FRIAS Kolloquium - Daniela Müller

Debating the Cathars. Controversies Then and Now

In this meeting I will present the results of the last two years of my FRIAS fellowship and the project I am currently focused on.

My topic is the Cathars, a medieval transformation of Christian mainstream church. I have studied that transformation under different perspectives, but all related to the question of what the interactive networks and influences of the different forms of Christianity looked like and what their self-identification strategies were.  In four articles I have focused on (a) the Cathars of the North, (b) the art of debate and the construction and character of heresy, (c) the Cathar liturgy and (d) on the ‘endura’, a rite between self-sacrifice and suicide.

In the upcoming period I want to study the ‘lost memories’ of the Cathars in the Northern countries, i.e. in Germany, Flanders and North of France, asking for the reasons why the reception of the Cathars took a completely different turn in these countries in comparison to the South of France or Italy.