“Kill them all, and God will recognise his own.” So ordered Catholic monk Arnold Amaury, leading a crusading army that invaded Béziers in the Languedoc region of Occitania in the south of today’s France in July 1209. The Languedoc stretches along the French Mediterranean between the Pyrenees and Provence, and in the Middle Ages it was the centre of a flourishing, pacifist, tolerant and simple Cathar religion, in contrast to the opulent and venerable official Roman Catholic Church. The Cathars proclaimed themselves to be good Christians, who were supposed to represent the doctrines of the Christian faith authentically and to be the legitimate successors of the Apostles.
The official Church, however, saw in the movement, which in Western Europe in the Middle Ages was essentially the only noteworthy alternative to Catholicism in Western Europe, apart from the Waldensian one, a threat to its primacy. Pope Innocent III, the most influential medieval pope, therefore declared Catharism a heresy or a false religion on behalf of the Catholic Church. The heretics, who moreover thrived in the very heart of Catholic Europe, had to be eradicated. At first, attempts at conversion were mild – Cathar and Catholic priests debated religious doctrines openly and publicly. But the spread of Cathar doctrine continued and the Church resorted to bloodthirsty and ruthless persecution of the Cathars.
In 1209, Innocent declared an Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars. It was named after the city of Albi, one of the important Cathar centres. The memories of this twenty-year-long plague still evoke horror today. The medieval obsession with crusades against the Muslims in the Middle East had its European versions, no less cruel and bloodthirsty.
The first mass burnings of “heretics” at the stake, the months-long sieges, the slaughter of innocent populations, the devastation of towns and landscapes, the original methods of torture – the Albigensian Crusade contributed in every way to the view of the Middle Ages as a dark and regressive period in European history.
The attack on Béziers blurred the boundaries of humanity and signalled the steely determination of leading clerics to stamp out heresy. Even at the expense of members of their own church. Cathars, Catholics and Jews lived tolerantly side by side in the city. So when the Crusaders asked Amaury how to distinguish between the inhabitants – so as not to murder the innocent – he instructed that they should all be killed. Those who did not fall by the sword took refuge in the many churches, hoping to be spared. But the Crusaders burned them all down, leaving 20,000 souls on their consciences.
Cathar strongholds fell one by one, but despite the original proto-genocidal approaches, the Crusaders were still unable to completely destroy the Cathars. So another ingenious medieval invention soon followed: the Inquisition. Founded precisely to fight the Cathars, the institution of the Inquisition survived long centuries after the memory of the Cathars was still alive only in stories, poems, books and, above all, the Inquisition’s records. It succeeded where the Crusaders failed – it eradicated Cathars.
The last hope for the future was extinguished in 1244, when the hitherto impregnable fortress of Montségur fell. The movement had a short-lived revival in the early 14th century, but its members were simply too few to survive and the Catholic Church was too strong an opponent.
At the start of the Albigensian Crusade, the proportion of Cathars in the Languedoc population was between one-third and one-half, and only a century later they were gone. At least one million people were killed. Even by medieval standards, the crimes against the Cathars were unprecedented.
The geopolitical consequences of the persecution of the Qataris were also long-term. Languedoc was an independent province, made up of a number of more or less autonomous counties. Culturally and socially, it gravitated much more towards the Catalan south. But when France, then confined mainly to the territory around Paris, became involved in the Crusades, it saw this as an opportunity to extend its territorial influence. While the Church was fighting the Cathars, the French Crown, with its support, annexed the Languedoc, and the shape of France as we know it today took shape.
The cruel fate of the Qataris still fascinates people today, and the Occitan French are proud of their Qatari heritage. Every year, crowds of tourists follow in their footsteps, leading to beautiful, mystical castles and fortresses amidst a fertile and mountainous landscape. Carcassonne in particular stands out among the most commercialised.
But their spiritual and intellectual legacy, in many ways prophetic, continues to inspire. The Cathars were dualists who believed in the existence of a good and a bad God. The former was responsible for the creation of the spiritual world, the latter for the creation of the temporal, material one. Therefore, everything temporal was corrupt and the only purpose of being on earth was to seek eternal salvation. This could only be achieved through an honest, ascetic and pure way of life.
