Albigenses
ALBIGENSES
A party of reformers about Toulouse and the Albigeois in Languedec, who sprung up in the twelfth century, and distinguished themselves by their opposition to the church of Rome. They were charged with many errors by the monks of those days; but from these charges they are generally acquitted by the Protestants, who consider them only as the inventions of the Romish church to blacken their character. The Albigenses grew so formidable, that the Catholics agreed upon a holy league or crusade against them. Pope Innocent III, desirous to put a stop to their progress, stirred up the great men of the kingdom to make war upon them. After suffering from their persecutors, they dwindled by little and little, till the time of the reformation; when such of them as were left, fell in with the Vandois, and conformed to the doctrine of Zuinglius, and the disciples of Geneva. The Albigenses have been frequently confounded with the Waldenses; from whom it is said they differ in many respects, both as being prior to them in point of time, as having their origin in a different country, and as being charged with divers heresies, particularly Manicheism, from which the Waldenses were exempt.
See WALDENSES.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Albigenses
A neo-Manichaean sect, associated with the Catharist (Puritan) movement, that flourished in southern France in the 12th and 13th centuries. They believed in a good spirit who created the spiritual, and in an evil spirit who created the material world, including the human body, which is therefore under his control. The good spirit created the soul but the evil one imprisoned it in the body, which is evil from its source. To deliver souls from this evil and punishment, the good spirit, God, sent Jesus Christ who is only a creature. Since the body is evil He could assume only a celestial one. They commended suicide especially by starvation, their endura, and in general, the extinction of human life, and advocated abstention from marriage, preferring concubinage as less evil. As they were a menace to governments and society generally, and resisted all attempts at their conversion, a crusade was organized by barons from France , Germany , and Belgium against Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, who favored them. After defeating them with great carnage the barons, contrary to the designs of Pope Innocent III, continued a war of conquest. The sect disappeared in the 14th century.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Albigenses
(From Albi, Lat. Albiga, the present capital of the Department of Tarn).
A neo-Manichæan sect that flourished in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The name Albigenses, given them by the Council of Tours (1163) prevailed towards the end of the twelfth century and was for a long time applied to all the heretics of the south of France. They were also called Catharists (katharos, pure), though in reality they were only a branch of the Catharistic movement. The rise and spread of the new doctrine in southern France was favoured by various circumstances, among which may be mentioned: the fascination exercised by the readily-grasped dualistic principle; the remnant of Jewish and Mohammedan doctrinal elements; the wealth, leisure, and imaginative mind of the inhabitants of Languedoc; their contempt for the Catholic clergy, caused by the ignorance and the worldly, too frequently scandalous, lives of the latter; the protection of an overwhelming majority of the nobility, and the intimate local blending of national aspirations and religious sentiment.
I. PRINCIPLES
(a) Doctrinal
The Albigenses asserted the co-existence of two mutually opposed principles, one good, the other evil. The former is the creator of the spiritual, the latter of the material world. The bad principle is the source of all evil; natural phenomena, either ordinary like the growth of plants, or extraordinary as earthquakes, likewise moral disorders (war), must be attributed to him. He created the human body and is the author of sin, which springs from matter and not from the spirit. The Old Testament must be either partly or entirely ascribed to him; whereas the New Testament is the revelation of the beneficent God. The latter is the creator of human souls, which the bad principle imprisoned in material bodies after he had deceived them into leaving the kingdom of light. This earth is a place of punishment, the only hell that exists for the human soul. Punishment, however, is not everlasting; for all souls, being Divine in nature, must eventually be liberated. To accomplish this deliverance God sent upon earth Jesus Christ, who, although very perfect, like the Holy Ghost, is still a mere creature. The Redeemer could not take on a genuine human body, because he would thereby have come under the control of the evil principle. His body was, therefore, of celestial essence, and with it He penetrated the ear of Mary. It was only apparently that He was born from her and only apparently that He suffered. His redemption was not operative, but solely instructive. To enjoy its benefits, one must become a member of the Church of Christ (the Albigenses). Here below, it is not the Catholic sacraments but the peculiar ceremony of the Albigenses known as the consolamentum, or “consolation,” that purifies the soul from all sin and ensures its immediate return to heaven. The resurrection of the body will not take place, since by its nature all flesh is evil.
