Catharism: the Fourth Abrahamic religion

I think that what's needed is for Catharism/Bogomilism to not only survive but to flourish and spread to become significant as a branch of the Abrahamic religion proper, rather than just a minor offshoot of one of the branches like the Baha'i are.
 
I was actually excited to see this thread the other day, because I was working on just such a history for Map Continuation III. Because of the way MCs work, the TL has several cause-effect holes, but I think it's really shaping up into an interesting history, overall. Here's what I stayed up writing tonight. The POD for the whole project is that the Fourth Crusade went to Egypt and was promptly sliced into pieces by various scimitars, rather than going to Constantinople for the "bizarro-crusade" against Christendom of OTL. Somehow that caused the Mongols to get way the hell over into central Europe... well, please just focus on the Cathar bits. Just about all of the background history (that which takes place outside Occitania) was written by others.

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1. The Albigensian Crusade and the Birth of Occitania

In the early 13th century, the southern part of the Kingdom of France was a fuzzy network of feudal territories. The strongest force in the region was the County of Tolosa (Toulouse), ruled by a house of counts named Ramon. The dynasty's founder, Ramon of St. Gilles, had been a hero of the First Crusade and the founder of the County of Tripoli. But even Tolosa was heavily feudalized, with much power resting in local lords and knights. This medieval society was in the process of being thoroughly shaken by the spread of a new religion, Catharism (from Greek katharoi, pure). The Cathari doctrine had begun someplace to the east, no doubt influenced by the similar, if less successful, movement called Bogomilism. The essentials of the Cathar creed may be summed up thusly:

  • That there are two gods, one good and one evil.
  • That the spiritual is good, and matter is evil.
  • That man is a temporary wanderer in an evil material world.
  • That man must free his spirit, which is good, from the constraints of the flesh, which is evil, in order to restore it to communion with God.
Accordingly, the Cathars preached abstention from things of the flesh, most notably meat and sex. As the doctrine spread, a distinction came to be made between Parfaits (Perfects) and Credentes (Believers). Only the Perfects led fully ascetic lives in full accordance with Cathar doctrine. To become a Perfect, a Believer must undergo the Consolamentum, a simple ceremony centered on the laying of hands, the veneration of the Bible, and a series of ascetic vows. Most Believers expected to become Perfects only on their deathbeds. Those who became Perfects earlier in life were the natural leaders of the Cathari and eventually developed into the formal priesthood of the Occitan kingdom. Bishops were elected from among the Perfects to oversee the faithful. By 1200 there were four major bishoprics in the Occitan region: Albi, Tolosa, Carcassona, and Montsegùr.

The earliest Cathars considered themselves Christians; indeed, the Cathari claim to this day that their practices reflect those of the early Christian Church more accurately than the Orthodox churches. However, they rejected the doctrine of Christ's humanity as well as much of the Old Testament, and therefore aroused the ire both of Rome and of their more Orthodox neighbors. Already by 1204 Cathar cities were strengthening their defenses, and in 1209 a Crusade was declared against them, called the Albigensian Crusade after the Cathar stronghold of Albi. Count Ramon VI led it as a show of Orthodoxy and piety, although he quickly fell out with the other leaders and was soon defending his own holdings against them. The catastrophic failure of the Fourth Crusade to the Holy Land just a few years earlier meant that many of Europe's best knights were unavailable to attack the Cathars. However, the knights and soldiers who did participate inflicted terrible slaughter upon the Languedoc fro 1209 to a truce in 1213. The war left many dead, but did little to alter the situation on the ground.

Despite suspected sympathy with the Cathari, Ramon now enjoyed great freedom to act autonomously in his Tolosan fiefs. Due to the failed Crusade, the French King's power was at its lowest ebb yet. In a last-ditch effort to assert his authority and impose orthodoxy on southern France, Prince Louis, later King Louis VIII, renewed the Crusade in 1220. This time, Ramon was firmly France's enemy. He rallied his vassals in the Languedoc and formed an alliance with the English, who were then desperately fighting to secure their possessions in France, namely Aquitaine in the south and Normandy in the north. In return for troops, money, and a regular shipment of wine, the English agreed to recognize Ramon as feudal overlord of Aquitaine should it be secured.

According to legend, Ramon converted to Catharism during battle against Louis. In reality, it is unlikely he converted at this time, since it would have jeopardized his alliance with Catholic England. However, it is clear that Ramon did not distinguish between his Cathar and his Christian knights and vassals, and he is known to have sought the counsel of the Cathar bishops. In 1229, Louis returned to Paris in defeat. Young King Henry of England paid homage to Ramon, acclaiming him "King of Languedoc." This is generally accepted as the beginning of the kingdom, although it was not until later that the kings began dropping the "Langue" and calling their realm "Occitania".

