Occitan Toulouse Cathar Cross Sacred Amulet Various Colours

Handmade ceramic reproduction of the Croix de Toulouse, Occitan Cross or the Cathar Cross. Threaded onto an adjustable 30" satin cord

The cross is steeped in the ancient history of the Languedoc region of France.The Cathars were one of the most important religious groups in medieval Europe.

The Cathar doctrine was based on Gnosticism. According to lore, the Cathars guarded the Holy Grail at Montségur, and smuggled it out when the castle fell in 1244. The Cathars were also known as Albigensians, after the town of Albi, which was a centre of Cathar belief.

The Catholic Church persecuted them and they were eventually hunted down and burned by the Inquisition.The last known Cathar was Guillaume Bélibaste, who was burned alive in 1321.

According to an ancient French legend, Mary Magdalene landed in a small boat around 42 CE, along with a number of early Christians, including a young, dark-skinned servant named Sarah, patron saint of the gypsies and often equated with the black Madonna statues in the churches of France. They had braved a dangerous passage from the Holy Land, without sails and oars, to spread Jesus’s teachings after his Crucifixion. Purportedly a great preacher in Palestine who even wrote her own Gospel (among the more recently discovered esoteric Gnostic texts being studied by scholars), Magdalene is said to have preached to the locals in Saintes-Maries, converting many.