CÂTARI. — The name c., of Greek derivation (καθαρός, pure), was used from Christian antiquity onward to designate certain heretical sects; in current usage, however, the term now denotes a particular form of medieval heresy, and it is considered here only in this sense.
Landulfus Senior, around 1100, calls the opponents of ecclesiastical marriage “cathari” and establishes in the rejection of marriage a point of contact between the heretics of Monforte and the followers of the pataria; in the second half of the twelfth century, the name c. began to be used to designate certain heretics (Ecbert of Schönau, Sermones contra catharos), and from that moment its use rapidly became established. It is needless to point out that c. and patari are not identical, even though one can easily find similar attitudes and establish contacts and doctrinal affinities. These are two movements that were not contemporary and that originated from different needs, but that were brought together by the practical necessities of struggle. Nor can parallels or lines of descent be established between c. and the Waldensians, although in this case we are dealing with two phenomena that were both religious and that separated from the Catholic stock under similar circumstances; the original disagreement remains, even if reciprocal influences were not lacking.
The principal centers of diffusion of the c. heresy were three: Champagne, southern France, and Lombardy; but the origin of this phenomenon will always remain obscure, nor are the explanations offered concerning the long journeys traversed by Manichaean or Gnostic dualist thought before reaching development in the centers just mentioned satisfactory. Rather, these were local efflorescences that only later established connections among themselves and sought in ancient historical precedents certain justifications for their attitude. It is nevertheless clear that, from the second half of the twelfth century, the c. Churches of the West stood in a relationship of doctrinal and hierarchical dependence upon the leaders of the various opposing dualist communities of the Balkan or eastern countries.
Different theories have been advanced concerning the genesis and characteristics of medieval heresy; leaving aside the details, it may be said that there are two principal positions: some give precedence to the theological-doctrinal aspect, while others instead emphasize the ascetic-practical aspect. The former consequently see a very close relationship between the medieval c. and the ancient Manichaeans and dualist derivations; the latter regard this apparatus as a later superstructure and recognize as the primum movens the desire for an ascetic life, simplicity in worship, and so forth. The latter bring the opposition to the official and hierarchical Church fully to light, to the point of asserting that the heresy represented a new lay system of perfection and salvation in Christian life. In the embryonic phase of the heretical phenomenon, it is now almost impossible to trace the formation of that movement which was religious and social at the same time. Nevertheless, on the basis of simple considerations of common sense, it must be acknowledged that philosophical doctrines could not have been widespread among those Christians of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, nor could overly abstruse arguments have taken hold of them, although such ideas are discernible among the educated; by contrast, themes of evangelical poverty, apostolic action, and the like could be understood and could arouse enthusiasm. This does not exclude the possibility that some of the heretics felt the need to provide support for their attitude and turned first of all to the sacred texts, finding in them many declarations concerning the opposition between the kingdom of God and the world, the wickedness of carnal life, and the duty to be humble, submissive, and disinterested. Later they also revived long-standing dualist doctrines, which enabled Catholic polemicists to turn against them the authoritative refutations previously directed against such doctrines by a s. Augustine or other Fathers. Thus the traditional cliché was formed that interpreted medieval heresies sub specie philosophiae; nor did the new historiographical criterion proper to the economic-legal school represent any progress, since it restricted its interest to the social aspect and the political consequences of heresies, distorting them in their specifically religious essence.
Although it is dangerous to be too categorical in determining the principal points of c. thought, all the various varieties of c. sects agreed on the following, according to Raniero Sacconi, one of the most authoritative sources: the world proceeds from the devil; rejection of the Sacraments; condemnation of marriage; denial of the resurrection of the flesh; prohibition of the use of meat, eggs, and dairy products; abhorrence of oaths; prohibition against temporal authorities punishing heretics; denial of Purgatory; impossibility of salvation outside their Church. The first point is the most important because it is closely connected with soteriology and Christology.
