The Bogomil ideology too contained sure retrograde

Like all peasant heresies of the time, the Bogomil ideology too contained sure retrograde and utopian components. To revive the early Christian commune was an unrealistic process, for social improvement had gone far forward. This and different detrimental options of the motion, nevertheless, have been compensated by the important, militant cost contained within the Bogomil instructing.

The contribution of the Bogomils to the dissemination of schooling among the many individuals and to enriching outdated Bulgarian literature was of explicit significance. The literary works of the Bogomils have been so voluminous that they created in reality a second literary stream alongside the official one in Mediaeval Bulgaria. These works have been characterised not solely by their higher rationalism, but additionally by a vivid and picturesque language. It’s to be pitied that this underground literature of the Bogomils was persecuted and mercilessly destroyed in the midst of centuries. Only some samples of it have come right down to us: The Secret Guide’, The Cathari Guide of Prayers’ and some extra. Bogomil literature marked its flowering in the course of the 11th and 12th centuries. Books of the Bulgarian Bogomils have been translated into Latin, Greek, French, Russian, Serbian, Romanian, Ethiopian and different languages.

Significance of the Bogomil motion

The affect and significance of the Bogomil motion was by far not confined to Bulgaria. In the course of the 11th century it was extraordinarily influential in Asia Minor, Bosnia, Croatia, Dalmatia and, from there, in the course of the subsequent two centuries, the concepts of the Bogomils penetrated Western Europe and have become notably influential in France and Italy, among the many Cathari. ‘The heresy of the Cathari’, an nameless chronicle from the Center Ages reads, ‘was introduced right here from the lands mendacity on the opposite aspect of the ocean, particularly from Bulgaria: from there it was disseminated in lots of nations the place it turned extraordinarily well-liked, viz. within the areas of Languedoc, Toulouse and Gascogne. That’s the reason the Albigenses have been additionally known as Bougri, from Bulgarians… At first the bishop of the Cathari was a sure Marco, who dominated over all Lombardians, Toscanians and Marcians. This similar Marco had been made bishop by Bulgaria’. The Cathari held the Bogomil preachers from Bulgaria in nice esteem and invited lots of them to be their leaders. The Grand Council of the Cathari held in Saint Felicien (Southern France) in 1167 was chaired by the Bulgarian Bogomil ^bishop’ Nikita. The Cathari translated Bogomil books en masse and used them of their companies.

In Bulgaria the event of the Bogomil motion was marked by alternating durations of merciless persecutions and of tolerance on the a part of the secular authorities. By the early 14th century the Bogomil ideology had acquired a pronounced ascetic, mystical and conciliatory character, it had misplaced its militant spirit and after Bulgaria’s fall underneath Ottoman domination (finish of the 14th century), when the Christian faith as a complete was subjected to persecution on the a part of the ruling Mohammedan faith, the Bogomils mitigated their important perspective in the direction of it and their motion progressively disappeared. Nearly concurrently, turned to ashes by the stakes of the Inquisition, the motion of the Cathari ceased to exist in Western Europe.