DARK HISTORY OF THE POPES— THE BOOK

 DARK  HISTORY  OF  THE  POPES    Vice,  Murder,  corruption  in  the  Vatican

by  Brenda  Ralph  Lewis

THE POPES

INTRODUCTION

The Pope in Rome holds the oldest elected office in the world. In the nearly

2,000 years it has existed, the papacy has helped forge the history of Europe,

and has also reflected both the best and the worst of that history. Several popes

schemed, murdered, bribed, thieved and fornicated, while others committed

atrocities so appalling that even their own contemporaries were shocked.

This was especially true of the darkest days of the papacy's dark history when Christendom was gripped by a hysterical fear of witchcraft or any dissent from the path of 'true' religion as ordained by the popes and the Catholic church. Some of the most heinous crimes ever committed in the name of religion - all of them with papal sanction - occurred during the five centuries or so during which a ferocious struggle raged over Europe to eliminate 'error': any belief, practice or opinion that deviated from the official papal line.

Virtual genocide, for example, eliminated the Cathars, an ascetic sect centred around the southwest of France, who believed that God and the Devil shared the world. In 1231, the first Inquisition was introduced to deal with them. Inquisitors used horrific tortures such as the rack and the thumbscrew to extract confessions. The end was often death in the all-consuming flames of the stake. As well as heretics, thousands of supposed witches, wizards, sorcerers and other 'agents' of the Devil died in the same horrific way.

[The Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican City constructed between 1506 and 1626, is one of the holiest sites in Christendom. To the east of the basilica is the Piazza di San Pietro, or St. Peter's Square, flanked by 284 Doric columns topped by 140 statues of saints].

In less savage form, the Inquisition caught up with the 17th-century astronomer Galileo Galilei, who was censured for supporting views about the structure of the Universe that were contrary to Church teachings. Galileo believed in that the Earth orbited the Sun, while the Church taught that the Earth was at the centre of the universe. Galileo ended his life as a prisoner in his own house, and some 350 years passed before the Vatican admitted that he had been right all along.

The Vatican had its own, self-imposed prisoners: the five popes who declined to recognise the Kingdom of Italy and for nearly sixty years refused to leave the precincts of the Vatican. Eventually, in 1929, Pius XI realised that isolation was making the papacy an anachronism and signed the Lateran Treaties that enabled it to rejoin the modern world.

Ten years later, in 1939, the extreme dangers of this modern world were brought home to another Pius - Pope Pius XII - who was confronted with the combatants in World War II, both of whom sought papal sanction for their efforts. Pius XII gave his support to neither, but by following his own path made himself a hero and a saviour to some, but a villain, even a criminal, to others.

THE CADAVER SYNOD,

THE RULE OF THE HARLOTS, AND

OTHER VATICAN SCANDALS

One thousand years ago and more, political instability was rife in Rome.

At that time, the image of the papacy was everything from outlandish to weird

to downright appalling. All kinds of dark deeds stuck to its name.

Corruption, simony, nepotism and lavish lifestyles were only part of it,

and not necessarily the worst.

During the so-called 'Papal Pornocracy' of the early tenth century, popes were being manipulated, exploited and manoeuvred for nefarious ends by mistresses who used them as pawns in their own power games. With some justification, this era was also called the Rule of the Harlots.

[Benedict IX, one of the most scandalous popes of the 11th century, was described as vile, foul, execrable and a 'demon from Hell in the disguise of a priest'. St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City was by tradition the burial site of St Peter, the first Bishop of Rome and first in the line of papal succession. Here its dome rises above the facade begun in 1605 by the architect Carlo Maderna].

HOW TO FIND A MISSING POPE

So many popes were assassinated, mutilated, poisoned or otherwise done away with that when one of them disappeared, never to be seen again, it was only natural to scan a list of violent explanations to find out what had happened to him. Death by strangulation in prison was a frequent cause. Had the vanished pope been hideously mutilated and therefore made unfit to appear in public? Had he made off with the papal cash box? Or should the brothels and other houses of ill repute be searched to find out if he was there? Often, there was no clear answer and explanations were left to gossip and rumour.

A VARIETY OF VIOLENT ENDS

The variety of violent ends suffered by popes during the Papal Pornocracy was astonishing. For example, in 882 CE one pope, John VIII, failed to die sufficiently quickly from the poison administered to him. His assassins, losing patience, smashed his skull with hammers to move things along. A tenth-century pope, Stephen LX, suffered horrific injuries when his eyes, lips, tongue and hands were removed. Amazingly, the unfortunate man survived, but was never able to show his mutilated face in public again. Pope Benedict V decamped to Constantinople in 964 CE after seducing a young girl, taking the papal treasury with him. Benedict was obviously a free-spending pontiff, for the money ran out before the end of the year and he returned to Rome. He soon resumed his bad old habits but was finally killed by a jealous husband who left more than one hundred stab wounds on his body before throwing him into a cesspit.

Another pope, Boniface VI, was elected to the Throne of St Peter even though he had twice been downgraded for immorality. As so often happens with events that took place sufficiently long ago to gather legends, Boniface either died of gout, or was poisoned or deposed and sent away to allow another pope, Stephen VII, to take his place. Either way, Boniface disappeared from history but he did so with suspicious rapidity: his reign lasted only 15 days. Afterwards, Stephen was let loose on the many powers and privileges of the papacy that he was expected to use

[Pope John VIII was murdered in 882 ce, but only after he had failed to die by poison. Instead, he was battered to death by his killers].

for the benefit of his sponsors, the mighty House of Spoleto in central Italy and its domineering chatelaine, the Duchess Agiltrude, the instigator of the scandalous Cadaver Synod of 897 CE.

