FOOTNOTES
[68] [It will be well to refer back to the earlier account of the sack of Constantinople in Vol. 7, Chap. 11, p. 352. It is noteworthy how much more atrocious was the barbarity of the crusaders to these their own people, than was that of the Moslems themselves when they took the same city in 1453.]
[69] According to Fuller’s[f] Holy War, “Pope Innocent III, having lately learned the trick of employing the army of pilgrims in bye-services, began now to set up a trade thereof. He levied a great number of crusaders, whom he sent against the Albigenses in France. These were reputed heretics, whom his holiness intended to root out with all cruelty, that good shepherd knowing no other way to bring home a wandering sheep than by worrying him to death. He freely and fully promised the undertakers the self-same pardons and indulgences as he did to those who went to conquer the Holy Land; and very conscionably requested their aid only for forty days, hoping to chop up these Albigenses at a bit. The place being nearer, the service shorter, the work less, the wages the same with the voyage into Syria, many entered themselves in this employment, and neglected the other.”
[70] The pope and emperor were struggling for supremacy, and the cunning pontiff thought he could get rid of his rival by commanding him to take the cross; and such was the state of the times that Frederick would not have been considered a Christian if he had refused. Voltaire is right in saying, “L’empereur fit le vœu par politique; et par politique il différa le voyage.” Essai sur les Mœurs des Nations, Chap. 52.
[71] A curé at Paris, instead of reading the bull from the pulpit in the usual form, said to his parishioners, “You know, my brethren, that I am ordered to fulminate an excommunication against Frederick. I know not the motive. All that I know, is, that there has been a quarrel between that prince and the pope. God alone knows who is right. I excommunicate him who has injured the other; and I absolve the sufferer.” The emperor sent a present to the preacher, but the pope and the king blamed this sally; le mauvais plaisant was obliged to expiate his fault by a canonical penance.
[72] The soldiers employed on these occasions were Saracens, subjects of the emperor in Sicily. Like their master, they derided the papal bulls.
