Defender Coats of arms. Do Cathars still exist? The Cross of Toulouse. Crusade Leaders and their Allies. Opponents and Victims of the Crusade. Called the crusade in Military commander of the crusade in its early stages. Bernard of Clairvaux Saint Bernard: Cistercian Abbot who had tried to combat "heresy" in Toulouse and the Languedoc by preaching against it in the century before the Crusade. Titular Earlof Leicester, and lord of Montfort.
Click here for more on Simon de Montfort. Took over leadership of the Cathar Crusade after the death of his father Simon. Click here for more on Amaury de Montfort. A preacher who set up the religious order "The Dominicans " which established and ran the first papal Inquisition.
A Dominican Inquisitor who left a useful manual for identifying and punishing Cathars and other supposed "heretics". Click here for more on Bernard Gui. Eventually allowed his vassals and later still his son to join the Crusade. Click here for more on Philippe Augustus. Joined the Cathar Crusade and later led it. Click here for more on Blanche of Castile. Click here for more on Louis IX. Guy and Pierre Des Vaux-de-Cernay. A Crusading Cistercian Abbot Guy and his nephew Peter , a monk who left an invaluable record of the Crusaders actions and their beliefs.
Fulk or Folquet de Marseille: A troubadour who later became Bishop of Toulouse. Click here for more on Fulk de Marsielle. Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers: Click here for more on Jacques Fournier. Close relative and ally of the Counts of Toulouse. Recognised as the greatest Crusader in Christendom at the time, but opposed to the Crusade against his own vassals. Click here for more on Peter II: Click here for more on Raymond VI. Click here for more on Raymond VII. Relative of the Counts of Toulouse.
Click here for more on Raymond-Roger Trencavel. Click here for more on Raymond Trencavel II. Count of Foix Click here for more on Raymond Roger. Click here for more on Roger Bernard II. Click here for more on Roger IV. Vassal and ally of the Counts of Toulouse. Click here for more on Count of Comminges.
Click here for more on Esclarmonde of Foix. Click here for more on Guilhem Belibaste. Click on the following link for the Fransiscan friar Bernard Delicieux. Click on the following link for the heraldry of the Crusade leaders, and other nobles. Like Saint Dominic who followed him, he made it his business to convert the supposedly heretical Cathars of the Languedoc back to the One True Catholic Church.
His preaching, like that of St Dominic , was recognised as a comprehensive and humiliating failure, an inevitable embarrassment for a golden mouthed prince of the Church claiming to be assisted by God himself. As the Song of the Cathar Wars relates, the people of the Languedoc laughed at him and scorned him as a fool [laisse 3]. They paid no attention to him and despised everything he said [laisse 4]. When he preached they commented to each other "Ara roda l'abelha" - "That bee is buzzing around again" [laisse 46].
As with Saint Dominic , Arnaud's reaction was to arrange death and destruction of those responsible for his humiliation. The murder of one of his monks, Pierre de Castelnau, from the Abbey of Fontfroide , provided a pretext, and soon the crime was pinned on Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse , although there was no evidence against him, and no trial was ever held, despite Raymond's request for one. Pope Innocent III , after meeting with Arnaud, started preaching a formal Crusade against the people of the Languedoc, and also issued secret orders to his notary Milo to the effect that Raymond should be destroyed whatever he did.
Arnaud himself was appointed as military leader of the crusaders during the first stages of the war in This was a perfectly normal occurrence at this time, but Arnaud's love of terror and killing was perhaps above average, even for a senior churchman. God will know his own". He arrived at Minerve just in time to engineer the deaths of people whose lives would otherwise have been spared. That the Crusade was really just a war against the people of Occitania rather than a punishment for a single murder is evident from the fact that it was directed against the lands of Raymond-Roger Trencavel and not those of Raymond VI who himself joined the Crusade.
As far as is known Raymond-Roger was given no warning and no opportunity to answer any charges against him. The first phase of the formal crusade over, Arnaud tried to find a senior French noble to hold the territory, but none would accept. Finally, Arnaud, speaking on behalf of the pope, ordered Simon de Montfort to take on the impossible job. Arnaud later became Archbishop of Narbonne. In recent times some people have started to voice doubts about whether Arnaud Amaury ever spoke the words attributed to him and this has become a point of contention between historians and Catholic apologists.
For a summary of the relevant arguments and sources click on this link to "Kill Them All, God will know his own". Let God Sort 'em Out". Arnaud Amaury , other Cistercian abbots and St-Dominic. Print by Adrian Melaer, ,? Cathar Origins, History, Theology. Simon de Montfort succeeded his father as Baron de Montfort in The city was sacked and plundered in Simon did not participate in the sacking, and soon he left the Crusade, continuing to the Holy Land.
His fellow Crusaders went on to sack the city of Constantinople. At the time of the Cathar Crusade , Simon had already built a reputation. He was a rare commodity within the Catholic fold. He was not only a fearsome warrior, but also a good tactician and strategist. Further, he had distinguished himself in the Fourth Crusade by refusing to attack his fellow Christians in Byzantium. None of them was prepared to take on what appeared to be an impossible task, especially as it involved a feudal dispossession that many considered not only illegal but also a dangerous precendent.
As Simon had distinguished himself once again in battle he was offered the leadership and effectively ordered to accept it. Simon had no choice. He accepted and over the following nine years confirmed his reputation for tactical brilliance. Simon held only a small estate in France, north of the forest of Yveline. Her brother Robert de Beaumont succeeded as 4th Earl of Leicester, but after his death without children in , she inherited half of his estates and a claim to the earldom.
The estate was divided early in , and under the division the rights to the earldom were assigned to Amicia and Simon. However, King John of England took possession of the lands himself in February , and confiscated its revenues. Later, in , the lands were passed into the hands of Simon's nephew, Ranulph de Meschines, 4th Earl of Chester.
