The Inquisition

by Hoffman Nickerson

Of the crime there are different versions. In Hallam’s ill-informed Victorian day it could be maintained that Raymond was responsible in no way whatsoever. There is a story that the legate got into a hot religious argument with a gentleman of the count’s retinue who ended by drawing his dagger and killing him. The version of the Catholic chroniclers is substantially as follows: Raymond had called the legates to a conference at St. Gilles in order to arrange the conditions on which he might give satisfaction to the Church and thereby obtain the lifting of the excommunication in force upon himself and the interdict upon his lands. Very likely he was informed of the new call to a Crusade and was correspondingly frightened. As before, he was willing to promise anything, but de Castelnau and the Bishop of Conserans who was present understood him thoroughly by this time, and refused to give absolution until he should at least begin to fulfil his easily given pledges. Lea speaks of “demands greater than Raymond was willing to concede.” In all probability de Castelnau carried things with a high hand. Already we have seen him forced to escape by night from Carcassonne, and already he had cursed Raymond to his face. The tree of faith, he was accustomed to say, would never spring up in Languedoc until its roots had been watered with the blood of a martyr. Now, when the discussion was about to be broken off, Raymond is said to have uttered threats, more or less vague. In fear for the legates, the abbot and burghers of St. Gilles gave the legates an escort as far as the western bank of the Rhône, where they passed the night at an inn already partly occupied by some of Raymond’s people. In the morning, after saying mass, the Churchmen set out to cross the river, de Castelnau being mounted (according to William of Tudela) “on his ambling mule,” which would seem to show that in his case at least the practice of barefoot apostolic poverty had not lasted long, when a “sergeant” (i.e., a heavy armed, mounted, soldier not of noble blood) in the service of the Count, coming treacherously and from behind, mortally wounded him, with his lance. “May God forgive thee even as I forgive thee!” said the dying man.

Accounts of Raymond’s behaviour after the crime differ as widely as those of the crime itself. The version quoted by Lea claims that the Count, “... greatly concerned at an event so deplorable, ... would have taken summary vengeance of the murderer but for his escape and hiding with friends at Beaucaire.” According to the Catholic chronicler Peter de Vaux-Cernay Raymond showed himself throughout his domain with the murderer at his side, making an intimate of him and covering him with praise and with gifts. This was the version published far and wide by Innocent, although with his usual lawyer-like exactitude he adds that in so doing he is merely echoing the reports sent to him, which makes it appear as if, perhaps, he did not altogether believe those accounts. Finally, it is worth noting that, unlike Becket, the martyred de Castelnau was not canonized nor did his tomb at St. Gilles become a centre of pilgrimage and of miracles.

Whatever the details of the affair may have been, the crime made Innocent master of the situation. As with Becket, so it was with de Castelnau: the dead Churchman was too much for the layman who had successfully resisted him living. The Pope lost little time. Within three months of the murder, the unrivalled papal heavy artillery of curses was put into action so vigorously as almost to surpass itself. Flaming circular letters went to every bishop in Raymond’s lands, recounting the crime and the strong presumption of the Count’s complicity therewith, directing that the murderer be excommunicated, that Raymond be re-excommunicated, and that the interdict upon Raymond’s lands be enlarged so as to cover any place that either he or the murderer might curse and pollute with their presence. This masterpiece of malediction was to be solemnly published with bell, book, and candle, in all churches and republished, until further notice, every Sunday and feast day. Raymond’s person was outlawed, his land titles were voided, saving only the rights of the king as suzerain thereto; any Catholic who was able might kill him and seize upon anything that was his. His vassals were loosed from their oaths of liege-homage to him and his allies loosed from their oaths of alliance. Before he could even seek reconciliation by penitence he must first banish the heretics from his dominions. “No pity for these criminals who, not content to corrupt souls by abetting heresy, kill bodies also.”

At the same time, letters went to the French bishops and archbishops, to Philip Augustus, and to his chief vassals. The prelates were directed to help the legates make peace between Capet and Angevin, and to stir up clergy and laity to the Crusade. Philip was congratulated on his great increase in power, his affection for the Holy See, and the hatred which he had often shown for heresy. Now, so it was represented, his office compelled him to punish the murderers of the papal legate. He had once crusaded to Palestine. Now he ought again to serve the Church, more and more imperilled as she was by the heretics who were worse than Saracens (an epoch-making phrase). It was his duty to drive out Raymond, to take the land from the heretics, and to give it to good Catholics who would faithfully serve the Lord, “under Philip’s happy suzerainty.” Probably Innocent wished Philip to read between the pious lines the thought that vassals directly planted upon new lands by the King would be far more his creatures than those who held them by a long chain of inheritance. As usual with Innocent, the letter is a masterpiece of its kind.

Meanwhile, Arnaut Amalric made haste to call a chapter general of the whole Cistercian order. That the murdered de Castelnau himself had been a Cistercian was an additional reason for his own order to see to it that their dead brother should not be forgotten and that the cause for which he had given his life should not be allowed to fail for want of champions. Their chapter-general, when assembled, voted unanimously to direct the whole energies of the order into preaching the Crusade, and forthwith throughout Christendom their monks set themselves to stir up the people.

In all this, Arnaut Amalric surpassed himself. The “Chanson de la Crusade” makes him say, in words that echo a fierce (sometimes grotesque) rhetoric he may well have used: “Cry the indulgences throughout all the earth, even to Constantinople. Let him that will not crusade never more drink wine, never more, evening or morning, eat from a table decked with a table cloth (!), may he never more wear cloth of flax or of linen, and at his death let him be buried like a dog.”

Innocent’s letters and the Cistercian’s hardly less passionate sermons had their effect. Enthusiasm rose. It was like the ominous cracking and groaning that sometimes follow the explosion of a heavy blasting charge at the base of a mountain, threatening a landslide, perhaps greater and more uncontrollable than those who set the train foresaw.

Still, Philip Augustus stood out. He wrote to Innocent a letter full of decorous grief for de Castelnau, in which he recited also his own complaints against Raymond. Although the Toulousain held one of the greatest baronies of the kingdom, he had lent no aid to his suzerain in the great struggle with John. Nay more, when Philip had taken Falaise he had found Toulousain soldiers among John’s garrison there. Nevertheless, the King of France refused to throw himself whole-heartedly into the Crusade. He repeated, once more, that Innocent must give him the means of raising the money for the expedition and must see to it that John remained quiet. He even read the Pope a lesson in law by insisting that Raymond could not legally be deprived of his lands and honours (the two words were almost synonymous to a mediæval) unless he had first been convicted of heresy, which was not the case. Whether or not he was actually displeased at the idea of the Crusade, is by no means certain. It would seem that he might well count on better service from North-French barons established in Languedoc than from its hereditary lords, accustomed as these last were to the independence of Paris. We find him attempting at least to limit the size of the crusading army. In his authorization to Eudes Duke of Burgundy and Hervé Count of Nevers to take the Cross, he stipulates that, between them, they must take no more than five hundred knights.

Significantly enough, this letter is erased from the royal register. Events were to make the King wish to destroy any evidence which might put him in the position of having hindered the Crusade.

Nevertheless, he persisted in refusing to join personally in the proposed expedition. Innocent did all that was possible to persuade him. After asking him, in a letter dated October 9, 1208, to assist the legates in persuading his subjects to take the Cross, the Pope wrote again, on February 9, 1209, asking him to designate a commander whom all were to obey, and so avoid the danger of faction in the crusading higher command. The King of France preferred that the entire responsibility for the undertaking should rest with the Pope.