Albanesi

ALBANESI. - Members of a particular sect of Italian Catharism (v. CATARI), as opposed to the Concorezzesi (v.) and the Bagnolesi (v.). Already in the second half of the 12th century the Italian Cathars divided into absolute dualists and mitigated or monarchical dualists; at the beginning of the 13th century the former constituted the current of the albanenses, with their hierarchical and doctrinal center in Lombardy; it is most probably from the locality of Albano (S. Alessandro, province of Bergamo) that this denomination must be derived, or perhaps also from some leader named Albanus; they are also called de Desenzano from the homonymous town on Lake Garda, or from Desenzano al Serio. The Albanian Cathar Church was to be found in Verona and in many cities of Lombardy. Toward the middle of the 13th century its effective members numbered, according to the computations of R. Sacconi, about 500, but they were increasing also in the Cathar ecclesiastical districts of the Marca Trevisana, Tuscany and the Spoleto valley. It derived its dualistic faith from the Eastern Church of Dugunthia (or Drugutia, Brugutia, Drogometia, Druguria, Diniguttia, etc.). The identification, now considered more probable, with Drogocetia = Dragoviça, a locality inhabited by the Dragovicians, a Bulgaro-Slavic population of southern Thrace and Macedonia, remains subject to revision. A Cathar leader, Nicetas or Niquinta, having come to Lombardy and, in 1167, being present at the Cathar assembly of Saint-Félix de Caraman (Toulouse), brought the bishop of the Italian Cathars, Marco, over from the mitigated dualism of the Church of Bulgaria to the absolute dualism of the Dragovician Church. In the fragmentation of Catharism, the latter had as his successor John the Hebrew. Subsequently we encounter Marchisio de Sorano (or Soiano), bishop of the a. de Desenzano, with his coadjutor Amizo, and Nicholas of Vicenza. At the beginning of the 13th century the oldest faction of the a. had as its head the bishop Balasinanza (or Bellasmanza) of Verona.

This sect, in order to explain evil and sin, teaches the eternal coexistence of the two principles: the good god, creator of his angels and of his world, that is, of incorporeal or celestial nature, and the evil god, creator of his evil spirits and of the earthly world, animals and bodies. These two kingdoms will have no end and will be in continuous opposition. Lucifer, son of the evil god, either by cunning or by military conquest brings evil into the celestial kingdom: the seduced souls are imprisoned in human and animal bodies, into which they transmigrate in expiation, in order to return all to their primitive state, rejoining their own bodies and spirits left in heaven. Jesus Christ, son of the good god, inferior to him, having come to call back these souls, was born of an angel, the Madonna, and had a human body and material actions only in appearance. The Old Testament is the work of the devil, except for the Wisdom Books and the Prophets. Some doctors accentuated and developed this dualistic scheme. The Bergamasque bishop Giovanni de Lugio, followed by Giovanni de Cucullio, led from the first quarter of the 13th century a faction of the young. In his teaching he excludes creation ex nihilo: both the good principle and the evil one composed their own world with the four coeternal elements, fire, air, water, earth, respectively of invisible nature and of material nature. According to a stricter interpretation, even the souls of the one and the other kingdom are coeternal with their principles. Among the celestials themselves a life unfolds similar, though of a spiritual nature, to that of the earthly world. What is recounted in the Old Testament and about Jesus Christ really happened, but in the higher world. The good god is neither free nor omnipotent nor omniscient, because he is limited by the evil god, who introduced sin into the celestial creatures. Some myths speak of invasions and seductions of souls also on the part of the celestials in the earthly world. To the life and passion of Jesus in this world there would correspond a similar life followed by the same passion on the part of the son of the evil god in the celestial kingdom. Every soul will return respectively to its own world; however, this duel between the two kingdoms, which personify evil and good, begins again, always, fatally. The logic of this dualistic parallelism is the equilibrium of power, of operations, of effects between the two opposite principles.

Unlike the other Cathars, the a. give no value, because it is a material act, to the imposition of hands either in the rite of the consolamentum or in that of confession: likewise in the fractio panis they do not hold that this, as a creature of the devil, can be blessed. Because of the common absolute dualism, and also through alliteration, the name of a. has been erroneously substituted for and interchangeably used with that of Albigensians (v.), designating the Cathars of Languedoc, who generally professed rigid dualism.

Ilarino da Milano