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Augustinian Monk:

In a succinct matter, the Cathars/Albigensians were a reemergence of the Dualist Manichaens, who were a heretical movement that St. Augustine dealt with in the 4th century [he for a time was afffiliated with them before hearing St. Ambrose preach in Milan]. There theological belief was “Gnostic” as was noted and it saw that there were 2 Gods, the Good God who was pure spirit and the Evil God [demiurge{sic}] who created matter, and thus all things of the created order were inherently evil which lead to main point #2, if matter was evil, Christ did not become incarnate and did not die on the Cross and the Catholic Church and the Pope were thus evil for believing that as for the Cathars again, Matter was evil.

The Pope, as Belloc correctly notes sent a Papal Legate [a Priest] to and there were attempts by the Domenicans to convert the Cathars but when the Papal Legate was murdered in his Church, this was then scene as the time when both the state with the Church’s blessing launched the crusade which turned into what amounts to a civil war from control of that part of France.

While man suffered the same weaknesses in the middle ages as men before them did, and men do know, the took the heretical notion that Christ did not become incarnate of the Virgin Mary and die on the Cross “quite seriously” and for those who were trying to argue otherwise was seen as a threat to the social and political order and attack on the state itself.

One must understand to not try to look at the clear separation of Church and state in the 21st century and retroactively apply it to the 12th and 13th. This would prove to happen in the 16th century when countries went Protestant, Catholics were viewed as being disloyal to the state and it wasn’t until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that wars of religion and the religous rights of minority religions were protected, i.e. a Catholic in a majority Protestant country and vice versa.

This is all going off of memory, so I don’t remember the correct terms, and this could possibly be very, very wrong. So, please correct me if I’m wrong.

The Albigensians thought reproduction was evil, as was hinted on in the article when it mentioned that someone would not be confused with a Albigensian if they were married.

There were two classes of people- the “elites” and the “common” people (not the real terms.) The elites were like priests and never engaged in any sexual activity. The common Albigensians engaged in any kind of sexual activity as long as it could not result in pregnancy. They may have done much worse things than just have crazy theological beliefs and commit fornication and sodomy, but I am not sure.

It was said that there was a stark parallel between how the Albigensian movement appealed to people then and how the modern/left movement appeals to people now. There were three groups of people they both appeal to, and I think they might have been like this:

1) The “elite” Albigensians who deprived themselves of physical pleasure and were considered “elite” in their day are like today’s liberal elites who do things like become vegetarian.

2) The “common” people are just like the people today who want no sexual rules and want to indulge in their hedonistic pleasures.

3) The, for lack of a better term, overly-rational people were also attracted to the Albigensians sort of like the rational atheists on the left today.

This is all off the top of my head and may be totally wrong.
If so, I’d kindly ask any of you or anyone else to correct me.

The Visigoths, who controlled the area later ruled by the Counts of Toulouse, had been Arian Christians, but the Franks adopted the Roman variety of Christianity. The Counts seem to have been as conventionally Catholic as any other sovereign, and in some ways were more enthusiastic than most. Raymond IV for example had been a principal leader of the First Crusade. (His Son Alphonse was baptised in the River Jordan, and was thus called Alphonse-Jordan).

http://www.languedoc-france.info/190215_dissidents.htm