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Cathars and Cathar Beliefs in the Languedoc
Cathars and Cathar Beliefs in the Languedoc Afrikaans
Kathaar, Catalan cŕtar, Czech Albigentí, German Katharer,
Eesti Katarid, Spanish Catarismo, Esperanto Katarismo, French
Cathares, Italian Catari, Dutch Katharen, Norwegian Katarer,
Polish Katarzy, Portuguese Catarismo, Slovenian Albigénstvo,
Finnish Kataarit, Swedish Katarer.
The Cathars were a religious group who appeared in Europe
in the eleventh century, their origins
something of a mystery though there is reason to believe
their ideas came from Persia by way of the Byzantine Empire,
the Balkans and Northern Italy. Records from the Roman
Catholic Church mention them under various
names and in various places. Catholic theologians
debated with themselves for centuries whether Cathars were
Christian heretics or whether they were not Christians at
all. The question is apparently still open. Roman
Catholics still refer to Cathar belief as "the Great
Heresy" though the current official Catholic position
is that Catharism is not Christian at all.
  Cathars
believed in two principles, a good creator god and his evil
adversary (much like God and Satan of mainstream Christianity).
Cathars called themselves Christians; their neighbours distinguished
them as "Good Christians". The Catholic Church
called them Cathars or Albigenses. Cathars maintained a
Church hierarchy
and practiced a range of ceremonies,
but rejected any idea of priesthood or the use of church
buildings. They divided into ordinary
believers who led ordinary medieval lives and an inner
Elect
of Parfaits (men) and Parfaites (women) who led extremely
ascetic lives yet still worked for their living - generally
in itinerant manual trades like weaving. Cathars believed
in reincarnation
and refused
to eat meat or other animal products. They were strict
about biblical injunctions - notably those about living
in poverty, not telling lies, not killing and not swearing
oaths.
Basic
Cathar tenets led to some surprising logical implications.
For example they largely regarded men
and women as equals, and had no doctrinal objection
to contraception,
euthanasia
or suicide. In some respects the Cathar and Catholic
Churches were polar opposites. For example the Cathar Church
taught that all non-procreative sex was better than any
procreative sex. The Catholic Church taught - and still
teaches - exactly the opposite. Both positions produced
interesting results. Following their tenet, Catholics concluded
that masturbation was a far greater sin than rape, as mediaeval
penitentials confirm. Following their principles, Cathar
could deduce that sexual intercourse between man and wife
was more culpable than homosexual
sex.
 In
the Languedoc, famous at the time for its high culture,
tolerance and liberalism, the Cathar religion took root
and gained more and more adherents during the twelfth century.
By the early thirteenth century Catharism was probably the
majority religion in the area, supported by the nobility
as well as the common people. This was yet another annoyance
to the Roman Church which considered the feudal system to
be divinely ordained as the natural
order (Cathars disliked it because it depended on oath
taking). In open debates with leading Catholic theologians
Cathars seem invariably to have come out on top. This was
embarrassing for the Roman Church, not least because they
had fielded the best professional preachers in Europe against
what they saw as a collection of uneducated weavers and
other manual workers. Worse still a number of Catholic priests
had become Cathar adherents (Catharism was a religion that
seems to have appealed especially to the theologically literate
and whole Cathedral chapters are known to have defected,
as they did for example at Orleans). Worse, the Catholic
Church was held up to public ridicule (some of the richest
men in Christendom, bejeweled, dressed in finery, and preaching
poverty, provided an irresistible target even to fellow
Catholics). Worst yet, Cathars in the Languedoc refused
to pay tithes to the Catholic Church.
The
Cathar view of the Catholic Church was as bleak as the
Catholic Church's view of the Cathar Church. On the
Cathar side it manifested itself in ridiculing Catholic
doctrine and practices, and characterising the Catholic
Church as the "Church of Wolves". The Catholics
accused Cathars of heresy or apostasy and said they belonged
to the "Synagogue of Satan". The Catholic side
created some striking propaganda.
When the propaganda proved only partly successful, there
was only one option left - a crusade - the Albigensian
Crusade.
 The
Pope, Innocent
III, called a formal Crusade
against the Cathars of the Languedoc, appointing
a series of military
leaders to head his Holy Army. The first was a
Cistercian
abbot (Arnaud
Amaury) now best remembered for his command at
Béziers
"Kill them all. God will know his own".
