The influence of the Gnosticism of the Cathars (Albigensians) on the formation of courtly culture in Europe through the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine as an experience of cultural hegemony of elite culture

The article is devoted to the study of the influence of the Gnostic and dualistic ideas of the Cathars (Albigenses) on the formation of courtly culture in Europe in the 12th century, when there was an active growth of cities, the formation of a new court culture and the strengthening of the role of the educated nobility as a carrier of the secular code. During this period, the cultural role of women increased, especially in the southern French regions, where courtly poetry transformed the lady into a figure defining a symbolic vertical of values. The object of the analysis is the cultural transformation of esoteric religious meanings into secular forms of poetics, symbolism and court ritual. The subject of the study is the interpretation of courtly love as a form of sacral service, similar in structure to Gnostic initiation. The author examines in detail such aspects of the topic as the anthropology of the Cathars, the dualistic worldview, the metaphysics of love and the poetic discourse of the troubadours. Special attention is paid to poetry as a symbolic system that reproduces the structure of the Gnostic myth: the hierarchy of light and darkness, choice, suffering and rejection of the world as a path of inner ascent. Courtly culture is seen as a channel of cultural hegemony, through which esoteric knowledge is anchored in an elite norm of behavior and feeling, turning into an instrument of symbolic power. The research methodology is based on an interdisciplinary synthesis of philosophical, historical, religious, cultural, and literary analysis. Hermeneutics by Hans Jonas reconstructs the structure of the Gnostic spirit as an existential rejection, while Foucault's critique of power analyzes courtly poetics as a mechanism of normalization. The tools of the Annals school and the semiotics of Yu are used. Lotman, who considers courtly poetry as a carrier of deep meanings. The scientific novelty of the research lies in a refined analysis of the mechanisms of cultural translation of gnostic-dualistic ideas into courtly aesthetics and symbolism. The structure of courtly poetry as a form of sacred representation is analyzed in detail: suffering, distance, election, and ritual service in troubadour poetics are correlated with the Gnostic myth of the alienated soul and its return to the light. Special attention is paid to the language of love as a ritual code that integrates spiritual austerity into the court norm of behavior. The work traces how courtly culture transforms esoteric knowledge into a stable elite discipline of feeling and symbolic order. Courtliness is interpreted as a form of cultural hegemony that ensures the secular institutionalization of sacred meanings that previously belonged to religious tradition. Thus, the study demonstrates how aesthetics becomes a channel of legitimization of esoteric anthropology in the secular context of feudal society.

gnosticism, Cathars, courtly culture, Eleanor of Aquitaine, gnosis, dualism, aestheticization of the sacred, initiation, cultural hegemony, mechanism of power