• Director(s):

    SARMIENTO (CHEMA)

  • Producer(s):

    ARTE FRANCE

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2001

  • Language(s):

    German, French

  • Rights:

    NON-THEATRICAL, TV

It was no accident that heresy resurfaced in Europe around 1000 A.D. This was the start of the age of feudalism, and the West was at a turning-point in its history. This new doctrine rocked the Roman Catholic Church to its very foundations and those responsible paid a high price.

The prevailing climate of brutality and violence naturally led people to question everything they believed in. The Scriptures were re-read and reinterpreted.
The Cathars believed that God could not have created a world in which there was so much evil, and that the human body was nothing but a garment of skin from which the inner being had to free itself. A unique sacrament, the "consolament" turned the believer into a perfect being, who must from then on lead an austere life of virtue and privation. This new doctrine rocked the Roman Catholic Church to its very foundations and those responsible paid a high price. A terrifying wave of repression of the heretics ensued. The last "perfect" Cathar was burnt at the stake in 1321. The extraordinary story of this dissident form of Christianity, which spread to all parts of Europe, overlaps with several other narratives with profound historical consequences - that of the Church which created the Inquisition, that of the French monarchy, which emerged strengthened from the episode, and that of the Pays d'Oc, which paid dearly for its support of the Cathar heresy.