(b) Moral
The dualism of the Albigenses was also the basis of their moral teaching. Man, they taught, is a living contradiction. Hence, the liberation of the soul from its captivity in the body is the true end of our being. To attain this, suicide is commendable; it was customary among them in the form of the endura (starvation). The extinction of bodily life on the largest scale consistent with human existence is also a perfect aim. As generation propagates the slavery of the soul to the body, perpetual chastity should be practiced. Matrimonial intercourse is unlawful; concubinage, being of a less permanent nature, is preferable to marriage. Abandonment of his wife by the husband, or vice versa, is desirable. Generation was abhorred by the Albigenses even in the animal kingdom. Consequently, abstention from all animal food, except fish, was enjoined. Their belief in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, the result of their logical rejection of purgatory, furnishes another explanation for the same abstinence. To this practice they added long and rigorous fasts. The necessity of absolute fidelity to the sect was strongly inculcated. War and capital punishment were absolutely condemned.
II. ORIGIN AND HISTORY
The contact of Christianity with the Oriental mind and Oriental religions had produced several sects (Gnostics, Manichæans, Paulicians, Bogomilae) whose doctrines were akin to the tenets of the Albigenses. But the historical connection between the new heretics and their predecessors cannot be clearly traced. In France, where they were probably introduced by a woman from Italy, the Neo-Manichæan doctrines were secretly diffused for several years before they appeared, almost simultaneously, near Toulouse and at the Synod of Orléans (1022). Those who proposed them were even made to suffer the extreme penalty of death. The Council of Arras (1025), Charroux, Dep. of Vienne (c. 1028), and of Reims (1049) had to deal with the heresy. At that of Beauvais (1114) the case of Neo-Manichæans in the Diocese of Soissons was brought up, but was referred to the council shortly to be held in the latter city. Petrobrusianism now familiarized the South with some of the tenets of the Albigenses. Its condemnation by the Council of Toulouse (1119) did not prevent the evil from spreading. Pope Eugene III (1145-53) sent a legate, Cardinal Alberic of Ostia, to Languedoc (1145), and St. Bernard seconded the legate’s efforts. But their preaching produced no lasting effect. The Council of Reims (1148) excommunicated the protectors “of the heretics of Gascony and Provence.” That of Tours (1163) decreed that the Albigenses should be imprisoned and their property confiscated. A religious disputation was held (1165) at Lombez, with the usual unsatisfactory result of such conferences. Two years later, the Albigenses held a general council at Toulouse, their chief centre of activity. The Cardinal-Legate Peter made another attempt at peaceful settlement (1178), but he was received with derision. The Third General Council of the Lateran (1179) renewed the previous severe measures and issued a summons to use force against the heretics, who were plundering and devastating Albi, Toulouse, and the vicinity. At the death (1194) of the Catholic Count of Toulouse, Raymond V, his succession fell to Raymond VI (1194-1222) who favoured the heresy. With the accession of Innocent III (1198) the work of conversion and repression was taken up vigorously. In 1205-6 three events augured well for the success of the efforts made in that direction. Raymond VI, in face of the threatening military operations urged by Innocent against him, promised under oath to banish the dissidents from his dominions. The monk Fulco of Marseilles, formerly a troubadour, now became Archbishop of Toulouse (1205-31). Two Spaniards, Diego, Bishop of Osma and his companion, Dominic Guzman (St. Dominic), returning from Rome, visited the papal legates at Montpellier. By their advice, the excessive outward splendour of Catholic preachers, which offended the heretics, was replaced by apostolical austerity. Religious disputations were renewed. St. Dominic, perceiving the great advantages derived by his opponents from the cooperation of women, founded (1206) at Pouille near Carcassonne a religious congregation for women, whose object was the education of the poorer girls of the nobility. Not long after this he laid the foundation of the Dominican Order. Innocent III, in view of the immense spread of the heresy, which infected over 1000 cities or towns, called (1207) upon the King of France, as Suzerain of the County of Toulouse, to use force. He renewed his appeal on receiving news of the assassination of his legate, Peter of Castelnau, a Cistercian monk (1208), which judging by appearances, he attributed to Raymond VI. Numerous barons of