Catharism

War in heaven. Illustration by Gustave Doré

Cathar cosmology identified two twin, opposing deities. The first was a good God, portrayed in the New Testament and creator of the spirit, while the second was an evil God, depicted in the Old Testament and creator of matter and the physical world.[20] The latter, often called Rex Mundi ("King of the World"),[21] was identified as the God of Judaism,[20] and was also either conflated with Satan or considered Satan's father, creator or seducer.[5] They solved the problem of evil by stating that the good God's power to do good was limited by the evil God's works and vice versa.[22] All visible matter, including the human body, was created by this Rex Mundi; matter was therefore tainted with sin. 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.[5] 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, condemned to live on the corrupt Earth.[23] Zoé Oldenbourg 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.[24]

Cathars venerated Jesus Christ and followed what they considered to be His true teachings, labelling themselves as "Good Christians."[7] However, they denied His physical incarnation.[25] Authors believe that their conception of Jesus resembled docetism, believing Him the human form of an angel,[26] whose physical body was only an appearance.[27] This illusory form would have possibly been given by the Virgin Mary, another angel in human form.[22] Most did not accept the normative Trinitarian understanding of Jesus, instead resembling nontrinitarian modalistic monarchianism (Sabellianism) in the West and adoptionism in the East, which might or might not be combined with the mentioned docetism.[28] Bernard of Clairvaux's biographer and other sources accuse some Cathars of Arianism,[29][30] and some scholars see Cathar Christology as having traces of earlier Arian roots.[31][32] In any case, Cathars firmly rejected the Resurrection of Jesus, 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, identified also with Elijah, as an evil being sent to hinder Jesus's teaching through the false sacrament of baptism.[5]

St. Paul, by Valentin de Boulogne

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.[22] Others, likely a majority 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.[22] In the same line, 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.[20] The physical Jesus from the material world would have been evil, a false messiah and a lustful lover of the material Mary Magdalene. 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.[20] Cathars also possibly believed in a Day of Judgement that would come when the number of just equated that of angels who fell, in which the believers would ascend to the spirit realm while the sinners would be thrown to everlasting fire along with Satan.[22] 13th century chronicler Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay recorded those views.[20]

The alleged sacred texts of the Cathars, besides the New Testament, included the previously Bogomil text The Gospel of the Secret Supper (also called John's Interrogation) and the Cathar original work The Book of the Two Principles.[33] They regarded the Old Testament as written by Satan except for a few books which they accepted.[5]

Cathars, in general, formed an anti-sacerdotal 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.[12] In contrast, the Cathars had but one central rite, the Consolamentum, 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.[34]

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 endura.[35] 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 extremis, little evidence exists to suggest this was a common Cathar practice.[36]

Painting by Pedro Berruguete portraying the story of a disputation between Saint Dominic and the Cathars (Albigensians), in which the books of both were thrown on a fire and Dominic's books were miraculously preserved from the flames.

The Cathars also refused the sacrament of the eucharist saying that it could not possibly be the body of Christ. They also refused to partake in the practice of Baptism by water. The following two quotes are taken from the Inquisitor Bernard Gui's experiences with the Cathar practices and beliefs:

Then they attack and vituperate, in turn, all the sacraments of the Church, especially the sacrament of the eucharist, saying that it cannot contain the body of Christ, for had this been as great as the largest mountain Christians would have entirely consumed it before this. They assert that the host comes from straw, that it passes through the tails of horses, to wit, when the flour is cleaned by a sieve (of horse hair); that, moreover, it passes through the body and comes to a vile end, which, they say, could not happen if God were in it.[37] Of baptism, they assert that the water is material and corruptible and is therefore the creation of the evil power, and cannot sanctify the spirit, but that the churchmen sell this water out of avarice, just as they sell earth for the burial of the dead, and oil to the sick when they anoint them, and as they sell the confession of sins as made to the priests.[37]

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.[34] War and capital punishment 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. It was claimed by their opponents that, given this loathing for procreation, they generally resorted to sodomy. 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, 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."[38]

It has been alleged that the Cathar Church of the Languedoc had a relatively flat structure, distinguishing between the baptised perfecti (a term they did not use; instead, bonhommes) and ordinary unbaptised believers (credentes).[34] By about 1140, liturgy and a system of doctrine had been established.[39] They created a number of bishoprics, first at Albi around 1165 [40] and after the 1167 Council at Saint-Félix-Lauragais sites at Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Agen, so that four bishoprics were in existence by 1200.[34][39][41][42] In about 1225, during a lull in the Albigensian Crusade, the bishopric of Razès was added. Bishops were supported by their two assistants: a filius maior (typically the successor) and a filius minor, who were further assisted by deacons.[43] The perfecti were the spiritual elite, highly respected by many of the local people, leading a life of austerity and charity.[34] In the apostolic fashion they ministered to the people and travelled in pairs.[34]

Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209.

