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Cathar Kether (History)
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Mick Harper
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Not sure how much documentation (reliable, that is) exists on the legacy of the Cathars (pronounced 'catarrh', maybe cos they got up the noses of the Catholic Church).

Or even "guitar". With a) its connections to the chansons that seemed have to have been the great contribution of this region to the world and b) played most notably by that other rather mysterious bunch of survivors from the area, the Spanish gypsies.
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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The guitar is considered intrinsically Spanish, particularly Andalusian, but in fact was introduced into Spain from Persia (possible Zoroastrian link?) soon after the Moorish conquest, the court of Cordoba being conducive to cultural exchanges

In the late 8th century, Zyryab took his knowledge and mastery of music to newly conquered Spain. There he became very famous, and opened a school of music. So famous in fact, that the Spanish today consider him the creator of the Guitar.... He lived in Cordoba up to the end of his days, changing the history of music in Andalusia and Europe forever.

"Guitar" is said to be derived from earlier instruments played in ancient central Asia known as the cithara, the Spanish "guitarra" may come from the Greek kithara but more likely, in view of its provenance, to be a Persian loan word incorporated into Iberian Arabic, the Arabic word qitara applies to lute-like instruments which preceded the classical guitar.

Spanish gypsies arrived in the mid fifteenth century, Barcelona (Catalonia) was the first recorded point of entry. Interestingly, the Occitan language still exists in an area of Catalonia, in the Val d'Aran, under the name of Aranese, which is remarkably similar to Arianism. The Visigoths, whose capital was Toulouse, were Arians, their rule lasted from the fifth century to the beginning of the eighth. I'm wondering if the Albigensians/Cathars were influenced by Arianism, must look into it.
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Mick Harper
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Spanish gypsies arrived in the mid fifteenth century, Barcelona (Catalonia) was the first recorded entry.

I wish you wouldn't say these things with such juddering certainty, Hatty. The second half of the sentence is all that can be relied on. For clarity's sake, it should be made clear that "Arian" is not to be confused with "Aryan": Persians are Aryan but not Arian, Arabs are neither Aryan nor Arian, Visigoths are both Aryan and Arian.
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Jaq White



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some answers....hopefully!

As far as I know, it seems most likely that the word Cathar comes from the Greek katharos, meaning white/pure. They were also known as Albiguensians; their "capital" if you like, was Albi, in the Languedoc and Albi also means white/pure.

Take a look at this page for some insights into the Cathars (it's a good site because it always presents both sides to every argument!) and they give one explanation as to why the Cathars were associated with Cats.
Here's one view:

On one hand you get this:
"It was this essentially spiritual insistence on purity, in relation to a world totally evil and diabolical, which gave rise retrospectively to a probably false etymology of the word Cathar, which has been said to derive from a Greek word meaning 'pure'. In fact 'Cathar' comes from a German word the meaning of which has nothing to do with purity."
- Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie Montaillou, The Promised Land of Error

then...
"It seems almost certain today that 'Cathars' is more comparable to an insult and would mean 'cat worshippers' or 'catists' which is supported by the use of the adjective 'catier' by a Flemish chronicler whose name escapes me at the moment and would derive from the Low German ketter (cat); also the German translation of the word 'heresy' is die Ketzerel, same root. The heretics are, in the iconography of the moralized Bibles of the XIth century, almost always accompanied by cats, symbol of evil for all of medieval Christendom."
- Nicolas Gouzy of the Centre d'Etudes Cathares (Center of Cathar Studies)
(private E-mail communication to Dennis Stallings, May 22, 1997 - Catharism, Levitov, and the Voynich Manuscript)

More here:
http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/gnosis/cathar.html
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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We have previously had long discussions about the significance of Albi as in Alba Longa (the origins of Rome) and Albion (the original name of Britain) and so forth. Now presumably Albi in France existed under that name before the Albigensians pitched up. So did they choose that place for some reason?
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DPCrisp


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Way back on page 1, I wrote: "Atalanta and Hippomenes were turned into lions by Zeus or Cybele after having sex in one of his/her temples."
Why lions? I can't help thinking of Leon/Lyonnesse...

