Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Thunder's Mouth Press (2005), Paperback, 256 pages
Description
Catharism was the most successful heresy of the Middle Ages. Flourishing principally in the Languedoc and Italy, the Cathars taught that the world is evil and must be transcended through a simple life of prayer, work, fasting and non-violence. They believed themselves to be the heirs of the true heritage of Christianity going back to apostolic times, and completely rejected the Catholic Church and all its trappings, regarding it as the Church of Satan. Cathar services and ceremonies, by contrast, were held in fields, barns and in people’s homes. Finding support from the nobility in the fractious political situation in southern France, the Cathars also found widespread popularity among peasants and artisans. And again unlike the Church, the Cathars respected women, and women played a major role in the movement. Alarmed at the success of Catharism, the Church founded the Inquisition and launched the Albigensian Crusade to exterminate the heresy. While previous Crusades had been directed against Muslims in the Middle East, the Albigensian Crusade was the first Crusade to be directed against fellow Christians, and was also the first European genocide. With the fall of the Cathar fortress of Montségur in 1244, Catharism was largely obliterated, although the faith survived into the early fourteenth century. Today, the mystique surrounding the Cathars is as strong as ever, and Sean Martin recounts their story and the myths associated with them in this lively and gripping book.… (more)
Media reviews
Dok je većina takozvanih jeretičkih grupa u srednjem veku bila brzo otkrivana i uništavana od strane crkve, katarizam je cvetao kao alternativa katolicizmu skoro dvesta godina. Prvi pisani podaci o ovoj gnostičkoj zajednici pojavljuju se 1143. Katari su tvrdili da katolička crkva ne samo da je
Katarski sledbenici smatrali su sebe istinskim naslednicima Hristovog učenja, koje je preneseno direktno od apostola. Katari su se držali dualističkog učenja, vere koja je starija od hrišćanstva, i to u svom najjednostavnijem obliku, a koje uči da postoji Svetlost i Tama i da su to dva jednaka, suprotstavljena i večna principa i sile. U knjizi, Šon Martin iznosi validne istorijske činjenice o ovoj „najuspešnijoj jeresi srednjeg veka“.
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lažna, već i sasvim zla, a čak su je nazivali i crkvom Satane.Katarski sledbenici smatrali su sebe istinskim naslednicima Hristovog učenja, koje je preneseno direktno od apostola. Katari su se držali dualističkog učenja, vere koja je starija od hrišćanstva, i to u svom najjednostavnijem obliku, a koje uči da postoji Svetlost i Tama i da su to dva jednaka, suprotstavljena i večna principa i sile. U knjizi, Šon Martin iznosi validne istorijske činjenice o ovoj „najuspešnijoj jeresi srednjeg veka“.
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Dok je većina takozvanih jeretičkih grupa u srednjem veku bila brzo otkrivana i uništavana od strane crkve, katarizam je cvetao kao alternativa katolicizmu skoro dvesta godina. Prvi pisani podaci o ovoj gnostičkoj zajednici pojavljuju se 1143. Katari su tvrdili da katolička crkva ne samo da je
Katarski sledbenici smatrali su sebe istinskim naslednicima Hristovog učenja, koje je preneseno direktno od apostola. Katari su se držali dualističkog učenja, vere koja je starija od hrišćanstva, i to u svom najjednostavnijem obliku, a koje uči da postoji Svetlost i Tama i da su to dva jednaka, suprotstavljena i večna principa i sile. U knjizi, Šon Martin iznosi validne istorijske činjenice o ovoj „najuspešnijoj jeresi srednjeg veka“.
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lažna, već i sasvim zla, a čak su je nazivali i crkvom Satane.Katarski sledbenici smatrali su sebe istinskim naslednicima Hristovog učenja, koje je preneseno direktno od apostola. Katari su se držali dualističkog učenja, vere koja je starija od hrišćanstva, i to u svom najjednostavnijem obliku, a koje uči da postoji Svetlost i Tama i da su to dva jednaka, suprotstavljena i večna principa i sile. U knjizi, Šon Martin iznosi validne istorijske činjenice o ovoj „najuspešnijoj jeresi srednjeg veka“.
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User reviews
LibraryThing member john257hopper
This short book explains the origins of the Cathar movement of medieval Languedoc, Italy and the Balkans, placing it in the context of different theological approaches that had grown up in preceding centuries in both eastern and western European Christianity. Of course it also covers the
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appallingly violent - and, in some places and at some times near genocidal - and ultimately successful campaign by the Catholic Church and Inquisition to eliminate the Cathars both as a theological current within and opposed to the mainstream church, and to eliminate physically the Perfect, the Cathar equivalent to the priesthood, through mass burnings while giving others the opportunity to recant. The whole experience is a classic illustration of the vast gulf between the Medieval and modern mindset in assuming the measures that are appropriate in even a civilised society to decide which of two (or more) competing views of the world will prevail - a stark and somewhat depressing affirmation of the old adage that "the past is a different country, they do things differently there". Show Less
LibraryThing member booktsunami
This book does what the title suggests It is a quick history of the Cathars ...especially those in France but also including those in Italy and some coverage of the Bogomils in Serbia. There is a rather brief review of the origins of dualist ideas in the Middle East and in the early Christian
The book deletes a little into the origin of dualist ideas ...which probably pre-date Christianity ...and were certainly held by some of the earliest Christians. Interesting, in fact that they should have proven so tenacious but I guess they helped to explain how it was possible for there to be evil in the world.....which has been a constant challenge for Christian theologists to deal with....including Augustine of Hippo. After all, a good god who is omnipotent could scarcely be responsible for introducing evil into the world?
