by Sean Martin
The Church during Raymond VI’s early years as count of Toulouse unfortunately deserved everything it got. The clergy were deeply unpopular: they were conspicuously indulgent, and there were churches where Mass had not been said in years. The locals used the phrase ‘I’d rather be a priest’ when asked to do something they would rather not. The bishop of Toulouse was a classic case in point: Raymond of Rabastens was a galloping financial liability. His main claim to fame seems to have been mortgaging church property in order to conduct a private war against his own vassals (done with the aid of mercenaries hired for the occasion). Raymond duly bankrupted the diocese, and was replaced with the more able Fulk of Marseilles, who had been a former Troubadour and was thought to be the only man who could handle the hornet’s nest of the Languedoc. Such was the dire state of diocesan finances that when Fulk took over he did not dare send his mules to the well for water lest they be repossessed.
The moribund state of the Church was not helped by constant interferences from the nobility. The activities of the Trencavels – rivals to Raymond VI’s family, the St Gilles – are a case in point. In 1178, they had the bishop of Albi arrested on trumped-up charges and thrown into jail, while the following year they forced an enormous sum of money out of the coffers of the monastery of St Pons-de-Thomières. In 1197, they contested the election of a new abbot in Alet, in the highlands of Languedoc. Their intermediary in the dispute, Bertrand de Saissac (several of whose family were Perfect), decided to show the Church who was boss: he dug up the body of the former abbot, propped him up in a chair and asked him who should be his successor. Bertrand got his way, a Trencavel puppet was installed and the late abbot was returned to his resting place.
In the midst of all this chaos, the Cathars were quietly, but firmly, spreading their faith. While the likes of Raymond VI and the Trencavels were either priest-baiting or conducting territorial wars against fellow nobles, the Good Christians were establishing themselves in home and hearth across the length and breadth of the Languedoc. Part of the reason for their success had to do with their respect for women, who enjoyed a higher status in the Languedoc than in most other parts of Europe. Primogeniture was non-existent, which resulted in estates being shared between sons and daughters. Although men were the largest landowners, women did at least stand a chance of being able to own property and thereby increase their status. Catharism helped women further: unlike the Catholic Church, the Cathars saw the sexes as equal, and there was nothing to stop any girl or woman becoming a Perfect. It is not surprising that women responded quickly to Catharism, given that the dualist faith actively encouraged women to participate, with the possibility of becoming Perfect and therefore semi-divine. The Catholic Church offered no such respect. In short, if you were a woman in the Languedoc of 1200, it made more sense to be a Cathar than a Catholic.
Cathar women therefore played a crucial role in the nurturing of the faith. While male Cathars travelled the countryside in pairs gaining new converts, the women established a network of Cathar houses; some of them, such as the houses at Laurac and Villemur, were exclusively for women. A number of the leading Cathar women of the early thirteenth century were also related to the nobility, either by blood or by marriage: Esclarmonde of Foix was the sister of Raymond Roger of Foix, one of the Languedoc’s leading nobles, while Blanche of Laurac, was married to Aimery, count of Laurac and Montréal.
Innocent III
The appointment of Fulk of Marseilles to the destitute bishopric of Toulouse was part of a wider plan of reform initiated by the new pope, Innocent III. Born Lotario dei Conti di Segni in 1160, Innocent studied theology in Paris and law in Bologna before taking the cloth. His rapid ascension through the Church paid its ultimate dividend when, on 22 February 1198, he was crowned pope. It was the end of a long and frequently disastrous century for the Church: 11 of the twelfth century’s 16 popes had seen out their pontificates in places other than Rome, which was barred to them by the likes of Arnold of Brescia, rioters and foreign kings. The papacy was on shaky ground, too, with the Holy Roman Emperors. Frederick Barbarossa in particular had been a thorn in Rome’s side for much of his reign, which had only come to an end when the emperor drowned crossing a river during the Third Crusade. Innocent was well aware of the troubles his predecessors had endured, and was determined to prevent history repeating itself.
