On the two hundred and one day between May 1, 1245, and August 1, 1246, more than five thousand people from Lauragais in Toulouse were questioned about the heresy of good men and pleasant women (better known as Catharism). Dominican investigators Bernard de Cox and Jean de Saint-Pierre summoned the nobles, intellectuals, butchers, monks, preachers, doctors, blacksmiths and pregnant girls - in short all men over the age of fourteen and women over twelve.

In the Monastery of St. Sernin, in front of the scribes and witnesses, they confessed whether they, or anyone else, had seen, heard, helped or sought redemption through the heretics.

This investigation of corrupt corruption was the largest single investigation, in the shortest time, of all European eras. Mark Gregory Beg examines the only surviving manuscript of these great Inquisition with unprecedented care - often in unexpected ways - to build a rich understanding of social life in southern France in the early 13th century.

Explores what the interrogations reveal about the individual and community life of those questioned and how the interviews themselves constitute the villagers' perceptions of those lives. The corruption of the angels, similar in the breadth and scope of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladori Montayo, is a major contribution in this area.

It shows how orthodox and heretical beliefs flourished side by side and, more broadly, how life was at a particular time and place. Pegg's emotional and beautifully written appeal to the medieval world will impress diverse readers within and outside academia..

I want that book.