The Cathars

by Sean Martin

  By the time Arnold made his stand in Rome, however, the most serious heretical threat faced by the Church up to that time appeared on the banks of another river far to the north: the Rhine.

  The First Cathars

  The Cathars first emerged into history in 1143. Eberwin, prior of a Premonstratensian house at Steinfeld near Cologne, wrote to the great Cistercian reformer St Bernard of Clairvaux that two heretical groups had been discovered, after they had apparently blown their cover by arguing amongst themselves over a point of doctrine. The Cathars were brought before the bishop of Cologne for a hearing. It was discovered that their church was organised into a three-tier system of Elect, Believers and Listeners, much the same as the Manichaeans of Augustine’s era had been, and they did not baptise with water, but through the laying-on of hands. They condemned marriage, but Eberwin could not find out why: ‘either because they dared not reveal it or, more probably, they did not know.’35 More ominously, the archbishop learnt that the heresy ‘had a very large number of adherents scattered throughout the world’ and that it had ‘lain concealed from the time of the martyrs even to their own day [1143].’36 Most of the heretics were persuaded to recant, although two of their number, apparently a bishop and a deacon, remained unrepentant even after three days’ debate with both clergy and laity. Before sentence could be pronounced, the mob seized the two heretics and threw them onto a fire.

  Another chronicle, The Annals of Braunweiler, notes that in the same year as the troubles at Cologne, heretics were also discovered at Bonn. They too were dragged before the Archbishop of Cologne, where most of the accused either came back into the arms of the Church or managed to escape. The three that did not were burnt on the orders of Otto, Count of Rheineck.37

  What was different about this new heresy was that it was not merely anticlericalism of the sort propagated by Henry of Lausanne and all the motley assortment of libertarian preachers who had been such a colourful – if unpredictable – fixture of religious life during the twelfth century up to that point. These new heretics had organised properly; indeed, the two groups discovered at Cologne were not merely dissenters from Catholicism, they were members of an underground church that had had time to build itself up and put itself in direct opposition to Rome and all that it stood for. As Malcolm Lambert puts it, ‘[the Cathars] offered a direct, headlong challenge to the Catholic Church, which is dismissed outright as the Church of Satan.’38

  Nothing like this had ever happened before, and suddenly the new heresy seemed to be everywhere. Its rise concerned no less a churchman than St Bernard himself, who, after receiving Eberwin’s letter about the events in the Rhineland, composed two sermons denouncing the heretics. He interpreted the ‘little foxes’ from Song of Songs 2:15 – ‘catch the foxes, the little foxes, before they ruin our vineyard in bloom’39 – as heretics. Bernard’s tracts are full of the standard nay-saying: he warns of the heretics’ cunning and secrecy, and accuses them of sexual misconduct and aberration. As to what could be done about the situation, he sounds as if he is almost condemning the burghers of Cologne who cast their Cathars into the flames: ‘Their zeal [in rooting out heresy] we approve, but we do not advise the imitation of their action, because faith is to be produced by persuasion, not imposed by force.’ He goes on to add, however, that ‘it would, without a doubt, be better that they should be coerced by the sword of him “who beareth not the sword in vain” than that they should be allowed to draw away many other persons into their error.’40 In other words, he doesn’t mind people being quietly heretical at home, but once they start to proselytise, then they are asking for trouble. As for punishment, the worst thing he advises is expulsion from the Church. In light of what was to happen in the Languedoc in the early years of the following century, Bernard’s views are remarkably humane and tolerant. If the Church had listened to him – he was after all the most powerful figure in the Church of his time – history might have been different.

  Bernard himself visited the Languedoc in 1145, suspicious that the Count of Toulouse, Alfonso-Jordan, was not doing enough to check the apparent growth of heresy in his lands. Whether Bernard’s visit happened before or after he composed his brace of anti-heretical sermons, we don’t know. What we do know, however, is that the man famed for his preaching skills met a decidedly mixed reaction. He got off to a good start in Albi. The papal legate there was not the most popular of people, and Bernard knew he had to make his words count. His sermon attacked Henry of Lausanne, who was then in the Albi area and was known to have supporters. It was a rousing performance. Concluding his sermon, Bernard asked all those in the congregation who accepted the Catholic Church to raise their right hand. Everyone put their hands up. It marked the end of Henry’s support in the Languedoc.

