The Albigensian Crusade

It is probable that the overwhelming majority of those people who engaged in the prosecution of the Albigensian crusade found little need to justify their participation to others, least of all to themselves. That the pope had called for a crusade against the Albigensians was more than adequate justification in itself and in most cases it is more likely that an excuse, rather than a justification, was sought before joining the crusade. Justification, if it concerned any, was perhaps used mostly by those who sympathised with the Albigensian Cathars and found themselves compelled, for one reason or another, to take part in their attempted eradication.

However, the extent to which the eradication of heresy was a prime motive for taking part in the crusade is difficult to elucidate as so many different motives applied at the time. These included the broader political interests of France and Spain (Aragon) but at a lower level, motives were contingent upon the position the person or group in question occupied in the social strata, the beliefs of individual participants, the enticements they were offered and the threats of punishment for non compliance.

With the news that Peter of Castelnau had been murdered - allegedly by an associate or vassal of the Cathar sympathiser Count Raymond VI of Toulouse[1] - Pope Innocent III's call for a crusade against the Cathar heretics of Languedoc was not at first greeted with much enthusiasm by those whom he hoped would be willing and eager take up arms against them. There was, from the church's point of view, ample justification for the prosecution of the crusade. Its leaders seem to have sincerely believed that unless the heretical iniquity in Languedoc was soon overcome, the whole of Christian Europe would come under its corruptive influence.[2] Indeed the Church believed that it was combating principles that could lead directly not only to the ruin of Christianity, but to the very extinction of the human race.[3]

However, the church's conviction that heresy should be eradicated did not mean, ipso facto, that the actual participants in the crusade went along with or even cared about the church's justifications or that they needed any self justification to embark upon a crusade. Any participant, if called upon to justify his participation, could simply fall back on the excuse that the pope had ordered it and he was unlikely to be challenged by anyone. Indeed, who would the participant need to justify his actions to? there being no higher authority than the pope. This state of affairs, it is easy to imagine, left the crusader almost impervious to criticism or prosecution and gave him considerable leeway when it came to plunder, pillage and the acquisition of booty.

It should be borne in mind that crusades were so recurrent in the 13th century as to be almost a way of life. In his book The Albigensian Crusades Joseph Strayer[4] makes the point that
"….Almost every year during that century [13th] a Crusade was being planned or was actually being waged…"
There were a variety of reasons why men embarked upon these crusades but for the most part there had to be some benefit, material or otherwise, to make a man leave the known relative security of his home for a term of military service in some far flung place, the outcome of which seemed uncertain to say the least.

The benefits and inducements offered by the pope in return for military service in the Albigensian crusade were virtually the same as were usually given to those who took part in a fully fledged crusade to wrest Jerusalem from the "infidel" and must have been recognised by all to have been easier to come by. A crusade in one's own country where, if the worst came to the worst, the crusader could pack up and walk home after a 40 day stint[5] must have presented itself as a golden opportunity compared with an indeterminate period away in a foreign country with only something like a 40% chance of returning home at all.

It is impossible to estimate what proportion of those who took the cross did so to gain remissions of their sins but Innocent made it so easy for the participants to fulfill their crusading vows that we can safely assume that it was sizeable. The lands of Languedoc were comparatively rich and the crusade was the most attractive ever. William of Tudela writing at or near the time tells us
"Then, once they knew that their sins would be forgiven, men took the cross in France and all over the kingdom. Never in my life have I seen such a gathering as that one they made against the heretics…"[6]

Participation in the crusade could replace any other form of penance, any loot taken had a good chance of returning home instead of being lost en route from the Holy Land and after 40 days one could return to the farm and take over from one's brother or father who could then go off and gain remission for his sins also. This was the closest the man on the land was ever likely to get to automatic entry into heaven and all for 40 days work. The eradication of heresy as a prime motive for taking the cross must have diminished somewhat in the light of these terms and conditions.

