Albigenses Definition & Meaning

Origin of Albigenses

Medieval Latin Albigēnsēs pl. of Albigēnsis inhabitant of Albiga , Albi, a town of southern France where the sect was dominant

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

The Albigenses have received much sympathy, as being a kind of pre-Reformation Protestants; but it is now recognized that their tenets were an extreme form of Manichaeism.
The Order of Dominicans grew out of the little band of volunteers that had joined Dominic in his mission among the Albigenses.
On the one hand there were during the middle ages sects, like the Catharists and Albigenses, whose "opposition as a rule developed itself from dualistic or pantheistic premises (surviving effects of old Gnostic or Manichaean views)" and who "stood outside of ordinary Christendom, and while no doubt affecting many individual members within it, had no influence on church doctrine."
Others made them descendants of the Albigenses.
On the other hand, sanctity of life on the part of the minister is not necessary in order to the validity of the sacraments which he confers, although this was held to be the case by the Donatists in the 4th century, and following them by the Waldensians and Albigenses in the 12th, and by the followers of Hus and Wycliffe in the 14th.

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