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.