The Niquinta Charter and the stories about the beginnings of the Cathar churches in Italy and the South
Excerpt from the journal of medieval heresiology
Year 2006 pp. 135-162 by DAVID ZBIRAL
One of the documents that crystallizes the controversy is the Niquinta Charter. This charter, which is said to be the transcription of a council that brought together Cathar figures in 1167, including an "antipope of the Albigensians," is one of the sources on Catharism that does not originate from the Inquisition. Its first appearance is in a 1660 work by Guillaume Besse, a History of the Dukes of Narbonne, which presents it as a copy of the original transcription made in 1222, 1232, or 1233. If authentic, this charter would strongly support the theory of an organized Cathar church, something skeptics deny.
Summary
"Rather than a 16th or 17th century forgery, the Niquinta Charter appears to be a 13th century account of beginnings. If we discard the hypothesis of a Catholic forgery from the 1220s, which clashes with the entire document, three main hypotheses remain about the nature of the document. It could be: (1) a historical report, (2) a forgery by Pierre Pollan and/or Pierre Isarn, intended to support the interests of the church of Carcassès, or (3) a legendary account of the beginnings of the dissenting churches in the South, influenced by legends about the origins of the churches of Italy, versions of which we obviously know, revised and "completed" by polemicists thanks to the De heresi catharorum and the Tractatus de hereticis. This narrative could have incorporated an authentic deed of demarcation, drawn up at a gathering of local significance."
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"The deposition of Raimond Dejean made before the Inquisition of Carcassonne in 1238 says that "up to a hundred heretics" held a "general council" (a term probably suggested to the deponent, if not purely inquisitorial) in Pieusse thirteen years earlier, around 1225, where the heretics of Razès asked for a proper bishop, since they were not certain of
to be subject to the Bishop of Toulouse, or to the Bishop of Carcassès. It was agreed that a bishop would be chosen for them from among the heretics of Carcasses and that it would be the Bishop of Toulouse, Guilhabert de Castres, who would confer the consolament and ordination on him. It was Benoît de Termes, who, at the end of this procedure, became the Bishop of Razès." The Bishop of Carcassès is not even mentioned, which suggests that the
The gathering took place in 1226, when Peter Isarn was imprisoned
(so no one has succeeded him yet).