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.[44]

Cathars believed that one would be repeatedly reincarnated until one commits to the self-denial of the material world. A man could be reincarnated as a woman and vice versa.[45] The spirit was of utmost importance to the Cathars and was described as being immaterial and sexless.[45] Because of this belief, the Cathars saw women as equally capable of being spiritual leaders.[46]

Women accused of being heretics in early medieval Christianity included those labeled Gnostics, Cathars, and, later, the Beguines, as well as several other groups that were sometimes "tortured and executed".[47] Cathars, like the Gnostics who preceded them, assigned more importance to the role of Mary Magdalene 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 consolamentum after being widowed.[44] Having reverence for the Gospel of John, the Cathars saw Mary Magdalene as perhaps even more important than Saint Peter, the founder of the church.[48]

Catharism attracted numerous women with the promise of a leadership role that the Catholic Church did not allow.[9] Catharism let women become a perfect.[49] These female perfects were required to adhere to a strict and ascetic lifestyle, but were still able to have their own houses.[50] 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 widely renowned sermon against the Cathars in Cologne. During this sermon, Hildegard announced a state of eternal punishment and damnation to all who accepted Cathar beliefs.[51]

While women perfects rarely traveled to preach the faith, they still played a vital role in the spreading of the Catharism by establishing group homes for women.[52] Though it was extremely uncommon, there were isolated cases of female Cathars leaving their homes to spread the faith.[53] 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.[52]

Despite women having a role in the growing of the faith, Catharism was not completely equal, for example the belief that one's last incarnation had to be experienced as a man to break the cycle.[38] This belief was inspired by later French Cathars, who taught that women must be reborn as men in order to achieve salvation.[9] Another example was that the sexual allure of women impeded man's ability to reject the material world.[38] Toward the end of the Cathar movement, Catharism became less equal and started the practice of excluding women perfects.[9] However, this trend remained limited (Later Italian perfects still included women.[9])

Pope Innocent III excommunicating the Albigensians (left), massacre of the Albigensians by the crusaders (right)

In January 1208 the papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau—a Cistercian monk, theologian and canon lawyer—was sent to meet the ruler of the area, Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse.[57] Known for excommunicating noblemen who protected the Cathars, Castelnau excommunicated Raymond for abetting heresy following an allegedly fierce argument during which Raymond supposedly threatened Castelnau with violence.[58] 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 at Saint Gilles.

As soon as he heard of the murder, the Pope ordered the legates to preach a crusade against the Cathars and wrote a letter to Philip Augustus, King of France, appealing for his intervention—or an intervention led by his son, Louis. 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, 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.

The French King refused to lead the crusade himself, and could not spare his son to do so either—despite his victory against John, King of England, there were still pressing issues with Flanders and the empire and the threat of an Angevin revival. Philip 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.

Cité de Carcassonne in 2007

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 permitting the confiscation of lands owned by Cathars and their supporters. This angered not only the lords of the south but also the French King, who was at least nominally the suzerain of the lords whose lands were now open to seizure. Philip Augustus wrote to Pope Innocent in strong terms to point this out—but the Pope did not change his policy. 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 barons of the north headed south to do battle.

Their first target was 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 in his own citadel where he died within three months; champions of the Occitan cause claimed that he was murdered. Simon de Montfort was granted the Trencavel lands by the Pope and did homage for them to the King of France, thus incurring the enmity of Peter II of Aragon who had held 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's attempt to hold on to his gains through winters where he was faced, with only a small force of confederates operating from the main winter camp at Fanjeaux, with the desertion of local lords who had sworn fealty to him out of necessity—and attempts to enlarge his newfound domains in the summer when his forces were greatly augmented by reinforcements from France, Germany and elsewhere.

Summer campaigns saw him not only retake what he had lost in the "close" season, but also seek to widen his sphere of operation—and we see him in action in the Aveyron at St. Antonin and on the banks of the Rhône at Beaucaire. Simon's greatest triumph was the victory against superior numbers at the Battle of Muret—a battle which saw not only the defeat of Raymond of Toulouse and his Occitan allies—but also the death of Peter of Aragon—and the effective end of the ambitions of the house of Aragon/Barcelona in the Languedoc. 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. The Battle of Muret was a massive step in the creation of the unified French kingdom and the country we know today—although Edward III, Edward the Black Prince and Henry V would threaten later to shake these foundations.