The situation in the Languedoc was high on Innocent’s list from the beginning. There had been periodic attempts to tackle heresy before his accession. Aside from the delegation which responded to Raymond V’s invitation in 1177, the Third Lateran Council of 1179 had debated the issue of heresy, and decreed that force could be used to extirpate it. Two years later, Henri de Marcy besieged Lavaur, where two Cathars were known to be hiding. The town surrendered and handed over the Cathars, who were persuaded to return to the Church and became canons in Toulouse. Of greater significance was the papal bull Ad abolendam, issued by pope Lucius III in 1184. Although it focused on Italy as much as the Languedoc, it was the first direct attempt to deal directly with the problem of heresy. It denounced various sects – including the Cathars – and instructed clergy to make annual visits to parishes where heresy was suspected. However, Christendom had more pressing matters to deal with. The situation in the Latin east was deteriorating, and in 1187 it was overrun by Saladin’s forces. Jerusalem fell on 2 October of that year, and suddenly heresy seemed to be of little consequence.
With the Languedoc’s mixture of heretics, religious toleration, corrupt clergy and godless nobles, Innocent realised that action needed to be taken at once to prevent the already bad situation there from getting worse. In one letter, he described the clergy of Narbonne as ‘blind men, dumb dogs who can no longer bark… men who will do anything for money… zealous in avarice, lovers of gifts, seekers of rewards.’ There was no doubt in Innocent’s mind as to who was the biggest offender: ‘The chief cause of all these evils is the Archbishop of Narbonne, whose god is money, whose heart is in his treasury, who is concerned only with gold.’56 Innocent tried to woo Raymond VI by lifting the excommunication the count had received in 1195 from Innocent’s predecessor, Celestine III, for abusing the monastery of St Gilles. Raymond seemed little concerned, and so Innocent tried the more direct tack of writing him a number of letters, urging the count of Toulouse to do something about the Cathars. He did not mince his words. One letter rails at Raymond: ‘So think, stupid man, think!’57
Innocent was not relying solely on Raymond, however, which was just as well, as Raymond was either unable or unwilling to persecute the Cathars. In April 1198, only two months after being made pope, Innocent commissioned the Cistercians to preach in the Languedoc with the specific aim of winning the heretics back into the arms of the Church. On 25 March 1199, he issued the bull Vergentis in senium, which equated heresy with the Roman crime of treason against the emperor, echoing the imperial statute Lex quisquis of 397. The punishment for heresy was to be the confiscation of property and the disinheritance of descendants. The civil right of election and of holding civil office was also forfeited. If the heretics were clergy, they were stripped of benefices; if they were lawyers, they were forbidden to exercise office as judges. Although it was initially intended to cover Italy, specifically Viterbo, whose Cathar population was militant and aggressive in a manner similar to the Paulicians, Innocent planned to extend Vergentis to other lands as soon as circumstance would allow. The following year, circumstance did just that, and Innocent suggested in no uncertain terms to the king of Hungary that he use Vergentis against heretics in Bosnia, while in the Languedoc, papal legates arrived to begin the work of smoking out heretics and confiscating their property.
Innocent potentially had another card up his sleeve. A dispute had arisen with the Hohenstaufen leader, Markward of Annweiler, who was acting as guardian to the child emperor, Frederick II. As a last resort, Innocent wrote to the people of Sicily (the Hohenstaufen court being in Palermo), urging insurrection against Markward. He drew parallels betwee
n Markward and Saladin, and offered Crusade indulgences to anyone who would take the sword against the German. Although the plan came to nothing – Markward died in 1202 – it shows that, even at this early stage of his pontificate, Innocent was thinking along military lines when dealing with enemies. 1199 would indeed prove to be a turning point: a further Crusade against fellow Christians was theoretically possible. A precedent had been set.
An Enterprise of Peace and Faith
Innocent decided to replace his initial legates in the Languedoc – a certain John of St Paul and his companion – with three new recruits in 1203. All of the men were southerners: Arnold Amaury was no less than the Abbot of Cîteaux, while his two colleagues were both from the monastery of Fontfroide. Peter of Castelnau had been trained as a lawyer, and, like lawyers both before and after his time, had the habit of being violently disliked, so much so that he was subject to frequent death threats while on his tour of duty in the south. The third Cistercian, Brother Ralph, seems to have been the least troublesome of the three, and had at times to go into diplomatic overdrive to patch up the damage caused by Peter. They were universally loathed, and were to play a crucial role in the unfolding of events. Innocent referred to their undertaking as ‘negotium pacis et fidei’ – the enterprise of peace and faith.
