Cathar yellow cross
Encyclopedia
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, the Cathar yellow cross was a distinguishing mark (essentially a badge of shame
Badge of shame
A badge of shame, also a symbol of shame, mark of shame, or simply a stigma, is typically a distinctive symbol required to be worn by a specific group or an individual for the purpose of public humiliation, ostracism, or persecution...
) worn by repentant Cathars, who were ordered to wear it by the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
.
Background
Catharism was a religious movement with dualistic and GnosticGnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
elements that appeared in the Languedoc region of France around the middle of the 12th century. Cathars were dualist in their beliefs, and the Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
symbol of the crucifix
Crucifix
A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....
was, to the Cathars, a negative symbol. In the words of one 14th century Cathar Perfect
Cathar Perfect
Perfect was the name given to a monk of the medieval French Christian religious movement commonly referred to as the Cathars. The term reflects that such a person was seen by the Catholic Church as the "perfect heretic"...
Pierre Authié:
...just as a man should with an axe break the gallows on which his father was hanged, so you ought to try and break crucifixes, because Christ was suspended from it, albeit only in seeming.
The Albigensian Heresy and the Inquisition
The office of the InquisitionInquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
was formulated in response to Catharism, and a crusade was ultimately declared against Catharism. To be acquitted of charges of heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
, all a suspected Cathar needed to do was provide proof of marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
(since the Cathars did not believe in the practice).
Repentant first offenders (who admitted to having been Cathars), when released on licence by the inquisition were ordered to:
...carry from now on and forever two yellow crosses on all their clothes except their shirts and one arm shall be two palms long while the other transversal arm shall be a palm and a half long and each shall be three digits wide with one to be worn in front on the chest and the other between the shoulders.
In addition they were ordered "...not to move about either inside or outside" their houses and were required to "...redo or renew the crosses if they are torn or are destroyed by age."
At the time these crosses were known locally as "las debanadoras" - which in Occitan literally meant reels or winding machines. It is thought that this name is derived from the fact that the Cathars thought that crosses tied the wearers to a line that could be reeled in.
Montaillou
An example of this type of punishment is to be found in the French village of MontaillouMontaillou
Montaillou is a commune in the Ariège department in southwestern France.-History:The town is best known for being the subject of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's pioneering work of microhistory, Montaillou, village occitan. It analyzes the town in great detail over a thirty-year period from 1294 to 1324...
, one of the last bastions of the Cathar belief; here the local Bishop and future Pope, Jacques Fournier
Pope Benedict XII
Pope Benedict XII , born Jacques Fournier, the third of the Avignon Popes, was Pope from 1334 to 1342.-Early life:...
launched an extensive inquisition which involved dozens of lengthy interviews with the locals, which were all faithfully recorded. When Fournier became Pope he brought the records with him and they remain to this day in the Vatican Library
Vatican Library
The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...
.
Examples of residents from Montaillou being forced to wear the cross include:
- Béatrice de PlanisolesBéatrice de PlanisolesBéatrice de Planisoles was a minor noble in the Comté de Foix in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. She was born circa 1274, probably in the mountain village of Caussou....
- Raymonde ArsenRaymonde ArsenRaymonde Arsen née Vital was a servant in the Comté de Foix in the early fourteenth century. She was made notable by appearing in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. Born in Prades d'Aillon to a poor peasant family in 1306 she left to work in the home of Bonet de la Coste in town Pamiers.Whilst...
See also
- Cross of ToulouseOccitan crossThe Occitan cross — also cross of Occitania, cross of Languedoc, cross of Forcalquier and Toulouse cross — is the symbol of Occitania...
, sometimes incorrectly known as the "Cathar Cross" - Yellow badgeYellow badgeThe yellow badge , also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments in order to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism...