FULK OF NEUILLY, THE PREACHER OF THE THIRD CRUSADE (A.D. 1195).
As Peter the Hermit was the soul of the First Crusade and St. Bernard of the Second, so Fulk of Neuilly, who died 1202, was the missionary of the Third Crusade in 1195. He had been wild in youth, but settled down and attended the lectures of Peter the Chaunter in Paris, and took copious notes of the brilliant passages. He then poured forth Peter’s eloquence in his own next Sunday’s sermon, and began to be considered eloquent and stirring. One day his hearers were so overwhelmed with enthusiasm that they tore their clothes, threw away their shoes, and cast themselves at his feet, demanding rods and scourges to inflict instant penance on themselves. Usurers came and threw their gains at his feet. The Pope, Innocent III., heard of Fulk’s enthusiasm and highly approved it, and suggested to him a mission to stir up the people. He did so, and went the round of France, distributing crosses, blessing wells, and working miracles. He shaved and wore a sackcloth shirt and rode on a palfrey. He received vast subsidies. But notwithstanding his zeal and success, a profound mistrust settled on mankind that these holy alms were devoted by the Pope and him to other uses. He died of fever in 1202, supposed to have been brought on by grief at these malappropriations. Other preachers, especially the Abbot Martin, had also kept up the missionary enthusiasm, and at last a crusade of Cery began in 1200, the fruit of this stirring of the people.
DEATH OF RICHARD I., A CRUSADER (A.D. 1199).
While Richard I., who had returned from Palestine in 1194, was in 1199 besieging the castle of Chalus in Limousin and was reconnoitring it on all sides, one Bertram de Gurdun aimed an arrow from the castle, striking the King in the arm and inflicting an incurable wound. A physician attempted to extract the iron head from the wound, but took out only the wood at first, and in butcher fashion had to probe again for the rest. The King, feeling that he could not survive, disposed of his wealth, and then ordered the arbalister to be called to his presence. The King asked what harm he had done that the bowman should kill him. The latter at once made answer that the King had slain his father and two brothers with his own hand, and also had intended to kill the speaker, but that he, the latter, was quite ready and willing to endure the greatest torments, being well content that one who had inflicted so many evils on the world should do so no more. The King pardoned the soldier and ordered him to be discharged; but the King’s servants, notwithstanding, privily flayed him alive and then hanged him.
FRENCH AND VENETIANS PILLAGING CONSTANTINOPLE.
When the French and Venetians in 1204 besieged and pillaged Constantinople, the Emperor’s wife and child had to take refuge in the house of a merchant. The patriarch escaped, riding on an ass without attendants. The conquerors entered the Cathedral of St. Sophia, tore down the veil, the altar, and all its ornaments. They made a prostitute mount on the patriarch’s throne and sing and dance in the holy place, to ridicule the hymns and processions of the worshippers. The tombs were stripped of everything saleable. There were many Pagan statues which peculiarly provoked the contempt and zeal of the invaders. The statues of the victorious charioteers, the sphinx, river-horse, and crocodile, of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, of the eagle and serpent, and other designs of Pagan heroes and goddesses, were cast down and disfigured and then burnt. The most enlightened of the invaders searched for and seized the relics of the saints; and it is said that the Abbot Martin transferred a rich cargo to his monastery of Paris. The supply of heads and bones, crosses and images, served the wants of the churches of Europe, and proved most lucrative plunder. The libraries also shared the general fate.
THE POPE TURNS ON CRUSADERS AGAINST THE HERETICS (A.D. 1208).
The southern part of France had long been noted for the variety of heresies caused amongst its mixed population. In 1145 St. Bernard went forth to preach against the heretics of Toulouse, where there were churches without flocks, flocks without priests, and Christians without Christ, where men were dying in their sins without being reconciled by penance or admitted to the Holy Communion, and their souls sent pell-mell before the awful tribunal of God. But even St. Bernard could make little impression on the ungodly population, who drowned his voice and caused him to shake the dust from his feet and to curse the town of Vertfeuil. He died in 1153, and for fifty years later the heretics of Southern France, generally called the Albigenses, vexed the orthodox souls of Popes and Church Councils. At last, about 1208, a fiery and zealous Crusader, on returning from Palestine, was enlisted by Pope Innocent III., and aided by two Spanish monks to extirpate, since they could not hope to convert, these troublesome heretics whom the Pope described as worse than the Saracens. A rally was made of all the fanatical offscourings in the world to help in this heretic hunt, and for fifteen years all the towns and strong castles of the South were taken, lost, pillaged, sacked, and massacred with unbridled ferocity. The brutal Simon de Montfort, after the massacre of chiefs, confiscated the lands and appropriated these to himself. It was a relief to Christians when that unscrupulous bandit, after besieging Toulouse for nine months, was killed by a shower of stones discharged from the walls in 1218.
CRUSADERS FEROCIOUS AGAINST HERETICS (A.D. 1209).
The Crusaders, in 1209, though zealous for their religion, scarcely showed a glimmering of its influence in the conduct of their warlike operations against the Albigenses. They spread desolation wherever they went, destroying vineyards and crops, burning villages and farmhouses, slaughtering unarmed peasants, women, and children. When La Minerve, near Narbonne, after an obstinate defence, yielded and the besieged were offered their freedom if they recanted their heresy, one of the Crusaders shouted out, “We came to extirpate heretics, not to show them favour.” This voice from the crowd sharpened their fury, and one hundred and forty of both sexes were burnt to death. At a castle called Brau, De Montfort cut off the noses and tore out the eyes of one hundred of the defenders, leaving to one of them one eye only, that he might lead out the rest. At Lavaur, Almeric and eighty nobles were ordered to be hanged; but because one of the gibbets fell down in using it, they were all butchered with the sword. The sister of Almeric, being deemed an obstinate heretic, was thrown into a well and a pile of stones upon her. A chaplain of the Crusaders at one place reported that four hundred captives were burned with immense joy. One lady at Toulouse, lying on her deathbed, being charged as a heretic, was carried out in her bed and burnt amid the merriment of the orthodox. Yet Simon de Montfort, who had been chosen general of these brutal legions, after despatching so many dissenters of the period, on returning to Northern France was hailed as champion of the faith, and the clergy and people met him in procession, shouting, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” At the siege of Beziers, it is mentioned, where Catholics and heretics both joined in defending their town, Arnold of Citeaux incited the Crusaders to slaughter not only men but women and children indiscriminately, brutally adding, “Kill them all; the Lord knoweth them that are His.” The series of campaigns against the Albigenses was said to give the Pope the idea of establishing the Inquisition as a more effectual way of putting down all heretics.