The trio’s first prong of attack was to try to force the local nobility to swear oaths of allegiance to the Church, in which they would also agree to anti-Cathar legislation. Failure to do so would result in instant excommunication. Toulouse, Montpellier, Arles and Carcassonne all agreed – at least in principle – with the measures the legates were proposing. Raymond VI was not happy, however, as the anti-heretical statutes that the consuls of Toulouse had agreed to effectively diminished his rights as count. For the time being, he did what he had been doing all along when it came to persecuting the Cathars: nothing.
The trio’s second prong of attack was to invite the Cathars to debate with them, in public, on matters of doctrine. Arnold, Peter and Ralph hoped they might be capable of rousing the people as St Bernard had done at Albi, rather than facing the humiliation the saint had endured at Verfeil. The first debate was held at Carcassonne in 1204, with Raymond VI’s brother-in-law, King Peter II of Aragon, acting as the adjudicator as 13 Cathars faced 13 Catholics. The two sides defined their positions eloquently, but the debate ended inconclusively. The papal legates were unable to have the Cathars put in chains or on pyres, and left Carcassonne in a fume of frustration. It looked as though their efforts would echo St Bernard’s defeat at Verfeil after all.
After Carcassonne, things only became more difficult for the legates. No one liked them being there: the Cathars naturally regarded them as the servants of Satan, but the clergy also were uncomfortable with the presence of the three Cistercians, no doubt fearful their cosy lifestyles and riches would disappear overnight. The nobility saw them as foreign meddlers, attempting to bring the ways of Rome to a land that had absolutely no need for them. Peter of Castelnau, already angry at the response he had so far encountered, tendered his resignation in 1205, begging to be allowed to go back to Fontfroide. Innocent refused his request. Although the pope did not know it at the time, he had just signed Peter’s death warrant.
And so the trio plodded on, criss-crossing the Languedoc, haranguing nobles and disputing with the Cathars, but all to no avail – the heresy was too deeply entrenched. In Montpellier in the spring of 1206 the three Cistercians wearily concluded that they had failed. They were indeed in a land of many heresies, heresies that had defeated St Bernard and had defeated – and would probably outlive – the three legates. It was at this point that the luck of the campaign began to change. They were approached by two Spaniards, Diego de Azevedo, bishop of Osma, and his younger sub-prior, Dominic Guzman. Diego and Dominic told the Cistercians that they had seen the Perfect at first hand, and they had been struck by the Cathars’ lives of the utmost simplicity, humility and poverty. The Perfect owned nothing except the clothes they stood up in and their holy books, a sharp contrast to the Cistercians, who travelled in pomp and circumstance with a retinue of lackeys and bodyguards. The Spaniards suggested that Arnold, Peter and Ralph take on the Cathars at their own game, citing the example of the Sending of the Seventy (Luke 10.1–12). The Cistercians were impressed, and agreed to the plan.
The summer of 1206 was a busy one, seeing the men adopting the apostolic model and preaching in poverty across the Languedoc. There were debates in Servian, Béziers, Carcassonne again, Pamiers, Fanjeaux, Montréal and Verfeil. As with the first debate at Carcassonne, these were lively and protracted affairs, sometimes lasting a week or more.58 Without the usual Roman regalia to hamper them, they were getting results: 150 Cathar Believers were said to have been converted after the Montréal debate. But it was not enough. The enterprise of peace and faith had been in operation for three years, and the number of souls brought back to the Church was negligible for the amount of effort expended. By the spring of 1207, the preaching and debating seemed to have run its course, and Arnold Amaury left to chair a Cistercian conference. Peter of Castelnau was less easily dissuaded, and spent the rest of the year trying to get various Languedocian nobles to start rounding up the Cathars. Ralph followed in his wake, trying to keep Peter away from the crowds, almost all of whom detested him without reservation. In what debates remained, Fulk of Marseilles took his place. Dominic continued to preach, and even managed to found a convent for former Cathar women at Prouille.
