The Cathars: The Most Successful Heresy Of the Middle Ages [Paperback]

This is a short book, just 164 pages of text (plus notes, chronology, a brief lexicon of "heretical" terms, suggestion for further reading, bibliography and index), written by Sean Martin, who is identified as a filmmaker, poet and writer.

The book has the heft and feel of a television documentary. It provides a reasonably good, if shallow overview of the events that erupted into denunciation, crusade, massacre and burning from the mid-Twelfth to the early Fourteenth Century.

The book is consistently neutral in tone. It takes no sides, although there is a certain pervasive admiration for the behavior, if not for the theology of the Cathar Perfecti. Simon de Montfort, French father of the famous English Simon de Montfort, and an unmitigated villain of the first water, is mildly chided. No reader of whatever stripe is likely to be alienated by "The Cathars," save for those who simply cannot abide neutrality in anything.

The language of the book is as neutral as its content. Incidents of highest drama, such as the scandal at Verfeil, a village near Toulouse, in which the outraged and sputtering Saint Bernard was laughed out of town when he attempted to deliver a sermon against the Cathars, are treated in the flattest of tones, as is the famous siege and massacre at Montsegur.

The words of the book are as flattened as its tone. Names, wherever possible, are provided in their English forms: all Pierres, Pieros and Pedros, for example, become Peter. Latinisms are avoided if an English term can be twisted for service. This leads to the exasperating use of English Perfect as a stand-in for both Latin Perfectus and Perfecti. As Sean Martin might have written, Raymond Agulher, a Perfect and Cathar bishop, was captured at Montsegur and he was among the more than two hundred Perfect, including twenty-one Perfect consecrated at the last moment, who were burnt after the fall of the castle.

Sean Martin does not press his sources for more than they actually contain. The previous Amazon reviewer finds the discussion of Cathar "theology far too vague." It is vague in this book for the simple reason that we in the Twenty-first Century don't and can't know very much about it. The Cathars and their close theological relatives were stretched along an east-west axis that measured about 1500 miles. Their churches suffered through schisms, reorganizations and councils. Their theologians and written works perished, often in flames.

What little we do know of their beliefs is preserved in the works of the churchmen who debated them and the inquisitors who condemned them. Then as now, debaters and inquisitors hear only what they wish to hear. It is also probable that many Cathars were not very clear about their own beliefs. Eberwin of Cologne, an early debater, wrote that the Cathars condemned marriage, but he could not discover why, "either because they dared not reveal it or, more probably, they did not know." [Page 46]

Even as Martin does not strive to extract more from his sources than they contain, he is not critical of those sources that he does quote. He takes historical guidance from Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh without comment (!) and philosophical insight from Philip K. Dick (!!)

This is a short overview of the Cathars that is constructed, so far as I can see, entirely out of secondary and tertiary sources. For those who want no more than that, it is a satisfactory handbook. Those seeking a more scholarly approach should look elsewhere. For those seeking a highly readable popular account of the Cathars from a truly skilled writer, I suggest that you seek out Zoe Oldenburg's excellent "Massacre at Montsegur" from some used book source, for it appears to be out of print at the moment.

Four stars.

Sean Martin's "The Cathars" book is a concise and often well-written history of Catharism. This is the 1st piece of sustained writing on the Cathars that I have read so am unable to compare to other literature available. This book is an easy read (I read it in one day on a train journey) and does not presume an knowledge of its subject. This, along with the guided bibliography and "heretical lexicon" make it a useful resource.

However, I did find the actual discussion of the Cathar's theology far too vague. For example, in his closing comments Martin suggests that the true legacy of Catharism is "their stress on simplicity, equality, non-violence, work and love" (p.163). However, throught the text Martin cites numerous examples where Cathars engage in violent acts (following their Paulician antecedents). However, there is no discussion of why these Cathars betrayed their non-violent tenets or indeed why they were pacifist in the first instance (one suspects it was because of their non-materialism but this is not confirmed).

Overall then if you're looking for a comprehensive introduction to Cathar faith and theology then I can't recommend this book. However, if your looking for an untaxing read as an alternative to Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code then give it a go (it also bears, I suspect more relation to actual history)!

I think Martin is probably successful in what he is trying to achieve with this book. I suspect this is supposed to be a simple introduction and basic history of the Cathars. The strength of the book is its easy to read writing style that does not require much energy or analysis by the reader. The book gives the overview of the Cathars with some introductions of Christian heresies in an attempt to set this heresy in its context.

I have previously read about the Cathars, so was able to fill in some of the gaps in this book. Martin fails to present much depth in his writing of the theological nuances of the Cathars that make it a severe heresy of Christianity. I think he could have written more about their theology and why the Roman Catholic Church was so intent on wiping them out.

As Martin explains, the Cathars gained a sympathetic view then and now because of their asceticism and pietism. Their lifestyles and behavior exemplified many positive religious characteristics; however, their theology was heretical and misguided. Martin writes enough about it for readers to see where it differed from orthodox Christianity. I don't think theology is Martin's strong point, as he offers no value judgement on orthodox Christianity versus the heresies that sprouted.

Martin shows some of the political constructions of the middle ages that led to the ever-changing alliances between rulers and the Roman Catholic Church that determined the treatment of the Cathars in France. Here again Martin provides the basics but does not go into much depth about the relationships between the Roman Catholic Church and the leaders of France or from where the Inquisition got and sustained its power over people.

Despite its weaknesses in scholarship and the fact that he repeats the idea that the apostle Paul as the first Christian heretic, this is a well done primer on the Cathars and on heresies in general. It also shows the worldliness of the Roman Catholic (universal) Church during the middle ages.

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