Pope Innocent initiated the crusade against the Cathars.....ironic that he should have adopted the name of "innocent" because it's hard to credit him with clean hands after the massacres and burnings of children and whole families of good people.
As a recipe for wiping out a religion the methodology was incredibly efficient:
1. Declare a holy crusade against the Cathars
2. The crusaders only have to "work" for 40 days anyway
3. They get to keep all the loot from the inhabitants they slaughter and their lands
5. Introduce an inquisition run by the likes of Bernard Gui.....who ensnare and entrap the illiterate and uneducated as well as the educated Cathars who are unable to lie. If a forebear is found to be heretical his bones are exhumed and the whole family is tainted.
It was a political war as well as a religious war and the French king was basically able to depose all the dukes and princes of Southern France and take over their lands.
I wonder what the economic cost of all this was? Obviously huge. The result was that France was more or less united and the petty wars between the counts of the south ...presumably reduced or eliminated. The religion was also unified and another potential source of conflict removed. The cost? Thousands killed, many barbarically by burning or other horrific measures involving torture. Cities destroyed. Crops destroyed...with starvation presumably following. Wholesale robbery and rape inflicted upon the south.
The Cathar beliefs frankly seem pretty harmless to me. And their way of life was regarded by all who came up against them (well nearly all) as "holier" than that of the catholics ...especially the priesthood. A good god who created the perfect world and an evil god (Satan) who created the world we inhabit. So everything of the world is necessarily evil....or to be abhorred...including marriage and procreation.
It's not a really detailed history of the Cathars but does what it purports to do. I give it 4 stars.
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church. What is especially interesting to me is the way that a well established, and, seemingly, highly regarded religion could be exterminated ...more or less entirely. Pretty clearly one of the earlier examples of genocide ..and in this case largely at the behest of the catholic church. I have earlier read Montaillou: by Emmanuel Le Roy Laurie and this was pretty much a horror book about the atrocities incurred upon the poor, illiterate, inhabitants of a remote village in the Pyrenees but the Inquisition. It made quite an impression on me ...especially as i had travelled through this section of the Pyrenees a little bit earlier and could see what a hard life these people had.The book deletes a little into the origin of dualist ideas ...which probably pre-date Christianity ...and were certainly held by some of the earliest Christians. Interesting, in fact that they should have proven so tenacious but I guess they helped to explain how it was possible for there to be evil in the world.....which has been a constant challenge for Christian theologists to deal with....including Augustine of Hippo. After all, a good god who is omnipotent could scarcely be responsible for introducing evil into the world?
Pope Innocent initiated the crusade against the Cathars.....ironic that he should have adopted the name of "innocent" because it's hard to credit him with clean hands after the massacres and burnings of children and whole families of good people.
As a recipe for wiping out a religion the methodology was incredibly efficient:
1. Declare a holy crusade against the Cathars
2. The crusaders only have to "work" for 40 days anyway
3. They get to keep all the loot from the inhabitants they slaughter and their lands
5. Introduce an inquisition run by the likes of Bernard Gui.....who ensnare and entrap the illiterate and uneducated as well as the educated Cathars who are unable to lie. If a forebear is found to be heretical his bones are exhumed and the whole family is tainted.
It was a political war as well as a religious war and the French king was basically able to depose all the dukes and princes of Southern France and take over their lands.
I wonder what the economic cost of all this was? Obviously huge. The result was that France was more or less united and the petty wars between the counts of the south ...presumably reduced or eliminated. The religion was also unified and another potential source of conflict removed. The cost? Thousands killed, many barbarically by burning or other horrific measures involving torture. Cities destroyed. Crops destroyed...with starvation presumably following. Wholesale robbery and rape inflicted upon the south.
The Cathar beliefs frankly seem pretty harmless to me. And their way of life was regarded by all who came up against them (well nearly all) as "holier" than that of the catholics ...especially the priesthood. A good god who created the perfect world and an evil god (Satan) who created the world we inhabit. So everything of the world is necessarily evil....or to be abhorred...including marriage and procreation.
It's not a really detailed history of the Cathars but does what it purports to do. I give it 4 stars.
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Language
Physical description
256 p.; 5 inches
ISBN
1560256745 / 9781560256748
Local notes
MuSt--Gift of Muriel Strand
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