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More Information about the Cathars and Catharism

If you are interested in the Cathars, their history and their beliefs, there is no shortage of material.  The problem is sorting the wheat from the chaff. Here is some of the wheat.

 

 

SOURCE DOCUMENTS


Source Documents - Gnostic and Cathar Documents

The Gospel of St Thomas    An early gospel, possibly first century and earlier than (and a primary source for) the earlier "Canonical" gospels.

A Gnostic gospel: The Book of John the Evangelist      

The Consolamentum, The The Cathar Right of Baptism by the Holy Spirit - English translation of the Lyons Ritual   

Apparelhamentum, English translation of the Cathar
Right of General Confession

 

 

 


Source Documents - Orthodox Documents

Anna Comnena, on the Bogomils c. 1110 in English translation from the Greek. The Bogomils were almost certainly the source of Catharism in the West

 


Source Documernts - Accounts of the Cathar Crusades

The Siege of Termes from The Song of the Cathar Wars: The History of the Albigensian Crusade, translated by Janet Shirley (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1996)

The Siege of Termes: Sections 171 to 192 of chapter 7 of the Historia Albigensis by Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay

Historia Albigensium by Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay (pdf in the Original Latin, Migne, PL, vol 213, col 0543-0711)

The Siege of Toulouse 1217-18 according to The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens, Chapters 26-8   

Canso de la crozada - Guillaume de Tudèle

 


Source Documernts - Catholic & Inquisition Documents

Canon Three of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215)

Accusations against the Albigensians by Raynaldus (13th C)

An Extract from the Chronicle of Ralph, abbot of Coggershalion concerning the discovery of a Cathar in Rheims

Bernard Gui, Extract from the Inquisitors' Manual [1307-1323], Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis on the Waldensians

Bernard Gui, Extract from the Inquisitors' Manual [1307-1323], Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis on the Beguines

Bernard Gui, Extract from the Inquisitors' Manual [1307-1323], Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis on the Albigensians (Cathars)

Caesarius of Heisterbach: Medieval Heresies from Dialogue on Miracles, V , Discussion of Waldensians, Albigenses, and "intellectual heretics" at Paris.

Angelo Clareno, a Spiritual Franciscan: On Torture , early 14th Cent.

Medieval Sourcebook, Primary Documents Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers 1318-1325: The Inquisition Record. [At SJSU] English translation by Nancy P. Stork of selected confessions by Cathar heretics and Jews to Bishop Jacques Fournier and the Inquisition at Pamiers.

 


BOOKS

The Albigensian Crusade by Jonathan Sumption ;     Paperback: 272 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.84 x 8.49 x 5.32 Publisher: Faber & Faber; (June 2000);     ISBN: 0571200028 ;     Hardcover;     Publisher: Faber & Faber; (April 1978;     ASIN: 0571110649  5 stars

Massacre at Montsegur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade by Zoe Oldenbourg ;     Paperback: 432 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.33 x 8.46 x 5.44;     Publisher: Phoenix Press, London WC2; (June 2001);     ISBN: 1842124285;     ( in French. Buché à Montsegùr)  5 stars

The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the CatharHeresy (Yale Nota Bene);     by Yuri Stoyanov;     Paperback: 476 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.30 x 7.70 x 5.01 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr; (August 2000);     ISBN: 0300082533.  The definitive work on Dualism.  5 stars

 in French. Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324, Editions Gallimard (Paris, 1978),   in English.  Montaillou, abridged English version, Penguin (London, 1978), Book by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie.  A good account of a coda to the main story of the Cathars, based on Inquisition records of the arrest of a whole village called Montaillou on suspicion of Catharism.  5 stars

The following links will take you to pages containg more recommended books dealing with:

Comprehensive reviews of books on Catharism

 


 

ACADEMIC ARTICLES

The Virgin Mary in Cathar Thought, Sarah Hamilton, Senior Lecturer, University of Exeter
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History (2005), 56 : pp 24-49
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=285926

Journal of Religious History, Special Issue: Cathar Heresy
Volume 35, Issue 4, pages 469–477, December 2011

Inquisitors and Heretics in Thirteenth-Century Languedoc: Edition and Translation of Toulouse Inquisition Depositions, 1273-1282.Ed. Dr Pete Biller (Professor of History) York University, Caterina Bruschi and Shelagh Sneddon. (Brill: Leiden, 2011).

'Cathars and the Material World', by Dr Pete Biller (Professor of History) York University in God's Bounty? The Churches and the Natural World, Studies in Church History 46 (Boydell and Brewer: Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 89-110.

