The Inquisition

by Hoffman Nickerson

FOOTNOTES:

[29] “Innocent III, La Croisade des Albigeois,” by Achille Luchaire. Published Hachette, Paris, 1911. Ch. ii, p. 47.

[30] Innocent III, “La Croisade des Albigeois,” Luchaire, p. 91.

[31] “Life of St. Dominic,” p. 40.

CHAPTER IV.
THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE—THE
EARLY WAR.

The Albigensian Crusade lasted for twenty years, from the original mobilization and march of the crusading army to the treaty which finally ended hostilities. Naturally, for the greater part of this long period there was no heavy fighting, the resources of the opponents could not have supported any such continuous performance; indeed throughout considerable intervals there seems to have been no actual fighting at all. Nevertheless, for twenty years there were hostile forces in being and a state of war existed.

The chief single episode of these twenty years is the astonishing battle of Muret. It will be best, therefore, to consider separately, first the earlier stages of the war, and second the campaign of Muret and the subsequent events which that action made possible.

The early war falls naturally into two periods of unequal length. The first, of only two months, comprises the original crusading march with its overwhelming numbers, and the capture of Beziers and Carcassonne. It ends with the appointment of Simon de Montfort to govern the conquered territories, and the return of the great majority of Crusaders to their homes. The second period lasts for four years. Throughout this time de Montfort commands the Crusade, maintains a government in Languedoc, and extends his power. This he does, in spite of his slender resources, by virtue of high personal ability. The period ends with the military intervention of King Pedro of Aragon against the Crusade, and the general expectation that de Montfort, with his greatly inferior forces, would be annihilated forthwith.

All warfare, it is axiomatic, is merely a means to a political end. One group attempts to impose its will upon another which asserts a contrary will of its own and resists.

We have seen in the first chapter that the Middle Ages were politically decentralized to a high degree, but that, on the other hand, they had a strong sense of moral unity. Christendom was one big family. Mediæval warfare was conditioned by these two political factors. On account of decentralization in all its forms, the central governments had only a slight power to compel the entire body of their nominal subjects to move, irrespective of the individual wills of those subjects with regard to the particular matter in dispute; slight, that is, compared with the power of modern governments. On account both of decentralization and also of the moral unity of Christendom, wars between Christian men in the Middle Ages seldom involved any great point of principle. There could be no opposition between different and mutually exclusive types of civilization, as between the French and German types to-day. Usually the dispute concerned merely the opposing claims of two parties to ownership of, and therefore feudal administration over, a patch of land. Accordingly campaigns were apt to be short and inconclusive, and warfare in general somewhat of an adventurous sport. It is true that in the thirteenth century, a time still simple, war had not yet taken on the unreality of aim and the elaborate trappings which are the mark of the later Middle Ages. Already, however, it had become something of a “gentleman’s game,” as were the dynastic wars of the eighteenth century. Naturally, therefore, when a vital principle was involved (as in the Crusade which we are about to study), operations were always tending to relapse into the haphazard fashion fostered by the contemporary idea of war as an affair in which nothing of great moment to society as a whole was at stake.

As far as the technique of operations is concerned, the important features are mail-clad cavalry and permanent fortification. Axiomatically, infantry is worth more than cavalry in combats between disciplined bodies of troops, but less than cavalry in raids and in defence against raids, as in our own Indian wars, and in the Boer War. Thus, in late Roman times and the Dark Ages, cavalry gradually became preponderant over infantry, throughout the greater part of Europe. The Franks who ended by setting up their chieftain as successor to the Western Emperors, were an exception. It was not until the great Viking harry of the ninth century, in which our tradition almost went under, that the defenders of “Francia” began to rely mainly upon cavalry. That arm alone was fast enough to overtake the pirates whose first act on landing was to steal horses for themselves. And it was in the repulse of the Viking, as we have seen, that mediæval society crystallized.

Fortified points, as well as cavalry, take on additional importance when the resources of one’s opponent seldom permit him to sit down before them and maintain a blockade and regular siege for a long time. A great deal of nonsense has been talked about the “impregnability” of fortification before the discovery of gunpowder. Any man acquainted with military things knows that, even irrespective of blockade, any fortress must fall before besiegers in sufficient numbers and possessed of armament and engineering skill equal to the defenders, unless the defence can receive relief from outside. Thus Philip Augustus took Chateau Gaillard, the strongest fortress of its time, not by blockade but by regular siege.

On the other hand, it has been truly observed that mediæval commanders of Philip’s type, and with his resources, were rare. The value of fortification is that it gains time, and few men of the Middle Ages had their troops well enough in hand to hold them long at the monotonous drudgery of siege work—even if they had resources sufficient to keep their force continuously in being at all. The well-provisioned fortress could usually count on starving out its besiegers before being starved out itself. Accordingly, if one party to a quarrel felt himself to be weaker than his enemy, he was apt to shut himself up promptly behind walls.

Furthermore, fortifications played a large part in mediæval warfare because a fortress covering only a small area could resist a regular siege as well as one of great extent. The importance of comparatively small fortified points, that is of castles, sprang from the lack of missile weapons capable of battering down stone walls. Obviously, as the power, accuracy, and effective range of missile weapons increase, the circumference of the first-class fortress must correspondingly increase if it is to escape being overwhelmed by the converging fire of the greater number of engines which the concentric position of the besiegers enables them to bring to bear upon it. Conversely, when the problem (as in the Middle Ages) is of close-in defence only, the area to be defended matters little with reference to the siege work involved. Whereas, on the other hand, the expense of construction mounts as the circumference to be fortified increases. The resources of the besiegers were sapping or battering the base of the walls; or escalade from behind the cover of movable towers which could be set up out of range, and then rolled up so as to let down drawbridges on a level with the battlements.

Finally, the mediæval was no fool. I have made this point in my first chapter; nevertheless, I repeat it here. We have seen that the importance of cavalry and of fortification, especially of castles (i.e., small highly-fortified points) resulted not from folly, but from the conditions of the time. Social and political conditions, again, were unfavorable to regular discipline, but no more so than in our own American Revolution. Less so, in fact. It is true that there was no regular study of war as an art. Nevertheless, our modern staff colleges could not easily improve on the decisions of many mediæval commanders. Even the lack of maps on which modern staff work is built up did not necessarily blind the eye of the commander operating in familiar or partially friendly country.

The men of the Middle Ages sometimes show the power of sizing up the strategic essentials of a large theatre of war which they had never seen, and had never even seen mapped. For instance, take the case of Philip Augustus’s advice to his son with regard to the campaign of 1216 in England, that is that the Prince should first of all seize the castle of Dover which commanded the English terminus to the shortest possible sea route between England and France.

In the present instance, the mobilization point and the line of march were intelligently chosen. It was clearly out of the question to cross the “Massif Central,” the mountains of Auvergne, since armies are compelled to seek the lines of geographical least resistance, and must avoid, whenever possible, thinly peopled districts which cannot keep them in food and shelter. The choice which faced the leaders of the Crusade was whether to outflank the mountainous country by the west or by the east.

It is only a guess, but I think that the decision to march by the easterly route was mainly for political reasons. To march by the west would have brought the crusading army close to territory still held by John of England. That monarch was still firmly planted on both sides of the lower Garonne, and had even held on to parts of Poitou well to the north of that river. The much widowed Raymond of Toulouse had married John’s sister Joan, who had since died. John had broken with the Pope over the candidacy of Stephen Langton, later of Magna Charta fame, for the archbishopric of Canterbury; and when Innocent had replied by interdicting all England, John had been able to compel most of the English clergy from enforcing the sentence. Since the Crusade was obviously directed against Raymond, John might move. It would be well, therefore, for the Crusaders not to give him an opportunity of falling upon their flanks or rear while marching south on the westward route.

Furthermore, there were geographical points to be considered. Crusaders from Germany and the Slavonic lands east of the Adriatic could more easily reach Lyons than, say, Limoges. Of course, most of the Crusaders would be “French,” that is North French, but German and Slavonic contingents were expected and did, in fact, turn up. East of the mountains, the expedition would be in closer touch with Rome, which might prove important in those days of slow couriers. Finally Lyons, being a large town, would be more suitable for a mobilization point than any smaller city further west, for cities draw armies like magnets since only in cities is there enough surplus food and shelter for large bodies of men. Lyons was, therefore, wisely chosen as the concentration point, and the Rhône Valley as the line of march.

The main force which assembled at Lyons was extremely large. The “Chanson de la Croisade” says twenty thousand knights and men-at-arms plus two hundred thousand “villeins” on foot. Until recently it has been fashionable for historians to disbelieve mediæval high numbers, but fashions change. At any rate, a huge army assembled.

The weakness of the great force was that only forty days’ service sufficed to fulfil the crusading vow. Hence the Crusade, if prolonged, was bound to suffer (like so many American armies from Washington’s to the Civil War) from the plague of short enlistments.

Besides the papal legates Arnaut Amalric and Milo, there were with the army the Archbishops of Reims, Sens, and Rouen, the Bishops of Autun, Clermont, Nevers, Bayeux, Lisieux, and Chartres, the Duke of Burgundy, and the Counts of Nevers and St. Pol.

Just how the higher command was organized we do not know. Arnaut Amalric seems to have been the strongest personality.

Inconspicuous, no doubt, among the lesser nobles was a Baron of the Isle of France, also Earl of Leicester in England, Simon de Montfort by name. Possibly people pointed him out as the only man in the Fourth Crusade five years before to refuse to march against Zara, so that when the Venetians persuaded the other Crusaders to pay for their passage to the East by taking this Christian city he had left the expedition and gone home. It seems quite clear, however, that at the beginning he was of little authority in the Crusade.

In the last week of June the Crusaders moved south from Lyons, keeping, apparently, to the east bank of the river where the main Roman road ran.

In their march down the valley of the Rhône, with its glare and white dust, they were met at Valence by Raymond of Toulouse himself. Without hesitation, virtually on the morrow of his humiliating penance at St. Gilles, with the welts of the monkish lash unhealed on his back, this man, against whom the Crusade was principally directed, himself took the Cross and joined the army which had mustered to destroy him. Following out Innocent’s plan of “divide et impera” (divide and conquer) he was permitted to join the army, which continued on its march. Of course the Crusade was, officially, aimed at the heretics of the south, and Raymond, with all his shiftiness, was no heretic. Protestant historians have blamed the Churchmen in charge of the policy of the Crusade for duplicity in this matter. Of course, Raymond’s submission was accepted merely because it was temporarily convenient for them not to have him for an open enemy, although it was intended in the long run to ruin him altogether. Still I confess that I cannot see that severe condemnation is justified. He had played fast and loose too often.

Where the army crossed the Rhône we are not told; possibly at Orange or Avignon, but more probably from Tarascon to Beaucaire, where the main Roman crossing had been. Once across the Rhône, it took up again the old road by Nismes into Spain which so many armies had followed since Hannibal. At Montpellier, Raymond Roger Trencavel, Viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne, and nephew to Raymond of Toulouse, came to meet the chiefs of the Crusade, as his uncle had already come to them at Valence, to make his peace. He was refused a hearing. It was necessary that the great army should not disband without striking terror into the heretical south and giving some, at least, of its feudal lordships into the hands of proved and zealous Catholics. Otherwise the effort involved in organizing the expedition would have been wasted. Accordingly, for Raymond Roger to plead his own personal orthodoxy and claim that only irresponsible subordinates had favoured heresy, was not to the point. The “Chanson” says that Raymond of Toulouse, with his usual shortsighted cunning, suggested an attack on his nephew, with whom he had recently quarrelled. It would have been so like the wretched Count of Toulouse to have done so, that we may accept the story.

Raymond Roger hurried back from Montpellier to his own lands. Why the Crusaders, after once having had him in their power, let him go in peace to organize resistance against them is not clear. Perhaps he had come in under some sort of guarantee like the modern flag of truce, and was therefore protected by the highly developed military courtesy of the day, which had grown up around the idea of knighthood.

At any rate, he was allowed to go, and made haste to put his two chief towns, Beziers and Carcassonne, in a state of defence, following the usual custom for the weaker party in a mediæval conflict, i.e., to stand on the defensive behind walls. The Crusaders sat down before Beziers on the 20th or 21st of July. They had started from Lyons between the 24th and 30th of June, and had marched close to 230 miles, making an average march of between 10 and 8¾ miles a day, a very creditable showing, and one which deserves to be called to the attention of despisers of things mediæval. No doubt it was desired to waste as little as possible of the short forty-day enlistment before coming to grips with the heretics and their noble patrons.

Before Beziers they were joined by two detachments, one from the neighbourhood of Agen and the other from Auvergne. Each detachment had won certain successes of its own on its way. The Agenais had held to ransom two towns in the Aveyron Valley, Caussade and St. Antonin, and were looked upon with some disfavour (mingled perhaps with envy) by the other Crusaders, for having compounded with wickedness for a money payment. One of the commanders of the Auvergnats bore the great name of Turenne. His detachment had captured a strong castle and burned the heretics found therein, the first but not the last time that we shall hear of burning in connection with the Crusade.

Incidentally, the military aspect of this concentration deserves a word. Lyons and Agen are 225 miles apart as the crow flies, with the mountainous country of Auvergne between. Anyone with the slightest military experience knows how hard it is to synchronize the movements of distant columns so that they may meet at a common centre, even with accurate maps and with all modern means of communication. In this case, maps, telephone, telegraph, and all means of mechanical rapid transit were lacking. Probably an advance concentration point in the neighbourhood of Beziers was selected before any of the columns commenced its march, and during the march communication was kept up by an inter-weaving system of mounted couriers. The risk of the comparatively weak centre and right columns being cut off before they could join was practically nil because of the submission of the Count of Toulouse, and because the entire countryside was terror-stricken by fear of the Crusaders. Even so, the accurate concentration of the three columns on Beziers was a feat of considerable military skill.

Beziers, like most Mediterranean towns, had been an organized city throughout the time of recorded history and before. Under mediæval conditions it was easy to defend, being built on a hill. Heresy was particularly strong there; we have seen in the last chapter how de Castelnau, in 1205, had had to leave the place because of the fury stirred up against his person and his defence of the faith. There is even some reason for believing that the great majority of the citizens were heretical, which was by no means the case in places like Toulouse, where the utmost that the heretics dared do was to hold their services at midnight. If there were only a few Catholics within the walls, it is not surprising that the city refused to surrender. Its bishop was with the Crusaders, and was allowed to propose that the town should capitulate and hand over its heretics for punishment in return for guarantees on the part of the Crusaders for the persons and property of the Catholic citizens. This most fair and liberal offer, from the crusading point of view, was rejected. The besieged preferred to run the chances of war, probably not because of any great solidarity between the heretical and Catholic citizens (as certain modern Protestant historians do vainly talk), but no doubt because the Catholics were few in numbers, and did not control the decisions taken by the defence.

Having refused to treat, the inhabitants made a sortie across the bridge over their river, killed a Crusader and threw his body into the stream. The sortie was repulsed, and thereupon, according to the account generally received, the camp followers of the Crusade succeeded in rushing the defences. This surprising success was achieved without orders, by divine inspiration as the legates piously put it, while the chiefs of the Crusade were deliberating as to their next step. Those in search of secular explanations may well suppose that the assailants entered on the heels of the inhabitants driven back in the repulse of the sortie before the gate could be closed, or that defective dispositions of the defence had left some point unguarded, or, finally, that a local panic among the men told off to guard a particular tower or bit of wall had permitted the success of the attack.

After the storming of the walls there took place in the crooked, steeply sloping streets of the town, the massacre for which Beziers and the Albigensian Crusade itself are principally remembered. Priest and layman, woman and child seem to have suffered equally. Of a great crowd which had taken sanctuary in the church of St. Mary Magdalene, not one survived. With the sword came fire. Since, as we have seen, the camp followers, probably mixed with the peasant infantry, had been the first to enter, the knights began to drive them out by force, for fear that they themselves would get no loot. In their anger at this, the “villeins” set fire to the town, which burned fiercely. The cathedral of St. Nazaire got so hot that the stone vaulting cracked and fell in.

One admiring Cistercian contemporary makes Arnaut Amalric answer the question as to whether the Catholic citizens should be spared with the famous “Kill them all, for God will know His own,” for fear that many heretics might escape by feigning orthodoxy. Certain modern Catholic writers maintain that the lay chieftains of the Crusade had determined beforehand upon a massacre, as a military measure, to terrify the country. It would seem as if no such decision could have been made by the lay nobles if the legates had opposed. Still the point is not worth labouring, inasmuch as it has over and over again on these occasions proved impossible to restrain armies much more regularly and firmly disciplined than the Crusaders. The definite reasons for doubting the completeness of the massacre are that the church of St. Mary Magdalene, where the slaughter was heaviest, is so small that not a third of the seven thousand supposed to have been killed in it could possibly have packed into the place, and further, that the corporate life of the town was so quickly reconstituted that it was soon able to resist the Crusaders again.

At all events the impression caused by the massacre was tremendous. As many as a hundred castles, some say, were abandoned by their garrisons who fled to the mountains. The turbulent city of Narbonne made haste to put itself on record by executing some heretics, by contributing generously to the expenses of the Crusade, and by allowing certain of its castles to be garrisoned by Crusaders as pledges of good faith.

The next objective of the Crusade was the strong hill-fortress city of Carcassonne. Thither Raymond Roger Trencavel had gone, leaving Beziers before its investment. The massacre had strengthened his determination to resist, and he had gone so far as to destroy all mills near Carcassonne so as to hinder the provisioning of the Crusaders should the expected siege be prolonged. The “soldiers of Christ” appeared before the place on or about July 24, 1209, having left Beziers the morning of the 22nd, the day after the massacre, and covered the intervening distance of over fifty miles in forty-eight hours, assuming that they went through Narbonne along the line of the Roman road and the modern railway—another good piece of marching.

Carcassonne was a much tougher nut to crack than Beziers. The steep escarpements of its hill were crowned by the remarkable circuit of late Roman walls and towers which we see to-day. Only the château, the outer town wall, the gates in the main wall, and a few large towers easily distinguishable from the older work have been added since 1209. The customary first assault to feel out the defence was repulsed with loss, although the defenders also suffered. Another attack carried the slightly fortified suburbs on the lower slopes of the hill crowned by the city proper. This success was followed by a pause of some weeks, during which siege engines of different sorts were constructed.

Meanwhile diplomacy was active. King Peter of Aragon intervened in the hope of making peace between the Crusaders and his vassal, Trencavel. He was a picturesque person, a great lover of tournaments and of women, what we should call to-day a sportsman; also a great fighter against the Moslem. In language and culture Aragon was then closer to Languedoc than Languedoc to Northern France. Peter, himself a troubadour and a generous patron of troubadours, held the Roussillon in his own right, and claimed from many of the southern nobles a homage difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with the homage they owed to the far-off king “of Paris.” Like the other southern leaders, who sooner or later opposed the Crusade, he was no heretic. On the contrary, he delighted to be known as “the Catholic,” and had in person done homage to the Pope for his kingdom, as recently as 1204, and received in return the title of “First Standard Bearer of the Church.” His ferocious legislation against heretics in general has been noted in the last chapter. On the other hand, Spanish religious enthusiasm, in the early Middle Ages, was generally directed far more towards belabouring the infidel than towards discussing doctrine. Politically, King Peter necessarily disliked any extension of North French influence in the south, and could not sit still and see his kinsman and vassal Trencavel destroyed merely because he had not been active enough in putting down heresy. Finally, he was now brother-in-law to Raymond of Toulouse, whose fifth and last wife was his sister. While there was no question at this time of his resisting the Crusade by arms, he made haste to offer his services as peacemaker.

Accordingly Pedro appeared at the crusading camp followed by a handsome suite, and made straight for Raymond’s tent. It was soon arranged that the Aragonese should enter the town to treat with Trencavel. The Crusaders’ terms were hard. The young viscount would be permitted to leave accompanied by twelve knights, but the town must surrender unconditionally. Therefore, although a prolonged drouth was causing the besieged in their hill city to suffer from want of water, terms were refused; and King Peter, whose dignity seems to have been ruffled, went off in a rage against the crusading leaders.

Another assault was delivered, but was repulsed with the aid of boiling oil and melted lead. To console them for their failure, the Crusaders could boast of an act of personal gallantry on the part of de Montfort, who went back into the ditch after the repulse and rescued a severely wounded Crusader.

Meanwhile time was working against the besieged through disease, aggravated by the want of water. They had expected a bread shortage in the crusading camp, the mills having been destroyed far and wide, but the expectation was not realized, on account of aid given by certain nearby castles whose owners were friendly to the Crusades. Calling the legates sorcerers, and the Crusaders “devils in human form who could live without food,” failed to help matters, so that at last the besieged surrendered, and were allowed to leave the town in peace, abandoning all their goods. Trencavel was held a prisoner.

The legates apologized by letter to the Pope for the comparative mildness shown in not burning the place and massacring its people, as at Beziers. The nobles, they said, could not control their troops in the matter; which may well indicate that there had been a shortage of food, so that the rank and file saw severe privations staring them in the face if any more destruction was indulged in. As far as Trencavel was concerned, from the crusading point of view, the aftermath of the siege left nothing to be desired. The young viscount promptly died in his prison. Dysentery was officially given as the cause of death, but some suspected poison.

The month of August was now well along. Having accomplished the prescribed forty days and won the crusading indulgences, the great body of the army were preparing to return home gorged with spiritual graces and not altogether lacking in temporal booty. The great force was about to melt away (as Washington’s militia so often melted away). But before the crusaders could return to their homes, they had first to provide for the continuance of the campaign against heresy. Someone must be set up in the viscounty of Beziers and Carcassonne, left vacant by the death of Trencavel. Furthermore, several other towns, including Albi and Pamiers, together with a number of castles, had surrendered without fighting. These places had been garrisoned, and the garrisons needed a central command. The Duke of Burgundy, the Counts of Nevers, and of St. Pol, to whom in turn the fief was offered, refused on the pretext that they had lands enough already; but really, says the “Chanson de la Croisade,” because they felt that they would dishonour themselves should they accept the spoils of such a conquest. Perhaps the corpses of Beziers were already beginning to stink in their nostrils, as they have stunk in the nostrils of so many historians to this day. Furthermore, dishonoured or not, the new viscount would be in an exposed position, alone—a northerner, confronted by Raymond of Toulouse and Peter of Aragon, with only the Church to back him. The Church had the feeble Christians of Palestine to support; it had taken five years to launch the Albigensian Crusade, and might take as long to organize another. Altogether, there is nothing improbable in the story that only after considerable pressure from the legates and much prayer on his own part did de Montfort, the fourth candidate, finally accept the office.

With the acceptance by de Montfort of the viscounty of Beziers and Carcassonne, and with the prompt disbandment of the original crusading army, the first period of the Crusade comes to an end. It had lasted little over the forty days required to win the indulgences, and had been marked by the overwhelming superiority in numbers of the crusading forces in the field. Throughout the second period this superiority no longer exists, and for nine years the military strength of the Crusade is found principally in the qualities of its leader.

Simon de Montfort was one of those extraordinary men who deflect the course of history. He was descended from Rollo the Norman, and took his name from a small domain which he held in the Ile-de-France, on the road from Dreux to Paris. Physically, he was blond, tall, broad-shouldered, distinguished in appearance, and full of activity. Naturally enough his character has been both praised and blamed to the nth power. Peter de Vaux-Cernay praises his eloquence, affability, faithfulness in friendship, his rigid chastity, and rare modesty. Sismondi, in a famous passage, says of him: “an able warrior, austere in his personal habits, fanatical in religion, inflexible, cruel and treacherous, he combined all qualities calculated to win the approval of a monk.” The important thing is that de Montfort was, above all, a soldier, and a soldier of a type not uncommon in French history, from the First Crusade to the wars of the French Revolution, in that he was consumed with a sense of the sacredness of his cause. As in so many determined men of strict sexual morality, in him fairness was all but swallowed up in fanaticism.

Such men are ill understood by men of English culture. It is a commonplace, for example, that no character approaching the type is to be found in the long gallery of Shakespearean portraits.

Meanwhile, although the student may smile at the fanatic, he will do well to remember the greatness of the work done in the world by fanatics ... those curious creatures. Directly, by keeping alive crusading activity in Languedoc, de Montfort preserved the moral unity of Christendom. That unity, rescued from the grave peril which threatened it in the beginning of the thirteenth century, endured until destroyed by the great sixteenth century centrifugal movement, which is only just beginning to subside. Indirectly, he broke down the Provençal culture, and established the French monarchy upon the Mediterranean, thus establishing the permanent unity of the French nation. But from de Montfort, as from all men, the future was hid.

Geographically, his position was strong. Of the two centres of his power, Beziers and Carcassonne, Beziers preserved his communication with the east, and, when war broke out, would help to cut off Toulouse from the Rhône valley. Carcassonne was the capital strategic point of the whole theatre of war, commanding as it did the main Narbonne-Toulouse road from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. All considerable west-bound traffic headed for Toulouse coming from as far north as Belfort or Dijon would naturally pass under the walls of Carcassonne. To do otherwise meant either a vast circuit by Limoges or a struggle with the mountains of Auvergne. Similarly, the main route to Toulouse from the south was, and is, around the Mediterranean end of the Pyrenees, north to Narbonne and west by Carcassonne. A man starting from as far west as Saragossa, or in winter from far to the west of that point, would normally travel thus. An alternative route existed by way of the Cerdagne: once over that pass a road led north-east to Perpignan, and north-west by the Puymorens to Foix and Pamiers. Its grades were steep, but traffic could use it well enough at most seasons of the year. De Montfort’s garrison at Pamiers, one of the strongholds occupied during the panic caused by the great crusading army, threatened the Cerdagne route. Should he gain Foix, he could close it almost altogether. From Albi, the fourth of his main strongholds, he could threaten Toulouse from the north-east, and, perhaps, operate in the Agen and the Cahors districts.

Nevertheless, as he considered his position, he had military and political difficulties enough to appal a weaker man. His military resources were small. The crusading army had scattered to their homes, leaving him with a mere remnant of about four thousand five-hundred effectives, mostly Burgundians and Germans. The crusading leaders had sworn to come and help him at need, but none knew better than he how slight was the chance of their willingness or even of their power to do so. Indeed, one is forced to believe that so hard-headed a zealot asked for the promise more to keep their goodwill by emphasizing his humility and comparative weakness than for any other reason. He could count only upon such crusaders as might chance to come from time to time for a forty days’ tour of duty, and, permanently, upon those whom he was able to pay or to attach to himself by gifts of lands and castles. Moreover, he knew that many of his new southern vassals were bitterly hostile to him, and he himself had alienated moderate opinion by sailing very close to the wind of dishonour in accepting this new viscounty, won by massacre, and made vacant for him (as many believed and whispered) by poison.

Of the forces in opposition, Raymond of Toulouse alone, with all his weakness of will and his recent humiliation at St. Gilles, was far stronger in material resources than de Montfort. King Pedro of Aragon had been angered against the Crusaders at Carcassonne, all the more because their temporary numbers made it impossible for him to oppose them, and Pedro had much credit at Rome. He persisted in refusing to accept de Montfort’s homage as Viscount of Carcassonne. John of England who held Gascony, Guienne, and parts of Poitou was, like Pedro of Aragon, brother-in-law and friend of Raymond. John had broken with the Pope for reasons of his own, and was, nevertheless, flourishing like the green bay tree. Otto of Brunswick who had crushed all opposition throughout Germany and most of Italy, and was about to be crowned emperor by Pope Innocent, was John’s favourite nephew. For the present, Otto was strongly pro-papal, but as emperor he would be strong enough to make trouble even for such a pope as Innocent, should he so desire. Altogether, there was ample material for the building up of alliances against the Crusade, and possibly against the Papacy itself.

Against all this de Montfort had chiefly his own stout heart and resourceful brain. His cause was bound up with that of legate Arnaut Amalric, who was prepared to go to any lengths. Innocent would be a tower of strength, provided only King Peter of Aragon did not get at him, and Arnaut Amalric ought to be able to manage the Pope. Finally, Philip Augustus not only stood with the Pope on most political matters but also, as King of France, would be delighted to see “Frenchmen” (that is North Frenchmen) established in southern lordships. While Philip was cautious and would always rather wait for fruit to fall in his lap than risk a fall by climbing the tree after it, still he might move if he saw his way absolutely clear, and he and Innocent were a redoubtable pair.

De Montfort made haste to put himself right with Rome, while insisting, at the same time, on his need for aid. He wrote promptly to Innocent announcing his election, and his purpose of rooting out heresy altogether. He owed allegiance, he said, only to God and the Pope. He promised payment of local Church tithes held up by the heretics, and a hearth-tax throughout his lands for the direct benefit of the Holy See. On the other hand, he somewhat illogically emphasized his need of money, offering to the Pope with one hand while begging from him with the other. Even his men-at-arms, he said, were demanding double pay, and without heavy Church subsidies he could not long maintain himself in Languedoc.

Innocent confirmed Montfort’s acts and titles, and enlarged upon the crushing successes in fulsome letters to Otto of Brunswick whom the Pope himself had just crowned Emperor. But, with a bad situation in Palestine on his hands, his definite financial support of the Albigensian Crusade left something to be desired. The most fruitful of his measures was to empower de Montfort to confiscate all valuables which heretics had deposited for safe keeping with Churchmen throughout Languedoc.

Meanwhile, the Church’s activities were not confined to the Crusade. St. Dominic with his little band of followers continued going up and down Languedoc preaching. Early in September the future saint met de Montfort, and a warm friendship sprang up between them. At the same time Durand of Huesca and his “poor Catholics” were also active. Innocent had to write and reassure the Languedocian bishops, scandalized because Durand and his followers had clung to certain outward marks of their former Waldensianism; at the same time warning the poor Catholics to cooperate with the regular clergy and not try to act independently of them. The Pope understood clearly that orthodox propaganda must be carried on more strongly than ever, if possible, in the existing state of war.

Meanwhile, far from the jealousies and violence of Languedoc, Francis of Assisi was putting on his brown habit to mark himself the joyous bridegroom of poverty.

During the martial summer of 1209, diplomacy had been silent. Now she came out of cover and became active once more; indeed, for the next four years the struggle is as much diplomatic as military. On the one hand the fair-spoken, shifty, and unstable Count Raymond and behind him (and more formidable) the chivalric sportsman King Peter of Aragon sought to check, or at least to limit, the Crusade. On the other, the legates, de Montfort, and the newly-imported, irreconcilable, Languedocian clergy, all completely absorbed (as the Pope was not) by the struggle, were out for the destruction of the house of Toulouse.

To persuade the Pope was, of course, the object of both sides. Innocent was determined to destroy heresy. In that he never wavered. It was with reference to the implications of the job of heresy-smashing that there was room for difference of opinion, especially with regard to Count Raymond. Could a prince, himself Catholic, be lawfully deposed for failing to suppress heresy? To the men of the early thirteenth century it was by no means a foregone conclusion that he could. We have seen even the zealous crusading nobles shrinking from the “dishonour” of taking up the bloody titles left vacant by the the death of Trencavel. Innocent was no more a vulgar zealot than were these reluctant nobles. He had the high sense of fairness often bred in upright natures by the study of law, plus the exercise of power. Accordingly, his conscience was troubled, and there were many who worked to keep it so. But, troubled or not, the great Pope having set his hand to the plough was not one to turn back. And, even should he desire to do so, the slowness of communication was such as to make it almost impossible for him effectually to control his agents.

Exactly how long it took for a despatch to pass between, say, St. Gilles and Rome is not clear. By land, the distance was over six hundred miles. By sea it was somewhat shorter, but a sea trip involved waiting for a ship to start and might mean delay because of storms or head-winds during the passage.

The first move in the complex diplomatic game was made by the legates. Raymond of Toulouse had left the crusading army after the capture of Carcassonne. Outwardly he kept on friendly terms with de Montfort, and talked of marrying his son to de Montfort’s daughter. But presently the legates demanded from the municipality of Toulouse the surrender of a number of citizens accused of heresy, and at the same time de Montfort wrote to Raymond threatening to attack in case the demand was not met. The municipality protested vehemently that theirs was a Catholic town, which had proved its orthodoxy by burning heretics as long ago as the time of Count Raymond V and was still doing so. They refused to surrender their accused fellow-citizens, whereupon the legates promptly called a council at Avignon on September 6, at which they re-excommunicated Raymond and laid his lands under interdict. Municipality and Count severally appealed to the Pope against this sentence. The legates, on their side, told Raymond that the toilsome journey would profit him nothing. But when he had made his will and departed in spite of them, they showed uneasiness. Vehemently they insisted, in letters to Rome, that the slippery count had failed to keep his former promises and would be equally ready to make and break new ones. In particular, they urged that the castles handed over by him as security for his good behaviour were now forfeited because of his slackness in repressing heresy, and that, for the same reason, the citizens of Avignon, Nismes, and St. Gilles owed no more homage to Raymond but only to the Church. Should the seven castles be restored to him, he would again be in a position to resist. Finally, they urged that it would have been better never to have undertaken the Crusade than to abandon it with its work half-accomplished.

The foreboding of the legates was in some part justified. The Pope pronounced himself satisfied with the Toulousains, and directed the lifting of the interdict laid upon them. With Raymond, Innocent’s play was more subtle. Outwardly he received him graciously and gave him costly presents, a mantle, a ring, and a horse. The Count had something of a case. He had surrendered the seven castles and agreed to forfeit the three towns merely as guarantees for the execution of the agreement made at St. Gilles the previous June. Some of the clauses of this agreement he had already fulfilled; he produced a list of churches whose former wrongs at his hands he had redressed. Further, he urged that although never convicted of heresy and legate murder, he had nevertheless submitted to heavy penance as if guilty, and had been reconciled in due form. Innocent, therefore, gave judgment that the castles and towns were not yet forfeit, “inasmuch as it is not seemly that the Church should enrich itself with the spoils of another.” Three months after receipt of the Pope’s letter the legates were to hold a council to determine Raymond’s guilt. There, if no one formally presented himself as his accuser, he was to be admitted to canonical purgation; after which he was to be publicly declared a good Catholic, and was to receive back the seven castles. If he were accused, a hearing was to be held but no decision taken. The record of the proceedings was to be forwarded to Rome, where judgment would be pronounced. Because of Raymond’s personal objections to Arnaut Amalric, a new papal agent, Theodisius by name, without the title of legate, was appointed to arrange the details of the Count’s reconciliation. The Crusaders were not to touch Raymond’s lands. In appearance, the Pope seemed to come out strongly for moderation.

Raymond’s diplomatic victory, however, was far more apparent than real. Innocent secretly placed Theodisius altogether under the orders of Arnaut Amalric, stating dryly that the new agent was to be merely the bait by which Raymond was to be caught on the hook of Arnaut’s sagacity. Meanwhile the seven castles, although not yet declared forfeited, were to be held.

With regard to the reconciliation of Toulouse, Innocent had empowered the legates to take guarantees and precautions. Accordingly Arnaut Amalric set himself to humiliate the city, with the able but guarded assistance of its bishop, the zealous Fulk. The ex-troubadour bishop was fast increasing his influence. He had organized the more orthodox Toulousains into a powerful brotherhood, in order to work against heresy and usury. Finally, after much backing and filling, the city contributed heavily in money to the Crusade and gave hostages to de Montfort for future good behaviour.

Before the campaigning season of 1210 opened, de Montfort’s military position had taken a turn for the worse. He and his remaining crusaders were far too few to garrison effectively the multitude of towns and castles which had submitted. Beziers, Carcassonne, Pamiers, and it seems Albi were still held, but a number of smaller places, such as Castres north of Carcassonne, and Lombez south-west of Toulouse, together with many castles, returned openly to Catharism. Furthermore, Raymond Roger Count of Foix broke with the crusaders. This worthy and his family have already been touched upon in the last chapter. As soon as the huge, terror-inspiring army of Crusaders was disbanded, he returned to his normal policy of favouring heresy. He was especially anxious to recover possession of his second best stronghold of Pamiers; but a conference, arranged and presided over by his suzerain Peter of Aragon, failed to come to any agreement with the Crusaders.

During the year de Montfort took several castles in his new Viscounty of Carcassonne, such as Bram about ten miles west of Carcassonne itself on the road to Castelnaudary (where he put out the eyes of a hundred of the garrison, leaving their commander one eye so that he might act as their guide), Alairac to the south of Capendu about ten miles east of Carcassonne overlooking the road to Narbonne, and Puivert in the mountains west of Quillan. However, he had force enough for two major operations, the capture of the strong castles of Minerve (a hill fortress about seventeen miles north-west of Narbonne, which looked down upon that city and threatened communications between his two main bases of Beziers and Carcassonne) and Termes in the south-east.

The first operation was not the act of the Crusaders alone, but was accomplished with the aid of Narbonese militia. Mediæval cities were normally willing to attack nearby strong castles which too often served as bases for brigandage against their trade. In attacking these eagles’ nests in the mountains of Languedoc, the chief task of the besieger was to cut off the garrison from access to the brooks or springs in the canyons below the ramparts. If this could be done, then the besieged were compelled to depend upon cisterns and could not long hold out. In this case, after a lively siege of about a month, supplies and especially water in the castle ran short, so that its garrison offered to surrender on terms. Its lord and the Catholics within the walls were offered their lives. On strict orders from Rome to fit such cases, even the heretical believers and Perfect were to be spared, should they recant. The army murmured. The “very Catholic” Robert Mauvoisin, de Montfort’s first lieutenant, expressed the general disgust at accepting such forced conversions of wretches whom they had taken up arms expressly to kill. “Calm yourself,” said Arnaut Amalric, “the converts will be few.” In fact, only three out of a hundred “Perfect” abjured. The rest did not even need to be forced into the fire prepared for them, but cast themselves in. The resistance had served to prove a certain solidarity between heretics and Languedocian Catholics.

The siege of Termes lasted into November, and was finally decided by want of water in the place.

Artillerymen should remember the name of Archdeacon William, de Montfort’s chief of artillery (i.e., master of the catapults) during the siege. This Parisian priest, a veteran of crusades against the Moslem, was so fascinated with his machines that he afterwards refused the fat bishopric of Beziers, “loving better to follow the wars and handle the artillery”!

At St. Gilles, in September, was held the council to arrange for the reconciliation of the Count of Toulouse. In a single interview with Theodisius, Arnaut Amalric had fully convinced him that either Raymond or the Languedocian Church must inevitably be destroyed. How the Count was to be rebuffed in the face of Innocent’s positive instructions to the contrary was a puzzle. After anxious thought, a single phrase of the Pope’s was seen to offer means of escaping his general tenor. Raymond, as we have seen, had fulfilled some but not all of the conditions demanded of him. In particular he had neither dismissed his mercenaries nor expelled heretics, both groups being essential for his support. By the phrase in question, Innocent had informed the legates that he himself had directed Raymond to fulfil completely the conditions already demanded and to do so before the council should meet. At the council, therefore, he was told that, being false to his oath in these minor points, his testimony in his own behalf on the two chief points of his personal orthodoxy and his share in the murder of de Castelnau was worthless. At this disappointment he burst into tears, which was interpreted by Theodisius to the assembly as a proof, not of contrition, but of innate despicableness. The wretched nobleman, saying that his whole county would not satisfy the legates, broke off negotiations and rode sadly away. Whereupon the legates promptly set themselves to write to Innocent in such wise that the Pope might believe that the culprit had not wished to clear himself.

When the news came to Rome, Innocent clearly had his suspicions; inasmuch as he wrote to Philip Augustus saying that he did not know whether or not Raymond had failed through his own fault in proving his innocence. At the same time, now that the Count’s failure to suppress heresy had been made the key-point, it is hard to see how the Pope could fail to sustain the council. He therefore wrote severely to Raymond, reproaching him for breaking faith inasmuch as he continued to tolerate the heretics. On the whole, Arnaut Amalric had carried his point, and made haste to press his advantage in subsequent conferences.

Meanwhile, during the year the general position of the Papacy in European politics had changed for the worse. Otto of Brunswick, once crowned emperor, had rapidly become anti-papal. Indeed, he had been so aggressive and successful in Italy that he might soon be in a position to menace the Pope. Innocent had therefore excommunicated him and had raised against him numerous German nobles who feared from the new emperor a policy of centralization and regular taxes such as marked the government of his near kinsmen the Plantagenets. But, despite Pope and German rebels, Otto continued successful. In England John was at the height of his prosperity. With an excommunicated emperor and an excommunicated King of England on the Pope’s hands, a better man than the Count of Toulouse might have turned the European scale.

The same papal courier who had brought the Pope’s letter of reproach to Raymond, also brought instructions to him, to the Counts of Foix and Comminges, and to Gaston, Viscount of Bearn, demanding aid for de Montfort and threatening to hold them favourers of heresy in case they failed to give it. These letters resulted in the holding of three councils in quick succession, at Narbonne in December, 1210, continuing into January 1211, at Montpellier later in January, and at Arles in February.

At Narbonne there were present not only the legates, de Montfort and Raymond, but also Count Raymond Roger of Foix, and his suzerain the King of Aragon. Here Arnaut Amalric changed his tone and enlarged on the material wealth which would accrue to the Count of Toulouse should he participate in suppressing heresy—the houses and lands of the convicted would be his according to the law and custom of the time, and also a fourth or even a third of the captured castles whose owners had favoured heresy. Still Raymond refused. At the instance of King Pedro, the council next took up the case of the Count of Foix, who was anxious to recover his second best stronghold at Pamiers and others of his castles from garrisons which held them for de Montfort. After Raymond Roger, that inveterate favorer of heresy, had refused an offer of the return of everything that had been taken from him except Pamiers, on condition that he swear to obey the Church and cease resisting de Montfort, the King of Aragon went over the head of his vassal, promised to garrison Foix with his own troops and turn the place over to the Crusaders should its owner turn against them.

Pedro’s anxiety was natural. The Count of Foix was one of his most important northern vassals. The road running from the north-west over the Puymorens to the pass of the Cerdagne went by way of Pamiers, Foix, and the upper Ariege. The Cerdagne was the one broad and easy inland pass across the Eastern Pyrenees. By the Cerdagne also ran the shortest line of communication between the centre of Pedro’s power in the kingdom of Aragon on the one hand, and his outlying personal domains, i.e., the Roussillon and the lands of his northern vassals, on the other. Obviously, since the chances of an open break with the Crusade must have been ever present with him, he had no mind to see the north-western approach to so important a pass in de Montfort’s hands.

The Pope had been pressing the Aragonese to come out strongly for the Crusade. When at last Pedro obeyed he did so with a Spanish thoroughness, accepting de Montfort’s long refused homage for Beziers and Carcassonne, offering to marry his son Jaime, the heir of Aragon, with de Montfort’s daughter, and even handing over the young prince into de Montfort’s power as a sort of hostage. Probably the King, like Count Raymond two years before, thought that the best way of keeping the Crusade within bounds was to go along with it. That it was his real intention to continue playing a double game he presently proved by marrying his sister to the often widowed Count of Toulouse.

At Montpellier and Arles the same parties in interest, minus the Court of Foix, were present. For Raymond the conditions offered were hard: razing of his castles, unlimiting billeting rights throughout his lands for crusading soldiers, and, for himself, pilgrimage to the Holy Land “as long as the legates shall wish to prolong his penitence.” King Pedro took the matter calmly, remarking merely that the conditions needed amendment at the hand of the Pope himself. Count Raymond again broke off negotiations, and rallied his vassals to him by publishing far and wide the harsh conditions offered. This time the legates re-excommunicated him. Gradually, in spite of himself he was being forced into a position of open hostility.

Innocent sustained Arnaut Amalric and in April confirmed the renewed excommunication of Raymond. Still the latter failed to break completely with the Crusade.

Perhaps it was the Pope’s stronger line that had bettered recruiting for the Crusade in 1211 as compared with 1210. At any rate, as the campaigning season of that year came round, de Montfort found himself in a position to act with considerable vigor. The hitherto impregnable castle of Cabaret capitulated to him without waiting to be attacked, putting him at last in complete possession of his viscounty. He moved first to besiege Lavaur. Its capture would improve his communications with his northern base at Albi, and correspondingly threaten communications between Toulouse and Castres. He besieged it with his usual energy, and on their side the besieged resisted desperately, under the leadership of the lady of the place, an elderly “Perfect” of scandalous life, so said the orthodox. Early in the siege, Raymond visited de Montfort in camp, although he had previously sent some of his knights to help garrison the place. Accordingly he was upbraided for double dealing by certain northern barons, temporarily crusading, who were his near kinsmen. Soon afterwards, he had words with Bishop Fulk, who defied him and marched off to the siege of Lavaur with many of his Toulousain Catholic brotherhood at his back. Nevertheless, all this time, the Count allowed supplies to be sent to the Crusaders from Toulouse. Even when a body of German Crusaders, marching to take part in the siege, without proper precautions for security, was successfully ambushed and cut to pieces by the Count of Foix, who thereby broke the oath which King Pedro had sworn in his name, still Raymond held aloof. At last, the place was taken by assault, and the capture celebrated with the usual wholesale hangings, beheadings and burnings.

The notorious elderly chatelaine had the distinction of being thrown into a well which was then filled up with stones. She was pregnant as a result of incest, so she is reported to have said herself, with her brother and her own son. St. Dominic was present at the siege and with the other clergy sang the “Veni Creator” during the final assault, but what part, if any, he took in the genial goings on which followed the capture is not recorded.

Having consolidated his positions towards the north by the capture of Lavaur, de Montfort made the bold decision to attack Toulouse itself.

A first-class city was nearly always too hard a nut for any mediæval army to crack. In this case there were grounds for expecting dissension within the walls, inasmuch as a bastard brother of Raymond’s had recently deserted to de Montfort, and Bishop Fulk’s Toulousain brotherhood had shown zeal at Lavaur. Therefore de Montfort’s permanent forces, amply reinforced with temporary Crusaders, moved against Toulouse with high hopes.

Nevertheless, the siege failed, constituting the first serious military check to the Crusade. The practically independent mediæval commune bred an intense local patriotism of which to-day our large nations have only the shadow. The citizens resisted as one man, Catholic confraternity and all. Fulk himself had not returned to his episcopal seat after the siege of Lavaur, having quarrelled with Raymond. Even Raymond, who with his vassal the Count of Comminges was in the place, now, when driven to the wall, showed a flash of spirit. By an irony typically mediæval, the favourer and patron of heretics was ardently engaged in building the new nave of the Cathedral, and forced the workmen to stick to their task in spite of stray missiles, for the building was near the walls. Such was the spirit and energy of the besieged that they not only kept their gates open for sorties but opened new sally ports by knocking breaches in their own walls. From the beginning, there must have been little chance of success if no factions arose within the place. De Montfort stuck to it for three weeks and then, seeing that the besieged held firm, raised the siege.

During this siege, a ceremony of some political importance was gone through. In full sight of the besieged, the Bishop of Cahors renounced allegiance to Raymond and did homage to de Montfort in the name of his city and its neighbourhood. On the charter attesting this act, last on the list of nobles and clergy stands the signature of “Brother Dominic, Preacher.”

The next move of the Crusaders was to ravage the county of Foix. No doubt their thorough devastation of the country round Toulouse had strengthened Raymond politically, by angering the Toulousains. At any rate, the Count now felt himself strong enough to take the offensive, and undertook to besiege Castelnaudary.

De Montfort, from his base at Carcassonne, was just in time to throw himself into the threatened castle. Apparently many Crusaders had gone home, as their aggravating custom was, for the force which he was able immediately to concentrate was far inferior in numbers to Raymond’s troops. Nevertheless the Crusaders were so superior in morale that the Toulousain could not extend his lines so as to blockade the place, but instead spent his time in heavily entrenching his own camp. The Count of Foix, that specialist in laying ambuscades, prepared to trap a reinforcement of Crusaders marching from Lavaur. The reinforcement discovered the ambush too late to refuse battle. They had just time to deploy and charge in the hope of cutting their way through. Hard pressed by numbers, their case was desperate when de Montfort, by a brilliant sortie, created a diversion and enabled them to gain the castle. Even after other bodies of Crusaders from Castres and Cahors had come in, the Toulousains still outnumbered the Crusaders, and matters seemed to be at a standstill. About this time word came that certain castles had gone over to Raymond on the strength of a rumour, spread by the Count of Foix, that de Montfort had been captured, flayed alive and finally hanged. To break the deadlock, the crusading leader decided to go himself to Narbonne and Beziers for reinforcements; whereupon Raymond, on learning that his redoubtable enemy was no longer in his front, mustered up courage to destroy his cherished entrenchments and retire.

On the whole, the third year of the Crusade had been successful, despite the check at Toulouse. Peter of Aragon had not been there to hinder, having gone off to southern Spain to fight the Moors. The European situation had changed little. Emperor Otto had conquered more Italian territory. Toward the end of the year, southern Germany had definitely declared against him, but the rebels were still the weaker party. John of England was still none the worse for being excommunicated to his face by a papal legate. Whether or not Otto and John aided Raymond, is not clear. One of John’s biographers says that it was their aid which enabled him to hold Toulouse against de Montfort, but no reference to John and Otto’s interference at this time appears in the historians of the Crusade itself.

1212 saw de Montfort growing still stronger. His theatre of operations was now to the north-west of Toulouse, where he took La Penne d’Agen and Moissac. At Moissac appeared the first signs of active disunion in any of Raymond’s cities. The inhabitants attacked the garrison which was composed of mercenaries and of Toulousain militia, and delivered the place to de Montfort. On the Garonne, Castelsarrasin, Verdun, Muret, and St. Gaudens opened their gates, while Raymond, now practically reduced to Toulouse itself and Montauban, attempted no counter-stroke. De Montfort, on his side, made no attack upon Toulouse.

