not only the lords of the south, but also the King Philip II of France, who was at least nominally the
suzerain
Suzerainty () is the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity who controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. While the subordinate party is calle ...
of the lords whose lands were now open to seizure. King Philip II wrote to Pope Innocent in strong terms to point this out—but Pope Innocent refused to change his decree. As the Languedoc was supposedly teeming with Cathars and Cathar sympathisers, this made the region a target for northern French noblemen looking to acquire new fiefs.
The first target for the barons of the North were the lands of the
Trencavel, powerful lords of Carcassonne, Béziers, Albi, and the Razes. Little was done to form a regional coalition, and the crusading army was able to take Carcassonne, the Trencavel capital, incarcerating
Raymond Roger Trencavel
Raymond Roger Trencavel (also Raimond, oc, Raimon Rogièr; 1185 – 10 November 1209) was a member of the noble Trencavel family. He was viscount of Béziers and Albi (and thus a vassal of the count of Toulouse), and viscount of Carcassonne a ...
in his own citadel where he died within three months. Champions of the
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language
Occitan (; o ...
cause claimed that he was murdered. Simon de Montfort was granted the Trencavel lands by Pope Innocent, thus incurring the enmity of
Peter II of Aragon
Peter II the Catholic (; ) (July 1178 – 12 September 1213) was the King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona from 1196 to 1213.
Background
Peter was born in Huesca, the son of Alfonso II of Aragon and Sancha of Castile. In 1205 he acknowled ...
who previously had been aloof from the conflict, even acting as a mediator at the time of the siege of Carcassonne. The remainder of the first of the two Cathar wars now focused on Simon de Monfort's attempt to hold on to his gains through the winters. Then, with a small force of confederates operating from the main winter camp at
Fanjeaux
Fanjeaux (; oc, Fanjaus) is a commune in the Aude department in southern France.
Fanjeaux is located west of Carcassonne. Between 1206 and 1215, Fanjeaux was the home of Saint Dominic, the founder of the Roman Catholic Church's Dominican Or ...
, he was faced with the desertion of local lords who had sworn fealty to him out of necessity—and attempts to enlarge his newfound domain during the summer. His forces were then greatly augmented by reinforcements from France, Germany, and elsewhere.
Summer campaigns saw Simon not only retake what he had lost in the winter, but seek to widen his sphere of operation—and we see him in action in the
Aveyron
Aveyron (; oc, Avairon; ) is a department in the region of Occitania, Southern France. It was named after the river Aveyron. Its inhabitants are known as ''Aveyronnais'' (masculine) or ''Aveyronnaises'' (feminine) in French. The inhabitants o ...
at
St. Antonin and on the banks of the
Rhône
The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...
at
Beaucaire. Simon de Monfort's greatest triumph was the victory against superior numbers at the
Battle of Muret
The Battle of Muret (Occitan: Batalha de Murèth), fought on 12 September 1213 near Muret, 25 km south of Toulouse, was the last major battle of the Albigensian Crusade and one of the most notable pitched battles of the Middle Ages. Althoug ...
—a battle which saw not only the defeat of Raymond of Toulouse and his Occitan allies—but also the death of Peter II of Aragon—which effectively ended the ambitions of the house of Aragon/Barcelona in the Languedoc.
Massacre
The crusader army came under the command, both spiritually and militarily, of the papal legate
Arnaud-Amaury
Arnaud Amalric ( la, Arnoldus Amalricus; died 1225) was a Cistercian abbot who played a prominent role in the Albigensian Crusade. It is reported that prior to the massacre of Béziers, Amalric, when asked how to distinguish Cathars from Catholi ...
,
Abbot
Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The fem ...
of
Cîteaux. In the first significant engagement of the war, the town of
Béziers
Béziers (; oc, Besièrs) is a Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Hérault Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region of Southern France. Every August Béziers hos ...
was
besieged
Besieged may refer to:
* the state of being under siege
* ''Besieged'' (film), a 1998 film by Bernardo Bertolucci
{{disambiguation ...
on 22 July 1209. The Catholic inhabitants of the city were granted the freedom to leave unharmed, but many refused and opted to stay and fight alongside the Cathars.
