CHAPTER IV THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE.

  6

CRUSADE UNDERTAKEN AT LAST.

 

The flame which had been so long kindling burst forth at last. To estimate fully the force of these popular ebullitions in the Middle Ages, we must bear in mind the susceptibility of the people to contagious emotions and enthusiasms of which we know little in our colder day. A trifle might start a movement which the wisest could not explain nor the most powerful restrain. It was during the preaching of this crusade that villages and towns in Germany were filled with women who, unable to expend their religious ardor in taking the cross, stripped themselves naked and ran silently through the roads and streets. Still more symptomatic of the diseased spirituality of the time was the Crusade of the Children, which desolated thousands of homes. From vast districts of territory, incited apparently by a simultaneous and spontaneous impulse, crowds of children set forth, without leaders or guides, in search of the Holy Land; and their only answer, when questioned as to their object, was that they were going to Jerusalem. Vainly did parents lock their children up; they would break loose and disappear; and the few who eventually found their way home again could give no reason for the overmastering longing which had carried them away. Nor must we lose sight of other and less creditable springs of action which brought to all crusades the vile, who came for license and spoil, and the base, who sought the immunity conferred by the quality of Crusader. This is illustrated by the case of a knave who took the cross to evade the payment of a debt contracted at the fair of Lille, and was on the point of escaping when he was arrested and delivered to his creditor. For this invasion of immunity the Archbishop of Reims excommunicated the Countess Matilda of Flanders, and placed her whole land under interdict in order to compel his release. How this principle worked to secure the higher order of recruits was shown when Gui, Count of Auvergne, who had been excommunicated for the unpardonable offence of imprisoning his brother, the Bishop of Clermont, was absolved on condition of joining the Host of the Lord.

Other special motives contributed in this case to render the crusade attractive. There was antagonism of race, jealousy of the wealth and more advanced civilization of the South, and a natural desire to complete the Frankish conquest so often begun and never yet accomplished. More than all, the pardon to be gained was the same as that for the prolonged and dangerous and costly expedition to Palestine, while here the distance was short and the term of service limited to forty days. Paradise, surely, could not be gained on easier terms, and the preachers did not fail to point out that the labor was small and the reward illimitable. With Christendom fairly aroused by the murder of the legate, there could be no doubt, therefore, as to the result. Whether Philip Augustus contributed, in men or money, is more than doubtful, but he made no opposition to the service of his barons, and endeavored to turn his acquiescence to account in the affair of his divorce, while he declined personal participation on the ground of the threatening aspect of his relations with King John and the Emperor Otho. He significantly warned the pope, however, that Raymond’s territories could not be exposed to seizure until he had been condemned for heresy, which had not yet been done, and that when such condemnation should be pronounced it would be for the suzerain, and not for the Holy See, to proclaim the penalty. This was strictly in accordance with existing law, for the principle had not yet been introduced into European jurisprudence that suspicion of heresy annulled all rights—a principle which the case of Raymond went far to establish, for the Church without a trial stripped him of his possessions and then decided that he had forfeited them, after which the king could only acquiesce in the decision. Scruples of this kind, however, did not dampen the zeal of those whom the Church summoned to defend the faith.

Many great nobles assumed the cross—the Duke of Burgundy and the Counts of Severs, St. Pol, Auxerre, Montfort, Geneva, Poitiers, Forez, and others, with numerous bishops. With time there came large contingents from Germany, under the Dukes of Austria and Saxony, the Counts of Bar, of Juliers, and of Berg. Recruits were drawn from distant Bremen on the one hand, and Lombardy on the other, and we even hear of Slavonian barons leaving the original home of Catharism to combat it in its seat of latest development. There was salvation to be had for the pious, knightly fame for the warrior, and spoil for the worldly; and the army of the Cross, recruited from the chivalry and the scum of Europe, promised to be strong enough to settle decisively the question which had now for three generations defied all the efforts of the faithful.

All this was, necessarily, a work of time, and Raymond sought in the interval to conjure the coming storm. Roused at last from his dream of security, he recognized the fatal position in which the murder of the legate had placed him, and if he could save his dignities he was ready to sacrifice his honor and his subjects. He hastened to his uncle, Philip Augustus, who received him kindly and counseled submission, but forbade an appeal to his enemy, the Emperor Otho. Raymond, however, in his despair, sought the emperor, whose vassal he was for his territories beyond the Rhone, obtaining no help, and incurring the ill-will of Philip, which was of much greater moment. On his return, learning that Arnaud was about to hold a council at Aubinas, Raymond hurried thither with his nephew, the young Raymond Roger, Viscount of Beziers, and endeavored to prove his innocence and make his peace, but was coldly refused a hearing, and was referred to Rome. Returning much disconcerted, he took counsel with his nephew, who advised resisting the invasion to the death; but Raymond’s courage was unequal to the manly part. They quarreled, whereupon the hot-headed youth commenced to make war on his uncle, while the latter sent envoys to Rome for terms of submission, and asked for new and impartial legates to replace those who were irrevocably prejudiced against him. Innocent demanded that, as security for his good faith, he should place in the hands of the Church his seven most important strongholds, after which he should be heard, and, if he could prove his innocence, be absolved. Raymond gladly ratified the conditions, and earnestly welcomed Milo and Theodisius, the new representatives of the Church, who treated him with such apparent friendliness that, when Milo subsequently died at Arles, he mourned greatly, believing that he had lost a protector who would have saved him from his misfortunes. He did not know that the legates had secret instructions from Innocent to amuse him with fair promises, to detach him from the heretics, and when they should be disposed of by the Crusaders, to deal with him as they should see fit.