Naturally, after so much success, the morale of the Crusaders rose higher and higher. In their enthusiasm they saw miracles, and they fought, massacred, and burned with a touching joy. De Montfort himself was the first to seek danger or hardship. After entering Muret with his knights, he found his infantry unable to ford the flooded Garonne after the horsemen. Mediæval infantry were accustomed to being despised, being recruited from men of low social class and considered of little military value, as we have seen in the opening paragraphs of this chapter. Furthermore, an attack from Toulouse was feared. Nevertheless de Montfort insisted upon recrossing the river to share the dangers and hardships of the “poor in Christ.” His wife, the Countess Alice, was hardly inferior to him in spirit and energy.

His successes were achieved in spite of many difficulties. He was often short of men, many of the Crusaders having to be brought up with a round turn by the legates for trying to make off before serving even their forty-day tour of duty. Money, too, was lacking. Once the commander could not even buy bread for himself, and had to go for a walk at meal times so that his poverty would not be noticed.

De Montfort was statesman as well as soldier. In December 1212, he called together at Pamiers the “three estates,” nobles, clergy, and townsmen, of his new dominions for a sort of constitutional convention. This convention discussed the whole body of North French law, known as the “custom of Paris,” for Languedoc, and ended by voting for its adoption. To the townsmen, the régime stood for order and the suppression of brigandage, a feat which the Counts of Toulouse had never achieved. To the clergy, the “custom of Paris” meant increased privileges and immunities. Of the nobles, most were by this time already committed to de Montfort. All parties concerned had the chance to “save face” by accepting the opportunity to vote freely in favour of the proposed changes. For de Montfort, the parvenu, the convention was a triumph. Clearly the Crusade was turning into a permanent government of Languedoc by the “French.”

With so much success, de Montfort had received but one check during the year. A temporary coolness had sprung up between him and Arnaut Amalric. The redoubtable Cistercian, having been elected Archbishop of Narbonne, wished to be Duke of that city as well. The title was hereditary in Raymond’s family, but by this time he was no longer worth considering in Languedocian politics; the sole contest for the office was between Arnaut Amalric and de Montfort. Angry at being opposed, Arnaut Amalric went off to join Pedro of Aragon and fought under him through the summer of 1212 against the Moors in Spain. Had the energetic legate remained in Languedoc, de Montfort’s great successes of the year might have been even greater. However, the estrangement between the two leaders of the Albigensian Crusade was only temporary. From de Montfort’s point of view, the serious thing about the Spanish campaign was its complete success and the increased prestige of King Pedro which resulted therefrom. Far to the south, at “Las Navas de Toulosa,” about the time that La Penne d’Agen fell to de Montfort, King Pedro helped to break the last great army of the African Moslems that Spain was ever to see. For the Albigensian Crusade to have its chief opponent known as one of the foremost champions of Christendom in Europe was an ominous thing.

All the time the Pope, the mainspring of the enterprise now rapidly outgrowing his original design, had kept clearly in his mind the religious purpose of the Crusade as opposed to its later political development. During the year he had again protected Durand of Huesca, writing letters in behalf of his following of converted heretics turned Catholic missioners to the bishops of France and Italy. By such action Innocent obstinately refused to go over to the extreme party that was for making an end of mildness and mercy even to the repentant sinner. Furthermore, outside Languedoc, in the previous year in the case of a canon of Bar-sur-Aube who feared for his life because of his heretical reputation in his own neighbourhood, he had insisted that the accused be protected from mob violence. The great Pope was a great lawyer and a great gentleman.

Clearly Innocent was not the man to approve lightly of the transformation of the Crusade into a general deposition of the southern nobles, and their replacement by “Frenchmen.” Accordingly, the winter of 1212-13 and the following spring saw the diplomatic crisis of the Crusade. For some months past, the legates had been asking from Rome a sentence of deposition against Raymond and, for de Montfort, a confirmation in all the titles of the deposed. When that news reached Paris, Philip Augustus undertook to read the Pope a lesson in law to the effect that only the suzerain of a fief could dispose of it in case of confiscation. Innocent felt obliged to reply defensively, assuring the king that the legates had strict orders to safeguard the “honor and interests of the realm of France.” Meanwhile, Peter of Aragon, back from his Andalusian triumph over the Mohammedan, displayed great activity; went himself to Toulouse; took the place formally under his protection; and sent an embassy to Rome to plead the cause of the southern lord against de Montfort. Towards the end of 1212 the first fruits of the Aragonese diplomacy appeared in the shape of letters from Innocent to Arnaut Amalric and his co-legate the Bishop of Uzes, and other letters to the Bishop of Riez and Theodisius, whom Innocent over two years before had charged with the reconciliation of the Count of Toulouse. The Pope flatly refused to substitute de Montfort for Raymond, blamed the legates for even proposing to disregard the rights of Raymond’s innocent heir, and disavowed altogether the acts of the councils of St. Gilles, Narbonne, and Montpellier. Finally, he gave strict orders to the Bishop of Riez and Theodisius to arrange for Raymond’s reconciliation forthwith; to lay aside their lukewarmness and sloth, and to write the whole truth and nothing but the truth to Rome henceforward!

Still the Pope felt that he had not done enough. Towards the middle of January, therefore, he began to send out a whole series of letters to Languedoc. Already there had been a good deal of correspondence with de Montfort complaining of the scanty returns of the three deniers hearth tax. Now, on January 15th, 1213, Innocent again reproves the chief of the Crusade, this time for non-observance of his duties as vassal to Pedro of Aragon for his Viscounty of Beziers and Carcassonne. On the same day, another papal letter left Rome addressed to Arnaut Amalric directing him bluntly to cease preaching the Crusade and to come to an understanding with Pedro and with the “counts, barons, and other prudent persons whose assistance shall appear to be needed,” for the pacification of Languedoc in the interest of the Christians of Spain and Palestine threatened by the Moslem. Not content even with this, two more papal bulls, dated the 17th and 18th, repeated the orders to the legates and de Montfort to make an end of the Albigensian Crusade altogether. They repeated the imposing list of charges brought by Pedro and the Toulousains to the effect that Comminges and Bearn, vassal lands of Pedro’s, had been attacked by de Montfort at the very moment when their suzerain was fighting the battles of Christianity at Las Navas. The Pope therefore ordered the crusading leader to restore the lands he had taken from the vassals of Aragon. The charges against Arnaut Amalric, to wit that he had practised “usurpation” in directing the Crusade against Raymond’s lands, were also paraded over the papal signature and seal. Pedro had guaranteed, so Innocent wrote, that Raymond would do penance by crusading in Spain or Syria. The heir of Toulouse was to be the ward of Aragon during his minority, and was to be brought up by him as a good Catholic. These propositions were to be debated at a sort of constituent assembly of Languedoc, in which not only the higher clergy and the nobles but also the city “consuls” and the “bailiffs,” that is the mayors of villages, were to sit. This assembly was to report its findings to Rome, where the Pope would render the final decision.

While going so far in support of the Aragonese policy, Innocent nevertheless made two important reservations. In the first place, he did not take the decisive step of recalling Arnaut Amalric. Although the redoubtable Cistercian’s policy was disavowed, he was still given the job of calling the congress and of bringing the new papal policy into force by taking “suitable measures.” Secondly, the ancient and good tradition of caution in papal diplomacy was followed in that care was taken to state repeatedly that Pedro’s accusations against Arnaut Amalric and de Montfort were, after all, only charges not yet proved. Rome knew very well by long and no doubt often bitter experience how impossible it was to get full and accurate knowledge of affairs at a distance. The slow and fitful communications of the time made infinitely difficult the decisions and operations of a centralized system like the Papacy.

However, it was rare even then that agents on the spot were able so completely to oppose the will of their distant master. Even as the formidable January letters were being written by the scribes of the Lateran, the Council (called in obedience to the Pope’s orders of the previous autumn to proceed with Raymond’s reconciliation) was meeting on the “dark and bloody ground” of Lavaur prepared to go clean counter to the spirit of its instructions. It consisted only of the papal legates and agents, and about twenty Gascon and Languedocian bishops. Raymond feared to put himself in de Montfort’s power by coming. Therefore, in the absence of the accused, and in the teeth of the Pope’s express wish, the Council proceeded to declare that his testimony in his own behalf would have been worthless in any case. Since his return from Rome where, so the Council solemnly held, the Pope had treated him much better than he deserved, he had failed to restore Church property formerly stolen by him, had persecuted bishops and abbots and had not shown the slightest sign of dismissing his bandit-mercenaries or of banishing heretics. Since he had sworn to do all these things, the Council formally held that the oath of such a hardened perjurer was worthless and should not be received, even should he offer to give it. Raymond’s counter proposition, made for him by one of his notaries, that Theodisius and the Bishop of Riez should cause the oath to be administered to him at Toulouse or at some other place not held by de Montfort’s troops, was not even discussed. The decision of the Council, so the commissioners reported to the Pope, forbade its being considered. They ended their written report by turning Innocent’s own phrase against him and solemnly stating that “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” of the matter was contained therein.

Raymond thus disposed of, King Pedro next addressed the Council. He wished to discuss, he said, the restoration of the fiefs of the three Counts of Toulouse, Foix, and of the Viscount of Bearn. Arnaut Amalric demanded written proposals under the royal seal. King Pedro thereupon asked for an armistice while the documents were being drawn up, during which time the Crusaders “were not to do evil” to their opponents. “I will not cease from doing evil,” replied de Montfort, “but for a week I will abstain from doing good, for it is not doing evil to pursue the enemies of Christ. I consider that, on the contrary, a good work.”

As far as promises went, the Aragonese proposals were fulsome enough. All four accused nobles were prepared to give full satisfaction to the Church, and asked only the restoration of their lands. If restoration was refused in Raymond’s case, then at least a guarantee was asked as to the legitimate rights of his son who was to be brought up a good Catholic under the guardianship of King Pedro. Meanwhile, Raymond himself would do penance by crusading in the Holy Land or Spain. For the four nobles, the King of Aragon said he had come to ask mercy rather than justice; more especially as the Crusade in Spain made it more necessary than ever that Christians should not fall out among themselves.

The Council may or may not have known that this programme had already been proposed by Pedro to the Pope. Neither the Council nor Pedro could possibly know that the Pope had already accepted it. In any case it was clear enough that, in case of its acceptance, its value would depend entirely on the King’s willingness to enforce its terms upon the four nobles, with whom he had already shown his sympathy. Besides, every cleric sitting at Lavaur was steeped in the bitterness of a long, fierce, and still doubtful struggle. Therefore, they refused the Aragonese proposals. The Pope, so they truly told the King, had expressly reserved to himself the final decision in the matter of Raymond’s reconciliation with the Church. Therefore, since the excommunicated count refused to appear before them and take the preliminary steps, they were powerless; and in actual fact the papal commissioners might not have been safer in going to Toulouse than Raymond would have been, even with King Pedro beside him, in venturing to Lavaur. As for the other three nobles, Bernard of Comminges was believed to have stirred up the Toulousains to oppose the Crusaders in arms. Raymond Roger of Foix, they reminded the King, was a notorious patron of heretics and despoiler of churches, and had failed to keep even the recent convention agreed to in his name by Pedro himself. Gaston of Bearn had protected the assassins of Castelnau, persecuted the Church, and fiercely opposed the Crusade. He maintained bandit-mercenaries who had violated the Cathedral of Oloron, defiled the consecrated Host and parodied the mass. Even so, should Foix, Comminges, and Bearn come for absolution and submit all would be forgiven them. The Council took pains to preface their refusal to treat on the Aragonese terms with a paragraph full of personal compliments and courtesies to the King. Nevertheless, they ended with a warning, reminding him of the honours he had received from the Pope, of the oaths he had taken to suppress heresy, and the suspicion which must fall upon him if he continued taking the part of excommunicated persons accused of so grave a crime. If he was not satisfied with their answer (which was quite likely inasmuch as they refused him everything he asked) the Council would lay the whole matter before the Pope.

Remained the task of persuading the Pope to sustain the Council, as he was by no means eager to do. Accordingly, advice was rained upon him from every corner of Languedoc. From Lavaur the Council itself despatched letters by the hands of agents of Arnaut Amalric and Count Simon. The letters reminded Innocent that he himself had proclaimed the Crusade and afterwards entrusted de Montfort with its command. The crimes of the Count of Toulouse were paraded. Had he not asked help of the excommunicated Emperor Otto, and not only asked but received it (in some measure) from the notorious Savary de Mauleon, who commanded in Aquitaine for the excommunicate King John of England? Had he not committed the abominable crime of insulting all Christendom by sending an embassy to ask aid from the Sultan of Morocco? Should the enemies of religion, by their appeal to Pedro, succeed in “thwarting” the Pope, so that the axe might not be laid to the evil tree of Toulouse; then indeed Christianity in Languedoc was ruined. Another symphony on the same theme was furnished by a second regional council, composed of the higher clergy of eastern Languedoc and the valley of the lower Rhône country, which met at Orange under the presidency of the Archbishop of Arles. Orange rivalled Lavaur in its violent words against the “Toulousain tyrant.” Solos were contributed by the Archbishops of Aix and Bordeaux, and by the Bishops of Bazas, Périgueux, and Beziers. The tone of these prelates varied somewhat, from His Grace of Aix (the immediate neighbourhood of his cathedral city had as yet seen no fighting and he was comparatively moderate in consequence), to the Lord Bishop of Beziers who called Toulouse “a nest of vipers” which must be utterly crushed. But through all variations of tone, the same motif was heard: Tolosa delenda est. The house of Toulouse must be destroyed.

At Rome, the diplomatic struggle must have been bitter. It was not a light thing to ask Innocent publicly to eat his words, and to act on the assumption that the Aragonese version of matters was a mere tissue of lies. On the other hand, I repeat, any central authority in the Middle Ages was far more at the mercy of its agents on the spot than is the case to-day with rapid transit and the telegraph. For the Pope to sustain the Aragonese and disavow Arnaut Amalric and his supporters would have been to go clean counter to the expressed opinion of practically every important Churchman north of the Pyrenees within a radius of 200 miles of Toulouse. Nevertheless, the issue was so evenly balanced that for five months, while the agents of Aragon and of the Crusade continued to set out their respective positions, no decision was reached.

While the whole future of the Crusade thus hung in suspense, Paris seemed for the first time ready to move. Philip Augustus hoped to round off his successes against the Plantagenet by taking from him England as well. But before a French army could cross the Channel, the fullest possible diplomatic assistance from the Papacy was desired. Therefore, in March 1213, the King of France called a general assembly of his barons to decide what force should follow his son, Prince Louis, crusading to Languedoc. To work up sentiment, the zealous Bishop Fulk of Toulouse and Guy de Vaux-Cernay, Bishop of Carcassonne, journeyed to Paris, the latter having appointed the future St. Dominic to administer his diocese in his absence. To oppose them, came the Bishop of Barcelona, as Pedro’s ambassador, armed with Innocent’s January letters putting an end to the Crusade and disavowing the legates! Here was a pretty complication. Philip Augustus knew how to be shifty himself on occasion, but even he must have been puzzled as to the true state of affairs in Rome. However, it was decided that a large force should move south under Prince Louis. Only Innocent’s own command received about a month later, that Philip should take up the Pope’s quarrel with John by sending the young Louis to invade England, prevented the French Monarchy, then and there, from taking its part in the Albigensian Crusade.

At last, in Rome, the die was cast. About June 1, Innocent wrote in his usual vigorous tone to Pedro, Simon, Arnaut Amalric, and Fulk of Toulouse. The Pope had found, he said, that the ambassadors of the southern lords had lied to him. He, therefore, disavowed his January letters, withdrew his protection from the citizens of Toulouse and from the Lords of Foix and Bearn; until such time as Fulk might absolve the Toulousains, and Arnaut Amalric the three nobles, after due and complete submission in all cases. Pedro was reminded of the favours he had received from Innocent, and blamed for having shown so little wisdom and piety as to have protected heretics and favourers of heresy, more dangerous than the heretics themselves. He was ordered not to attack de Montfort and, finally, was warned that strong measures would be taken against him, darling of the Church though he was, should he disobey. The extraordinary spirit of the great mediæval Popes, their enormous sense of power and their bold determination to use it to the uttermost, vibrates in the letter. With the Emperor and the King of England both excommunicated and defying the Church, Innocent nevertheless threatens to move against the foremost champion of Christendom against the Mohammedan! As before, he made one reservation. He granted the Aragonese request for an additional new legate, and notified King Pedro that he was sending the Cardinal Robert de Courcon to act in that capacity. But this concession was but a drop in the bucket. The new papal policy left the Aragonese practically no choice between war and abandoning Languedoc to de Montfort.

Before the Pope’s decision was known, the first Standard Bearer of the Church had chosen war. Without breaking openly with the Pope, he decided that it was worth risking much to save Raymond, who had himself married one of Pedro’s sisters and had married the heir of Toulouse to another. It is characteristic of the man and of the time that, even while he was ordering a general mobilization of his forces against the Crusade, he was at the same time obtaining from Innocent the renewal of a papal bull of the year 1095 which provided that no interdict could be laid on the dominions of his house except by the Pope in person, thus blunting the spiritual sword in the hands of the redoubtable Arnaut Amalric. Meanwhile he formally took Toulouse, Foix, and Bearn under his protection and began to bestir himself mightily to raise troops, calling upon his lieges to pawn their possessions and follow him to the rescue of his brother-in-law whom clerics and “Frenchmen” were seeking to despoil. Conformably to the immemorial traditions of Europe, Catalonia was already, as it still is, inclined to be anti-clerical over against devout Aragon. Accordingly, although the Aragonese held aloof and showed little spirit for the war, the Catalans swarmed out briskly so that by springtime Pedro had a large force equipped, as the “Chanson” expressly says, not only with pack transport but also with wheeled transport as well, and ready to march.

All these preparations were pushed on through the late winter and early spring. Towards the end of spring, when mobilization was complete, there seems to have been a pause. The anti-crusading party in Languedoc were anxiously waiting for Pedro, as an extant troubadour poem vividly shows, but the Aragonese delayed. No doubt before he moved, he preferred to know how he stood with Innocent, who was so long in coming to a decision. Should the Pope’s verdict be favourable to the King, then he would certainly not have to use as much force, perhaps he might not have to move at all. On the other hand, should Aragonese diplomacy lose at Rome, then Pedro must win some substantial military success quickly, so as to present Innocent with an accomplished fact as a basis on which to treat. At last came two abbots; charged by de Montfort and the legates to show the King the papal letter of June 1, in which Innocent came out flatly against Aragon. The King answered the two abbots by promising to obey the Pope. De Montfort sent a knight, Lambert de Thury by name (to whom he had entrusted the castle of Puivert about fifteen miles from Quillan on the road to Foix), with a letter in which he told Pedro, “without any of the ordinary salutations,” that the Aragonese must withdraw his protection from the Languedocian nobles, “on pain of being proceeded against like all other enemies of the Church.” To which Pedro returned no answer, except to threaten the life of the messenger, and crossed the Pyrenees with the greater part of his large force, leaving the rear echelon to follow as fast as it could and proclaiming that he was acting under orders from the Pope in taking up arms against the Crusade.

Pedro’s intervention promised to be decisive. For four years, in the face of heavy odds, Count Simon had snatched success out of the jaws of hostile circumstance. But now the odds were so overwhelming that only one result seemed possible. In the summer of 1213 any man (no matter what he desired in the matter) estimating the chances of the future would have told you that de Montfort and his little band of Crusaders would be wiped out.

CHAPTER V.
THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE.
MURET AND ITS SEQUEL.

We have seen that everyone, except perhaps de Montfort himself, expected to see the Crusade annihilated. The event proved them wrong. It is fair, therefore, to speak of the rest of the war and the final surrender of the house of Toulouse as the sequel to the amazing action of Muret. For although that final surrender was postponed sixteen years, without Muret there would have been no surrender at all.

Besides its immense result, the campaign of 1213 culminating in the battle of Muret, is interesting as one of the very few conflicts between men of European stock in which a small force has broken and destroyed a force many times larger than itself. That the men of the time realized both the importance and the extraordinary nature of the action is proved by the abundance of record concerning it. Despite this fact, no student of mediæval war will be surprised to learn that the reconstruction of the battle itself remains difficult. It is strange, however, that the evidence as to Pedro’s line of march is almost altogether lacking.

It seems fairly certain that the Aragonese concentrated at Lerida. They could not have marched by the great coast road of the Romans, from Barcelona via Perpignan (a town of Pedro’s) to Narbonne, and then west by Carcassonne on Toulouse, inasmuch as de Montfort strongly held the Carcassonne country. Therefore, to march by this, the natural low-grade route of peace-time, would have exposed the King to the probability of having to fight before his junction with his Languedocian allies. Eliminating the main coast road, there remain two possibilities, the Somport and the Cerdagne, and between them there seems to be no direct evidence whatsoever. To move by Huesca, Jaca, the Somport, and so into friendly Bearn by Oloron, would have put it out of de Montfort’s power to harass the march. A phrase in Vaissete, repeated by Luchaire, to the effect that the king “entered Gascony” appears to tell in favour of the Somport hypothesis. So does the fact that the Aragonese entered Toulouse before moving on Muret. Had he moved by the Cerdagne, Muret would have been directly on his line of march to Toulouse. Nevertheless, the probabilities seem to tell in favour of the Cerdagne. In the first place, Belloc states that the Somport was disused (except locally we may imagine) after “... the new civilization of the Middle Ages had set in with the twelfth century....” The southern side of the Somport, which the army would have had to mount, is excessively steep. Moreover, the bulk of Pedro’s army, as we have already seen, was not Aragonese but anti-clerical Catalan. For the Catalans, the Cerdagne was by far the shortest line into Languedoc.

To move by the Somport would have compelled them to an enormous detour, and, as matters stood, speed was all-important. Their commander could not long keep up any shred of pretence that he had the Pope’s approval of his actions, and must therefore make haste. The choice of Lerida as the point of concentration tells in favour of the Cerdagne. Had the Aragonese intended to move by the Somport, a concentration at Huesca or even at Jaca would have been more natural. Moreover, there is no great difficulty in assuming the Cerdagne route, by the upper Segre to Puigcerda, the Puymorens Pass, and the upper Ariege on Foix. The whole of the upper Tet basin and also the head waters of the Aude were in Roussillon, which was Aragonese land. It would have been virtually impossible for de Montfort, even were he warned in time, to march from the Middle Aude country through hostile territory by Axat, Mont-Louis, and Saillagouse to cut in on the right of the Aragonese column. The forces in being, and friendly to Pedro, in Languedoc put such a move out of all reason. Further on, when Aragon had joined Foix, de Montfort had a garrison at Pamiers, which might harass the flank of their column moving northward. Still, Pamiers could have been avoided by going from Foix west on St. Girons and the upper Garonne valley, and, in any event, Aragon and Foix were in great force, and marching to the large and friendly city of Toulouse, so that, granted any kind of reasonable care for security on the march, there was little to fear from the Pamiers garrison. It would seem, therefore, as if the weight of probability, slight as it is, tells in favour of Pedro’s having marched by the Cerdagne.

Whatever his line of march, the Aragonese effected a junction with his allies, and together they sat down before Muret on September 10. The place was held for de Montfort by a garrison of thirty knights and seven hundred poorly armed infantry. The Languedocian barons were in high spirits. A small garrison of de Montfort’s in Pujols, eight and three-quarter miles east-south-east of Toulouse, had been cut off and massacred. The militia infantry of the commune of Toulouse were available for the attack on Muret, for the garrison of that town threatened Toulouse closely on the south-west as Lavaur did on the north-east. The choice of objective was wise, inasmuch as it made the militia available, as well as for the main reason: that is the importance of disengaging Toulouse (the Languedocian base) from the nearest Montfortist garrison.

By contrast with the vagueness of our knowledge of Pedro’s movements, those of de Montfort are known in detail. The crusading leader lay at Fanjeaux with a small force including thirty knights. Then as now, the early summer saw the high-water mark of the French energy, and by September the greater part of the forty-day Crusaders of that year had turned homeward. Although we know (from the interception of a private letter of Pedro’s) that de Montfort had some sort of intelligence service at work, nevertheless, his information seems to have been defective, so that he was surprised by Pedro’s move, perhaps because of its speed. When word came that the Aragonese was in Languedoc in arms, de Montfort at once sent his wife, the Countess Alice, to overtake certain temporary Crusaders who had just started homeward and, if possible, persuade them to return. The energetic countess made such haste that she gathered up at Carcassonne several hundred of the departing Crusaders, including the Viscount of Corbeil and that William des Barres who had commanded a “battle” (i.e., unit) under Cœur de Lion in the Third Crusade, including the bloody repulse of Saladin at Arsouf twenty-two years before. Even when these reinforcements had come in, de Montfort’s mobile force was small. He had about two hundred and sixty knights, and six hundred “sergeants,” that is cavalrymen heavily armed like knights but not of noble blood. King Pedro and the southern lords were known to be in great force. Most mediæval commanders, when gravely inferior in numbers, were accustomed to decline battle from behind walls, but Simon was an extraordinary man, and, moreover, he was driven by political necessity. Only the terror of his name made it possible for his small forces to hold down his thousands of unwilling southern subjects. To lose a strong place like the Castle of Muret might prove fatal to his prestige and be the signal for a general insurrection. Furthermore, he had not only boundless faith in his cause, but also a hearty contempt for the King of Aragon as an opponent. He knew that the Aragonese and the Languedocians were not accustomed to acting together, and would therefore have difficulty in deploying for action, especially if suddenly attacked. He therefore decided to take the field.

