Alan of Lille
(d. 1203), poet, theologian, and preacher. He probably studied and taught at Paris c.1150–c.1185. Later he moved to the South of France and towards the end of his life entered the abbey of Cîteaux. ...
Albi
A modest vicus Albi owed its promotion to the administrative reforms of the 4th c., which made it the capital of a civitas and a diocese. Its importance long remained ...
Apocrypha, Bogomil
The Bogomils, in an effort to justify and propagate their teachings, made use of the Slavonic versions of several early Greek apocrypha, among them The Book of Baruch, The Book ...
Beaucaire
A trading town on the main route from Italy to Spain at the Rhône, once in the kingdom of Burgundy, then held by the counts of Provence, then (1125) by ...
Bernard Gui
(c.1261–1331), Dominican historian. He was appointed inquisitor of Toulouse in 1307 and Bp. of Lodève in 1324. He is remembered chiefly for his contribution to the history of the Dominican Order.
Carcassonne
City dominating the Aude between Narbonne and Toulouse. A Roman colony later fortified by a 4th-century Visigothic fortress, then by Arabs (after 725). Bishopric established c.570. After Frankish ...
Champagne
Province of France. During the MA, the influential counts of Champagne were virtually independent of their nominal suzerain, the king of France, until the conquest of Champagne by Philip III ...
consolamentum
Cathar rite of initiation into the ranks of the elite. The ritual, which elevated the ordinary believer to the status of a perfectus, was derived from Bogomil practice and was ...
Dominicans
[Ge]A religious order of friars, known as Black Friars, introduced in the early 13th century ad and concerned to maintain the faith and convert the infidel.
Ekbert of Schönau
(c.1120–1184)Born to a Noble Rhineland family very devoted to the Church, Ekbert studied at Paris and then became a canon of the chapter of Saints Cassius and Florent at ...
Elementary Instruction
Christianity being a religion of the book, it was necessary for everyone, laity, clerics and monks, to have at least an elementary instruction. From the beginning of the Middle Ages ...
Folquet de Marselha
(fl. 1172–1203, d. 1231) Troubadour from a merchant family in Marseilles.Folquet took orders c.1195, becoming bishop of Toulouse in 1205. He participated in the Albigensian Crusade. He was probably ...
Gregory IX, Pope
(c.1170–1241)Ugo (or Ugolino) was born c.1170 into the family of the Conti de Segni, who held possessions in the region of Anagni. His degree of kinship with Innocent III ...
heresy, Judaizers
Diverse and perhaps falsely named ‘Jewish-thinking Novgorod heretics’, c.1470–1515. Several factors lay behind the dissent, hostilely depicted as Jewish in origin: ties with Europe, translations of ...
Host Desecration
Stories about desecration of the Host by doubting Christians or unbelievers circulated in medieval Europe, particularly after the year 1200 as interest in the nature of the Eucharist grew. From ...
Inquisition
An ecclesiastical tribunal established by Pope Gregory IX c.1232 for the suppression of heresy, at a time when certain heretical groups were regarded by the Church as enemies of society. It was ...
Italy and Sicily
The authority of the last western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, did not extend beyond the Italian peninsula. The rivalry between him and Odoacer, of an east Germanic tribe and a ...
Languedoc
(province) Region of southern France between Rhône and Roussillon, from the Mediterranean to the Pyrenees. It is named after the Occitan language spoken there (in which ‘oc’ means ‘yes’), after ...
Marie of Oignies
(1177–1213)Born at Nivelles, in the former diocese of Liège, married by her parents at the age of 14, Marie persuaded her husband to accept continence and to enter the ...
Montaillou
In the early 14th century this remote Pyrenean village showed a revived Cathar presence, making it the target of an inquisitor’s heresy hunt and much later an ethno-sociological study based ...
