Albigenses, << `al` buh JEHN seez, >> were a Christian religious group named for Albi, a city in southern France. They were part of a sect called the Cathari, which flourished in parts of France, Germany, and Italy during the 1100’s and 1200’s. The Albigenses believed that the principles of good and evil continually opposed each other in the world. They believed that worldly things represented the evil force and that the human spirit was the only good. They taught that the spirit had been imprisoned in the body as punishment for sinning, and that the highest good was to free the spirit from the body. The Albigenses opposed marriage, bearing children, and eating meat and other animal products. They advocated suicide, especially by starvation.
The Albigenses grew in popularity until the Roman Catholic Church pronounced them heretics in the mid-1100’s. But the nobility and the townsfolk supported them. The church conducted a crusade against the Albigenses in the early 1200’s. Crusaders and the Inquisition gradually destroyed the Albigenses’ power, though there were brief rebellions from time to time. By about 1350, the Albigenses had disappeared in Western Europe. See also Dominic, Saint; Heresy.
