Challenge: Cathar-Ruled Catholic-Majority France

I was thinking about Syria on my way back from work today. Syria is a Sunni Muslim country ruled by the Alawites, an Islamic sect viewed by many Muslims as heretics.

In 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood tried to overthrow the Alawite-controlled government, only to be gruesomely repressed.

I was thinking that a European analogy to this would be if the Cathari took over France and kept an iron boot firmly on the necks of the Catholic majority.

So how could this happen?
 
I was thinking about Syria on my way back from work today. Syria is a Sunni Muslim country ruled by the Alawites, an Islamic sect viewed by many Muslims as heretics.

In 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood tried to overthrow the Alawite-controlled government, only to be gruesomely repressed.

I was thinking that a European analogy to this would be if the Cathari took over France and kept an iron boot firmly on the necks of the Catholic majority.

So how could this happen?

Well if the Cathars take over France there'll be a Crusade by every other state in Europe and the Cathars will get crushed.
 
Well if the Cathars take over France there'll be a Crusade by every other state in Europe and the Cathars will get crushed.

How effective would they be?

The French were willing to aid the Ottomans and Protestants against their Catholic brethren, after all. Perhaps England stays out in exchange for territorial concessions in Normandy, Gascon, etc.

Plus, didn't the French supply a lot of the manpower for the Crusades against everyone else? Without French manpower, how effective could a Crusade or Crusades be?
 
Well if the Cathars take over France there'll be a Crusade by every other state in Europe and the Cathars will get crushed.

How effective would they be?

The French were willing to aid the Ottomans and Protestants against their Catholic brethren, after all. Perhaps England stays out in exchange for territorial concessions in Normandy, Gascon, etc.

Plus, didn't the French supply a lot of the manpower for the Crusades against everyone else? Without French manpower, how effective could a Crusade or Crusades be?

Not to mention that IOTL the Cathars were supported by the Count of Toulouse and the King of Aragon, if only as an act against royal French domination. The Albigensian Crusade was about Northern Frances domination of the Languedoc as much as it was destroying the Cathars themselves.
 
Not to mention that IOTL the Cathars were supported by the Count of Toulouse and the King of Aragon, if only as an act against royal French domination. The Albigensian Crusade was about Northern Frances domination of the Languedoc as much as it was destroying the Cathars themselves.

Hmm...perhaps the Albigensian Crusade is defeated and in the aftermath of this defeat, the Cathari movement grows beyond the ability of the Count of Toulouse to control?

Or perhaps the Count of Toulouse (or some Cathari nobleman if the CoT wasn't Cathar) becomes King of France in the aftermath of the failure of this crusade?
 
I was thinking about Syria on my way back from work today. Syria is a Sunni Muslim country ruled by the Alawites, an Islamic sect viewed by many Muslims as heretics.

In 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood tried to overthrow the Alawite-controlled government, only to be gruesomely repressed.

I was thinking that a European analogy to this would be if the Cathari took over France and kept an iron boot firmly on the necks of the Catholic majority.

So how could this happen?

This is not a direct comparison, since Syria is a secular country today, whereas the Cathars lived in a more religious era. Also, the Alawis hold most of the higher offices, but they don't have their boot on the neck of the Sunnis, who are still predominant in the government. Finally, Syria is just a country that has a particular group in a very influential position - they are not out to transform Syria into an Alawi state.

The Cathars, on the other hand, would have totally transformed France if they had been in control.

But I'm not sure how they could possibly do that given their beliefs. How do passifists conquer a country?
 
How effective would they be?

The French were willing to aid the Ottomans and Protestants against their Catholic brethren, after all. Perhaps England stays out in exchange for territorial concessions in Normandy, Gascon, etc.

Plus, didn't the French supply a lot of the manpower for the Crusades against everyone else? Without French manpower, how effective could a Crusade or Crusades be?

The French didn't so much help the Ottomans as accept help from the Ottomans - Francis was very careful not to let it appear that he was assisting Ottoman conquests; that's why Barbarossa didn't sack Rome - that would have been kind of embarrassing for him.
 
Hmm...perhaps the Albigensian Crusade is defeated and in the aftermath of this defeat, the Cathari movement grows beyond the ability of the Count of Toulouse to control?

Or perhaps the Count of Toulouse (or some Cathari nobleman if the CoT wasn't Cathar) becomes King of France in the aftermath of the failure of this crusade?


Firstly the Cathars were under attack by the the proto-Dominican Friars before the crusade began, and the Cathars were protected by secular and spiritual lords of southern France as a tool to prevent control by the King of France and the Pope.

Secondly the crusade suffered from several set backs during its course including Count Raymond retaking Toulouse from the crusaders several times. The commander of the Crusaders Simon de Montfort, father of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, the bane of Henry III of England was a very capable man. A master military strategist de Montfort was killed by a chance hit by a stone thrown from the walls of Toulouse in 1218, and the command of the crusade fell to his less capable son Amaury.

King Louis VIII then took up command of the crusade and the crusade dragged out and lasted 20 years and resulted in the Dominican Friars and Papal Inquisition, but there was violence for almost fifty years after.

Fourthly at this time the title of King of France was no longer elective after the twelfth century and the sole dominion of the Capetian family, as the Kings would crown their heir as King during their lifetime.

Maybe if the Papal legate Pierre de Castelnau isn't murdered, or if King John of England is successful against France and Phillipe II looses the Battle of Bouvines then the Cathars may survive a bit longer. Just my two cents.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
I was thinking about Syria on my way back from work today. Syria is a Sunni Muslim country ruled by the Alawites, an Islamic sect viewed by many Muslims as heretics.

So how could this happen?
We can thank the French for that one, actually. The Alawites were a colonial elite. In the 20s, they organized most of the minority groups into the Troupes Speciales du Levant, which was the nucleus of the Syrian army. The Sunnis, who were for the most part disinterested in serving in the colonial forces, found themselves disenfranchised from one of the most powerful institutions in the newly independent country. The French had also promoted nationalist aspirations among the Maronites, the Druze, and the Alawites by giving them separate states within their mandates - the Maronites eventually got control of Greater Lebanon, but the Alawite State and the Jebel Druze were later incorporated into Syria about a decade before independence. As the Alawites were not given their own country, they opted to take all of Syria instead - and the army was the means by which they accomplished this coup.

Daniel Pipes has compared the ascendancy of the Asad gang to a Jew becoming Czar of All the Russias or an Untouchable becoming a Maharajah. It's really one of the more unlikely scenarios in the history of the world.

I unfortunately can't see any direct parallels by which the Cathars might become the lords of France.
 
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