CATHARI
436
CATHARI
King Louis VII's advocacy of rigorous measures.
At Vt'zelay in Burgundy seven heretics were burned
in 1167. Towards the end of the century the Count
of Flanders, Philip I, was remarkable for his severity
towards them, and the Archbishop of Reims, Guil-
laume de Champagne (1176-1202), vigorously sec-
onded his efforts. Confiscation, exile, and death were
the penalties inflicted upon them by Hugues, Bishop
of Auxerre (11S3-1206). The execution of about
one hundred and eighty heretics at Montwimer in
May, 1239, was the death-blow of Catharism in those
countries. Southern France, where its adherents
were known as Albigenses, was its principal strong-
hold in Western Europe. Thence the Cathari pene-
trated into the northern provinces of Spain: Cata-
lonia. Aragon, Navarre, and Leon. Partisans of the
heresy existed in the peninsula about 1159. At the
beginning of the thirteenth century. King Pedro II
of Aragon personally led his troops to the assistance of
Raymond VI of Toulouse against the Catholic Crusa-
ders, and fell at the battle of Muret in 1213. During
that century a few sporadic manifestations of the
heresy took place, at Castelbo in 1225 and again in
1234, at Leon in 1232. The Cathari however never
gained a firm foothold in the country and are not men-
tioned after 1292.
Italy. — Upper Italy was, after Southern France, the principal seat of the heresy. Between 1030-1040 an important Catharist community was discovered at the castle of Monteforte near Asti in Piedmont. Some of the members were seized by the Bishop of Asti and a number of noblemen of the neighbourhood, and, on their refusal to retract, were burned. Others, by order of the Archbishop of Milan. Eriberto, were brought to his archiepiscopal city, where he hoped to convert them. They answered his fruitless efforts by attempts to make proselytes; whereupon the civil magistrates gave them the choice between the Cross and the stake. For the most part, they preferred death to conversion. In the twelfth century, when, after prolonged silence, historical records again speak of Catharism, it exhibits itself as strongly organized. We find it very powerful in 1125 at Orvieto, a city of the Papal States, which, in spite of the stringent measures taken to suppress the heresy, was for many subsequent years deeply infected. Milan was the great heretical capital; but there was hardly a part of Italy where the heresy was not represented. It penetrated into Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia, and appeared even in Rome. The prohibitions and pen- alties enacted by the civil and ecclesiastical rulers of the thirteenth century could not crush the evil, although the merciless Frederick II occupied the im- perial throne and Popes Innocent III, Honorius III, and Gregory IX were not remiss in their efforts to suppress it. To prevent the enforcement of the pun- ishment decreed against them, the members of the sect, on a few occasions, resorted to assassination, as is proved by the deaths of St. Peter Parenzo (1199) and St. Peter of Verona (1252); or, like Pungilovo, who after his death (1209) was temporarily honoured as a saint by the local Catholic population, they out- wardly observed Catholic practices while remaining faithful Catharists. According to the Dominican in- quisitor, Rainier Sacconi, himself a former adherent of the heresy, there were in the middle of the thir- teenth century about 4000 perfected Cathari in the world. Of these there were in Lombardy and the Marches, 500 of the Albanensian sect, about 200 Bagnolenses, 1500 Concorrezenses, and 150 French refugees; at Vicenza 100, and as many at Florence and Spoleto. Although the increase in the number .if "Believers" was very probably not proportionate to that of the" Perfecti , in consequence of the arrival of refugees from France, yel the Cathari of the north- ern half of Italy formed at this time over three-fifths of the' total membership. The heresy, however,
could not hold its own during the second half of the
thirteenth century, and although it continued in exist-
ence in the fourteenth, it gradually disappeared from
the cities and took refuge in less accessible places.
St. Vincent Ferrer still discovered and converted
some Cathari in 1403 in Lombardy and also in Pied-
mont, where in 1412 several of them, already de-
ceased, were executed in effigy. No definite refer-
ence to their existence is found at a subsequent date.
Germany and England. — Catharism was compara- tively unimportant in Germany and England. In Germany it appeared principally in the Rhine lands. Some members were apprehended in 1052 at Goslar in Hanover and hanged by order of the emperor, Henry III. About 1110 some heretics, probably Cathari. and among them two priests, appeared at Trier, but do not seem to have been subjected to any penalty. Some years later (c. 1143) Cathari were discovered at Cologne. Some of them retracted; but the bishop of the sect and his socius (companion), not so ready to change their faith, were cited before an eeclesiastico- lay tribunal. During the trial they were, against the will of the judges, carried off by the people and burned. The heretical Church must have been com- pletely organized in this part of Germany, as the presence of the bishop seems to prove. To these events we owe the refutation of the heresy written by St. Bernard at the request of Everwin, Abbot of Steinfeld. In 1163 the Rhenish city witnessed another execution, and a similar scene was almost simultaneously enacted at Bonn. Other districts, Bavaria, Suabia, and Switzerland, were infected, but the heresy did not gain a firm foothold. It disap- peared almost completely in the thirteenth century.
About 1159, thirty Cathari, German in race and speech, left an unknown place, perhaps Flanders, to seek refuge in England. Their proselytizing efforts were rewarded by the temporary conversion of one woman. They were detected in 1166 and handed over to the secular power by the bishops of the Coun- cil of Oxford. Henry II ordered them to be scourged, branded on the forehead, and cast adrift in the cold of winter, and forbade any of his subjects to shelter or succour them. They all perished from hunger or exposure.
The Balkan States. — Eastern Europe seems to have been, in point of date, the first country in which Catharism manifested itself, and it certainly was the last to be freed from it. The Bogomili, who were representatives of the heresy in its milder dualistic form, perhaps existed as early as the tenth century and, at a later date, were found in large numbers in Bulgaria. Bosnia was another Catharist centre. Some recent writers make no distinction between the heretics found there and the Bogomili. whereas others rank them with the rigid Dualists. In the Western contemporary documents they are usually called "Patareni", the designation then applied to the Cathari in Ualy. At the end of the twelfth century. Kulin, the ban or civil ruler of Bosnia (1168-1204), embraced the heresy, and 10,000 of his subjects fol- lowed his example. The efforts made on the Catho- lic side, under the direction of Popes Innocent III, Honorius III, and Gregory IX, to eradicate the evil, were not productive of any permanent success. Noble work was accomplished by Franciscan mis- sionaries sent to Bosnia by Pope Nicholas IV (1288- 92). But though arms and persuasion were used against flu 1 heresy, it continued to flourish. As the country was for a long time a Hungarian depend- ency, Hungary was conspicuous in its resistance to the new faith. This situation developed into a source of weakness on the Catholic side, as the Ca- thari identified their religious cause with that of national independence. When, in the fifteenth cen- tury, the Bosnian king, Thomas, was converted to the Catholic Faith, the severe edicts which he issued