That is why they rejected power, hierarchy, wealth and violence, and advocated fairness, equality, respect and freedom of thought, among other things. Individuals were to seek God within themselves, without the need for an institutionalised church. This is why many modern, non-religious movements also cite the influence of the Cathar mindset, including feminists, vegetarians, hippies, libertarians, as well as occult mystics, spiritualists and esotericists.
Origin of the Cathars
The Cathar religion or schism was widespread between the 11th and 14th centuries, mainly in the Occitania region, which includes much of southern France, but also parts of Spain and Italy. Historically, this area was culturally and linguistically unique and developed a distinct language, Occitan, which is still spoken by some of its inhabitants today and is more closely related to Catalan than to French. The Mediterranean part of Occitania is called the Languedoc, which means the land of the “oc” language (langue) – the Occitan people use the word “oc” for the word “da”.
In the Middle Ages, it was the land of the Cathars. The French Cathars were also known as Albizensians, after the city of Albi, but many other names have stuck to them, such as Parthenians, Aryans, Manichaeans, Bulgarians, which have to do with their still not fully explained origins. Most of the Cathars were in the Languedoc, but many communities also emerged in northern Italy, northern France, Flanders and the Rhineland.
The official church declared the Cathars heretics, even though they considered themselves orthodox Christians, direct descendants of the early Christians.
Heretical movements have, of course, been around since the beginning of Christianity, but what they have in common is a departure from the prevailing and officially accepted systems of belief, liturgy and preaching of the Catholic Church. One of the most widespread heretical principles was dualism, which existed even before the foundation of Christianity. This philosophical and religious concept denotes the belief in two basic but opposite substances, such as soul vs. matter, evil vs. good, light vs. darkness, and above all, the good god vs. the bad god.
One of the most famous examples of dualism was Manichaeism, founded in Persia in the 3rd century AD by the prophet Mani, who incorporated elements of pre-Christian Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, Buddhism and Christianity. The Manichaeans believed that the (good) God had created only an immaterial, spiritual world to which any soul could return. This is how they tried to explain the existence of evil.
If God is good, why would He allow so much evil and suffering in the world, why do babies and innocents die, why is there injustice, misery and woe at every turn? The responsibility for the corruption of the world, in their view, lies not with a good god but with a bad one. It was in fact Satan, Lucifer or the devil, the fallen angel, who created the evil material world in which man was trapped.
Heresies were common in the early Christian period, but then disappeared for about five hundred years. But in 940, King Peter of Bulgaria asked the Patriarch of Constantinople for help in fighting the dualistic heretics known as Bogomils. Their founder, Bogomil, “beloved of God”, was said to be a village priest, and the movement was founded as a revolt against Byzantine influence.
The tradition of dualism was still alive in these places, on the border between Asia and Europe, where many cultural, religious and social influences flowed and mixed. So closely related were the practices of God-love and Catharism that the direct link between them is obvious. In the West, Bogomils were later called “Bulgarians”, which became synonymous with sodomites and heretics. The Bogomils also experienced a decline in the 14th century, but the last of them are said to have survived in Bosnia until 1867. Interestingly, many Bogomils in the Balkans later converted to Islam.
But how did a version of Bogomil thought emerge on the other side of the continent, so to speak, and why in Occitania?
In all likelihood, the flow of ideas was fuelled by crusaders from Western Europe travelling to the Middle East via Byzantium, and the trade routes between the West and the East were becoming increasingly lively. Medieval Europe was a Europe of change. The Crusades began, but so did new ideas, and so did the growth of cities, the creation of schools and the enrichment of knowledge. To a large extent, this led to dissatisfaction with the established church, increasingly distant from the little man, greedy, profligate, elitist. People wanted to be closer to the Word of God without the intervention of an often corrupt priesthood without a moral compass.
