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 …
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Citation: Morin, Christina. "The Albigenses". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 August 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1621, accessed 07 October 2024.]