But an organization based upon the principle that there is only one right way of thinking and living and that all other ways are infamous and damnable is bound to take drastic measures whenever its authority is being openly questioned.
If it failed to do so it could not possibly hope to survive and this consideration at last compelled Rome to take definite action and devise a series of punishments that should put terror into the hearts of all future dissenters.
The Albigenses (the heretics were called after the city of Albi which was a hotbed of the new doctrine) and the Waldenses (who bore the name of their founder, Peter Waldo) living in countries without great political value and therefore not well able to defend themselves, were selected as the first of her victims.
The murder of a papal delegate who for several years had ruled the Provence as if it were so much conquered territory, gave Innocent III an excuse to interfere.
He preached a formal crusade against both the Albigenses and the Waldenses.
Those who for forty consecutive days would join the expedition against the heretics would be excused from paying interest on their debts; they would be absolved from all past and future sins and for the time being they would be exempted from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts of law. This was a fair offer and it greatly appealed to the people of northern Europe.
Why should they bother about going all the way to Palestine when a campaign against the rich cities of the Provence offered the same spiritual and economic rewards as a trip to the Orient and when a man could gain an equal amount of glory in exchange for a much shorter term of service?
For the time being the Holy Land was forgotten and the worst elements among the nobility and gentry of northern France and southern England, of Austria, Saxony and Poland came rushing southward to escape the local sheriff and incidentally replenish its depleted coffers at the expense of the prosperous Provençals.
The number of men, women and children hanged, burned, drowned, decapitated and quartered by these gallant crusaders is variously given. I have not any idea how many thousands perished. Here and there, whenever a formal execution took place, we are provided with a few concrete figures, and these vary between two thousand and twenty thousand, according to the size of each town.