2. Establishment of the Cathar Monarchy

The new kingdom suffered from the same problems as France: decentralization, feuding nobles, financial drain from the long wars, and hostile neighbors. To this was added the major weakness of religious disunity. The nobles and subjects of Languedoc had rallied behind their lord, but after the crusade ended the rift between Catholics and Cathari appeared again. During a revolt in 1234, King Ramon was forced to flee Tolosa and establish his court in the more defensible city of Carcassona, where the capital has remained ever since. It is likely that Ramon saw religious revolution as a way to solidify his rule and galvanize his subjects - and even if that was not his intent, it certainly is what happened.

Ramon announced his conversion to the new faith in 1239. He named the Cathar Bishop Guis of Carcassona as Patriarch of the royal church and immediately began forming an administration based around educated Perfects in the faith. With much of the Catholic leadership out of the country, Ramon had much leeway to create a totally new administration.

The king chose an opportune moment to take this rash step. The Pope declared a new Crusade against Languedoc, to eliminate the heresy once and for all. Two years later, Mongol armies swept through Hungary and - impossibly, it seemed - crossed the Alps and entered the north of Italy. For the next decade, the energies of Europe's chivalry were focused on rescuing Rome from this threat. Ultimately, France and Rome were to ally with the Great Khan in a final attempt to take Jerusalem. In the meantime, Occitania's independence was secure.

3. Late Medieval Occitania

Gradually, Europe learned to tolerate the infidel kingdom in the south of Gaul. By now Catharism was considered a separate religion from Christianity, not simply a heretical offshoot. But the idea of conquering it no longer seemed feasible. Trade resumed with France along the Rhone, and overland trade with Italy began to grow, much of it through the market town of Avinhon, the Papacy's only real gain from the Albigensian Crusade. Montpelhièr's port on the Mediterranean provided an economic link to Genoa and Venice.

Occitania and England fought a war in 1347-1360 over King Ramon X's rights in Aquitaine. England's resources were stretched thin by wars with France and Scotland and had to relent. The Duchy of Aquitaine passed to a cadet branch of the Plantagenet family, which was easier for the kings to control.

Despite its religious isolation from Catholic Europe, Occitania absorbed ideas from abroad. A university was established at Albi in 1295. The beginnings of a modern administration were established in the 1300s, when various Great Offices of State were opened to Believers, not just Perfects, although they still were expected to be of noble birth. Toleration for Catholics had been the policy of kings dating back to Ramon VII, but it was officially proclaimed in 1323 as a response to the Council of Venice. The priesthood continued to be regularized, and a new distinction arose between Perfects who had merely undergone Consolamentum, and Learneds who had also received formal training.

4. Early Modern Occitania

From the late 1400s, Occitan mariners and missionaries began sailing to the new continents of Jarnassia and Mediccia. With its excellent Atlantic port of Bordèu, Occitania was well situated to take advantage of the New World. King Guis III chartered a number of colonies in the sea of Lucaia, including the islands of Ichirogem [Barbados], Womoni [Barbuda], and Higuera [Hondouras] on the mainland. However, Occitania's small population relative to other colonial powers made these colonies difficult to hold on to. By 1800, all had been lost.

Occitan ships also began to ply the new trade routes around Africa to India. A number of Occitan trading posts were established, but the kingdom's most significant and long-lasting gain was a protectorate established over the Zanzibar Sultanate in 1687.

The era was marked by a consolidation of royal control at the expense of the nobility. The Plantagenets finally lost Aquitaine in 1477. The powerful Catholic Counts of Fois were stripped of their privileges in 1511. As Navarra absorbed the Aragonese kingdom, lands that had been in the hazy border region were solidly linked to one of the two kingdoms. Occitania became a modern and centralized state.

5. Occitania since 1800

Religion's declining importance in international affairs has brought Occitania once again fully into the community of European nations. Since the loss of its western colonies it has been considered a middle power in Europe. In 1814 Occitania and England rekindled their ancient alliance for a war against Burgundy over maritime rights in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the North Sea. The alliance was sealed with a ceremonial gift of Occitan wine, a sign of the medieval treaty.

In 1850, Occitania announced its intention to expand its Zanzibar protectorate into a sizeable colony. Occitan East Africa was chartered in 1855 and recognized by Europe shortly thereafter.

Occitania became a more industrialized and educated society during the nineteenth century. The traditional governing system - an absolute king supported by the religious establishment - was seen as increasingly inadequate, even unjust. However, centuries of religious isolation has kept Occitania an extremely conservative, even xenophobic, country. Radical foreign ideologies never advanced beyond a fringe of adherents. The drive for constitutional monarchy has been of a moderate Nomolist type, which sees the monarchy itself as sacrosanct and which emphasizes the need to govern a nation more than individual rights. As the House of Tolosa is one of Europe's most ancient, it is not surprising that the monarchy commands a great deal of respect. Constitutional reforms therefore proceeded slowly, with a regularly elected Senate introduced only in 1871. Reforms to separate church and state began in 1877 and are still incomplete.

