[Steppes] Re: Cathars, was Living in the Past

[Jann Mays]

Hey Gerita,
 
Great!  I'll check that one out.  I really thought it was Pope Innocent III that had quoted the line.  I'll double check my notes.  Amaury was barely mentioned in my history book.  Thanks for the Latin, too!  Cool !!
 
In my book, Histoire de la France, D. Rivière, it mentions about 5000 dead in the "massacres sanglants" (bloody massacres).  It also says, as you mentioned, that Simon de Montfort was killed under the walls of the capital (Toulouse).  Wow!  The numbers!  It says that the Inquisition tribunals actually unearthed numerous Cathar cadavers and burned them which provoked the whole thing in the first place and thats when the Cathars took refuge in the large forteresses.  Many Inquisitors were assassinated in 1242 which stirred things up further and the Cathars held siege from May 1243 to March 1244.  Finally, at Montségur, the movement was defeated.  More than 200 cathars were burned alive!  How sad!!
 
Gabrielle (I'm thinking about downloading all of these emails from the vegetarianism to the Cathars into a word file.  This is good stuff!!)
Gerita/Carolle Cox <hpockets at verizon.net> wrote:
I'm awake now.  Thanks, Gabrielle!  The book is Stephen O'Shea's "The Perfect Heresy".  It's a fascinating history of the Medieval Cathar movement. 
Beziers was attacked because of "Cathar leaning" .  The town was a mixture of Catholic and Cathar, co-existing peacefully.  It was here that Arnold Amaury said "Kill them all.  God will know his own". (Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus Qui sunt eius).  The bones of approximately 1000 women, children, and aged were found under the church floor in an 1840 renovation effort.  The town was torched after it was looted by the attacking soldiers. Carcasonne was next.  The leader of this mess, Simon de Montfort, is alleged to have died at Toulouse after pretty much laying it to waste as well. Pretty much the entirety of Languedoc was pillaged in this "religious war".  
 
Allegedly, in modern times, Hitler and his cronies were part of a "Cathar Pagan society"  <shudder>  Talk about a study in opposites!
 
And there, in a nutshell, is the destruction of the Cathars, a peaceful Christian sect with a different way of showing their devotion to G--.
 
Gerita
 
 
People are like stained glass windows.  They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when darkness sets in, their beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. -- Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

-----Original Message-----
From: Jann Mays [mailto:hlgabrielle at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2004 11:18 PM
To: hpockets at verizon.net; Barony of Steppes - SCA, Inc.
Subject: RE: [Steppes] RE: Living in the past


Gerita, I have to agree with you.  Their disappearance was probably due to the persecutions they endured by the church (and I have visited the torture museum in Carcassonne - shudder).  
 
I'm not certain, but the town you spoke of might be Albi.  As the story goes, there was a large number of practicing Cathars in that town, but the Catholics in the town left them alone so there were Catholics and Cathars living side-by-side.  The Pope put out a decree to kill everyone in the town.  One of his "knights" said, "But there are many of our people (Catholics) living in that town," to which the Pope replied, "Doesn't matter.  Kill them all, God will sort them out."  
 
I'm not Catholic bashing, either.  My native French history teacher, who taught us about the Inquisition, the tortures, the Cathars, etc., was very Catholic.
 
Gab

Gerita/Carolle Cox <hpockets at verizon.net> wrote:
I have to toss my tuppence in here:

Only the "Perfect" or "Elect" were Required to be celibate. The others
were encouraged to attempt to do the same, but since they weren't
perfected, back-sliding was understood although frowned upon. These
"lower echelons" might produce a child that became perfected, and that
was ok.

I think they died out because of the extreme and intense persecution
they suffered under "the Church" 's belief that they were heretics,
devil worshipers, and worse. I seem to recall one walled town that was
almost entirely Cathars being utterly depopulated by a French King.

Gerita
Too tired to go find that book now, sorry.

People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the
sun is out, but when darkness sets in, their beauty is revealed only if
there is a light from within. -- Elizabeth Kübler-Ross


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HL Gabrielle Honorée de Saint Pierre

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." - Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, 1998.



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HL Gabrielle Honorée de Saint Pierre

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." - Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, 1998.


		
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