Cathars and Cathar Beliefs in the Languedoc

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 or the Byzantine Empire, by way of 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 official Catholic position is that Catharism is not Christian at all.

The religion flourished in an area often referred to as the Languedoc, broadly bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, the Pyrenees, and the rivers Garonne, Tarn and Rhône -— and corresponding to the new French region of Occitanie (or the old French regions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées)

As Dualists, Cathars believed in two principles, a good god and his evil adversary (much like God and Satan of mainstream Christianity). The good principle had created everything immaterial (good, permanent, immutable) while the bad principle had created everything material (bad, temporary, perishable). Cathars called themselves simply Christians; their neighbours distinguished them as "Good Christians". The Catholic Church called them Albigenses, or less frequently. Cathars.

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 - as it 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, Cathars could deduce that sexual intercourse between man and wife was more culpable than homosexual sex. (Catholic propaganda on this supposed Cathar proclivity gave us the word bugger, from Bougre, one of the many names for medieval Gnostic Dualists)

In the Languedoc, known 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. Many Catholic texts refer to the danger of it replacing Catholicism completely.

Catharism was supported or at least tolerated 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 the feudal system because it depended on oath taking). In open debates with leading Catholic theologians Cathars seem 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. A number of Catholic priests had become Cathar adherents (Catharism was a religion that seems to have appealed especially to the theologically literate). Worse, the Catholic Church was being held up to public ridicule (some of the richest men in Christendom, bejewelled, vested in finery, and preaching poverty, provided an irresistible target even to contemporary Catholics in the Languedoc). Worst yet, Cathars declined to pay tithes to the Catholic Church. As one senior Churchman observed of the Cathar movement "if it had not been cut back by the swords of the faithful I think it would have corrupted the whole of Europe."

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". 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 unsuccessful, there was only one option left - a crusade - the Albigensian Crusade.

The head of the Catholic Church, 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. Among the many victims who lost their lives were two kings: Peter II King of Aragon cut down at the Battle of Muret in 1213 and Louis VIII King of France who succumbed to dysentery on his way home to Paris in 1226.

From 1208, a war of terror was waged against the indigenous population of the Languedoc 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 half-million Languedoc men, women and children were massacred, Catholics as well as Cathars. The Crusaders killed the locals indiscriminately - in line with the the famous injunction recorded by a Cistercian chronicler as being spoken by his fellow Cistercian, the Abbot in command of the Crusader army at Béziers.

Arms of the medieval Counts of Toulouse - still seen everywhere in the Languedoc The Counts of Toulouse and their allies were dispossessed and humiliated, and their lands later annexed to France. Educated and tolerant Languedoc rulers were replaced by relative barbarians; Dominic Guzmán (later Saint Dominic) founded the Dominican Order. Within a few years the first papal Inquisition, manned by the 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 from the richest region of Europe 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, disparaged by the French as a patois.

At the end of the extermination of the Cathars, the Roman Church had 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 reconstructed for the Spanish Inquisition, and again for later Inquisitions and genocides. Chateaubriand referred to the crusade as "this abominable episode of our history". Voltaire observed that "there was never anything as unjust as the war against the Albigensians".

this striking monument to the Cathars may be seen in an Aire on the main road between Narbonne and Carcassonne Catharism is often said to have been completely eradicated soon after 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 spectacular castle at Carcassonne and the hilltop Château of Montségur ( Montsegùr).

Today, there are still many echoes of influences from the Cathar period, from International geopolitics down to popular culture. There are even Cathars alive today, or at least people claiming to be modern Cathars. There are historical tours of Cathar sites and also a flourishing, if largely superficial, Cathar tourist industry in the Languedoc, and especially in the Aude département.

As we see the eight-hundredth anniversary of important events, more and more memorials are springing up on the sites of massacres, as at Les Casses, Lavaur, Minerve, and Montségur. There is also an increasing community of historians and other academics engaged in serious historical and other academic Cathar studies. Interestingly, to date, the deeper scholars have dug, the more they have vindicated Cathar claims to represent a survival of an important Gnostic strand of the Earliest Christian Church.

road sign in Soultage Arguably just as interesting, Protestant ideas share much in common with Cathar ideas, and there is some reason to believe that early reformers were aware of the Cathar tradition. 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.

