to do this in the sinful world seen by Christian clergy, the justification was that earlier times had been virtuous or innocent ones. So the aristocratic lifestyle of stength, vanity, pride, pomp, and lust was justified in a sinful world as the pursuit of virtue and honour, and sometimes as a pursuit of childlike innocence. Symbolism was an obsession of the time. The twelve months were accepted as standing for the twelve apostles, the four seasons were the evangelists, and the whole year was Christ, a memory of the worship of Yehouah as Iao, the ancient near eastern god of the year (see the pages on Gnostics). Seven was a particularly magical symbol in Christianity. Virtues, supplications of the paternoster, gifts of the holy spirit, beatitudes, moments of the passion, sacraments, deadly sins, unholy creatures, diseases, and others no doubt, all came in sevens. The fifteenth century, profoundly pessimistic after a millennium of Christianity, a prey to continual depression, a time when books were still expensive and people illiterate, when society was violent and people had little to amuse them, had only festivals when people could enjoy themselves in culinery, literary and musical arts, leavened with dancing and colourful costumes. Colours too had a symbolic meaning. Blue and green were the colours of love, blue being faithful love, and green passionate love. By coincidence, these are the colours of the garb of the Cathar Perfects, although they were such dark shades that Catholics claimed they dressed in black, like modern