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Simon IV de Montfort claimed the earldom of Leicester, and so is often referred to as a Count in general or specifically the Earl of Leicester a French count corresponding to an English Earl. Simon became known and feared for his cruelty and for his "treachery, harshness, and bad faith. He was a man of extreme Catholic orthodoxy, committed to the Dominican Order and to the suppression of what he believed to be heresy.
The southern armies were now crushed, but Simon carried on the campaign as a war of conquest, being appointed lord over all the newly acquired territory with Raymond VI 's titles as Count of Toulouse and Duke of Narbonne Responding to rumours that Raymond VI was on his way to Toulouse in September , Simon abandoned the siege of Beaucaire , and sacked the city of Toulouse.
Raymond returned to take possession of Toulouse a year later in October and Simon again hastened to the city, this time to besiege it. After maintaining the siege for nine months Simon was killed on 25 June His head was smashed by a stone from a mangonel operated by the women of Toulouse - "donas e tozas e mulhers" noblewomen, little girls and men's wives. He was initially buried in the Cathedral of Saint-Nazaire at Carcassonne but his body was soon removed to his home in France.
In the nineteenth century the Capitouls of Toulouse commissioned a series of historical murals. One of them shows a lion representing Simon de Montfort pierced through the body by a pole surmounted by the cross of Toulouse. The symbolism is drawn from the arms of the Montfort and Toulouse. The banner reads "Montfort is dead. Long live Toulouse Montfort est mort. It is a striking image and suggests a strong identification with Count Raymond against Simon.
Click here for more about the heraldry and genealogy of Simon IV de Montfort and other Crusader nobles. Click on the following link for more on the Seal of Simon de Montfort. Click here for more about the heraldry and genealogy of Simon's brother Guy de Montfort. Click here for more about the heraldry and genealogy of Simon's son Amaury de Montfort.
The Counts of Toulouse issued charters promising their subjects protection, justice and respect for established custom a generation before Magna Carta. The statute of Pamiers, imitating this tradition, was issued at Pamiers, near Toulouse, in December by Simon de Montfort. This charter, sealed and guaranteed by half a dozen French bishops, includes more than 50 clauses, prohibiting the sale of justice, dealing with the rights of heirs and widows, and promising not to demand military service from his tenants save by grace and in return for pay.
Ten of its 11 opening clauses guarantee freedoms to the Church. Attached to it is a letter commanding publication, sealed by Simon himself. It was almost certainly known in England. In the English barons planned to depose King John and to make Simon de Montfort king in his stead. In , 50 years after Magna Carta, the younger Simon played a crucial role in the emergence of the English Parliament. This is the son of Simon de Montfort the Albigensian Crusader. On his surcoat technically his "coat of arms" you can see two separate heraldic devices.
The Cross of Toulouse, heraldic device of the Count of Toulouse. The lion of de Montfort, heraldic device of the Lord de Montfort. Seal of Simon IV de Montfort. An allegoric painting of the lamb of the Languedoc killing the lion of de Montfort , by Jean-Paul Laurens , on the ceiling of the salle des Illustres, Capitole, Toulouse. Today, the spot where Simon de Montfort met his end is marked by a plaque set into a wall of pink Toulouse brick see left. The last two lines are a quotation from the Song of the Cathar Wars , laisse , cited above: Simon was roundly hated in the Languedoc for his cruelty and ambition.
Here is a description of his death from the contemporary Song of the Cathar Wars , laisse , written in Occitan:. There was in the town a mangonel built by our carpenters And dragged with its platform from St Sernin. It was operated by noblewomen, by little girls and men's wives, And now a stone hit just where it was needed Striking Count Simon on his steel helmet Shattering his eyes, brains, and back teeth, And splintering his forehead and jaw.
Bleeding and black, the Count dropped dead on the ground. Simon de Montfort left few friends in the lands he pillaged and tried to rule. He continues to be hated to this day. The consensus is that the writer of the Song of the Cathar Wars had it about right [laisse ].
Click here to learn about the untranslatable Occitan word paratge. Amaury de Montfort accompanied his father Simon and mother Alix de Montmorency on the Crusade against the gathers. He was just a boy at the beginning of the war, but was 18 and ready to become a knight by His knighthood was notable as it marked an important transition. Making a knight had been a rough-and-ready secular ceremony, but Simon turned the ceremony into a religious one, performed during a mass at the alter, and referring to passages in the Old Testament where God requires the first born to be dedicated to him.
From now on knighthood would have a more distinctive Christian character. The following account comes from the Historia:. In the year of the Incarnation of the Word , the noble Count of Montfort and numerous of his barons and knights gathered together at Castelnaudary on the feast of the nativity of John the Baptist [24 June]. The Count was accompanied by the two venerable bishops [of Auxerre and Orleans] and some crusader knights. Our most Christian Count wished the Bishop of Orleans to appoint his son a knight of Christ and personally hand him the belt of knighthood.
The bishop for some time resisted this request but was at length vanquished by the prayers of the Count and our people, and yielded to their request. As it was summertime and Castelnaudary was too small to hold the huge crowd in attendance not least because it had previously been destroyed once or even twice the Count had a number of pavilions erected on a pleasant level place nearby.
Everyone, knights as well as clergy, gathered to hear the mass. As the Bishop stood at the alter performing the mass, the Count took Amaury, his eldest son, by his right hand, and the Countess by his left hand; they approached the alter and offered him to the Lord, requesting the Bishop to appoint him a knight in the service of Christ. The Bishops of Orleans and Auxerre, bowing before the alter, put the belt of knighthood round the youth, and with great devotion led the Veni Creator Spiritus.