northern France, Germany, and Belgium joined the crusade, and papal legates were put at the head of the expedition, Arnold, Abbot of Citeaux, and two bishops. Raymond VI, still under the ban of excommunication pronounced against him by Peter of Castelnau, now offered to submit, was reconciled with the Church, and took the field against his former friends. Roger, Viscount of Béziers, was first attacked, and his principal fortresses, Béziers and Carcassonne, were taken (1209). The monstrous words: “Slay all; God will know His own,” alleged to have been uttered at the capture of Béziers, by the papal legate, were never pronounced (Tamizey de Larroque, “Rev. des quest. hist.” 1866, I, 168-91). Simon of Monfort, Earl of Leicester, was given control of the conquered territory and became the military leader of the crusade. At the Council of Avignon (1209) Raymond VI was again excommunicated for not fulfilling the conditions of ecclesiastical reconciliation. He went in person to Rome, and the Pope ordered an investigation. After fruitless attempts in the Council of Arles (1211) at an agreement between the papal legates and the Count of Toulouse, the latter left the council and prepared to resist. He was declared an enemy of the Church and his possessions were forfeited to whoever would conquer them. Lavaur, Dep. of Tarn, fell in 1211, amid dreadful carnage, into the hands of the crusaders. The latter, exasperated by the reported massacre of 6,000 of their followers, spared neither age nor sex. The crusade now degenerated into a war of conquest, and Innocent III, in spite of his efforts, was powerless to bring the undertaking back to its original purpose. Peter of Aragon, Raymond’s brother-in-law, interposed to obtain his forgiveness, but without success. He then took up arms to defend him. The troops of Peter and of Simon of Montfort met at Muret (1213). Peter was defeated and killed. The allies of the fallen king were now so weakened that they offered to submit. The Pope sent as his representative the Cardinal-Deacon Peter of Santa Maria in Aquiro, who carried out only part of his instructions, receiving indeed Raymond, the inhabitants of Toulouse, and others back into the Church, but furthering at the same time Simon’s plans of conquest. This commander continued the war and was appointed by the Council of Montpellier (1215) lord over all the acquired territory. The Pope, informed that it was the only effectual means of crushing the heresy, approved the choice. At the death of Simon (1218), his son Amalric inherited his rights and continued the war with but little success. The territory was ultimately ceded almost entirely by both Amalric and Raymond VII to the King of France, while the Council of Toulouse (1229) entrusted the Inquisition, which soon passed into the hands of the Dominicans (1233), with the repression of Albigensianism. The heresy disappeared about the end of the fourteenth century.
III. ORGANIZATION AND LITURGY
The members of the sect were divided into two classes: The “perfect” (perfecti) and the mere “believers” (credentes). The “perfect” were those who had submitted to the initiation-rite (consolamentum). They were few in number and were alone bound to the observance of the above-described rigid moral law. While the female members of this class did not travel, the men went, by twos, from place to place, performing the ceremony of initiation. The only bond that attached the “believers” to Albigensianism was the promise to receive the consolamentum before death. They were very numerous, could marry, wage war, etc., and generally observed the ten commandments. Many remained “believers” for years and were only initiated on their deathbed. If the illness did not end fatally, starvation or poison prevented rather frequently subsequent moral transgressions. In some instances the reconsolatio was administered to those who, after initiation, had relapsed into sin. The hierarchy consisted of bishops and deacons. The existence of an Albigensian Pope is not universally admitted. The bishops were chosen from among the “perfect.” They had two assistants, the older and the younger son (filius major and filius minor), and were generally succeeded by the former. The consolamentum, or ceremony of initiation, was a sort of spiritual baptism, analogous in rite and equivalent in significance to several of the Catholic sacraments (Baptism, Penance, Order). Its reception, from which children were debarred, was, if possible, preceded by careful religious study and penitential practices. In this period of preparation, the candidates used ceremonies that bore a striking resemblance to the ancient Christian catechumenate. The essential rite of the consolamentum was the imposition of hands. The engagement which the “believers” took to be initiated before death was known as the convenenza (promise).