The Cathars spent much of 1209 fending off the crusaders. The Béziers army attempted a
sortie
A sortie (from the French word meaning ''exit'' or from Latin root ''surgere'' meaning to "rise up") is a deployment or dispatch of one military unit, be it an aircraft, ship, or troops, from a strongpoint. The term originated in siege warfare. ...
but was quickly defeated, then pursued by the crusaders back through the gates and into the city. Arnaud-Amaury, the
Cistercian
The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...
abbot-commander, is supposed to have been asked how to tell Cathars from Catholics. His reply, recalled by
Caesarius of Heisterbach Caesarius of Heisterbach (ca. 1180 – ca. 1240), sometimes erroneously called, in English, Caesar of Heisterbach, was the prior of a Cistercian monastery, Heisterbach Abbey, which was located in the Siebengebirge, near the small town of Oberdollend ...
, a fellow Cistercian, thirty years later was —"Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own". The doors of the church of St Mary Magdalene were broken down and the refugees dragged out and slaughtered. Reportedly, at least 7,000 men, women and children were killed there by Catholic forces. Elsewhere in the town, many more thousands were mutilated and killed. Prisoners were blinded, dragged behind horses, and used for target practice. What remained of the city was razed by fire. Arnaud-Amaury wrote to Pope Innocent III, "Today your Holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex." "The permanent population of Béziers at that time was then probably no more than 5,000, but local refugees seeking shelter within the city walls could conceivably have increased the number to 20,000."
After the success of his siege of Carcassonne, which followed the massacre at Béziers in 1209, Simon de Montfort was designated as leader of the Crusader army. Prominent opponents of the Crusaders were
Raymond Roger Trencavel
Raymond Roger Trencavel (also Raimond, oc, Raimon Rogièr; 1185 – 10 November 1209) was a member of the noble Trencavel family. He was viscount of Béziers and Albi (and thus a vassal of the count of Toulouse), and viscount of Carcassonne a ...
, viscount of Carcassonne, and his feudal overlord
Peter II of Aragon
Peter II the Catholic (; ) (July 1178 – 12 September 1213) was the King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona from 1196 to 1213.
Background
Peter was born in Huesca, the son of Alfonso II of Aragon and Sancha of Castile. In 1205 he acknowled ...
, who held fiefdoms and had a number of
vassal
A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain. W ...
s in the region. Peter died fighting against the crusade on 12 September 1213 at the
Battle of Muret
The Battle of Muret (Occitan: Batalha de Murèth), fought on 12 September 1213 near Muret, 25 km south of Toulouse, was the last major battle of the Albigensian Crusade and one of the most notable pitched battles of the Middle Ages. Althoug ...
. Simon de Montfort was killed on 25 June 1218 after maintaining
a siege of Toulouse for nine months.
Treaty and persecution
![Filip2 albigensti](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Filip2_albigensti.jpg)
The official war ended in the
Treaty of Paris (1229), by which the king of France dispossessed the
House of Toulouse
The House of Toulouse, sometimes called ''House of Saint-Gilles'' or Raimondines, is the name of the dynasty that ruled the County of Toulouse.
History
Creation of the County of Toulouse
The county of Toulouse is a former county in southern ...
of the greater part of its
fiefs, and the house of the
Trencavels of the whole of their fiefs. The independence of the princes of the Languedoc was at an end. In spite of the wholesale massacre of Cathars during the war, Catharism was not yet extinguished, and Catholic forces would continue to pursue Cathars.
In 1215, the bishops of the Catholic Church met at the
Fourth Council of the Lateran
The Fourth Council of the Lateran or Lateran IV was convoked by Pope Innocent III in April 1213 and opened at the Lateran Palace in Rome on 11 November 1215. Due to the great length of time between the Council's convocation and meeting, many bi ...
under Pope Innocent III; part of the agenda was combating the Cathar heresy.