I noticed the other day that the bight in the south of France is the Gulf of Lion.
S'funny. Lyon is about 200 miles away up the Rhone.

It caught my eye because the bed of the gulf is fairly shallow and flat, unlike the Côte d'Azur immediately to the east. So the Gulf of Lion will have been one of the places flooded by rising sea levels within human memory.

Still can't help thinking of Lyonnesse...

And Etymonline says

Leander: youth of Abydos, lover of Hero, who swam nightly across the Hellespont to visit her, from Gk. Leiandros, lit. "lion-man," from leon "lion" + aner (gen. andros) "man."

Wilkens says the Hellespont is the English Channel... where Lyonnesse is.

Lion: c.1175, from O.Fr. lion, from L. [i]leonem [/i](nom. leo), from Gk. leon (gen. leontos), from a non-I.E. language, perhaps Semitic (cf. Heb. labi "lion," pl. lebaim; Egyptian labai, lawai "lioness"). A general Gmc. borrowing (cf. Ger. Löwe) found in most European languages, often via Germanic (cf. O.C.S. liva, Pol. lew, Czech lev, O.Ir. leon, Welsh lew).

"Compare labi, lebaim, labai, lawai"??? OK, let's... Apart from beginning with L, there is no resemblance between them and "leo/lion"!

It almost looks like leo means low, as in the flooded lowlands. That's fine for Lyonnesse... djathink lions are named for the way they stalk through the grass and generally spend most of their time on the ground?
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DPCrisp


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Further to Mick's (original?) observation that the Celtic corners of the continent

• tend to be called Land's End = Finisterre;

• have a place called Leon nearby;

I would like to propose that

• Cornwall's Leon can not be Lyonnesse because it's not inland of Land's End like the French and Spanish Leons; and Land's End would not have been the land's end when it was above water;

• Cornwall's Leon might be Caerleon, not too far away in Wales;

• it's odd that the Lands' Ends we know about have English/Romance names, not Celtic ones, whereas we don't know of any in still-Celtic Ireland and Wales;

• therefore, Land's End/Finisterre is not a Celtic name/idea (though Leon might be: I don't know what it means);

• but were more likely named by the Romans (consciously or unconsciously) at the conclusions of three separate spurs in the campaign to wrest control from the Celts.
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DPCrisp


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PS. Do the Leons more-or-less mark the edges of the ethnically-Celtic parts, where the real tough fighting started: metaphorical lions?
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Hatty
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Now presumably Albi in France existed under that name before the Albigensians pitched up. So did they choose that place for some reason?

The troubadours and Cathars may originate from north Africa, a group of people moving up Spain from Algeria into Catalonia, and Provence happened to be the first 'safe haven' they found.

The chansons de geste date from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, about a hundred years before the troubadours, in whose songs there's often an element of mockery for the heroic literature of preceding generations, and contain constant references to the Moors and Saracens; the French gestes narrated military and historical 'events' during the time of Charles Martel and Charlemagne, eventually eclipsed by the Arthurian romances in the English cycle.
The pacific phenomenon having been duly Christianised and overlain by Reconquista zeal, the tales of heroic exploits were a useful means of justifying conquest on religious grounds.
The cantefable of Aucassin et Nicolette (admittedly thirteenth-century, a late addition) is set in Provence and Tunisia.

(N.B. Re Aucassin and N... "This particular manuscript, one out of many, is now in St Petersburg National Library in Russia." Vraiment?)
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Hatty
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PS. Do the Leons more-or-less mark the edges of the ethnically-Celtic parts, where the real tough fighting started: metaphorical lions?

I'm wondering about a connection between heraldry and SW France, all those lions rampant and such. According to wiki the beginnings of heraldry were in place by the time of the Normans but was not in use until the middle of the twelfth century, with a complex structure of hereditary coats of arms.

The heyday of heraldry was during the crusades against the Saracens, presumably as a means of identification for armies and a rallying point for supporters. Rather tempting to see a link between heraldic use of the term 'crest' placed on top of a helmet, signifying a complete achievement, and the crown in the kabbala.
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Mick Harper
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I don't suppose it's relevant but most of these lions are actually leopards. "Three leopards on their chest..." da dum de dum...
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Hatty
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If you look at the so-called 'lions' featured on coats of arms, they are strikingly grotesque and fearsome, devilish even (red, forked tails, etc.), rather than kingly; not naturalistic then - Dan's metaphorical lions?
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DPCrisp


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Mick wrote:
I don't suppose it's relevant but most of these [heraldic] lions are actually leopards.


