• Averil Cameron, How to Read Heresiology. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33, no. 3 (2003), 471-92
• B. Hamilton, The State of Research: The legacy of Charles Schmidt to the study of Christian Dualism, Journal of Medieval History 24-2 (1998), 191-214
• A. Schmaus, Der Neumanichäismus auf dem Balkan, Saeculum 3 (1951), 271-297; M. Loos
• Dualist Heresy in the Middle Ages, Praha 1972
• Y. Stoyanov, The Hidden Tradition in Europe: The Secret History of Medieval Christian heresy, Penguin Books 1994
• J. Hamilton, Bernard Hamilton, and Yuri Stoyanov. Christian Dualist Heresies in the Byzantine World, C. 650-C.
1450: Selected Sources (New York 1998)
• N. Garsoïan, Byzantine Heresy: A Reinterpretation, Dumbarton Oaks Papers (=DOP) 25 (1971),87-113
• E. Hösch, Kritische Anmerkungen zum gegenwärtigen Stand der Bogomilen Forschung, Kurturelle Tradition in Bulgarien (Göttingen 1989)
• J.V.A. Fine Jr., The Early Medieval Balkans, (Ann Arbor 1983)
• J. Gouillard, L’hérésie dans l’empire byzantin des origines au XIIe siècle, Travaux et Mémoires 1
• H. G. Beck, Vom Umgang mit Ketzern (München 1993), esp. Chapter 8.
• Aurelio de Santos Otero, Bogomilen, Theologische Realenzyklopädie 7 (Berlin 1981)
• H. Ch. Puech et A. Vaillant, Le traité contre les bogomiles de Cosmas le prêtre, Paris 1945
External links
• Anna Comnena's The Bogomils (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/comnena-bogomils.html)
• Entry of Slavs Into Christendom (http://www.serbianna.com/features/entry_of_slavs/
entry_of_slavs_into_christendom.pdf)
• Raoul Vaneigem, The Resistance to Christianity (http://www.notbored.org/resistance.html)
• Djordje Capin: Myth about Bogomils (http://www.rastko.rs/istorija/bogumili/djcapin-bogumili_e.html)
• Christian Dualist Heresies in the Byzantine World C.650-C.1450 (http://www.medievalsources.co.uk/dualist.
htm)
• L. P. Brockett, The Bogomils of Bulgaria and Bosnia - The Early Protestants of the East (http://www.rastko.
org.rs/rastko-bl/istorija/bogumili/lbrockett-bogomils.html)
• Euthymius Zygadenus, Narratio de Bogomilis (http://books.google.com/books?id=Dlf3HqsNYyUC&
printsec=frontcover&dq=Narratio+de+Bogomilis&hl=en&ei=wVFQTamkFIet8AaYg8T0Dg&sa=X&
oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911).
Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Catharism 171
Catharism
Catharism was a name given to a Christian religious sect with dualistic and gnostic elements that appeared in the Languedoc region of France and other parts of Europe in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. Catharism had its roots in the Paulician movement in Armenia and the Bogomils of Bulgaria which took influences from the Paulicians.
Introduction
Like many medieval movements, there were various schools of thought and practice amongst the Cathari; some were dualistic (believing in a God of Good and a God of Evil), others Gnostic, some closer to orthodoxy while abstaining from an acceptance of Catholicism. The dualist theology was the most prominent, however, and was based upon an asserted complete incompatibility of love and power. As matter was seen as a manifestation of power, it was believed to be incompatible with love.
The Cathari did not believe in one all-encompassing god, but in two, both equal and comparable in status. They held that the physical world was evil and created by Rex Mundi (translated from Latin as "king of the world"), who encompassed all that was corporeal, chaotic and powerful; the second god, the one whom they worshipped, was entirely disincarnate: a being or principle of pure spirit and completely unsullied by the taint of matter. He was the god of love, order and peace.
According to some Cathars, the purpose of man's life on Earth was to transcend matter, perpetually renouncing anything connected with the principle of power and thereby attaining union with the principle of love. According to others, man's purpose was to reclaim or redeem matter, spiritualising and transforming it.
This placed them at odds with the Catholic Church regarding material creation, on behalf of which Jesus had died, as being intrinsically evil and implying that God, whose word had created the world in the beginning, was a usurper.
Furthermore, as the Cathars saw matter as intrinsically evil, they denied that Jesus could become incarnate and still be the son of God. Cathars vehemently repudiated the significance of the crucifixion and the cross. In fact, to the Cathars, Rome's opulent and luxurious Church seemed a palpable embodiment and manifestation on Earth of Rex Mundi's sovereignty.