One thing was certain, though: by the ninth century, the papacy and the popes were the playthings of noble families like the Spoletans, who controlled cities such as Venice, Milan, Genoa, Pisa, Florence and Siena, among others. Through their wealth and influence, and their connections with armed militias, these families formed what amounted to a feudal aristocracy. They were generally a brutish lot, willing to bring the utmost violence and cruelty to the task of seizing and controlling the most prestigious office in the Christian world. Once achieved, though, their newfound power could be ephemeral, for the reigns of some of their

By the ninth century the papacy

and the popes were the playthings

of noble families.

proteges were very short indeed. There were, for example, 24 popes between 872 CE and 904 CE.The longest reign lasted a decade and another four came and went within a year. There were nine popes in the nine years between 896 CE and 904 CE, as many pontiffs as were elected during the entire twentieth century. This meant, of course, that the papal See of Rome was in a constant state of uproar, as the struggle for the Vatican had to be fought over and over again.

THE DEADLY DUCHESS

Stephen VII was one of the short-lived popes, promising the House of Spoleto, in central Italy, a taste of papal power that turned out to be a brief 15 months in 896 CE and 897 CE. Stephen was almost certainly insane and his affliction appears to have been common knowledge in Rome. This, though, did not deter the Duchess Agiltrude from foisting him onto the Throne of St Peter in July 896 CE. Agiltrude, it appears, had a special task for Pope Stephen, which involved wreaking revenge on her one-time enemy, the late Pope Formosus. 

Like most, if not all, legendary glamour heroines of history, Agiltrude was reputed to be very beautiful, with a sexy figure and long blonde hair. However that may be, she was certainly a formidable woman with a fearsome taste for retribution. In 894 CE, Agiltrude took her young son, Lambert, to Rome to be confirmed by Pope Formosus as Holy Roman Emperor, or so she expected. She found, though, that the venerable Formosus had ideas of his own. He preferred another claimant, Arnulf of Carinthia, a descendant of Charlemagne, the first of the Holy Roman Emperors. The pope realized that Agiltrude was not going to stand by quietly and watch as her son was displaced, and knowing well the turbulent temper of the Spoletans, he saw trouble coming. So, Formosus appealed to Arnulf for help.

Arnulf, for his part, had no intention of being forced to give way to an underage upstart like Lambert or his implacable mother. He soon arrived with his army, sent Agiltrude packing back to Spoleto and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Formosus on 22 February 896 CE.The new emperor at once set out to pursue Agiltrude, but before he could reach Spoleto, he suffered a paralyzing illness, possibly a stroke. Pope Formosus died six weeks later, on 4 April 896 CE, reputedly poisoned by Agiltrude. By all accounts, he had been an admirable pope, well known for his care for the poor, his austere way of life, his chastity and devotion to prayer, all of them admirable Christian virtues - and remarkable - in an age of decadence, self-seeking and barbarism.

But whatever his virtues, Formosus could not entirely escape the poisonous atmosphere of violence and intrigue that permeated the Church in his time. It was all too easy to make enemies and so become exposed to their vengeance and bile. It was also possible that Formosus was too honest and outspoken for his own good. It was, for instance, an unwise move to oppose the election of Pope John VIII in 872 CE, particularly when Formosus himself had been among the candidates. It was bad policy, too, to have friends among Pope John's enemies who were perennially plotting against him. They were so intent on destroying him that they sought help for their nefarious plans from the Muslim Saracens, who were the sworn enemies of Christianity.

This was an age when the enemies of popes had a habit of disappearing or ending up dead. The writing on the wall was easy to read, and when his plotter friends fled from the papal court, Formosus fled with them. This, of course, implied that he was one of the conspirators. As a result, he was charged with some lurid crimes, such as despoiling the cloisters in Rome, and conspiring to destroy the papal see. Formosus was punished accordingly. In 878 CE, he was excommunicated. This sentence was withdrawn, though, when Formosus agreed to sign a declaration stating that he would never return to Rome or perform priestly duties. In addition, the Diocese of Porto, in Portugal, where Formosus had been made Cardinal Bishop in 864 CE, was taken from him.

[Stephen was almost certainly insane and his affliction appears to have been common knowledge in Rome].

[Pope Formosus was rumoured to have been poisoned before his death in 896 ce, but he suffered horrific injuries afterwards, Several of his fingers were cut off and he was beheaded before being thrown into the River Tiber].

BENEDICT  IX, THE THREE-TIMES POPE

Benedict IX was born in around 1012 into a family with plenty of political, military and papal muscle. Two of his uncles preceded him as Pope Benedict VIII and Pope John XIX, and his father, Alberic 111, Count of Tusculum, was influential enough to secure the Throne of St Peter for him when he was around 20 years of age. Needless to say, Benedict was one of the youngest popes ever, and he was highly placed in the dissolute stakes as well. Benedict was described as 'feasting on immorality' and 'a demon from Hell in the disguise of a priest'. He was also accused of 'many vile adulteries and murders'. A later pope, Victor III, charged him with 'rapes, murders and other unspeakable acts'. Benedict's life, Pope Victor continued, was 'so vile, so foul, so execrable that I shudder to think of it'. For good measure, Benedict was also indicted for homosexuality and bestiality.

Benedict's hold over his throne was tenuous. His enemies forced him out of Rome in 1036 and again in 1045, when he sold his office for 680 kilograms of gold to his godfather, John Gratian, the Archpriest of St John Lateran who afterwards became Pope Gregory VI. The payment drained the Vatican treasury so greatly that, for a time, there was not enough money to pay the papal bills.

Having secured his booty, Benedict set off for a life of leisure and pleasure at one of his castles in the country. He had plans to marry, but the lady in question, a second cousin, turned him down. Within a few months, Benedict was back in Rome, attempting to retrieve his throne. He failed and was driven out by infuriated nobles in 1046. Another attempt met the same resistance, and Benedict was finally thrown out in 1048.

