ALBIGENSES

A sect which arose in the south of France in the latter half of the twelfth century. They have been confounded with the Waldenses, with whom, however, they do not appear to have had any real connection. Their tenets have been very differently described, and probably misrepresented, by their opponents; and great obscurity is thrown upon the subject, by the fact of the appearance of various di enters from the church of Rome in England and elsewhere, about the same time, whose respective views have not been very accurately discriminated. It is probable that the reformers of the south of France opposed themselves originally to the corruptions in discipline, which began first at that period to draw general attention and animadversion upon the clerical order. Hence a very easy step would lead them to think slightingly of many ecclesiastical ordinances, and the ceremonial observances of religion would seduce them into the adoption of mystical notions about an internal light and a urance, and finally betray them into the wildest extravagancies. Thus they are charged with perpetuating the Manic he an doctrines: but Bo uet, who accuses them of inclining to that system on certain points, acquits them of holding what is, after all, the distinguishing tenet of the Oriental heresy — the monstrous doctrine of the two principles. The origin of the name is doubtful. The Latin name by which Narbonnese Gaul was known in the twelfth century, was Albigesium, which seems to' put forth a better claim to the derivation than the town of Albi in Langue doc. In the year 1163, Alexander III. published a decree against these sectarians in a council held at Tours, and another in 1179. On neither occasion, however, did he invoke the a istance of the secular arm. At the close of the century, when the sect was still flourishing, and seemed to be more particularly under the protection of Raymond, count of Thou louse, Innocent III. commenced the work of its extirpation. He appointed two legates to go through the country and excite the zeal of the clergy and laity against the innovators: he instituted the Dominican order of friars, purposely to preach them down; and finally, in 1207, he addre ed himself to Philip August us, king of France, exhorting him to eradicate the heresy with the sword. The chief leader of the expedition, which soon a umed the character and name of a crusade, was Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, to whom the earldom of Thou louse was promised by the pope as a stimulus to his exertions. In the siege of that city, however, he was killed. The contest, which was carried on with more or le vigour for many years, and which furnishes the first evidence of the disposition of the church of Rome to employ the extreme of violence against those who di ent from its doctrines, ended in the entire destruction of the Albigenses, about the middle of the thirteenth century. {See especially Sismondi, Hist, des Franco is, tom.vi.) ALB I' N [s. 41]