The Catholic Church regarded the sect as dangerously heretical. Faced with the rapid spread of the movement across the Languedoc region, the Church first sought peaceful attempts at conversion, undertaken by Dominicans. These were not very successful and after the murder on 15 January 1208 of the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau by a knight in the employ of Count Raymond of Toulouse, the Church called for a crusade. This was carried out by knights from northern France and Germany and was known as the Albigensian Crusade.
The papal legate had involved himself in a dispute between the rivals Count of Baux and Count Raymond of Toulouse and it is possible that his assassination had little to do with Catharism. The anti-Cathar Albigensian Crusade, and the inquisition which followed it, entirely eradicated the Cathars.[1] The Albigensian Crusade had the effect of greatly weakening the semi-independent southern Principalities such as Toulouse and ultimately bringing them under direct control of the King of France.
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Name
Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209
There is consensus that Cathars is a name given to the movement and not one that its members chose. Indeed, the Cathars had no official name, preferring to refer to themselves only as Good Men and Good Women or Good Christians. The most popular theory is that the word Cathar most likely originated from Greek καθαροί (Katharoi), meaning "pure ones", a term related to the word Katharsis or Catharsis, meaning "purification". The first recorded use of the word is by religious authority Eckbert von Schönau, who wrote regarding the so-called heretics in Cologne in 1181: Hos nostra Germania catharos appellat ("Our Germany calls them Cathars").
The Cathars were also sometimes referred to as the Albigensians (Albigeois). This name originates from the end of the 12th century, and was used by the chronicler Geoffroy du Breuil of Vigeois in 1181. The
name refers to the town of Albi (the ancient Albiga), northeast of Toulouse. The designation is misleading as the movement had no centre and is known to have flourished in several European countries (from Catalonia to the Rhineland and from Italy to Belgium). Use of the name came from the fact that a debate was held in Albi between priests and the Cathars; no conclusion was reached, but from then on it was assumed in France that Cathars were supporters of the "Albigensian doctrine". However, few inhabitants of Albi were actually Cathars, and the city gladly retained its Catholicism during the crusade. (Indeed, the mammoth cathedral at Albi was built in this period, as something of a show of force against Catharism.)
Origins
The Cathars' beliefs are thought to have come originally from Eastern Europe and the Byzantine Empire by way of trade routes. The name of Bulgarians (Bougres) was also applied to the Albigenses, and they maintained an association with the similar Christian movement of the Bogomils ("Friends of God") of Thrace. Their doctrines have numerous resemblances to those of the Bogomils and the earlier Paulicians as well as the Manicheans and the Christian Gnostics 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. Much of our existing knowledge of the Cathars is derived from their opponents, the writings of the Cathars mostly having been destroyed because of the doctrinal threat perceived by the Papacy. For this reason it is likely, as with most heretical movements of the period, that we have only a partial view of their beliefs. Conclusions about Cathar ideology continue to be fiercely debated with commentators regularly accusing their opponents of speculation, distortion and bias. There are a few texts from the Cathars themselves which were preserved by their opponents (the Rituel Cathare de Lyon) which give a glimpse of the inner workings of their faith, but these still leave many questions unanswered. One large text which has survived, The Book of Two Principles (Liber de duobus principiis),[2] elaborates the principles of dualistic theology from the point of view of some of the Albanenses Cathars.
It is now generally agreed by most scholars that identifiable 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 by the cleric Eberwin of Steinfeld.[3] A landmark in the "institutional history" of the Cathars was the Council, held in 1167 at Saint-Félix-Lauragais, attended by many local figures and also by the Bogomil papa Nicetas, the Cathar bishop of (northern) France and a leader of the Cathars of Lombardy.
Although there are certainly similarities in theology and practice between Gnostic/dualist groups of Late Antiquity (such as the Marcionites, Manichaeans and Ebionites) and the Cathars, there was not a direct link between the two;
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Manichaeanism died out in the West by the 7th century. The Cathars were largely a homegrown, Western European/Latin Christian phenomenon, springing up in the Rhineland cities (particularly Cologne) in the mid-12th century, northern France around the same time, and particularly southern France—the Languedoc—and the northern Italian cities in the mid-late 12th century. In the Languedoc and northern Italy, the Cathars would enjoy their greatest popularity, surviving in the Languedoc, in much reduced form, up to around 1325 and in the Italian cities until the Inquisitions of the 1260s–1300s finally rooted them out.[4]