The Cathars: The Most Successful Heresy of the Middle Ages

by Sean Martin

Without lifting a sword, the Cathars posed a threat to Catholicism greater than the Muslims or Jews—or so the Church believed. The Cathars believed that matter was essentially evil—especially the human body—and that the material world had to be transcended through a simple life of prayer, work, fasting, and nonviolence.  Today, the mystique surrounding the Cathars is as strong as ever. Their myths and complete history are examined here in The Cathars—the compelling true story of this once peaceful religious sect..

 

  

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, France, Medieval, Gnosticism

192 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2006

About the author

Author of bestsellers The Knights Templar: The History & Myths of the Legendary Military Order, The Gnostics: The First Christian Heretics and The Cathars: The Rise & Fall of the Great Heresy. My new book, A Short History of Disease, will be published in June 2015.

Reviews

[Nick Imrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're going to go around calling yourself 'The Perfect' you'd better actually be perfect, and if I agree with the Roman Catholic Church on one thing it's that we're all likely to repeatedly hurt each other, intentionally or by mistake, due to limited intelligence or information, or misunderstanding, or just because we're all in competition to survive in a world with limited resources sinners.

The Perfect were the highest echelon of Cathars and mostly seemed to be doing a pretty good job of asceticism: pacifism, dressing down, and abstaining from meat, sex, and alcohol. Of course, they didn't all exactly acheive this - but hey, it's France Languedoc so you can't really blame a man for having a mistress or two - and the important point is that even if they didn't quite live up to the hubris of 'perfect' they were still a hundred times better than the universally despised priests of the Roman Church. So the polite requests from the Roman Church to the local aristocracy to sort out their heresy problem were politely ignored - partly because no-one likes being told what to do by a foreigner, but also because the Cathars were very well respected and generally recognised as pious people.

For myself, I can't really like Catharism. I find the idea that the world is a miserable trap created by Satan to be a bit of a bummer (although I do agree that it's very difficult to interpret the Old Testament God as a benevolent diety). I'm innately suspicious of anti-natalism. And I've never had so much sympathy for the anti-Donatists as when I was reading the palavar over the French Perfects discovering that they weren't perfect after all because the Balkan Perfects, who had given them perfection through the laying-on of hands, had turned out not to be perfect themselves thus invalidating the whole process. They had to get re-perfected by some Italians. The whole thing seemed very silly.

But what was interesting was that this entire drama occurred at an international conference of Cathars. It had just never occurred to me that the Cathars would ever have been so open about their faith. I imagined them like a secret society, but that all came after the crusade, before it they were hosting public debates with Dominican monks, and winning the debates too! So when the Church realised that the Cathars were too popular to be given up by their countrymen, and too learned to be argued out of their faith, they turned to genocide.

It took a century or so, but the Cathars were all annihilated, along with the Catholics who lived alongside them in many places; the crusaders not being too picky about who they killed. The massacre of the Cathars was obviously a great tragedy - but I found myself feeling oddly sorry for the Catholic Church. It's hard to imagine a greater self-own than to murder your opponents because you couldn't beat them in a debate. It's the clearest possible admission that they won, and that you have no faith that your truth will win out. This feeling struck me most forcefully in the minor details: having a copy of the Bible in your home was grounds for suspicion since the Cathars were great readers of the Gospel of John. Isn't it sad to suspect people of heresy precisely because they take an interest in their religion? Doesn't it throw some doubt on your own interpretations if you have to kill people who read the source material and reach their own?