Pope Innocent III excommunicates a group of Cathars. From the fourteenth century, Chronique de France (Chronique de St Denis), British Library, Royal 16, g VI f374v.

Defenseless Languedoc Cathars are cut down by French Catholic Crusaders. From the fourteenth century Chronique de France (Chronique de St Denis), British Library, Royal 16, g VI f374v. This is the right hand side of a two panel illustration (The left half is shown above). In this panel The leading crusader can be identified by his coat of arms as Simon de Montfort .

Defensless Languedoc Cathars are cut down by French Catholic Crusaders. From the fourteenth century Chronique de France (Chronique de St Denis), British Library, Royal 16, g VI f374v. This is the right hand side of a two panel illustration (The left half is shown above). In this panel The leading crusader can be identified by his coat of arms as Simon de Montfort.

The Battle of Muret (1213), a turning point in the Cathar Crusade depicted in Grandes Chroniques de France, Manuscript français 2813, fol. 252v. (created 1375-1380), in the Bibliothèque nationale de France

The Battle of Muret (1213), a turning point in the Cathar Crusade depicted in Grandes Chroniques de France, Manuscrit fran�ais 2813, fol. 252v. (created 1375-1380), in the Biblioth�que nationale de France

Auto da Fe Presided Over By Saint Dominic Of Guzmán (1475); Pedro Berruguete (around 1450-1504) commissioned by fellow Dominican Torquemada, Oil on wood .
60 5/8 x 36 1/4 (154 x 92 cm).
Now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

The Aude departement brands itself as "Cathar Country"

Château Comtal, Carcassonne

GUIDED TOURS OF CATHAR CASTLES OF THE LANGUEDOC

You can join small exclusive guided tours of Cathar Castles
led by an English speaking expert on the Cathars
who lives in the Languedoc
(author of www.cathar.info and www.catharcastles.info )

Selected Cathar Castles. Accommodation provided. Transport Provided.

Cathar Origins, History, Theology.
The Crusade, The Inquisition, and Consequences

Click here to visit the Cathar Country Website for more information

Around 1250 Alphonse de Poitiers wrote to Pope Innocent IV asking him to issue a bull against heresy. This document is known in the form of a draft, on the back of which is a sketch showing a man being burned at the stake.

Alphonse's draft letter is held in the French National Archives, in a dossier called "Grands documents de l'histoire de France; Florilège", N^o notice 00000192, Fonds MUS, Cote AE/II/257 (Cote origine J428/1): described as "Projet de texte rédigé pour Alphonse de Poitiers, comte de Toulouse, afin d'obtenir du pape Innocent IV une bulle sur les poursuites contre les hérétiques. Au verso figure le dessin d'un hérétique livré aux flammes. Document non daté, en latin."

Bible moralisée Oxford-Paris-London
BNF Lat11560 f1v (Job) showing Franciscans watching a Cathar Consolamentum

Franciscans watching a Cathar Consolamentum

Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921)
La Délivrance Des emmurés de Carcassonne, 1879
oil on canvas ( 115 cm c 150 cm)
Musée Des Beaux Arts, Carcassonne, France

Trencavel seal reproduced in stone in Béziers

Road sign commemorating a Cathar Council at Pieusse

Carcassonne - Château Comtal

Villerouge Termenes - staircase built within the thickness of a tower wall

Medieval window seat at Villerouge Termenes where the last known Cathar Parfait in the Languedoc was burned alive for disagreeing with Catholic theology.

Montsegur, where around 325 Cathars were burned alive in 1244 for disagreeing with Catholic theology

Saint Augustine of Hippo - an ex Manichaean
Sometimes called the "Father of the Inquisition"

Donjon d'Arques

Capitol, Toulouse

Commemorative plaque at Lavaur where around 400 Cathars were burned alive for disagreeing with Catholic theology.

