Thanks for that Pfranz. Although I had read something of this in the past you inspired me to revisit it and I think I’ll delve further into it. It is a fascinating piece of religious and political history. Didn’t Lawrence Durrell use the gnostic heresies as a framework, or link, in his Avignon and Alexandria sets? (Avignon, cité des deux pâpes, with its unfinished bridge - charming! I had my first pizza there. It was awful.)

Some infobites I just found:

An illustration of the ferocity of the crusaders is that although the town of Béziers is believed to have held no more than 500 Cathars, over 10,000 citizens were killed. The instruction was to kill them all – God would recognise his own.

The name Albigensian is from the movements centre in Albi.

The Albigensians treated women as equals, an example of how deeply they had been affected by the devil!

Considering how the Cathars were treated by the church forces in their efforts to utterly expunge them from the face of the earth, it is tempting to think of a connection with the word ‘catharsis’, but there is none that I can find. Pity.