Albigenses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Members of a dualist Christian heretical movement that flourished in medieval southern France, particularly around Albi, and were suppressed by papal crusade in the thirteenth century
2. Followers of a Catharist sect in twelfth- and thirteenth-century southern France who rejected Catholic doctrine and were eventually exterminated through religious war and inquisition
3. Adherents of a heretical Christian group centered in the Languedoc region of France who held dualist beliefs and were systematically persecuted and destroyed by the Catholic Church

Etymology: The Albigenses were a Christian movement in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and their name comes from the town of Albi, in the Occitan-speaking south. The Latin "Albigenses" was coined to mean "people of Albi," the same kind of place-based label that medieval writers gave to heretical groups in the region. The name stuck to a movement that had many local names of its own and that the Church regarded as heretical. The word reached English as a historical term, used mainly for the Cathars and related groups who were the target of the Albigensian Crusade launched in 1209. Because the label came from a French town rather than from any name the followers chose for themselves, it describes where they were found rather than what they believed.

Synonyms: Cathars, heretics