The Inquisition was established in 1233 to uproot the remaining Cathars. Operating in the south at Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne and other towns during the whole of the 13th century, and a great part of the 14th, it succeeded in crushing Catharism as a popular movement, driving its remaining adherents underground. Cathars who refused to recant or relapsed were hanged, or burnt at the stake.
On Friday 13 May 1239, in
Champagne, 183 men and women convicted of Catharism were burned at the stake on the orders of the
Dominican inquisitor and former Cathar Perfect . Mount Guimar, in
northeastern France, had already been denounced as a place of heresy in a letter of the Bishop of
Liège
Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège.
The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...
to
Pope Lucius II in 1144.
From May 1243 to March 1244, the Cathar fortress of
Montségur
Montségur (; Languedocien: ''Montsegur'') is a commune in the Ariège department in southwestern France.
It is famous for its fortification, the Château de Montségur, that was built on the "pog" (mountain) on the ruins of one of the las ...
was besieged by the troops of the
seneschal
The word ''seneschal'' () can have several different meanings, all of which reflect certain types of supervising or administering in a historic context. Most commonly, a seneschal was a senior position filled by a court appointment within a royal, ...
of Carcassonne and the
archbishop of Narbonne
The former Catholic diocese of Narbonne existed from early Christian times until the French Revolution. It was an archdiocese, with its see at Narbonne, from the year 445, and its influence ran over much of south-western France and into Cataloni ...
. On 16 March 1244, a large and symbolically important massacre took place, wherein over 200 Cathar Perfects were burnt in an enormous pyre at the ("field of the burned") near the foot of the castle. Moreover, the Church, at the 1235 Council of
Narbonne, decreed lesser chastisements against laymen suspected of sympathy with Cathars.
![CatharCross](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/CatharCross.svg)
A popular though as yet unsubstantiated belief holds that a small party of Cathar Perfects escaped from the fortress prior to the massacre at . It is widely held in the Cathar region to this day that the escapees took with them "the Cathar treasure". What this treasure consisted of has been a matter of considerable speculation: claims range from sacred
Gnostic texts to the Cathars' accumulated wealth, which might have included the
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail (french: Saint Graal, br, Graal Santel, cy, Greal Sanctaidd, kw, Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miracul ...
(see below).
Hunted by the Inquisition and deserted by the nobles of their districts, the Cathars became more and more scattered fugitives, meeting surreptitiously in forests and mountain wilds. Later insurrections broke out under the leadership of
Roger-Bernard II, Count of Foix
Roger Bernard II (c. 1195 – 26 May 1241), called the Great, was the seventh count of Foix from 1223 until his death. He was the son and successor of the count Raymond-Roger and his wife Philippa of Montcada.
Albigensian crusade
He made his na ...
,
Aimery III of Narbonne
Aimery (or Aimeric) III (died February 1239), known in Spanish as Aimerico Pérez de Lara, was the Viscount of Narbonne from 1194 until his own death. He was a member of the House of Lara. Throughout his reign he had to navigate competing claims of ...
, and
Bernard Délicieux
Bernard Délicieux (c. 1260-1270 1320) was a Spiritual Franciscan friar who resisted the Inquisition in Carcassonne and Languedoc region of southern France.
Early life
Born in Montpellier, France sometime in 1260-1270, Délicieux joined the F ...
, a
Franciscan
The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...
friar later prosecuted for his adherence to another heretical movement, that of the
Spiritual Franciscans at the beginning of the 14th century. By this time, the Inquisition had grown very powerful. Consequently, many presumed to be Cathars were summoned to appear before it. Precise indications of this are found in the registers of the Inquisitors
Bernard of Caux, Jean de St Pierre,
Geoffroy d'Ablis
Geoffroy d'Ablis was a Dominican who led the Inquisition in Carcassonne against Cathars such as Peire Autier from 1303 to 1316. He collaborated with Bernard Gui, the inquisitor at Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of ...