Languedoc has always been a religiously tolerant land, where Catholics and Jews coexisted, where troubadours sang unrestrainedly of free love, eroticism, pleasure. Dissent was welcomed and public debates between members of different religious denominations were part of everyday life. So, in parallel with the rise of anti-clericalism, the door was wide open to the Qatari movement.
Qatar is strengthening and organising
Moreover, since the collapse of Charlemagne’s kingdom in the 9th century, Languedoc’s authority had been fragmented and divided among several rural noble houses, which were not answerable to a single central authority. Some recognised the French king, some the King of Aragon, some the English king, but de facto they were left to themselves. The nobles were close to their people and tried to understand them, because, in the absence of formal power, this was the only way to win their loyalty.
This is why the majority of the aristocracy favoured the Cathars, whose numbers and influence were growing. In some places, they outnumbered Catholics. The Cathars were not confined to any social class, many of them nobles, merchants, the poor, because their noble teachings easily touched everyone. Heresy was thus slowly penetrating all layers of society, posing an increasing challenge to the Pope. The Bible was also read in the vernacular, a practice which the Church strongly condemned.
Towards the end of the 12th century, the Cathars, with the help of the Bogomils, began to organise themselves better and better. In 1167, they organised the largest Cathar Council of all time. They were joined from the East by “Papa” Niketas, Bishop of Constantinople, and possibly their Bogomil mentor. He led the council and helped organise the Cathar Church. They set up one diocese in the north of France, four in Languedoc and one in Lombardy, and chose Cathar bishops.
Its members debated openly and freely and openly opposed the Roman Catholic Church. If a Cathar farmer was crossed by a Catholic priest, he said he saw the devil himself. Another important innovation was the role of women. Occitan women already had more rights than their contemporaries elsewhere in Europe, but in Cathars they were equal to men and could occupy positions of equal importance. But they also believed in reincarnation – until the believer had earned final salvation, he or she was reincarnated again and again, as any living being. That is why they were also opposed to killing and violence against animals.
But how could the Cathars ever free themselves forever from the bonds of the material world? By becoming so-called “perfect“. These chosen ones renounced material goods and committed themselves to the ascetic life in a special ritual called the consolamentum. They called themselves good husbands and good wives, committed themselves to celibacy, vegetarianism, regular prayer, fasting. The slightest vice, a single piece of meat, and they lost their status of “perfect”. They were the opposite of most Catholic priests of the time.
In the period before the persecution, they wore long blue or black robes to make them more easily recognisable, and men wore beards. They lived together with other believers and had many professions. They were the most respected members of Qatari society and usually the most educated. Only they could perform the consolamentum, which consecrated the new ‘perfect ones’. Most Qataris received this rite shortly before their death, when the duties of this status were easier to respect. The “perfect” were in their last state of secular existence and did not have to return to earth after death.
In 1200-1209, there were probably around 1,000 “completists”, a large proportion among the nobility and an even larger proportion among women – 69% of the “completists” are thought to have been women. They were most likely to be ordained in middle age, when they were already married and had children, and of course they had to give up marriage and sex, but they still mostly stayed in the family home.
The official church started blackening the cathars very early on and spreading fabricated stories about them, such as that they regularly perform orgies, eat Eucharist from babies, eat cakes made of sperm, perform black magic and other such nonsense.
Their beliefs and religious practices were anything but depraved, as the Cathars were a unique example of moral virtue and simplicity.
Beliefs of the Cathars
Unfortunately, few original Qatari sources have survived through which we can understand with certainty all the elements of their doctrine. Most of the texts were probably destroyed by the Qataris themselves for fear of persecution. The most we know of Cathar daily life comes from the writings of their greatest enemies, the Inquisitors. They always had note-takers, diligent recorders of heretics’ testimonies, with them during their interrogations. Sometimes these lasted for days, until the confessions were satisfactory and the identity of the other heretics was revealed.
It was not only ordinary believers who fell under the Inquisition’s methods; sometimes even the “perfect” broke. As many as 7,000 detail-rich testimonies of Cathar believers, followers and protectors survive in the archives, but they should be taken with a pinch of salt.
