Post by Zadkiel on Jan 12, 2016 23:25:04 GMT
In the beginning of the 1100s, there flourished with religious movements that advocated a different creed than what could be accepted by the Catholic Church. In Eastern Europe, these "heretics" were known as "Bogomils", while they were called "Cathars" further west. It was primarily in the South French region Languedoc that they began to permeate the entire society and their doctrine finally threatened to displace Catholicism in this area. Since they both advocated that Jesus had been married to Mary Magdalene and they did not recognize the Pope as their religious head, the leader of the Catholic Church felt so threatened that he around 1200 launched "The Albigensian Crusade", which was intended to "eradicate all heretical elements in Languedoc". Forty years later, more than 100000 people had become the victims of the Church's bloody atrocities and many of them were Catholics that had only sympathized with the Cathars.
