From an off-kilter gossip site, it was mentioned how The Inquisition would burn vegetarians at the stake because they thought it was heretical to refuse to
kill and eat animals. Can anyone confirm this statement?
Why, that’s ludicrous. ooops, sorry.
Nah. I’d ask them to provide a ctitation for that claim. I’ve never heard of anything resembling that–no edicts against vegetarians, not even any references to the diets of any heretical group who might have included vegetarianism among their tenets. I could see the latter being among the possible sources. For example, the Albigensians practiced a form of vegetarianism and the Church was pretty ruthless in suppressing them. On the other hand, the conflict between the Church and the Albigensians was the typical mish-mosh of revulsion of doctrinal issues and temporal power struggles that made up several of the late medieval heresy wars. It is far more likely that someone who happened to be abstaining from meat was executed for being in conflict over the sacraments or possession of church lands than that the church actually cared what they ate.
It is a little bit like current neo-pagans claiming that the “burning times” was some sort of assault on their beliefs (which were not created for another 300 years).
(This does not make the heresy wars legitimate actions, but the claim that the church attacked vegetarians per se is probably bogus. I would be interested in seeing any actual evidence for that claim.)
tomndebb,
love that Catholic site about the Cathars
quote: “The death penalty was, indeed, inflicted too freely on the Albigenses, but it must be remembered that the penal code of the time was considerably more rigorous than ours”
TOO FREELY? perhaps if they killed just a little less of them?
a slighlty more sympathetic view about the Cathars can be seen in http://www.languedoc-france.info/12_cathars.htm
there were stories about the Cathars and vegetarianism. e.g. after the seige of Minerve it is alleged that the catholics searched the area, and discovered two young girls. They gave them a live chicken and a knife and told them to kill the chicken. The girls refused and were them cast into the fire as it proved they were cathars as cathars were vegetarians.
During the Spanish Inquisition, people who avoided eating pork ran the risk of suspicion by the Inquisition that they were secret Jews. It’s not outside the realm of possibility to believe that the same thing may have happened earlier with vegetarians during the time of the Cathars. In both cases, the avoidance of certain food in itself isn’t heretical, but the avoidance of certain food might be a warning sign that the individual is a heretic.