Anyway, the Cathars were dead and gone so how on Earth did dualist gnosticism stick around in Europe, popping up in the most unlikely places like the poetry and philosophy of Blake. Where on Earth did he get it from? Being more or less a history book there's no suggestion that gnosticism is actually true and therefore will reemerge whenever freedeom of spiritual practise does, but there is a nice synopsis of some of the wilder conspiracy theories that inspired the likes of Dan Brown and which reminds me that I really do need to get around to re-reading the Arthurian myths some day.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A succinct recounting of the story of the Cathars, "the most successful heresy of the Middle Ages." Successful, that is, until the Roman Church saw them as a threat and then they moved to exterminate their opposition. I knew something about the Cathars- and the war against them- from reading here and there. I knew they became widespread in southern France, in Languedoc. I did not know they were in Italy as well.
The Cathars were similar to the earlier heresy, the Manichaeans. They were dualists, seeing good and evil as two independent, opposing principles. The Cathars believed that the world was evil and must be transcended through a simple life of prayer, work, fasting, and non-violence. They saw themselves as "the Good Christians" and the Church of Rome was the Church of Satan.
Catharism was gaining popularity in the 12th Century (its origins are shrouded in mystery) and it certainly came to the attention of the Roman Church leaders. The Third Lateran Council of 1179 decreed that force could be used to extirpate heresy. In 1208, Pope Innocent III called for a Crusade against the Cathars. It has come to be known as "the Albigensian Crusade." Innocent gave the participants the Crusade indulgence: forgiveness of sins, cancellation of debts and the promise of loot in the form of land confiscated from the enemies. The campaign kicked off with an attack on the French city of Beziers resulting in 9,000 people being murdered by the Pope's holy warriors.
The center of Catharism in the Languedoc was the city of Montsegur and a siege of that city led to its capture in 1244. 225 Perfect ( the Cathar equivalent of priests, including women as well as men) were burned. By this time, the Pope had launched the Inquisition to combat and eliminate Catharism. During the early 14th Century, the Roman Church succeeded in stamping out the heresy--although a similar heresy called the Bogomils continued in Bosnia--until the 19th Century!
This is a story well-told and, at the end, Martin writes about the mystique that surrounds the Cathars to this day, especially their connection to "the Holy Grail." Above all, for me, the story of the Cathars is the story of an alternate society which could not be tolerated by the established church. The Catholic Church was determined to hold on to its power at any cost and crush all opposition to its monopoly of "the truth." I see Catharism as not only a forerunner of the Protestant Reformation but as an inspiring example of people questioning what they were told to believe--and standing up for what they believed in, even at the cost of their lives.
5 stars.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history of the Cathars is another of the almost innumerable chapters in the vile history of the Catholic Church. They were a gnostic breakaway from mainstream Christianity that preached poverty, non-violence and enlightenment through the search for knowledge against the evil of matter. This threatened the establishment as an alternative to the greed the people of Italy and the south of France saw in the Church. The Cathars went further than that, preaching in their own tongues, rather than in Latin, which few understood, and openly encouraging women to be involved in their faith, an area in which the Catholic Church is eight centuries and counting behind them.

Sean Martin's portrayal of the fate of the Cathars is raw. He skilfully covers the both the context of the flourishing of the movement in the 11th-13th centuries. At the same time he conveys the intricacies of the forces ranged against them, their own inability to fight back, and yet their ability to continue growing in the face of horrific repression.

Although far from the end of the Cathars, the fate of the city of Beziers in southern France in 1209 when the Albigensian Crusade - the only Crusade to face inwards on Christianity rather than outwards on the Middle East - is demonstrative of the Church's attitude to any teaching, any morality, any thought that did not emanate from Rome. Seizing on an opportunity to storm into the city after a characteristic military mistake by Cathar defenders, the Cistercian abbot-commander was asked how his troops would tell the 80% Catholics and the 20% Cathars apart. His chilling reply was that every man, woman and child in the city - some 20,000 people were to be murdered on the spot. "Kill them all," he ordered, "the Lord will recognise his own."

This cowardly zealotry, marvelously recounted, sets the scene for what is at times a harrowing read.

[Overbooked ✎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Catharism was the most popular heresy of the Middle Ages, such was its success that the Catholic Church and its apologists referred to it as the Great Heresy. It combined a tradition of itinerant preachers with a very ascetic quality of life. The Cathars rejected the entire structure of Roman Catholic Church. They stated they were the only true Christians and developed an alternative religion, an alternative hierarchy, an alternative priesthood that attracted many adherents. The popes were obviously concerned and eventually pope Innocent III launched in 1208 the Albigensian crusade which was named after the town of Albi in southwestern France in the mountains of the Pyrenees.

The appointed crusade leader was Simone de Montfort who led an invasion of south-western France by knights from north and central France. It was a very bloody affair. The extermination of populations, cities and crops during the crusade was extensive enough so as to constitute what might be called the first "genocide" in modern European history. One of the key events was the massacre of Beziers when the Papal legate, when asked how to recognise Cathars from the Catholics within the walls uttered the notorious command: ‘Kill them all. God will recognise his own.’

