Guillaume Besse ( 17th century) was a French historian. Little is known of his life. He was a native of
Carcassonne
Carcassonne is a French defensive wall, fortified city in the Departments of France, department of Aude, Regions of France, region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania. It is the prefectures in France, prefecture of the department.
...
. By 1635 he was a lawyer, but there is no mention of him later than 1668.
According to Besse, in 1652 he received scrap of parchment from a prebendary of
Saint-Étienne de Toulouse. He published it eight years later under the title "Charte de Niquinta" in a three-page appendix to his ''Histoire des ducs, marquis et comtes de Narbonne''. The poorly written "charter" purports to be extracts from three Latin documents copied by Peire Polhan and Peire Izarn in 1223 or 1233. These record a
Cathar
Catharism ( ; from the , "the pure ones") was a Christian quasi- dualist and pseudo-Gnostic movement which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France, between the 12th and 14th centuries.
Denounced as a he ...
council held at
Saint-Félix-de-Caraman in 1167, a sermon given by a ''papa'' (or pope) named
Niquinta (Nicetas) at this council and the demarcation of boundaries of new Cathar dioceses in Toulouse, Carcassonne and Agen. The original parchment is lost. Although many historians have lent great weight to the "Charte de Niquinta", others have labelled it a forgery, either of Besse himself or of Peire Polhan and Peire Izarn in the 13th century.
[Mark Gregory Pegg, ''A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom'' (Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 169–70 and notes 13–14 at pp. 217–18.]
Works
*''Histoire des Comtes de Carcassonne''. Béziers: Arnaud Estradier Marchan, 1645.
*''Recueil de diverses pièces servant à l'histoire du roy Charles VI''. Paris:Antoine de Sommaville, 1660.
*''Histoire des ducs, marquis et comtes de Narbonne, autrement appellez Princes des Goths, Ducs de Septimanie, et Marquis de Gothie: Dedié à Monseigneur l'Archevesque Duc de Narbonne''. Paris:Antoine de Sommaville, 1660.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Besse, Guillaume
17th-century French historians
17th-century French lawyers
People from Carcassonne
category:Historians of Catharism