Indeed a novel and unprecedented form of induction into knighthood! Who that was present could not refrain from tears? In this way, with great ceremony, Amaury became a knight. Simon died on 25th June while besieging Toulouse. During a typically brave action to retrieve a siege engine called a "cat" he was struck full on the head by a stone from a trebuchet, traditionally claimed to have been operated by the women of Toulouse. Amaury had participated in the Albigensian Crusade under his father's command.
Now he inherited the County of Toulouse, and was elected as the new leader of the Crusade, as the people of the Languedoc celebrated his father's death. Amaury could not fill his father's shoes.
Only with the help of France could he avoid utter defeat. He removed his father's body from the Cathedral at Carcassonne probably fearing what would happen to it if he left it there and took it with him to his ancestral home near Paris. In he participated in the Sixth Crusade and was taken prisoner after the defeat at Gaza. He was imprisoned in Cairo and was freed in , but died the same year in Calabria while on his way home.
According to later stories, his birth and infancy were attended by many marvels forecasting his great sanctity. In Saint Dominic entered the University of Palencia, where he remained for ten years. We do not know the date of his ordination, but he became a cannon of the Cathedral of Osma in Passing through the Midi on his way back from Denmark in he started preaching against the Cathars of the Languedoc.
He had planned, with the help of God, he said to convert Cathars to the Roman faith by preaching to them. Despite God's help his preaching proved a failure. Spurred by his lack of success he hit on the idea of using schools to teach people the Catholic faith - one of many ideas he was to copy from the Cathars. At this time the Catholic Church did not normally encourage education for the laity, and indeed actively discouraged it, especially for women.
But the Languedoc was a special case. Dominic's establishment was in effect the first Dominican nunnery. The Church also tried open debates as a way of winning converts. Debates were permitted because the Roman clergy thought that they could humiliate the opposition intellectually and so facilitate mass defections to the Roman Church.
This did not happen. Once again the the Roman Church made no progress, and if anything confirmed its role as a figure of fun and reservoir of ignorance and bigotry. It is not proper for you to speak in a debate of this sort". Such attitudes voiced in front of a liberal educated audience succeeded only in confirming the extent of the gulf between the Roman Church and the general population of the Languedoc. In any case, even with God's personal help, the Roman Church once again failed to secure mass conversions, or indeed any conversions at all among the Parfaits.
More vigorous action was called for. The great Bernard of Clairvaux St Bernard had asserted that "The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because Christ is thereby glorified". Were not heretics even worse than pagans, even more deserving of death. Dominic was a friend and companion of the famously brutal Simon de Montfort.
We find him by de Montfort's side at the siege of Lavaur in , and at the capture of La Penne d'Ajen in In the latter part of he was at Pamiers at the invitation of de Montfort. By this time he had attracted a small group of disciples. He had never forgotten his purpose, formulated eleven years before, of founding a religious order.
Dominic had several times been offered, and had refused, the office of bishop. He had bigger plans. Foulques, the Bishop of Toulouse, made him chaplain of Fanjeaux and in July, , where he established the community whose mission was the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith and the extermination of heretics. In this same year a wealthy citizen of Toulouse put a house at their disposal. In this way the first convent of the Order of Preachers was founded on 25th April A year later Foulques established them in the church of Saint Romanus. Dominic had dreamed of a world-wide Order.
In November, , a General Council The Fourth Lateran was to meet at Rome "to deliberate on the improvement of morals, the extinction of heresy, and the strengthening of the faith". Dominic was present at its deliberations hoping to win permission to establish his new Order. The council was opposed to the institution of any new religious orders, and legislated to that effect.
Dominic's petition was refused. This reversal did not stop Dominic. He simply found a way around what the Catholic Church holds to be an infallible ruling. Returning to Languedoc at the close of the Council in December, , Dominic and his followers adopted the rule of St Augustine , which, because of its generality, could be adapted to any form Dominic might wish to give it. On 22 December, , a Bull of confirmation was issued.
He became a favourite of the new pope. The following year he received the office and title of Master of the Sacred Palace , or as it is more commonly called, the Pope's Theologian , In he formulated a plan to disperse his seventeen followers over all Europe. The following year, to facilitate the spread of the order, Honorius III, addressed a Bull to all archbishops, bishops, abbots, and priors, requesting their favour on behalf of Dominic's new Order.
By another Bull later in Honorius bestowed on the order the church of Saint Sixtus in Rome, which thus became the first monastery of the Order in Rome. Shortly after taking possession of this church, Dominic was given the apparently difficult task of cleaning up the activities of Catholic nuns in Rome. As the Catholic Encyclopedia gnomically puts it " Dominic began the somewhat difficult task of restoring the pristine observance of religious discipline among the various Roman communities of women".
With the support of the pope, Dominic next started a campaign of rapid expansion of his Order, attracting large numbers of followers keen to be associated with a movement sponsored by the papacy. A foundation near the University of Paris was followed by another at the University of Bologna where the church of Santa Maria della Mascarella was placed at the disposal of the Dominicans. In Rome the basilica of Santa Sabina was handed over to them. Next a convent was established at Lyons and then a monastery in Spain. Next came a convent for women at Madrid, similar to the one at Prouille.
At the same time a foundation at Viterbo was authorised. In Lombardy large numbers of people were abandoning the Roman Catholic Church for the Cathar Church, as they had done a few years earlier in the Languedoc. Honorius III addressed letters to the abbeys and priories of San Vittorio, Sillia, Mansu, Floria, Vallombrosa, and Aquila, ordering that members be deputed to begin a preaching crusade under the leadership of Saint Dominic.
As it turned out no support was forthcoming, and despite propaganda to the contrary involving a series of wondrous miracles, Dominic's mission failed. As in the Languedoc, those who committed the crime of choosing a religion for themselves would eventually be extirpated by Dominican Inquisitors. Towards the end of Dominic returned to Rome.