In the judgment of the c., there exist two primordial wills, one good and one evil, and matter—which for them is corruptible and wicked—derives from this second will; thus all visible things, having been made by the devil, are subject to his power. Since matter and spirit, that is, good and evil, are united in man, the c. resorted to various more or less fantastic explanations to justify this coexistence, but ultimately they always arrived at the conclusion that the soul was imprisoned in the body and had to expiate in order to be purified. The God of the Old Testament was, in their view, Satan himself, who had presented himself in a benevolent form in order to be worshiped more easily; some groups accepted certain books of the Old Testament, or those Old Testament quotations introduced by Christ or the Apostles into the New Testament. Christ was not God, in their judgment, but even less was he man, since matter is impure; rather, he was an angel adopted by God who had assumed the appearance of a man (Docetism). His task was not to save humanity or to atone for sinners, but only to teach that there exists a good spiritual principle which is in heaven and is also within each of us.
It is not uncommon to find significant attenuations of this rigid dualism and to encounter an admission of an original divine monarchy; only with God’s permission would that fallen angel who is the devil have formed the world from the elements of chaos; but his power nevertheless always remained inferior to divine power.
All agreed in recognizing the wickedness of human life and consequently in aspiring to escape from II. The endura, that is, the practice of allowing oneself to die of hunger or of ending one’s life in some other violent manner, was their ideal; but this too gradually disappeared. What remained, instead, was contempt for marriage (or, more precisely, antipathy toward the sexual act performed by spouses; the life of married couples as brothers was held in high esteem) and abstention from animal foods, together with the practice of three annual fasts—in other words, so many forms of annihilation of the sources of life. Sufficient information is available concerning the organization and cult practices of the c.; there was a distinction between the “believers” and the “perfect,” and one reached this second degree through an initiation that was then continued by a monastic way of life. Although the veneration of images was not admitted and the cult of the saints was not tolerated, there were liturgical forms and a kind of sacred meal; the prayer par excellence was the Pater, in which the variant panem supersubstantialem was adopted instead of panem quotidianum, as is shown by a c. ritual that has come down to us. In addition, the consolamentum, a kind of baptismal sacrament that replaced that of the Catholic Church, was practiced; it consisted in the laying on of hands, a profession of faith joined to the commitment to remain bound to Catharism until death, to live in chastity, and not to eat meat. For these reasons the consolamentum was often deferred until the end of life; indeed, whoever failed to live up to the ideal embraced lost every possibility of salvation. The simple “believers” were asked only to perform a rite of adoration, called melioramentum, toward the perfect, whom they were obliged to provide with hospitality and food; from them they received the blessing and blessed bread; to them they made a kind of general confession, called apparelamentum. Without denying the existence among the perfect of figures worthy of respect, followers of a strict morality and animated by genuine religious feeling, one cannot fail to emphasize the terrible consequences deriving from the way of life desired and promoted by the c. The mass of the simple believers could abandon themselves with impunity to every form of debauchery and violence, in the hope of the salvific consolamentum in extremis; the destruction of the family and the disintegration of society were the inevitable fruits of those premises, and there is no doubt that a broad diffusion of that heresy would have endangered the whole of European Christian civilization. This may partly explain the violence of the Catholic reaction when the full gravity of the threat became apparent.
It is not possible here to follow in detail the fortunes of all the groups of c. scattered throughout Europe; an examination of their doctrines would document the genesis of their various forms of dualistic teaching. It will suffice to say, with regard to extratallian Catharism, that the eastern form merges rather with Bogomilism, to which reference is made; scant traces are encountered in England and Spain, and more numerous ones along the banks of the Rhine, where the fierce Corrado di Magdeburgo resorted to severe repression. Instead, it was very widespread both in northern and southern France; for the latter, Albigensians (v.), well known for many reasons. In the north the principal center was the castle of Montwimer (Montaimé, diocese of Châlons-sur-Marne), from which the heresy spread into Flanders, Picardy, and Burgundy; but the execution of approximately 200 inhabitants of that center in 1239 marked the end of the movement throughout the region.
