Introduction

In his statement to the Inquisition court at Pamiers, Arnaud Sicre distinguished his religious beliefs and practices from that of the Cathar perfect, Bélibaste. Both considered themselves to be good Christians.

Bélibaste's reply is noted as (predictably) sarcastic and cuts straight to the point:

As a heretic and murderer, passionate in his opposition to a single Christian doctrine broadcast from Rome, Bélibaste was eventually consigned to the stake in 1321, the last Cathar perfect in Languedoc (O’Shea 2000: 246). From a generalised perspective, definitions of ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ were polarised and finally expressed in the persistent elimination of the Cathars at the hands of the Dominican Inquisition. Yet documented heretical ideas and sects continued to harass the Church, before and beyond the schism of the Reformation. These were only a few strands within the web of shifting theological amendments and clarifications of doctrine, political fluctuations between Church and State and the filtering of effective influence and communication with distance from the great centres of religious administration in medieval Europe: Rome, Byzantium and later Avignon. This dynamic web was itself set against a rich tapestry of local saints’ cults, feast days and regional customs whose variations owed something to the differential and often staggered pace of religious conversion from pagan to Christian, or from Christian to Christian.

During the conversion period, Christianity encountered a variety of different cultures and mentalities as it moved north and changed what it could with varied success. Subsequent modifications took place through further Christianisation, pagan reintroductions, localised ideological mutations and social upheavals.