Here he received more concessions for his order. In January, February, and March of three consecutive Bulls were issued commending the order to all the prelates of the Church. In at Bologna he contracted an illness and died three weeks later. His faithful Dominicans spawned the Medieval Inquisition , with all its horrors, pioneering new methods of torture and creating new crimes. Ordinances were passed which imposed new penalties for heresy.
Who's Who in the Languedoc during the Cathar Period
It was the beginning of the first modern police state in the world. The role of Dominic himself is debated. When the Catholic Church was less sensitive about the record of the Inquisition , Dominic was hailed as its founder and his role as an Inquisitor was undoubted. Berruguete painted panels on the life of Dominic Guzman which originally formed part of an altarpiece in the monastery, and this panel may have been one of these. Saint Dominic, recognisable by his mantle ornamented with stars, is seated on a throne presiding over the tribunal, surrounded by other judges, one of them bearing the standard of the Inquisition.
Below, two of Dominic's victims are tied to stakes awaiting their fate, being burned alive, having been sentenced by Saint Dominic. As the record of the Inquisition becomes more ever more out of step with modern sensibilities, there has been a tendency on the part of the Catholic Church to dissociate Dominic from his role as father of the Medieval Inquisition - sometimes pointing out that earlier Inquisitions had existed suggesting that he could not therefore be the founder of "The Inquisition " , sometimes that the Medieval Inquisition was not given formal papal sanction until after his death suggesting that "The Inquisition " did not exist in his lifetime, so he could not have been any part of it.
A third option for exculpation is employed by the Catholic Encyclopedia under the entry on Saint Dominic "If he was for a certain time identified with the operations of the Inquisition , it was only in the capacity of a theologian passing judgement upon the orthodoxy of the accused. Whatever influence he may have had with the judges of that much maligned institution was always employed on the side of mercy and forbearance, as witness the classic case of Ponce Roger [sic].
Nor does the letter show him as as being particularly merciful, forbearing or lenient - see box to the right. Dominic explicitly claims for Saint Dominic the title of First Inquisitor. The Dominicans were allowed to set up their Inquisition at Toulouse, at Albi and at Narbonne; large numbers of heretics were arrested and examined and the majority of them were burnt. Dominic is now venerated as St Dominic, and is regarded by many Christians as one of the most holy men ever to have lived. Dominic's legacy has certainly been spectacular. As well as running various Inquisitions , Dominicans monopolised medieval philosophy leading it into the barren desert of scholasticism where it languished until revived by Enlightenment thinkers, not a single significant advance having been made for centuries except, arguably, by heretical Franciscans.
Modern Dominicans consistently deny that Dominic ever exercised the office of Inquisitor, pointing out that the Papal Inquisition was formally constituted only after Dominic's death. Some see this as perhaps a little disingenouous, since Inquisitors were operating on the authority of papal legates under Innocent III well before the institution of the Inquisition reporting directly to the Pope was given a formal charter. Below is conclusive evidence that Dominic was an authorised Inquisitor even before the start of the Wars against the Cathars in For Cathars who chose not to deny their faith the penalty was death.
So too for those who recanted but then returned to their chosen faith. For confessed first-offender heretics judgements were less harsh - often in the form of penances - but with a more severe reserve judgement if the penances were not fulfilled. This letter was written by Dominic about the year and concerns a converted Cathar called Pons Roger. In virtue of the Sacrament which has been administered, we command that, three Sundays or days of major feasts, a priest march him, stripped to the waist and under continuous flogging, from the entrance to the city to the church.
Moreover, we command him to abstain at all times from meat, eggs, and cheeses, or all things which are conceived from the seed of flesh, except on Easter Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, and Christmas, when, for the rejection of his former error, we command him to eat these things. He should keep three Lents each year, fasting and abstaining from fish. Three days every week, perpetually, he should fast and abstain from fish, olive-oil, and wine, unless bodily infirmity or summer heat makes a dispensation necessary.
He should wear clothes which are religious in both their style and colour, with a small cross sewed on each side over the breast. If it is opportune, he should hear Mass daily and, on major feast days, he should go to church for Vespers. Wherever he may be, he should praise God at all hours of night and day in the following way: He should observe total chastity and live at Treveille.
He should show this letter to his chaplain every month. Moreover, we command the chaplain to supervise his life with diligent care, until the Lord Legate otherwise expresses his will on these matters. Should he refuse to observe these directives, we command that he be deemed a perjurer and a heretic excommunicated from association with the faithful.
There several notable points in this letter:. No other role fits the circumstances. Most of the penances oblige Pons Roger to live in the same manner as a Cathar Parfait. There are several theories as why Dominic should have required Pons Roger to do this, but they lie outside of the present discussion. Note also the use of the word "command". Genuine penance is by definition voluntary. Sentences of death were rarely committed to writing, but we know that Inquisitors were responsible for burning countless people to death.
This sentence has survived possibly because it was passed on someone who was now a Catholic. A relapsed and excommunicated heretic would be burned alive. Note also the use of the word "command" again, this time the command is to a third party - something an Inquisitor could do but a simple preacher could not. Dominic's canonisation in was marked by a revealing incident at Toulouse. The bishop, Raimon de Fauga, and a number of Dominican friars had just solemnly celebrated the admission of their new Saint into heaven. As they were leaving the church for a celebratory feast, news arrived that a dying woman in the city had just received the Cathar Consolamentum.
The bishop, the Dominican prior and his Dominican retinue promptly set off to deal with this crime. They found the woman at home in bed, gravely ill. The men of God entered the house where she lay dying. In her delirium she mistook the Catholic bishop for a Cathar bishop and confessed to him her wish to die a good death. At this, and without any sort of trial, the bishop had her removed from the house. Lying on her deathbed, she was carried to a nearby field and there burned alive still in her bed. Their holy mission complete the bishop, prior and friars retired to enjoy their celebratory banquet, having first given thanks "to God and the Blessed Dominic".