In 1049, Benedict was accused of simony, but failed to appear in court to answer the charges. As punishment, he was excommunicated. After that, Benedict more or less disappeared from the records. The exact date of his death remains unknown. It may have taken place in 1056 while he was preparing to launch a renewed attempt at retrieving the papal throne. Another date for Benedict's demise was 1065, when he had seemingly repented of his numerous sins, and died as a penitent at the Abbey of Grottaferrata in the Alban Hills, 20 kilometres (12 miles) southeast of Rome.

[Benedict IX is said to have ended his outrageous life as a humble penitent at the church of Santa Maria di Grottaferrata, a small town in the Alban hills southeast of Rome].

[Pope John VIII (seated) gives a papal blessing to Charles the Bald, King of West Francia in northwestern France after his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor in 875 ce].

Such accusations and penalties

made against an elderly man

of proven probity and

morality were clearly ludicrous

and had all the appearance

of a put-up job.

ALL WAS FORGIVEN - FOR A WHILE

Such accusations and penalties, made against an elderly man of proven probity and morality were clearly ludicrous and had all the appearance of a put-up job. Fortunately, all was later forgiven. After the death of John VIII in 882 CE, his successor as pope, Marinus I, recalled Formosus to Rome from his refuge in western France, and restored him to his Diocese of Porto. Nine years later, Formosus was himself elected pope and it was during his five-year tenure that he made a very serious mistake: he crossed Duchess Agiltrude and the House of Spoleto. He also made other enemies over his policies as pope, which included trying to eradicate the influence of lay (non-ordained) people in Church affairs.

Quite possibly, this was why the death of one of her enemies and the incapacity of the other were not enough for Agiltrude. She had in mind something much more dramatic and gruesome. Once Formosus' successor as pope, Boniface VI, had gone, the way was clear for Stephen VII, the candidate favoured by Agiltrude and her equally malicious son Lambert, to step up to the plate and do their bidding.

THE DARK WORKINGS OF HATRED

In January 897 CE, Stephen announced that a trial was to take place at the church of St John Lateran, the official church of the pope as Bishop of Rome. The defendant was Pope Formosus, now deceased for nine months, for whom Stephen had developed a fanatical hatred. Stephen was a thoroughly nasty piece of work but the source of his hatred is not precisely known: it is possible that just being a member of the House of Spoleto relentlessly prodded along by the fearsome Agiltrude was enough. Even so, hatred, however obsessive, could not easily explain the horrors that featured in the posthumous trial of Pope Formosus some time in January 897 then nine-months dead. The dead pope was not tried in his absence. At Agiltrude's prompting, Formosus - or rather his

[Pope Stephen VII put on a very dramatic show at the 'trial' of the dead Pope Formosus, whose mouldering corpse was dug up from its grave to play its grisly part in the Cadaver Synod of 897 ce]. 

rotting corpse, which was barely held together by his penitential hair shirt - was removed from his burial place and dressed in papal vestments. He was then carried into the court, where he was propped up on a throne. Stephen sat nearby, presiding over the 'trial' -

[This illustration of Pope Stephen VII interrogating the dead Pope Formosus portrays the corpse of the one-time pontiff in a rather better condition than it would have been in reality: Formosus had died several months previously].

alongside co-judges chosen from the clergy. To ensure they were unfit for the task, and merely did what they were told, several co-judges had been bullied and terrorized and sat out the proceedings in a lather of fear. At the trial, the charges laid against Formosus by Pope John VIII were revived. For good measure, Stephen added fresh accusations designed to prove that Formosus had been unfit for the pontificate: he had committed perjury, Stephen claimed, coveted the Throne of St Peter and violated Church law.

His corpse was stripped of its

vestments and dressed instead in the

clothes of an ordinary layman. The

three fingers of Formosus' right

hand which he had used to make

papal blessings were cut off.

VATICAN VOCABULARY

SIMONY

Simony, the crime of selling or paying for church offices or positions or offering payment to influence an appointment, was a serious crime within the Church. It took its name from Simon Magus, also known as Simon the Sorcerer, who attempted to bribe the disciples Peter and John. As the New Testament recounts:

And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, 'Give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may perceive the Holy Ghost' But Peter said unto him, 'Thy money pensh, with (thee,) because thou hast though that the gift of God,may be purchased with money.'

NEPOTISM

Nepotism derives from the Latin word nepos, meaning nephew or grandchild, and describes the favouritism many popes showed towards their relatives and friends by giving them high positions in the Church they did not merit, either through ability or seniority. It was probably the most common of Church crimes, particularly in medieval times. However, nepotism was almost understandable at a time when popes had personal rivals and enemies and needed people close to them who had already proved their loyalty.

DRAMA AT THE CADAVER SYNOD

Stephen's behaviour in court was extraordinary. The clergy and other spectators in court were treated to frenzied tirades, as Stephen mocked the dead pope and launched gross insults at him. Formosus had been allowed a form of defence in the form of an 18-year-old deacon. The unfortunate young man was supposed to answer for Formosus, but was too frightened of the raving, screaming Stephen to make much of an impression. Weak, mumbling answers were the most the poor lad could manage.

Inevitably, at the end of the proceedings, which came to be called, appropriately, the Cadaver Synod, Formosus was found guilty on all the charges against

Formosus was buried yet again this

time in an ordinary graveyard.

Like the rescue itself, the burial

had to be kept secret.

him. Punishment followed immediately. Stephen declared that all of the dead pope's acts and ordinations were null and void. At Stephen's command, his corpse was stripped of its vestments and dressed instead in the clothes of an ordinary layman. The three fingers of Formosus' right hand, which he had used to make papal blessings, were cut off. The severed fingers - or rather what was left of them after nine months of decay - were handed over the Agiltrude who had watched the proceedings with open satisfaction. Finally, Pope Stephen ordered that Formosus should be reburied in a common grave. This was done, but there was a grisly sequel. Formosus' corpse was soon dug up, dragged through the streets of Rome, tied with weights and thrown into the River Tiber.