His decision made, on September 9 (as Pedro and the southern lords were marching on Muret, but before news of the move had come in) de Montfort moved west from Fanjeaux on Saverdun, making a slight detour to the Cistercian Abbey of Boulbonne, near Mazeres. There he dedicated his sword, laying it for a time on the altar while he prayed. When the sacristan of the abbey asked him in wonder why with his handful of men he was attacking so famous a chieftain as the Aragonese, Count Simon drew from his pouch an intercepted letter from Pedro to a mistress of his, the wife of a Languedocian baron, in which the King had written that it was for her sweet sake that he was fighting to drive out the “French.” “I do not fear this king,” said de Montfort, “who opposes the work of God for the sake of a harlot.” Already he was expecting an attack on Muret, the most exposed of his garrisons. During the hot afternoon, couriers, who had ridden that day upwards of twenty miles from Muret, brought word that the place was attacked. The little crusading army pushed on, reaching Saverdun at nightfall. Here a council of war was held, at which de Montfort was for pushing on that night to Muret, which was ill provisioned, but yielded to the opinion of the clergy with him, who urged that the men and horses were fatigued from marching some 35 miles in forty-eight hours, on top of the 17 miles that de Corbeil and des Barres had already done from Carcassonne to Fanjeaux.

No less than seven bishops, Fulk of Toulouse, Arnold of Nismes, Bernard of Beziers, Raymond of Agde and Peter of Comminges (together with the future St. Dominic) were present, an imposing array with which it was doubtless hoped to impress King Pedro. On the morning of Wednesday the eleventh, de Montfort confessed, and made his will, directing that it be sent to Rome for confirmation in case of his death. Mass was said, and the Counts of Toulouse, Foix, and Comminges were again formally excommunicated, together with the Toulousains and all who might oppose the Crusade. Significantly, the King of Aragon was not mentioned by name, and to him Bishop Fulk despatched a mounted courier asking safe conduct for the clergy who were with de Montfort in order that peace might be made. Having crossed the Ariege at Saverdun, the little army moved north up the left bank of that river. About ten miles on their way, at Hauterive, the courier sent to Pedro returned with the refusal of all that Bishop Fulk had asked. Along the twelve miles between Hauterive and Muret, the march was delayed by marshy country which had been made more difficult by recent rains. Fierce Languedocian summer showers drenched the advancing column, one being so severe as to drive many men to shelter in a little wayside church which their leader had entered to pray. When the shower had passed the advance was resumed, and towards evening the massive red brick ramparts of Muret came in sight. No enemy had been seen during the day, but now, in full view of the enemy so that their own numbers could be closely estimated, the Crusaders crossed the bridge over the Garonne and entered the place unopposed. The lack of opposition surprised de Montfort, Antony says.

Under mediæval conditions, Muret was naturally strong. The general shape of the town is a right triangle with a short base. The Garonne flows north-east along the perpendicular of the triangle; the winding Louge flows in a general direction east along the hypotenuse and falls into the Garonne at the apex of the triangle where the castle then stood. Adjoining the castle was the old town or “bourg.” The new town or “ville” occupied the space between the “bourg” and the base of the triangle. The road from Toulouse crossed the Louge on a bridge and entered the “ville” by the Toulouse Gate which was pierced in the wall of the northern hypotenuse side near the north-west corner. The Sales Gate opened through the wall of the base near the right angle. On the eastern side, a roadway ran along the Garonne bank under the wall from the south corner of the town past the bridge over the Garonne to the bridge of St. Sernin, which crossed the mouth of the Louge under the walls of the castle, at the apex of the triangle. At the right angle, i.e., the south corner of the town, an outwork or chatelet protected the Sales Gate and the entrance leading to the road along the Garonne bank. The defences of the castle were strong, those of the “bourg” less so, and those of the “ville” were weak.

The Garonne at Muret is unfordable, about a hundred and fifty yards wide, and flows rapidly between steep banks averaging over thirty feet high and nearly forty feet just below the mouth of the Louge. The Louge is a good sized brook between fifteen and twenty-five feet across; fordable in all seasons, except just at its mouth, but a first-class military obstacle because of the height and steepness of its banks, nearly forty feet, as we have seen, at its mouth, and over fifteen just above the town. Half a mile up, its banks are low and gentle and it is no obstacle at all. From a point about three-quarters of a mile west of the town a low ridge runs a little east of north. This ridge (called near the town “the Hill of Perramon”) is not over fifty feet high and of a very easy slope. Between it and the Garonne the ground is quite flat. About a mile north of the town lies a slight marshy depression called in the local dialect “Les Pesquies,” i.e., the fish-pond or fishery, and from this patch of swamp a tiny rivulet runs east to the Garonne, between banks all of ten feet high and fully thirty degrees in slope at the top—an obstacle impossible for charging cavalry.

Pedro, Raymond, Foix and Comminges had made camp on the hill of Perramon. Under cover of the fire of six mangonnels (i.e. catapults) they had promptly attacked the walls in the neighbourhood of the Toulouse Gate, forced the defences of the “ville” and driven the garrison of thirty knights and seven hundred poorly armed infantry into the bourg and the castle. The assault seems to have been the work of the Toulousain militia infantry, the knights and Catalans disdaining siege work. No sooner was the “ville” occupied than word came of de Montfort’s approach. Thereupon Pedro, in high glee, ordered a retirement outside the walls, reckoning that if the Crusaders would only enter the place they would be caught in a trap. The place could then be besieged on all sides and the war finished at one blow. Hence the unopposed entry which surprised de Montfort.

The allies spent the early hours of the evening in consultation. Raymond proposed to entrench the camp so as to secure it against a cavalry charge, and give to the defenders the opportunity to shoot at the Crusaders without fear of being ridden down. Such tactics had at least enabled the Toulousain to bring off his army safely from the unsuccessful siege of Castelnaudary two years before. To the sporting instincts of Pedro, however, this seemed mere cowardice, and he not only rejected it but allowed one of his barons bitterly to taunt Raymond for having made the suggestion. The idea was dropped. Raymond was so completely in Pedro’s power that we do not even hear of his resenting the insult offered him. Two monks now appeared, sent by Bishop Fulk of Toulouse to treat either with the Aragonese, or with his own Toulousain flock. The Toulousains promised an answer and detained the monks. This matter disposed of, Pedro began a night of revelry. Many of the barons of Languedoc, who were completely in his power, had put their wives and daughters at his disposition, and he debauched himself so strenuously that at mass, in the morning (so his own son writes), he was so exhausted that he could scarcely stand for the reading of the gospel.

Even had he thought of the military position seriously, the King had no reason to hurry matters. All his own troops had not yet joined, and in all probability he knew of the shortage of provisions in Muret, which must soon sap the strength of his opponents. That de Montfort would lead his little band to the attack never entered Pedro’s head.

De Montfort, on the other hand, saw clearly that he himself must attack. The same political necessity that had drawn him to Muret made a quick success desirable; the shortage of food in the town made it imperative. He had had four years in which to estimate Pedro, and must have felt reasonably certain that the sportsman king would conduct operations haphazard. His own great inferiority in numbers might be neutralized if he could effect a partial surprise. Possibly he had this in mind when, on the morning of the 11th, he ordered that the Toulouse Gate, which had been forced on the previous day, should be neither closed nor barricaded. The enemy might be tempted to attack it again and be thereby prevented from giving their whole attention to the proposed countermove. Possibly it was the bishops who wished to show that they did not consider diplomatic relations broken off. The ruse, if ruse it was, succeeded. The savage Count of Foix and certain Catalans charged mounted into the town by the open gate, but were driven out by the Crusaders, under Count Simon himself. He had seven hundred infantry, and even mediocre infantry (provided they kept their heads at all) had the advantage of mounted men cooped in the narrow and winding streets of a mediæval town. The unsuccessful attack served the further purpose, of forcing the consent of the clergy to the rash plan, as they considered it, of a sortie. Bishop Fulk, nothing daunted when the Toulousains sent back his two monks with the message they could do nothing with King Pedro, had intended to go barefoot at the head of the clergy present, to beg peace in the very camp of the besiegers.

Now de Montfort, heated with directing the repulse of Foix and the Catalans, strode into the priory and demanded permission to sally out and fight. Meanwhile the southerners, in preparation for a new attack, began a heavy fire of all sorts of projectiles. When missiles began to fall upon the priory roof over their heads, the clergy abandoned all idea of negotiating and gave Count Simon leave to attack.

This permission granted, the crusading leader, who was on foot, made for the castle where he had left his horse. On his way he entered St. Sernin, where the Bishop of Usez was saying mass, and prostrated himself before the altar. As he rose, the supporting strap of one of his chainmail leg-pieces broke, but, quite neglecting the evil omen, he merely had it replaced and continued on his way. His horse had been brought out to him on the high castle terrace, but, as he tried to mount, two more discouraging portents took place. First the saddle girth broke. He calmly had it repaired and again put his foot in the stirrup. Just as he swung into the saddle, the horse jerked up his head and struck him on the forehead so that, for a moment, he was stunned. Some Toulousains, posted in observation north of the Louge, raised a mocking yell to which he defiantly shouted back, “You mock me now, but I trust in the Lord and I hope right well to cry after you this day as far as the gates of Toulouse.”

We may fairly assume that the Toulousains were out of easy bowshot—say a hundred and fifty yards off. Their gestures could therefore be seen and their mocking cries heard, whereas Count Simon’s exact words could not come to them clearly: had they been understood they might have jeopardized his intended surprise.

Mounted at last, Count Simon rode down to the Ville and formed his nine hundred horsemen on the spacious market-place, the “mercadar” making three squadrons or “battles” each, we may safely assume, of about three hundred, i.e., one hundred knights and two hundred sergeants. The first displayed all the banners of the host, so as to concentrate the enemies’ attention upon it. It was commanded by William d’Encontre, accompanied by de Montfort’s half brother, the veteran William des Barres. The second was under Bouchard de Marly and included a handful of knights who had sworn an oath to kill King Pedro. De Montfort himself commanded the third. When formed, he addressed them and explained the proposed manœuvre, stressing the need to file out by a gate not closely observed by the enemy, so that, while deploying, their horses should not be exposed to missile weapons: the men themselves would have nothing to fear thanks to their chainmail armor with its quilted lining. His orders were to charge and fight as a unit and on no account to break ranks in order to attempt some individual feat of arms.

Finally, before moving out, they were solemnly blessed by the bishops. Early that morning mass had been said, and all the soldiers who had not previously done so had made their confessions and received the Host. Fulk, in his mitre and vestments, held out a fragment of the true cross for each man, in turn, to dismount and kiss it.

This ceremony, of course, dragged so that the enthusiasm of the troops began to suffer until Bishop Peter of Comminges, with a more practical spirit than his brother of Toulouse, cut matters short by gently taking the relic into his own hands and held it up in sight of all present, promising to those who should fall the glory of martyrs and the remission of purgatory. Afterwards, when the little column had moved off, the clergy made for the church, and throughout the engagement continued to implore the throne of grace in behalf of the Christian arms with such fervor that “... they might be said to have howled rather than prayed.”

It is impossible to establish the numbers of the force which the Crusaders were about to attack. Pedro had mobilized a thousand knights, all of whom had not yet come in, but the number of his “sergeants” we do know. There are no figures as to the men brought by the Languedocian nobles, although we do know that two years before at Castlenaudary, their forces had heavily outnumbered de Montfort at a time when Pedro was not in the field. The calculations of different authorities vary widely. In cavalry alone, the Crusaders were certainly outnumbered at least four to one.

The southern infantry strength, including both feudal infantry and communal militia, has been estimated at forty thousand. No figures seem to exist for the Toulousain militia, but they were undoubtedly in considerable force. On the other hand, the morale of the allies was below the superb morale of the Crusaders; and there was friction between Languedocians and Spaniards, as we have seen.

The reconstruction of a mediæval battle is a matter of the greatest difficulty, as every scholar knows who has attempted such a task.

Even when (as in the present case) half a dozen contemporary accounts are at hand, nothing approaching a technical description of the action is to be found in them. Occasionally, as in the chronicle of Jaime of Aragon, which enumerates the different errors committed by the troops under his father, we get a flash of true military appreciation, but never more than a flash. Irrelevant but picturesque incidents, such as the series of mishaps suffered by de Montfort in mounting, are dwelt upon, while the fundamental points of an action are left vague.

The historian is therefore compelled to test his authorities by minute study of the terrain, by an examination of local tradition, and by all he has of common sense combined with military judgment.

With respect to this matter of military judgment yet one more difficulty appears, i.e., our complete ignorance of mediæval minor tactics. In most other respects, our ignorance is qualified. We know that our European ancestors of seven and eight hundred years ago could and did move large armies from France to Palestine, both by land and overseas. Therefore we are compelled to credit them with a considerable degree of discipline and an effective commissariat and intelligence service; to deny such obvious conclusions is merely to make a fool of oneself. We are well informed concerning their fortifications and siege work, which played so important a part in their wars. But as to the details of their tactical formations and especially as to the regularity of those formations we know nothing at all. Hence it is possible for highly educated veteran soldiers of to-day to argue that there was, for instance, no generally understood and practised method of passing from column to line and back again!

Accordingly it is not surprising to find that scholars disagree fundamentally over the Battle of Muret, and that no full reconstruction seems possible.

Nevertheless, after comparing all the evidence now available, an accurate outline of the action can be fixed. This I shall now attempt.

The Crusaders went out by the Sales Gate. The evidence seems to show that they traversed the chatelet or outwork, and left the fortifications by the eastern gate through which they had entered the town. They then followed the road between the eastern wall and the river, marching all the time with the least possible noise as to avoid attracting attention. Evidently the first part of the movement (i.e., the passage through the outwork) was a feint at retreat deliberately shown to the enemy in order to mislead him, and the second (the march along the river bank) a concealed move, in order to obtain the effect of surprise. The column followed the route by which they had come until the bridge over the Garonne was reached. Then, instead of turning to the right and crossing it, they went straight ahead, passed under the walls of the castle, and (still unobserved by the enemy) crossed the St. Sernin bridge at the mouth of the Louge. As soon as the first squadron had crossed, it deployed to the left and charged down upon those of the enemy (i.e., part of the Toulousain militia reinforced by certain Catalan knights, under the Count of Foix) who had that morning unsuccessfully attacked the Toulouse Gate. William d’Encontre and William des Barres surprised them completely, and scattered them in a few moments, “like dust before a gale.”

The technical phases of this part of the action seem never to have been considered by historians. Inasmuch are they are of some interest in themselves, and furthermore, shed light upon the flagrant indiscipline in the southern army, they are worth a moment’s consideration.

The known elements of the problem are these: first the undisputed facts that the surprise was complete and that the successful charge was made only by some three hundred horsemen; second, the weight of evidence in favour of the route just described as that of the sortie.

The time element involved remains to be computed. The full distance from the Sales Gate, past the town, over the bridge, and up the abrupt ramp leading to the plain, is nearly 700 yards. From the numerous mediæval gates extant, together with the extant brick remains of the northern abutment of the bridge in question, we may be certain that the formation was a column of twos. We may be almost equally certain that the gait was a walk, for (in the first place) it would have been nearly impossible to trot up the final steep ramp, (secondly) silence was desired, and (thirdly) to trot through such a long narrow space would have exposed the cavalry to the risk of a serious snarl in case a single horse fell or behaved badly—in which case the whole operation would have been compromised. Assuming the gait to have been a walk, we are entitled to reduce the distance occupied by each horse to three yards, leaving a bare one foot between nose and crupper. The length of the entire column must therefore have been at least 450 × 3 = 1,350 yards, nearly double the distance to be traversed, and the length of each squadron must have been 450 yards. Before falling out to eat and drink, we may be sure that the Toulousains and Catalans must have retreated at least 150 yards north of the Toulouse Gate in order that so large a target as they would present might be out of long bowshot. Therefore the head of the crusading column would come into full sight practically as soon as it topped the ramp and gained the plain, and historians who assume that the deployment could have been made out of sight of the Toulousains and Catalans have simply never troubled to walk over the battlefield. Assuming a walking gait to be four miles per hour, i.e., 117 yards per minute, the rear of the first crusading squadron would be in the plain almost exactly four minutes after the van had come in sight of the enemy in front of the Toulouse Gate. The greater part of the 600 yards separating the Crusaders from the enemy would almost certainly be covered at a trot of say eight miles an hour, before breaking into a gallop for the final shock. Two minutes, plus the time necessary for deployment, must therefore be added to the original four. In all, nearly ten minutes must have elapsed between the first observation of the Crusaders by Foix’s command and the delivery of the crusading charge.

Inasmuch as Foix’s men far outnumbered the first crusading squadron, the fact that they were unable (when their seven minutes’ grace was up) to make even a few moments effective resistance shows their discipline to have been wretched. We know that they had committed the imprudence of falling out to eat and drink, that most of the Catalan knights had put off their armour, and that no proper measures of security had been taken. Nevertheless, it seems that the Crusaders should at least have been delayed a few moments. Not one of Foix’s Catalan knights was killed!

Meanwhile, the main body of the besiegers was getting to horse, crying “Aragon,” “Foix,” or “Comminges,” according to their allegiance. The Spaniards formed, but the formation was ragged. In part this may have been due to haste, although they must have had over twenty minutes in which to get in line, assuming a minimum of ten minutes from the disclosure of the operation to the deployment of the second crusading squadron, and an additional minimum of ten minutes for the second squadron to catch up with the first and for the two together to do the mile which separated them from Pedro’s people. In part it certainly resulted from the folly and indiscipline of the Spanish knights; every important man among them (so Pedro’s son King Jaime tells us) wanted to fight his own battle with the enemy, making strict alignment and combined action impossible. Furthermore, as we learn from other chronicles, Pedro himself exercised no effective command, but yielded to his chivalric enthusiasm by exchanging armour with one of his knights and posting himself in the front ranks—a piece of generous but unmilitary folly surprising in a soldier of his considerable experience since it lost him all control over his forces in reserve. The Aragonese were facing south astride the Seysses road about a mile out from Muret, with the Pesquies marsh covering their left.

Having broken Foix’s command, the first crusading squadron had to wheel half right in order to strike Pedro. By spurring hard, the second, with a straighter course to follow, was able to catch up, and both together went at the Aragonese, sweeping before them some of Foix’s routed horsemen. Count Simon’s orders on no account to engage in individual jousting but to charge boot to boot were so well obeyed that the shock was simultaneous all along their line. It was so violent that the Crusaders plunged into the horsemen opposed to them “like a stone dropped into the water.” Pedro’s people stood firm and closed round them, hiding them from the third “battle,” and the melée swayed back and forth with a din “as of countless axemen hewing down a forest.”

De Montfort, with the idea of charging in on Pedro’s left, worked rapidly north and east around the marsh until he found himself blocked by Pesquies ravine, which the chroniclers describe as a “fossatum” (i.e., a ditch or trench). Cut in the steep banks of this obstacle was a narrow path, blocked at the farther end by a strong Aragonese combat patrol or covering detachment. Such covering detachments were familiar enough, as we learn from the “Siete Partidas” of Alfonzo the Wise of Castile, written about 1260, in which they are called alas or citaras. If it be objected that Pedro was in no mood to think of such details as posting this detachment, we may fairly imagine some grizzled knight of Aragon who knew enough to take on the job by himself with his own immediate followers.

To go from line to column and try to force the narrow path in the face of opposition was a bad business, but de Montfort had no choice. Time was passing, he had the marsh on his left and the ravine stretching away on his right. At the head of his men he crossed the ravine and set his horse to scramble up the farther bank. In this unfavourable position, as he struggled to protect himself from the blows he could not yet hope to return, he broke his left stirrup leather—the third time one part or another of his equipment had played him false that day. With great dexterity he kept his seat and, reaching the summit of the bank, unhorsed the nearest enemy with a blow of the fist to the jaw—the Spaniard must have been wearing not a closed pot-helm but an open-faced steel cap. This man seems to have been the detachment commander, for when his followers saw him fall they broke up and fled on the instant. Their flight exposed to Count Simon the left flank of the Aragonese main body. He got his three hundred across, deployed them, and charged.

All this time the first two crusading squadrons had been fighting hard. Although their close formation and the fury of their charge had carried them deep into the ranks of their enemies, still these last had not broken, but closed in around them. Strict order and alignment had gone and the fighting was man to man. The knight who had taken the part of Pedro could not equal his master’s prowess, and Pedro himself forgot caution, and cried out: “I am the King.” Whereupon those who had sworn to have his life closed around him and killed him, despite his valor and his skill in arms.

Whether the King fell before or after de Montfort’s charge is uncertain—those who killed him were with the second crusading squadron. In either case his fall and the flank charge decided the day, and a general rout ensued. The 500 knights of his household, unsupported by the rest of the leaderless mass of horsemen, fell almost to a man around his body. The southerners paid a bitter price for Pedro’s chivalrous folly in jamming himself into the fighting and thereby giving up all attempt to direct operations. Raymond and the Count of Comminges seem never to have been engaged at all. We hear of them only as fleeing from the field. Count Simon, on the other hand, was as wise in victory as he had been furious in attack. While directing or, more probably, permitting the pursuit of the fugitives by his first two squadrons, he kept the third squadron (his own immediate command) well under control, and followed the pursuit at a distance so as to intervene in case of a rally. After a short pursuit, as soon as he judged that the fleeing enemy horsemen were incapable of renewing the battle and were making for Toulouse, he recalled the pursuers, and at the head of his three squadrons returned towards Muret.

Meanwhile the Toulousain communal militia had altogether misconceived the result of the cavalry action. Only a part of these troops had taken part in Foix’s unsuccessful attack and subsequent rout at the hands of the first crusading squadron; and of that part only those north of the Louge had actually endured the crusading charge and the rout. Those between the Louge and the Garonne had merely retreated, hastily enough, no doubt, in order to conform to the flight of those north of the brook. By far the greater part of them, therefore, were quite fresh. At first they barricaded themselves in their camp, fearing they would be attacked. But townsmen in mediæval warfare were apt to suffer from rashness; one of many examples is the behaviour of the Londoners at Lewes in 1264. It has been supposed that dust may have hidden the cavalry flight from the Toulousains, or there may have been clumps of trees to block their view. Knowing de Montfort to be heavily outnumbered, they believed a rumour of his defeat, sallied out from their camp and beset the town from all sides.

In Muret, Count Simon’s victory was already known by messenger. Bishop Fulk, therefore, sent to tell his obstreperous flock of this, and offered them mercy, but they would not believe, and wounded his parlementaire. Startled at the sight of the Crusaders, returning victorious, and about to fall upon the rear of their extended formation, they broke up in a panic and were slaughtered far and wide. Some made for the camp and were killed there, others ran for the boats which had brought up their siege material and were now anchored about a mile north of the town.

A few of these last escaped so, but most were butchered on the high banks by de Montfort’s people.

In 1875 a flood of the Garonne undercut and brought down much of the bank, revealing an immense mass of their bones opposite Saubens, and about 700 yards upstream from that village. Other skeletons are scattered about to the north of this spot; to this day they are turned up sometimes by the spade and the plough.

Such are the true elements of the Battle of Muret.

The total losses of the vanquished were enormous, while the victors lost only one knight and, at most, eight “sergeants”—a fully-armed man in a position to defend himself was already in 1213 so completely protected by his chainmail armor. Infantry normally accounted for most mediæval battle casualties, and, of course, the dismounted and wounded knights of the losing side could be massacred if the victors so chose, as they emphatically did on this occasion.

On the other hand, de Montfort shed tears over Pedro’s dead body—“like a second David over a second Saul.” The King had never been excommunicated, accordingly his corpse was allowed burial in consecrated ground at the hands of the Hospitallers, who asked permission so to do.

Muret wiped out Aragon as a factor in Languedocian politics. Raymond, with his son, later Count Raymond VII, fled the country and made for the court of England. Apparently, one of his last acts was the capture of his bastard brother Baldwin, who had gone over to de Montfort, and was now surprised and taken prisoner. Raymond promptly had him hanged. There was even a story that the Count of Foix himself tied the noose. A few months earlier King John had done homage to the Pope, and was now preparing, with Otto, to seek a military decision against Philip Augustus, whose vassals he was corrupting with might and main. He received Raymond kindly, and presented him with 10,000 marks, but could give no other assistance until he had settled accounts with the King of France. Raymond swore him homage, and seems to have stayed in England for some months. Meanwhile de Montfort triumphantly crossed the Rhône and mastered much of Raymond’s “Marquisate of Provence” to the east of that river. Merely to keep his hand in, he indulged in a small war in the county of Foix. With Pedro dead, there was no one capable of taking the field against the Crusade.