'Deep is the Heart of Man, and Inscrutable: Signs of Heresy in Medieval Languedoc', by Dr Pete Biller (Professor of History) York University in Text and Controversy from Wyclif to Bale: Essays in Honour of Anne Hudson, ed. H. Barr and A.M. Hutchison, Medieval Church Studies 4 (Brepols: Turnhout, 2005), pp. 267-80.

'Cathar Peacemaking', by Dr Pete Biller (Professor of History) York University in Christianity and Community in the West: Essays for John Bossy, ed. S. Ditchfield, St Andrews Studies in Reformation History (Ashgate Press: Aldershot, 2001), pp. 1-23.

'William of Newburgh and the Cathar Mission to England', by Dr Pete Biller (Professor of History) York University in Life and Thought in the Northern Church c.1100-c.1700: Essays in Honour of Claire Cross, ed. D. Wood, Studies in Church History, Subsidia, 12 (Ecclesiastical History Society, The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 11-30.

'Women and Texts in Languedocian Catharism', by Dr Pete Biller (Professor of History) York University in Women, the Book and the Godly, ed. L. Smith and J.H.M. Taylor (D.S. Brewer: Cambridge, 1995), pp. 171-82.

'Cathars and their supporters in the northern Languedoc', Claire Taylor Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Nottingham University, presented at the 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2001.

'Innocent III, King John and the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1216)', Claire Taylor Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Nottingham University, presented at 'Pope Innocent III and his World', Hofstra University, New York, May 1997.

Review: L'histoire du Catharisme en discussion: Le 'Concile' de Saint-Félix (1167). Oxford Journals, English Historical Review, Volume120, Issue486, pp. 500-502.. http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/120/486/500.2.full.pdf+html

Papas Nicetas: A Byzantine Dualist in the Land of the Cathars, by D Obolensky, 1983
www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/41036110

Anotated English translation by James McDonald of Voltaire's account of the Crusade against the Cathars of the Languedoc




 

UNIVERSITY COURSES ON HERESY & THE CATHARS + HISTORIANS OF CATHARISM

UK

  • Cambridge University: Crusade, Heresy and Inquisition, Jonathan Phillips (Professor of Crusading History, Royal Holloway, University of London)
  • Cardiff University: HS1710 - Heresy and Dissent, 1000-1450, Helen Nicholson (Reader in History)
  • York University: Popular Heresy in the High Middle Ages, Dr Pete Biller (Professor of History)
    http://www.york.ac.uk/history/staff/profiles/biller/
    http://www.york.ac.uk/history/undergraduate/courses/special-subject/42-3-1860/
  • Reading University: Dr Rebecca Rist (Lecturer in Medieval History)
  • University of Glasgow: Dr Andrew P Roach (Senior Lecturer in History)

For short, academically sound, courses in the Languedoc see the Cathar Country Website for more information

US

  • Washington University: Professor Mark Gregory Pegg, Department of History
  • Boise State University: E. L. Skip Knox

Australia

  • University of Sidney: Heresy and Witchcraft

France

Jean Duvernoy http://jean.duvernoy.free.fr/ (in French)


 

CATHOLIC OBSERVATIONS & COMENTARIES


Popes on the Cathars

Leo XIII

Pius XI

Hildegard of Bingen's visions concerning the Cathars and Pope Benedict XVI's comments on them in 2010


Other Catholic Sources

Anotated copy of the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia entry on the Cathari

Hilaire Belloc, The Albigensian Attack, Chapter Five of The Great Heresies

 


MAGAZINE ARTICLES

Time Magazine: "Religion: Massacre of the Pure", Friday, Apr. 28, 1961

 


OTHER

Melvyn Bragg (Lord Bragg) In Our Time on Radio 4
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005488v

Arques, Museum:  located in the house of René Neli, the man who revived interest in the Cathars early in twentieth century.

Centre d'Études Cathares , Carcassonne

Source Documernts - Primary Document Petrus Iohannes Olivi: Selections from the Apocalypse Commentary (1247/8-1298).

Extracts from various documents concerning the War against the Cathars: Minerve, (the tile of the site does not accurately describe its contents) Sources cited

Cathar related Music

  • L'Agonie du Languedoc: Claude Marti / Studio der frühen Musik - Thomas Binkley, dir. EMI "Reflexe" 1C 063-30 132 [LP-Stereo], 1975
  • La Nef. Montségur: La tragédie cathare. Dorian Recordings. DOR-90243
  • Savall The Forgotten Kingdom: The Cathar Tragedy - The Albigensian Crusade AVSA9873 A+C Alia Vox 2009

 

 

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