IV. ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH
Properly speaking, Albigensianism was not a Christian heresy but an extra-Christian religion. Ecclesiastical authority, after persuasion had failed, adopted a course of severe repression, which led at times to regrettable excess. Simon of Montfort intended well at first, but later used the pretext of religion to usurp the territory of the Counts of Toulouse. The death penalty was, indeed, inflicted too freely on the Albigenses, but it must be remembered that the penal code of the time was considerably more rigorous than ours, and the excesses were sometimes provoked. Raymond VI and his successor, Raymond VII, were, when in distress, ever ready to promise, but never to earnestly amend. Pope Innocent III was justified in saying that the Albigenses were “worse than the Saracens”; and still he counselled moderation and disapproved of the selfish policy adopted by Simon of Montfort. What the Church combated was principles that led directly not only to the ruin of Christianity, but to the very extinction of the human race.
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N.A. WEBER Transcribed by Tim Drake
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Albigenses
the name of one or more religious sects to whom this title seems to have been first given in the twelfth century in the south of France, distinguished by their zealous opposition to the Church of Rome, as also by the peculiar doctrines for which they contended. Some writers (e.g. Cave) suppose them to be the same as the Waldenses, as the two sects are generally associated and condemned together by the Romanist writers. But it is certain that the Waldenses originated at a later period and held a purer faith, though it is not at all impossible that in the terrible persecutions to which the Albigenses were subjected many Waldenses were included. In the creed of the Waldenses “we find no vestiges of Dualism, nor any thing which indicates the least affinity with Oriental theories of emanation.” That the Albigenses were identical with the Waldenses has been maintained by two very different schools of theologians for precisely opposite interests: by the Romanists, to make the Waldenses responsible for the errors of the Albigenses, and by a number of respectable Protestant writers (e.g. Allix), to show that the Albigenses were entirely free from the errors charged against them by their Romish persecutors. “What these bodies held in common, and what made them equally the prey of the inquisitor, was their unwavering belief in the corruption of the mediaeval Church, especially as governed by the Roman pontiffs” (Hardwick, Middle Ages, p. 311).
By some writers their origin is traced to the Paulicians (q.v.) or Bogomiles (q.v.), who, having withdrawn from Bulgaria and Thrace, either to escape persecution or, more probably, from motives of zeal to extend their doctrines, settled in various parts of Europe. They acquired different names in different countries; as in Italy, whither they originally migrated, they were called Paterini and Cathari; and in France Albigenses, from the name of a diocese (Albi) in which they were dominant, or from the fact that their opinions were condemned in a council held at Albi in the year 1176. Besides these names, they were called in different times and places, and by various authors, Bulgarians, Publicans (a corruption of Paulicians), Boni Homines, Petro-Brussians, Henricians, Abelardists, and Arnaldists. In the twelfth century the Cathari were very numerous in Southern France. At the beginning of the thirteenth century a crusade was formed for the extirpation of heresy in Southern Europe, and Innocent III enjoined upon all princes to expel them from their dominions in 1209. The immediate pretense of the crusade was the murder of the papal legate and inquisitor, Peter of Castelnau, who had been commissioned to extirpate heresy in the dominions of Count Raymond VI of Toulouse; but its real object was to deprive the count of his lands, as he had become an object of hatred from his toleration of the heretics. It was in vain that he had submitted to the most humiliating penance and flagellation from the hands of the legate Milo, and had purchased the papal absolution by great sacrifices. The legates, Arnold, abbot of Citeaux, and Milo, who directed the expedition, took by storm Beziers, the capital of Raymond’s nephew, Roger, and massacred 20,000 some say 40,000 of the inhabitants, Catholics as well as heretics. “Kill them all,” said Arnold; God will know his own!” (For a full and graphic account of this crusade, see Milman, Latin Christianity, 4, 210 sq.) Simon, count of Montfort, who conducted the war under the legates, proceeded in the same relentless way with other places in the territories of Raymond and his allies. Of these, Roger of Beziers died in prison, and Peter I of Aragon fell in battle. The conquered lands were given as a reward to Simon of Montfort, who never came into quiet possession of the gift. At the siege of Toulouse, 1218, he was killed by a stone, and counts Raymond VI and VII disputed the possession of their territories with his son. But the papal indulgences drew fresh crusaders from every province of France to continue the war. Raymond VII continued to struggle bravely against the legates and Louis VIII of France, to whom Montfort had ceded his pretensions, and who fell in the war in 1226. After hundreds of thousands had perished on both sides, a peace was concluded in 1229, at which Raymond purchased relief from the ban of the Church by immense sums of money, gave up Narbonne and several lordships to Louis IX, and had to make his son-in-law, the brother of Louis, heir of his other possessions. These provinces, hitherto independent, were thus for the first time joined to the kingdom of France; and the pope sanctioned the acquisition in order to bind Louis more firmly to the papal chair, and induce him more readily to admit the inquisition. The heretics were handed over to the proselytizing zeal of the order of Dominicans, and the bloody tribunals of the inquisition; and both used their utmost power to bring the recusant Albigenses to the stake, and also, by inflicting severe punishment on the penitent converts, to inspire dread of incurring the Church’s displeasure. From the middle of the thirteenth century the name of the Albigenses gradually disappears.