There were, however, three limitations to de Montfort’s success. The first was military; his force was so small that he could not think of doing anything against the city of Toulouse itself. The citizens felt so safe that they began by offering only sixty of their number as hostages to Bishop Fulk, instead of the two hundred which he demanded, and when he accepted the offer of sixty they refused to furnish any at all. De Montfort made a military demonstration up to the walls, but when the gates were kept closed against him he did not even attack. The second limitation was political, the Pope was by no means prepared to set up an altogether new secular authority in Languedoc, and was now determined to bring peace to that unhappy country. The third was also political; the cities which had given him a certain welcome as the maintainer of public order, now that order was restored were restive at the continued presence of “Frenchmen,” whom they heartily disliked.

The appointment of Cardinal Peter of Benevento as legate had been the one concession made to Pedro in Innocent’s harsh letter of the previous June which had pushed the unfortunate king into war. On the arrival of the new legate it became ironically evident that if the hot-headed Aragonese had been less hasty, he might have won the game in peace and security. For Cardinal Peter, unlike all his predecessors, began by following out the Pope’s policy and not that of the party of violence. He held an audience at Narbonne, at which the Counts of Foix and Comminges and a host of the smaller dispossessed nobles were allowed to abuse de Montfort. Innocent had given the cardinal-legate his orders in three bulls, dated January 20, 22, and 25, 1214. The first denied de Montfort’s claim to the Viscounty of Nismes, pending an inquiry. The second permitted the Count of Comminges and Viscount Gaston of Bearn, guilty as they were, to be reconciled with the Church on their due and complete submission. The third prescribed that the city of Toulouse should also be reconciled, upon full submission, and should then be put once more under the papal protection. De Montfort’s right to govern the lands he had conquered was recognized, but only as “provisional administrator” pending the decision of the Œcumenical Council, which was to meet at the Lateran in 1215. Moreover, Innocent wrote to Count Simon on January 22, commanding him to obey the legate and especially to surrender the young King of Aragon, whom the crusading leader had received as his ward at the Council of Narbonne three years before. Should de Montfort refuse on some pretext, then, wrote Innocent in his usual high tone, the legate was to carry out verbal orders which had been given him—a threat all the more menacing from its vagueness! In much the same terms the clergy of Languedoc were assured that the Holy See proposed to show no pity to any who refused to obey the new legate. The Pope was determined to call a halt, and Cardinal Peter entered fully into the spirit of the orders given him.

All the guilty parties surrendered unconditionally. Raymond made act of submission in April, turned over all his remaining dominions to the legate and even included a promise to exile himself anywhere the Pope might designate. On returning from England, he and his son lived for some time in Toulouse, with their wives, as private persons. Peace now seemed assured.

Thus checked, the indomitable de Montfort had another string to his bow. As before he had played off the Languedocian clergy against the Pope, so now he used the papal nuncio at the Court of France. This man, Robert de Courcon by name, had been vigorously preaching the Albigensian Crusade. While Peter of Benevento was temporarily absent escorting Pedro’s son to Aragon and organizing the regency there, de Courcon might fairly claim to be the principal representative of the Pope in France. With the usual independence of mediæval agents at a distance from their master, the nuncio at Paris proceeded to go clean counter to that master’s wishes. In June he had a conference with de Montfort at the latter’s camp, and in July he confirmed the leader of the Crusade by a solemn charter in the possession of all the lands in the Albigeois, the Agenais, Rouergue, and Quercy, already conquered or to be conquered from heretics and favourers of heretics!

The Crusaders whom de Courcon had persuaded to take the field began operations on their way south by capturing the castle of Maurillac in Auvergne. Here for the first time we hear of the burning of Waldensians, that is of heretics not obviously enemies to society. After the fall of the place, seven of them refused to recant before de Courcon and were accordingly burned ... “with immense rejoicings by the soldiers of Christ.” The event is significant, and we shall return to it.

The reinforcements thus brought in enabled de Montfort triumphantly to promenade the Agenais, Rouergue, Quercy, and even the Perigord. So great was his prestige that, in July, he married his son Amaury to the heiress of Dauphiné. Meanwhile Philip Augustus broke Otto and John of England on the decisive field of Bouvines so thoroughly, that neither of them was afterwards a factor in the affairs of Continental Europe. No wonder de Courcon, the papal nuncio at Paris, was emboldened. For the first time the French monarchy was free to take up the Albigensian business. On December 7 a courier from Rheims arrived with letters from de Courcon calling a council of nobles and high ecclesiastics of Languedoc to meet in Montpellier on January 8. De Montfort’s party had decided to renew the sentence of deposition passed upon Raymond by the Council of Lavaur, this time by a more imposing body. Cardinal Peter of Benevento, on returning from Spain, had to content himself with taking the presidency of this assembly which was determined to go against the entire spirit of his actions.

The Council of Montpellier throws into high relief the sharp cleavage of opinion in Languedoc. Montpellier was the most Catholic of the southern cities. As has been seen in the last chapter, its lord had been the first in the region to take official action against heresy. The orthodoxy of the place had never been questioned. Nevertheless, the popular feeling there was so bitter that de Montfort could not even come within the walls to attend the meetings of the Council for fear of being mobbed. He was forced to stay at the House of the Templars, outside the walls, and there confer with those who came to him. One day he did enter the town with his two sons and an escort of a few knights, in answer to a special invitation from Cardinal Peter. Whereupon the citizens moved at once, quietly armed themselves and manned the gate by which he had entered and the street by which he was expected to pass. Some even entered the Church of St. Mary in which the Council sat. Count Simon, whose worst enemy had never called him coward, was glad enough to be smuggled away through back streets.

On the other hand, the Council itself was Montfortist to a man. After legislating copiously on the reform of the clergy, the local abuses in laying tolls, repression of heretics and those who should favour them, &c., it decided unanimously to depose Raymond and set de Montfort in his stead. Cardinal Peter, however, on the plea that his instructions gave him no power to do so, refused to obey the Council and hand over the parts of Raymond’s lands, especially Toulouse and Montauban, which had surrendered to him as Innocent’s representative and not to de Montfort. The decision, he truly said, had been expressly reserved for the coming Lateran Council. Whereat the Montpellier assembly promptly sent off the Archbishop of Embrun to Rome to ask the Pope to recognize de Montfort as lord and even as king (“dominum et monarchum”) over the lands of the heretics!

The castle of Foix and the citadel of Toulouse known as the “Château Narbonaise” had received papal garrisons, the latter under the command of Bishop Fulk. The dispossessed knights, known as “faidits,” were given the privilege of moving freely about the country on condition of going unarmed, with but one spur (!), mounted on palfreys but not on war horses, and avoiding fortified places. Rome showed no signs of relaxing her grip, but was unmistakably beginning to show mercy and, above all, was refusing to support de Montfort in the more ambitious of his designs.

With matters in this state, a new turn was given to the situation. In April, 1215, Prince Louis, the heir of France, afterwards Louis VIII, set out for Languedoc. If de Montfort seriously intended to make himself a king, he must have feared the activities of the French monarchy. In the slight correspondence between them, Paris had made it quite clear that Count Simon was distinctly a vassal and agent of the Capets. But it seems more probable that Simon preferred to govern his unwilling southern subjects with the aid of the crown of France and not in opposition to it. In any case, he went clear to Vienne to meet Louis, who had mobilized his forces at the muster ground of 1209 at Lyons, and welcomed the prince with every appearance of joy. With Cardinal Peter it was very different. As representative of Rome he had nothing to hope from Louis, inasmuch as all opposition had ceased; and much to fear, as the prince might follow his father Philip’s policy of vigorously asserting the independence of lay authority in its own sphere by seizing on places like Toulouse and Foix, which were governed by papal troops, and by disposing of them in the name of the French crown.

However, it was soon seen that Louis by no means possessed his father’s force of character and penetrating intellect. The young prince had pleasing manners and personal courage, but was of a mild nature, not physically robust, and in no way fitted to set the river on fire. He promenaded Languedoc between de Montfort and Cardinal Peter, visiting in his forty days St. Gilles, Montpellier, Beziers, Narbonne, Carcassonne, Fanjeaux and Toulouse, and then went home without having exchanged a blow or a high word with anyone.

But when he reported to his father, in the presence of the peers of France, many of whom were Raymond’s kinsmen, as to de Montfort’s high hand in the south, Philip Augustus broke up the Council and withdrew to his private apartments saying, “I hope that before long Count de Montfort and his brother Guy will die at their work, because their quarrel is not just.”

Prince Louis’ peaceful pilgrimage produced two important results, the destruction of the walls of Toulouse and Narbonne, and de Montfort’s installation as “commendatory” lord of Toulouse and Foix. It was the prestige of being accompanied by the heir of France which directly enabled Count Simon to bring about the demolition of the defences of the two strongest cities of Languedoc. In the case of Narbonne, we do not know the reasons for the order, although it seems reasonable to suppose that public opinion in the place, as in the other neighbouring cities, was so bitter against the “French” that it seemed wise to make it defenceless. Arnaut Amalric, now Archbishop of Narbonne and claimant (in competition with de Montfort) to its dukedom, protested but without effect. The Narbonese, as well as the Toulousains, were forced to pull down their own walls, or (more probably) to make breaches in them, for thorough demolition was almost impossible to a time possessed of no means of destruction except fire and human muscle.

Further, Prince Louis’ support of de Montfort contributed largely to de Montfort’s assumption of temporary authority over Toulouse and Foix, because it increased the crusading leader’s influence with Cardinal Peter and thus helped to bring the new legate over to the party of violence. Another influence, working to the same end, was the considerable success of the Archbishop of Embrun, who had been sent to Rome by the Council of Montpellier. He returned with a papal bull crammed with praise of Count Simon, expressing the hope that he would not weary in well-doing, and authorizing him to hold, provisionally, the lands sequestrated by Cardinal Peter. Since a mediæval “commendatory” enjoyed the revenue of the lands he administered, the worst of de Montfort’s difficulties, his lack of money, was over for the time being. Although he had no definite possession of all he sought, still his prospects were of the best.

During the year Count Simon suffered but one check when, on July 2, Innocent decided against him and in favour of Arnaut Amalric for the Dukedom of Narbonne and announced his decision in a letter full of severe rebuke. But what was that, compared with so many successes?

On November 11, the Lateran Council met. It was an impressive assembly, including seventy-one patriarchs and metropolitans, four hundred abbots and bishops, and a huge number of delegates holding proxies for bishops who were unable to come. The Patriarch of Jerusalem was there, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, as the Greek Orthodox Church (for the first and last time since the ninth century) was in full communion with Rome, owing to the occupation of Constantinople by the short-lived “Latin Empire” which the iniquitous fourth Crusade had planted there. According to the well-known laws which govern human assemblies, this august body was impotent for effective deliberation, and at the mercy of the manipulation of its leaders, because of its great size. In general, its function was not so much to make decisions but merely to register decisions made before it had convened. In its three sessions, on November 11, 20 and 30, the Council passed all the decrees submitted to it, no less than seventy in number, which had been resolved upon, as we should say, in committee. Indeed, in every matter but the Albigensian, Pope Innocent seems to have been in complete control.

On the three stock subjects of faith, Church organization, and discipline, the Council affirmed transubstantiation, settled the order of precedence of the Patriarchs in the order Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, required sacramental confession once a year, and followed the usual mediæval practice of legislating interminably against the irregularities of the clergy. Those in orders were forbidden to act as surgeons, since operations cause the shedding of blood. Trial by combat was forbidden. Trial by ordeal was virtually abolished by forbidding any religious ceremonies in connection with such trials, thus depriving them of all reason for being, since they depended on religious sanction for their whole moral force. Decrees were passed against “incontinence, drunkenness, hunting, attendance at farces and stage plays,” on the part of the clergy. Other decrees regularized the procedure and penalties against heretics and their protectors, as we shall see in more detail in the next chapter. In the political field, the Council confirmed the election of Frederic II, son of Henry VI, as Holy Roman Emperor, and attempted to decide the future of Languedoc.

Every principal actor in the Albigensian drama was present, except de Montfort who was represented by his brother Guy. Arnaut Amalric, Archbishop and Duke of Narbonne, Fulk and Guy, bishops, respectively, of Toulouse and Carcassonne, and Theodisius now Bishop of Agde, represented the Languedocian clergy. Over against them on the lay side were the two Raymonds, the Count of Comminges, Count Raymond Roger of Foix, the boldest and most energetic of them all, and a minor noble, Bermond of Anduze, a son-in-law of Raymond’s, who pretended to have rights over the Toulousain inheritance.

Two hearings of the matter in dispute have been reported to us. The scene of the first was the court of the Lateran Palace, presumably either of classic style, or showing the slim circular pillars, delicate round arches and varicoloured stone inlay work of the Cosmati school. Innocent presided, and with him were all the curia. Raymond Roger of Foix, the centre of all eyes with his handsome person and ruddy face, spoke first. He denied his own guilt and that of Raymond of Toulouse. They had only defended themselves, he said, against brigands come to rob them under a pretence of crusading. The younger Raymond, so he maintained, had never even been accused of any crime. He himself, upon Innocent’s express request, had handed over the Castle of Foix, with its mighty ramparts, to Cardinal Peter. If the place, now held by de Montfort, was not given back, then no faith was to be put in solemn treaties. Fulk of Toulouse replied fiercely, recalling Raymond Roger’s crimes, his persecution of the Church and his protection of heresy, the Crusaders he had mutilated and massacred. Raymond Roger replied more fiercely still. A Toulousain knight sprang up, shouting that if they had known that so much fuss would be made over mutilated Crusaders, then even more would have lacked eyes and noses; at which those listening groaned and murmured as a shocked audience will. The Count of Foix then attacked Bishop Fulk. Not content with the lying songs and bitter satires he had written as a troubadour, the Bishop of Toulouse, he said, had caused more than five thousand deaths, including children, behaving himself more like Antichrist than like a Roman legate. Innocent mildly answered that Raymond Roger had stated his own case well, but had “a little” understated the Church’s case against him. Last, a representative spoke for the heir of Beziers and Carcassonne, son to that Trencavel who had died in prison in 1209, claiming that as the father had been assassinated by de Montfort and the Crusaders, the Pope, to “save his own honour,” must return the viscounty to the son. “Justice shall be done,” replied Innocent and retired to his private apartments.

The scene now changed to Innocent’s garden, no doubt some sort of formal garden with clipped plants, for the sure Italian taste changes little. The Pope knew that the great majority of the Council was dead against him with regard to Languedoc. Raymond Roger’s violence had certainly not been calculated to attract wavering churchmen, if any still wavered. But to Innocent that violence showed clearly as the fruit of great wrongs inflicted in the name of the Church over which he ruled, the Church which he passionately desired to have prevail as the arbiter of right and the doer of justice. His sense of his own personal honour, too, was as keen as any in that knightly age. Therefore he was troubled and sought to put his trouble from him among the growing things. Thither the Languedocian bishops, and others of their opinion, pursued him. If Simon had the land, they were saved, they said. If Raymond were returned to power, they and the Church in Languedoc were ruined. At first Innocent resisted, reminding them of the injustice of taking his lands from a Catholic noble like Raymond, and saying that while de Montfort might keep the lands taken from heretics, at least the rights of the widow and orphan must be preserved. But they pressed upon him indignantly, first Fulk speaking, then Theodisius, then the Archbishop of Auch, insisting that such a settlement would give de Montfort nothing, since the Pope held all three counts for Catholics; whereas de Montfort deserved much. They themselves had preached against Raymond as wicked and detestable, to restore him would be to disavow them altogether. Everything must be given outright to de Montfort. Indeed, they dared to say, it was impossible to take from him that which he possessed, for they would be there to defend him. Still Innocent held out. He reproached them with their cruelty, their refusal to compromise, the savage sermons in which they had so far exceeded his will. A few supported him, among them the Abbot of Beaulieu, who was present as Ambassador from John of England, and (for a wonder) Arnaut Amalric. That fierce old man had forced the Pope’s hand more than once in de Montfort’s interest. Now, full of his quarrel with his former friend, he told Innocent to take no one’s counsel but to go his own way. Nevertheless, the voices raised in support of the Pope’s opinion were so few that, at last, Innocent consented that Raymond should be deposed and Simon be Count of Toulouse. The Council so voted in a decree and went home, having legislated in the name of a united Christian Europe, at the apex of the Church’s power.

Although beaten on the main point of Raymond’s deposition, Innocent nevertheless continued to do what he could to limit de Montfort’s triumph. It was said that he told Raymond that something would soon be done for him. The younger Raymond, a high spirited and attractive young man of eighteen, was entertained as the Pope’s guest in Rome for some time after the Council adjourned. Even the terms of the immediate settlement, which were published in a papal decree on December 15, were by no means a blanket endorsement of de Montfort’s ambitions. Raymond was assumed to have been found guilty of heresy and of despoiling the Church. All that part of the Toulousain fief held by the Crusaders was made over to de Montfort with the title of Count of Toulouse. And yet, with the usual papal policy of reservations, it was stipulated that the new settlement was not to override the rights of any Catholic man or woman; which might well have been made a ground, had Innocent lived, for Raymond’s return.

Besides this general reservation, there were four lesser specific ones. De Montfort was to hold his dignities on condition of swearing homage to his proper overlord, the King of France. Thus, if the crusading leader had ever seriously hoped to make himself an independent sovereign, the hope was denied him. Raymond’s wife was to retain the lands of her dowry. Raymond himself, although condemned to exile, was to have an annuity of 400 marks a year payable from the revenues of his former possessions. Most important of all, the younger Raymond was confirmed in possession of so much of the Toulousain fief as was not in the hands of the Crusaders, that is to say Nismes, Beaucaire, and the “Marquisate of Provence” to the east of the Rhône. Finally, a papal letter of December 21 put in question the legitimacy of the measures taken by de Montfort against Raymond Roger of Foix, directing the Bishop of Nismes and the Archdeacon of Conflans to take over the Castle of Foix and hold an inquest to decide whether the place should be returned to its original owner, which was later actually done.

Innocent’s letter reopening the matter of Foix was the great Pope’s last recorded act in Languedoc. Six months later, too soon for him to hear of the anti-French reaction there, he lay dead in Perugia, in the full vigour of middle age, for he was not yet fifty-seven. He had lived only for his passion to make the papacy and (through the papacy) the Church, supreme; and he had raised the See of Peter to a height of unquestioned power which it had never before, and has never since, attained.

Shortly after the young Raymond’s departure from Rome, the two Raymonds reappeared in the unconquered part of their diminished holdings. There they found the people, especially the townsmen, so hot against the “French” that it seemed possible to continue the struggle. Beaucaire, Avignon, Tarascon, declared for their former lords, and Marseilles showed sympathy with his cause. The elder Raymond went off to Spain in the hope of recruiting reinforcements there. In Beaucaire the castle was held by a garrison of de Montfort’s, put there no doubt during his operation east of the Rhône after Muret. The citizens now rose and besieged this garrison, and de Montfort accordingly moved to relieve it.

On the way to Beaucaire, Count Simon appeared before Narbonne, and there the quarrel between him and his old ally Arnaut Amalric came to a head. The walls ordered to be destroyed the previous year must have been patched up after a fashion, for Arnaut ordered the gates shut against de Montfort. The time, I repeat, controlled no agents of demolition except fire and human muscle. Still, the new defences were weak, for the Crusaders promptly broke in and, having entered, threatened Arnaut Amalric himself with violence for opposing them. The redoubtable old man excommunicated de Montfort, publishing the sentence twice over, and interdicted all the churches of the city as long as the excommunicated leader of the Crusade should remain in the place. Whereupon the Christian warriors stoned the archbishop’s palace and the champion of Catholicism joked about the anathema laid upon him, and even showed himself at mass as usual!

After this exchange of compliments at Narbonne, de Montfort moved on Beaucaire, where the inhabitants had declared for Raymond, and besieged the place. The situation was complicated, as the citizens were at the same time besieging the garrison of “Crusaders” in the castle on its bluff over the Rhône. Repeated assaults by de Montfort failed for want of a sufficient number of catapults and other siege machinery. Meanwhile, in the castle, the woodwork of the roofs and hoardings (i.e., wooden galleries projecting outward from the tops of walls and towers so as to command their base) was badly damaged by the catapults of the men of Beaucaire. Nevertheless, the castle garrison held out stoutly, catching the battering ram with a noose of rope which prevented the heavy ram from being drawn back to gain momentum for its blow and keeping the sappers from the base of the walls by lowering burning bundles of tow and sulphur by means of chains from the battlements. Presently word came that Toulouse was about to declare for Raymond. Whereat de Montfort, in a fury, raised the siege of Beaucaire, abandoning his siege machinery and much of his equipment in his haste to meet the new danger.

In angry haste he concentrated all the force he could move from the Razes country on the upper Aude, the Carcassonne district, the Lauraguais region between Toulouse and Carcassonne, and the Toulousain district itself. Then, his concentration made, he promptly appeared before the town more like an enemy than like a rightful lord returning to his own. Now Toulouse, like most important thirteenth-century towns, was a “free city,” a practically independent little republic, whose elected magistrates were accustomed to sit in conference with their nominal feudal lord and follow his lead by their own consent rather than be commanded by him. Accordingly, they asked de Montfort to enter peaceably, unarmoured, and mounted on a palfrey. He replied fiercely that message after message had told him of their conspiracies and treasons against him, and that he would put off neither his hauberk of mail nor his helmet of Pavian steel until he had taken hostages of the flower of the city.

After more high words, the magistrates were inclined to yield, and prepared to confer with de Montfort outside the walls, but were restrained from putting themselves in his power by public opinion, which began to run high. About this time a number of squires, young gentlemen, and pages from de Montfort’s army, entered the town and began to break in and pillage. This was too much. A typical mediæval riot started. Men of all ages and classes, and even women, seized whatever was handy that might serve as a weapon. Barricades of furniture, stakes, and barrels sprang up before every house, and piles of stones and beams appeared on the balconies ready to be thrown down on the heads of the “French.” Battle was joined to the cry of “Montfort” on one side, “Toulouse! Beaucaire! Avignon!” on the other, and matters became so hot that de Montfort’s people, forced to give way under the rain of missiles from the houses, could scarcely make good their retreat over more barricades thrown up to cut them off. Seeing that the place could not be held, Count Simon ordered it to be set on fire in several places. The “French” had become scattered, and the energy of the Toulousains put them in danger of being crushed, so that they had to concentrate and cut their way through in deep columns. By nightfall only the citadel, the “Chateau Narbonaise,” was still in de Montfort’s hands. He himself was “full of rage and anxiety” at the heavy losses his troops had suffered.

On the following day, however, Bishop Fulk persuaded the Toulousains to submit, and give not only hostages but also a huge ransom of 30,000 marks. De Montfort accepted the hostages and the ransom, and then pillaged the place once more, “destroyed” its fortifications (after he had officially demolished them in the previous year), filled up the ditches and disarmed the inhabitants. The uneasy peace lasted through the rest of the year.

The new Pope, Honorius III, was of a mild nature, so that even had he wished, he would hardly have been able to struggle against the extreme party in Languedoc. Instead, the new legate whom he sent there—a Cardinal Bertrand of San Giovanni e Paolo—was more bitter than any of his immediate predecessors.

Now that the party of violence had nothing to fear from Rome, the Crusade was again preached, so that new Crusaders appeared in Languedoc in the spring, and with them a small royal force sent by Philip Augustus. With these reinforcements de Montfort was operating east of the Rhône when, for the second time, word came that Toulouse had declared against him. This time it was not a matter of suspicion and secret conspiracies. The citizens had joyfully welcomed back the two Raymonds and massacred all Frenchmen who failed to gain the shelter of the Château Narbonaise. The counts of Foix and Comminges and many nobles had rallied once more to fight the “French.” De Montfort’s wife, the Countess Alice, and one of his sons were in the Château Narbonaise, which held out, although seriously threatened by the Toulousains. Messengers were sent to tell Count Simon that he must make haste to relieve the garrison. This he did, and in the month of September began the third siege of the capital of Languedoc.

The trace of the walls of Toulouse in 1217-1218 is known throughout most of their length. On the south they left the river at the corner of the present Rue des Renforts, and extended in a fairly regular curve until they struck the line of the present inner boulevards just east of St. Etienne. They then followed, roughly, the Boulevard Lazare Carnot and the Rue Dutemps, divided the capitol and its grounds, and met the river in the neighbourhood of the Place St. Pierre—a circumference of about a mile and three-quarters.

The bits of their foundation which still exist are built in small square stones, with occasional binding courses of brick, in the manner of the later Empire and the Dark Ages. Throughout most of its length the wall is flanked by round towers at the regulation Roman intervals of about seventy yards.

