The Last Perfect

With the renewed vigour inspired by Geoffrey d’Ablis and Bernard Gui, the Inquisition eventually caught up with nearly all of the Autier Perfect. They were arrested, interrogated and burnt during 1309—10.91 Sans Mercadier, a young weaver who had only been consoled in 1309, was not caught but committed suicide in despair. Peter Autier spent eight months in prison before being burnt on 9 April 1310 in Toulouse. Now in his late sixties, he remained defiant to the very end. As he was being tied to the stake, he asked to be allowed to preach to the crowd who had come to watch him die; Peter announced that he would convert all those present to Catharism. His request was denied,

And, with his passing, there remained only one Perfect still at large in the Languedoc.

William Belibaste was from the Corbieres who, sometime before Easter 1305, had killed a fellow shepherd. Later that year, shortly before James Autier and Prades Tavernier were arrested in Limoux, he had met the Perfect Philip d’Aylarac while the latter was travelling by night and wanted to take refuge in William’s sheepfold. The meeting was to change William’s life. He joined the Autier network, and was consoled. In 1307, he and Philip d’Aylarac were imprisoned in Carcasonne on suspicion of being heretics, but managed to escape in September of that year; they evaded their gaolers by hiding all day in a stream. Belibaste seems to have then crossed over the border into Catalonia. After the Autier movement was effectively destroyed in the arrests and burnings of 1309—10, he remained in exile, where he tended to a group of Believers who had fled from the Languedoc.

Belibaste’s ministry was an unusual one. He kept a mistress in the shape of Raymonde Piquier, but outwardly kept up the pretence of the celibacy required by the consolamen-tum. In 1319, he arranged for Raymonde to marry Peter Maury, a shepherd and Cathar Believer, in an attempt to fool people into thinking that Peter was the father of the child that Raymonde was carrying. Several days after the marriage, Raymonde and Peter were divorced and she moved back in with Belibaste. Despite his shortcomings, however, Belibaste was an inspired preacher who conscientiously guided his diminished flock as best he could. He urged his followers never to give in to despair, stressed the need to love one another and praised the good God who waited for them all in the true world, the immaterial world of light. As Stephen O’Shea notes, ‘Belibaste’s sermons were remembered for years’92 by his followers.

The group was troubled by the arrival of a newcomer, Arnold Sicre, in 1317. His credentials seemed respectable enough. He had come from Ax-les-Thermes, where his mother Sybille and his brother — Pons of Ax, one of the Autier Perfect — had been burnt by the Inquisition. He asked for instruction in the faith, but not all of Belibaste’s group were convinced he was genuine; his father was not a Cathar and had helped organise the raid on Montaillou. Nevertheless, despite these reservations, Sicre became part of the group and found work locally as a cobbler. After a year with the group, Arnold informed Belibaste that he wanted to search for his rich aunt and younger sister, who lived, so he said, somewhere in the Pallars valley, a part of Aragon that bordered on the county of Foix. He made two trips north in search of his family, each time returning with money that he said his aunt wanted Belibaste to have to fund his teaching. Finally, he announced that his sister, Raymonde, wanted to marry. Belibaste decided that she would make a fine wife for one of the group, Arnold, Peter Maury’s brother; the prospect of having a rich benefactress also appealed.

Belibaste set off with Sicre to meet the aunt and the sister sometime around the middle of March 1321. It was a sting. Once they reached Tirvia, which was within Fuxian jurisdiction, Belibaste was arrested. Arnold Sicre explained that he had done it because he wanted to reclaim his mother’s house, which had been forfeited when she had been burnt. The aunt and nubile sister had never existed: during his absences, Sicre had instead been visiting James Fournier, who was spearheading a fresh wave of Inquisitorial proceedings. Sicre’s treachery did not stop there. Once Belibaste had been put into custody, he immediately put himself into the endura, hoping to starve himself to death before he could be burnt. Sicre convinced the Perfect that he was sorry for his actions, and told Belibaste that he had devised an escape plan, which could only be carried out if Belibaste were fit. He abandoned his fast. Sicre had been lying again — there was no plan, no escape. Had Dante been a Cathar,93 one could easily imagine Sicre being placed in one of the lower circles of hell for his treachery. Sicre had his mother’s house restored to him, and continued to betray other Cathars to the Inquisition. No record of Belibaste’s trial survives, and he was burnt in the small town of Villerouge-Termenes.