Cathars as cultural waste : a global theory of Cathar heresy as "the Other" of a new social order

ZBÍRAL, David. Cathars as cultural waste : a global theory of Cathar heresy as "the Other" of a new social order. In International Medieval Congress 2012 : Rules to Follow (or Not). 2012.

Basic information

• Original name: Cathars as cultural waste : a global theory of Cathar heresy as "the Other" of a new social order
• Authors: ZBÍRAL, David (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: International Medieval Congress 2012 : Rules to Follow (or Not), 2012.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 60300 6.3 Philosophy, Ethics and Religion
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14210/12:00060699
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Keywords in English: Catharism; Cathars; theory; the Other
• Tags: rivok
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

This paper presents a theory of the function of Cathar heresy in the intellectual culture of 13th-century Western Christendom, based on previous scholarship about the transformation of Western Christendom from 11th century onwards (Max Weber, Herbert Grundmann, Norman Cohn, Lester K. Little, Robert I. Moore, Dominique Iogna-Prat, Pilar Jiménez Sanchez etc.). It interprets the polemical image of Cathar heresy, defined by dualism, rejection of the world, of marriage, of purgatory etc., as a negative selfimage of a particular intellectual elite linked to universities and mendicant orders and struggling for intellectual and political hegemony. This image of "the other" was used as a tool to define a new Christian identity emerging in the 12th-13th century, based on positive view of the world and of marriage, on the integration of Christian society by the idea of purgatory, and on a new ecclesiology. Dualist beliefs, actually emerging in dissenting groups, were systematized, transformed and hyperbolized by polemists in order to restate what Christendom should – and should not – look like. In this view, Cathar heresy can be understood as a sort of "cultural waste", incarnating radically ascetic ideas and practices undergoing a process of marginalization.