  If Henry’s career was at an end, then events in the village of Verfeil to the north-east of Toulouse made Bernard realise other forms of heresy were still very much alive and well. He preached in the church, but when he tried to deliver another sermon outside to those who could not get in, his words were drowned out by local knights clashing their armour. Bernard was laughed out of town. The incident could be ascribed to anticlericalism, which was rife in the south at the time, as much as to heresy, but to Bernard there was only one explanation. He returned fuming to his monastery in Champagne, declaring the whole of the Languedoc ‘a land of many heresies’ that needed ‘a great deal of preaching’.41

  The ‘great deal of preaching’ urged by Bernard was largely unforthcoming. Christendom had more pressing matters on its hands in the shape of the Second Crusade, with Bernard himself taking an active role in its early stages. However, once the Crusade was on its way to the east, the pope, Eugenius III, did try to do something about the growth of heresy by issuing a papal bull in 1148 forbidding anyone from helping heretics in Gascony, Provence and elsewhere. In 1157, the Archbishop of Rheims presided over a meeting of the provincial council, which condemned a group of heretics called Piphles, which rejected marriage. At the Council of Tours in 1163, Pope Alexander III presided over a gathering of cardinals and bishops which reiterated Eugenius’s directives by passing legislation directed against ‘Albigensians’ – so-called because the Great Heresy was flourishing unchecked in the town of Albi – and those who helped them. The same year, Hildegard of Bingen had an apocalyptic vision in which she saw the emergence of the Cathars as evidence that the devil had been released from the bottomless pit. Only destruction could now come to mankind.

  The year 1163 also saw the first detailed refutation of Catharism by a member of the Church. Eckbert, Abbot of Schönau, wrote a set of 13 sermons with the overall title of Sermones contra Catharos for Rainald of Dassel, who was the imperial chancellor and Archbishop of Cologne. Although the Sermones are peppered with large chunks of St Augustine’s De Manichaeis to back up the argument, Eckbert had had personal experience of debating with Cathars in the 1150s, and it is this that makes us certain that the heretics he is describing are Cathars and not merely anticlerical trouble-makers in the mould of Henry of Lausanne and his ilk. After a short preamble, Eckbert begins to tackle the major tenets of Catharism, refuting each one as he goes along. He goes on to say that they hate the flesh, and avoid all contact with it, both in terms of procreation and dietary habit. Eckbert goes on to say that they are called Cathars, but are known under other names in other places: Piphles in Flanders, Texerant in France. No one knows the origin of the word or precise meaning of Piphles, while Texerant was derived from the term for weaving. Weaving was one of the professions forbidden to the clergy, being associated with heresy and magic, but the Cathars, while professing hatred for the world, realised the need to earn a living while in it and often worked as weavers.

  While Eckbert’s treatment of Catharism has thus far been reasonably reliable, it is when he tries to explain the origins of the word ‘Cathar’ that he starts to enter the realms of conjecture. He says that the first Cathars, whom, he believed, lived in antiquity, took their name from katharos, the Greek
word for ‘pure’. In linking the Cathars with the apostolic era, Eckbert is inadvertently supporting the Cathars’ own claims that they were descended from the time of the apostles. And Cathars, it must be remembered, were legislated against at the Council of Nicea. So were the Cathars of the fourth century the same as the Cathars of the twelfth? Probably not. And the name is, again, probably not derived from katharos, but, as Alan of Lille (c.1128–1202) says, ‘from the cat, because, it is said, they kiss the posterior of the cat, in whose form, as they say, Lucifer appears to them.’42

  The Living Icons

  The Cathars, or Good Christians as they called themselves, would certainly have been horrified to learn they were being referred to in derogatory terms that suggested they were participants in fictitious satanic ceremonies that were the product of rumour and the overactive imaginations of Catholic critics. Although the Church was keen to paint heretics of all denominations in the blackest possible colours, in doing so they frequently resorted to cliché and outright fabrication; much the same happened to the Jews, who were said to steal Christian children and sacrifice them in secret. In fact, the Cathars were far from satanic, and were often regarded as being better Christians than their Catholic counterparts, a fact which the Church was later forced to acknowledge.