The last decade has seen the world's nations rapidly form two rival blocs. Occitania's alliance with England and its old rivalries with Burgundy and Portugal, which date from the colonial era, have driven the kingdom closer to North Germany and its sphere of allied nations.
 
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Excellent job on the Occitan history! The homogenization of France is certainly recent enough to make this plausible.

I have to question how "Abrahamic" a religion is if it's not monotheistic, however. Clearly it's springing from the Christian tradition, just as Bahaiism evolved out of Islam's cultural base, despite not being, technically, an offshoot of Islam.

For that reason, we can reasonably (if not without some controversy) lump Bahais in with the Abrahamics. But this form of duotheism would be considered an atrocity by most Christians in the middle ages. England's alliance with it later on would be a heck of a lot more problematic than, say, Protestant England finding Catholic allies in the OTL Thirty Years' War.

Still, excellent fodder for thought.
 
Excellent job on the Occitan history! The homogenization of France is certainly recent enough to make this plausible.

I have to question how "Abrahamic" a religion is if it's not monotheistic, however. Clearly it's springing from the Christian tradition, just as Bahaiism evolved out of Islam's cultural base, despite not being, technically, an offshoot of Islam.

For that reason, we can reasonably (if not without some controversy) lump Bahais in with the Abrahamics. But this form of duotheism would be considered an atrocity by most Christians in the middle ages. England's alliance with it later on would be a heck of a lot more problematic than, say, Protestant England finding Catholic allies in the OTL Thirty Years' War.

Still, excellent fodder for thought.

True, but consider the fact that many muslims and jews don't consider Christianity an abrahamic religion as it's not monotheistic (the trinity) - whether a religion is monotheistic and/or abrahamic is in the eye of the beholder!
 
Another main consideration is that it's probably very difficult for a new "universal" religion like Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam to rapidly sweep the world post-Islam. So a hypothetical new Abrahamic religion may not be as large. I think the trick is to have it be distinct from the others (a religion rather than an offshoot) and have it convert a considerable area.

So perhaps Occitania would have to have missionary movements that end up converting Japan or Arabia or wherever. Or maybe, taking a page from Empty America, it ends up doing this:

> A follow-up about non-Abrahamics in the Ursulines- so how are the
> Cathars, anyways? They seem to be possibly involved in the slave
> trade, not unlike some Jewish merchants in OTL medieval times. And I
> suppose the Cathar worldview is as good enough as any for the life of
> a slave.

the Cathars are doing well in the slave trade, as you note when you view the
world as wicked, the difference between slave and free is just a matter of
degree. and they, unlike Christians, are interested in converting the
slaves. Catharism in the Ursulines is a very diffuse religion, hanging onto
true asceticism. unlike the Norse Pagans in Domstolland, they have not
progressed into a Catholic-style faith dominated by a religious heirarchy.
No Cathar Cathedrals or popes. This leads to doctrinal fragmentation, as in
OTL's Languedoc and Northern Italy, which they try to reconcile through
prolonged discussion and correspondence. So you could get a range of
opinion on just about any religious topic talking to different Cathars.

Catharism/Bogomilism could end up becoming the major religion of the African slaves from the Transatlantic slave trade. That could be interesting.

Oh, and if you don't want to ponder all of the above yet, we can at least discuss what exactly we should call this dualistic psuedo-Gnostic heresy. I'm still assuming that it's going to be grown from the Cathars/Bogomils/Paulician tradition.
 
...the veneration of the Bible...
No. Just no. I don't know where you found this fact, but it's wrong. The Cathars rejected much of the Christian Bible, and in any case veneration of anything material was not allowed.

Most Believers expected to become Perfects only on their deathbeds.
Not really. The consolamentum was an absolution, not always admitted just before death. Its receivers believed that they would be reborn higher up on the social ladder, or more precisely another step closer on the path to liberation.


The earliest Cathars considered themselves Christians;
Every single Cathar in history considered himself a true Christian. That's what they perceived themselves as - the restorers of true Christianity, removing centuries of Catholic corruption and decadence.

...and therefore aroused the ire both of Rome and of their more Orthodox neighbors.
Not sure what you mean here. Is the capital "o" Orthodox meant to be the Greek Orthodox Church? Or do you mean orthodox in the sense of following conventional religious dogma? If the former, then AFAIK the Byzantines did not really care what went on in France at the time, mainly because their own empire technically did not exist at the time. :) If the latter, Rome defined what was and was not Catholic dogma at the time. No one was more orthodox simply because it was not possible.