The crusade itself however was not sufficient, heresy had to be eradicated from people’s minds on an ongoing basis and from all over Europe, so the papacy next step was the institution of The Inquisition. It starts in Germany in 1143, then in northern France and Flanders and finally in 1233 in southwestern France in Languedoc where the heresy was still rampant. From May 1243 the Cathar fortress of Montségur (which had become a refuge for Cathars) was besieged and on 16 March 1244, a large and symbolically important massacre took place, where over 200 Cathar Perfects were burnt in an enormous pyre at the prat dels cremats ("field of the cremated") near the foot of the castle.
Similarly, another Cathar refuge (Quéribus) was destroyed 1255.

The Cathars were driven underground and enjoyed a brief revival in the Pyrenean foothills in the early 1300s under the leadership of Peire Autier. Eventually he was captured and executed (burnt at the stake) in April 1310 in Toulouse and after several decades of harassment and increasing clampdown from the Inquisition the sect was exhausted. After 1330, the records of the Inquisition contain very few proceedings against Cathars. The last known Cathar perfectus in the Languedoc, William Bélibaste, was executed in 1321. Only few Cathars cells survived in Italy for a while longer and Bosnia till the 1800s.

This exciting history book reads like a novel, the author provides a brief history of heresies (dualism, Manichaeism and Bogomil in particular) before detailing the political events, the military campaigns of the crusade and the activities of the Inquisition leading to the religious order annihilation. It concludes with references to literary works linked to the Cathars and legends of their treasure and the Holy Grail. Highly recommended to anyone interested in this fascinating period in European medieval history. 4 1/2 stars rounded up

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The prevalent belief by those whose readings are confined only some daily snippets from the bible is that from Jesus Christ’s death peacefully arose the belief system mainstream catholics have now. Dig deeper into history, however, and you’ll find out that: a. the official Jesus narrative we have now is but just one among the many there were among his believers before; b. that his present gospel story was chosen as a result of political considerations; and c. that as Reza Aslan had brilliantly discussed in his book, my earlier review, ‘Zealot’ the gospel story which made it into the New Testament is a mishmash of fabrications, made-up plots and glaring contradictions.


“The course of western civilisation changed forever on 28 October 312, when the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (306-37) achieved a decisive victory over his brother-in-law Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, just outside Rome. The two men had been engaged in a power struggle since Constantine’s accession, and at Milvian Bridge, matters came to a head. The night before the battle, however, things did not look good for Constantine. His men were outnumbered by 4:1, and defeat seemed likely. As evening drew on, Constantine saw the Greek letters X P (Chi Rho, the first two letters of the word ‘Christ’) suddenly appear on the setting sun together with a cross and the motto ‘Hoc Signo Vinces’—‘in this sign you will conquer’, Constantine saw it as an omen, and ordered the cross be painted on his soldiers’ shields. When he won an outright victory the next day, Constantine put the success down to the god of the Christians, converted to the faith and issued the Edict of Milan, which ordered an end to religious persecution across the empire.

“As soon as Christianity began to flourish with its new-found status, there were problems. Arianism, in particular, was proving to be controversial, with its view that God the Father and Christ the Son were two distinct entities, with Christ being seen as inferior to God. To settle the matter, Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea, whose opening session began on 20 May 325. In two months that the Council sat, the 300 or so Church fathers gathered at Nicaea debated a number of topics, including the fixing of the date of Easter, but by far the most important issue was Arianism. In an attempt to establish an orthodox position on Christ’s divine nature, the Nicene Creed was promulgated on 19 June, which drew the battle lines between the orthodox and everyone else. Belief in the tenets of the Creed were central to orthodoxy. They included the belief in ‘God, the Father…maker of heaven and earth’, in Christ ‘the only Son of God…eternally begotten of the Father, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father,’ who ‘was born of the Virgin Mary and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfilment of the Scriptures.’ Christ’s flock was to be ministered unto solely by ‘one holy catholic and apostolic Church.’ The key issue of Christ’s divinity, and his being ‘one in Being with the Father’ was settled by vote. The Arians lost and were declared heretics. The Church was sending out a clear message: they were the only means by which one could achieve salvation.”

Another Christian group whose faith had lost was known as the Cathars, or ‘pure ones’, from the Greek ‘katharoi.’ Catharsis flourished in the Languedoc and Italy during the Middle Ages. Its followers stressed the life of simplicity, equality, non-violence, work and love. They did not build churches and believed that holiness should be brought into the domestic sphere instead. But their faith was dualist, holding that the material world is evil, the creation of the devil himself, and that the true god existed in a world of eternal light beyond the dark abyss of human existence. They rejected the Church and all its sacraments, regarding it as the Church of Satan. The only prayer they used was the Lord’s Prayer although for the phrase ‘daily bread’ they used ‘supersubstantial bread’ instead. They rejected most of the Old Testament and considered the belligerent God there as satanic. The only sacrament they observed was the ‘consolamentum’ which served as baptism or, if administered on the deathbed, extreme unction.