All of the foregoing reasons applying to those at the lower end of the social order applied too, to those on the next rung up the ladder - those from knightly families. Here the inducements made the venture even more worthwhile. This was the age of chivalry and the quickest and easiest place to be knighted was in the field immediately prior to a battle when many of the lengthy formalities and qualifications associated with gaining knighthood were dispensed with.[7] Thus, in this crusade more than any other, young knights could distinguish themselves in battle against opponents not known for their fighting skills[8] and aspirants stood a good chance of being knighted. If all this was not enough to induce, there was also the possibility for the knight that he may be awarded land confiscated from the heretics. Ambition and self aggrandisement as motives for taking part must have ranked high on the list of the young knight or noble. Those of the landed gentry and nobility who might be disadvantaged at home while they were away in the south were also catered for - the church, in effect, contracted to protect their estates while they were away.[9]

Innocent found it necessary to offer these rewards simply because of the lukewarm response to his call for the crusade, the import of which being that people were less than enthused by the idea of eradicating heresy. Such was Innocent's plight with regard to his inability to enthuse the nobility that he found it necessary to threaten those who refused to take up arms with excommunication and interdict.[10] From this we must assume that some of the nobility went on crusade because they were fearful of the consequences should they fail to do so. This fear was reinforced in 1215 when at the Fourth Lateran Council, which granted privileges and indulgences to those who would take the cross, vassals were virtually invited to quit their allegiance to rulers who were negligent in their attempts to eradicate heresy.
Canon 3 on Heresy stated:
"….But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to
cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled by lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith…"[11]

In the face of such a declaration from the all powerful church - and a simultaneous preaching mission which helped ensure that vassals knew what had been agreed at the Council - some of the nobility no doubt took the cross in order maintain the status quo on their estates.

During the first decade of the crusade the church appealed to, or threatened, every sector of society in its attempts to get the campaign underway and continued to do so in order to maintain its momentum once it had overcome the initial inertia of a populace who were not greatly interested in stamping out heretics on religious grounds. These appeals and threats included both direct and indirect approaches to the kings of France albeit not with a satisfactory outcome in the initial stages

When Henry the abbot of Clairvaux wrote to Louis VII proposing royal intervention in the crusade, Louis consulted with Henry II of England (the two kings had only recently agreed on a cessation of hostilities between their respective countries) and replied that his intervention would not be as productive as an implied threat of force from a mission of ecclesiastics with a military escort.[12] Louis' son Philip II (Augustus) however, recognising that the crown would profit from the destruction of the Albigensian Cathars, somewhat reluctantly became involved in the crusade and allowed 500 knights and their accompanying foot soldiers to enter the fray, but he would not go himself. He told Innocent III that he had too much on his hands to participate personally.[13] The victories gained by Philip's vassals against the Albigensians though, prepared the ground for the eventual annexation of southern France by King Louis IX.

By the time that Philip's successor, Louis VIII, was approached in 1224 a new pope was in office, Honorius III. It took some time for Louis VIII and Honorius III to strike a deal but when the loose ends were eventually tied up Louis committed a considerable and overwhelming force to the war in the south. However, the king's motives had little, if anything, to do with the eradication of heretics. He had been excommunicated and he needed to make his peace with the church.[14] With a great deal of stealth, deceit and political manoeuvering the church managed, in 1226, to offer Louis VIII too attractive a package to refuse, including as it did his right to posses the lands of Count Raymond VII,[15] of Toulouse and a substantial bonus in the form of one tenth of the ecclesiastical revenues of the French clergy for a period of five years.[16] The killing of heretics under such circumstances must have been viewed as little more than a by product of a self financing war waged to gain territory.

At the outset the Albigensian crusade was heavily politicised and it was to become more so over the next two decades. In 1209 when Raymond VI of Toulouse (who had been excommunicated) was taken back into the church, he took the cross in the crusade. This was an adroit political move which placed his lands under the protection of the church. However, a crusading army which was on its way to attack Raymond at the time refused to disband and, instead, headed for the lands of Raymond's rival and neighbour, Viscount Raymond-Roger Trencavel. Trencavel had never been accused of heresy but nevertheless, when confronted with an army on his doorstep, deemed submission to be preferable to valour and submitted totally. By this time the crusading army seems to have forgotten that their professed motive for joining up was the eradication of heresy, for they captured the Trencavel town of Beziers and slaughtered all the inhabitants - Cathar and Catholic alike.[17]

By contrast, according to William of Tudela, when Carcassone was captured by the same crusading army, all the inhabitants were allowed to leave and the invaders simply went ahead and collected the booty into a single heap and began to share out the city's livestock.[18] In this instance however, they were brought to heel by the Abbot of Citeaux who announced that the church would excommunicate and curse them if they took so much as a piece of charcoal which did not belong to them. This would seem to indicate that the motives of the bishop and the army did not coincide. The church's motive did therefore, at least on the surface, appear to be the eradication of heresy, but whether it was an eradication based on purely religious grounds as opposed to financial gain is a subject for conjecture.[19]

The political ramifications of the crusaders next move brought into play outside forces with a new set of motives barely related to heresy. The Abbot of Citeaux offered the rule of the conquered Trencavel lands to the Counts of both Nevers and St. Pol but neither would accept the offer on principle.[20] Eventually, with no other takers, it was offered to Simon de Montfort who accepted.[21] The overlord of the Trencavals was Peter II of Aragon and de Montfort, delighted at the prospect of consolidating and expanding his new territories, did not bother to consult or even contact Peter II. Worse, once established in the Trencaval lands he began to attack the lands of Peter's vassals in the Pyrenees which caused Peter to complain to the pope. Alarmed at the unexpected course the crusade was taking, Innocent III began to equivocate, calling an end to the preaching of the crusade and ordering Peter's lands to be restored.