Raymond VI again proved to be the stumbling block in the Church’s path. Peter visited the count of Toulouse at a time when he was conducting one of his wars, this latest one being against his vassals in Provence. Peter wanted Raymond to turn his attention away from conducting private wars using mercenaries – who were a common feature of armed conflict in the Languedoc – and begin actively to persecute heretics. Raymond protested that he couldn’t do without his mercenaries: they were a vital component of his power base. He refused to swear an oath of allegiance, and Peter excommunicated him on the spot. It was Raymond’s second excommunication, but it would not be his last. Peter’s final words on the subject echoed around the hall in which he and Raymond – and numerous other nobles – were gathered: ‘He who dispossesses you will be accounted virtuous; he who strikes you dead will earn a blessing.’59
Raymond moved into diplomatic gear. He agreed to begin persecuting the Cathars and, by the summer, his excommunication had been lifted. By the autumn, having done nothing, he was excommunicated again. By now, patience was fraying on all sides. Innocent wanted action against the Cathars, while Raymond wanted the Catholic Church to stop meddling in his affairs. A new meeting was arranged at Raymond’s castle at St Gilles in early 1208. Exchanges between Raymond and Peter were heated, with the count threatening physical violence against the papal legate. On Sunday, 13 January, negotiations broke down completely. Peter left for Rome at first light next morning. He was never to get there. While waiting for the ferry across the Rhône, a hooded rider galloped up to Peter and put a sword through him. The identity of the assassin remains unknown, but it mattered little: it was now war.
The Albigensian Crusade
When Innocent heard the news, he was said to have buried his face in his hands, before going off to St Peter’s to pray.60 Raymond was not forthcoming with an apology, and, although it could not be proved that he had ordered Peter’s murder, his lack of apology was seen as an admission of guilt. It was a diplomatic blunder of monumental proportions. That Peter had so many enemies in the Languedoc that the list of potential suspects could have included most of the nobility and the clergy was irrelevant.61 Innocent was convinced of Raymond’s complicity in the killing, and, on 10 March, called for a Crusade. The use of force had been in the air ever since the trouble with Markward of Annweiler, and Innocent had been considering a campaign in the south since at least the previous November. The Crusade was to be preached by Arnold Amaury and Fulk of Marseilles, who spent the better part of 1208 rallying support
from kings and nobles across Europe. Most were too busy fighting each other to go off and do the pope’s bidding, but Arnold’s and Fulk’s persistence paid off and, by the middle of the following year, a ragtag army of nobles, knights and mercenaries were on their way. Innocent had given them the full Crusade indulgence: forgiveness of all sins, cancellation of debts and the promise of booty in the shape of land confiscated from the Cathars and their sympathisers. The Albigensian Crusade – like all Crusades before it – adopted the feudal custom that all who went on it only had to serve for 40 days before being released from their military obligations. The Languedoc also had the advantage of being easier to get to than the Middle East. Crusaders flooded down the Rhône valley in their droves.
Innocent had not given up entirely on diplomacy, but the deaths of Ralph of Fontfroide and Diego of Osma within 18 months of Peter’s assassination had left the Church without two of its most valuable diplomatic assets in the south. Raymond had not given up on his own brand of diplomacy either. After failing to persuade Raymond Roger Trencavel, the 24-year-old viscount of Carcassonne, Béziers and Albi to join him in submitting to the Church – possibly as an attempt to keep the Crusaders off his lands – the count of Toulouse agreed to undergo a humiliating penitential scourging at the church of St Gilles. He was stripped naked and thrashed by a papal legate in front of two dozen bishops and a huge crowd of Toulousains, before being led into the church to swear allegiance to both the Church and the Crusade. He agreed to serve for the required 40-day period, but the demands forced on him did not stop there: he also had to renounce any claims he might have over religious institutions on his lands, and to apologise to all the clergy he had insulted, harassed and extorted money from. Seven of his castles had to be forfeited, as was the use of mercenaries, and all the Jews he employed had to be dismissed. When it came to the Cathars, he was to do as he was told: it was up to the Church, not the count of Toulouse, to decide who was a heretic and who wasn’t. If Raymond stepped out of line, he was to be judged by papal legates. It was harsh treatment, and everyone knew it. The count of Toulouse had been made an example of. It was 18 June 1209, and apocalypse was only weeks away.