They were good, non-violent people. Christians with different, though harmless, beliefs. But the powerful Church considered them as HERETICS. So what did Christ’s orthodox Church do? It founded the Inquisition and launched the so-called Albigensian Crusade to exterminate these ‘heretics.’

The armies of the ‘true Church, in Jesus’s name, then hunted them down. On 22 July 1210 140 Cathar Perfects in Minerve were burnt in the valley below the town. Then in the spring of 1211, another 400 Cathars were burnt at stake in Lavaur with those who had sheltered them hanged. Between 50 to 100 more were likewise burnt outside the town of Casses.

Those were just the start of the many genocides done by the Church built upon Peter the Rock. And it was through such kind of violence that it became a predominant religion as it is today.

[Adam Marischuk · Rating 1 out of 5]

History is like beer, sometimes it is heavy and dark, sometimes light and refreshing, sometimes bland and flavourless. I began reading this book this summer hoping for the bud-light of history but even with those low expectations I was surprised to find some non-alcoholic carbonated barley drink masquerading as beer.

Sean Martin's book begins with a certain understandable sympathy for the Cathars as he attempts to trace the history of their beliefs without ever successfully explaining their beliefs. Then he follows that with a superficial high-school level history of the Crusades against the Cathars in Languedoc (which he annoyingly keeps calling "the Languedoc"). Then the book moves into the Inquisition and the decline of the Cathars, followed by the collapse in Languedoc, Italy and Bosnia. Finally he closes with what can only be described as conspiracy theory non-sense regarding the Holy Grail, the Knights Templar, Troubadours, and "modern" Cathars.

The reader is left completely uniformed about much of the Cathars and is seriously misinformed about the relationship of the Cathars to other heresies, the Catholic Church, the nobles and lords, the Crusades and the Inquisition.

The overly romanticised history allows Martin to write "Cathars took some pride in the fact that the Perfect were wholly unlike the average Catholic priest in that the were actually holy; they practised what they preached, literally." (p. 64-65) But then on the following page noting "the Drugunthian bishop who had consoled Nicetas, had been caught with a woman in addition to other, unspecified immoralities [thus making their consolamentum's invalid]" (p. 67)

Or again, "Part of the reaon for their success had to do with their respect for women, who enjoyed a higher status in the Languedoc than in most parts of Europe...Catharism helped women further: unlike the Catholic Church, the Cathars saw the sexes as equal, and there was nothing to stop any girl or woman becoming a Perfect" (p. 74) but then goes on for the subsequent hundred pages to detail only male Cathar leaders (aside from the odd mother-martyr).

Sean Martin seems unaware of even basic aircurrents, or hopes that his hyperbole will be glossed over by the unsuspecting reader "The skies were black for a whole year with smoke." (p. 103) Even Hiroshima and Nagasaki apparently pale in comparison to the Albigensian crusade.

Basic math escapes the author: "the army's mission was to demand that the town elders hand over the 222 Cathars- about 10 per cent of the town's [Béziers] population." (p. 11) But then only two pages later "between 15,000 and 20,000 innocent people were butchered. (A more conservative estimate puts the number of victims at a mere 9,000)" (p. 13)

The inquisitor's faith is denounced as fanaticism "Romano di San Angelo, was a ruthless and duplicitous man; perfect Vatican material and perfect for harrassing..."(p.101) but the Cathars' fanaticism is lauded: "a sorrow touched with the joy in knowing that, for the Perfect, their journey through the vale of tears that is the material world would soon be over" (p.117) Despite all having been given the option of freedom, they prefered the consolamentum and death. In fact, ritual suicide (normally a sign of mental instability) is frequently alluded to but celebrated. One only wonders what kind of biography Sean Martin would write about Jim Jones.

And he frequently misrepresents historical documents to fit his narrative, "the Archbishops of Trier and Mainz wrote to Gregory to complain about Conrad's behaviour." (107) Whereas "The Archbishops of Trier and of Mainz both wrote to the pope in 1231 in praise of the extraordinary activity of Conrad and reported his triumphs over several heretical leaders. Thereupon Pope Gregory conferred on Conrad (11 October, 1231) the extensive authority of papal inquisitor, the first such officer appointed in Germany. At the same time the pope released Conrad from the obligation of following the ordinary canonical procedure" (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04259...)

