Before going any further with this, I want to reiterate that I went into this all as a skeptic and a bit of a cynic because there were too many holes in the things I’d read – at least as near as I knew. I am a dogmatist’s nightmare. I live by Fox Mulder’s credos of “Question everything!” and “The Truth is Out There.” I have since before Fox Mulder even existed. My father raised me to be like that.
This tends to be a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. I consider it one of my strengths, but it’s also one of my weaknesses. I will seldom take anyone’s word for anything – unless I know from experience that they do their homework fairly thoroughly. This leaves me room to learn and figure out things for myself, which is the whole point of undertaking one’s own ‘grail quest’. You don’t find your own grail by reading about someone else’s adventure. That is to say, you can use these things as sign-posts and maps, but the map is not the territory, and you shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. For you see, there are bits of truth mixed in with all the fallacies and outright fictions. On the negative side, it takes a lot longer to ‘get there’ but once you have arrived, the journey and the conclusions are yours and yours alone. You made them and you ‘own’ them. They don’t belong to anyone else but you. This is the difference between ‘knowledge’ and ‘wisdom’. Knowledge is knowing the things other people say. Wisdom is learning and knowing it for your-self and therefore equal to ‘understanding’.
That being said let us continue now with the story.
Albi is a commune in Southern France in the department of Tarn. It is also a city on the Tarn River, located about 85 kilometers northeast of Toulouse. Albi is an Occitan word but it is also a Latin word, meaning ‘white’ or ‘fair’. This word is the root of other words like Albany, and Alban – another name for Scotland. The root word gens means ‘people’ or a lineage of people. Albi is also an Arabic word that means ‘my heart’ or ‘beloved’.
This region was first settled in historical times in the Bronze Age, somewhere between 3000 and 600 BCE. It would seem that those who came there were coming back to a place buried deep in their ancestral memories from the days when people lived in caves and drew interesting pictures on the walls. That period of time was, ironically enough, called “the Magdalenian.” The Magdalenian period was named after the type site of La Madeleine, a rock shelter located in the Vézère valley, in the commune of Tursac, in the Dordogne department of France. Before it was called the Magdalenian period, it was originally termed "L'âge du renne" (the Age of the Reindeer). This might seem an odd bit of information to throw in at the moment, but it becomes a link to the Scythians later on in the story. Or perhaps I should say ‘earlier on’ in the story.
Toulouse, located in the department of Albi was the capitol of the Languedoc, a region that was once separate from France. It was the seat of Catharism and in fact the flag and coat of arms of the Languedoc is the Cathar cross. The name Languedoc comes from “langue d’oc”, for the people there spoke the Occitan language.
Catharism (from Greek: katharos, pure) was a name given to a Christian religious sect with dualistic and gnostic elements that appeared in the Languedoc region of France and other parts of Europe in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. Catharism had its roots in the Paulician movement in Armenia and the Bogomils of Bulgaria which took influences from the Paulicians. Though the term "Cathar" has been used for centuries to identify the movement, whether the movement identified itself with this name is debatable. In Cathar texts, the terms "Good Men" (Bons Hommes) or "Good Christians" are the common terms of self-identification.
Like many medieval movements, there were various schools of thought and practice amongst the Cathari; some were dualistic (believing in a God of Good and a God of Evil), others Gnostic, some closer to orthodoxy while abstaining from an acceptance of Catholicism. The dualist theology was the most prominent, however, and was based upon an asserted complete incompatibility of love and power. As matter was seen as a manifestation of power, it was believed to be incompatible with love.
The Cathari did not believe in one all-encompassing god, but in two, both equal and comparable in status. They held that the physical world was evil and created by Rex Mundi (translated from Latin as "king of the world"), who encompassed all that was corporeal, chaotic and powerful; the second god, the one whom they worshipped, was entirely disincarnate: a being or principle of pure spirit and completely unsullied by the taint of matter. He was the god of love, order and peace.
According to some Cathars, the purpose of man's life on Earth was to transcend matter, perpetually renouncing anything connected with the principle of power and thereby attaining union with the principle of love. According to others, man's purpose was to reclaim or redeem matter, spiritualising and transforming it.
This placed them at odds with the Catholic Church regarding material creation, on behalf of which Jesus had died, as being intrinsically evil and implying that God, whose word had created the world in the beginning, was a usurper. Furthermore, as the Cathars saw matter as intrinsically evil, they denied that Jesus could become incarnate and still be the son of God. Cathars vehemently repudiated the significance of the crucifixion and the cross. In fact, to the Cathars, Rome's opulent and luxurious Church seemed a palpable embodiment and manifestation on Earth of Rex Mundi's sovereignty.
The Catholic Church regarded the sect as dangerously heretical, although the actual reason for its spread was most likely the discredit of the Church itself in the medieval society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism]
Pope Innocent III, reigned as Pope from 1198 to his death in 1216. He was one of the most powerful and influential popes in the history of the papacy. He claimed supremacy over all the kings and royal houses of Europe. He used his position well to his advantage and that of advancing the interests of the Church of Rome. A strong opponent of anything that threatened the Church, he declared the Third Crusade, to once again attempt to stop the intrusion of the Muslims into the Holy Land. He also knew about the Cathars and knew that this ‘heretical’ movement was growing uncomfortably popular – not only amongst the people, but amongst his own clergy. He himself estimated that probably 80% of his clergy were at least sympathetic to the ideas of the Cathars. The royal houses of the Languedoc were also very sympathetic to the Cathars, if not Cathars themselves. Not only was the Roman form of Christianity being threatened, but he feared the Church itself would implode from within, if he did not stop this heresy dead in its tracks.
The Lords of the Languedoc and Toulouse moved into his sites, because of their Cathar allegiances and sympathies. Being the cunning, ambitious, power-mad and clever man that he was, he devised a plan to enable him to declare yet another crusade – this time on European soil. We shall learn more of that in the next installment.
Have a beautiful day/evening my friends!
Love, Rayvn
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