The first sign of the presence of c. in Italy dates to around 1030, with the capture of the heretics of the castle of Monforte near Alba, examined by the archbishop of Milan, Ariberto; the accounts in the chronicles show that they had a sound organization, broad development, and a complex doctrinal system based on the usual principles. Subsequently, the events of the Gregorian Reform and the Investiture Controversy, and the ensuing conflicts between the Hohenstaufen emperors and the popes, caused information about the heretics to be overshadowed in the sources. In 1184 Pope Lucius III, during his meeting at Verona with Federico Barbarossa, issued the constitution Ad abolendam, directed toward an organized work of repression that had been postponed for too long because of political difficulties; this document also lists individually the various heretical currents, but first place is given to Catharism, an unmistakable sign of the breadth and importance of that phenomenon. Omitting all those episodes that may be of interest chiefly to general history because of their social and political repercussions, it will be recalled only that, although Milan always remained the center, c. also flourished in Verona, Ferrara, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Cremona, Rimini, Orvieto, and Viterbo; nor is there any lack of evidence for their existence in Calabria, Apulia, and the islands. A podestà of Orvieto, Pietro Parenzo, was killed by the heretics on 21 May 1199; preachers and inquisitors were also assassinated.
Within Italian Catharism, three sects or “orders” can be identified, divided among themselves by doctrinal disagreements (something different are the Cathar churches understood as hierarchical organizations, headed by a bishop assisted by a filius maior and a filius minor: R. Sacconi enumerated them throughout the Cathar world): the Albanians (v.) and extremist dualists; Concorezzesi (v.), also called Garati after the name of their leader Garato; and the Bagnolese (v.), or Caloians, after their bishop Caloiano. The latter two were mitigated dualists, but differed in that the former admitted the material reality of Christ’s body, whereas the latter were also docetists; moreover, the former were traducianists, while the latter held that souls had all been created by God at once, before the formation of the world, and had already sinned in heaven.
BIBL. Sources: the sources relating to Catharism may be divided, on the one hand, into narrative and documentary sources, which are for the most part contemporary or only slightly later, and, on the other, into doctrinal expositions and con-
futazioni di errori: escluso qualche dettaglio, meritano fede, perché riportano spesso deposizioni di eretici e verbali di processi e concordano nella descrizione dei caratteri del movimento. Gli scritti del c. dovettero esser numerosi e di vario tipo (trattati, schedulae o opuscoli di propaganda, rituali, ecc.; oltre alle traduzioni della Bibbia fatte a loro uso e consumo), ma sono andati quasi tutti perduti; ci restano un rituale in lingua romanza, pubblicato prima da E. Cunitz, Ein Katharisches Rituale (Beiträge zu den theologischen Wissenschaften, 4), Jena 1852, e in seguito da L. Clédat, Le Nouveau Testament traduit au XIIIe siècle en langue provençale, suivi d'un Rituel cathare, Parigi 1887; un trattato neo-manicheo Liber de duobus principis, con un Compendium ad instructionem radium, composto intorno al 1230 e proveniente dall'ambiente della giovane frazione della setta catara degli albanesi capeggiata da Giovanni da Lucio, seguito da un rituale cataro in lingua latina, entrambi scoperti e pubblicati recentemente da A. Dondaine, Un traité néo-manichéen du XIIIe siècle. Le Liber de duobus principis suivi d'un fragment de Rituel cathare, Roma 1939; G. Lacombe, La vie et les œuvres de Prévostin, Kain 1927 (par