The sources Sean Martin uses are likely laughable, from the non-academic Stephen O'Shea, to the discredited Robert Eisenman, the dated Steve Runciman and the just plain weird Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh.

Regarding the sources, perhaps Bernard Hamilton (who is in the bibliography but I can not recall him in the endnotes) siad it best about Baigent but this applies equally to Martin: "a very outdated and misleading account of this institution [the Inquisition]" (wikipedia, Michael Baigent)

And all of this is to say nothing of the concluding Zeitgeist conspiracy theory non-sense at the end of the book regarding the holy grail and the Knights Templar. This gives history a bad name.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part of this book would serve well as an introduction to the mediaeval Christian 'heresy' of Catharism. Other parts, the ones detailing the activities of specific individuals, Cathars and others, often political or religious figures, would probably be obscure to readers not well versed in the period. Those parts certainly bogged me down.

To get at the (plausible) heart of that purist movement I recommend the sympathetic novels of Zoe Oldenbourg supplemented by histories of religious movements in Western Europe c. 1000-1300. For background, suggested by the author of this book, one would indeed be advised to read up on the earlier dualistic Zoroastrians, 'gnostics', Manichees, Bogomils and Waldenses.

[Elliott Bignell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This lovely little book deals with a heresy that has continued to echo in the modern world, as the Cathars have come to be associated with the "Holy Grail" mystery that has spawned so much popular fiction in our time. There is little of the Pythonesque here, though, and thankfully none of the "Holy Blood" silliness that spawned a recent series of films. The Cathars almost bridge the heretical gap between early Christianity and the Reformation, leaving the record of non-Orthodox, proto-democratic churches almost unbroken since the time of Christ. This was something I was not entirely expecting. Further, this Dualist heresy was remarkably successful, almost coming to dominate in the South of France around Toulouse, where I have unsuspectingly been, and surviving into the 14th Century further East across Italy and latest in the Balkans.

Their fate at the hands of the Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition is less of a surprise, although the scale of the slaughter is more than I knew. In another personal connection, I stood only months ago on the floor of the ampitheatre in Verona where 200 Cathars were burned. The castle at Montségur, so central to Grail mythology, was taken by the Crusade after a daring night-time climb and another 200 of the "Perfect" - accredited ascetic religious leaders something like a priesthood - burned on the pyres that they watched being erected from their battlements. The power of heresy over the heart is best illustrated by the fact that another 21 of those trapped were "consoled" - meaning to join the Perfect - before the castle fell, despite their knowing that this would condemn them to the fire.

So what is Catharism? It is a form of Dualism. They believed that the Earth and the material world are evil and under the sway of Satan. Moreover, they believed that the Church was an agent of Satan, which may explain some of their unpopularity. They gave exceptional recognition to the rights of women, a factor which echoes in today's liberal mind. The Perfect lived ascetic lives, receiving a "consolation" which lapsed if they or their Consoler stayed from the strait path set for them. They ate no meat and did not drink; they were to abstain from sex. The Cathars were widely recognised as the better Christians even by the orthodox.

They have passed into time at the hands of the stake and the interrogation stool. They will be missed. The world could have been very different had they survived.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A basic history of the Cathars which begins with a history of dualism. The one weakness I saw was that the section on dualism just went on too long and much of it didn't have any direct connection to the Cathars except, of course, the sharing of a dualistic religion. It was a good introduction but you'd probably want something more in depth if it interested you. Be warned--if you look at books on the Cathars you're likely to find a lot of mumbo jumbo--at least Martin sticks to straight history.

[Norman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great, easy to read, history of the Cathar movement, all the more poignant in the reading as we were living and travelling through Cathar country as I read the book.

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish the church returned to dealing with heretics like that.

[Pavol Hardos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many Raymonds, none of them lovable.

As intros go, this seems a competent one, though you can’t help but wonder who is the intended audience - an equally dense and perhaps shorter by half introduction can probably be found online.

The author tries to compensate his dry narrative of succession of implacable Raymonds with juicy anecdotes lifted from books you also cannot but suspect are much more interesting.

I guess the book is only for those who are caught offline but feel like they absolutely must read as short and as dry an introduction as possible.

[Ravi Mahajan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Succinct and fascinating historical summary of Cathars, Catharism and associated dualist philosophies ...shows the extent to which the Catholic Church went to suppress heresy, often by violent means and reinforces the theory that organized religion is largely an attempt to maintain power and this subordinates ehics and morals.

