HUMSS - Daniela Müller

Quest For Names. The Cathar Controversy

The focus will be on the self-image of the medieval Cathars - those Christians branded as heretics - as church, and on the transformations that developed in contrast to the Catholic church.

In a first step I will shortly describe the recent debates of the historians about the terminology. The aspect of the terminology “Cathars” would be particularly important, because with regard to the medieval Cathars, the latest historiographical studies have the tendency to push back on that terminology as a collective description of a specific movement. In a second step I want to clarify the methods and effects of the polemical debates that leads eventually to new forms of profiling identity for both sides.