  If their virtue set them apart, then the Cathars’ beliefs further removed them from the mainstream of Christian life. They inherited much from the Bogomils. Like them, the Cathar faith was dualist, holding that the material world is evil, the creation of the devil himself. The true god existed in a world of eternal light beyond the dark abyss of human existence. Both the Cathars and the Bogomils rejected the Church and all its sacraments completely, regarding it as the Church of Satan. The only sacrament they observed was the consolamentum, which served as baptism or, if administered on the deathbed, extreme unction. The only prayer both churches used was the Lord’s Prayer, with the Cathars substituting ‘supersubstantial bread’ for ‘daily bread’. Both Bogomils and Cathars alike rejected most of the Old Testament – and its belligerent deity – as satanic.43 Both movements regarded the entity of the Church – Catholic in the west, Orthodox in the east – as the Church of Satan, and rejected it utterly. Church buildings – the churches, chapels and cathedrals themselves – were likewise seen as no more holy than any other building, and neither sect built any, preferring instead to meet in people’s homes, or in barns or fields. Contemporaneous anti-dualist propaganda tells of a Bogomil monk who, feigning orthodoxy, built a church on the banks of the Bosphorous, but put a latrine in behind the altar, thereby desecrating it, while in Toulouse, a Cathar was said to have entered a local church and emptied his bowels on the altar, cleaning himself up with the altar cloth.44 The Cross was seen as the instrument of Christ’s torture, and Bogomils and Cathars alike refused to venerate it. They interpreted the Eucharist allegorically, and took the Docetic line on Christ’s nature, his miracles, Passion and Resurrection. Cathars and Bogomils alike regarded marriage as fornication, and saw it as a means by which further souls could be entrapped in matter through the thoroughly distasteful business of childbirth. While there is little or no evidence about women in the Bogomil church, the Cathars regarded women as the equal of men, and Catharism offered women the chance to participate fully in the faith at all levels.

  The structure of the Cathar church was again derived from the Bogomil model. Cathars were divided into three classes: Listeners, Believers and Perfect. The Listeners were people who chose not to commit to the faith wholeheartedly; they might hear the occasional sermon, but no more. At this stage, Listeners would hear sermons that were close in spirit to evangelical Christianity. If they chose to become a Believer, they would be asked to participate in a ceremony known as the convenanza, which formally bound them to the Cathar church. Believers formed the majority of the movement. They were ordinary men and women who had ordinary jobs and who lived in towns or villages. They were not cut off in monastic seclusion, did not have to abstain from meat, wine or sex, but were very much involved in the world of matter. They were taught to be in the world, but not of it, to follow the basic teachings of the Gospels, to love one another, to live a life of faith and to seek God. They were generally not exposed to dualist doctrine, which was nearly always reserved for the ears of the Perfect alone. The Perfect were the austere, top-level Cathars who were effectively the movement’s priesthood. Both Cathars and Bogomils held the Perfect in the highest regard: they were seen as embodying the Holy Spirit, being the living church itself. They were seen as nothing less than living icons.45

  The Consolamentum

  Central to Catharism – like Bogomilism before it – was the baptismal rite known as the consolamentum. It was the means by which a Believer could become a Perfect, and thereby attain salvation. Without it, the Believer would be condemned to remain in the world of matter in their next incarnation. The consolamentum survives in two versions, one in Latin, dating from 1235–50, and one in Occitan, dating from the late 1200s, although both were probably based on one twelfth-century Latin original. The ceremony begins with a blessing:

  ELDER:

  Bless us; have mercy on us. Amen. Let it be done unto us according to Thy word. May the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost forgive all your sins (repeated three times).

  ALL PRESENT:

  (The Lord’s Prayer)

  O our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Let thy kingdom come. Thy will be fulfilled, as well as in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. And forgive us our trespasses, even as we forgive our trespassers. And lead us not into temptation: but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen.