Pope Innocent III with Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse

Memorial at Les Casses where 60 Cathars were burned alive

Figure on the Basilica at Carcassonne

The King of Aragon wearing his "Coat of arms"

Cité of Carcassonne

Lotario di Segni became Pope Innocent III in 1198

Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse
submitting to Louis IX, The King of France

Seal of Jeanne of England,
wife of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse
mother of Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse

Seal of Jeanne of England,
wife of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse
mother of Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse

Note the Cross of Toulouse

Seal of Jeanne of England,
wife of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse
mother of Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse

The Counts of Toulouse are popular
among medieval re-enactors

Trencavel seal reproduced in stone in Béziers

The start of the Litury of the Consolamentum
from the Cathar Rituel in the Lyon MS.

Vestiges of "the Wall" - the Inquisition prison at Carcassonne

Illustration from the illuminated manuscript Grandes Chroniques de France depicting the burning of Amalrician heretics before King Philip II of France. In the background is the Gibbet of Montfaucon and, anachronistically, the Grosse Tour of the Temple fortress. Jean Fouquet (1455-1460), Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

A woman (allegorically representing the Gospel) with a thunderbolt triumphing over Heresia (Heresy) and the Serpent (Satan). Church of King Gustaf Vasa, Stockholm, Sweden, sculpture by Burchard Precht.

Auto DA Fe Presided Over By Saint Dominic Of Guzmán (1475); Pedro Berruguete (around 1450-1504) commissioned by Torquemada, Oil on wood . 60 5/8 x 36 1/4 (154 x 92 cm).
Now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Detail - Cathars to be burned

Burning Cathar "heretics" at Montsegùr

Road sign in Béziers

Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921)
The Agitator of Languedoc, 1882
oil on canvas ( 115 cm c 150 cm)
Musée Des Augustins, Toulouse, France

(depicting the Franciscan Bernart de Liegosi, better known by French version of his name Bernard Délicieux, facing the Inquisition)

Puilaurens

Tours of Cathar Castles & Cathar Country

Memorial at Minerve where 140 - 180 Cathars were burned alive for disagreeing with Catholic theology.

Cathar street sign in the Languedoc.

Villerouge Termenes where the last known Cathar Parfait in the Languedoc was burned alive in 1321 for the crime of disagreeing with Catholic theology.

Barbican, Aude Gate, Carcassonne, besieged in 1209.

Donjon d'Arques

Toulouse

Commemorative plaque at Lavaur where around 400 Cathars were burned alive for disagreeing with Catholic theology.

"Kill them all. God will know his own"

Painting in the Halle des Illustres at Toulouse depicting the death of Simon de Montfort

Medieval Trebuchet stones (at Carcassonne)

Raymond IV, window (detail)
in the Cathédrale Notre Dame & Saint Castor, Nimes

The King of France wearing his "Coat of Arms"

Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse
submitting to Louis IX, The King of France

Montsegur

Burning Heretics

Dominicans copied many aspects of Cathar practice, including the wearing of black outer robes.

Cathars and Catholics Expelled
from Carcassonne by the Crusaders

(Expulsion of the Albigensians from Carcassonne, a product of the Workshop of Master of Boucicaut, Grandes Chroniques de France, c. 1415, British Library

Confrérie Des Chevaliers Cathares

Commemorative Road Sign at Minerve where 140 - 180 Cathars were burned alive for disagreeing with Catholic theology.

Cathars (Catari) flourished in Italy too
Road sign in Sirmione, Italy

Arnaud Amaury, other Cistercian abbots and St-Dominic. (with a halo) crush helpless Cathars underfoot - a sanitised version of the persecution of the Cathars

Torture museum in in the Logis de l'Inquisition - the old Dominican house in Carcassonne

Memorial at Minerve where 140 - 180 Cathars were burned alive for disagreeing with Catholic theology.

Raymond VI by Jean-Paul Laurens, c 1920. The picture represents the spirit of independance of Occitan civilisation (for no obvious reason this picture has been withdrawn from public display in the Salle des Illustres in the Capitol, Toulouse.

Cathars and Catholics Expelled
from Carcassonne by the Crusaders

(Expulsion of the Albigensians from Carcassonne (detail), Grandes Chroniques de France, c. 1415, British Library)

Queribus

Carcassonne

Puilaurens

Barbican, Aude Gate, Carcassonne

Eastern (Uyghur) Manichaeans writing (with panel inscription in Sogdian). 8th or 9th century Manuscript from Gaochang, on the northern rim of the Taklamakan Desert in what is now Xinjiang, China (up to the nineteenth century Cathars were thought to be Manichaeans)

Saint Dominic and the Albigenses, 1480, Pedro Berruguete (Museo del Prado).

Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, the first man to take the cross in 1095 for the First Crusade to the Holy Land.

Nicola Pisano, Cathar "heretics" before Saint Dominic the (fictitious) Dispute of Fanjeaux

Béziers where the Abbot-Comander Arnaud Amaury reported killing 20,000 without regard to age, sex or rank.

Flags in Béziers. These flags are those of the ancient Counts of Toulouse.

Road sign in Béziers

The Count of Toulouse wearing his "Coat of arms"

A modern recreation of the Cathar Ceremony of the Consolamentum

Montsegur

Catholic sources report a number of incidents of Cathars and others worshipping Satan in the form of a cat, which then climes a rope and disappears leaving a foul smell.

The Counts of Toulouse are popular
among medieval re-enactors

Battle of Bouvines, 1214

Imprisoned

Dame Guiraude being murdered by the Crusaders at Lavaur

Devil and the cat worshippers kissing the cat’s backside Jean Tinctor, Traittié du crisme de vauderie (Sermo contra sectam vaudensium), Bruges ca. 1470-1480 (Paris, BnF, Français 961, fol. 1r)

The Languedoc Cross (from the armourial bearings of the Counts of Toulouse). Often erroneously referred to as the "Cathar Cross"

The Languedoc Cross (from the armourial bearings of the Counts of Toulouse) may be seen everywhere in the Languedoc

The Cathar New Testament - Lyon MS

Saint Augustine of Hippo - an ex Manichaean
Sometimes called the "Father of the Inquisition", debating about death of living creatures with the Manichaeans (Augustine, La Cité de Dieu, Books I-X (translation from the Latin by Raoul de Presles), Paris, Maître François (illuminator); c. 1475-1480. Volume II: Nantes, BM, fr. 8 Fol. 25r, Book 1, 20)

Château of Foix, seat of the Counts of Foix

Montsegur

The Counts of Toulouse are popular
among medieval re-enactors

A Cathar idea echoed by Shakespeare.

Ariel, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 10

An arresting modern way of stating the principal dualistic teaching of the Cathars.

"Nothing is more cruel to the past than the commonplace according to which force is unable to destroy spiritual values; according to this opinion, the existence of civilizations effaced by the violence of arms is denied. One may without fear deny the dead. One kills a second time what has perished, and associates oneself with the cruelty of arms."

"Rien n'est plus cruel envers le passé que le lieu commun selon lequel, la force est impuissante à détruire les valeurs spirituelles ; en vertu de cette opinion, on nie que les civilisations effacées par la violence des armes aient jamais existé ; on le peut sans craindre le démenti les morts. On tue ainsi une seconde fois ce qui a péri, et on s'associe à la cruauté des armes."

Simone Weil, under the pen-name Emile Novis, L'agonie d'une civilisation, Le Génie d'Oc, n° spécial des Cahiers du Sud, Marseille, 1943

Ratification of the Trteaty of Paris, 12 April 1229

A modern recreation of the Cathar Ceremony of the Consolamentum

Detail from Blanche of Castile and King Louis IX of France in the Bible moralisée de Tolède, dite bible de Saint-Louis, scène de dédicace, circa 1220-1230, The Morgan Library & Museum, Accession number M240

Further Information on Cathars and Cathar Castles

SUMMARY	BEAUCAIRE	CABARET	FANJEAUX	MARMANDE	PEYREPERTUSE	ROQUEFIXADE	USSON
AGEL	BEZIERS	CARCASSONNE	FENOUILLET	MINERVE	PIEUSSE	QUERIBUS	VILLEROUGE
AGUILAR	LE BEZU	LES CASSES	FOIX	MONTAILLOU	PLAIGNE	SAISSAC
ARQUES	BIRON	CASTELNAUDARY	LASTOURS	MONTSEGUR	PUILAURENS	TERMES
AVIGNONET	BRAM	COUSTAUSSA	LAVAUR	MURET	PUIVERT	TOULOUSE