So far as the Albigenses were a branch of the Cathari, they were Dualistic and, to a certain extent, Manichnean. For their doctrines and usages, SEE BOGOMILES; SEE CATHARI; SEE PAULICIANS. But as the name “Albigenses” does not seem to have been used until some time after the Albigensian crusade (Maitland, Facts and Documents, p. 96), it is likely, as has been remarked above, that many who held the simple truths of the Gospel, in opposition to the corruptions of Rome, were included in the title by the Romish authorities, from whom our knowledge of these sects must chiefly be derived. Indeed, the gross charges brought even against the Cathari rest upon the statements of their persecutors, and therefore are to be taken with allowance. In the reaction from the mistake of Allix and others, who claimed too much for the Albigenses, there is little doubt that Schmidt and others of recent times have gone too far in admitting the trustworthiness of all the accounts of Bonacorsi, Rainerius, and the other Romanist sources of information, both as to the Albigenses and the pure Cathari (Hase, Church History, 228). With the exception of the charge of rejecting marriage, no allegation is made against their morals by the better class of Roman writers. Their constancy in suffering excited the wonder of their opponents. “Tell me, holy father,” says Evervinus to St. Bernard, relating the martyrdom of three of these heretics, how is this? They entered to the stake and bore the torment of the fire, not only with patience, but with joy and gladness. I wish your explanation, how these members of the devil could persist in their heresy with a courage and constancy scarcely to be found in the most religious of the faith of Christ?” Elliott, in his Horoe Apocalypticoe, vindicates the orthodoxy of the Albigenses, however, too absolutely. For arguments in their favor, see Allix, History of the Albigenses (Oxford, 1821, 8vo); Faber, Theology of the Vallenses and Albigenses (Lond. 1838); Baird, History of the Albigenses, Vaudois, etc. (N. Y. 1830, 8vo). On the other hand, C. Schmidt, Histoire et doctrine de la Secte des Cathares (Paris, 1849, 2 vols.); Hahn, Geschichte der Ketzer im Mittelalter, vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1845); Maitland, Facts and Documents illustrative of the Ancient Albigenses and Waldenses (Lond. 1832, 8vo); Maitland, Dark Ages (Lond. 1844, 8vo). Compare Fauriel, Croisade contre les Albigeois (Paris, 1838); Petri, Hist. Albigensium (Trecis, 1615); Perrin, list. des Albigeois (Genev. 1678); Benoist, Hist. des Albigeois (Paris, 1691); Sismondi, Kreuzzuge gegen d. Albigenser (Leipz. 1829); Maillard, Hist. Doct. and Rites of the ancient Albigenses (Lond. 1812); Barran and Darrogan, Histoire des Croisades contre les Albigeois (Paris, 1840); Faber, Inquiry into the History and Theology of the ancient Vallenses and Albigenses (Lond. 1838); Chambers’ Cyclopcedia; Princeton Rev. vols. 8, 9; North Amer. Rev. 70, 443; Neander, Ch. Hist. 4, 560 sq.; Mosheim, Ch. Hist. cent. 11, pt. 2, ch. 5; Gieseler, Ch. Hist. per. 3, 86; Lond. Qu. Rev. April, 1855, Art. 1.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Albigenses
See WALDENSES.