Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

For this year's A-Z challenge, I'm posting juicy tidbits of researchy goodness for your interest and edification. I intend to use these as story prompts for the terrifying writing challenge Story a Day in May. You may use them however you wish. 

I was going to write a post about the Inquisition, but all I could think about was this.



Now that that's out of my system:

The Inquisition - more properly, Inquisitions - were established in order to seek out and eliminate heretics - i.e., anyone who didn't fall in line with official church policy and political goals. When the Catholic Church formed the Medieval (and first) Inquisition, one of the main groups they targeted was the Cathars.

The Cathars followed a Gnostic model of belief, which held that there were, essentially, two Gods: a corrupt one that ruled over creation, and a benevolent one to whom we really owe our loyalty. (The first time I learned about this theological theory was by reading Philip K. Dick's Valis trilogy. I thought, well, that explains a lot.)

Rather than the seven Catholic sacraments (baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance / confession, marriage, holy orders, anointing of the sick), the Cathars had only one: consolamentum, or consolation. A credente, or believer, would take consolamentum once, and become a "parfait" or Perfect. There were no do-overs, so the Parfait had to uphold the highest degree of behaviour and belief.

After years of persecution and outright warfare, the Cathars were finally massacred and rooted out by Inquisition forces.

Before the massacre at the Cathar stronghold of Montségur, a small number of Cathars escaped with something called le tresor cathar. No one knows what exactly this treasure actually was - some say it was the Holy Grail. Some researchers link the treasure to the sudden and inexplicable wealth of Bérenger Saunière, a 19th century priest.

(I realize this is a little bit more of a Cathar-ish post than an Inquisatorial one. *shrugs* I trust you'll recover eventually.)

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