Formosus had been revered by many of the clergy and he was popular with the Romans and, before his election in 891 CE, many had rioted at the prospect of another pope being chosen instead. There was, therefore, no shortage of helpers when a monk who had remained faithful to the dead pope's memory asked a group of fishermen to aid him in retrieving Formosus' much misused remains. Afterwards, Formosus was buried yet again, this time in an ordinary graveyard. Like the rescue itself, the burial had to be kept secret. If Formosus' enemies -particularly Pope Stephen and Agiltrude - had learnt of it, it was likely that the body of the dead pope would have been desecrated yet again.

The Cadaver Synod, known more graphically by its Latin name Synodus Horrenda, prompted uproar and outrage throughout Rome. This was underlined in the superstitious popular mind when the Basilica of St John suddenly fell down with a thunderous roar just as Pope Stephen and Agiltrude emerged from the church of St John Lateran at the end of the 'trial'. The fact that the Basilica had long ago been condemned as unsafe was less convincing than the idea that the collapse was a sign of God's displeasure. Before long, in much the same vein, rumours arose that the corpse of Pope Formosus had 'performed' miracles, an ability normally ascribed only to saints.

The widespread disgust at the savagery of the proceedings, and its ghastly sequel,

Stripped of his splendid papal

vestments and insignia

he was thrown into prison

where he was strangled.

convinced many clergy that if anyone was unfit to be pope it was Stephen VII. An element of self-interest also featured in the wave of hostility aroused by the Synod. Many clergy who had been ordained by Formosus were deprived of their positions when Stephen nullified the dead pope's ordinations.

POPE STEPHEN MEETS HIS MAKER

Hostility soon translated into action. In August 897 CE, eight months after the Cadaver Synod, a 'palace revolution' took place and Stephen VII was deposed. Stripped of his splendid papal vestments and insignia, he was thrown into prison, where he was strangled. This, though, was by no means the end of the days when the popes and the papacy were mired in disgrace. For one thing, Agiltrude was still around and active and, wherever she was, there was bound to be trouble. Agiltrude was enraged at the murder of her protege Pope Stephen and moved in fast to

[Theodore II reigned as pope for only twenty days, but that was long enough for him to restore the good name of his much abused predecessor, Formosus].

restore the influence that had been killed off with him. But she had no luck with the new pope, Romanus, who was placed on the papal throne in 897 CE but remained there for only three months. Romanus, it appears, fell foul of one of the factions at the papal court that was opposed to Agiltrude and the House of Spoleto. Afterwards, the hapless former pope was 'made a monk' an early medieval European euphemism that meant he had been deposed.

RESTORING FORMOSUS

Romanus's successor, Pope Theodore II, was even less fortunate, but at least he lasted long enough to do right by the much-abused Formosus. Theodore ordered the body of the late pope reburied clad in pontifical vestments and with full honours in St Peter's in Rome. He also annulled the court where the Cadaver Synod had taken place and invalidated its verdicts and decisions. Much to the relief of the clergy dispossessed by Stephen VII, Theodore declared valid once again

Sergius ... had Formosus' corpse

beheaded and cut off three more

of his fingers before consigning

him to the River Tiber

once more.

the offices they had once received from Formosus. It was as if the Cadaver Synod and the lunatic Pope Stephen had never existed. Unfortunately, however, it brought Theodore few, if any, rewards. His reign lasted only 20 days in November 897 CE, after which he mysteriously died. The following year, however, future trials of dead persons were prohibited by Theodore's successor. Pope John IX.

Ten years later, Sergius III, who was elected pope in 904 ce, dug up Pope Formosus and put him on trial

Not long afterwards,

Formosus' headless corpse surfaced

again when it became entangled

in a fisherman's net.

all over again. Sergius, then a cardinal, had been a co-judge at the Cadaver Synod in 897 CE and became infuriated when the guilty verdict was overturned. This time, Sergius restored the guilty judgement and added some ghoulish touches of his own. He had Formosus' corpse beheaded and cut off three more of his fingers before consigning him to the River Tiber once more. To emphasize his message, Sergius ordered a flattering epitaph for Stephen VII be inscribed on his tomb.

Not long afterwards, Formosus' headless corpse surfaced again when it became entangled in a fisherman's net. Retrieved from the Tiber for a second time, Formosus was returned once more to St Peter's church. Sergius had, of course, contravened the prohibition on posthumous trials declared by John IX so his actions were essentially invalid. Nevertheless, a public statement of Formosus' innocence had to be made and both he and his work were formally reinstated yet again.

The chief instigator of the original Cadaver Synod, Agiltrude, was still alive when Formosus was exonerated for a second time but her position - and her power - had radically altered because, through the extraordinary antics of Stephen VII, she had triumphed over the dead pope in 896 CE. But she had a weakness. Agiltrude's power, while considerable, was essentially second-hand, relying on puppets like Pope Stephen who could be manoeuvred into the positions she wanted them to occupy and from there implement her policies. Also important in Agiltrude's armoury were certain family relationships that gave her the high status she enjoyed from the positions occupied by her husband, Guy of Spoleto, and after him, by their son, Lambert. When Guy died on 12 December 894 CE, Agiltrude instantly lost her standing as Duchess of Spoleto and Camerino, Queen of Italy and Holy Roman Empress. There was still some kudos to be had from Lambert's elevation to all these titles, but he died before his mother in 898 CE and Agiltrude's last family link with power disappeared.

Agiltrude died in 923 CE, but by that time two other women had discovered another way into the corridors of papal power in Rome. They were Theodora and her daughter Marozia, both of them the mistresses of popes. Theodora was described as a 'shameless strumpet' and her two daughters, Marozia and the younger Theodora as possessing reputations not 'much better... than their mother'.