Already by 1204 Cathar cities were strengthening their defenses, and in 1209 a Crusade was declared against them, called the Albigensian Crusade after the Cathar stronghold of Albi. Count Ramon VI led it as a show of Orthodoxy and piety, although he quickly fell out with the other leaders and was soon defending his own holdings against them.
Raymond portrayed himself as being orthodox because that was the only way to avoid being tried for heresy. His association with the Cathars was well-known by Pope Innocent III. When the pope's legate, Pierre de Castlenau, was murdered in 1208, Raymond was implicated and subsequently excommunicated on what were probably trumped-up charges. The murder of de Castlenau was the pretext for crusade. It began in 1209, as 10,000 crusaders gathered in Lyons and marched south. Facing this great army, IIRC Raymond promised the pope to eliminate Catharism - but never had any intention of doing so. His excommunication was temporarily lifted. But the crusaders still attacked, committing various acts that can only be described as atrocities - the massacres of thousands of civilians, the vast majority of them innocent. At some point Raymond was excommunicated again, and he was shouted down during his trial at a papal court.

From there Simon de Montfort proceeded to plunder and lay waste to all of Languedoc. He killed King Peter II of Aragon (who claimed feudal rule over most of Languedoc) at the Battle of Muret in 1213. Eventually the lords protecting the Cathars were captured, killed, or deposed. Raymond fled in exile to England, leaving the Cathars to be burned en masse.
 
No. Just no. I don't know where you found this fact, but it's wrong. The Cathars rejected much of the Christian Bible, and in any case veneration of anything material was not allowed.
OK. I had read, probably online, that a New Testament or the Gospels or somesuch was involed. Could well be inaccurate.

Not really. The consolamentum was an absolution, not always admitted just before death. Its receivers believed that they would be reborn higher up on the social ladder, or more precisely another step closer on the path to liberation.

That's why I said "most". Everything I've seen suggests strongly that the Perfects were an elite.

Every single Cathar in history considered himself a true Christian. That's what they perceived themselves as - the restorers of true Christianity, removing centuries of Catholic corruption and decadence.

In this TL, once Catharism was legitimized (at least in Languedoc), it was on a very different path from Catholicism. By the early modern era, saying that "every Cathar considers himself a true Christian" would be a lot like saying "Every Christian considers himself a true Jew" - true on a certain level, but confusing at the same time. It was considered a separate religion and not a mere restoration movement. Some of the confusion is coming from the fact that this is written from an "in-universe" perspective. I should have realized more explanation was needed.


Not sure what you mean here. Is the capital "o" Orthodox meant to be the Greek Orthodox Church? Or do you mean orthodox in the sense of following conventional religious dogma? If the former, then AFAIK the Byzantines did not really care what went on in France at the time, mainly because their own empire technically did not exist at the time. :) If the latter, Rome defined what was and was not Catholic dogma at the time. No one was more orthodox simply because it was not possible.

Sorry, I tend to be a bit erratic with my capitals, and the word "more" there is confusing. It should read "Rome and its [Occitania's] other more orthodox neighbors", meaning "more orthodox than Occitania". So, basically, the orthodox/catholic kingdoms all around.

In this TL, there is actually a reconciliation between Rome & Constantinople and a return to the five patriarchs idea of Late Antiquity. That's the Council of Venice alluded to in the post. So Catholic and Orthodox are basically synonymous; when the differences are emphasized you have to use Eastern and Western, or Roman and Greek.

Raymond portrayed himself as being orthodox because that was the only way to avoid being tried for heresy. His association with the Cathars was well-known by Pope Innocent III. When the pope's legate, Pierre de Castlenau, was murdered in 1208, Raymond was implicated and subsequently excommunicated on what were probably trumped-up charges. The murder of de Castlenau was the pretext for crusade. It began in 1209, as 10,000 crusaders gathered in Lyons and marched south. Facing this great army, IIRC Raymond promised the pope to eliminate Catharism - but never had any intention of doing so. His excommunication was temporarily lifted. But the crusaders still attacked, committing various acts that can only be described as atrocities - the massacres of thousands of civilians, the vast majority of them innocent. At some point Raymond was excommunicated again, and he was shouted down during his trial at a papal court.

Most of that happened also in this TL. I condensed it. But "as a show of orthodoxy and piety", I meant that it was just what it was in OTL - mostly a show. It took Ramon a few decades in TTL to be totally open about his conversion, but he was definitely backing the Cathars early on, just like IOTL.

From there Simon de Montfort proceeded to plunder and lay waste to all of Languedoc. He killed King Peter II of Aragon (who claimed feudal rule over most of Languedoc) at the Battle of Muret in 1213. Eventually the lords protecting the Cathars were captured, killed, or deposed. Raymond fled in exile to England, leaving the Cathars to be burned en masse.

Simon died in the Fourth Crusade in TTL- one reason why the Albigensian Crusade was attrocious, but inconclusive.
 
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