The fortress known as the Château Narbonaise stood near the intersection of the present “Allée St. Michel” with the Rue des Renforts. It was rectangular in plan, of no great extent, with a tower at each corner. Instead of forming a part of the city walls, it stood outside them, commanding them the more easily through being considerably higher. The Porte St. Michel, through which ran the road to Narbonne, pierced the city wall just opposite the castle’s north-western corner, so that the castle dominated it completely.

Within the place the intense local patriotism of the mediæval commune was again blazing high. Everyone worked fiercely, digging ditches and setting up palisades and wooden towers to fill the gaps made in the walls by the recent “demolitions.” Even at night the work was continued by torchlight.

The first party of Crusaders to arrive was commanded by Guy de Montfort, Count Simon’s brother. Dismounting, and cutting off part of the shafts of their lances to make them more manageable in street fighting, the “French” men-at-arms attacked the place. An entrance was forced, but, as in the previous year, the assailants could not maintain themselves in the streets of the town, finding themselves always confronted by new barricades and exposed to a hail of missiles from the houses. Guy and his men ended by taking refuge in the Château.

The Toulousains had fought so savagely that when Count Simon himself appeared and proposed another general assault, Guy and those who had seen the new spirit of the citizens finally persuaded him not to do so. The crusading leader, with all the scorn of a knight of the Middle Ages for townsmen in arms, at first made no preparations for a regular siege, but merely completed his concentration and terraced the walls of the Château Narbonaise with emplacements for catapults to fire upon the works which the Toulousains had thrown up to confront it. But despite this heavy “artillery support,” the attack which he delivered was repulsed with loss, and Guy was wounded. Clearly a regular siege was necessary, and Count Simon called a council of war and resigned himself in sombre anger to listen to the advice of his barons and clergy as to how such an operation might be made good.

Throughout the true Middle Ages it was extremely difficult—in fact, almost impossible—to contain, that is to hold continuous lines all around, one of the first-class cities of the time. The sudden, spontaneous expansion of Christendom, reflected especially in the size of those cities, had been accompanied by no adequate corresponding increase of public powers, and by no system of banking and floating credit. Therefore, it was almost impossible to raise and maintain an army of sufficient size for such an undertaking. Very few mediæval commanders would risk attacking, let alone laying regular siege to, a first-class city. In this case the circumference of the defences to be attacked was over 1,600 yards on the right or east bank alone plus a bridgehead on the left or west bank. In the council of war Bishop Fulk pointed out that it would be useless to blockade the city proper if the bridgehead were not blockaded also. The double task was accordingly undertaken.

Having contained the bridgehead, De Montfort’s main task was to make it as difficult as possible for the city proper, on the right bank, to communicate with the open country. Even if he could not make good his blockade, he might be able to annoy the citizens so much that they would end by surrendering.

Throughout the siege both sides continued to receive reinforcements. The Count of Foix, together with certain Aragonese and Catalans, joined the besieged, so that it was possible to make an active defence with continual sorties. De Montfort’s reinforcements seem to have come in more slowly, and to have consisted mainly of mercenary troops. At first de Montfort himself took station on the left bank opposite the bridgehead, so as to hinder communication between the town and the friendly country to the south-west. Shortly after the arrival of Foix and the Spaniards, he was forced to return to the right bank by a vigorous sortie, against the Chateau Narbonaise, and the entrenched camp of the Crusaders which was growing up around it to the south of the town. Throughout the late autumn continual sharp skirmishing went on south of the town in the space between the walls and the entrenchments of the camp. During the winter the Crusaders attempted a surprise attack at dawn, and broke into the city, but were repulsed with nothing gained. With the spring both sides were reinforced. De Montfort was forced to withdraw the lines of his entrenched camp some distance further from the town, abandoning many of the shelters he had constructed. The besieged thereupon began attacking the Château Narbonaise, when a high flood of the Garonne not only cramped their operation but hindered their communications with their bridgehead so that Count Simon was able, by long and obstinate fighting, to win the bridgehead altogether. Further, with the reinforcements which kept coming in, he was able to extend his entrenched lines from the Château Narbonaise (which stood on the river bank above the town) to a point opposite the great church of St. Sernin. But he could not close the space between St. Sernin and the river bank below the town or prevent the movement of boats on the lower river. Further, while the morale of the besieged was as high as ever, and their defences were always being made stronger, in de Montfort’s camp the strain was beginning to tell. The legate taunted him to madness with his failure to get a decision. Money to pay the numerous mercenaries was running short. In vain Pope Honorius alternately threatened and pleaded with the Kings of France and of Aragon, the Count of Foix, the younger Raymond, the citizens of Toulouse, Avignon, Marseilles, and anyone else who occurred to him. Clearly, either matters must be brought to a head, or the siege raised.

De Montfort was not the man to admit himself beaten. He determined on a decisive assault by means of a large “cat,” a movable wooden gallery with a steep roof covered with raw hides to prevent fire. Under such cover the defences might be approached and sapped. At the first attempt the “cat” was injured by stones from catapults. Strengthened, it was moved forward a second time, “moving with jerky little steps,” as an eye witness reports. Without waiting for it to reach their lines, the besieged began a general sortie. De Montfort himself was at mass when this news was brought to him. “I will not go,” he said, “until I have seen my Saviour.” Not until after the elevation of the Host did he take command. Then he concentrated his men and had driven the Toulousains back to their walls, when a stone from a catapult worked by women struck him on the head. He fell and died in a few minutes, his face all bloody and black where the helm had been driven in upon it. A few days after a final attack was made and repulsed, upon which the siege was raised.

Despite de Montfort’s apparent failure his work was decisive. The eight years during which he had maintained himself in Languedoc had not only seen many “Frenchmen” assigned to lands there, they had also seen the moral and political prestige of the southern nobles damaged beyond repair. Toulouse had definitely lost any chance she may have had of rallying the south about her to make head against Paris. Languedoc with her wealth, her culture, and her indifference to the moral unity of Europe, was destined to go under. The great tolerant southern houses were to be swallowed up by the “most Christian” kings of France, who represented the new, vague, but enormous idea of the nation. De Montfort, dead and apparently beaten, had changed the course of history.

The next six years of the Crusade (1218-1224) saw only small wars. They are marked by a single brief and inconclusive campaign, commanded by Louis of France.

The permanent effect of de Montfort’s work did not at first appear. His son Amaury could not fill his place. Philip Augustus promptly permitted Prince Louis to lead another crusading army, with Cardinal Bertrand, the new papal legate, at his side. At Marmande a massacre was achieved fit to rejoice the heart of any mediæval Crusader, but Toulouse successfully resisted another siege, and the army returned home having accomplished nothing. In fact the desultory fighting which went on after its departure ran somewhat in favour of Raymond. Amaury’s strength was mainly in his possession of Carcassonne, on account of its great natural and artificial strength under the conditions of the time, together with its powerful strategic position commanding the highway between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. But Simon’s son had so little of the ability of his father that he could not prevent Raymond from winning back, bit by bit, much of his old domain. In 1220 Raymond retook Lavaur and slaughtered every man in it except a handful who escaped by swimming down the Agout. The Crusaders had no monopoly of massacre.

Meanwhile Pope Honorius tried every means at his command to push matters, but without success. A new legate, Conrad of Porto by name, set up a military order patterned after the Templars and Hospitallers under the name of “Knights of the Faith of Jesus Christ,” but the new foundation achieved little. In the following year Honorius published a sentence of excommunication and exhereditation against the entire Toulousain House, and raised enough money to set on foot another expedition under Prince Louis. But the Prince turned his army against La Rochelle and took that city from Henry III of England, so that the net result of the Pope’s effort to settle Languedocian affairs was just nothing.

Early in 1222, four years after his father’s death, Amaury de Montfort recognized his position as hopeless and offered all that he possessed or claimed in Languedoc to Philip Augustus. This brought on a year full of diplomacy. Amaury urged Honorius to support his action, and the Pope did so, pointing out the deplorable state of religion in Languedoc, where heresy was openly preached and seemed ineradicable. Philip refused, the obstinate caution of the Capets strong in him. Even the offer of a twentieth of the entire income of the Church in France together with all manner of indulgences did not tempt him. Next Amaury made his offer to Thibaut, the powerful Count of Champagne, but again King Philip blocked matters by refusing to exempt Thibaut from service to the Crown in case of a break with Henry of England. In August Raymond died. His son, succeeding him under the title of Raymond VII, promptly wrote to Philip Augustus to ask his suzerain’s help towards the removal of the Pope’s sentence of excommunication and exhereditation against himself. In December, Amaury repeated his offer to the King, and again the King refused.

The confused and indecisive negotiations of 1222 had at least the result of convincing both the new legate and the King of France that Languedoc must be stabilized, and that promptly. The legate saw that heresy was again on the increase, favoured by the confusion born of the long war. The King felt himself near his end—he was suffering from continual fevers—and he feared that after his own death Louis, with his amiable character and weak health, would find himself drawn into the Languedocian business by the clergy and would die too of the fatigue of it, so that the kingdom would be left in the hands of a woman, Louis’ wife, and of an infant, who was to be St. Louis. Accordingly, when the legate called a council at Sens for the purpose of reconciling Amaury and Raymond VII, Philip asked and obtained a change of meeting place to Paris in order that he himself might be present. He was in the provinces, down with another attack of fever, but felt so deeply the need of a definite settlement that he risked the fatigues of the journey, and died on the way. True to his policy of supporting the de Montforts, but cautiously and without identifying himself with their cause, in his will he left Amaury thirty thousand livres.

Within a few months after Philip’s death, the first of the events his wisdom had foreseen actually came about. Amaury’s financial position had become so bad that in January 1224 he patched up a provisional treaty with Toulouse and Foix, used most of Philip’s legacy to pay off his garrisons, and definitely evacuated Languedoc. The Archbishop of Bourges, together with the Bishops of Langres and Chartres, asked Louis to grant him the reversion of the office of Constable of France, and, with this understanding, for the third time he offered his Languedocian possessions and claims to the French Crown. In February the offer was accepted.

With the acceptance of Amaury’s offer by the French Crown begins the last or monarchical phase of the Crusade, which lasts three years (1224-1227). In it the small war continues—varied by a single major operation, a second campaign under Louis VIII, the amiable son of the wise and crafty Philip Augustus, which operation fails. Despite this military failure, the war ends in a political decision against the House of Toulouse.

The citizens of Narbonne (royalist like all townsmen because of the internal peace and order the Crown stood for) were promptly assured by a letter from the King that he would lead a Crusade which should march three weeks after Easter. In dealing with the Pope, Louis made conditions. Rome was to give him one of his own prelates (the Archbishop of Bourges) for legate instead of the Italian Cardinal Bertrand of Porto, indulgences were to be the same as for a Crusade to Palestine, any of his vassals who might refuse service were to be excommunicated, and Roman diplomacy was to do its utmost to assure him peace with all other possible foreign enemies. Finally, the Church was to give him twenty thousand livres of Paris per year out of its revenues during the Crusade, which was to begin and end when Louis chose. It was a formidable list, but the Church could hardly find any conditions too hard.

At this point matters were held up by another of the innumerable shifts of purpose in the Roman Curia. Henry III of England was Raymond’s kinsman. Moreover, Bordeaux and all the lands still left to the Plantagenet in Aquitaine would be dangerously isolated should the county of Toulouse become French Crown land. Accordingly, English influence at Rome was exerted in Raymond’s favour. The young Count of Toulouse himself caused his own ambassadors to promise full obedience to the See of Peter, and through them made exceedingly handsome “presents” to all who might possibly have influence with the Pope. These tactics succeeded so well that Honorius wrote favourably to Raymond, promising to send a new legate (Cardinal Romano of St. Angelo) to arrange matters; and wrote to Louis saying that the Emperor Frederic II’s proposed Crusade was so important that no other crusading indulgences could be issued for the present. The papal letter to the King went on to say that if Louis would but keep on threatening Raymond, the Count must end by giving in. The veteran Arnaut Amalric was directed to lead the local bishops in pressing Raymond VII to make no reservations in his offer of submission to the Church. The legate formally withdrew the Albigensian crusading indulgences and warranted Raymond VII as a good Catholic at a “parliament” in Paris. Louis disgustedly washed his hands of the whole matter, wrote to the Pope that he, Louis, had been played with and tricked, and that Rome might do what it liked without his help so long as his own rights as lay sovereign were not infringed. The French force which was already on foot was used to capture some of the Aquitanian castles still held for Henry III of England.

For a time it looked as if the peace would stand. Under the tutelage of Arnaut Amalric, Raymond VII agreed to enforce anti-heretical legislation as thorough as even the grim old Cistercian could desire. With the Count of Foix and the Bishop of Beziers to confirm his signature, the young Count promised banishment, confiscation of goods and physical punishment of heretics, dismissal of all bandit mercenaries, internal peace and order, restoration of Church privileges and an indemnity of twenty thousand marks to be used partly for repayment of damage to ecclesiastical property in Languedoc during the fighting, and partly (in case the Pope obtained a formal and complete renunciation of the Montfortist claims) to Amaury as compensation. If all this was not enough, Raymond VII agreed to put himself entirely in the Church’s hands, reserving only his allegiance to the King. All of which was agreed to by an Ecclesiastical Council, which Arnaut Amalric attended, at Montpellier in June. Amaury vainly protested, before this decision was taken, saying that Louis was about to act and that the whole Church would be scandalized by such compounding with the House of Toulouse. Unlike his father, Raymond VII made some attempt to confirm promises with deeds, for he restored the See of Agde to Theodisius. Everything seemed to point to confirmation of the settlement by the Pope and an end to the whole Albigensian war.

Again, as had so often happened, Rome reversed the decision of the Languedocian Church, only this time the local clergy were for peace and it was the Curia that was for war. Toulousain promises had too often proved broken reeds. Heresy was again raising its head; another public debate like those of the years just before the Crusade had even been held, and heretical “bishoprics” were multiplying. All this must have been well known at Rome. Moreover, not a few of the local clergy had increased their possessions during the war and had no wish to go back to the status quo. Finally, Louis sent Guy de Montfort to oppose the settlement. From October, 1224, until after the new year Honorius refused to move.

When at last the Pope’s decision was made it was hostile to Raymond. Cardinal Romano of St. Angelo was again sent as legate to France to threaten the young Count and to try to patch up a truce so that Louis might be free to use his whole strength in Languedoc. During this year, nothing happened. Raymond VII, who had permitted the Dominicans to preach in Toulouse against heresy, and welcomed the Franciscan Saint Anthony of Padua, offered a national Church council at Bourges such unreserved submission that the council could not bring itself to condemn him, but broke up without giving a decision. To meet the situation, Cardinal Romano the legate ordered each archbishop to take counsel with his suffragans and give him written decisions to transmit to Louis and the Pope. The strictest secrecy was to be kept in the matter of these decisions. Anyone who revealed them was to be excommunicated on the spot. Clearly such a system would enable Pope and King to do exactly as they pleased. Raymond could not flatter himself that the attack would be delayed much longer, especially as the English had decided to leave Louis free to weaken himself by taking on the difficult job of breaking the high spirit of a district removed by so great a distance from his base of operations. Further, old Arnaut Amalric, who had helped play the Toulousain game ever since becoming a Languedocian Archbishop himself, chose this unfortunate moment to die, and to be succeeded in the Archbishopric of Narbonne by Peter Amiel, a bitter enemy of the young Raymond.

In January, 1226, a grand parliament of the kingdom was held in Paris. An address from the nobles was presented to Louis asking that he undertake the Crusade. This he accordingly did, with the reservation that he must be free to break off the campaign when he should so desire. Raymond’s full submission at Bourges two months before had prejudiced many French nobles in his favour, but nevertheless nearly all of them took the cross with their King. The one interruption to the proceedings was the Pope’s action in ordering those of the nobles of Aquitaine and Poitou who had changed their allegiance from English to French to change back again. The action of the Pope was entirely defensible on moral grounds but had been brought about (so the chroniclers say) by liberal use of English and Toulousain money at Rome, as any trouble between the two crowns at this time would benefit Toulouse enormously. Louis promptly went to work to show even greater liberality to the Curia; the Papal orders were suspended, and the preparations for the Crusade were resumed. At a parliament held on March 29 orders were issued to concentrate at Bourges on May 17. Service was to be for the duration of the King’s stay in the South, instead of for forty days as before. The ruinous effects of short enlistments had been as much of a curse to former Crusades to Languedoc as to Washington in the American Revolution. Raymond VII was supported only by the Count of Foix. Comminges had made his peace, and Louis had taken diplomatic precautions to prevent any intervention from Spain. Everything pointed to a complete conquest of the South, except the delicate health of the King, on whom the whole enterprise depended, since his presence in the field was necessary to keep the army together.

On the appointed day, the army mustered at Bourges. Louis was deaf to the pleas of the numerous clergy who begged of him remission of the heavy tithe laid on them. He further swelled his war-chest by accepting money payments instead of field service from certain nobles not keen for the expedition. Even after these exemptions had been granted, the army was enormous for the time. There were fifty thousand knights and mounted men-at-arms, and “innumerable” infantry it is said. The line of operations was on Lyons, and thence down the Rhône, as in 1209.

There was no resistance until Avignon was reached on June 10. There the citizens refused the “French” entry and manned their walls, although they promised not to harass the army in its march if they were left in peace. The place was within the Holy Roman Empire, but Cardinal Romano, the legate, urged Louis to destroy it inasmuch as it had remained ten years excommunicate and impenitent for tolerating Waldensianism, so the King laid siege to it. The incident shows how easy it was to influence Louis and draw him away from the central matter in hand, and also, very significantly, how Waldenses were now attacked as readily as Manicheans. The siege dragged on throughout the summer and into the autumn. Raymond of Toulouse cleverly seized his opportunity to move up and lay waste the country from which the besieging army must draw food and forage. Disease and a plague of flies in the French camp made matters worse. On top of this Pierre Mauclerc, Louis’s second cousin, quarrelled with the King and left the army. Philip Augustus had made this man Count of Brittany by marrying him to the heiress of that fief, and now that she was dead he was out to marry the heiress of Flanders and was angry when Louis thwarted him. So he went off, after serving for forty days, and began strengthening his castles and intriguing with the disaffected Counts of Champagne and of La Marche in Poitou, both of whom were supposed to have an understanding with Raymond. But Louis, although easy to persuade, was not easy to discourage. He stuck to it until, after three months’ siege, Avignon surrendered on September 10. The citizens had been brought very low by the long blockade. They therefore consented to pay ransom, demolish or dismantle their fortifications, and accept from the legate a bishop pledged to suppress heresy.

After the long delay at Avignon the army was at last directed against Toulouse. Almost all the Languedocian cities, including Nismes, Narbonne, Carcassonne, Albi, Beziers, Marseilles, Castres, and Puylaurens had already declared for Church and King. But, just as the end seemed in sight, the hardships of the campaign forced Louis to turn homewards, sick with dysentery. At Montpensier, in Auvergne, on November 8, he died. Within a little over three years after Philip Augustus’s death, his fear had been realized: the kingdom he had given his life to build was in the hands of a woman and child.

Despite this perilous state of affairs, the ideas of centralization and nationality had been so quickened that their growth was hardly checked. At first, to be sure, there was confusion, during which Raymond was able to recover some ground. Louis’ widow, the able and pious Blanche of Castille, was busy getting her 11 year old son, Louis IX, crowned at Rheims. Meanwhile the Counts of La Marche, Champagne, and Brittany intrigued busily with each other and with England, and prepared for open rebellion. Blanche’s position was so difficult that operations on a large scale in Languedoc could not be continued. Nevertheless the ground already won was held by the royal troops, under the energetic Humbert of Beaujeu who had been left in command in the theatre of war by Louis when he turned homeward to die. As long as Humbert’s force was kept “in being” in the South, the crusading tithes on Church property continued to flow into the royal treasury. During Lent in the year 1227, a local Church council at Narbonne excommunicated those who had broken their oaths sworn to Louis and ordered stricter persecution of heretics, showing therefore that some oaths had been broken and that persecution was not being carried on as faithfully as it might have been. Throughout the year the fighting swayed back and forth. Humbert de Beaujeu, with Archbishop Peter Amiel, of Narbonne, and Bishop Fulk, of Toulouse, at his side, took the castle of Becede, massacred the garrison and joyously burned some heretics. Raymond VII, for his part, recovered the town of Castel Sarrasin on the middle Garonne, but was not strong enough to keep the royalists from laying waste the countryside clear up to the walls of Toulouse.

Both sides were weary of war. The drain on the royal resources was serious, especially in view of the hostile attitude of the three northern Counts, and the Church tithes came in slowly and caused endless friction to collect. On the other hand, Raymond saw his position in the eyes of the world steadily going from bad to worse as his overlord continued to make war against him in the name of the Church. Clearly, if he could save anything at all by submission, he had better make haste to do so. Finally, the third party to the matter, the papacy, had also become anxious for peace in Languedoc. In March, 1227, the mild and aged Honorius III had died and been succeeded as Pope by Gregory IX, equally aged but far harsher than his predecessor. In spite of his eighty years, Gregory was determined to oppose the Emperor Frederic II, who had been growing ever more powerful and readier to oppose the Church ever since his guardian Innocent III had died. For a collision with Frederic, the Church must concentrate all her strength. The Languedocian business, therefore, was better out of the way.

With all three parties to the dispute equally determined upon a settlement, there remained only the question of ways and means. Raymond VII had no son and only one daughter, Jeanne. To betroth her to one of the younger brothers of the King would assure the ultimate reversion of the entire Toulousain heritage to the Crown. The Church would back the Crown in obtaining a settlement favourable to the King of France, granted that strong and systematic measures were taken against heresy. A papal letter of March, 1228, to Cardinal Romano the legate, shows that the proposed marriage was the heart of the negotiations. A second letter, of October 21 in the same year, renewing the crusading indulgences, shows that pressure upon Raymond was necessary in order to make him accept the terms proposed. To the same end, it seems that there was further devastation of Toulousain territory. In December Raymond gave in, and named Count Thibaut of Champagne as his agent with full power to negotiate in his behalf. In January, 1229, the parties in interest, including representatives of the municipality of Toulouse, met at Meaux and signed a preliminary agreement. On Holy Thursday, before the great western doorways of Notre Dame de Paris, was enacted the last scene of the long drama. There Raymond came before the legate, bare-footed like his father twenty years before at St. Gilles and clad only in his shirt. He then walked the length of the church to be “reconciled” as a penitent before the high altar. This done, he yielded himself the King’s prisoner in the Louvre, until such time as his daughter and five of his castles should be in royal hands, and five hundred “toises” (over a thousand yards) of the long-suffering walls of Toulouse should be demolished. The end had come.

The terms were hard. Raymond was to pursue heretics and their “favorers” without reserve, even to his nearest kinsmen. The familiar conditions of restoration of Church property, dismissal of bandit mercenaries, and establishing public security, again appear. In addition, the Count was to pay handsomely for ten years, “two masters in theology, two decretalists and six masters in grammar and the liberal arts” as members of the faculty of Toulouse University. He made also the familiar promise to crusade to Palestine, and engaged to do so within two years and remain in the Holy Land five years more. He, and after him his daughter Jeanne, were to retain Toulouse itself, Agen, Rouergue, Quercy except Cahors, and part of the district of Albi. The duchy of Narbonne and the counties of Velay, Gevaudan, Viviers, and Lodeve reverted at once to the Crown. The Church took the “Marquisate of Provence” a fief of the Empire to the east of the Rhône. Jeanne’s betrothal to Prince Alphonse, a child of nine, was treated as a royal “grace” bestowed on Raymond, and so was the royal amnesty to the numerous prescribed gentlemen of Languedoc, except the heretics among them. His vassals and people also subscribed to the conditions, and swore to acknowledge the King as their sole lord after forty days should Raymond fail in any particular. The glory had departed from Toulouse.

The settlement ended the struggle. The Count of Foix came in and made his peace the following year. Raymond seems to have lived up to the conditions, except that he kept putting off crusading to Palestine. In 1237 the light-weight Amaury de Montfort played the fool by calling himself Duke of Narbonne and by making attempts on the county of Melgueil in his own name, and on Dauphiné in the name of his wife. Gregory IX brought him up with a round turn and ordered him off to Palestine. His ill luck held; he was taken prisoner by the Saracens and held for three years until Gregory ransomed him, whereupon he ended his futile life at Otranto, on his way home in 1241. In 1240, there was a last flicker of local independence. The last of the Trencavels scraped up some support in Spain and laid siege to his ancestral city of Carcassonne. There was no movement in his favour among the people, and he was unable to reduce the royal garrison, so he ravaged the countryside before taking himself off and disappearing from history. Seven years later Raymond VII died, in the midst of preparing for his long-postponed crusade to Palestine. Countess Jeanne and Prince Alphonse, who had been duly married, succeeded to what was left of his possessions. In 1271 they died without issue and King Philip III, St. Louis’ heir, took their lands.

Summarizing the four phases of the war, in the first the Crusaders appear in great force in obedience to the Church and take Beziers and Carcassonne. This phase lasts only a few months in 1209.

