Moving Cathars: The Italian connection in the thirteenth century

The Treaty of Paris of 1229 ended twenty years of crusading warfare in Lang uedoc, and from that time it was no longer possible to practise the Cathar faith openly in the way that people had done before 1209. The introduction of specialist inquisitors from 1233 further increased the pressure, and the murder of two of these inquisitors at Avignonet in 1242 served only to pro voke the attack on the Cathar fortress of Montsegur, which fell in 1244. Th ese were the circumstances which led to the strengthening of the links with Lombardy, where Cathar Churches still operated, for many Cathar ministers now fled there, obliging believers who wished to maintain contact with thei r faith to follow them over the Alps. This paper examines the reasons for t heir journeys, the means by which they travelled, and the places to which t hey went.