Heresy and Crusade in Southern France: The Cathars

'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages - A podcast by Richard Abels

Send us a textIn this episode Ellen and I talk about a dualist heresy that was widespread in twelfth- and thirteenth-century southern France and northern Italy. This heresy is generally known as Catharism. Its central tenet was that there are two gods, a good god who created the spiritual world and an evil god who created the visible world. The soul of man is good, but the flesh in which it is imprisoned is evil. Pope Innocent III regarded the heresy as a sufficient threat t...