la Summa contra haereticus a lui attribuita, cf. id., Prévostin de Cremona, in DThC, XIII, coll. 166-67); A. Dondaine, Nouvelles sources de l'histoire doctrinale du néo-manichéisme du moyen âge, in Revue des sciences philox. et théol., 28 (1939), pp. 465-68; M. Esposito, Sur quelques écrits concernant les hérécies et les hérétiques au XIIe et XIIIe siècles, in Revue d'histoire ecclée, 36 (1940), pp. 143-62; Ilarino da Milano, Le Manifestatio heresii catarorum quam fecit Bonacursus i secondo il cod. Ottob. lat. 136 della bibl. Vat., in Aevum, 12 (1938), pp. 281-333; id., Fr. Gregorio, O. P., vescovo di Fano, e la Disputatio inter catholicum et paterinum hereticum, ibid., 14 (1940), pp. 85-140 (in realtà l'autore è un laico, di nome Giorgio, cf. A. Dondaine, Le manuel ecc., pp. 174-80); id., La Summa contra haereticus e di Giacomo Capelli, O. F. M., e un suo « Quarestinale » inedito, in Collectanea Franc., 10 (1940), pp. 66-82; id., Il « Liber supra Stella » del piacentino Salvo diveri contro i c. e altre correnti ereticali, in Aevum, 16 (1942), pp. 272-319; 17 (1943), pp. 90-146; 19 (1945), pp. 282-341; A. Dondaine, Les actes du concile albigesis de St-Félix de Caramon, in Miscell. G. Mercati, V. Città del Vaticano 1946, pp. 324-55; id., Le manuel de l'inquisiteur (1230-1236), in Archivum Fratr. praedicatorum, 17 (1947), pp. 85-194; T. Kappeli, Une Somme contre les hérétiques de s. Pierre Martyr (S), in Archivum Fratr. praedicatorum, 17 (1947), pp. 295-333; la Summa di R. Sacconi, che con quella Adversus Catharos et Valdenses (ed. T. A. Ricchini, Roma 1745) di Moneta da Cremona tiene uno dei primi posti in questo genere di letteratura, è stata nuovamente pubblicata da A. Dondaine, Un traité néo-manichéen, ecc., pp. 64-78.
Tra i lavori più significativi cf. Ch. U. Hahn, Geschichte der Ketzer im Mittelalter, besonders im 11., 12., und 13. Jahrhundert nach den Quellen, I, Stoccarda 1845, passim; Ch. Schmidt, Histoire et doctrine de la secte des Cathares ou Albigesis, 3 voll., Parigi 1849; F. Tocco, L'eresia nel medioevo, Firenze 1884, pp. 73-134; Ch. Molinier, Rapport sur une mission exécutée en Italie. Etude sur quelques manuscrits de bibliothèques concernant l'inquisition et les croyances hérétiques du XIIIe et du XIIIe siècle, in Archives des Missions scientifiques et littéraires, 3e série, 14 (1888), pp. 133-336; J. Döllinger, Beiträge zur Sehtengeschichte des Mittelalters, Monaco 1890; P. Alphandéry, Les idées morales chez les hétérodoxes latins au début du XIIIe siècle, Parigi 1903, passim; Ch. Molinier, L'église et la société cathares, in Revue historique, 94 (1907), pp. 225-48; 95 (1907), pp. 1-22, 263-91; id., Un secte de Muratori concernant les actes cathares, in Annales du Midi, 22 (1910), pp. 180-220; id., L'endura, coutume religieuse des derniers sectaires albigesis, Tolosa 1881; E. Broeck, Le catharisme. Etude sur les doctrines, la vie religieuse et morale, l'activité littéraire et les vicissitudes de la secte cathare avant la croisade, Hoogstraten 1916; G. Volpe, Movimenti religiosi e sette ereticali nella società medioevala italiana, Firenze 1922, passim; E. Homes, The Albigesian or Catharist Heresy. A Story and a Study, Londra 1925; J. Guiraud, Histoire de l'Inquisition au moyen âge, I, Parigi 1935; H. Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter, Berlino 1935, passim; M. Morghen, Osservazioni critiche su alcune questioni fondamentali riguardanti le origini e i caratteri delle eresie medioevali, in Archivio deputato, romano storia patria, 67 (1944), pp. 97-151; Ilarino da Milano, L'eresia di Ugo Speroni nella confutazione del mastro Vacario (Studi e Testi, 115), Città del Vaticano 1945, pp. 432-36; e dello stesso autore i vari studi già citati; inoltre Le eresie popolari del secolo XI nell'Europa occidentale, in Studi gregoriani, raccolti da S. B. Borino, II, Roma 1947, pp. 43-89.