[Manolo González · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its 120 more or less pages, eventough is kind of brief, is enough for give a introduction for the whole issue with the cathars, most of the book is about the history of heresy and why they get to know as cathars, however there is only little first hand sources, but I fell Mr Martin did a really good job and even with this problem, brought a very enjoyable book.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best book on the Cathars I have read. It is about the religion and its history. Other books say they are about the Cathars but the books are just about the battles of the Albigensian Crusade and its politics. Other Cathar books are mystical new age books about secret eastern knowledge, the holy grail, the Knights Templar or Mary Magdalene. Other books say the Cathar belief were mysterious and sprang from nowhere. This book traces a straightforward chain from Paulicians, to Bogomils to the Cathars. It gives a transcript of a consolamentum, the "secret and mysterious" sacrament that is the core of the practice of Catharism. I guess it takes some of the romance out of the legends around Catharism but I like that it makes understanding it much easier.

The only hard part about the history in the book is that almost everyone involved is named Raymond. There is a Raymond V, Raymond VI, Raymond VII. There is a Raymond Roger Count of Foix. There is another Raymond Roger Trencavel. When people are not named Raymond, they are named Peter. Peter II, Peter of Bruys, Peter of Castelnau and Peter Roger of Mirepoix (another Roger). There were even women named Raymonde (with an e) who had affairs with guys named Peter. It is very hard to keep the players straight.

That being said, if you want to know what Catharism was, where it came from and what happened to it, this is the book to read.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Cathars are my favorite band of heretics in Christian History, although it is imporant to note that the group Sean Martin's book deals with is not the only group to have gone by the name Cathar. However, the 12th and 13th century religion is the group most often thought of.

The book starts with a brief history of heterodox Christian beliefs prior to age of Constantine and then launches into a very readable account about the rise and fall of the only Christian Church to ever fully threaten the Roman Catholic Empire.

They were extremely popular and treated woman as equals.

The book also deals with the Alibigensian Crusade, which is considered the first European Genocide and with the Inquisition which came into being to deal with the Cathar Heresy.

The author also deals briefly with the myths claiming that the Cathars possesed the Holy Grail.

[Emerson Stokes · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s fine enough but way too stereotypically whiggish in its portrayal of Medieval history. The big bad backwards church goes up against the scrappy underdog Cathars who were enlightened and progressive because they had women priests even though they’re not any better than the typical non-denominational churches you’d find dotted around Nowheresville USA in the big 2025. The Catholics should’ve just laid their hands off the Languedoc and let them tear each other to pieces over doctrine and sanctity like they eventually did in Italy.

[Frederic · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great, tragic story that could have been better told. Author Sean Martin often introduces terms and characters without much explanation. His prose is not elegant, but the horrors inflicted on the Cathars haunt the reader despite that.

The book is a very quick introduction to the Catholic Church's vicious, 200 year persecution and eventual extermination of the Cathars from their home regions in northern Spain, southern France and northern Italy. Cathars were considered heretics because they deplored the avarice of the Roman church and treated women equally, among other things. This beautifully illustrated book could have used an editor.

The Albigensian crusade launched by the ironically-named Pope Innocent III against the Cathars was all the more remarkable for slaughtering fellow Christians, at a time when Rome was focused on fighting Muslim armies in both Spain and the Middle East.

[Tuuli Hypén · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this little nest of information. Before reading this book I knew next to nothing about Cathars, but I now consider myself illuminated.

All in all good read; short and concise, a fine introduction to Cathar faith and other heretical movements in medieval Europe. The Great Heresy for Dummies.

[Dylan Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid intro

[Coleen Dailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very interesting actual history of the Cathars and the crusade to eliminate them. It was nice some of the names that were mentioned in the 2 novels that I just read turn out to be actual people. That just shows how well those novels were researched. This book also discussed some of the rumors and legends that grew up around the Cathars.

[Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book clear and straightforward about the Cathars. I knew a bit about them, but the book helped at putting things into their context.
I read Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village 1294-1324 many years ago. This book makes me think it might be time for a re-read.

[Joyce Hampton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is a great starter book on a complex but facinating subject. The Cathars were an enigma in many ways and had an immense affect on how people perceived their faith should be practiced.
This book is well written and informative leaving the reader wanting more

[Andrew Garvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone with such a strong interest in horror, fantasy and science fiction, I really should read more religious history if Martin’s fascinating, if short and densely-packed overview of the heretic Cathars is anything to go by.