As both Catholics and non-Catholics have observed at different times, it was a most suitable way to mark Dominic Guzman's canonisation.
Dominc Guzman's own record is recognised in the special language of the Catholic Encyclopedia , which sometimes appears carefully crafted to carry a subtly different message to the devout reader than it does to those familiar with history:. If he abominated heresy and laboured untiringly for its extirpation it was because he loved truth and loved the souls of those among whom he laboured". From a secular point of view there was no harm at all in the Cathars, and no reason for them to be even mildly persecuted, let alone burned alive.
Yet it is not difficult to find Roman Catholic authorities who seek to justify the Church's genocide and make out that it acted for the best. This is as close as the Catholic Encyclopaedia comes to admitting fault:. His failure as a preacher is not mentioned, nor the fact that even using trickery and torture almost no Parfaits could be induced to abandon their faith. The thousands of Cathar deaths are not referred to except in the most oblique terms:. The long and arduous task was at length successful, and by the end of the fourteenth century Albigensianism, with all other forms of Catharism, was practically extinct.
This anti-human heresy, by destroying the sanctity of the family, would reduce mankind to a horde of unclean beasts Dominic's Preaching Friars Dominicans and their Inquisition were soon operating throughout Europe, introducing their Inquisitorial techniques to new lands: The following text is from a record of the deeds of the Archbishops of Trier contemporary with the events described.
In the year of our Lord began a persecution of heretics throughout the whole of Germany, and over a period of three years many were burned. The guiding genius of this persecution was Master Conrad of Marburg; Throughout various cities the Preaching Friars cooperated with him and with his aforementioned lieutenants; so great was the zeal of all that from no one, even though merely under suspicion, would any excuse or counter plea be accepted, no exception or testimony be admitted, no opportunity for defense be afforded, nor even a recess for deliberation be allowed.
Forthwith, he must confess himself guilty and have his head shaved as a sign of penance, or deny his crime and be burned. Furthermore, one who has thus been shaved must make known his associates, otherwise he again risks the penalty of death by burning. Furthermore, if anyone had once abjured this impiety and was reported to have relapsed, he was apprehended and without any reconsideration was burned. This extract is from Gesta Treverorum: There is not a hint of remorse or regret for the holocaust, and one can only assume that, if it could, the Roman Church would act in the same way again if similar circumstances arose in the future, lead perhaps by another charismatic leader like Saint Dominic.
As Dominicans have become reticent about tradional aspects of their Catholic faith, attempts have been made to minimise associations with practices such as mortification of the flesh, Inquisitions, torture, auto-da-fes, exuming and burning the dead, and persecuting Jews. Another of these traditional Christian practices was slavery.
Dominicans were major slave owners in Spanish, Portuguese and French territories. A prime slave colony on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola what is now Haiti was associated with and previously named in honour of saint Dominic. The economy of Saint-Domingue was based on slavery, and the practice there was known as the most brutal in the world. Escaped slaves there were burned at the stake. Under Article 3 of the famous Code Noir, only Catholics were permitted to own slaves. The present capital of Haiti is still named after its patron saint, Saint Dominic.
Now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Detail showing Saint Dominic presiding. Note the fire breathing dog - a portent. His noble mother wears a crown. He wears ahalo originally silver? From the Early Life of St. Commemorative Road Sign at Minerve where - Cathars were burned alive for disagreeing with Catholic theology.
It was needful, too, that women converted from heresy should be safeguarded against the evil influence of their own homes. To supply these deficiencies, Saint Dominic, with the permission of Foulques, Bishop of Toulouse, established a convent at Prouille in To this community, and afterwards to that of Saint Sixtus, at Rome, he gave the rule and constitutions which have ever since guided the nuns of the Second Order of Saint Dominic.
A recurring miracle in Catholic Tradition is one in which it proves impossible to burn holy scripture, while heretical works burn like any other books. It is essentially the same miracle as that applied by the medieval Church to humans in certain forms of Trial By Fire. According to some sources, this miracle occurred at an early Church Council, and enabled the council to establish the correct books to include in the New Testament.
A similar miracle was attributed to Dominic at Fanjeaux , where his writings were immune from the flames, and it seems that this miracle is still credited. The Catholic Encyclopedia under the entry at Saint Dominic refers to "The failure of the fire at Fanjeaux to consume the dissertation he had employed against the heretics, and which was thrice thrown into the flames".
See painting on the left. Dominic wears a halo technically an auriole. An heretical book burns while while the holy one miraculously levitates above the flames. Voltaire noted how unfortunate it was that this sort of miracle no longer seems to be available to distinguish holy writings from any other.
St Dominic prays in the traditional manner with St Francis behind him. Saint Dominic with a halo , Arnaud Amaury, and other Cistercian abbots crush helpless Cathars underfoot - a sanitised version of the persecution of the Cathars. Saint Dominic was a proponent of the scourge or "discipline" to mortify the flesh. Here he is flagellating himself with iron chains. Dominic, by Alonso Florin, The Singing Nun committed suicide in Dominique, nique, nique s'en allait tout simplement Routier pauvre et chantant, En tous chemins, en tous lieux, Il ne parle que du bon Dieu Il ne parle que du bon Dieu.
Dominic, nique, nique, just goes travelling, Poor traveller, singing, On every road, in every place He just talks about the good God He just talks about the good God. One day a heretic took him through the thorns But our Father, Dominic, happily converted him. Ni chameau, ni diligence il parcout l'Europe a pied Scandinavie ou Provence dans la sainte pauvrete.