However, a small amount of mainly Italian Cathar literature, manuals and liturgical instructions have survived. For example, On Two Principles is both a critique of Catholic theology and a Cathar interpretation of the Bible. Despite the Church’s prohibition, they had it in their own language, in which they also prayed, with the exception of the Orenasch and some quotations from the Gospel of John, which they pronounced in Latin.
The Cathars, as God-fearers, rejected the Old Testament, which they considered the work of Satan, and they also read the New selectively. As they put it, the whole material world was created by an evil god, which is why Jesus could not have been human, otherwise he would not have been divine. His body was only illusory. Therefore, He could not have died on the cross, nor could He have been present in the Eucharist.
Because they had an aversion to anything material, they also rejected holy relics. The biggest thorn in Rome’s side was their rejection of papal authority. They did not believe in miracles, they did not ask for help from angels, they prayed mainly the Orenas, and in a modified form. Mary Magdalene played a special role in the Cathar faith, as it was she who, after the resurrection of Jesus, was the first to bring his message to the apostles. Another proof, then, of the importance of the role of women.
The Cathar rite also differed significantly from the Catholic rite. The most important was the consolamentum, a kind of spiritual baptism, during which the “perfect” laid hands on them while verses from the Gospel of John were read. This absolved the believer of all sins and made him “perfect”. He was thus freed from the cycle of reincarnations and did not have to return to earth. But the consolamentum imposed duties on man which he had to adhere to strictly if he wished to retain his status as “perfect”. If the “perfect” one sinned, his consolamentum became invalid, as did all those he passed on other believers.
Even more relentless was the enduro. Dying people who received the consolamentum had to fast until death, and could only drink water. Sometimes this torture could last for days or even weeks, and sometimes people were cured. The melioramentum was a kind of ritual greeting from the ordinary believers to the “perfect”, a duty of respect. They had to kneel down, place their hands on the ground and bow their heads to their hands. The Cathars did not often have a service, but once a month they held an assembly, the apparellamentum, where the “perfect” confessed before a senior representative of the church.
Many “perfect”, a kind of Qatari clergy, have taken on the role of itinerant preachers. In this way, the Cathar faith spread and more and more Catholics were converted. Once, when the Catholic Bishop of Toulouse asked a knight to punish heretics, the bishop said: ‘I cannot. We were brought up in their midst. We have relatives among them and we watch them live perfectly.” Thus, in many families, Catholics and Cathars coexisted, which was no longer acceptable to the Catholic authorities.
Towards the Crusade
In 1198, the 37-year-old Lothario dei Conti di Segni, from one of Italy’s most influential families, was elected Pope Innocent III. An ambitious and gifted jurist, he highly valued his mission and considered it the most prestigious position in the world. He believed that “he ruled not only over the universal Church but over the whole world”.
Able popes then had more power than secular rulers. And it was Pope Innocent who went down in history as the most important Pope of the Middle Ages. His pontificate was marked by a number of key decisions for the Catholic Church, most notably at the famous Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
While he tried to bring positive reforms to the Catholic Church, he is also known for his cruel persecution of heretics and his zealous promotion of the Crusades. No other Pope was so dedicated to their conduct and administration. He proclaimed a catastrophic fourth crusade (1202-1204) in the Holy Land, then an Albigensian one against the Cathars that lasted twenty years (1209-1229), and finally a fifth (1217-1221), which did not begin until after his death (1216), with a papal bull.
Already his predecessors were aware of the danger in the heresy’s stronghold, Languedoc, and at the Third Lateran Council in 1179 they called on all Christians to unite in the fight against heretics, for which they would be forgiven of all their sins. In general, the Catholic Church’s actions were initially mild, mainly sending envoys or legates and preachers to “infected” areas.
Inocent knew well that many of the bishops, prelates and priests of his Church were corrupt, so he deposed them, while encouraging the preaching missions of trustworthy priests. In addition to preaching, these priests also debated publicly with Cathar representatives, which was quite progressive by medieval standards.
