Cathars

The Cathars, also known as the Albigensians, were adherent to the beliefs of Catharism. Catharism was a belief-system which combined Christianity with apparent Manichaean influences; it was declared a heresy by the Catholic Church. Catharism was widespread during the 12th century in what is now south-western France, before being violently suppressed by French lords after the Catholic Church declared the Cathars a heretical sect.

 History

 Appearance of the Cathars
Beliefs, such as Bogomilism, had arrived in southern France via trade routes from Eastern Europe by the 11th Century. The first Cathars appeared in Limousin between 1012 and 1020, but by the 12th Century the movement had grown to become very popular and the Church considered it a threat. The name "Cathar" was not used by them but by their opponents. They were calling themselves Good People.


 Suppression
When he came to power in 1198, Pope Innocent III was determined to suppress the Cathars. At first he tried peaceful conversion; however priests sent in to convert the Cathars met with little success. The Cathars were protected by local nobles, and also by bishops who resented papal authority. In 1204 the Pope suspended the authority of the bishops in the south of France, appointing papal legates. In 1206 the Pope sought support for action from the nobles of Languedoc. Noblemen who protected the Cathars were excommunicated. Over many decades sieges and battles broke out between those protecting the Cathars and those seeking to overcome them; this series of military campaigns is known as the Albigensian Crusade and ended in pro-Cathar surrender when the French King intervened in 1229.

After the surrender the Medieval Inquisition was given almost unlimited power to suppress the Cathar heretics. Cathars were forced to recant or else they were sent to the galleys, slaughtered or burned.


 Later history
After the suppression of Catharism, descendants of Cathars were, in some southern French villages, required to live in a separate area outside the main village defences or below the main village. They thus retained a certain Cathar identity, although were Catholic in religion. This practice of separation, which was not very common, was ended during the French Revolution.


Catharism today
Any use of the term "Cathar" to refer to people after the suppression of Catharism in the fourteenth century is a cultural or ancestral reference, and has no religious implication. Nevertheless, interest in the Cathars, their history, legacy and beliefs continues. Also, the Cathars have been depicted in popular books such as Holy Blood, Holy Grail as a group of elite nobility somehow connected to "secrets" about the true nature of the Christian faith, although there is no critical proof of such secrets being kept.

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