The second phase (1209-1212) begins with the appointment of Simon de Montfort, nominally to govern the conquered territory and really to root out the tolerant southern houses. Personal interests now take their place beside religious interests. The second phase lasts for three years. Throughout this period Simon de Montfort uses his scanty resources with such ability that he not only maintains himself but also extends his holdings over the greater part of the country in dispute.

The third phase (1213-1224) begins when Simon breaks the formidable intervention of Pedro, King of Aragon. The capital point of Toulouse he is unable to take, or to hold it after it is adjudged to him by the Lateran Council, and he is finally killed beneath its walls. He is successful in that he weakens the prestige of the House of Toulouse due to the long war waged against it in the name of religion.

After Simon de Montfort’s death, for seven years his son continues to lose ground, and finally resigns his claims in favour of the French Crown.

The third, or royal phase, lasts three years (1224-1227). An imminent decision by arms, in favour of the Crown and against the House of Toulouse, is averted by King Louis VIII’s death, and finally, in 1229, a treaty is made, providing for the eventual absorption of Toulouse by the Crown.

The net results are: (first) the establishment of French national unity down to our own day, with no prospect of its dissolution: (second) the re-establishment of the moral unity of Europe, threatened at the beginning of the thirteenth century by the Albigensian movement; which moral unity, so re-established, endured until the convulsion of the sixteenth century, in which the modern world was born.

CHAPTER VI.
THE MENDICANT ORDERS AND THE
INQUISITION.

The political decision achieved by the Albigensian Crusade, in the hands of the French Crown, against the House of Toulouse, permitted the establishment of the Inquisition in Languedoc, the centre of thirteenth century heresy. Now the subject of this book is not so much the Inquisition itself as the forces which established it. Therefore the military and political struggle in which the House of Toulouse went under has been narrated at some length, as well as the events leading up to that struggle. But it is also necessary to our subject to note the workings of these forces when regular armed resistance had ceased.

That resistance had not been in the name of heresy against Catholicism, but only in defence of some measure of toleration from the State to the heretical bodies. Tolerance was not even expressly stated as the motive of those who resisted the Crusade, but only implied by their conduct. The point is worth noting. Not one of the southern lords who resisted the Crusade was himself a heretic. None of them, except Raymond Roger of Foix, was ever proved to have so much as taken any particular interest in heresy as a fad, an object of curiosity. Pedro of Aragon was the Pope’s vassal and “First Standard Bearer of the Church.” Raymond VI of Toulouse had been all his life a Catholic, and died with all the consolations of religion, having on the morning of his sudden death gone twice to the church of La Daurade in Toulouse to pray. After his death the honour of burying his remains was disputed for years between the Parish of St. Sernin and the Knights Hospitallers of Toulouse. Those who resisted the Crusaders fought so that they might not be compelled to suppress the heretics among whom they lived, and especially that they might not be deprived of power and possessions by North Frenchmen who came to seize their lands in perpetuity as a reward for bringing about suppression of heresy.

Nowhere else in Europe was there regular armed opposition. In Italy, which was (after Languedoc) the stronghold of mediæval Manicheanism, the heretics of Orvieto had caused a riot and the assassination of a zealous Catholic magistrate in 1199-1200. In Viterbo, a few years later, the citizens elected certain heretical magistrates, and it needed harsh words from Innocent before they would consent to disqualify them. But compared to the Albigensian business this was child’s play. In Languedoc the battle was fought and won.

But in order to hold a country it is necessary not only to conquer it, but also to organize it. After the conquest force is no longer needed on a large scale, it still plays its part, but only in the enforcement of decisions arrived at by some form of law. And although force plays a greater part in the conflicts of ideas than is theoretically admitted nowadays, nevertheless it is not the chief instrument of those conflicts. The chief instrument is, of course, persuasion. At the end of the Albigensian war there was no longer organized opposition in Europe to the enforcement of judicial decisions against heresy, and these judicial decisions were made by the Inquisition. Meanwhile, before the fighting had ceased, there were already in existence two powerful new bodies organized for the use of persuasion in the cause of the Church, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, who may be grouped as the Mendicant Orders.

From the beginning, Francis and Dominic agreed in this, that they uncloistered the monk. Instead of withdrawing their friars from the world, they launched them into the midst of it to strive, by precept and example, to win souls. In particular St. Dominic enlisted his “Friar Preachers” to preach against heresy, and St. Francis to preach the love of God after a fashion that did away with that grimness of early mediæval religion which had nourished the over-ascetic heresies such as the Manichean.

It is hard not to linger over St. Francis of Assisi. A true Italian and a child of his time, it is not surprising that he sometimes seems to us extravagant. When we hear of him rolling naked in a rose bush to drive away the temptations of sex, or having himself dragged through the streets and beaten, as penance for having eaten a morsel of chicken in Lent, we are as much puzzled as repelled. We may even lend an ear to doctors who tell us that there is a perversion of the lusts of the flesh called Masochism, in which the subject derives pleasure from pain. The saint himself repented at the end of having caused his body to suffer as he had done; “I have sinned against my brother the ass,” he said as he lay dying. And yet, all in all, he remains the most Christ-like of Christians. His tenderness to mankind was all-embracing, and went out beyond man to the beasts, and even to natural objects. To him all nature was a fascinating little sister, to be laughed at, petted and caressed. The sun was our brother: to him he wrote a canticle. The birds were our little brothers: to them he preached as they clustered around him. Even the wolf, whom the saint turned from his evil courses, was “Brother Wolf.” Death was but “our sister, the death of the body,” and the very devils were “God’s warders.”

This spirit was the precise opposite to that grimness in the religious feeling of a century before. To the men of the early twelfth century, for instance to Abelard, the claims of religion were inexorably stern. They could no more be reconciled with any sort of human affection, than could the unyielding round arch adjust itself to vault the irregular compartments of nave and ambulatory. In human feeling, as in architecture, the result was ugly distortion, and it was precisely this distorted feeling that produced Manicheanism. Clearly, if God was good and loving and the world utterly vile, then God had not made the world. The Devil had made it, and was by that act co-equal, if not for the time being, superior, in power to God Himself. Not so, said St. Francis, the earth is the Lord’s, and it is beautiful. Only pride, both pride of possessions and pride of intellect, stands in the way of happiness. So he joyously married his “Lady Poverty,” and once refused to let a hesitating novice possess so much as a breviary. Under the busy brushes of Giotto and the other painters of the Franciscan legend, the Holy Family, without ceasing to be a symbol of the faith, became also the emblem of innocent and happy domestic life.

St. Francis did not begin the humanizing of religion. The change had already begun before the middle of the twelfth century with the cult of the Virgin. There is a legend that once, when St. Bernard was praying to her, and had come to the words, “Show that thou art the mother,” Our Lady appeared to him and from her breast dropped on his lips three drops of the milk that had nourished the Saviour. That is already far from the atmosphere of Abelard and Heloise. Already, in St. Bernard’s time, the north-French architects were beginning to break up the unyielding Norman and Lombard round arches into the pointed form, and the same period was evidently trying to resolve the distortion of religion and human love. St. Francis enormously enlarged and deepened the new current of religious thought. The climax was reached after his death in the story of the Miracle of Bolsena. Here, in 1263, a priest without faith in the Real Presence of our Lord in the Host, saw the wafer which he himself had just consecrated covered with drops of blood. About half a century before, in neighbouring Orvieto, a zealous Catholic magistrate had been murdered by the Manichees. Now the Church insisted that God gave His very self to be the food of all men, even to the poor, the serf, and the humble.

St. Dominic was of a different temper, and attacked the problem in a different way. Dante calls him—

“... the holy athlete,

Benignant to his own and cruel to his foes,”

and praises him for wisdom, whereas he praises St. Francis for “seraphic ardour.” Instead of being above all a poet and mystic, like the Poverello of Assisi, St. Dominic was an organizer and statesman. There was a strain of ecclesiastical anarchism in the early Franciscan Order; certain “spiritual” Franciscans of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century rebelled against religious authority as no Dominicans have ever done. Where the Italian saint puts an example ahead of precept, the Spaniard put precept ahead of example. To him the weakness of the Church was that not enough of her clergy knew thoroughly her doctrine and were able to teach it. For him, as for the prophet Hosea, the “... people were destroyed for lack of knowledge.” His order was vowed to learning. Indeed, it was a Dominican, St. Thomas Aquinas, who has left us the most complete and harmonious of all human attempts to analyse the universe. Instead of attacking in flank by destroying the mood out of which the ultra ascetic, and in particular the Manichean heresies grew, St. Dominic attacked heresy in front by direct argument. His “Preaching Friars” observed strict poverty, not so much as a good in itself, as did St. Francis, but rather in the spirit of the soldier who lightens his pack the better to take the field. As they went to and fro, begging their bread, they escaped the poor man’s envy which dogged the footsteps of the wealthy bishops and the abbots of the older orders. Thus they were equally free to debate with the philosophers in the turbulent universities, or to set forth the Faith in words of one syllable to simple folk.

The organizers, those carpenters and stonemasons of history, are obscure by contrast with its artists and sculptors. Just so the personality of St. Dominic (at least in the Protestant world) has been overshadowed by that of St. Francis. Even the Church which they both served canonized Francis within two years after he was dead, and waited thirteen before canonizing Dominic.

But if the Poverello of Assisi had more poetry in him, the Spanish gentleman had more statesmanship. The organization of the Franciscan Order fluctuated violently and finally settled down into a copy of the Dominican. According to the first Franciscan Rule, that of 1221, a Friar is not bound to obey his superiors when that superior commands him to do something against the “life,” a proposition so impossible in practice that it survived only two years. On the other hand, down to 1240, the Head of the Franciscan Order was undisputed Cæsar, nominating lesser officers and legislating either without any Chapter (i.e., Assembly) or with a Chapter composed exclusively of officers appointed by himself. This again worked so badly that in 1240 the organization was changed so as to add elected representatives of the Chapter General, and to make the nomination of lesser officers a function of the Chapter General so constituted; both of which features were typically Dominican, and had been part of the first Constitution of that Order.

As with the constitution of their Order so with the Higher Learning. Here too the Franciscans found themselves compelled by force of circumstances to abandon their own founder’s distinctive teaching and follow the lead of the Dominicans. Whereas St. Francis himself feared and hated learning, even before his death some of the greatest scholars in Christendom wore the Franciscan habit.

To the subjects of representative government and of learning I shall return for a moment at the close of the chapter in the attempt to estimate the permanent value of the thirteenth century achievement. The point I now make is that, in both respects, St. Dominic builded so much better (at least for his generation) than St. Francis that the Franciscans themselves soon adopted Dominican methods. And this was true not only in regard to learning and representative government, but also with regard to the Inquisition.

Both of the mendicant orders were formed, as a modern would say, “for service.” They were democratic in constitution: the Dominicans had been so from their origin. Indeed it has been claimed with some show of reason that it was the Dominicans who first brought representative government from its original home near the Pyrenees into England. They addressed themselves particularly to the poorer and the less fortunate of mankind. Whereas the older orders of monks had retired to the wilderness, or at least to the country, the mendicants laboured chiefly in the fast growing towns characteristic of the new and sudden mediæval rise out of the Dark Ages. It is always in towns that the human struggle for life is sharpest and the results of defeat most provocative of pity.

Although the ministrations of the friars were often very different in kind from those of the “social worker” of to-day, inasmuch as they were concerned first of all to bear witness to the Faith whereas the average “social worker” is concerned chiefly with conferring material benefits (I suspect that is why he, or she, does not accomplish more), still social worker and mendicant friar have this essential in common in that the purpose of both was to “do things” for the poor. Alas! in the garden of “social service” a serpent lies in wait for poor erring humans, and his name is Tyranny. Those who are the objects of ministrations, being human, too often receive them unwillingly and prefer their own ways. And those who would minister, being equally human, when they see their good works (as they think them) rejected by those whom they would benefit, too often seek forcibly to compel acceptance.

Of course such people believe that they know better than the rejectors (who are, in practice, the more independent and self-respecting of the poor) what is good for the latter. But the student of history shakes his head sadly, in the knowledge that the innumerable oppressors of mankind have all believed that they could govern people better than those whom they oppressed could govern themselves.

The connection of St. Dominic himself with the Inquisition (using the word loosely to cover all legal and judicial action against heretics), although much disputed, is clear. The evidence consists of two documents of St. Dominic’s own, and a tradition, written down in its present form sixty-seven years after his death, which has been accepted by all students of his life, including those who hold that he had no connection with the Inquisition whatsoever. The first document is a licence to a citizen in Toulouse to board a certain converted heretic in his house until St. Dominic or the Cardinal Legate should give orders to the contrary. The second enumerates the provisions of the penance imposed upon another converted heretic.

Although this last has already been quoted in another chapter, nevertheless it may be well to repeat it here. “Until the Lord Legate (Arnaut Amalric) shall otherwise ordain” the unhappy man is to fast forever “from flesh, eggs, cheese and all which comes from flesh except at Easter, Pentecost and Christmas, when he shall eat some to protest against his former errors.” He is to keep three Lents each year, “fasting and abstaining from fish, unless from bodily infirmity or the heat of the weather he shall be dispensed.” As make-weights, he is to be beaten with rods upon his bare back, three Sundays running, by his village priest; he is forever to wear a distinctive dress marked with crosses to designate him as a former heretic, hear mass every day “if possible” and vespers as well on festival days, recite seventy paternosters a day and twenty in the middle of the night. How this last provision was to be enforced unless some almost equally unfortunate soul stayed awake to watch him is not stated. Finally, once a month he is to show the parchment on which all this is written to the village priest.

So much for the documents. The tradition is that the Saint secured the release of a certain heretic who had been convicted and sentenced to be burnt, acting on the strength of his own personal belief that this particular culprit would eventually repent. Twenty years after, the tradition goes on to say, the man did repent, and died in the odour of sanctity, clad in Dominican habit.

For our purposes, the point of all three pieces of evidence is that the power to loose implies an intimate connection with the power to bind. The President of the United States and the Governors of States, who have the pardoning power, are themselves the chief executive officers of the nation and the States, and it is their sworn duty to see that the laws are enforced. In St. Dominic’s case, the verdict is conclusive. Virtually every reputable scholar of the present day is agreed upon the point, including Roman Catholics writing under the nihil obstat and imprimatur of Cardinals and Archbishops.

Among these last, Giraud sums up the verdict neatly: “Comparing with all these documents the canon of the Council of Verona, renewed in 1208 by the Council of Avignon, which orders that apostates who, after being convicted of heresy by their Bishops or their representatives, should obstinately persist in their errors, should be delivered over to the secular arm, it would seem that it must be concluded that, by virtue of the delegated authority of the Cistercian monks, St. Dominic was to convict the heretics; and that, in convicting them he delivered them up, indirectly but surely, to execution, unless he suspended, by an act of clemency, the action of that docile instrument of the Church, the secular arm. Doubtless he did not himself pronounce the fatal sentence; but during their trial he played the part of an expert in the matter of orthodoxy, or even of a juror, transmitting to the court a verdict of guilty while capable at the same time of signing a recommendation to mercy.”

It is, of course, true that the “bloody-minded Dominic,” that favourite scarecrow of old-fashioned Protestant historians, never existed. Not only the Bollandists and Lacordaire but also the whole weight of modern scholarship agree on this point. Even Lea, almost always accurate on points of fact even when he is most exasperating in his utter lack of the realizing imagination so necessary to a modern historian of the Middle Ages; even Lea, I say, admits that the miracles ascribed to St. Dominic are almost all kindly ones, and that the Saint was by no means notable among his contemporaries for ferocity against heretics. Nor was he the “founder of the Inquisition,” although he was a worker in it. It was the force of circumstances and, in particular, the fact that both mendicant orders were particularly dependent upon the Pope (and correspondingly independent of the local clergy) that afterwards pushed forward first the Dominicans and then the Franciscans into prominence as Inquisitors.

The Albigensian struggle brought the Papal, as distinguished from the Episcopal, Inquisition into being. Formerly the bishops had had sole jurisdiction in matters of faith. Naturally, their policy against heretics varied widely, so that, as we have seen in Chapter II, the secular government and even the local mob often acted on their own responsibility. Evidently the bishops were not in a position to deal with heresy on a large scale. Attempts to hold them to their work, such as the Imperial-Papal decree issued from Verona in 1184 (see Chapter II), remained dead letters. In Languedoc, where both local government and mob were unwilling to act, the local bishops did not even try to do anything. Accordingly, as we have seen, Arnaut Amalric and the other legates whose activities we have followed, were sent by Innocent III to deal with the situation by virtue of authority derived directly from himself as Pope without reference to the local bishops—quite in the spirit in which President Cleveland sent federal troops to quell the Chicago riots in 1894.

Besides the need for a strong hand in Languedoc—the chief cause of the establishment of the Papal Inquisition—there was a second cause which helped to keep alive the newly founded institution even after military and political support of heresy in Languedoc had ceased. This second cause was the need felt for order and regularity. We have seen, in the first chapter, how order and right reason in all things were the goals of the fresh, buoyant spirit of the time, and how vast an event was the rediscovery of the Roman law, with its enormous logic. The intellectual appetites of newly-awakened Europe seized eagerly upon law as an object of study, at the same time that the practical necessities of an expanding, intensely “progressive,” society made the regular administration of law one of the chief concerns of statesmen. To such a generation, it was intolerable that so weighty a matter as that of variations from the faith should be dealt with haphazard. In justice to those accused of heresy, and to the Christian commonwealth as a whole—which our forefathers considered much more—the serious business of judgment in such cases deserved to be entrusted to the best qualified persons who could be found. Here were the Dominicans, and after them the Franciscans, learned in theology, independent of local prejudice, not apt to be terrified by local influence, men who had given up everything so that they might better serve the Church. Even though they shrank, as they sometimes did, from the heavy responsibilities, fatigues, and personal danger of acting as Inquisitors, the higher authorities of State and Church combined to draft them into the service.

In one sense, then, it was a high desire for justice, for the replacement of lynch law in heresy cases by a regular system of procedure, which dictated the establishment of the Inquisition (that is the Inquisition as a new instrument largely separate from the older Church courts of canon law administered by the bishops). At the same time, there are three facts which seem to show a baser mind in those who co-operated in the gradual formation of the new institution. The modern man is struck by the fact that the manner of examination seems to offer insufficient guarantee against the possibility of grave injustice to the accused; second, the use of torture to compel confession. Finally, the modern man is appalled at the extreme penalty by fire.

The main feature of the legal processes of the Inquisition is the wide power of the Inquisitor. Instead of acting, as our judges do, merely as referee between opposite sides, with a separate government official for prosecutor, the Inquisitor was the prime mover of the whole proceeding. Of his own motion he sought evidence and examined witnesses and accused. In this there is some resemblance to modern French procedure, and in a slighter degree, to the procedure in American courts-martial which makes the judge-advocate at once prosecutor and guarantor of the rights of the accused. The method is derived from the Roman law. It was practised, in the times with which we are concerned, by the “advanced” secular governments of the day such as the Capetian and Plantagenet monarchies. Certain Italian municipalities also seem to have made use of it. Besides being known to contemporary secular justice, it was familiar to the educated men of the time who were steeped in classical memories.

Under the Inquisition, matters went somewhat as follows: The Inquisitors travelled about through the territories committed to their charge preaching sermons against heresy, especially in places where it was known to exist. In these sermons a “time of grace” was promised, during which time all heretics who should come in and confess their fault were to be admitted to mercy and reconciled with the Church. Meanwhile, the faithful were asked to give information as to local heretics. When the time of grace was up those accused of heresy were arrested by armed servants of the Holy Office and examined by the Inquisitor.

The evidence for the prosecution was usually furnished to the accused, but in most cases the names of the witnesses who had given it were concealed. This was a departure from the contemporary procedure at canon law before the bishops. The argument in favour of concealment was that it was the one way of protecting the witnesses against reprisal by the friends of the accused in case of conviction. Public security, it must be remembered, was not what it is to-day. The best chance of having the indictment quashed was for the accused to prove that the witnesses were his mortal enemies. The inquisitor would, therefore, ask him whether he had any such, and if he had anyone who (unknown to him of course) had testified, then the evidence in question was stricken out and the whole case against him received a damaging blow.

When the evidence was in and the prisoner had testified as to his mortal enemies, then the crucial point of the examination was reached. It was the business of the Inquisitor to satisfy himself as to the guilt or innocence of the suspected heretic. There being no organized jury system, the ideal way of establishing guilt was to get the accused to confess. Confession was therefore sought by all imaginable means, by prolonged theological discussion with those capable of it, by efforts to entrap an unwary prisoner into unintentional admissions, or by adjourning the inquiry in obstinate cases so that the passage of time, sometimes even of years, in prison might give the wretch full chance to think matters over.

The Inquisition differed from all secular justice in that it was penitential, that is, it aimed to persuade those who had committed certain sins to confess their fault and submit themselves to the loving chastisement of Mother Church. The Inquisitor was in the unique position of a judge who was always trying to turn himself into a father-confessor.

When there was a strong presumption, but no conclusive proof, against a prisoner who obstinately refused to confess, the Inquisitor was in difficulties. His responsibility was even more than that of a modern judge because only the germ of a jury system as yet existed. The Inquisitor could, and usually did, summon experts (periti) or “good men” (boni viri) to deliberate with him, and it was the custom for him to follow their verdict, except when he thought it too harsh. This rudimentary jury was made up of men learned in the civil or canon law, usually mendicant friars. Its weakness was that it was extremely difficult to get together qualified persons often enough to give real consideration in each individual case. Indeed it was physically impossible to do so when a large number of cases required review, as would happen in the centres of heresy where the peril to the Faith was greatest. Ignorance of the prisoners’ names lessened their usefulness, for, as Vacandard ably puts it, “... tribunals are to judge criminals and not crimes, just as physicians treat sick people and not diseases in the abstract.” Therefore, to ease the conscience of the judge in deciding doubtful cases, torture was introduced to force confession when the evidence was not conclusive.

References to the use of torture are rare in the abundant records of the Inquisition. Whether this is because its use was so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity (and so unreliable a means for the discovery of truth) that the recorders shrank from mentioning it on paper, will never be known. Mediæval men in general were nothing if not frank, and yet the verbal equivocations of the Inquisition were many, as we shall see. Unfortunately, Roman precedents were in its favour, although the Roman law forbade torture to be used except against slaves. Roman freemen were liable to torture only in the case of a crime against the Emperor. The men of the Middle Ages seem to have thought of it as a substitute for the ordeal, which was going out of fashion, as we have seen. Torture was introduced late. Lea finds it mentioned in secular law, “... in the Veronese code of 1228 and in the Sicilian Constitutions of Frederick II in 1231,” and thinks that “... the references to it show how sparingly and hesitatingly it was employed.” In the Inquisition it was first recognized by Innocent IV in 1252.

A certain amount of restriction, to which secular courts were not liable, was placed upon the Inquisitors in their use of torture. No torture could be used by them which would imperil the life or limb of the victim, and this stipulation did amount to something, for the secular judge was free to invent and use any refinement of cruelty he could think of, and as often as he cared to. But it did not amount to much. The Inquisition was free to tear the joints of its victims from their sockets by means of the rack, or by the strappado. This last was a rope-and-pulley arrangement which was attached to the wrists of the victim. His wrists were bound behind his back, so as to dislocate the shoulder joints by raising him to the ceiling, letting him drop and then bringing him up with a jerk in mid-air. Fire and water were also permitted; the feet might be scorched after smearing them with fat; or the “water-cure” might be used until the stomach was horribly distended and the prisoner almost strangled.

At first there was reluctance about allowing the Inquisitors themselves to be present during torture. Priests, and the inquisitors were all priests, incurred “irregularity” by looking on at such scenes. But since this prohibition delayed business, it was virtually removed by the leave granted by Pope Alexander IV in 1260, and reaffirmed in 1262 by Pope Urban IV, for the Inquisitors to dispense one another from irregularity incurred by witnessing torture. Thenceforward it was the custom for the Inquisitor himself to be present during the torture.

Another check on the use of torture, the prescription that no prisoner should be twice tortured, was gotten around by equivocation. A second torturing was merely called a “continuation” instead of a “repetition” of the first. Furthermore, witnesses might be tortured indefinitely, and it was one of the chief objects of the inquisitors to get prisoners to denounce heretics still at large. Often mercy would be promised, on condition of giving evidence against others. In any case a heretic who denounced other heretics became at once a witness to their guilt and might be tortured as many times as was desired.

Another equivocation appears in the form in which confessions, made under torture or not, were drawn up. “Usually,” writes Lea, “the procedure appears to have been that the torture was continued until the accused signified his readiness to confess, when he was unbound and carried into another room, where his confession was made. If, however, the confession was extracted during the torture, it was read over subsequently to the prisoner, and he was asked whether it were true. In any case the record was carefully made that the confession was ‘free and spontaneous,’ without the pressure of ‘force or fear.’ In case a prisoner refused to confirm a confession made under torture, the learned doctors of the Inquisition differed as to what should be done with him. Some held that he should be set free, with a certificate that nothing had been proved against him, others that he should again be tortured until he again confessed!”