The debates often took place over several days, with the facilities provided by local gentlemen. Thousands of people of all walks of life attended. Women also debated on the side of the Cathars, which was looked down upon by the Catholic Church. “Madam, you’d better get back to your wheel”, a priest told a Cathar “perfect” during the controversy. But in the end, it was she who won the debate with her rhetoric and intellect.
The use of the word as a means of persuasion and coercion did not bear fruit for the Roman Church. There were few conversions and the Cathars were stronger than ever. For some time, therefore, Inocencus had been contemplating more radical measures. Since 1204, he had been persistently asking King Philip II of France for help, promising new territories, but he had too much to do with England and the Middle East crusades.
The Pope tried one last time – in 1206, he sent two Spanish monks, Dominic Guzman and Diego of Osma, to Occitania. The former is known today as Saint Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order. It was the Dominicans who were later to be the most bloodthirsty of the Inquisitors.
Dominic immediately understood the attraction of the Cathars’ teachings and began to imitate their simple lifestyle himself. Barefoot and poor, he went about the countryside preaching, but all in vain. An additional problem was that most of the local nobility sided with the Cathars, or at least were lenient towards them. It was becoming increasingly clear that the use of force would be necessary.
And when the papal legate Peter of Castelnau was killed in suspicious circumstances in early 1208, it was a welcome trigger for the declaration of a crusade against heretics. The Church declared the main suspect in the assassination to be the Count of Toulouse himself, Raymond VI, and excommunicated him despite his insistence on his innocence.
In general, Raymond, whose family had established itself as the leading family in Languedoc through marriage, and who himself had dynastic ties to England (he was even Richard the Lionheart’s brother-in-law by his fourth wife), France and the Kingdom of Aragon through his five wives, had long been accused of refusing to stand up to heretics in his own lands.
That was true. In fact, Inocences himself often urged him in his letters to fight them, but nothing happened. Raymond was subjected to the shameful punishment of being publicly flogged naked, having many of his possessions confiscated and being forced to swear a public oath of allegiance to the Catholic Church. He also had to dismiss all Jews and become a crusader himself.
When the King of France finally bowed to papal pressure, the stage was set for a crusade in the heart of Europe, financed by the Pope with the first church taxes and recruited by the promise of indulgences. But the crusaders – most of them French – were not just noble knights, there were many mercenaries seeking adventure and hoping for the spoils of war. They soon proved to be brutal and heartless murderers and arsonists.
In June 1209, the main body of the Crusader army was assembled in Lyon. One of the leading roles in the tragedy that diluted the population of a once prosperous region was soon taken by Count Simon of Montfort.
The Albizensian Crusade
The Crusaders were delighted because, in addition to the indulgences and debt forgiveness, they did not have to make the long journey to Palestine, and the compulsory period of service was short, only forty days. After this time, most of them could return home, richer and well recorded in the church books. At the same time, it was also easier to afford to take part in this war, as they had to cover the cost of their own equipment and escorts, so only the wealthier or more resourceful crusaders were able to go to the Holy Land.
The first target was Béziers, under the rule of Roger Trencavel, a member of another powerful dynasty. He was also a relative of Raymond VI, who was his mother’s brother. But the two men found themselves on opposite sides, as Raymond, however reluctantly, was temporarily in the crusader ranks. Trencavel was a fierce protector of the Cathars and when he tried to negotiate with the Crusader leader Amaury, Amaury dismissed him.
So, in the middle of the hot summer of 1209, thousands of crusaders camped in a tented settlement outside the city. They managed to trick their way through the gates of the walls and the carnage spiralled out of control. They did not show even a hint of mercy to the youngest babies. It was then that Amaury is said to have issued the famous order to slaughter them all, because after all, God in heaven will know his own. As many as 20 000 people lost their lives in a few hours. In 1849, as a reminder of that black day, during the renovation of one of the churches, piles of human bones were found under the floor of the church.
News of the massacre spread like lightning, and many other towns surrendered rather than share Béziers’ fate. Among them was Carcassonne, which was much more fortified and defended, and for a time successfully resisted the siege. But the Crusaders soon cut off the water supply to the town. At the same time, 40,000 people from nearby towns fled in fear and unbearable stench, disease, hunger and thirst began to spread.
