Editing Catharism (section)

==Term==
Though the term ''Cathar'' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|æ|θ|ɑː|r}}) has been used for centuries to identify the movement, whether it identified itself with the name is debated.{{sfnp|Pegg|2001a|pp=181 ff}} In Cathar texts, the terms ''Good Men'' ({{lang|fr|Bons Hommes}}), ''Good Women'' ({{lang|fr|Bonnes Femmes}}), or ''Good Christians'' ({{lang|fr|Bons Chrétiens}}) are the common terms of [[self-identification]].{{sfnp|Théry|2002|pp=75–117}}

In the testimony of suspects who were put to the question by [[Inquisition|the Inquisition]], the term 'Cathar' was not used amongst the group of accused heretics themselves.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Inquisition Records of Jacques Fournier {{!}} People {{!}} San Jose State University |url=https://www.sjsu.edu/people/nancy.stork/jacquesfournier/ |access-date=2024-05-28 |website=www.sjsu.edu}}</ref> The word 'Cathar' (aka. Gazarri etc.) is coined by Catholic theologians and used exclusively by the inquisition or by authors otherwise identified with the Orthodox church—for example in the anonymous pamphlet of 1430, ''Errores Gazariorum'' (Re: ''Errors of the Cathars'').<ref>RE: for example, [[:fr:Errores Gazariorum|Errores Gazariorum]] (c. 1430)</ref> The full title of this treatise in English is, "''The errors of the Gazarri, or of those who travel riding a broom or a stick."''<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hansen |first=Joseph |title=L'aboutissement du concept de sorcellerie |url=https://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?pid=zfk-001:1992:86::332 |archive-url=}}</ref>

However the presence of a variety of beliefs and spiritual practices in the French countryside of the 12th and 13th centuries that came to be seen as [[Heterodoxy|heterodox]] relative to the Church in Rome is not actually in question, as the primary documents of the period exhaustively demonstrate.{{sfn|Wakefield|Evans|1991}}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv512txz |title=Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft |volume=1 |date=1939 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |jstor=j.ctv512txz }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Porete |first1=Marguerite |title=The mirror of simple souls |last2=Babinsky |first2=Ellen L. |year=1993 |publisher=Paulist Press |series=The Classics of Western spirituality |location=New York |isbn=978-0-8091-0464-2 }}{{page?|date=May 2025}}</ref>

Several of these groups under other names, e.g. the [[Waldensians]] or [[Waldensians|Valdeis]], bear a close similarity to the 'creed' or matrix of beliefs and folk-traditions pieced together under the umbrella of the term 'Catharism.'{{sfn|Wakefield|Evans|1991}}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}<ref name=":2" /> The fact that there was clearly a spiritual and communal movement of some sort can scarcely be denied since legions of people were willing to part with their lives to defend it. Whether they acted in defense of the doctrine or in defense of the human community who held these beliefs, the fact that many gave themselves up willingly to the flames when the option to recant was given to them in many or most cases is significant.<ref name="Taylor 2018 244">{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Claire |title=Cathars in Question |date=2018 |publisher=York Medieval Press |isbn=978-1-903153-81-9 |editor-last=Sennis |editor-first=Antonio |series=Heresy and inquisition in the Middle Ages |location=Woodbridge |page=244 |chapter=Looking for the Good Men in the Languedoc}}</ref><ref name="Graham-Leigh">{{Cite web |last=Graham-Leigh |first=Elaine |title=Review of Cathars in Question |date=25 September 2017 |url=http://medievallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2017/09/sennis-ed-cathars-in-question.html}}</ref>

As the scholar Claire Taylor puts it, "[This issue] matters at an ethical level, because by being cleverly iconoclastic and populist in suggesting that those using 'Cathar' have made 2+2=5, Pegg and Moore [re: scholars questioning whether or not the Cathars exist] make 2+2=3 by denying the existence of the persecuted group. The missing element is a dissident religious doctrine, for which historians using a fuller range of sources believe thousands of people were prepared to suffer extreme persecution and an agonising death."<ref name="Taylor 2018 244"/><ref name="Graham-Leigh"/>