The second was Simon
de Montfort now remembered as the father of another
Simon de Montfort, a prominent figure in English parliamentary
history. The war against the Cathars of the
Languedoc continued for two generations. In the later
phases the Kings
of France would take over as leaders of the crusade,
which thus became a Royal Crusade.
Click
here to go to a page on the Heraldry
of the Languedoc, including the coats
of arms of the Crusaders.
 From
1208, a war of terror was waged against the indigenous population
and their rulers: Raymond VI of Toulouse, Raymond-Roger Trencavel, Raymond
Roger of Foix in the first generation and Raymond
VII of Toulouse, Raymond Trencavel II, and Roger Bernard II of Foix in the second
generation. During this period
an estimated 500,000 Languedoc men women and children were
massacred - Catholics as well as Cathars. The Counts
of Toulouse and their allies
were dispossessed and humiliated, and their lands annexed
to France. Educated and tolerant Languedoc rulers
were replaced by relative barbarians; Dominic Guzmán
(later Saint
Dominic) founded the Dominican Order and soon afterwards
the Inquisition,
manned by his Dominicans, was established explicitly to
wipe out the last vestiges of resistance. Persecutions of
Languedoc
Jews and other minorities were initiated; the
culture of the troubadours
was lost as their cultured patrons were reduced to wandering
refugees known as faidits. Their characteristic concept
of "paratge",
a whole sophisticated world-view, was almost destroyed,
leaving us a pale imitation in our idea of chivalry. Lay
learning was discouraged and the reading of the bible became
a capital crime. Tithes were enforced. The Languedoc started
its long economic decline to become the poorest region in
France; and the language of the area, Occitan,
began its descent from the foremost literary language in
Europe to a regional dialect, now disparaged as a patois.
At the end of the extermination
of the Cathars, the Roman Church had convincing proof that a sustained campaign
of genocide can work. It also had the precedent of an internal Crusade within
Christendom, and the machinery of the first modern police state that could be
wheeled out for the Spanish Inquisition, and again for later Inquisitions and
genocides.
The crusade against the Cathars of the Languedoc has been
described as one of the greatest disasters ever to befall
Europe.
   Catharism
is often said to have been completely eradicated by the
end of the fourteenth century. Yet there are more
than a few vestiges
even today, apart from the enduring memory of Cathar martyrdom
and the ruins of the famous "Cathar
castles", including the Château
of Montségur (
Montsegùr).
There are even Cathars alive today, or at least people claiming
to be modern
Cathars. There is a flourishing, if largely superficial,
Cathar tourist industry in the Languedoc, and especially
in the Aude
département; and also an increasing number of
historians and other academics engaged in serious Cathar
studies. Interestingly, to date, the deeper they have dug,
the more they have vindicated
Cathar claims to represent a survival of the Earliest Christian
Church.
  Arguably
just as interesting, Protestant
ideas share much in common with Cathar ideas, and there
is reason to believe that early reformers were aware of
the Cathar tradition. Reformers seem to have known things
that the Cathars knew, but the Catholic Church did not -
and even today some Protestant Churches claim a Cathar heritage.
Tantalisingly, weavers were commonly accused of spreading
Protestant ideas in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
just as their antecedents in the same trade had been accused
of spreading Cathar ideas in Medieval times.
It can even be argued that in many respects Roman
Catholic ideas have shifted over the centuries ever
further from the Church's medieval teaching and ever closer
to Cathar teaching.
Click on the links on the menu below for more information
on all aspects of the Cathars (or Cathari).
Click on the following link to read a short introductory
article about
 Back
to: History in the Languedoc
Next
Section: Geography in the Languedoc 
What
did Cathars believe ?
Important
Events in Catharism
Thirteenth
Century Warfare - a glossary
Basic
Cathar Tenets
Crusaders and their arms
Cathar
Believers
Role
of the Church: Cistercians
& Dominicans
The
Cathar Elect
Cathar
Views of Catholic Belief
Cathar
Ceremonies
What
was the Albigensian Crusade ?
Catholic
Views of Cathar Belief
The
Cathar Hierarchy
Who
led the Crusade ?
Catholic
Propaganda
Implications
of Cathar Beliefs
Who's
Who in the Cathar wars
Cathar
Vindications
Where
did Catharism come from ?
The
Papal Inquisition
The
Cathar Legacy
Cathar
Terminology
Cathar
Castles
Do
Cathars still exist ?
Cathar
Martyrdom
Who
were the Counts of Toulouse ?
More
about Cathars
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