Neither the elder Theodora nor Marozia halted the rapid turnover that had become a regular feature of the papacy. If anything they exacerbated it. In the first years of the tenth century, short pontificates of a year or less persisted, and so did the violent deaths of

Short pontificates of a year

or less persisted, and so

did the violent deaths of popes

that reflected the ongoing

struggle for power.

popes that reflected the ongoing struggle for power. Others managed to survive for a year or two but rarely much more. In fact, popes succeeded one another with such rapidity that papal servants made a handsome profit selling off their personal accoutrements and furnishings.

POPE SERGIUS III: THE MOST WICKED OF MEN

Sergitis III was once described as the source of 'infinite abominations amongst light women' and 'the slave of every vice and the most wicked of men'. His personal as well as his public life as pope was said to be one long procession of scandal and decadence, which included the murder of one, and possibly two popes. It appears that Sergius ordered the murders of both Pope Leo V and the antipope Christopher who were strangled in prison in 904 CE. That done, the way was clear for Sergius to become pope himself. Three years later, Pope Sergius acquired a mistress, Marozia, whose mother, Theodora, 'gave' her to him when she was only 15 years old. Sergius was 30 years Marozia's senior, but it seems he had lusted after Marozia for nine years, ever since they met at the notorious Cadaver Synod of 897 CE. Even from an early age, Marozia had possessed a strong sexual attraction and although she was by no means Sergius' only lover, he never forgot her. Sergius and Marozia had a son, who became John XI, so making Sergius the only pope on record as the father of another pope. As for Marozia, her four-year affair with Pope Sergius, who died in 911 CE, seems to have given her a taste for papal power and the pursuit of pope-making. 

The critics of scandalous popes heaped virtually every pejorative they knew on Sergius III and his decadent lifestyle.

………………..

TO  BE  CONTINUED

WOW…. YOU  TALK  ABOUT  THINGS  TO  SHAKE  TO  A  THOUSAND  PIECES,  THE  IDEA  THAT  THE  CHURCH  SEAT  OF  ROME  CAME  FROM  THE  APOSTLE  PETER.  WELL  EVEN  IF  YOU  WANT  TO  SAY  IT  DID,  ALL  WE  HAVE  READ  SO  FAR,  SHOULD  MAKE  YOU  REALIZE  THE  POPULAR  CHURCH  OF  THE  WESTERN  WORLD,  THAT  CLAIMS  TO  BE  THE  TRUE  CHURCH  OF  GOD,  COULD  SURELY  NOT  BE  THAT  OF  ROME.

HOW  COULD  THE  TRUE  CHURCH  OF  GOD,  GET  TO  THE  POINT  OF  DOING  SUCH  HORRIBLE  THINGS,  AS  THESE  SUPPOSED  HEAD  MEN,  WERE  DOING?

AND  WE  HAVE  ONLY  JUST  GOT  STARTED  IN  THIS  BOOK…..THERE  IS  WAY  WAY  MORE  DARK  NEWS  OF  THE  POPES  OF  HISTORY,  YET  TO  COME.  WE  STILL  HAVE  230  PAGES  YET  TO  GO!!!!

Keith Hunt

THE  DARK  HISTORY  OF  THE  POPES 

GENOCIDE: THE CATHARS, PART I

Tolerance, today considered a virtuous trait, was a dirty word in

medieval Europe. This was particularly true of Christian belief, which

developed into a straight and narrow path from which it was dangerous,

and frequently fatal, to stray

One thirteenth-century pope, Innocent III, actually made it a crime to tolerate the presence of heretics in a community. This unbending frame of mind did not arise only from the zealous dogmatism of the medieval Church. It was also a form of self-defence against the challenges that

The heretic Cathars were besieged in the walled town of Carcassonne, France by Catholic forces sent by the pope. The defenders of Carcassonne, both Cathar and Catholic, made heroic efforts against their attackers, whose crusade was instigated by Pope Innocent III Outgunned and outnumbered, their resistance proved futile.

confronted Christianity at this time. The enemies of the Church were strong, determined and dangerous. The Muslims, for example, were dedicated to the spread of Islam throughout the world. Paganism, in its multifarious forms, had monopolized faith in Europe and elsewhere since ancient times and would not relinquish its supremacy lightly.

Within the Church, it was felt that the only way to overcome these rivals was to treat their beliefs and practices or, indeed, any dissent that cast the smallest doubt on received wisdom, as heresy or the work of the Devil. The punishments incurred were fearful. Burning dissenters at the stake was meant to purify the world of their presence. Torture was designed to force out the demon possessing an individual and thereby save the victim's immortal soul.

Yet despite the extreme perils involved., Christianity was still confronted from time to time not only by other religions but, perhaps more insidiously, by alternative views of its own basic tenets. One of the most pervasive of these challenges came from the Cathars, a religious sect that first arose in around 1143 in the Languedoc region of modern southwest France. From there, Catharism spread into Spain, Belgium, Italy and western Germany and was well rooted in all these places by the thirteenth century.

Then, Raymond V, Count of Toulouse presented another, much less patient, tougher way to deal with the Cathars. In 1177, the Count asked the General Chapter of the Cistercian Monastic Order for help in dealing with Cathars who, he said, were close to overwhelming his domains in Languedoc. The Cistercians believed they had just the man for the job - Henri de Marcy. Originally a Cistercian abbot, Henri had his own hard-line views about how to go about crushing heresy and heretics: his way was force of arms applied relentlessly and for as long as it took. In 1178, the Cistercians sent him to Languedoc at the head of a high-powered papal legation, including a cardinal, a bishop and two archbishops.

Christianity was still confronted

from time to time not only by other

religions but perhaps more

insidiously by alternative views

of its own basic tenets.