After conviction came sentence. Upon repentant heretics, erring children conscious of their fault and welcoming the loving chastisement of Mother Church, the inquisitor himself passed sentence in the form of penance. In theory, there was no difference between the penances imposed by any confessor and those of the Inquisitors, and, in practice, the only penance peculiar to the Inquisition was the wearing of crosses. Even imprisonment—the extreme legal penalty for the rare heretics of the earlier Middle Ages—was a part of the monastic penitential system. As late as the thirteenth century, sentences of imprisonment were more common than any other form of punishment.

When the sentence was for life the theory that such severity was no more than a salutary measure of penance was certainly strained. If such a prisoner broke jail, his guilt was supposed to be that of rejecting the wholesome correction designed by the loving-kindness of the Church to effect his spiritual well-being! However, there are so many records of prisoners serving life sentences who were released for good behaviour while in prison that it is possible to argue that usually none but “hard cases” failed to have the balance of such sentences suspended.

Obviously, the idea of punishment as a penance did not apply to those who refused to repent. Therefore the Inquisition itself, being an institution of the Church, could not punish such cases. But it was the root of the whole matter that heresy was a crime not only against the Church but against the State. It was the business of the Inquisition merely to determine whether suspects were or were not heretics. If, after conviction, one repented, the State originally had nothing to say. The Inquisition, acting for the Church, would then impose penance, as we have just seen, as upon any other repentant sinner. With the obstinate heretic the Church could do nothing. Therefore such prisoners were “relaxed,” that is turned over to the secular authorities, with the formula that the justice of God could do nothing more for them, inasmuch as they persisted in rebellion against it, and that, therefore, only the justice of man had power over them. In many of the later sentences the formula goes on, in accordance with the canonical sanctions, to ask the State to impose only such punishment as will not endanger life or limb, or cause the shedding of blood. As a matter of law, the coercive power was recognized as belonging only to the State.

The State, on the other hand, recognized the exclusive power of the Church to determine what was heresy and who was heretical, recognized the inquisitors as experts in such matters, accepted their verdict without question, and promptly proceeded to pass and execute sentence. It was a part of the formula of “relaxation” that heretics should be punished “as they deserved (animadversio debita).” This elastic phrase could be variously interpreted in accordance with the different local laws. Always it meant confiscation of the goods of the condemned. The Popes, from Alexander III, held that to confiscation banishment should be added. Confiscation was part of the penalty for treason which the Holy Roman Empire had copied word for word out of the old Roman law. Therefore, says Pope Innocent III, heretics deserve to have their goods confiscated even more than traitors, inasmuch as they betray the majesty of God Himself who is obviously greater than all earthly sovereigns. The great Pope mentions the fact that, under the Roman law, traitors lost their lives as well as their property, and that heresy involved treason against God, the King of Kings, but did not follow out his premises to their logical conclusion. Not until years after his death is there even a hint that the Church as a whole desired the death of a sinner, even when he was a heretic.

This comparative mildness was never universal in fact and gradually disappeared even from theory. We have noted, in the second chapter, the curious spectacle presented by the eleventh and twelfth century, on the one hand many of the higher clergy mindful of the Christian tradition of mercy, and on the other the laity and lower clergy insisting upon death for the impenitent heretic, and generally death by fire. We have now to note the slow progress by which lynch law became written law. Even before the Albigensian Crusade there had been at least two instances of burning alive formally set down as the penalty for heresy. One was the law enacted in 1194 by Count Raymond V, of Toulouse, at the very storm centre of the trouble. The other was the law of Pedro II, in nearby Aragon in 1197, against the Waldenses. Under Raymond V’s law, the Toulousains later claimed that they had “burnt many.” But even if their claim be accepted as true (whereas it seems doubtful) at any rate the practice was not continued. Pedro of Aragon decreed burning alive only for those Waldensians and other heretics who should fail to leave his dominions by a certain day, so that his reference to the stake was hardly more than a threat intended to enforce the real penalty, that of banishment. De Montfort himself, at the parliament he held in Pamiers in 1212 to consolidate his position in the south, decreed no more than banishment and confiscation as penalties for heresy. More important than any previous law is one enacted for Lombardy in 1224 by the Emperor Frederick II, by which heretics were either to be burnt or to have their tongues cut out, in the discretion of the judge.

It is quite in keeping with what we know of the subject in general that the first ecclesiastical recognition of death as the normal legal penalty for heresy should be an indirect one. A council sitting in Toulouse in 1229, the year of Raymond VII’s final surrender, after remarking as usual that “due punishment” is to be inflicted upon heretics, casually goes on to say that “... heretics, who, through fear of death or any other cause except their own free will, return to the faith, are to be imprisoned by the bishop of the city to do penance, that they may not corrupt others” (Vancandard). After this, examples multiply, under the influence of Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX. It so happens, however, that not until 1252 did any Pope formally insist upon the death penalty for heresy throughout Latin Christendom. This was the act of Innocent IV in the same bull “Ad Extirpanda” which authorized torture. Thenceforward the Inquisition was virtually complete.

The institution spread rapidly throughout Europe. England was an exception, for curiously enough in view of the inveterate eccentricity of the English mind, there were no heretics there until much later. There was not even a provision for burning heretics until, in 1401, Parliament passed the statute “de heretico comburendo.” It is less surprising to find such regions as far off as Scandinavia without heretics, and consequently without inquisitors. In the mountains of Bosnia, Catharistic Manicheanism became the State religion and persisted until the coming of the Turks, when the heretics welcomed the newcomers and went over to Islam. Bosnia had been a backwater in Europe ever since the Roman roads from the Adriatic to the Danube decayed in the Dark Ages—even to-day it has many Mohammedans.

Outside of Bosnia, there was no place in Latin Christendom that harboured heretics where the inquisitors did not make an end of them. The Manicheans were completely uprooted, although their extraordinary hunger for martyrdom would have made them completely victorious if the crude folly of to-day on the subject of “making martyrs” had truth in it. In Languedoc they lingered until the fourteenth century. The Waldensians were reduced so low that the confiscations of their property were not even enough to pay the expenses of the Inquisitors, let alone any surplus for the State. For all practical purposes they too were wiped out.

Resistance never amounted to more than the murder of an inquisitor here and there—which affected the activities of the institution not at all, for new recruits filled every gap. The Inquisition thus completed the task begun by the Albigensian Crusade of preserving the moral unity of Europe. Seriously threatened in the early thirteenth century, that moral unity remained unbroken until the great cataclysm of the sixteenth.

The question posed by the Inquisition to the student is twofold. First, was the moral unity of Europe worth preserving or no, and second, were or were not the means by which the Inquisition helped to preserve it worse than the disease in the long run? Naturally, if it is decided that the end sought was of little value, then it is probable that anyone so deciding will also disapprove of the means used to attain it. But the contrary does not follow. It is by no means impossible that anyone experienced in life may decide in any given case that, although the end proposed was good, nevertheless the means by which it was attained were evil.

On the first point, the answer is prompt. Emphatically, the mediæval world was worth preserving. In fact, with Periclean Greece, the Empire under the Antonines, and possibly the world of the Victorian age, the thirteenth century marks one of the culminating points of human history. It is true that the word “mediæval” is still popularly used in derision. But, on the other hand, such usage is recognized as hasty and superficial by virtually all educated men acquainted with the period. The Middle Ages attract us by the excellence of their arts and handicrafts, by the vividness and picturesqueness of their life, their spontaneity of feeling, their absence of hypocrisy, the order and clarity of their intellectual life, above all by their freedom from serious internal strain. From our world of alternatively drab and garish machine-made ugliness, haphazard and inconsequent thinking, and torment of chronic industrial civil war, we look back upon them with regret. In the literature of the thirteenth century we see the European mind happy and creative ... as it is to-day uncertain and near despair. We see our typical institutions, such as representative government, sounder and more vigorous than they are to-day. Such eager worshippers of the spirit of our own time as H. G. Wells and Henry Adams, to name only two at random, bear their testimony. The confession of the volatile socialist Wells is interesting. In 1914 he casually wrote of “... the finished and enriched normal social life of Western European in the Middle Ages....” I have taken Wells as important merely because (with his human sensitive-plate of a mind capable of so many discordant impressions) he puts the thing so neatly. With such men as Chesterton and Belloc in England and Cram in America the appreciation of mediævalism is the very core of their thinking. It would be easy to weary the reader with examples. The Middle Ages draw us if we but look at them.

The weakness of the Middle Ages lay in four things. First, there was insufficient organization of public powers and of communications, a subject discussed elsewhere in this book. Second, there was very little “natural science,” i.e., detailed knowledge of the properties of the material world. Thus it was ignorance of medicine and sanitation that brought about the great fourteenth century calamity of pestilence, the “Black Death” which gave the mediæval system a shock from which it never fully recovered. Third, there was cruelty, and fourth, there was the contrast between the vast assumptions made by the Church and the shortcomings and weaknesses of man himself—layman and churchman alike. Both cruelty and the claims of the Church are intimately connected with our subject.

The cruelty of the Inquisition appears most in the use of torture and in the executions by fire. Questions as to the form of procedure and withholding names of witnesses are subordinate. It is well enough for a modern civilized government, strong in the perfection of communications and of all public powers, to safeguard elaborately those accused of crime. Mediæval conditions were in many ways like those of frontier regions where the criminal can easily slip away. When this is so, justice must make herself swift and terrible by “rough and ready” methods. Otherwise she does not exist. In their franker moments, lawyers will usually admit that nine-tenths of the clients they defend are “as guilty as hell.” The elaborate safeguards of our procedure are defensible only on the theory that it is better to err by letting many culprits escape rather than by punishing one innocent man. And this theory, in turn, is tenable only on the assumption that no serious harm is done the community by the escape from punishment, through the legal safeguards aforesaid, of a considerable proportion of criminals. Where, on the other hand, the life or death of the community is felt to be at stake, then matters must take a different course. Perhaps as good an example as our own time can furnish is that of military justice. Clearly it is supremely important to keep up the discipline of an army. Accordingly, courts martial are given wide latitude. And yet the almost unanimous opinion of those competent to judge is that, when administered by experienced officers, miscarriages of justice under the court-martial system are exceedingly rare, and that, on the other hand, such a procedure as that followed in the civil courts would be destructive of all proper discipline; the maintenance of which, after all, is the necessary end sought. With reference to the Inquisition, besides the temporal welfare of the community, there is also the doctrine of exclusive salvation to be considered, as we shall see in a moment. The wide latitude allowed Inquisitors undoubtedly produced cases of injustice, but probably no system permitting the “disputatious wrangling of lawyers” (as the Inquisitorial manuals put it) could have answered the purpose.

In accusing the Inquisition of physical cruelty in examinations and executions, the modern world does not come into court with absolutely clean hands. Even leaving out of account Russia and Asia does not altogether mend matters. For instance, cruelty appears, more or less frankly, when the white man is in contact with those he considers lower races.

With respect to the examination of prisoners, Kipling’s fictitious hero, the lovable Mulvaney, flogging his captured Burman with a cleaning rod to find out the whereabouts of the bandit-friends of the sufferer, may serve as a fictitious example of the sort of cruelty frequently practised by civilized armies operating against savages. The American Army in the Philippines, instead of falling back on such primitive methods as flogging, took over the water torture from the natives there, who in turn had learned it from the Spaniards. In fact, it was one of the favourite tortures of the Spanish Inquisition of late mediæval and early modern days. The officer who introduced the “water cure” into the American Army happens to be known to the writer, who can warrant him a most kindly man who would not hurt so much as an insect, except in line of duty. It is a well-known fact that the American mind is more hospitable than the British to new and unfamiliar ideas. Even in the great modern cities, in which (by a curious reversion) degraded, criminal, types analogous to the savage appear, torture in the examination of prisoners is not altogether unknown. I refer to the police “third degree.” Here the facts are not public property, but there is good reason to believe that torture in various forms is used in examining prisoners to force them to confess and to name their accomplices. Into the merits and demerits of these practices it is unnecessary to enter here. The point is merely that the world has not yet found a way to dispense altogether with the use of torture in the examination of prisoners.

A real difference, nevertheless, remains between the modern and the mediæval use of torture in examinations. To-day it is furtive, then it was an acknowledged, customary thing. And while this difference is partly a matter of our greater security, and partly a matter of hypocrisy born of our characteristic, almost feminine, modern disinclination to face disagreeable facts; still it is true that there has been a real change in the minds of men of European stock with reference to this matter of torture. We are revolted by cruelties which not so very long ago seem to have been taken almost as a matter of course, so much so that, as we have seen, they permitted even priests to be present in the torture chamber. Our nerves are more sensitive than those of our ancestors, as Nietzsche and Huysmans have pointed out, but that does not altogether account for the moral change involved.

With respect to burning alive the position is somewhat similar. Here also we have a conspicuous modern example occurring in a region where the white man finds himself confronted with great numbers of men of a race which he feels to be inferior to his own. I refer to the lynching of negroes, usually those accused of rape upon a white woman, in the Southern States. Here the combination of rape and race feeling has produced a condition very like that found in Western Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries when heretics, instead of negro rapists, were similarly burned by mobs. Here again, together with striking resemblances, there are also important differences. The practice shows no signs of becoming a formal written law. On the contrary, there is formidable, organized protest against it, even in the communities concerned. Whereas in the early Middle Ages only a part of the higher clergy can be found in opposition, and even then not in particular opposition to burning alive, but opposed in general to any death penalty for heretics.

The striking contrast between the mediæval attitude, after burning alive had become written law, and modern feeling on the subject, has been discussed in the second chapter. Belloc uses the fact of this contrast as an illustration of one of the chief difficulties of history, that is the elusiveness of the “time spirit” of past ages, the fact that they took for granted certain primary assumptions which seemed to them too obvious even to be worth recording. Considering it, he remarks upon the distortion which this unseizable spirit of the time ... “appears to produce in morals when one is looking at it through the medium of another spirit belonging to another time, our own.”[32] His first illustrations of this truth are drawn from the French Revolution, from which he proceeds to a discussion of burning alive in the Middle Ages and early modern period, which has, in part, been quoted elsewhere in this book.

Frazer in the “Golden Bough” has a passage reinforcing Belloc’s contention as to the symbolic and quasi-sacramental spirit in which burning alive was regarded. Fire was the sovereign remedy against witchcraft. It was customary to burn objects to prevent their being bewitched, or objects or animals which had been bewitched, so that the contagion might not spread, or, finally, to burn the witches themselves. Our contemporary Southern lynchings by fire should warn us against over-subtlety. Further, it is true that burning alive had been the Roman punishment for high treason as well as for sorcery, and was in grisly conformity with the Church’s traditional abhorrence of bloodshed—it shed no blood. Still it is possible that the Middle Ages saw relationship between witchcraft and heresy, since both were connected with ideas of intensely harmful spiritual forces—were, in short, favourite offspring of the devil himself.

Certainly, later on, the burning of criminals became a solemn ceremony by no means accompanied by hatred of the victim. This is proved by the examples of those strangled before burning, like Savonarola. It is proved even more strongly by the celebrated case of Gilles de Rais. This case has been referred to in the second chapter, but it is so pertinent here that it merits fuller repetition. Gilles was a Breton nobleman and had been one of the lieutenants of Joan of Arc, but later fell into sorcery, sexual perversion, and all sorts of refinements of cruelty. When the Inquisition condemned him to be hung and burned alive, on charges of worshipping demons, he suffered a violent change of heart. Among other edifying signs of contrition, he begged the people whose little boys he had kidnapped, then debauched, and then tortured to death by hundreds, to pray for his soul. Whereupon they marched in procession, vehemently praying for the eternal salvation of this monster with his taste for extremes in both directions of the spiritual life. After which he was duly executed. “We are far from American lynch law here,”[33] as M. Huysmans remarks in recounting this scene. It is possible, in the light of such case, to believe with Belloc and Frazer that what seems to us the atrocious cruelty involved in burning alive may have been merely incidental to other considerations uppermost in the minds of those who ordered such things. To himself, man is an inscrutable mystery.

Finally, we come to the question of the claims of the Church. It is not my purpose to debate the propositions involved, but merely to state them as they affect the moral problem of the Inquisition. Obviously, the Church’s sole reason for being is the belief that she has, in the Christian revelation, something of supreme and unique value for mankind. The Athanasian creed, whether or not it is to be taken as pronouncing the damnation of the heathen and of “heretics in good faith,” certainly must be interpreted to mean that those who “culpably persist” in heretical belief cannot be saved. In the Middle Ages, Christian scholars expanded this irreducible minimum so as to make the Church’s teaching include the damnation of both the heathen and of all heretics, more especially as the possibility of heresy existing without a definite renunciation of the Catholic faith by the individual heretic hardly occurred to people in a society universally Catholic. As we have seen, the Church was the cement of that society. Marriage was one of her sacraments and had nothing to do with any civil ceremony. Break the Church, therefore, and you broke up family life. To deny her right to sanction an oath was to destroy the all-important feudal oath of allegiance. Therefore men accepted without hesitation the idea that to counterfeit the faith was worse than to counterfeit earthly coin, to betray God through heresy was viler than to betray an earthly sovereign by committing treason. This note is sounded again and again in the grim formulas establishing torture and the stake. Since human justice fiercely punished the lesser crimes against men, how much the more it ought to punish the greater crimes against God. Given the savage criminal law of the time, given also the Athanasian creed tracing back to our Lord saying: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be condemned” (St. Mark xvi), and the logical sequence is complete.

Nevertheless, even in times of clear, logical thinking such as the Middle Ages, men seldom act from logic alone. To act so is the mark of the fanatic, and although the fanatic often is powerful, still most men are not fanatics, and no society can long be ruled by fanaticism pure and simple. After some years of study and reflection upon the point, my own conclusion is that the Church and the Governments of the thirteenth century were determined in their action not only by the formal logic of the situation but also by the peculiarly repulsive nature of the Albigensian (“Catharan,” or Manichean) heresy, the leading heresy of the age.

Whatever might have happened, it did happen that the laws repressing heresy were codified by the acute legal minds of the new time under the stress of a particular heresy of a most hateful sort. Symonds has recorded two Milanese epitaphs, dating from the mid-thirteenth century. In one an archbishop is praised for having “... cut the throats of the heretics (... jugulavit haereses).” In the other a Podesta (chief executive magistrate) of the city is also praised because “He did his duty and burned the Catharans (Catharos ut debuit ussit).”[34] Historians seem to have failed to notice the connection of the two sentiments. Whether or not heresy in general would have been as rigorously stamped out had the particular Manichean, Albigensian, or Catharan heresy never existed is mere speculation. The striking fact is that the time that could praise an archbishop for having cut heretical throats thought of heresy as typified by this particular sect. Another illustration is a well-known story of St. Thomas Aquinas. It seems that the greatest of Christian philosophers, one day seated at dinner with St. Louis and his court, suddenly rolled out (no doubt in a deep voice corresponding to his massive frame), “I have a conclusive argument against the Manicheans (Conclusum est contra Manicheos).”[35] Many students have smiled over the feeling of the courtiers; for our purposes the point is that no such contemporary anecdote has come down to us concerning Waldenses, Arnaldists, or any other of the numerous heresies of the time. Theologians taught that all heresy was sin, hence anti-heretical legislation, and the corresponding task of enforcing it. The enormous force of the attack upon the Albigenses came because the average Christian, once face to face with them, decided that duty was pleasure.

It is true that the huge engine first set in motion by anger against this inhuman sect was soon turned against all heretics, and the fact will surprise no one who has the remotest knowledge of practical politics. The historian, when he plots the course of the ship of State, is at ease in his study. But the ship herself, when that run was made, was blown upon, this side and that, by the fiercest passions of man, and is so to-day. Rare, indeed, are the officers and crew that, when those gales are at their height, can hold the vessel steady. More often her course is as viciously jagged as that of lightning. It is not for the American, with our treatment of the South and the negro question since the Civil War before him, to cast a stone at the thirteenth century.

In thirteenth century Languedoc, as in nineteenth century America, war made an end of nice distinctions. At the time of the Conference of Pamiers, in 1207, before the Crusade had begun, Peter de Vaux-Cernay could distinguish clearly between Waldensians and “heretics” par excellence: that is Manicheans. In 1226, nineteen years later, we find a Cardinal-Legate of the Holy See persuading Louis VIII of France to attack the city of Avignon because there were many Waldenses there, and this in spite of the fact that it was a fief of the Empire. From the first the theory of the Church had been that heresy itself, and not any one particular kind of heresy, however repulsive, was the enemy. Before the Albigensian Crusade is ended, we find that this theory is being worked out in fact.

What, then, are we to say of the statesmen and their peoples who encouraged or permitted the adoption into law of this sweeping theory promulgated by the Church? Clearly the men of the thirteenth century saw no moral problem in the matter, but only the doing of a necessary task. No other assumption can account for the success with which the difficulties in the way of the new inquisitorial institution were gotten over. For instance, there was the exceedingly delicate question of the precise relation of inquisitors to the local bishops. Had there been the slightest desire on the part of the secular governments to hinder the Inquisition, it would have been easy to play off one against the other, for it was a poor mediæval ruler who could not get some of his bishops to support him on practically any proposition. We hear of nothing of the sort. On the contrary, the thorny point of Inquisitorial versus Episcopal authority is triumphantly solved, in practice, without any serious hitch whatsoever. It is the same with popular resistance. At long intervals we sometimes hear of little riots, or even of the murder of an inquisitor here and there. But such things are the rarest of exceptions to the rule. This is easier to understand when we realize that only in the few centres of heretical resistance were inquisitorial activities of a drastic nature. Thus in Roussillon, just over the border from Languedoc, the atmosphere changes altogether. Here the minute research of the indefatigable M. Brutails has brought to light only four sentences of the Inquisition.[36] All are directed against robber barons, of the pestilential tribe whose activities we have noted. What happened to two of these wretches is not clear. Those whose fate is known suffered only the penalty of having their dead bones dug up and solemnly burnt, forty years after death in one case. The severities of the Inquisition, enormous though they bulk on the voluminous pages of Lea, were infrequent and local throughout thirteenth century Christendom as a whole. Furthermore, these infrequent and local severities were normally exercised against the “Albigensian” heretics who were deservedly detested. Not until two hundred years later—in the fantastic and stagnant close of the Middle Ages—do we find anything like a reign of terror. Nevertheless, the underlying idea of the whole business is so alien from us that we can scarcely understand it.

Even to approach understanding of such a thing, it is necessary to speak in parables. Let us, therefore, imagine a scene among the shades. The ghost of a thirteenth century scholastic is in converse with other ghosts, an ancient Roman, a sage of Hindustan, a mandarin from China, and an American citizen.

“Government is government,” say these last four, “and religion is religion. For men to agree, in general, to live peaceably with each other and to obey law, they need not also agree concerning divine things, and this is proved by what we ourselves have seen and known. If anyone offend against law let him be punished. But let him worship any God, or no God, as pleases him, granted only that he offend not the religious feeling and sense of decency of his neighbours, particularly if a great majority of them be agreed upon such matters.”

To whom the scholastic: “From you of the East and of old Rome these words mean little. No law of natural right informed your States. When did any one of you maintain that there was a God in whose sight all men were equal? Instead, you held to slavery and to the deepest inequalities among men. We strove more greatly than you because we sought to build upon eternal justice. In our eyes, it was justice that every man should enjoy the whole fruit of his labours, saving only a tax, as it were, paid to those who fought, judged, or governed. And in order that such justice might prevail it was needful that the Church be strong to lay down, precept upon clear precept, what was every man’s duty to his neighbour.”

“The conquered Saracen, in Spain and Sicily, was but an exception, to tolerate him did no harm. A graver exception was the Jew, for the weakness of men made it convenient that he be permitted usuries anathema to Christians. Nevertheless he was a race apart. But that the sword of the gospel should lose its edge, being blunted and chipped away by the unblessed interpretations of men calling themselves Christians, was to us a thing intolerable. For among such a babel of tongues we feared that men would listen to none, but would follow their own greeds and lusts, wheresoever these last might lead, until the strife among them ceased only from weariness.”

After he had done speaking there is a little silence. Then the American answers and says: “It is true that men must agree, after a fashion, as to that what is right, and it is true that this is hard. But faith is faith and men are facts. Moreover, since we speak of faith, there is a civic faith which seeks to bind men together upon the earth, no matter whence they came there and whither they shall go. But faith or no faith, men as citizens must sink or swim together, and if they cannot agree about the things of this world, they will certainly perish. About God they can never agree, therefore let them differ as peaceably as they can.”

“But is it not true,” says the scholastic, “that you have failed? For shades lately come hither out of the sunlight, say that more and more, in the upper world, there is strife in the cities between rich and poor. There are so many, even in your own country, who are called free and yet own nothing.”

“That is so,” replied the American, “but a friend of mine came here only the other day, and he said that they had not failed yet.”