Cathars soon set up their own hierarchies of leaders in France, Italy and Germany: a direct criticism of the monolithic and powerful clerical structure created by the Gregorian Reform, for Cathar dualistic rejection of the flesh was a rejection of what could be seen as a fleshly hierarchy.45 The campaign to wipe out the Cathars soon turned into a war of conquest on behalf of the king and nobility of northern France. In its genocidal atrocity, this ‘Albigensian Crusade’ (the city of Albi was a Cathar centre, with its own Cathar bishop), ranks as one of the most discreditable episodes in
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