# Catharism · The Cult Dossier · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow

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The Cult Dossier · No. 016 · Christian-Derived
Catharism
Albigensians; the Good Men and Good Women
c.1140 – c.1330 · Languedoc (southern France), Lombardy, Catalonia
II. MEDIEVAL — HERESY, DUALISM AND THE MILLENNIUM
Fully religious — a rival church with its own bishops
### Who led it
### What it worshipped and taught
### Who was in it
### How it ended, or where it stands
### The dead
### Of note
### Its timeline
- 1143–1144 First western reports of the heresy at Cologne.
- c.1167 THE COUNCIL OF SAINT-FÉLIX-DE-CARAMAN (now Saint-Félix-Lauragais) — at which papa NICETAS, Bogomil bishop of Constantinople, is said to have presided, given the consolamentum to the assembled Cathar bishops, and demarcated new dioceses at TOULOUSE, CARCASSONNE AND AGEN. THIS FILE PREVIOUSLY STATED THE COUNCIL AS PLAIN FACT. IT SHOULD NOT HAVE. THE ENTIRE EVENT RESTS ON A SINGLE CONTESTED DOCUMENT, THE CHARTE DE NIQUINTA, which survives only as a text printed by the antiquarian GUILLAUME BESSE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, copied by him from a 1223 or 1233 manuscript THAT IS NOW LOST. That manuscript in turn claimed to be extracts made by two copyists, Peire Polhan and Peire Izarn, from three Latin documents. SOME HISTORIANS CALL THE CHARTER AN OUTRIGHT FORGERY — by Besse himself, or by the thirteenth-century copyists. PROBABLY MOST SCHOLARS ACCEPT IT AS GENUINE, and Bernard Hamilton argued specifically that it is a real document reflecting Nicetas's activity in the West. BUT THE DOUBT CANNOT BE EXPELLED: there is too little independent evidence from that date to check its statements against. One of the foundational events of organised Catharism is known from one lost copy of a lost original.
- 15 January 1208 Assassination of the legate Pierre de Castelnau.
- 1209–1229 THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE. 22 July 1209: the sack of Béziers, where the whole population, Catholic and Cathar, is massacred. CONTEMPORARY SOURCES GIVE 7,000 TO 20,000 DEAD. THE HIGHEST FIGURE COMES FROM THE PERPETRATOR: the papal legate ARNAUD-AMAURY'S OWN REPORT TO THE POPE, in which he states that no one was spared. MODERN HISTORIANS DOUBT IT — Béziers may have held no more than about 10,000 people in total, so 20,000 is arithmetically difficult; estimates of 10,000 to 15,000 are more commonly accepted. The famous line 'Kill them all, God will know his own' comes from a LATER CHRONICLER, not from an eyewitness.
- 1210 Massacre at Minerve — 140 perfects burned.
- 1211 Lavaur — around 400 burned; the lady Giraude de Laurac thrown down a well and stoned.
- 1229 Treaty of Paris ends the crusade; the Inquisition is established at Toulouse in 1233 specifically to finish the job.
- 16 MARCH 1244 FALL OF MONTSÉGUR. After a nine-month siege, those who refused to recant walked into a bonfire below the fortress. SOURCES GIVE BETWEEN 200 AND 230, most clustering around 210–220; no exact count survives. They were not all perfects — the dead included unrepentant CREDENTES, ordinary believers who chose the fire rather than abjure.
- 1321 Guillaume Bélibaste, the last known Cathar perfect, burned at Villerouge-Termenès.
### Its people
### Guillaume Bélibaste
—
The last known Cathar perfect · c.1280 – autumn 1321 · active c.1310–1321
Before the law. Condemned by the Inquisition and burned.
Where things stand. Deceased 1321. Catharism ended with him.
- c.1305 Flees to Catalonia after a killing.
- c.1310 Receives the consolamentum; becomes a perfect.
- 1315–20 Leads a Cathar refugee community in Spain.
- 1321 Lured back into France by the informer Arnaud Sicre.
- Autumn 1321 BURNED AT VILLEROUGE-TERMENÈS — the last Cathar perfect.
Checked 2026-08-24
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