Believing and preaching that the world itself is evil, that the only escape is work, prayer, non-violence and fasting, and that the established Catholic Church served Satan, the Cathars’ history and their unusual, strong beliefs (with their similarities to the Apocalyptic Good vs. Evil views of Zoroastrianism) make for great reading.

While their sect flourished in pockets of Europe, chiefly the Languedoc and Italy, and later in Bosnia, the Catholic Church weren’t exactly happy about them and launched the Albigensian Crusade in 1209, a twenty year campaign against fellow Christians that killed at least 200,000 people and marked the first European genocide.

Martin’s tightly focused book, while excellent at recounting the detail of the Crusaders’ savagery, doesn’t really put the campaign into a wider context, though he does note tellingly that when Pope John Paul II apologised to the Arab world for the Crusades in 2000, he was silent about the Albigensian genocide.

Twenty years of military action failed to wipe out the Cathars, so the Pope’s next step was the Inquisition. The most gripping, and appalling sections of this slim book cover the sheer fanatical vindictiveness of the Inquisition and the Cathars’ (and pretty much everyone else in the Languedoc’s opposition) to the Inquisitors.

As Martin notes, while many spied on and betrayed friends and family to the Inquisitors’ exceptionally low burden of proof and high probability of torture, the people of Toulouse refused to co-operate. “In October [1235], the Inquisitors were thrown out of Toulouse by a jeering mob, who pelted them with stones and excrement.” Fine work, Toulouse.

Finally, Martin neatly summarises the Cathars’ legacy too, particularly the basics of, and the reasons for, the lurid fantasies and myths about their wild riches and guardianship of the Holy Grail. An ascetic sect, the Cathars despised the Catholic Church’s lavish over-indulgence, making them unlikely hoarders of riches although they did have links to the Knights Templar.

Settle down at the back there, Dan Brown fans...

[Nathan Wilder · Rating 2 out of 5]

Intro: This book is not scholarly.

Concerning the Cathars, this book is informative to their doctrine and history. This book traces common elements of Christian heresies forward to medieval Catharism. The Roman Catholic persecutions are explained through historical perspective from both sides. This book is full of photographs and medieval artwork for illustrations. The useful history of the Cathars is bookended with Martin's less useful take on early Christianity.

Martin goes wrong with every mention of the Apostle Paul in dealing with first century Christianity. Martin considers the Apostle Paul to be the father of Christian heresy (pages 16-19, 173), accusing his writings of departing from Christ's teachings. His primary sources to which he is appealing for this were:
#1. The Dead Sea Scrolls Damascus Document- The Foundation of Righteousness: An Excommunication Text
#2. The Gospel of Jesus: In search of His Original Teachings by John Davidson
#3. James, the Brother of Jesus by Robert Eisenman

On #1. This Dead Sea Scrolls reference is on page 173. After reading an English translation and short commentary of this document, I can't see where this is any more than a Jewish Essene document with parallels to Christian writings. No mention of Paul's excommunication here.
On #2. From what I have read about Davidson (I have not read it), he appeals to "Q" as a source to say that the New Testament teachings of Christ are not historical. The only problem is, "Q" is not a historical source that we have a copy of. It is a theory.

So I would say Martin's ideas about the teachings of Paul and Jesus would be better informed if he would read the New Testament, than treat speculations as research. The way he treats the history of Paul makes me wonder how he treated the history of the Cathars. What will I find if I do more digging?

This book contains spelling and editorial errors.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Martin covers a great swath of the history of the Cathars. Though I found it too much too briefly. I'm only passingly familiar with the details of this point of history, and not much effort was made to tie the history of the Cathars into better known surrounding events. If you're not strongly familiar with the line of popes and rulers around the Languadoc, you may have a hard time tracking the time line of the Cathars.

I also had this problem with the history of the Cathars themselves. Martin quickly rushes through people and events, introduce a name before abandoning it a few sentences later. Then bringing it up again much later, expecting you to have remembered the person from a singular mention amongst many others. That's not to say it isn't a good history, just one you'll have to reread a few times to gain a clear picture of what's going on.

Though the real low point is the first and last chapters of "The Cathars," which would be better skipped. Martin begins by asserting the Cathars had certain beliefs in common with other better known groups and religions in history. But he attempts to do so, not by presenting the beliefs of the Cathars, but by only presenting the beliefs of others. No connecting link is actually made. And not much is done to delve into their beliefs in later chapters in order to make any link evident. It seems this connection in history is one of Martin's desire rather than fact.

