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Cathars

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Cathars 

adherents of a heresy that was widespread in Western Europe (chiefly in Italy, Flanders, and southern France) from the 11th to 13th centuries and which served as a vehicle of protest against feudal oppression for broad strata of the burghers (particularly artisans) and some of the peasants.

Their doctrine, borrowed to a great extent from the Bogomils, was dualistic: an opposition between good (the unseen, spiritual, and only true world, created by God) and evil (the earthly, material world created by Satan). The Cathars’ condemnation of everything earthly and carnal led to extreme asceticism; they rejected marriage, forbade the use of animals for food, and permitted suicide. They did not recognize the church sacraments, veneration of saints, or indulgences, and they exposed the vices of the Catholic clergy. (They considered the pope of Rome Satan’s deputy.) They demanded the liquidation of the church’s landholdings and refused to pay the church tithe. They created their own religious organization at the head of which stood preceptors, the perfect (perfecti), who were bound to lead an ascetic life.

The church, supported by secular power, waged a bitter struggle against the Cathars. The Cathar doctrine was the foundation for the Albigensian heretical movement. The Cathar heresy was almost completely eradicated during the period from 1300 to 1350 as a result of merciless persecution.

REFERENCE

Borst, A. Die Katharer. Stuttgart, 1953.

S. M. STAM



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Like Sepulchre, The Winter Ghosts is set in rural south-west France and also deals with issues of belief and heresy, notably with links to the medieval Christian sect the Cathars.
The Wanderings of the Grail: The Cathars, the Search for the Grail, and the Discovery of Egyptian Relics in the French Pyrenees" is a exploration of the idea that the Holy grail may have been holy to the Egyptian people as well, under the religion of the Cathars.
who wrote The flower of chivalry; Bertrand du Guesclin and the Hundred years war, presents a page- turner that recounts the life and exploits of the dastardly Count of Foix, who ruled in Bearn, on the border of Spain, at the time of the Hundred Years War, the war against the Cathars, and the Investiture Controversy, all of which affected the Count in greater or lesser ways.
 
 
 
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