The King of Aragon, Peter II, whose vassal was Roger Trencavel, also appeared on the scene. The strictly Catholic Peter tried to mediate between the two sides, but Trencavel was stubborn and refused to give in for a long time. Finally, he just gave up. The Crusaders promised not to hide a hair on the inhabitants’ heads, but they had to leave without any possessions.
And indeed it was. But Trencavel was not among them. He was thrown in chains into his own castle dungeon, where he died some time later, aged 24.
The Crusaders had no intention of burning Carcassonne, as they needed a base from which to launch further attacks and conquests. Their undisputed leader at the time was Simon of Montfort. Montfort was a typical example of a medieval knight, a mixture of cruelty, piety, courage and opportunism. He had proved himself a man of principle in the past when he refused to attack Catholic Zadar during the Fourth Crusade, because the Crusaders were only fighting Muslims. But this no longer bothered him in the fight against the Cathars, as he saw it as an opportunity to improve his personal position. Before the Albigensian War, he had been a lowly nobleman without much territory, but afterwards he became the de facto ruler of Languedoc.
But he had a difficult task, as most of the cruisers left after 40 days, so he had to recruit new recruits regularly. At the same time, the Occitan were a very tough nut to crack and loyally protected the Cathars. Simon Montfort thus grew more cruel from one attack to the next.
Simon Montfort and the fate of Languedoc
In April 1210, a hundred men from the city of Bram marched slowly one after the other in a merciful procession. They held each other by the shoulders and the sight of them was chilling. They were all blind, without noses or upper lips. They were hangmen who had been disfigured by the ‘noble’ Count of Montfort. Only the first in the line could see out of one eye, so that he could lead the group to the nearest shelter.
There are few similar stories from the Albigensian Crusade. In addition to the siege, starvation and devastation of cities, heretics soon found themselves at the stake in large numbers. The first mass burning was staged by the Crusaders after the capture of Minerva, when 140 “perfect ones” were tied to stakes. From then on, the “perfect” in particular were burnt en masse, and there was no end to the horrors.
In Lavaur, they outdid themselves, hanging eighty knights, and throwing the pro-Cathar Countess Geraldo into a well and stoning her to death. She is still considered a martyr today. But that was not all: to top it all off, 400 “perfectibles” were burned at the stake in the biggest human bonfire of the Middle Ages.
Simon’s army also perfected medieval weapons, especially siege devices. For example, before the capture of Minerva, they built a huge trebuchet or catapult, nicknamed the Malvoisine, or Bad Neighbour. There were also siege rams, siege towers, Greek fire. The wooden devices were covered with wet animal skins to protect them from fire, and more and more towers and rams had canopies to protect the attackers. Multi-storey towers were placed in front of the walls, from which archers sent arrows and fire among the besiegers.
Religious militias were also born, and their armed members, dressed in black robes with white crosses sewn on, spread fear and trembling throughout the Languedoc. They preferred to attack at night, marching through the towns with torches, setting fires in Jewish and Qatari homes and intimidating the inhabitants of majority Qatari settlements. They took the name of the White Brotherhood and in many ways resembled the infamous members of the Ku Klux Klan. Many Qataris retreated to increasingly impassable and inaccessible places. One of these was the remote castle of Montségur, which later occupied a special place in Cathar history.
But Simon did not have it easy, as the Languedoc nobility, dispossessed by the Church and the Crusaders, sided with the Cathars. They became what are known as faidits and, as outcasts without possessions, attacked and thwarted the Crusaders. Some prominent Catholics also rose up against him, notably the hero of the Spanish Reconquista, Peter II of Aragon, who accused Montfort of overstepping his authority. The latter also attacked Peter’s cities and vassals – Raymond VI was Peter’s brother-in-law, for example – promulgating his own laws and betraying the original meaning of the war with unchecked ravages.