This led to a war between Aragon and the crusade which, in turn, led to wars of conquest and re-conquest in which heretics were all but forgotten. The ensuing long term settlements of land disputes were based on primogeniture involving the contemporary practice of marriage through betrothals and landholders dying without heirs. The agreements in place by the time of the Peace of Paris in 1229 ensured that the French crown was the major beneficiary.

The religious result of the Albigensian crusade had been negligible and its effectiveness in eradicating the Cathar's is questionable. Certainly it caused the majority of Carthars living in Langeudoc to go underground or move to countries where they felt less threatened.[22] Nevertheless, given that crusading armies were present in the region for the most part of the two decades it would seem reasonable to assume that Cathars could have been easily eradicated if the religious will of the participants had been anything more than token.

Throughout the Albigensian crusade there had been little need for the participants to justify their actions. Justification weighed heavily on the popes, particularly Innocent III who was sincere in his beliefs, who would have preferred to have won the Cathars over by preaching and whose inclinations to show mercy were strong.[23] These values also applied to many of the clergy who did participate but collectively they were few in number. No doubt there were some among secular society, particularly from the outer regions of France, who felt it their moral and binding duty to combat the perceived threat of heresy and justified their participation by their own religious convictions. These were people who had heard the church's proselytising propaganda, which doubtless included a good measure of exaggeration, and made an honest decision to take part in the interests of the protection of Christendom.

The eradication of heresy does not seem to have been a prime motive for participating in the Albigensian crusade but motives per se were thick on the ground. At the top of the social strata we have seen that national politics - the prospects of power and more land for the French crown - played a major role, and from this flowed a plethora of subsidiary, although no less important, motives. These came into being as inducements to participate were offered to the knights and peasantry who formed the overwhelming majority of the "soldiery" who took part. In the context of the times when just the acquisition of an extra mule to pull the family plough could make an enormous difference to one's lifestyle, the prospect of taking booty together with a plenary indulgence for one's sins must have been an attractive proposition and one which few peasants could afford not to consider. When combined with and a moratorium on their debts it was simply too good an opportunity to pass up when payment in full was a mere forty days of half hearted military service close to home.

Bibliography

1. Primary Sources

Books:

William of Tudela and an anonymous successor, The Song of the Cathar Wars; A history of the Albigensian Crusade, tr. Shirley, J. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1996.

Electronic media:

Medieval Sourcebook: Bernard Gui: Inquisitorial Technique (c.1307-1323) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/heresy2.html

Medieval Sourcebook: Evolution of Crusader Privileges, 1095-1270: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/cde-privs.html#albi

Medieval Sourcebook: Fourth Lateran Council: Canon 3 on Heresy 1215:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/lat4-c3.html


2. Secondary Sources

Books:
Barber, R. The Knight and Chivalry, Ipswich: Boydell Press Ltd, 1974.

Hamilton, B. The Albigensian Crusade, London: Historical Association, 1974.

Strayer, J.R. The Albigensian Crusades, New York: The Dial Press, 1971.

Wakefield, W.L. Heresy ,Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France 100-1250, Berkley: University of California Press, 1974.


Electronic media

Encyclopedias on CD:

Encyclopedia Britanica, Britannica Inc [CD] 97. New York, 1997.
Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia [CD]. Grolier Electronic Publishing. Inc. Novato, California. 1995
Encarta 99 Encyclopedia [CD]. Microsoft Corporation. North Ryde, 1999
World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia [CD]. World Book Inc. San Diego, 1998



Web sites:

Alphonse: http://kids.infoplease.lycos.com/ce5/CE001587.html

Catholic Encyclopedia, Heresy: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm

Catholic Encyclopedia, Philip II (Augustus): http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12001a.htm

History Early Years: http:// kids.infoplease.lycos.com/ce5/CE001180.html

Library: Historical Documents: Joseph Mccabe: Religious Controversy: Chapter 23:
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/religious_controversy/chapter_23.html#1

