The Albigensian Crusade

The Albigensian Crusade

The use of crusades by the Roman Catholic Church of the middles ages had profound and lasting effects upon the social climate of Western Europe. The Catholic Encyclopedia credits crusades with the "extermination of the Albigensian heresy," which grew mainly in Italy and the South of France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Albigenses, also known as the Cathars, were a group of people with beliefs considered heretical by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. The name "Cathars," coming from the Greek word, "katharos," meaning "pure" refers to the group's belief that they were the true Christians.

Catharism was seen by the medieval Roman Catholic Church as the most extreme and dangerous heretical movement of its time. It challenged the church much in the way that the Eastern religious movements, most specifically Gnosticism and Manichaeism, had when the Roman Empire was still in existence.