LOCAL DIFFICULTIES

Henri may have thought he had a simple and straightforward solution, but he rapidly discovered that his task was much more complex than he had imagined. The Cathars were highly regarded in Languedoc and the people, the nobles who ruled them and the resident bishops were not best pleased when outsiders sought to interfere. Targeting the ring of support that gave the Cathars protection therefore became Henri's first task. Top of his list was the renegade Roger II de Trencavel, Viscount of Carcassonne, who had imprisoned William, Bishop of Albi in 1175 over a dispute about which of them could claim the lordship of Albi and with that, supreme power in the area.

A Cistercian abbots Henri had his own hard-line views about how to

go about crushing heresy and

heretics: his way was force of arms

... for as long as it took.

In 1209, Pope Innocent III approved the Primitive Rule of the Franciscan Order of Friars. The Rule established the basic disciplines of the monastic life, such as the vows of obedience, chastity and poverty.

CATHARS V CATHOLICS

From the first, the popes in Rome regarded the Cathars as heretics with dangerously subversive beliefs. It was no wonder that the popes became so alarmed. To begin with, Catharism was a 'dualistic' religion similar to eastern faiths such as Zoroastrianism, which was once based in Persia (present-day Iran).The Cathars believed that the world was evil and had been created by Satan. They identified Satan with the God of the Old Testament, the ultimate blasphemy in the eyes of 'true' Christians. Human beings, the Cathars contended, went through a series of reincarnations before translating into pure spirit, which represented the presence of the God of Love as described in the New Testament by His messenger, Jesus Christ. The Cathars were totally opposed to Catholic doctrine and regarded the Church in Rome as immoral, and both politically and spiritually corrupt.

Naturally enough, within the Church, such ideas that exchanged God for Satan and displaced Jesus from the

A painting by Fra Angelico (1395-1485) depicting the Miracle of the Book. Dominican and Cathar books are thrown into the fire. The former miraculously escape the flames while the Cathars' heretical volumes are consumed. St Dominic (with halo) is pictured at left being returned his undamaged book.

prime position were considered sacrilegious.They needed to be expunged. In 1147, Pope Eugene III, a former Cistercian monk, 'innocent and simple', as his friend St Bernard of Clairvaux described him, had made wiping out the Cathars an urgent priority after his election two years earlier. But he proved too soft for the task. When he applied gentle persuasion on the Cathars to convert to Catholicism, he soon discovered that they were intensely stubborn and refused even to consider such an idea. Bernard of Clairvaux, acting on Pope Eugene's behalf, managed a few conversions, but not nearly enough to make the major difference required to extinguish the Cathar sect.

.     1

Pope Innocent III appears in this medieval manuscript illustration in the act of excommunicating the Albigenses, a name generally given to heretics.

Henri swiftly cut Roger loose by declaring him a heretic and excommunicating him. This was enough to persuade Roger to release the Bishop of Albi, but it was not the end of the matter. In 1179, Roger incurred the wrath of Pons d'Arsac the Archbishop of Narbonne, who had been a member of Henri de Marcy's legation the previous year. The Archbishop accused Roger of lacking sufficient enthusiasm for the fight against heresy and excommunicated him again.

Two years later, in 1181, Henri de Marcy returned to Languedoc. This time, he prepared to attack the castle of Lavaur, but did not need to fight for it. Roger II's wife Adelaide surrendered to him without demur. As a bonus, Henri captured two Cathar Parfaits, or Perfects, the ascetic 'priests' of the Cathar faith who embraced poverty, chastity and celibacy.

VATICAN VOCABULARY

EXCOMMUNICATION

Excommunication means putting a man or woman outside

the Christian communion. It was the worst punishment an

individual could incur, for it cut them off from the protection

of the Church and from contact with Church life. Among

other crimes, the punishment could be incurred for

committing apostasy, (abandoning Christian beliefs), heresy,

schism (division within the church) attacking the pope

personally or procunng an abortion. Anyone who ordained a

female priest was also subject to excommunication.

In medieval times, the Catholic Church regarded    

excommunicants as either viands (to be avoided or

shunned), or tolerates (meaning they could have social or

business relationships with other Catholics): They were

allowed to attend Mass, but could not receive communion,

the ceremony celebrating the Last Supper. The ceremony of

excommunication was both dramatic and daunting. A bell

was tolled as if the excommunicate had died, the book of

the gospels was closed and a candle was snuffed out.

However, excommunication was not necessarily permanent.

If the guilty parties made a statement of repentance, they

could be restored to full membership of the Church.

The Archbishop accused Roger of lacking sufficient enthusiasm

for the fight against heresy and excommunicated him again.

Yet despite his efforts, Henri's success was limited. The Cathars were proving a very hard nut to crack and appeared to be impervious to any approach the Church might make. In 1204, Innocent III, who had been elected pope in 1198, was so wary of them that he suspected a number of the bishops with sees in the south of France were virtually Cathar collaborators. More faithful, trustworthy advocates of the established Church, including the Spanish priest Dominic de Guzman (the future St Dominic), replaced the maverick bishops. Dominic launched a rigorous campaign of conversion in Languedoc but though unremittingly zealous, he achieved very little. The few converts he managed to make were a poor return for his efforts, which included strongly argued Cathar-Catholic debates in several towns and cities. Even so, the core values of Catharism remained untouched. Eventually Dominic realized why: only Catholics who matched the Cathars for real sanctity, humility and asceticism could hope to change their minds about their faith.

The Cathars were proving a very

hard nut to crack and appeared

to be impervious to any approach

the Church might make.

THE ORDER OF FRIARS PREACHERS

To respond to the formidable undertaking, in 1216 Dominic founded the Order of Friars Preachers, better known as the Dominican Order, dedicated to preaching the Gospels and saving the souls of the Cathars and other heretics. Dominic told the monks who joined the Order:

Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth.

Like the Cathars, Dominic believed, his monks should eschew all materialistic benefits, live in poverty with only minimal possessions, tramp the roads barefoot and beg for their food. In addition, they must be celibate and keep themselves strictly chaste. Dominic was sure that this way of life, strong on humility and self-sacrifice, was the way to attract the Cathars back to the Church of Rome.