Massacre of the Albigensians by the crusaders

The crusader army came under the command, both spiritually and militarily, of the papal legate Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux. In the first significant engagement of the war, the town of Béziers was besieged 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 but was quickly defeated, then pursued by the crusaders back through the gates and into the city. Arnaud-Amaury, the Cistercian abbot-commander, is supposed to have been asked how to tell Cathars from Catholics. His reply, recalled by Caesarius of Heisterbach, a fellow Cistercian, thirty years later was "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius"—"Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own".[59][60] 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.[61] 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."[62][63] "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, viscount of Carcassonne, and his feudal overlord Peter II of Aragon, who held fiefdoms and had a number of vassals in the region. Peter died fighting against the crusade on 12 September 1213 at the Battle of Muret. Simon de Montfort was killed on 25 June 1218 after maintaining a siege of Toulouse for nine months.[64]

The burning of the Cathar heretics

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. The independence of the princes of the Languedoc was at an end. But in spite of the wholesale massacre of Cathars during the war, Catharism was not yet extinguished and Catholic forces would continue to pursue Cathars.[55]

In 1215, the bishops of the Catholic Church met at the Fourth Council of the Lateran under Pope Innocent III; part of the agenda was combating the Cathar heresy.[65]

The Inquisition was established in 1233 to uproot the remaining Cathars.[66] 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 and driving its remaining adherents underground.[66] Cathars who refused to recant were hanged, or burnt at the stake.[67]

On Friday, 13 May 1239, 183 men and women convinced of Catharism were burned at the stake on the orders of Robert le Bougre. Mount Guimar was already denounced as a place of heresy by the letter of the bishop of Liège to Pope Lucius II in 1144. 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.[68][69][70]

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.[71] On 16 March 1244, a large and symbolically important massacre took place, where over 200 Cathar Perfects were burnt in an enormous pyre at the prat dels cremats ("field of the burned") near the foot of the castle.[71] Moreover, the church decreed lesser chastisements against laymen suspected of sympathy with Cathars, at the 1235 Council of Narbonne.[72]

Inquisitors required heretical sympathisers—repentant first offenders—to sew a yellow cross onto their clothes.[73]

A popular though as yet unsubstantiated theory holds that a small party of Cathar Perfects escaped from the fortress before the massacre at prat dels cremats. It is widely held in the Cathar region to this day that the escapees took with them le trésor cathar. 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 (see the Section on Historical Scholarship, 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, Aimery III of Narbonne, and Bernard Délicieux, a Franciscan friar later prosecuted for his adherence to another heretical movement, that of the Spiritual Franciscans at the beginning of the 14th century. But 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, and others.[55] The parfaits it was said only rarely recanted, and hundreds were burnt. Repentant lay 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 while.

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 adepts. The leader of a Cathar revival in the Pyrenean foothills, Peire Autier, was captured and executed in April 1310 in Toulouse.[74][75] After 1330, the records of the Inquisition contain very few proceedings against Cathars.[55] The last known Cathar perfectus in the Languedoc, Guillaume Bélibaste, was executed in the autumn of 1321.[76][75]

From the mid-12th century onwards, Italian Catharism came under increasing pressure from the Pope and the Inquisition, "spelling the beginning of the end".[77] Other movements, such as the Waldensians and the pantheistic Brethren of the Free Spirit, which suffered persecution in the same area, survived in remote areas and in small numbers into the 14th and 15th centuries. Some Waldensian ideas were absorbed into other proto-Protestant sects, such as the Hussites, Lollards, and the Moravian Church (Herrnhuters of Germany). Cathars were in no way Protestant, and very few if any Protestants consider them as their forerunners (as opposed to groups like Waldensians, Hussites, Lollards and Arnoldists).

The castle of Montségur was razed after 1244. The current fortress follows French military architecture of the 17th century.

The term Pays cathare, 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 of the Aude uses the title Pays cathare in tourist brochures.[78] The areas have ruins from the wars against the Cathars that are still visible today.

Some criticise the promotion of the identity of Pays cathare as an exaggeration for tourism purposes. Many of the promoted Cathar castles were not built by Cathars but by local lords, and many of them were layer rebuilt and extended for strategic purposes. 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. 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.