Without a horse or cart he crossed Europe on foot From Scandinavia to Provence in holy poverty. Enflamma de toute ecole filles et garcons pleins d'ardeur Et pour semer la Parole inventa les Freres-Precheurs. To inflame girls and boys from every school with ardour And to spread the word, he invented the Friar Preachers [ Dominicans ]. Chez Dominique et ses freres le pain s'en vint a manquer Et deux anges se presenterent portant de grands pains dores. Dominique vit en reve les precheurs du monde entier Sous le manteau de la Vierge en grand nombre rassembles.
Dominique, mon bon Pere, garde-nous simples et gais Pour annoncer a nos freres la Vie et la Verite. Dominic, my good Father, keep us simple and happy To announce to our brothers the Life and the Truth. Bernard had been dead for half a century by the start of the Cathar Crusade - but he was an important figure in the Catholic Church when the Cathar "heresy" in the Languedoc first attracted attention.
His influence was felt in many ways during the Crusade. Bernard was born at Fontaines, near Dijon, in France. His father, a knight, died on crusade. His mother died while Bernard was still a child. One of these daughter monasteries, Clairvaux, was founded in , in a valley of a tributary of the river Aube. Bernard, a recent initiate, was appointed abbot. Bernard became the primary builder of the Cistercian monastic order.
In he was invited to the synod of Troyes, where he was instrumental in obtaining the recognition of the new order of Knights Templar, the rules of which he is said to have drawn up. The Templars were essentially fighting Cistercian monks. Saint Bernard with the halo accepting a new recruit into the Cistercian Order, while Cistercian nuns also accept a new recruit. His was the main voice of conservatism during the 12th century Renaissance. Bernard was the prosecutor at Peter Abelard's trial for heresy. Bernard had been hostile to Peter Abelard and other scholars at the University of Paris, the center of the new learning based on Aristotle.
Abelard was one of the greatest - arguably the greatest - scholastic philosopher of the Middle Ages. Bernard, not an intellectual himself, found it objectionalble that people should learn "merely in order that they might know". For Bernard, education served a single purpose: The trial was not determined by the strength of the cases put forward by the prosecution and the defence. When Abelard lost he appealed to Rome where Bernard's word was enough to confirm his condemnation. Abelard died soon afterwards. Towards the middle of the twelfth century the preaching of a priest called Henry of Lausanne was drawing attention to what he saw as flaws in Roman Catholic theology and practices.
In June , at the invitation of Cardinal Alberic of Ostia, Bernard would travel to the territories of the Count of Toulouse to combat heresy. The threat was not at this time perceived as Catharism , but the teachings of Henry who had come to Occitania having been, as Bernard said, "forced to flee from all parts of France". Here is a translation of an extract from a letter from St Bernard to Alphonse Jordan, Count of Toulouse , written in before he set off to follow Henry to the Languedoc.
It gives an idea of how popular Henry's taching had been. The Churches are without congregations, congregations are without priests, priests are without proper reverence, and, finally, Christians are without Christ. Bernards's secretary, Geoffrey of Auxerre, writing in the same year repeats Bernard's comments and goes on: The life of Christ was barred to the children of Christians so long as the grace of baptism was denied to them.
Prayers and offerings for the dead were ridiculed as were the invocation of saints, pilgrimages by the faithful, the building of temples, holidays on holy days, the anointing with the chrism; and in a word, all the institutions of the [Catholic] Church were scorned. With the invective removed it sounds as though the Reformation has arrived in the Languedoc some three centuries before Martin Luther introduced it to Germany. After his visit, Bernard's main impression seems to have been the shameless corruption in his own Church.
The people of the Languedoc had abandoned the Roman Catholic Church en mass for unnamed heresies: As regards his life and conduct, he cheats no one, pushes ahead of no one, does violence to no one. Moreover, his cheeks are pale with fasting; he does not eat the bread of idleness; he labours with his hands and thus makes his living Women are leaving their husbands, men are putting aside their wives, and they all flock to those heretics!
Clerics and priests, the youthful and the adult among them, are leaving their congregations and churches and are often found in the company of weavers of both sexes. Although he does not mention the word Cathar, there are several indications here that Bernard is referring to Cathars: The term "weaver" is frequently used as a synonym for Cathar Parfait , since this was their most favoured itinerant trade.
Bernard may have had some sympathy for the Cathars. He never said so explicitly, but he did share some of their views. The world had no meaning for him save as a place of banishment and trial, in which men are but "strangers and pilgrims" Serm. The words could have been taken from a Cathar instruction manual. Despite any sympathy he might have had, he was happy enough to see those whom he saw as his enemies destroyed. Speaking of heretics, he held that "it would without doubt be better that they should be coerced by the sword than that they should be allowed to draw away many other persons into their error.
Killing god's enemies was not merely permitted, but glorious. He asserted in a letter to the Templars "The Christian who slays the unbeliever in the Holy War is sure of his reward, the more sure if he himself is slain. The Christian glories in the death of the pagan, because Christ is thereby glorified".
For him all infidels were creatures of Satan. After being asked about how heretics could bear the agony of the fire not only with patience but even with joy, Bernard answered the question in a sermon where he ascribed the steadfastness of heretical "dogs" in facing death to the power of the devil. Bernard played the leading role in the development of the cult of the Virgin Mary - which many historians have seen as an attempt to counter the prominent role of women in new movements - notably those of the troubadours and the Cathars.
Bernard preached the Second Crusade. His eloquence was extraordinarily successful. It was said that when Bernard preached, women went in fear. Mothers hid their sons from him, wives their husbands, and companions their friends. Bernard proudly informed the Pope of his success in preaching a crusade: Villages and towns are now deserted. You will scarcely find one man for every seven women. Everywhere you will see widows whose husbands are still alive". His patter was reminiscent of that of a high-pressure salesman selling to credulous punters: But to those of you who are merchants, men quick to seek a bargain, let me point out the advantages of this great opportunity.
