sects went to western Europe, where
they finally settled, and began to spread.

As early as 1167, they held a council at St. Felix de Caraman, near
Toulouse, under the presidency of one of their leaders, Pope or
perhaps only Bishop Niketas (Niquinta) of Constantinople. Other
bishops of the sect were present: Mark, who had charge of all the
churches of Lombardy, Tuscany, and the Marches of Treviso; Robert de
Sperone, who governed a church in the north, and Sicard Cellerier,
Bishop of the Church of Albi. They appointed Bernard Raymond, Bishop
of Toulouse, Guiraud Mercier, Bishop of Carcassonne, and Raymond of
Casalis, Bishop of Val d'Aran, in the diocese of Comminges. Such an
organization certainly indicates the extraordinary development of the
heresy about the middle of the twelfth century.

About the year 1200 its progress was still more alarming. Bonacursus,
a Catharan bishop converted to Catholicism, writes about 1190:
"Behold the cities, towns and homes filled with these false
prophets."[1] Cessarius, of Heisterbach, tells us that a few years
later there were Cathari in about one thousand cities,[2] especially
in Lombardy and Languedoc.

[1] _Manifestatio haeresis Catharorum_, in Migne, P.L., vol. cciv col.
778.

[2] _Dialogi_, Antwerp, 1604, p. 289.

There were at least seven to eight hundred of "the Perfected" in
Languedoc alone; and to obtain approximately the total number of the
sect, we must multiply this number by twenty or even more.[1]

[1] This is Doellinger's estimate, _Beitraege_, vol. i, pp. 212, 213.

Of course, perfect unity did not exist among the Cathari. The
different names by which they were known clearly indicate certain
differences of doctrine among them. Some, like the Cathari of Alba
and Desenzano, taught with the Paulicians an absolute dualism,
affirming that all things created came from two principles, the one
essentially good, and the other essentially bad. Two other groups,
the Concorrezenses and the Bagolenses, like the ancient Gnostics,
held a modified form of dualism; they pretended that the evil spirit
had so marred the Creator's work, that matter had become the
instrument of evil in the world. Still they agreed with the
pronounced dualists in nearly all their doctrines and observances;
their few theoretical differences were scarcely appreciable in
practice.[1]

[1] On the Catharan doctrines, cf. Dollinger's _Beitraege_.

Still, contemporary writers called them by different n