Women found temporary, often short-lived support for the notion of their innate equality with men as creatures of God in the heretical sects. Women in great numbers were active in organizing and proselytizing for the heretical sects and were visible among those suffering persecution and martyrdom. In this, they followed a pattern already noted in the history of early Christianity: as long as movements were small, loosely structured and persecuted, women were welcomed as members, given access to organizational leadership and shared authority with men. When the movement became successful, it became more tightly structured, more hierarchical and more male-dominated. Women were then relegated to auxiliary roles and to invisibility. This can be illustrated by the case of the Cathars.
The Cathar heresy flourished in the 11th century in the Languedoc and in the 12th century continued there and spread into Italy, the Rhineland and the Low Countries. Its dualistic belief system rested heavily on Gnostic texts and interpretations. Cathar doctrine taught that there were two distinct gods, one the creator of good, the other of evil. The material world was created by the evil god and its reproduction was by definition evil, hence Cathars rejected marriage and what they defined as the fruits of copulation, meat and milk. Since sin originated in Satan, Cathars held Eve blameless in the Fall; they saw her merely as Satan's tool. Following Gnostic doctrine, Cathars believed that Mary Magdalen had been the wife or concubine of Christ. They denied the doctrine of physical resurrection and held that resurrection referred purely to the soul. It was the evil god that created male and female; in the heavenly kingdom all creatures would be angels without earthly sexuality. These doctrinal differences from Catholic orthodoxy enabled Cathars to see men and women as more alike than different in the divine purpose and in their religious potential. Cathars believed that it was possible for human beings to come closer to perfection through ascetic living; those who succeeded were called perfecti; both men and women could reach that stage. In practice most people reached that stage only shortly before their death. While marriage was tolerated for the ordinary believer, it was forbidden to perfecti and perfectae. One reached that stage through the ceremony of the consolamentum, a sort of baptism by the laying on of hands. This meant that ordinary believers had a great deal of freedom in sexual matters during their lifetimes, since they were assured that after confession and receiving the consolamentum they would be perfected and saved. It is significant for the high status of women among the Cathars that, at least in theory, men and women could administer the consolamentum, although in practice few women ever did.
Catharism developed in the cities of the Languedoc, especially in Toulouse, the center of textile production and trade. Large numbers of women in the textile manufacturies became Cathars, as did male artisans and textile workers. Since the wages of female textile workers were much below those of male workers, even fully employed women could barely support themselves. To such women Catharism may have offered hope of salvation and practical communal support. The disproportionately large number of females among these heretics was noticed even by contemporaries.
A number of Languedoc noblewomen are known as leaders of Catharism and as perfectae. Phillipa, wife of the Count de Foix, led a convent of perfectae; one of the count's sisters was Esclarmonde de Foix, the "Princesse Cathare." After the death of her husband, she returned to the court of her brother, who built a house in which she, his former wife and other perfectae lived. In 1207 there was a public dispute between several bishops and representatives of Waldensians and Cathars. It is indicative both of her high status and of the limitations of her position that Esclarmonde participated in this public dispute on the side of the heretics and that the bishops reprimanded her and told her to go back to her spinning.
In the second half of the 12th century many Cathar women's convents were founded for unmarried daughters and widows of the lower nobility. These communities, led by perfectae, were under the spiritual guidance of a heretical bishop. While these Cathar women, like Catholic nuns, were active in education, spinning and weaving, they also proselytized and performed some religious ceremonies.
Constant persecution of the Cathars by the Inquisition made severe inroads in the strength of the movement. The violence of the Albigensian crusade of 1209 fell with particular brutality upon women. That year there was a massacre of heretic women and children in Beziers, and a year later, in Minerve, Cathars were given a choice of abjuring their belief or burning. One hundred forty male and female Cathars jumped into the flames. When crusaders started a reign of terror against the perfectae, the local population at times defended the heretics. In 1234 in several communities, armed women and other citizens prevented the arrest of female heretics. In 1243 women actively fought in defense of Montsegur castle, the last stronghold of the Cathars. During the siege almost all the noblewomen in the castle made a pact with the bishop to give them the consolamentum in case they were wounded and could not speak. The agreement was fulfilled when the situation in the fortress became hopeless. After the defeat, the military defenders of the fortress were allowed to retreat unharmed, but 200 male and female Cathars were burned on a great pyre, among them a number of well-known perfectae. After Montsegur the nobility largely withdrew from Catharism, and Cathar convents gradually disappeared.
By the end of the 13th century, Inquisition records no longer mention perfectae, which indicates that they lost their leadership position in the sect. In its declining phase Catharism attracted more adherents of the urban middle classes. Members of the middle class were drawn to Catharism because it allowed profit and interest, which the Church opposed. The Cathar women among this group appear in the record as among the faithful, but not as leaders. They supported the movement by raising funds, giving help to fugitives and doing missionary work. With the destruction of the Cathar convents the opportunity for women to exercise autonomous power and even political leadership disappeared. Many former perfectae joined the Beguines; others found refuge in Catholic convents. By the middle of the 14th century, Catharism had virtually disappeared. As would happen so often later in revolutionary and heretical movements, Catharism had seemed to promise women a role of spiritual and theological equality. Under the impact of persecution and of middle-class respectability this promise had given way to male dominance and patriarchal structures. The courage of the armed women defending their villages in the Languedoc against invading crusaders was only a singular outcry, throttled, and quickly forgotten.
-Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness
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