reconsidering a cathar connection

Well, the time of the Albigensian wars is foreign for me.

Reading here and there to enlighten my dark spots about this context it appears, that the "not really observed" and "longlasting" Bulgarian Empire is a deciding factor, which from the interested Western Albigensian research is not really presented. There is some far spread romanticism and catharic idealization ... and some people claim, that they have descended from them and other use it to inspire tourism.

I would wonder, if "I've descended from some Bulgarians" would inspire in the same way.

Well, one of the first appearnces of Cathars in Western Europe appeared just around the corner, here nearby in Cologne, Bonn and Mainz. Here you can read the story, the beginnings are dated to 1140.

http://books.google.com/books?id=LI...BYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=cathars cologne&f=false

But the writer is puzzled.




He believes in "native-Rhinelanders", but he can definitely relate to some Bulgarian-Greek customs in the behavior of these Cathars.

Well, knowing local history a little bit, I could help him up to the line, how this probably developed.



That's St. Pantaleon, a church initiated by empress Theophanu, earlier Byzantine princess, at the end of 10th century.

... later (1625) giving this impression:



... modern:


On short way you find here St Pantaleon (bottom) and the addresses Griechenpforte, Kleiner Griechenmarkt, Grosser Griechenmarkt and even a pub Griechenschänke (which surely has nothing to do with this story). Griechen means "Greeks".

The background is, that Theophanu didn't come alone, but with other Greeks, and that in this location St.Pantaleon close to Cologne (end of 10th outside before the Cologne city walls, later during 12th century inside the city walls) a smaller Greek colony or city quarter was built, which (likely) served interests of diplomacy between Byzanz and German Empire and naturally general trade interests and caused then a slow but steady assimilation of the earlier Greeks, who had accompanied Theophanu, at least the 150 years from Theophanu till 1140 are enough to build up some local Greek infrastructure.

And Theophanu has her bones here:



Generally Otto I.'s victory in 955 at the Lechfeld (near Munich) against often invading Hungarians ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lechfeld

... had had the effect, that the direct way between Western Empire to Constantinople opened. One of the consequences was, that Otto II married Theophanu in 973. A later effect were the crusades, from which the first went over the land route with estimated 300.000 pilgrims ...

**********
... Anyway, a happy new year to all the rest of the Bogomils ... at least in Russia and some other countries as for instance Macedonia (this had been a Bogomil center once) they have a new year between 13th/14th January in 21st century.

foolish said:

By the way, is anyone familiar with the book, "Heresy and the English Reformation: Bogomil-Cathar Influence on Wycliff, Lengland, Tyndale and Milton" by Georgi Vasilev?

Click to expand...

http://www.bogomilism.eu/Mybook-07/Presentation-and-reviews.html

These reviews were one of the first things that came up when I googled the book.

The reviewers refer to dualism in English Protestantism. Certainly such dualism can be seen in the full text of a 16th century sermon that I quote from in my latest blog post. However, to call any Christian dualism "Cathar" seems an unreal stretch. An element of dualism has always existed within Christianity.

Havent read through the whole 5 pages of this thread yet, just this page. it is pretty cool, thank s for the info.

Got the book a while back and didnt finish reading it,thought it was interesting but I had to put on hold. Will need to pick it up again

As far as Vasilev's book goes, I am looking forward to seeing how he presents "Bogomil-Cathar imagery". I seems that the idea of a Cathar "image" has been a point of contention in this thread, as Catharism and orthodox Christianity share a common literary source - the New Testement - which can obviously obscure distinctions in their imagery.

Teheuti said:

An element of dualism has always existed within Christianity.

Click to expand...

Although there has always been a theme in Christianity regarding the conflict between God and the devil, their beliefs are quite distinct. While the orthodox church has made their position clear with their creed, "We believe in ONE God, Father Almighty, creator of heaven AND EARTH," the dualist theology of the Cathars proposes that there are TWO gods (the devil being one of them, who created the earth.) This belief alone was plenty of reason to brand one as a heretic. The question still remains as to how their use of imagery would have been different, if at all.

foolish said:

Although there has always been a theme in Christianity regarding the conflict between God and the devil, their beliefs are quite distinct. While the orthodox church has made their position clear with their creed, "We believe in ONE God, Father Almighty, creator of heaven AND EARTH," the dualist theology of the Cathars proposes that there are TWO gods (the devil being one of them, who created the earth.) This belief alone was plenty of reason to brand one as a heretic. The question still remains as to how their use of imagery would have been different, if at all.