, and others. The ''perfects'', it was said, only rarely recanted, and hundreds were burnt. Repentant
lay
Lay may refer to:
Places
*Lay Range, a subrange of mountains in British Columbia, Canada
*Lay, Loire, a French commune
*Lay (river), France
*Lay, Iran, a village
*Lay, Kansas, United States, an unincorporated community
People
* Lay (surname)
* ...
believers were punished, but their lives were spared as long as they did not relapse. Having recanted, they were obliged to sew yellow crosses onto their outdoor clothing and to live apart from other Catholics, at least for a time.
Annihilation
After several decades of harassment and re-proselytising, and, perhaps even more important, the systematic destruction of their religious texts, the sect was exhausted and could find no more
adept
An adept is an individual identified as having attained a specific level of knowledge, skill, or aptitude in doctrines relevant to a particular author or organization.
He or she stands out from others with their great abilities. All human quali ...
s. The leader of a Cathar revival in the
Pyrenean foothills,
Peire Autier
Peire Autier, Peire Authié or Pierre Authié (French: ''Peire Authié'') was a Cathar Good Man (leader) in the Languedoc region of southern France. Originally a notary from Ax-les-Thermes, he travelled to Lombardy and Piedmont with his brother, J ...
, was captured and executed in April 1310 in
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
. After 1330, the records of the Inquisition contain very few proceedings against Cathars. The last known Cathar ''perfect'' in the Languedoc,
Guillaume Bélibaste, was executed in the autumn of 1321.
From the mid-12th century onwards, Italian Catharism came under increasing pressure from the Pope and the Inquisition, "spelling the beginning of the end". Other movements, such as the
Waldensians
The Waldensians (also known as Waldenses (), Vallenses, Valdesi or Vaudois) are adherents of a church tradition that began as an ascetic movement within Western Christianity before the Reformation.
Originally known as the "Poor Men of Lyon" in ...
and the pantheistic
Brethren of the Free Spirit The Brethren of the Free Spirit were adherents of a loose set of beliefs deemed heretical by the Catholic Church but held (or at least believed to be held) by some Christians, especially in the Low Countries, Germany, France, Bohemia, and Norther ...
, which suffered persecution in the same area, survived in remote areas and in small numbers through the 14th and 15th centuries. The Waldensian movement continues today; Waldensian ideas influenced other
proto-Protestant
Proto-Protestantism, also called pre-Protestantism, refers to individuals and movements that propagated ideas similar to Protestantism before 1517, which historians usually regard as the starting year for the Reformation era. The relationship be ...
sects, such as the
Hussites,
Lollards, and the
Moravian Church
The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...
.
Later history
After the suppression of Catharism, the descendants of Cathars were discriminated against and at times required to live outside towns and their defences. They retained their Cathar identity, despite their reintegration into Catholicism. As such, any use of the term "Cathar" to refer to people after the suppression of Catharism in the 14th century is a cultural or ancestral reference and has no religious implication. Nevertheless, interest in the Cathars and their history, legacy and beliefs continues.
![Montsegur-w02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Montsegur-w02.jpg)
The term , French meaning "Cathar Country", is used to highlight the Cathar heritage and history of the region in which Catharism was traditionally strongest. The area is centred around fortresses such as Montségur and Carcassonne; also, the French
département
In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivity, territorial collectivities"), between the regions of France, admin ...
of the
Aude
Aude (; ) is a Departments of France, department in Southern France, located in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region and named after the river Aude (river), Aude. The departmental council also calls it "Ca ...
uses the title in tourist brochures. The areas have ruins from the wars against the Cathars that are still visible today.
