(Bulgarii) anciently signified a kind of heretics, otherwise called Paterini, Cathari, and Albigeneses.

The word is formed of the French Bougres, and that from Bougria or Bulgaria, the country where they chiefly appeared. Among other errors they held that men ought to believe no scripture but the New Testament; that baptism was not necessary to infants; that husbands who conversed with their wives could not be saved; and that an oath was absolutely unlawful. They were strenuously refuted by Fr. Robert, a Dominican, surnamed the Bugger, as having formerly made profession of this heresy.

The Buggers are mentioned by Matthew Paris, in the reign of Henry III. under the name of Bugares. Circa dies autem illos invaluit haeretica pravitas corum qui vulgariter dicuntur Paterini et Bugares, de quorum erroribus malo tacere quam loqui.

Bugger, or Buggerer, came afterwards to be used for a sodomite; it being one of the imputations laid, right or wrong, on the Bulgarian heretics, that they taught, or at least practised, this abominable crime.

Bugger (Bulgarius), is also a denomination given to usurers; usury being a vice to which the same heretics are said to have been much addicted.