But Dominic was forestalled. Someone much more aggressive and bloodthirsty than himself had already applied a solution that the peaceable Dominic could not consider. After ten years of resolute resistance in which most Cathars maintained their contempt for the Catholic Church and their certainty of its evil nature, Pope Innocent III finally lost patience and turned up the heat. In the spring of 1207, he dispatched a papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau, Archdeacon of Maguelonne, to Provence where he ordered the nobility to actively persecute the Cathars, Jews and any other heretics they might find.

De Castelnau encountered determined opposition from the start. Count RaymondVI ofToulouse, son of Raymond V, and the most powerful lord in Languedoc, was intimately bound up with the Cathars and declined to cooperate. Raymond had friends, relatives, nobles and allies who were devout adherents of Cathar beliefs and did not bother to hide his affection for them. He even made a practice of travelling with a Cathar Perfect in his

Pope Innocent III ... dispatched a

papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau,

Archdeacon of Maguelonne,

to Provence where he ordered

the nobility to actively persecute the

Cathars, Jews and any other

heretics they might find.

retinue. When de Castelnau learnt of Rajinond's disobedience to an order that effectively came from Pope Innocent III himself, he excommunicated the Count at once and pronounced the traditional anathema upon him. 'He who dispossesses you will be accounted virtuous!' de Castelnau thundered, 'He who strikes you dead will earn a blessing.'

Raymond was not made of particularly stern stuff - he was better at dissembling than defiance - and, apparently frightened, he backed down and promised to carry out the persecutions as required. De Castelnau, it seems, believed him. A few weeks later, he pardoned Raymond and restored him to his rights as a Christian. De Castelnau should have known better: Raymond VI was a natural-born liar who would break his word as soon as he had the chance. This time, though, he opted for a new ploy: he did nothing.

The Miracle of the Books, in which Cathar books burned while St Dominic's Catholic books remained undamaged, is also known as the Miracle of Fanjeaux, after the town in the Languedoc where it occurred. It is pictured here by the Spanish artist Pedro Berruguete (c. 1450-1504).

It took some weeks for this non-event to sink in, but when it did, Pierre de Castelnau reacted to Raymond's perfidy with fury. Raymond was accused of condoning heresy in Languedoc, stealing Church property, offending bishops and abbots and supporting the Cathars. At the end of this tirade, de Castelnau excommunicated Raymond once again. Raymond suggested talks to break the impasse, but they got nowhere and the Count resorted to threats and insults in front of several witnesses who later reported what had happened to Pope Innocent in Rome.

THE MURDER OF PIERRE DE CASTELNAU

On 13 January 1208, the dialogue was finally broken off and Pierre de Castelnau and his retinue departed for Rome. The following morning, the travellers reached Aries and rode down to the landing stage to embark on the ferry that would take them across the River Rhone. De Castelnau never made it. Before his

Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse was forced to do public penance for the assassination of Pierre de Castelnau.

retinue could come to his aid, a strange horseman rode swiftly towards them and killed de Castelnau with a single sword thrust in his back. Later there were rumours that the murderer was a knight in the employ of the Count of Toulouse. Raymond vigorously denied any involvement and in June 1209, even volunteered to undergo a public scourging as penance for the dark deed. When the punishment was over, the Count, beaten, bloody and sore was obliged to pay his respects at the tomb of de Castelnau, who was already being classed as a blessed martyr. All the same, Raymond was still the principal suspect and remained in disgrace. The assassination of de Castelnau was never solved. But innocent or guilty, Count Raymond protested too late.

A few weeks after the killing. Pope Innocent III lost patience with the diplomatic approach and called for a crusade. This was the so-called Albigensian Crusade named after the town of Albi, a stronghold of the

A strange horseman rode

swiftly towards them and killed

de Castelnau with a single

sword thrust in his back.

Cathars in Languedoc. In this call to arms, Raymond of Toulouse thought he saw a chance to convince the Pope of his Catholic credentials. To this end, Raymond loudly proclaimed his intention to pursue heretics and punish all who aided and abetted the Cathars and their priests. It was all a charade. Raymond was in no way penitent, but it was, of course, politic that he give the appearance of making common cause with the tens of thousands of knights who were gathering at Lyons in eastern France, each of them boasting their own retinue of infantry, archers, grooms and other

Pierre de Castelnau, papal legate to Pope Innocent III, was brutally murdered in January 1208. The deed was done with a sword thrust into his back, rather than a frontal spear attack as shown here.

attendants. Their commander, handpicked by the Pope himself, was the murdered de Castelnau's superior, Bishop Arnaud Amaury, the Cistercian Abbot of Citeaux. Ruthless and retributive by nature, Amaury was ideal for the task Innocent set him, which was to exterminate the Cathars once and for all. He was both ruthless and retributive and was resolved to wipe out the Cathars by the most brutal means at his disposal.

Together with the routiers, the mercenaries who made up a large part of most feudal armies, the Albigensian crusaders were so numerous that as the procession moved southwest into Languedoc, it stretched for more than six kilometres (3.7 miles) along the road. Every man had been promised splendid rewards - full remission of their sins, suspension of their debts and a wealth of Church funds to fill their pockets.

ABANDON YOUR LUXURY OR YOUR PREACHING!

Quite possibly, the extreme measures adopted against the Cathars by Arnaud Amaury, the Bishop of Citeaux and military commander of the Albigensian Crusade, were in revenge for the humiliating treatment he had received when he went to Languedoc and, like St Dominic and St Bernard of Clairvaux, attempted to persuade the Cathars to relinquish their beliefs. As related in the Song of the Cathar Wars, a history of what is now southern France covering the years 1204-18, the Cathars made fun of Amaury, and dismissed him as a fool. 'That bee is buzzing around again' they said when Amaury preached to them. The Cathars and their Perfects were, of course, devoted to a frugal, ascetic way of life and despised luxury and self-indulgence. But like many clergy of the early thirteenth century, Arnaud Amaury's lifestyle was both ostentatious and hedonistic and the Bishop made the mistake of appearing before the Cathars in all his splendour. As the eighteenth-century French writer Voltaire related in his 1756 Account of the Crusade against the People of Languedoc:

'The Abbot of Citeaux appeared with the entourage of a prince. In vain he spoke as an apostle, the people shouted at him, "Abandon either your luxury or your preaching!'"