Some criticise the promotion of the identity of as an exaggeration for tourism purposes. Many of the promoted
Cathar castles
Cathar castles (in French ''Châteaux cathares'') are a group of medieval castles located in the Languedoc region. Some had a Cathar connection in that they offered refuge to dispossessed Cathars in the thirteenth century. Many of these sites were ...
were not built by Cathars but by local lords, and many of them were later rebuilt and extended for strategic purposes. Good examples are the castles of
Queribus and
Peyrepertuse, which are both perched on the side of precipitous drops on the last folds of the
Corbières Massif
The Corbières Massif (Catalan: ''Corberes''; french: Massif des Corbières, ) is a mountain range in the Pre-Pyrenees. It is the only true foothill of the Pyrenees on their northern side.
Geography
The Corbières are a mountain region in the ...
. They were for several hundred years frontier fortresses belonging to the French crown, and most of what is still there dates from a post-Cathar era. Many consider the
County of Foix to be the actual historical centre of Catharism.
Interrogation of heretics
In an effort to find the few remaining heretics in and around the village of
Montaillou
Montaillou (; oc, Montalhon) is a commune in the Ariège department in the south of France. Its original, medieval location was abandoned and the current village is a short distance away.
History
The village is best known for being the su ...
, Jacques Fournier,
Bishop of Pamiers, future
Pope Benedict XII
Pope Benedict XII ( la, Benedictus XII, french: Benoît XII; 1285 – 25 April 1342), born Jacques Fournier, was head of the Catholic Church from 30 December 1334 to his death in April 1342. He was the third Avignon pope. Benedict was a careful p ...
, had those suspected of heresy interrogated in the presence of scribes who recorded their conversations. The late 13th- to early-14th-century document, the
Fournier Register The Fournier Register is a set of records from the inquisition into heresy run by Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers between 1318 and 1325. Fournier was later to become Pope Benedict XII.
Interrogation
Fournier interrogated hundreds of individu ...
, discovered in the Vatican archives in the 1960s and edited by
Jean Duvernoy
Jean Duvernoy (1 January 1917 – 19 August 2010, Saint-Jean de Luz) was a French medievalist. Born in 1917 in Bourgoin to a Protestant family, he began to study the Waldensians and later Catharism. He edited and translated a great number of sour ...
, is the basis for
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's work ''
Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error''.
Historical and current scholarship
The publication of the early scholarly book ''Crusade Against the Grail'', by the young German
Otto Rahn
Otto Wilhelm Rahn (18 February 1904 – 13 March 1939) was a German writer, medievalist, Ariosophist, and an officer of the SS and researcher into the Grail myths. He was born in Michelstadt, Germany, and died in Söll (Kufstein, Tyrol) in ...
in the 1930s, rekindled interest in the connection between the Cathars and the
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail (french: Saint Graal, br, Graal Santel, cy, Greal Sanctaidd, kw, Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miracul ...
, especially in Germany. Rahn was convinced that the 13th-century work ''
Parzival'' by
Wolfram von Eschenbach was a veiled account of the Cathars. The philosopher and Nazi government official
Alfred Rosenberg speaks favourably of the Cathars in ''
The Myth of the Twentieth Century
''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' (german: Der Mythus des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts) is a 1930 book by Alfred Rosenberg, one of the principal ideologues of the Nazi Party and editor of the Nazi paper '' Völkischer Beobachter''. The titular ...
''.
Academic books in English first appeared at the beginning of the 21st century: for example, Malcolm Lambert's ''The Cathars'' and Malcolm Barber's ''The Cathars''.
Starting in the 1990s and continuing to the present day, historians like
R. I. Moore have challenged the extent to which Catharism, as an institutionalized religion, actually existed. Building on the work of
French historians such as Monique Zerner and Uwe Brunn, Moore's ''The War on Heresy'' argues that Catharism was "contrived from the resources of
hewell-stocked imaginations" of churchmen, "with occasional reinforcement from miscellaneous and independent manifestations of local anticlericalism or apostolic enthusiasm". In short, Moore claims that the men and women persecuted as Cathars were not the followers of a secret religion imported from the East; instead, they were part of a broader spiritual revival taking place in the later twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Moore's work is indicative of a larger
historiographical trend towards examining how heresy was constructed by the church.