He was played with accordingly, skillfully, cruelly, and remorselessly. The seven castles were duly delivered to Master Theodisius, thus fatally crippling him for resistance; the consuls of Avignon, Nimes, and St. Gilles were sworn to renounce their allegiance to him if he did not obey implicitly the future commands of the pope, and he was reconciled to the Church by the most humiliating of ceremonies. The new legate, Milo, with some twenty archbishops and bishops, went to St. Gilles, the scene of his alleged crime, and there, June 18, 1209, arrayed themselves before the portal of the Church of St. Gilles. Stripped to the waist, Raymond was brought before them as a penitent, and swore on the relics of St. Gilles to obey the Church in all matters whereof he was accused. Then the legate placed a stole around his neck, in the fashion of a halter, and led him into the Church, while he was industriously scourged on his naked back and shoulders up to the altar, where he was absolved. The curious crowd assembled to witness the degradation of their lord was so great that return through the entrance was impossible, and Raymond was carried down to the crypt where the martyred Pierre de Castelnau lay buried, whose spirit was granted the satisfaction of seeing his humbled enemy led past his tomb with shoulders dropping blood. From a churchman’s point of view the conditions of absolution laid upon him were not excessive, though well known to be impossible of fulfillment. Besides the extirpation of heresy, he was to dismiss all Jews from office and all his mercenary bands from his service; he was to restore all property of which the churches had been despoiled, to keep the roads safe, to abolish all arbitrary tolls, and to observe strictly the Truce of God.

All that Raymond had gained by these sacrifices was the privilege of joining the crusade and assisting in the subjugation of his country. Four days after the absolution he solemnly assumed the cross at the hands of the legate Milo and took the oath—“In the name of God, I, Raymond, Duke of Narbonne, Count of Toulouse, and Marquis of Provence, swear with hand upon the Holy Gospels of God that when the crusading princes shall reach my territories I will obey their commands in all things, as well as regards security as whatever they may see fit to enjoin for their benefit and that of the whole army”.

It is true that in July, Innocent, faithful to his prearranged duplicity, wrote to Raymond benignantly congratulating him on his purgation and submission, and promising him that it should redound to his worldly as well as spiritual benefit; but the same courier carried a letter to Milo urging him to continue as he had begun; and Milo, on whom Raymond was basing his hopes, soon after, hearing a report that the count had gone to Rome, warned his master, with superabundant caution, not to spoil the game.

“As for the Count of Toulouse”, writes the legate, “that enemy of truth and justice, if he has sought your presence to recover the castles in my hands, as he boasts that he can easily do, be not moved by his tongue, skilful only in his slanders, but let him, as he deserves, feel the hand of the Church heavier day by day. After I had received security for his oath on at least fifteen heads, he has perjured himself on them all. Thus he has manifestly forfeited his rights on Melgueil as well as the seven castles which I hold. They are so strong by nature and art that, with the assistance of the barons and people who are devoted to the Church, it will be easy to drive him from the land which he has polluted with his vileness”. Already the absolution which had cost so much was withdrawn, and Raymond was again excommunicated and his dominions laid under a fresh interdict, because he had not, within sixty days, during which he was with the Crusaders, performed the impossible task of expelling all heretics, and the city of Toulouse lay under a special anathema because it had not delivered to the Crusaders all the heretics among its citizens. It is true that subsequently a delay until All-Saints' (Nov. 1) was mercifully granted to Raymond to perform all the duties imposed on him; but he was evidently prejudged and foredoomed, and nothing but his destruction would satisfy the implacable legates.

Meanwhile the Crusaders had assembled in numbers such as never before, according to the delighted Abbot of Citeaux, had been gathered together in Christendom; and it is quite possible that there is but slight exaggeration in the enumeration of twenty thousand cavaliers and more than two hundred thousand foot, including villeins and peasants, besides two subsidiary contingents which advanced from the West. The legates had been empowered to levy what sums they saw fit from all the ecclesiastics in the kingdom, and to enforce the payment by excommunication. As for the laity, their revenues were likewise subjected to the legatine discretion, with the proviso that they were not to be coerced into payment without the consent of their seigneurs. With all the wealth of the realm thus under contribution, backed by the exhaustless treasures of salvation, it was not difficult to provide for the motley host whose campaign opened under the spirit-stirring adjuration of the vicegerent of God—“Forward, then, most valiant soldiers of Christ! Go to meet the forerunners of Antichrist and strike down the ministers of the Old Serpent! Perhaps you have hitherto fought for transitory glory; fight now for everlasting glory; you have fought for the world; fight now for God! We do not exhort you to perform this great service to God for any earthly reward, but for the kingdom of Christ, which we most confidently promise you!"

Under this inspiration the Crusaders assembled at Lyons about St. John’s day (June 21, 1209), and Raymond hastened from the scene of his humiliation at St. Gilles to complete his infamy by leading them against his countrymen, offering them his son as a hostage in pledge of his good faith. He was welcomed by them at Valence, and, under the supreme command of Legate Arnaud, guided them against his nephew of Beziers. The latter, after a vain attempt at composition with the legate, who sternly refused his submission, had hurriedly placed his strongholds in condition of defence and levied what forces he could to resist the onset.

 

NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE WAR.