Cathar

American  

[kath-ahr] / ˈkæθ ɑr /

noun

• Cathari,
  plural
• Cathars
  plural

1. (in medieval Europe) a member of any of several rigorously ascetic Christian sects maintaining a dualistic theology.

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Cathar British  

/ ˈkæθə /

noun

1. a member of a Christian sect in Provence in the 12th and 13th centuries who believed the material world was evil and only the spiritual was good

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• Catharism
  noun
• Catharistic
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• Cathari
  plural
• Cathars
  plural

Etymology

Origin of Cathar

First recorded in 1630–40; from Late Latin Catharī (plural), from Late Greek hoi Katharoí “Novatians,” literally, “the pure”; applied in Medieval Latin to various sects

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Cathar Cathari Cathars

This is the second, through Cathar country in the rarely visited eastern Pyrenees.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 10, 2021

The blood of St. Peter Martyr, who was killed by Cathar heretics in 1252, was also accorded medicinal properties.

From The New Yorker ● Jan. 7, 2019

Farther south, the town of Mazamet is home to the Cathar Museum.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2018

The Cathar defenders pose a question to the skeptics: If the crusade was not about quashing this religious movement, then what motivated so many Christians to take up arms and kills thousands of other Christians?

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2018

The Ritual in Slavonic written by the Bosnian Radoslavov, and published in vol. xv. of the Starine of the South Slavonic Academy at Agram, shows great resemblance to the Cathar ritual published by Cunitz, 1853.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Slice 1 "Bisharin" to "Bohea" by Various

Most of the Cathari, however, remained among the "believers," free to live ordinary lives in the world in the hope of salvation without the rigor of living as a "perfect."

From Time Magazine Archive

Gregory was relentless in the extermination of Waldenses, Beghards, and the remnants of the Cathari, but he saw nothing to object to in the mysticism and illuminism of his visitors.

From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume II by Henry Charles Lea

Shortly after this Cathari were discovered in Aquitaine, where they made many converts, and their heresy spread secretly throughout southern France in spite of the free use of the fagot.

From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume I by Henry Charles Lea

This blessed bread was regarded with special reverence by the great mass of the Cathari, who were, as a rule, merely “crezentz,” “credentes,” or believers, and not fully received or “perfected” in the Church.

From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume I by Henry Charles Lea

That many Cathari existed in Aragon there can be no doubt, but they are never described as such, and the only heretics of whom we hear by name are los encabats—the Insabbatati or Waldenses.

From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume II by Henry Charles Lea

Mr. Hoare burnished his legacy in a slew of memoirs, and late in life spent two decades in France, studying a medieval Christian sect known as the Cathars that he chronicled in a historical novel.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 5, 2020

For their considerable pains, the Cathars were memorialized and celebrated as martyred religious rebels by a region of southern France that, eight centuries later, still promotes itself under their name: Pays Cathare.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2018

That translates literally as “The Cathars, an idea received” but implies something that is widely accepted as fact but probably not true.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2018

At first blush, the Cathars make for unlikely modern-day heroes.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2018

The Cathar Eucharist was equally primitive, and is thus described by a contemporary writer in a 13th-century MS. of the Milan Library:—”The Benediction of bread is thus performed by the Cathars.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 5 "Cat" to "Celt" by Various