But in the epic battle of the South, with Peter of Aragon at the head, against the North, with Simon of Montfort at Muret in 1213, Peter was killed. This was the end of the Aragonese hope of uniting all Catalan and Occitan-speaking territories, which would have fundamentally changed the map of Europe.
By 1214, most of the territory of the fugitive Raymond VI and the late Roger Trencavel was under Simon’s control, with the exception of Toulouse, the third largest city in Christian Europe after Paris and Venice. 1215 was the peak of his career, although by then the Pope had grown tired of the Albigensian conflict and, in the run-up to the Fifth Crusade, was again looking towards Jerusalem. In his view, the efforts at Languedoc had not brought enough benefits, and the Crusader leaders could hardly persuade him not to simply call off the Crusade.
The end of the Twenty Years’ War
In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council took place, one of the largest gatherings of Roman Catholic clergy of all time, bringing together more than two thousand dignitaries. During this unsurpassed display of papal power by Inocenzo, many doctrinal decisions were taken, such as the definition of “transubstantiation”, the obligation to confess at least once a year and to receive Holy Communion at Easter, the regulations for the trials of priests, as well as the compulsory wearing of yellow circles for Jews and the decision on the new Fifth Crusade. The Pope paid particular attention to Languedoc, as it was also necessary to formally determine to whom the conquered territory would belong.
Under pressure from the clergy, the Pope granted Simon of Montfort most of the territories he had acquired, with a small amount also going to the young Raymond VII, son of the excommunicated Count of Toulouse. But the latter had a lot of support among the nobles and the population, and Toulouse continued to shun Montfort, even though he was officially its chief.
During the long siege of the city, fierce battles were fought between the Toulousians and the Crusaders, but this time it was Simon who came up short. In 1218, he was fatally struck by a stone from a catapult and the fearless crusader, the epitome of the Albigensian war, died at the age of fifty-three.
His successor and son, Amalric of Montfort, tried to carry on his father’s struggle, but he was not cut from the same cloth. On the other hand, the young Raymond VII was a far better warrior than his father and claimed Toulouse as his birthright. He had the Occitan nobility on his side, and the rift between the South and the North, i.e. the French crown, now became a struggle for territory, with which the fate of the Cathars was intertwined. Although the Crusade was effectively over, the slaughter of innocents continued from time to time. In 1219, for example, the French army of Crown Prince Louis massacred seven thousand inhabitants in Marmanda in the name of the Crusade.
The French were more successful in the long run, and in 1224 most of Languedoc came under the French crown. Raymond VII temporarily kept Toulouse and its surroundings, but his only daughter had to marry the French king’s brother, and after her death the county of Toulouse also fell to France. This is largely how France as we know it today came into being.
The Cathar movement managed to survive the years of the Occitan-French conflict in a very reduced form, and even held a Council of Cathar in 1226, which brought together about 100 “perfecti”. But they were aware that the hunt was not over and that they would have to change their modus operandi significantly in order to survive. The Cathars were becoming increasingly invisible and mysterious in society and had moved underground.
But it was too late for them, as another cataclysm of the Middle Ages began in 1229. The Inquisition. This ecclesiastical institution was created by Pope Gregory IX precisely to eradicate the Cathars. In 1233, it also came to the Languedoc, with headquarters in Toulouse, Albi and Carcassonne. By 1244, when the famous fortress of Montségur fell, it had virtually finished off the Cathars, and then terrorized the world for another seven centuries!
The Inquisition
It was a promising start. The first Inquisitor was the former Albigensian crusader Conrad of Marburg, the terror and terror of the Rhineland, where, in addition to the deaths of Cathars and other heretics, he also led thousands of Catholics to the other side of the world. Konrad was a psychopath who, among other things, accused a poor man of travelling to an orgy on the back of a giant cancer, but similar absurd accusations soon became a regular feature of the Inquisition. The Cathars were named after cats, because Lucifer appeared to them as a cat, and they kissed the anuses of cats during rituals, and spiced them up with incestuous orgies.
