A papal legate or apostolic legate is a personal representative of the Pope to foreign nations, to some other part of the Catholic Church, or representatives of the state or monarchy. He is empowered on matters of Catholic faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters.
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, papal legate to England during the reign of Henry VIII
Catharism was a Christian quasi-dualist or pseudo-Gnostic movement which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries.
Denounced as a heretical sect by the Catholic Church, its followers were attacked first by the Albigensian Crusade and later by the Medieval Inquisition, which eradicated the sect by 1350. Many thousands were slaughtered, hanged, or burnt at the stake, sometimes without regard for "age or sex."
War in heaven. Illustration by Gustave Doré
St. Paul, by Valentin de Boulogne.
The Fall of the Rebel Angels by Hieronymus Bosch
Painting by Pedro Berruguete portraying the story of a disputation between Saint Dominic and the Cathars (Albigensians), in which the books of both were thrown on a fire and Dominic's books were miraculously preserved from the flames.
