The Great Heresy

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 nonviolence. They believed themselves to be the heirs of the true form of Christianity going back to the Apostles and the Gnostics, 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, where the Church was lax, corrupt and unpopular, the Cathars also enjoyed 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 launched the Albigensian Crusade to exterminate the heresy. While previous Crusades had been directed against Muslims in the Middle East or pagans in the Baltic, 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 Montsegur in 1244, and the Italian fortress of Sirmione in 1276, Catharism was largely obliterated, although the faith survived into the fourteenth century. The Church founded the Inquisition to ensure that the heresy would not return.

But the Church was never able to completely eradicate the myth of the Cathars, and the heresy became a powerful symbol for 19th century Languedocian separatists, the German archaeologist Otto Rahn, and the philosopher Simone Weil. Today, the mystique surrounding the Cathars is as strong as ever. Sean Martin sympathetically recounts their story and the myths associated with them in this informative, lively and gripping book.