The last chapter finally gives some insight as to why Martin spent the first chapter not talking about the Cathars. He decries how after their time, other groups would romanticize the Cathars, projecting their own ideas onto them. In praising them they were not actually appreciating this people but seeking a placeholder to praise themselves. Then Martin reveals, the beliefs he asserted to be the Cathars' were in fact his own. Now he takes his turn at using the Cathars to champion his own beliefs.

[Kathryn Jacobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fascinating book. A vivid look at the Catholic church's development of policy towards heresy and how the steps into brutal violence where taken one at a time. I feel like the author took these scraps of history and religion and tied them together into a very clear story. The appendix is also incredible. Full bibliographic reading lists separated by topic, a timeline, and index are all available. The maps are a bit simple and crude. I gained a better understanding of the regions by pulling up google on my phone.

I will say the author is doing a huge amount of history for what is less than 200 pages. Many controversial topics are simply skipped over with the author's choice of the truth stated as fact. This felt necessary for the book to carry on but anyone with a more niche knowledge may see that as quite the glaring issue.

For such a huge geopolitical issue, the book does a poor job of discussing other things happening in Europe at the time and how those events would influence these policies as well. The author gives the impression that the entire middle ages was shaped exclusively by this event. Or at least that the Catholic church's reaction to Catharism was the most important. I would argue differently, and it feels like someone showing only the evidence in favor of their agenda.

All that said, it was a quick read and very engaging. It is simply a sprinkle on the cake for understanding the early middle ages and I appreciate the author introducing me to many knew concepts.

[Patrick Mason-Murray · Rating 2 out of 5]

A broad history of medieval Languedoc, its’ rulers, faithful, and antagonists, and the varieties of devotional sacrifices and compromises made in order to preserve the true faith (whether that’s the beliefs of the Cathars, or the power of the Pope and the Inquisition).

It read much like one of my undergrad history papers, only extended into a full book. Sources are a handful of semi-reliable publications. Some of the pulled quotes don’t offer much context at all, while other detailed anecdotes that are clearly 14th-century embellishments are just presented and not cited.

The first few chapters deal with esoteric and hidden knowledge of the ancients, and the last chapter teases legends of Templar treasure and the Holy Grail. Very titillating, like I mentioned before, when laying out a good term paper. Unfortunately the middle is bogged down with too many Raymonds and Williams that are not well-differentiated between and perverse details on the humiliations and executions the victims of the Inquisition were subject to.

Good reference material for basic history of the Inquisition in Languedoc, and to cross-reference while driving through the beautiful Cathar Country in Southern France, but not the fastest or most reliable read.

[Alejandro Paulovitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished this gem of a find.
To begin with, this book almost certainly falls under the sort of books we call "popular history" with minimal academic diversions. It is well researched but a very short read (I chose it for that reason anyways).
I don't really like the political bias of this author which tends to represent a sort of Lefty religious perspective saying "oh look the real baddies are the religious right" and he sells the cathars as some sort of proto communist faith.
I'm Sorry Saar but Catharism isn't your Reddit based wholesome Faith, it goes beyond your understanding and its appeals to equality weren't done under the guise of social progress instead just interpreting the world as all equally evil and hence the idea that women "could" be religiously saved.
I'm not against this idea, but you can't sell me the notion that Catharism is like Globohomo or something, it's ridiculous to cover your political beliefs and intertwine them with history.
Overall It is a necessary read to at least lightly comprehend what Catharism and the Albigensian crusade. Next on my reading list will be both of Otto Rhan's books on the matter, especially The court of Lucifer 1937, more akin to my ideas and surely a curious read.

[Aleksandar Sarkic · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was always interested in the theme of gnosticism and gnostic sects and teachings. This book describe one of this sects, they were known as Cathars in the west and it is intriguing how many people became there adherents, probably many people felt that it is closer to real christianity than Catholic church and because of that catholic church felt it must destroy the cathars or they will be destroyed. Sean Martin starts this book by explaining some early gnostic thinking, manicheism and bogomils who all influenced cathar teachings. Most of the book is about Cathar prosecution, incquistion and Albigensian Crusade which was one of the worst genocides in human history. Sean Martin is not a real historian but he writes with love and interest so this is very readable and informative book, i recommend it to everyone interested in middle ages, religion and gnostic thought.