ult rites with the political aim of
domination. We shall find this double tradition running through all the
secret society movement up to the present day.

The Dualist doctrines attributed to the Templars were not, however,
confined to this Order in Europe, but had been, as we have seen, those
professed by the Bogomils and also by the Cathari, who spread westwards
from Bulgaria and Bosnia to France. It was owing to their sojourn in
Bulgaria that the Cathari gained the popular nickname of "Bulgars" or
"Bourgres," signifying those addicted to unnatural vice. One section of
the Cathari in the South of France became known after 1180 as the
Albigenses, thus called from the town of Albi, although their
headquarters were really in Toulouse. Christians only in name, they
adhered in secret to the Gnostic and Manichean doctrines of the earlier
Cathari, which they would appear to have combined with Johannism, since,
like this Eastern sect, they claimed to possess their own Gospel of St.
John.[216]

Although not strictly a secret society, the Albigenses were divided
after the secret society system into initiates and semi-initiates. The
former, few in number, known as the _Perfecti_, led in appearance an
austere life, refraining from meat and professing abhorrence of oaths
or of lying. The mystery in which they enveloped themselves won for them
the adoring reverence of the _Credentes_, who formed the great majority
of the sect and gave themselves up to every vice, to usury, brigandage,
and perjury, and whilst describing marriage as prostitution, condoning
incest and all forms of licence.[217] The _Credentes_, who were probably
not fully initiated into the Dualist doctrines of their superiors,
looked to them for salvation through the laying-on of hands according to
the system of the Manicheans.

It was amongst the nobles of Languedoc that the Albigenses found their
principal support. This "Judaea of France," as it has been called, was
peopled by a medley of mixed races, Iberian, Gallic, Roman, and
Semitic.[218] The nobles, very different from the "ignorant and pious
chivalry of the North," had lost all respect for their traditions.
"There were few who in going back did not encounter some Saracen or
Jewish grandmother in their genealogy."[219] Moreover, many had brought
back to Europe the laxity of morals they had contracted during the
Crusades. The Comte de Comminges practised polygamy, and, according to
ecclesiastical chronicles,