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STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY
BY THE REV.
H. J. WARNER. M.A.
LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK & TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN CO.
1922
A Dissertation approved for the
B.D. Degree, Cantab.
Printed in Great Britain at
The Mayflower Press, Plymouth. William Brendon & Son Ltd.
Theinterest and importance of the so-called Albigensian Heresy[1]lie in the fact that while it bears"a local habitation and a name," its actual habitationwas not local, and its name is misleading. Its originmust be traced back to pre-Christian Ages, and its fruitswill remain for ages to come. Its current title is inexactand incomplete; inexact, because Albi was not the fonset origo of a movement which, although it took deepestroot in Southern France, was sporadic throughout Centraland Western Europe; incomplete, because the movementwas not one heresy, but many, defying rigid classification,heterogeneous, self-contradictory, yet united in oppositionto the Church of Rome. It is a mere accident ofhistory that the name is derived from Albi, for Albi wasbut one, and that by no means the most important towninfected. The storm-centre was the great city ofToulouse, which Peter de Vaux-Sarnai describes as{6}"Tolosa, tota dolosa," being, as he adds, seldom ornever from its foundation free from heresy, fathershanding it on to their sons. The impact came at a timewhen the Church of Rome was putting forth all its powerto extend its spiritual supremacy northward, and theKingdom of France its territorial domains southward,and it suited their respective interests to unite theirforces in a home-crusade against Southern France.Between the upper and nether millstones the body wascrushed, but "its soul goes marching on." Its enemiesdeclared it to be rank paganism (Manicheism)[2]:its adherents the purest form of Christianity (Catharism).An impartial investigation will, we think, show thatneither claim can be substantiated. Impartiality, however,is not easily preserved. Most of the documentaryevidence which has come down to us is biassed. TheChurch considered it its sacred duty to destroy all hereticalliterature as pestiferous: the heretics, equally, thearchives of the early inquisitions, whenever they fellinto their hands in their few military successes, on thegrou