Inquisitors and Heretics in Thirteenth-Century Languedoc. Edition and Translation of Toulouse Inquisition Depositions, 1273-1282

Inquisitors and Heretics in Thirteenth-Century Languedoc. Edition and Translation of Toulouse Inquisition Depositions, 1273-1282. Edited by Peter Biller, Caterina Bruschi, and Shelagh Sneddon. [Studies in the History of Christian Traditions, Vol. 147.] (Leiden: Brill. 2011. Pp. xvi, 1088. $209-00. ISBN 978-9-004-18810-5.)

Deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale is a vast collection of 258 volumes containing copies of documents from Languedoc, created in the seventeenth century under the supervision of Jean de Doat at the behest of Colbert, Louis XTVs chief minister. Colbert was primarily interested in maintaining the rights of the Crown, but, for modern historians, the great benefit has been the preservation of swathes of documents that would otherwise have been lost. The Doat copies are by no means perfect, but they are good enough to enable the publication of this fine edition of volumes 25 and 26 containing depositions made in Toulouse between 1273 and 1282, mostly before Pons of Parnac and Ranulph of Plassac. The...