The Cathars were Medieval France's original hippies. In the sunny southwest of the country, the Cathar creed embraced free love, gender equality, and tolerance. Pleasant notions, but in Europe's dark ages, where the Catholic Church was the one institution that bound people together, they were Heresy. The Cathars had to be stopped. And they were. "Kill them all. God will know his own," became the catchphrase of the Pope's soldiers as they mercilessly exterminated anyone they deemed heretic. But fire and the sword weren't enough to eradicate the Cathars. The inquisition was invented to root them out and took centuries to do it. Still - their history speaks to us. On their burnt bones the idea of a French nation was built. A modern way of life - a story of heroic faith.
