Catharism (/ˈkæθərɪzəm/; from the Greek: καθαροί, katharoi, "the pure [ones]")[1][2] was a Christian dualist or Gnostic movement between the 12th and 14th centuries which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly what is now northern Italy and southern France. Their reinterpretation of those texts contained numerous elements characteristical of Gnostic literature. The origins of their beliefs go back much further and may come from Eastern Europe and beyond, even ancient Persia, brought westwards by itinerant craftsmen such as weavers. [80], Academic books in English first appeared at the beginning of the millennium: for example, Malcolm Lambert's The Cathars[81] and Malcolm Barber's The Cathars. In all places where Cathar values were accepted, people lived in societies ahead of their time, with a material and spiritual prosperity that was unknown in neighbouring feudal societies. [4], Catharism was greatly influenced by the Bogomils of the First Bulgarian Empire,[5] and may have also had roots in the Paulician movement in Armenia and eastern Byzantine Anatolia through Paulicians resettled in Thrace (Philipoupolis). His reply, recalled by Caesarius of Heisterbach, a fellow Cistercian, thirty years later was "Caedite eos. It is widely held in the Cathar region to this day that the escapees took with them le trésor cathar. They were … [44] The perfecti were the spiritual elite, highly respected by many of the local people, leading a life of austerity and charity. Since those times, a spiritual movement, which can be called a Cathar Renaissance, has started spreading all over Europe. The barons of the north headed south to do battle. [39] Toward the end of the Cathar movement, Catharism became less equal and started the practice of excluding women perfects. [72] Moreover, the church decreed lesser chastisements against laymen suspected of sympathy with Cathars, at the 1235 Council of Narbonne.[73]. Some[who?] The Cathars—condemned as diabolical heretics by the Roman church—are often hailed as a manifestation of a separate, ‘primitive’ brand of Christianity. It is more than possible that they were wrong and that Manichaeans and Cathars shares a common Gnostic Dualist Christian ancestor sect. Those demands were only made of the parfaits. Accordingly, they made every effort to follow the teachings of Jesus as closely as possible. [46] The spirit was of utmost importance to the Cathars and was described as being immaterial and sexless. [65], The official war ended in the Treaty of Paris (1229), by which the king of France dispossessed the house of Toulouse of the greater part of its fiefs, and that of the Trencavels (Viscounts of Béziers and Carcassonne) of the whole of their fiefs. Good examples are the magnificent castles of Queribus and Peyrepertuse, which are both perched on the side of precipitous drops on the last folds of the Corbieres mountains. In 1147, Pope Eugene III sent a legate to the Cathar district in order to arrest the progress of the Cathars. This is … The two had been lovers in the thirteenth century. [75][76] After 1330, the records of the Inquisition contain very few proceedings against Cathars. Little was done to form a regional coalition and the crusading army was able to take Carcassonne, the Trencavel capital, incarcerating Raymond Roger Trencavel in his own citadel where he died within three months; champions of the Occitan cause claimed that he was murdered. Cathars. Who Were the Cathars? Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius, had expelled from the city a Fortunatus who had fled Africa in 392; he is a Fortunatus who is reported as a monk from Africa and protected by the lord of Widomarum. Some crusades were fought against fellow Christians. At the center of Bogomil and Cathar doctrine was the belief that existence is predicated on a battle between good and evil. The Cathars were also known as the Albigensian, named for the town of Albi where there was a large settlement. This was in the medium and longer term of much greater significance to the royal house of France than it was to de Montfort—and with the Battle of Bouvines was to secure the position of Philip Augustus vis a vis England and the Empire. Catharism was a Christian dualist movement (a religion based on a belief in two gods) that could be found across western Europe from the 11th century. Peter died fighting against the crusade on 12 September 1213 at the Battle of Muret. They were ‘Aryan’. Nevertheless, interest in the Cathars and their history, legacy and beliefs continues. [23][34] They regarded the Old Testament as written by Satan, except for a few books which they accepted,[5] and considered the Book of Revelation not a prophecy about the future, but an allegorical chronicle of what had transpired in Satan's rebellion. 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. Cathars adhering to this story would believe that having families and sons would not impede them from reaching God's kingdom. They also refused to partake in the practice of Baptism by water. From the mid-12th century onwards, Italian Catharism came under increasing pressure from the Pope and the Inquisition, "spelling the beginning of the end". Their first target was the lands of the Trencavel, powerful lords of Carcassonne, Béziers, Albi and the Razes. [69][70][71], From May 1243 to March 1244, the Cathar fortress of Montségur was besieged by the troops of the seneschal of Carcassonne and the archbishop of Narbonne. William Bélibaste, the last Cathar Perfect in the Languedoc, was a murderer who bedded many women in violation of his vows and tried to cover up his shortcomings. The Cathars (from the Greek katharos meaning ‘unpolluted’ or ‘pure’) were a group of Christian mystics who changed the face of Christianity in Europe. 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. Catharism was initially taught by ascetic leaders who set few guidelines and so some Catharist practices and beliefs varied by region and over time. According to legend, the Holy Grail was believed to have been entrusted to the Cathars, becoming part of their treasure. [68], On Friday, 13 May 1239, 183 men and women convicted of Catharism were burned at the stake on the orders of Robert le Bougre. Some Waldensian ideas were absorbed into other proto-Protestant sects, such as the Hussites, Lollards, and the Moravian Church (Herrnhuters of Germany). The chronicler of the crusade which followed, Peter of Vaux de Cernay, portrays the sequence of events in such a way that, having failed in his effort to peaceably demonstrate the errors of Catharism, the Pope then called a formal crusade, appointing a series of leaders to head the assault. In their houses, located in the heart of the village, they cared for the sick, the needy, and the traveler. Her vital role as a teacher contributed to the Cathar belief that women could serve as spiritual leaders. But seeing his situation and being largely unprepared to defend Beziers effectively, Trencavel fled to the mighty fortress of Carcassonne, in order to prepare a suitable defense. The benevolent god, on the other hand, was the one the Cathars worshipped and was responsible for the message of Jesus. Mrs Smith’s memories of this past life were dramatic and seemingly accurate in strange details. The leader of a Cathar revival in the Pyrenean foothills, Peire Autier, was captured and executed in April 1310 in Toulouse. Catholics destroyed virtually every scrap the Cathars wrote, so we do not know their side of the story, but according to Catholic sources, Cathars … The Cathari professed a neo-Manichaean dualism —that there are two principles, one good and the other evil, and that the material world is evil. They represented a community that seriously endangered the organization of Catholic Church in the 12th and 13th centuries. Under this view, humans were actually angels seduced by Satan before a war in heaven against the army of Michael, after which they would have been forced to spend an eternity trapped in the evil God's material realm. [12] Henry's armed expedition, which took the stronghold at Lavaur, did not extinguish the movement. He says of them: "They absolutely reject those who marry a second time, and reject the possibility of penance [that is, forgiveness of sins after baptism]". The Cathars called themselves simply the Good Men. Simon de Montfort led the royal army to the South of France on behalf of the king and church. The Cathars were part of a widespread spiritual reform movement in medieval Europe which began about 653 when Constantine-Silvanus brought a copy of the Gospels to Armenia. In other words, Cathar economic activity owed more to the Because of this, the Synod of Toulouse in 1229 expressly condemned such translations and even forbade lay people to own a Bible. The name of Bulgarians (Bougres) was also applied to the Albigensians, and they maintained an association with the similar Christian movement of the Bogomils ("Friends of God") of Thrace. 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