Sublime

with his passing, there remained only one Perfect still at large in the Languedoc. William Bélibaste was from the Corbières who, sometime before Easter 1305, had killed a fellow shepherd.

Bernard himself visited the Languedoc in 1145, suspicious that the count of Toulouse, Alfonso-Jordan, was not doing enough to check the apparent growth of heresy in his lands.

The Languedoc in the years immediately after the fall of Montségur was subject to inquisitorial scrutiny of proto-Stalinist proportions. Heading this clampdown on the thirteenth-century equivalent of thoughtcrime were Bernard of Caux and John of St Pierre. Over 5,000 depositions survive, but this is only a fraction of what was actually taken down a