Click to expand...

The question is, does the book claim that in taking on "dualism" in English Protestantism, that it is the same as the dualism of the Cathars? Did English Protestants believe in one god or two gods? And, if only one god, then what is meant by dualism in Vasilev's book? I'm pretty sure that's a term that means different things in different contexts.

As to "imagery" - that's also a word that refers to verbal metaphor - word pictures. Again, you'll have to find out what they meant by it.

All good quetions. I'll let you know if I come up with any new insights by reading the book.

Based on some reading I am doing right now, and allowing myself the full range of my fantasies, it seems that the more likely candidates to have influenced the appearance of the Marseille Tarot would have been that incredible group of intelligensia that emerged at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century known collectively as "The Rosicrucian Enlightenment" (see Frances Yates plus the outpouring of more recent scholarship) consisting of Paracelsean physicians, Lutheran & Calvinist Protestants and spiritual alchemists who dreamed of a reform movement led by a utopian brotherhood that could overcome the tyranny of the Hapsburgs, bringing religious tolerance and a rule based on caritas (love, compassion, benevolence, etc.).

Works like Michael Maier's Arcana Arcanissima (which explored the alchemical secrets 'hidden' in the Greco-Egyptian lore of Hermes Trismegistus) and Andrea's Rosicrucian manifestos were circulating in manuscript form among 'circles' of like-minded thinkers from as early as 1610. These represent only a fraction of the works being produced that contained similar themes, stemming back to John Dee and the alchemists of Prague and forward into all the Hermetic-Rosicrucian societies.

It is Maier's image of the lone seeker that is a more likely inspiration for Marseilles Hermit than the Cathars that were 350 years earlier. [Although I still think the St. Chrisopher hermit is the best choice for the type.]

If I were to make up a story about the source of the Marseille Tarot, I think I would draw inspiration from this group. Additionally, they are major sources for the Golden Dawn and the Egypto-Rosicrucian branch of Freemasonry to which deGébelin seems to have belonged.


The epigram is actually: "Nature, Reason, Experience and Reading must be the Guide, Staff, Spectacles and Lamp to him that is employed in Chemical Affairs."

ADDED: Whatever their interest in playing cards (demonstrated by Boccalini and others from the period) - I doubt if they would have left the Pope card in the Marseille deck and they are too early for the later removal of such figures.

As with any of our ideas about the influences in the tarot, it is often encouraging to see some similarities or associations in the cards, but often more difficult to describe how all of the cards fit neatly into that context.

We've Jacques Vievil as the first similar-to-Tarot-des-Marseilles producer in Paris c. 1650 and that's likely a man from Belgium.

Around a 1655 a court physician expressed the opinion, that Tarot cards were from Germany, not from France.

In 1637 a half-Italian Gonzaga-princess urges, that a local French writer publishes the first French Tarot rules. The same writer in 1656/57 expresses the opinion, that earlier Tarot was of greater interest than nowadays (which means 1657). Likely this means, that as long this half-Italian princess was dominant to him, the interest in Tarot was big, but later not. The princess had disappeared in Paris in 1645 to become the Polish queen.

If one looks for a suppressed group in the time of the older Louis XIV, then there are the Huguenottes, who leave France to live elsewhere around 1480. But all we can see is, that the Tarot-des-Marseilles wasn't suppressed, but profited by some political centralization in the playing card production below Louis XIV, who organized himself a lot of regular playing-card-evenings, which actually served as a tool to control the rich nobility. Actually Louis promoted gambling, at least for some time.

In a critical phase of the political development (around 1659) the army of Louis attacked Marseille ... but the earlier Tarot-des-Marseilles developments took place in Paris (Vieville-Noblet). Later appeared the real Tarot-de-Marseille (Camoin has 1672 for the Francois Choisson), but then Marseille was under control of Louis XIV.

Perhaps our friend Yves Le Marseillais has some better information about this phase than me.