Montfort, Simon de: http://kids.infoplease.lycos.com/ce5/CE035213.html

Philip II or Philip Augustus: http://lycoskids.infoplease.com/ce5/CE040629.html

Raymond VI: http://kids.infoplease.lycos.com/ce5/CE043401.html

Raymond VII: http://kids.infoplease.lycos.com/ce5/CE043402.html

The Albigensian Crusade by Elizabeth Crouch:
http://gray.music.rhodes.edu/musichtmls/MHDocs/albi.html

The Cathars by Nicole Brogan:http://www.millersv.edu/~english/homepage/duncan/medfem/cathars.html

The Ecole Glossary: http://cedar.evansville.edu/~ecoleweb/glossary/cathari.html

[1] Peter of Castelnau, a papal legate, had excommunicated Raymond in 1207 for failing to take up arms against the heretics in Languedoc. W.L. Wakefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France 100-1250, (Berkley,1974), p. 88.

[2] Ibid,. p. 68.

[3] The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I: IV. Attitude of the Church: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm.

[4]J.R. Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades, (New York, 1971) p. 45.

[5] In an effort to recruit manpower Innocent offered all the indulgences usually granted to participants in the Holy War in return for only 40 days service against the Albigensians. This was decreed at the the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 "…Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.... ".
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/lat4-c3.html. Medieval Sourcebook: Fourth Lateran Council: Canon 3 on Heresy 1215


[6] William of Tudela and an anonymous successor, The Song of the Cathar Wars; A history of the Albigensian Crusade, tr. Shirley, J. (Aldershot, 1996), p. 14.

[7] R. Barber, The Knight and Chivalry, (Ipswich, 1974) p. 41.

[8] The word Cathar was not as likely to strike fear into the hearts of men as were Saracen or Turk. In this crusade men would be fighting a known enemy and in the siege warfare which they would have expected to be engaging in, it was unlikely that they would meet with a force as well disciplined as the Mamelukes or the Anatolian Turks.

[9] http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/cde-privs.html#albi: Medieval Sourcebook Evolution of Crusader Privileges, 1095-1270: PRIVILEGES GRANTED FOR THE CRUSADE AGAINST THE HERETICS IN LANGUEDOC (FOR THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE), 1207-1208 .
Since those who fight for liberty of the church ought to be fostered by the protection of the church, we, by our apostolic authority, have decided that our beloved, who in obedience to Christ are signed or are about to be signed against the provincial heretics, from the time that they, according to the ordinance of our legates, place on their breasts the sign of the quickening cross, to fight against the heretics, shall be under the protection of the apostolic seat and of ourselves, with their persons and lands, their possessions and men, and also all of their other property; and until full proof is obtained of their return or death all the above shall remain as they were, free and undisturbed…

[10] Wakefield, Op. Cit. p. 88.

[11] http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/lat4-c3.html:Medieval Sourcebook: Fourth Lateran Council: Canon 3 on Heresy 1215.

[12] Wakefield, Op. Cit. p. 84.

[13] http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12001a.htm: The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I.

[14] http://lycoskids.infoplease.com/ce5/CE040629.html.

[15] Raymond VII was Raymond VI's son and successor.

[16] Strayer, Op. Cit. p. 129.

[17] B. Hamilton, The Albigensian Crusade, (London,1974) pp. 84-85.

[18] William of Tudela and an anonymous successor, Op. Cit. p. 26.

[19] It should be borne in mind when considering this point that the Albigensian Cathars had been less that enthusiastic about paying church tithes and if they were to be replaced by Catholics under a committed Catholic lord there would be an incremental effect upon church revenues. In all probability the Abbot wanted to keep the booty in the city until a Catholic lord was in place to ensure its even distribution among the new inhabitants.

[20] William of Tudela and an anonymous successor, Op. Cit. p. 26. "…He [the Abbot of Citeaux] called on the count of Nevers to accept this task, but the count absolutely refused to stay in that country on any terms, and so did the count of St Pol who was chosen next. They both said they had plenty of land in the kingdom of France where their fathers were born, however long their lives might be, and they did not wish to take another man's inheritance. There was no one present who would not feel himself utterly disgraced if he accepted the fief…."

[21] Simon de Montfort was the titular earl of Leicester and an extremely able commander well respected at the French Court. In the Albigensian crusade he managed to hold together his army despite an almost complete change of manpower every forty days.

[22] Hamilton, Op. Cit. p. 30.

[23] Wakefield, Op. Cit. p. 94.