CHAPTER VIII.

POPE INNOCENT'S BLOODY CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES, UNDER HIS LEGATE, THE FEROCIOUS ABBOT OF CITEAUX, AND SIMON, EARL OF MONTFORT.

§ 65.-ABOUT the close of the thirteenth century, in consequence of the increase of the heretical Waldenses or Albigenses, particularly in the south of France, the Pope's legates, Guy and Reinier, were dispatched from Rome for the purpose of extirpating these heresies, and armed with papal authority, committed to the flames a large number of them at Nevers, in 1198 and following years.* These efforts, however, were attended with so little success, that pope Innocent III., whom we have already had more than one occasion to name, found it necessary to resort to more vigorous measures. He proclaimed a CRUSADE against these unoffending and defenceless people, and dispatched an army of priests throughout all Europe, to exhort all to engage in this HOLY WAR against the enemies of his Holiness, the Pope, and of the Holy Catholic church. As these papal emissaries traversed the kingdoms of Europe, we are informed by the learned Archbishop Usher, that they had one favorite text. This was Psalm xciv., 16, "Who will rise up for me against the evil doers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?" and the application of their sermons was generally as uniform as their texts. "You see, most dear brethren, how great the wickedness of the heretics is, and how much mischief they do in the world. You see, also, how tenderly, and by how many pious methods the church labors to reclaim them. But with them they all prove ineffectual, and they fly to the secular power for their defence. Therefore, our holy mother, the church, though with great reluctance and grief, calls together against them the Christian army. If then you have any zeal for the faith; if you are touched with any concern for the glory of God; if you would reap the benefit of this great indulgence, come and receive the sign of the cross, and join yourselves to the army of the crucified Saviour."

§ 66. The reigning count of Thoulouse, the province of France where these rebels against the papal authority chiefly abounded, was Raimond VI., a man who had either too much policy or too much humanity willingly to engage in this war of extermination against his unoffending subjects. In the year 1207, Raimond was required by Peter of Castlenau, a legate of the Pope, to sign a treaty with other neighboring princes to engage in the extermination of these heretics. But the Count was by no means inclined to purchase, by the renunciation of his rights, the entrance into his

* History of Languedoc, book xxi.

Count Raimond excommunicated for refusing to butcher his subjects. Fierce letter of the Pope to him.

states of a hostile army, who were to pillage or put to death all those of his vassals whom the Romish clergy should fix upon as the victims of their cruelty. He therefore refused his consent; and Castlenau, in his wrath, excommunicated him, laid his country under an interdict, and wrote to the Pope to ratify what he had done.*

§ 67. Few things could be more grateful to pope Innocent, than what had now taken place. He appears to have sought for an opportunity to commence hostilities, being well aware that his agents were insufficient to destroy such a formidable phalanx of heresy by ordinary means. To confirm the sentence of excommunication pronounced by his legate, he wrote to Count Raimond with his own hand, on the 29th of May, 1207, and thus his letter commenced :-"If we could open your heart we should find, and would point out to you, the detestable abominations that you have committed; but as it is harder than the rock, it is in vain to strike it with the sword of salvation; we cannot penetrate it. Pestilential man! what pride has seized your heart, and what is your folly, to refuse peace with your neighbors, and to brave the divine laws by protecting the enemies of the faith? If you do not fear eternal flames, ought you not to dread the temporal chastisements which you have merited by so many crimes ?"+"

Terrified by the fulminations of the Vatican, Count Raimond saw no alternative but to sign the peace with his enemies, which he accordingly did, engaging to exterminate the heretics from his territories. Peter of Castlenau, however, very soon judged that he did not proceed in the work with adequate zeal; he therefore went to seek him, reproached him to his face with his negligence, which he termed baseness, treated him as a perjured person, as a favorer of heretics and a tyrant, and again excommunicated him. This violent scene appears to have taken place at St. Gilles, where the Count had given a meeting to the two legates. Raimond was excessively provoked, and threatened to make Castlenau pay for his insolence with his life. They parted without a reconciliation, and came to sleep, on the night of the 14th January, 1208, at a little inn on the bank of the Rhone, which river they intended to pass on the next day. One of Count Raimond's friends either followed them or accidentally met them there; and on the morning of the 15th, after mass, this gentleman entered into a dispute with Peter of Castlenau respecting heresy and its punishment. The Legate had never spared the most insulting epithets to the advocates of toleration, and the gentleman, irritated by his language not less than by the quarrel with his lord, drew his poniard, struck the Legate in his side, and killed him.‡

*Hist. of Languedoc, book xxi., chap. 28; Innocentii Epist., lib. x., ep. 69. Cited by Sismondi in his valuable history of France, to whom, and to Jones in his Lect. on Eccles. Hist., I am chiefly indebted for the facts in relation to the crusades against the Albigenses.

+ Innocentii III., lib. x., ep. 69.