  ELDER:

  (John 1.1–17)

  In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God: and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by it, and without it, was made nothing, that was made. In it was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not.

  There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came as a witness to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe. He was not the light: but to bear witness of the light. That was the true light, which lighteth all men that come into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him: and yet the world knew him not.

  He came among his own and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them he gave power to be the sons of God in that they believed on his name: which were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor yet of the will of man: but of God.

  And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw the glory of it, as the glory of the only begotten son of the father, which word was full of grace and verity.

  John bore witness of him and cried, saying: This was he of whom I spake, he that cometh after me, was before me, because he was ere than I. And of his fullness have all we received, even grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared him.

  There then followed a series of requests for forgiveness, similar to the beginning of the ritual (in the Occitan version only).

  The most senior Cathar present then placed the Book – either the New Testament or St John’s Gospel – on a table covered with a cloth. The elder then explains in detail to the Believer the import of what he or she is about to do, and takes the would-be Perfect through a line-by-line exegesis of the Lord’s Prayer. When this is over, the ceremony continues:

  ELDER:

  Now you must understand if you would receive this prayer, that it is needful for you to repent of all your sins and to forgive all men, for in the Gospel Christ says, ‘But and ye will not forgive men their trespasses, no more shall your father forgive your trespasses.’ (Matthew 6.15)

  Sometimes there was a break
in the ceremony at this point, but it was not mandatory. What followed next was the actual consolamentum itself.

  ELDER:

  [Name of Believer], you wish to receive the spiritual baptism by which the Holy Spirit is given in the Church of God, together with the Holy Prayer and the imposition of hands by Good Men. This holy baptism, by which the Holy Spirit is given, the Church of God has preserved from the time of the apostles until this time and it has passed from Good Men to Good Men until the present moment, and it will continue to do so until the end of the world. [Name of Believer] keep the commandments of Christ to the utmost of your ability. Do not commit adultery, kill, lie, nor swear an oath nor steal. You should turn the other cheek in the face of those that persecute you. You must hate this world and its works and the things that are of this world.

  BELIEVER:

  I will.

  The Believer gives the elder the melioramentum, or ritual greeting, by which Believers honoured the Perfect.

  The elder then takes the Book from the table and places it on the Believer’s head, and all the Perfect present place their right hand on the Believer.

  The ceremony ends with further requests for forgiveness, and the ritual known as the Act of Peace, in which all present kiss each other on the cheek, and also kiss the Book. The Believer is consoled. He or she is now a Perfect.46

  As a Perfect, they would now be expected to keep their vows for the rest of their lives. The slightest slip would necessitate reconsoling, and also invalidate the consolamentums of any Believers they may have made perfect. This was known euphemistically as ‘making a bad end’. They were expected to pray fifteen times a day, and to fast on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Prayers were to be said on horseback, when crossing rivers and when entering the homes of Believers. When out travelling, if the Perfect – who usually travelled in pairs – came across goods belonging to someone, they were only to return them if they were sure the goods could be reunited with their rightful owner. If not, then the Perfect were instructed to leave them where they found them. If they happened upon a bird or animal caught in a trap, they were to release the bird or animal on condition that they were able to recompense the hunter with money or a gift. When visiting Believers, they were expected to bless them and their food if they were dining together, and would leave a gift for the Believers’ trouble. Many Believers took the consolamentum when they were close to death, in which case, the cloth and Book would be laid out on the Believer’s bed. If the Believer subsequently recovered, they were usually advised to seek reconsoling at a later date. Once a month, the Perfect in a given area would gather to meet their deacon and confess their sins, a ceremony known as the apparellamentum. Three times a year, the Perfect were expected to undertake 40-day fasts, mirroring Christ’s experiences in the wilderness: from 13 November to Christmas Eve; from Quinquagesima Sunday (the Sunday before Ash Wednesday) to Easter; and from Pentecost to the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul (29 June). Aside from their rigorous observances, the Perfect were notable for their dress: they wore black, or sometimes dark blue or dark green, robes with a cord tied round the waist.