"The heraldic leopard differs from the real-life leopard (Panthera pardus). It does not have any spots and often has a mane. In heraldry, the leopard is also generally similar to a lion. The reason for this lies in the fact that in the Middle Ages leopards were thought to be a crossbreed between a lion and a panther. This was retained in heraldry.

The difference between leopards and lions passant guardant is scant, if any, and the two terms are generally interchangeable. The beasts on the Coat of arms of England are generally referred to as lions."
[Wikipedia]

That is, the story goes: a lion in a particular pose, walking to its right with its right front paw raised (passant) with its head turned to face us (guardant), is a leopard; or to put it the other way, you can only tell the difference between a leopard and a lion by its posture. And this is because the blazoners didn't actually know the difference: lions and panthers were clearly different, but leopards were thought to be crossbreeds that must, naturally, resemble their fathers, lions, most. {'Sfunny: Greek pardos in leopardos is supposed to mean male panther.}

If leopards were so ill-known and treated as almost or literally a subset of lions, why did anyone bother with them on their arms? Chroniclers were specific about what they saw on the battlefield and said Henry V, for instance, appeared under the banner of 3 leopards. Was that just heraldic shorthand or did they think of them as different animals? If the former, why does such a specific variant have a special name? If the latter, why did it have such a restricted character?

---

Come to think of it, is it that restricted? How many poses to lions appear in: rampant, passant...? Are leopards and lions about 50:50?

---

By the way, leopard = leo/lion + pard/panther. {R = N and D = TH.} The dictionary treats these as names with no further meaning, but leo we have discussed before and panter is a net or snare: "med.L panthera f. L = hunting-net, Gk panthera large net, f. as pan- + theran to hunt."

"Hunts everything" is a pretty fair description of a leopard/panther.

So, apparently, beige lions and black panthers were thought of as the pure breeds, giving rise to black-and-beige leopard crossbreeds. Cf. camelopard, giraffe, which is then not a cross between camel and leopard but between camel and black panther.

But this just reinforces that the dark spots on a light background are the result of crossbreeding: and if that's how leopards were thought of, then their spots or patches should have been an essential feature of heraldic depictions.
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Mick Harper
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This raises the intriguing possibility that heraldry (which breaks out around the same time as Green Men, Gothic cathedrals et al) is meant to be a covert signal to the cognoscenti while being paraded around, proudly but ignorantly, by the High'n'Mighty.

All those animals that are half-this and half-that are clearly the badges of high level geneticists. Let's not forget, chaps, that domestication happened once, a long time ago and nobody knows how to do it any longer.
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AJMorton



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Mick Harper wrote:
This raises the intriguing possibility that heraldry (which breaks out around the same time as Green Men, Gothic cathedrals et al)...

This is a common misconception.

The Green man can be found in fairly large numbers in ancient Roman wall art. By the time it was hijacked by the church it had taken on a different meaning and one which is explained by contemporary descriptions. Its use in churches and cathedrals also pre-dates heraldry by centuries.

And those descriptions are fairly prosaic. It apparently represented Christ when depicted in later cathedrals. Not the most obvious interpretation but there you go.

Additional info from wwwdot land:

Earliest datings of this type of design put them in the 2ndC, where they are never found in churches but on memorial monuments to rich citizens in places like Trier. These monuments were not Christian tombs, but by the 4thC they were making an appearance on these, too. There is an example of one of these in Poitiers. It was not until the 6thC that the Green Man found his way into a place of Christian worship. This was again in Trier, where Bishop Nicetius took some of these carvings from the ruin of a nearby Roman temple and built them into a new pair of pillars in his cathedral. For 500 years these carvings of the Green Man occupied a very prominent place until blocked up behind brick during restoration work in the 11thC. And during that time the motif became much more widely known and used in church decoration.


I also think Rabanus Maurus talked about them in the 8th or 9th century.
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