Scholars since the 1990s have referred to the fearful rumors of Cathars as a
moral panic
A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usua ...
. The crusade against Cathars as a possibly-imaginary enemy has been compared to European
witch-hunt
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The Witch trials in the early modern period, classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and European Colon ...
s,
anti-Semitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
persecution, and the
Satanic Panic
The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organized abuse, or sadistic ritual abuse) starting in the United States in th ...
.
In 2016, ''Cathars in Question''. edited by Antonio Sennis, presents a range of conflicting views by academics of medieval heresy, including Feuchter, Stoyanov, Sackville, Taylor, D'Avray, Biller, Moore, Bruschi, Pegg, Hamilton, Arnold and Théry-Astruc, who had met at
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
and the
Warburg Institute in London in April 2013. Sennis describes the debate as about "an issue which is highly controversial and hotly debated among scholars: the existence of a medieval phenomenon which we can legitimately call 'Catharism'."
Dr. Andrew Roach in ''
The English Historical Review'' commented that "Reconciliation still seems some distance away" among the "distinguished, if sometimes cantankerous, scholars" who contributed to the volume. He said:
Professor Rebecca Rist describes the academic controversy as the "heresy debate" – "some of it very heated" – about whether Catharism was a "real heresy with Balkans origins, or rather a construct of western medieval culture, whose authorities wanted to persecute religious dissidents." Rist adds that some historians say the group was an invention of the medieval Church, so there never was a Cathar heresy; while she agrees that the medieval Church exaggerated its threat, she says there is evidence of the heresy's existence.
Professor Claire Taylor has called for a "post-revisionism" in the debate, saying that legacy historians assumed the heresy was a form of dualism and therefore a form of
Bogomilism
Bogomilism (Bulgarian and Macedonian: ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", bogumilstvo, богумилство) was a Christian neo-Gnostic or dualist sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Pete ...
, whereas "revisionists" have focused on social origins to explain the dissent.
Lucy Sackville has argued that while the revisionists rightly point to the Cathars' opaque origins and their branding as 'Manichaeans', this does not mean we should disregard all evidence that their heresy had an organised theology.
In art and music
The principal legacy of the Cathar movement is in the poems and songs of the Cathar
troubadors
A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a ''trobairit ...
, though this artistic legacy is only a smaller part of the wider
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language
Occitan (; o ...
linguistic and artistic heritage. The Occitan song ''
Lo Boièr Lo Boièr ("The Oxherd", also known as ''Le Bouvier'' in French) is an Occitan traditional song. It was popular in Languedoc during the Late Middle Ages, being particularly associated to the religious movement of Catharism. It might have developed d ...
'' is particularly associated with Catharism.
Recent artistic projects concentrating on the Cathar element in Provençal and troubador art include commercial recording projects by Thomas Binkley, electric hurdy-gurdy artist Valentin Clastrier, La Nef, and
Jordi Savall
Jordi Savall i Bernadet (; born 1 August 1941) is a Spanish conductor, composer and viol player. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for popularizing the viol family of ...
.
In
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
, Catharism has been linked with the
Knights Templar
, colors = White mantle with a red cross
, colors_label = Attire
, march =
, mascot = Two knights riding a single horse
, equipment ...
, an active sect of monks founded during the
First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic ru ...
(1095–1099). This link has caused
fringe theories about the Cathars and the possibility of their possession of the
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail (french: Saint Graal, br, Graal Santel, cy, Greal Sanctaidd, kw, Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miracul ...
, such as in the pseudohistorical ''
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.''
