Originally intended as the first book of a trilogy of historical romances meant to explore the “feelings and manners” of Europeans in ancient, middle, and modern times, Charles Robert Maturin’s sixth and final novel,
The Albigenses; A Romance(1824), begins in the autumn of 1216, after the first crusade against the Albigensian heretics (Maturin 1:vii). Members of the larger Cathar heresy that emerged in the Languedoc region of modern-day France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Albigenses believed that a “bad” god created all things physical, and that a “good” god ruled over the spiritual. The objective of human life, according to the Albigenses, was to renounce the evils of this world and thereby attain both purity and Heaven. Although the Catholic Church initially…
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Citation: Morin, Christina. "The Albigenses". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 August 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1621, accessed 23 November 2024.]
