Heresy in the MIddle Ages.

Thompson says that heresy could be defined “only with reference to orthodoxy” (p. 125). So, the church first defined a definition of the theology or a belief, establishing its limits and boundaries. So, when someone or a group, leave these boundaries and go farther from them, they were considered dissentients, “and liable to ecclesiastic sanctions if they did not conform” (ibid).   

Early and Medieval church were focused in the teaching and Christian praxis, very orthodoxy all the time. It doesn’t mean that never had heresy’s problems, because that did it. When lays began to be involved in the life of the church the heresy started, “this may be connected with an increasing level of a lay religion, and the willingness of participants to try to clarify what they personally believed” (Thompson, p. 78). Around 1000, Leutard was accused of denying the obligation to pay tithes. Around 1025, emerged an Italian group who believed they don’t need the church and had any ideas similar to the Cathars.  In the twelfth century, the church gave a powerful response to the existence of heresy from the church authorities. The First and Second Lateran Councils talked about heresy. “The Cathars were anathematized in 1179 at the Third Lateran Council” (Thompson, p. 126). “The lay powers were joined to support the church, and the ecclesiastical authorities were empowered to investigate suspect heretical meetings” (ibid). By 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council decreed directed against Catharism. “The decrees also renewed the command to hand heretics over to the lay power for punishment… is demonstrated by the fact that indulgences granted to Crusaders were extended to those who fought against heresy” (ibid).  So we can see the development and involvement of church against heresy   

In that century highlight two heretical movements: Waldensians and Cathars.   Waldensians a group created by Valdes of Lyon, after his conversion. He abandoned his fortune and pursued a life of poverty. More people added to him and began to preach the gospel and Jesus’s life. Many people were attracted for them and authorities were worried for their impact. They didn’t want to separate from the Catholic Church. They simply wanted to live as whole-hearted followers of Jesus. But the challenge of their simple lifestyle, the popularity of this new movement and their preaching, without the authorization of the Church, it brought them problems and opposition, and they were excommunicated. “Valdes himself was essentially moderate, and may well have hoped reconciliation with the church, but more radical groups appeared elsewhere… insisting they were sole path to salvation” (Thompson, p. 128).

“Catharism originated in the Easter Empire… was the most radical heresy which affected the medieval Church I the West, because it abandoned the mainstream Judaeo-Christian belief in a single God” (Thompson, p. 129). They believed in a dualist theology, “that there were two conflicting powers in the universe, one good and one evil” Satan the evil power was totally independent to God… the world, the flesh, and the devil were identified… in a very literal sense” (ibid). All the members of this sect were rigidly ascetic, vegetarian, and renounced to the marriage. Cathars invaded Western Europe included England, German, Italy and France. In the thirteenth century, Innocent III decided to finish with heresy and Cathars were persecuted for the crusaders. By the fourteenth century, Cathars ceased to be a menace to the church, but inquisition continued persecuting the few groups (Thompson, p. 133). Also, Catharist and Beguines “were condemned by the Council of Vienne in 1312” (Ozment, p. 93).