Geek off!

[Prudence]

I'm trying to think of a way to convey the vast quantities of useless knowledge I've accumulated on medieval heresies. I can't. There's just too much of it. I can go on for hours. (Literally! Several times I've taught a 2-hour intro to heresies class.)

I classify them into three different groups. First are the reformers. These are your Waldensians, Humiliati, Arnoldists, Priscillians, etc... To generalize, reformer groups typically engaged in lay preaching (a no-no) and believed that the Church and all true Christians should abandon all wealth, including land (oddly enough not popular with the Church). Many groups rejected sacraments performed by any clergy who retained possessions (annoying!) and several groups allowed women considerable involvement (egads!) The Church used several methods to deal with reformer groups, including banning/persecuting them heavily and opening arms wide to bring them into the church and let them practice their asceticism by joining various orders.

Major category number two were the dualists -- often called gnostics in the literature, but I prefer dualist because it conveys more immediately the core belief in two opposing forces -- good and evil. Evil is not the subordinate it is in orthodoxy. In general, dualists believe that all matter is evil and the spirit/light is good. They were totally chaste, chosing to avoid all physical contact. (And creating new evil bodies trapping good spirits is a badness.) They were also vegetarians -- as the product of coition was by definition evil. (How to tell if your neighbor is a Cathar? Make them kill and eat a chicken.) The big baddies in this genre were the Manichaeans, who were quite the evangelical group back in the third century. Europe, Africa, even into China. Gave Christianity a real run for its money. The Manis were this weird blend of religions. Totally insane. It would take me pages to go into it. (Melons are luminous foods = good! Eat the melons to release the light inside!) The Church was in a total panic. Augustine was very nearly beside himself with terror. For centuries the Church was en garde, watching for the Manis to come back. Some speculate that pockets of them survived, travelling to what is now Bulgaria and becoming Bogomils. Regardless, Bogomils are another dualist sect active about 1000 years later. Many speculate that crusaders brought back Bogomil beliefs, thus leading to the dreaded Cathars. Cathars were everywhere. Cathars in a particular region were Albigensians and merited their own crusade. Quite the tizzy. Apparently no one ever had the bright idea to just let them go not have sex with one another and let nature run its course.

(Actually, throughout western history, anyone who claimed to be holier was accused of having nightly orgies, resulting in illicit off-spring who were ground up and consumed as "tasty baby cakes" -- a perversion of the sacrament of communion. The primary documentation is a hoot.)

And then there are the others -- the Arians (quick - let's have the Council of Nicea and vote on which one's the heresy!), the later period political-religious groups (Lollards and Hussites), and so forth. Ooh. and the Amalricians, who believed the God *was* the universe -- in each little twig and pebble. Damn tree-hugger hippy-dippys.

See? I could go on for days. It's nutty.