ABSTRACT
William Pelhisson was a Dominican from Toulouse who, writing probably in the mid-thirteenth century, recalled the work of the inquisitors appointed to investigate heresy in Languedoc - of whom he was one - in the early 1230s. The Catholic powers needed to undermine the political and social infrastructure which enabled Cathar Church and its ministers to continue to operate. By the mid-1240s the Cathars of Languedoc were oppressed from three sides: by the weight of royal military and bureaucratic power, by the loss of their traditional secular supporters, and by the determined and systematic prosecutions of the inquisitors. In contrast to Languedoc, the Cathar Church in Italy, although far from united, had retained its shape. Rainier Sacconi thought that in 1250 there were less than 4,000 perfected heretics in west and east, but that about 2,550 of them were in Italy. The demeanour of the inquisitors in Languedoc suggests an increasing confidence that they were winning the battle with heresy.