Petri Vallis Cern., cap. viii., p. 563.

No faith with heretics.

Joy with which the deluded papists engage in the crusades

§ 68. The intelligence of this murder roused the Pope to the highest pitch of fury. He instantly published a bull, addressed to all the counts, barons, and knights of the four provinces of the southern part of France, in which he declared that it was the devil who had instigated the Count of Thoulouse against the Holy See. He laid under an interdict all places which should afford a refuge to the murderers of Castlenau; he demanded that Raimond of Thoulouse should be publicly anathematized in all churches, adding, that “as following the canonical sanctions of the holy fathers, we must not observe faith towards those who keep not faith towards God, or who are separated from the communion of the faithful: we discharge, by apostolical authority, all those who believe themselves bound towards this Count by any oath either of allegiance or fidelity; we permit every catholic man, saving the right of his principal lord, to pursue his person, to occupy and retain his territories, especially for the purpose of exterminating heresy."*

This first bull was speedily followed by other letters equally fulminating, addressed to all who were capable of assisting in the destruction of the Count of Thoulouse. In particular, the Pope wrote to the king of France, Philip Augustus, exhorting him to carry on in person this sacred war of extermination against heretics. "We exhort you," said his Holiness, "that you would endeavor to destroy that wicked heresy of the Albigenses, and to do this with more vigor than you would towards the Saracens themselves: persecute them with a strong hand; deprive them of their lands and possessions: banish them and put Roman Catholics in their room." The legates and the monks at the same time received powers from Rome to publish a crusade among the people, offering to those who should engage in this holy war of plunder and extermination against the Albigenses, the utmost extent of indul gence which his predecessors had ever granted to those who labored for the deliverance of the Holy Land. The people from all parts of Europe hastened to enrol themselves in this new army, actuated by superstition and their passion for wars and adventures. They were immediately placed under the protection of the Holy See, freed from the payment of the interest of their debts, and exempted from the jurisdiction of all tribunals; whilst the war which they were to carry on, almost at their own doors, and that without danger or expense, was to expiate all the vices and crimes of a whole life.

Transported with joy, these infatuated and deluded mortals received the pardons and indulgences offered them, and so much the more readily that, far from regarding the task in which they were to be engaged as painful or dangerous, they would willingly have undertaken it for the pleasure alone of doing it. War was their passion, and pity for the vanquished had never disturbed their repose. In this holy war they could, without remorse, as well as

*Petri Vallis, p. 564.

Plenary absolution for all who should engage in butchering heretics.

Terror and alarm of Raimond

without restraint from their officers, pillage all the property, mas sacre all the men, and abuse the women and children. Never before had there been so popular a crusade! Arnold Amalric, the abbot of Citeaux, distinguished himself, with his whole congregation, by his zeal in preaching up this war of extermination; and the convents of his order, which was that of the Bernardins, of which there were seven or eight hundred in France, Italy, and Germany, appropriated the crusade against the Albigenses as their special province. In the name of the Pope and of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, they promised, to all who should lose their lives in this holy expedition, plenary absolution of all sins committed from the day of their birth to that of their death.

§ 69.-Raimond was overwhelmed with terror and alarm at these vast preparations, and with his nephew Roger, count of Beziers, waited on the legate Arnold, the leader of the crusades, to avert, if possible, the storm that was impending over them. The haughty abbot received them with extreme insolence, declared that he could do nothing for them, and that if they wished to obtain any mitigation of the measures adopted against them, they must address themselves to the Pope. The count of Beziers instantly perceived that nothing was to be expected from negotiation, and that there remained no alternative but to fortify all their principal towns, and prepare valiantly for their defence. His uncle, count Raimond, overwhelmed with terror, declared himself ready to submit to anything; to be himself the executor of the violence of the papal party against his own subjects; and to make war against his family rather than draw the crusades into his states. Ambassadors from Raimond to the Pope were received with apparent indulgence. It was required of them that their master should make common cause with the crusaders; that he should assist them in exterminating the heretics; and that he should surrender to them seven of his principal castles, as a pledge of his sincerity. On these conditions the Pope not only gave count Raimond the hope of absolution, but promised him his entire favor. All this, however, was hollow and deceitful; pope Innocent was far from pardoning Raimond in his heart, for, at the moment of promising this, he wrote to the ecclesiastics who were conducting the crusade, thus: "We counsel you, with the apostle Paul, to employ guile with regard to this Count, for in this case it ought to be called prudence. We must attack separately those who are separated from unity leave for a time the count of Thoulouse, employing toward him a wise dissimulation, that the other heretics may be the more easily defeated, and that afterwards we may crush him when he shall be left alone."* Such were the means that this crafty and tyrannical Pope thought fit to employ in order to crush those who hesitated to imbrue their hands in the blood of such as he chose to brand with the name of heretics.

* Innocentii III., Epist., lib. xi., ep. 232.