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Take up the sign of the cross and you will find indulgence for all sins that you humbly confess. The cost is small, the reward is great. Actually the cost was death. Most of those women were soon to become real widows for the crusader army was chopped to pieces in Anatolia before getting anywhere near to the Holy Land.
The disastrous outcome of the crusade was a blow to Bernard, who found it difficult to understand why God would let his own army down like this. Perhaps the best solution was that the outcome had been a great success after all, because it had transferred so many Christian warriors from God's earthly army to his heavenly one. Not everyone was convinced. The disaster was so severe that Christians throughout Europe started considering the ultimate blasphemy - that after all God might be on the side of the Moslems.
On receiving the news of the catastrophe, an effort was made to organise another crusade. Bernard attended a meeting at Chartres in convened for this purpose. He was elected to lead the new crusade, but Pope Eugene III failed to endorse him or his project, and it came to nothing. Bernard was discredited and looked like a spent force, but his influence was greater than it appeared, and Cistercians in his image would promote further Crusades.
The Crusade against the Cathars of the Languedoc was precipitated by the murder of a Cistercian legate, preached by Cistercian orators, initially lead by a Cistercian abbot, supported by Cistercian monks, and even documented by Cistercian chroniclers. Bernard was canonised in and declared a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church in Bernard preaching a Crusade.
Bernard receiving milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary at Speyer Cathedral in Bernhard de Clairvaux, Lactatio. Virgin de la Leche with Christ Child and St. Bernard Clairvaux detail , By an unknown artist from Peru, Peyton Wright Gallery, Santa Fe. Cistercian nuns also accept a new recruit by the laying on of hands and touching the head with a testament. Fulk came from a Genoese merchant family in Marseille. He was also a wealthy citizen with some renoun. A contemporary John of Garlande later described him as "renowned on account of his spouse, his progeny, and his home.
His love songs were lauded by Dante. There are 14 surviving cansos, one tenson, a lament, an invective, three crusading songs and one religious song although its authorship is disputed. Like other troubadours , he was credited by biographies of the Troubadours with having conducted love affairs with noblewomen about whom he sang and with causing William VIII of Montpellier to divorce his wife, Eudocia Comnena. Folquet's life changed around when he renounced his former ways and abandoned his family for the Catholic Church.
He placed his wife and two sons in monastic institutions as well. He soon rose in prominence as a Cistercian and was elected abbot of Thoronet. A few years later Papal legates - fellow Cistercians - deposed the Bishop of Toulouse , Raymond Ramon de Rabastens, and were probably instrumental in arranging Folquet's nomination for the position in As Bishop of Toulouse , Folquet now referred to as Fulk, sometimes Fulk of Toulouse Folquet de Tolosa, Foulques de Toulouse took an active role in combating Catharism, the favoured religion of the area.
Throughout his Episcopal career he sought to encourage Catholic religious enthusiasm and suppress other forms of Christianity primarily Cathar and Waldensian. In he created what would later become the convent of Prouille near to Fanjeaux to offer women a religious community that would rival similar existing nearby Cathar institutions. When a preaching mission led by his fellow Cistercians failed to make any impression other than attracting popular derision, he participated in a preaching mission led by Bishop Diego of Osma.
They soon developed into the Dominican Order and Prouille became a Dominican convent. Because of his abrasive style, Bishop Fulk had tumultuous relations with his diocese, exacerbated by his support of the Cathar Crusade , widely perceived then as now as a war of aggression against Toulouse and the whole region - then independent but annexed to France when the aggression proved successful.
Soon afterwards he instructed all clerics to leave the city of Toulouse. He was present at the siege of Lavaur in April-May , which ended in a massacre; he then travelled north to France, where he preached the Albigensian Crusade alongside a fellow Cistercian Guy of les Vaux-de-Cernay. In July Folk issued a diocesan letter instituting Dominic Guzman 's brotherhood of preachers which became the Domincan Order.
Foulques' attempted settlement led to further violence. He tried to relinquish his position but his requests to the pope were declined. In October , when Simon de Montfort was besieging Toulouse , he sent a group of sympathisers to Paris to plead for the help of the French king, Philippe Augustus. This group included Fulk as well as Simon's wife, the countess Alix de Montmorency.
They returned in May , bringing a party of new Crusaders including Amaury de Craon. Fulk spent much of the following decade outside his diocese, assisting the crusading army and the Church's attempts to subdue the region. He was at the Council of Sens in After the Peace of Paris ended the Cathar Crusade in , Fulk returned to Toulouse and began to construct further institutions - in addition to the Dominican Inquisition - designed to control the region and extirpate the Cathars. He helped to create the University of Toulouse and also administered an Episcopal Inquisition.
He died in and was buried, beside the tomb of William VII of Montpellier, at the Cistercian abbey of Grandselves, near Toulouse , where his sons, Ildefonsus and Petrus had been abbots.
Who's Who In The Cathar War
More on Folquet de Marseille the Troubadour. Texts of Folquet's poems in Occitan. Though pressured by Innocent III to take an active role in the Crusade against the Cathars, Philip repeatedly declined, though he did encourage his vassals to join the crusade. After a twelve years struggle with the Plantagenet dynasty, Philip broke up the great Angevin Empire and defeated a coalition of his rivals German, Flemish and English at the Battle of Bouvines in The Cathars were a religious group who appeared in Europe in the eleventh century, their origins something of a mystery though there is reason to believe their ideas came from Persia or the Byzantine Empire, by way of the Balkans and Northern Italy.
