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The Albigensian Crusade (French: Croisade des albigeois), also known as the Cathar Crusade (1209–1229), was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, what is now southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown and promptly took on a political aspect.
Catharism (/ ˈ k æ θ ər ɪ z əm / KATH-ər-iz-əm; [1] from the Ancient Greek: καθαροί, romanized: katharoí, "the pure ones" [2]) was a Christian quasi-dualist or pseudo-Gnostic movement, which thrived in the anti-materialist revival in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries. [3]
Consolamentum (called heretication by its Catholic opponents) was the unique sacrament of the Cathars. [1] Cathars believed in original sin, and – like Gnostics – believed temporal pleasure to be sinful or unwise. The process of living thus inevitably incurred "regret" that required "consolation" to move nearer to God or to approach heaven.
The war became protracted, and eventually the French king entered the conflict and took control over the Languedoc, leading to the gradual extermination of the Cathar movement. During the fire, the Cathedral of Saint Nazaire burned and collapsed. A plaque opposite the cathedral records the "Day of Butchery" perpetrated by the "northern barons".
The Yellow Cross – the story of the last cathars 1290–1329. René Weis. Penguin Viking 2000. ISBN 0-14-027669-6; Cathars and Catharism, Dr Yves Maris. Oldenbourg, Zoe (2002) [1961]. Massacre at Montsegur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade (3rd ed.). Phoenix Press. ISBN 1-84212-428-5. The Perfect Heretics: Conference and book (1995)
The Cathars were first noted in the 1140s in Southern France, and the Waldensians around 1170 in Northern Italy. Before this point, individual heretics such as Peter of Bruis had often challenged the Church. However, the Cathars were the first mass organization in the second millennium that posed a serious threat to the authority of the Church.
The siege of Montségur (May 1243 – 16 March 1244) was a siege that took place during the Albigensian Crusade.It pitted the royal forces of Louis IX of France and those of the bishops of Albi and Narbonne against the forces of Pierre Roger de Mirepoix, who protected a community of Cathars in Montségur.
The Albigensian Crusade was initiated in the Kingdom of France at the behest of Pope Innocent III. Its purpose was to squash the growing Cathar movement, which flourished mainly in the Languedoc region of what later became Southern France. [1] The immediate cause was the killing of the papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau. [2]