The Inquisitors were mostly Dominican friars, and they took their mission very seriously. The Inquisition, a kind of forerunner of the notorious secret services of totalitarian regimes, was perfectly organised – they had numerous officials, record-keepers, guards, court officials, torturers, executioners. One academic has compared the bureaucracy of the Inquisition to “the officials who designed the train timetable for Auschwitz, came to work every morning and carried it out without question”.
Whole villages were often interviewed, and it is from these testimonies that we learn most about the Cathars. Punishments for heretics and their sympathisers varied. Ordinary believers were usually punished “only” by wearing a yellow cross and were, of course, obliged to convert to the Catholic faith. For the rest of their lives they had to go to Mass and confession, and often they had to move. The yellow cross in particular became a stigma for social outcasts.
The “perfect” ones mostly burned at the stake, because they rarely betrayed their co-religionists and did not convert. They surrendered stoically to the fire. As recorded in a conversation between two cathars, “How do people endure the pain of being burned at the stake?” “Ignorant! God takes their pain upon Himself.”
The Inquisitors were also obsessed with fire and often dug up heretics who had been dead for a long time and threw them into the fire. They used many interrogation tactics and rarely tortured suspects in the early days.
The Qataris have perfected a system of underground operations and hiding the “perfect”. Many of their homes had secret rooms interspersed with secret passageways. Perhaps the most famous place associated with the tragic history of the Cathars was the fortress of Montségur (translated as ‘safe hill’), built on a hill above the idyllic village of the same name. It was fortified from 1204 onwards and, after the Crusades, the Cathar Bishop of Toulouse, Guilhabert de Castres, a brilliant preacher known for his many public debates with Saint Dominic, moved the Cathar headquarters there. Montségur was the refuge of the “perfect”.
The murder of two Inquisitors was the reason for the attack on him. For nine months from May 1243, 10,000 soldiers besieged the town, where fewer than 500 people lived, half of them “perfect”. After the surrender, they were burned at the stake, dealing a mortal blow to Catharism. However, a legend was born about a special treasure stored in Montségur, which the last Cathars managed to save from the invaders. It was said to be the one and only Holy Grail.
The few French Cathars who escaped the long arm of the Inquisition began to migrate to the last refuge of the Italian Cathars, Lombardy, after 1250. They had a brief revival in the early 14th century, but it was only a swan song.
The rebirth of a movement
At the end of the 13th century, there was an interesting phenomenon of a short-lived revival of the Cathar movement in the Languedoc. In 1299, there are records of the existence of some thirty “perfecti”, and the spiritual leaders of the revival of the movement were two prominent notaries, the Authié brothers, who in their mature years abandoned their former life and became itinerant preachers. But by then the Inquisition had perfected its methods even further, and within three decades had either halved, converted or burned all the heretics.
The last “perfect” one is said to have been Guillaume Bélibaste, who was burnt at the stake in 1321. Bélibaste was the victim of a notorious inquisitor named Jacques Fournier. Fournier later became Pope Benedict XII of Avignon. After that, all trace of the Cathars in France was lost.
For a while, Catharship looked like it could emerge as a suitable answer to the increasingly centralised and perverted power of the Catholic Church, but by then it was too strong and had the support of most Western European ruling houses. Later, of course, the Reformation attempted to do much the same, and the Protestant religion was born. The Waldenses, also a heretical movement from the time of the Cathars, also joined in, but survived. The essential difference between these two divisions was that the Waldenses rejected dualism. Both, however, can be considered the forerunners of Protestantism.
The 19th century saw a revival of interest in the Cathars and the emergence of a number of conspiracy theories, mainly based on fictional narratives and alternative histories. The age of the Cathars was also an age of knights, templars, freemasons, crusades, the search for the Holy Grail and divine truths, so it has always fascinated and raised many questions. Did the descendants of Jesus really survive somewhere in the south of France? Was Mary Magdalene his wife? Could the Holy Grail still be in the hands of Freemasons today? And after all, have the Cathars survived to this day?
Anyway, there would be nothing wrong with. This is shared by the followers of neo-Catholicism, who, like their role models, advocate simplicity, justice, equality, non-violence, honest work and personal responsibility. The Qataris could be an example to us all.