Records from the Roman Catholic Church mention them under various names and in various places. Catholic theologians debated with themselves for centuries whether Cathars were Christian heretics or whether they were not Christians at all. The question is apparently still open. Roman Catholics still refer to Cathar belief as "the Great Heresy" though the official Catholic position is that Catharism is not Christian at all. As Dualists , Cathars believed in two principles, a good god and his evil adversary much like God and Satan of mainstream Christianity.
The good principle had created everything immaterial good, permanent, immutable while the bad principle had created everything material bad, temporary, perishable. Cathars called themselves simply Christians ; their neighbours distinguished them as " Good Christians ". The Catholic Church called them Albigenses , or less frequently. Cathars maintained a Church hierarchy and practiced a range of ceremonies , but rejected any idea of priesthood or the use of church buildings. They divided into ordinary believers who led ordinary medieval lives and an inner Elect of Parfaits men and Parfaites women who led extremely ascetic lives yet still worked for their living - generally in itinerant manual trades like weaving.
Cathars believed in reincarnation and refused to eat meat or other animal products. They were strict about biblical injunctions - notably those about living in poverty, not telling lies, not killing and not swearing oaths. Basic Cathar Tenets led to some surprising logical implications. For example they largely regarded men and women as equals , and had no doctrinal objection to contraception , euthanasia or suicide. In some respects the Cathar and Catholic Churches were polar opposites. For example the Cathar Church taught that all non-procreative sex was better than any procreative sex.
The Catholic Church taught - as it still teaches - exactly the opposite. Both positions produced interesting results. Following their tenet, Catholics concluded that masturbation was a far greater sin than rape as mediaeval penitentials confirm. Following their principles, Cathars could deduce that sexual intercourse between man and wife was more culpable than homosexual sex.
Catholic propaganda on this supposed Cathar proclivity gave us the word bugger , from Bougre , one of the many names for medieval Gnostic Dualists. In the Languedoc, known at the time for its high culture, tolerance and liberalism, the Cathar religion took root and gained more and more adherents during the twelfth century. By the early thirteenth century Catharism was probably the majority religion in the area.
Many Catholic texts refer to the danger of it replacing Catholisism completely. Catharism was supported or at least tolerated by the nobility as well as the common people. This was yet another annoyance to the Roman Church which considered the feudal system to be divinely ordained as the Natural Order Cathars disliked the feudal system because it depended on oath taking. In open debates with leading Catholic theologians Cathars seem to have come out on top. This was embarrassing for the Roman Church, not least because they had fielded the best professional preachers in Europe against what they saw as a collection of uneducated weavers and other manual workers.
A number of Catholic priests had become Cathar adherents Catharism was a religion that seems to have appealed especially to the theologically literate. Worse, the Catholic Church was being held up to public ridicule some of the richest men in Christendom, bejewelled, vested in finery, and preaching poverty, provided an irresistible target even to contemporary Catholics in the Languedoc.
Worst yet, Cathars declined to pay tithes to the Catholic Church. As one senior Churchman observed of the Cathar movement "if it had not been cut back by the swords of the faithful I think it would have corrupted the whole of Europe. On the Cathar side it manifested itself in ridiculing Catholic doctrine and practices, and characterising the Catholic Church as the "Church of Wolves". Catholics accused Cathars of heresy or apostasy and said they belonged to the "Synagogue of Satan". The Catholic side created some striking propaganda.
When the propaganda proved unsuccessful, there was only one option left - a crusade - the Albigensian Crusade. God will know his own ". The second was Simon de Montfort now remembered as the father of another Simon de Montfort, a prominent figure in English parliamentary history. The war against the Cathars of the Languedoc continued for two generations. In the later phases the Kings of France would take over as leaders of the crusade, which thus became a Royal Crusade.
Among the many victims who lost their lives were two kings: From , a war of terror was waged against the indigenous population of the Languedoc and their rulers: During this period an estimated half-million Languedoc men, women and children were massacred, Catholics as well as Cathars.
The Counts of Toulouse and their allies were dispossessed and humiliated, and their lands later annexed to France. Within a few years the first papal Inquisition , manned by the Dominicans , was established explicitly to wipe out the last vestiges of resistance. Their characteristic concept of " paratge ", a whole sophisticated world-view, was almost destroyed, leaving us a pale imitation in our idea of chivalry.
Lay learning was discouraged and the reading of the bible became a capital crime. At the end of the extermination of the Cathars, the Roman Church had proof that a sustained campaign of genocide can work.
Chains of the Heretic
It also had the precedent of an internal Crusade within Christendom, and the machinery of the first modern police state that could be reconstructed for the Spanish Inquisition, and again for later Inquisitions and genocides. Chateaubriand referred to the crusade as "this abominable episode of our history". Voltaire observed that "there was never anything as unjust as the war against the Albigensians". Catharism is often said to have been completely eradicated soon after the end of the fourteenth century.
Today, there are still many echoes of influences from the Cathar period, from International geopolitics down to p opular culture. There are even Cathars alive today, or at least people claiming to be modern Cathars. There is also an increasing community of historians and other academics engaged in serious h istorical and other academic Cathar studies.
Interestingly, to date, the deeper scholars have dug, the more they have vindicated Cathar claims to represent a survival of an important Gnostic strand of the Earliest Christian Church. Arguably just as interesting, Protestant ideas share much in common with Cathar ideas, and there is some reason to believe that early reformers were aware of the Cathar tradition.
Even today some Protestant Churches claim a Cathar heritage. Tantalisingly, weavers were commonly accused of spreading Protestant ideas in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, just as their antecedents in the same trade had been accused of spreading Cathar ideas in Medieval times. It can even be argued that in many respects Roman Catholic ideas have shifted over the centuries ever further from the Church's medieval teaching and ever closer to Cathar teaching.