Reinterpretations
Though they were criticized by many historians, some Protestants such as
John Foxe
John Foxe (1516/1517 – 18 April 1587), an English historian and martyrologist, was the author of '' Actes and Monuments'' (otherwise ''Foxe's Book of Martyrs''), telling of Christian martyrs throughout Western history, but particularly the su ...
and
Jean Duvernoy
Jean Duvernoy (1 January 1917 – 19 August 2010, Saint-Jean de Luz) was a French medievalist. Born in 1917 in Bourgoin to a Protestant family, he began to study the Waldensians and later Catharism. He edited and translated a great number of sour ...
have argued that Cathars followed
Proto-Protestant
Proto-Protestantism, also called pre-Protestantism, refers to individuals and movements that propagated ideas similar to Protestantism before 1517, which historians usually regard as the starting year for the Reformation era. The relationship be ...
theology, and Foxe argued that they followed Calvinist soteriology. Such have argued that Cathars did not follow
dualism
Dualism most commonly refers to:
* Mind–body dualism, a philosophical view which holds that mental phenomena are, at least in certain respects, not physical phenomena, or that the mind and the body are distinct and separable from one another
** ...
but instead argued that such accusations were either misinterpretations of Cathar theology, wrongly attributed to Cathars or merely hostile claims. Other historians have also argued that Cathars instead followed Protestant theology because the Reformation spread rapidly to the land in which Cathars mainly existed. They argued that the people "held Protestant ideas" well before the Reformation. However, such arguments are generally viewed as weak.
A similar
pseudohistorical theory has argued that the Cathars are part of "
baptist successionism", which places the Cathars as forerunners of
Baptist theology. Hisel Berlin, advocating for the Baptist successionist theory, argued that claims about the Cathars were mainly false and that they denied things such as infant baptism.
See also
*
Antonin Gadal
*
Edmund Hamer Broadbent
__NOTOC__
Edmund Hamer Broadbent (15 June 1861 – 28 June 1945) was a Christian missionary and author. Born in Crumpsall, Lancashire, England, Broadbent operated under the auspices of the Plymouth Brethren movement.
His missionary work from 1 ...
—The Pilgrim Church
*
Comparison of Catharism and Protestantism
*
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
**
Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown ...
Notes
References
General references
*
* . Deals with Catharism in the context of the Inquisition's evolution and analyses Inquisitorial practice as the construction of the "confessing subject".
*
*
* . A discussion of the command "Kill them all, God will know his own." recorded by a contemporary Cistercian Chronicler.
* Biget, Jean-Louis (2007), ''Hérésie et inquisition dans le midi de la France'', Paris: Picard (Les médiévistes français), 2007.
* Biget, Jean-Louis (2020), ''Eglise, dissidences et société dans l'Occitanie médiévale'', with a foreword by Julien Théry, Lyon, Avignon : CIHAM Editions, 2020 (collection Mondes médiévaux), 2020.
* Brunn, Uwe (2006), ''Des contestataires aux "cathares" : Discours de réforme et propagande antihérétique dans les pays du Rhin et de la Meuse avant l'Inquisition'', Paris, Institut d'études augustiniennes
*
*
* . An history of the Albigensian war told by a contemporary.
*
*
*
*
Jean Duvernoy, Jean: transcriptions of inquisitorial manuscripts many hitherto unpublished
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* .
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* .
*
*
*
* .
* Mathieu, Albert,
Ce lieu est terrible, le Mont-Aimé en Champagne Vendredi 13 mai 1239 Réf : Bibliothèque Nationale de France
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* .
*
* .
*
*
* . A collection of primary sources, some on Catharism.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
* , including the ''Lyon Ritual''.
* : Official website of the Cathar Temple
*
* : History, origins, theology and extirpation.
* : details, histories, photographs, plans and maps of 30 Cathar castles.
* .
*
* .
* .
* : Cathar history & theology
*
{{Authority control
Ascetics
Christian mysticism
Gnosticism
History of Catholicism in France
Christianity in France
Religion in France
Nontrinitarianism
Persecution of Christian heretics