Full of colorful and passionate personalities, his latest book sheds new light on the thirteenth century and on the timelessness of religious intolerance. As he did in his highly praised Back to the Front, Stephen O’Shea brings long-ago events to life though the energy of his prose and the clarity of his insight. By the time the wars were finally over, the ancient social fabric of the Languedoc had been destroyed, the territory of France reached as far as the Mediterranean, and a terrifying new force-the Inquisition-had been unleashed that would torment Europe for centuries.The Perfect Heresy eloquently chronicles the life and death of the Cathar movement-one of Western civilization’s most mind-boggling tales. He recruited the forces of France, eager to expand her territory to the south, to undertake a systematic extermination of the Cathars and their supporters through a series of crusades between 12. Buy a used copy of The Perfect Heresy : The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars book by Stephen OShea. Innocent resolved to eradicate what is now known as the Great Heresy. The Cathars held revolutionary beliefs that threatened the authority of the Catholic Church as well as the legitimacy of feudal law: They thought the idea of Hell to be a sham they rejected all sacraments, including marriage they thought private property an absurd notion and that all things worldly were corrupt and they preached religious tolerance and equality of the sexes.Supported by the leaders of Languedoc, Catharism enraged the new and formidable pope, Innocent III, who was determined to flex the Church’s muscle after decades of ineffectual weakness.

The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval CatharsAt the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Cathars, a group of heretical Christians, rose to prominence in Languedoc, now a region of southern France, but then a patchwork of city-states and principalities beholden to neither king nor bishop. This entry was posted in History by Elise. Thank you to Mark Vestrich for this recommendation! Stephen O’Shea’s recounts this history in The Perfect Heresy, a compelling story filled with medieval warfare, atrocities, courage and ultimate despair as the last Cathar leader is burned. Dominic, paves the way for hundreds of years of future brutal repression by endowing Simon de Montfort with the task to make war on the cities who harbor Cathars. Pope Innocent III, the same pope that granted legitimacy to St. Their popular and growing belief system was such a threat to the Catholic church that the church launched an all out assault for a hundred years to stamp them out, thus giving birth to the inquisition. They were pacifist vegetarians who shunned materialism, believed in the equality of women, thought the Catholic church had no God-given authority, and believed Jesus was more mythological than historical.

The Cathars were a sect of renegade Christians in the late 12th century in what is now Southern France.

The Perfect Heresy by Stephen O'Shea