This paper proposes to illustrate the post-medieval reception of the Cathar heresy-and the development of a "neo-Cathar mythology" from the end of the nineteenth-century to the present day. After a brief historiographical introduction, it discusses-the contemporary neo-Cathar revival and divides it into two phases. During the first-phase (end of the nineteenth century - early twentieth) the Albigensian heresy was-mostly regarded as an esoteric and syncretic belief or as a founding myth of the Occitanian-identity; in the second phase it was held to be a sort of ancient and authentic-gnostic-Christian message in opposition to Roman catholicism. In the second half-of the twentieth century these two approaches merged in the commercial exploitation-of the myth through the production of novels, movies and songs related to the Cathar-epic.-
Keywords: Albigensians, Catharism, Heresy, Medievalism, Neocatharism, Historiography.-