Arnaud Amaury, a Cistercian monk, led the crusade that crushed the heretics of southern France.

Amaury was ideal for

the task Innocent set him ...

He was both ruthless and retributive

and was resolved to wipe out the

Cathars by the most brutal means

at his disposal.

'WE WOULD RATHER DROWN'

The crusader army reached its first destination, Beziers, a strongly fortified town on the River Orb in southwestern France, in late July 1209. The inhabitants were in defiant mood. Cathar and Catholic alike, they had no intention of giving in to any demands the crusaders might make. When the Bishop of Beziers arrived and presented the burghers of the town with a list of 222 Cathar Perfects who were to be handed over at once, he threatened that if they did not agree, the town would be besieged next day. The burghers appeared unfazed. They refused to give up any Cathars, Perfects or otherwise, and, according to one chronicler, told the Bishop: 'We would rather drown in the salt sea.'

At that, the Bishop remounted his mule and rode back to the camp the crusaders had set up a day's march away. The following day, 22 July, the inhabitants of Beziers were greeted with a daunting sight. The crusader army had moved up and transferred their camp until it surrounded the walls of the town. They filled the landscape as far as the horizon with their tents, horses, campfires, flags,

The town of Beziers was completely destroyed by the Albigensian crusaders in 1209. 

banners, the elegant pavilions of the crusader lords and their siege machines.

Suddenly, a lone crusader appeared on the bridge that spanned the River Orb near the southern fortifications of Beziers and began to shout insults and threats at the people lining the walls above. A crowd of young men, spoiling for a fight, grabbed spears, sticks and any other makeshift weapon easily to hand, swung open the town gate and surged down the slope to the riverbank. Before he could get away, the lone crusader was seized, thrown to the ground, and soundly beaten. Finally, he was thrown off the bridge into the muddy water of the Orb.

But in their frenzy to get hold of him, the young men of Beziers made the worst possible mistake by leaving open the gate into the town. It was an irresistible invitation to the crusaders who came charging over the bridge and into the narrow streets. Taken by surprise, the defenders scrambled into retreat, intending, perhaps, to put enough distance between themselves and their attackers to regroup and launch an assault of their own. But there was no chance of that.

A crowd of young men, spoiling for

a fight, grabbed spears, sticks and

other makeshift weapons...

Eventually, there were no survivors, and having disposed of the entire population, Amaury's crusaders prepared to loot and pillage the empty houses. Beziers was an affluent town, offering plenty of prizes and valuables of all kinds. The French knights among Amaury's men believed that they had priority when it came to seizing booty, but to their fury, the servant boys and the mercenaries got there before them. The chronicler William of Tudela described what happened next. He wrote:

The servant lads had settled into the houses they had (captured), all of them full of riches and treasure, but when the French (lords) discovered this, they went nearly mad with rage and drove the lads out with clubs, like dogs.

But before the knights could get their hands on any valuables, William of Tudela continued:

These filthy, stinking wretches all shouted out "Burn it! Burn it!" (And) they fetched huge flaming brands as if for a funeral pyre and set the town alight.

VATICAN VOCABULARY

INTERDICT

The excommunication of a town, city or other district, even entire countries, was called being 'placed under interdict'. In practice, this meant that no Christian marriages, funerals or church services could take place as long as the interdict remained in force, although the populations involved were allowed to make confession and receive baptism. If a country placed under interdict came under attack, the pope was under no obligation to come to its assistance. In addition, an interdict released the subjects from their oaths of loyalty to the offending ruler, which allowed them to rebel against him with impunity, if they wished.

Kings, emperors or other rulers whose behaviour had offended the Catholic Church usually incurred this blanket form of excommunication. The ruler in question had to repent before the penalty coujd be lifted, and the country could be restored to the Catholic communion. This, for instance, is what happened in 1207 when King John of England refused to accept Cardinal Stephen Langton, the Pope's choice for Archbishop of Canterbury. John was excommunicated and England was placed under interdict until 1212, when the King at last gave in and agreed to Langton's appointment. After that, the interdict was withdrawn.

BATTLE  MADNESS  AND  SLAUGHTER

Amaury's army was inexorably driven on by what the Vikings of Scandinavia used to call berserker (battle madness); and cut down anyone and everyone within range of their broadswords. They burst into a church where a vigil was being held and amid screams of agony, terror and frenzied, but useless, attempts to escape, they slashed, stabbed and slaughtered their way through the congregation until all that was left of them were piles of bloody corpses slumped in the aisles. Next, the crusaders moved on to the church of Mary Magdalene and killed every man, woman and child — Catholic or Cafhar - who had been sheltering inside. Around 1000 people died inside the church within a few minutes, leaving only a pall of deathly silence to cover the scene of slaughter. Nearly 700 years later, in 1840, when the church was being renovated, their bones were discovered under the floor of the church. There were hundreds of them, piled roughly together in a huge mass.

There was no escape for the congregation sheltering inside the church at Beziers when the crusaders burst in and started laying about them with their weapons.

Having disposed of the entire

population Amaury's crusaders

prepared to loot and pillage

the empty houses.

THE RAPE OF BEZIERS

The buildings in Beziers were mainly constructed of wood. They burnt quickly and easily as the flames ate their way through one quarter after another. Very soon, all that was left was a raging inferno of death and destruction. To their rage and horror, the treasure the French knights hoped to claim burnt to ashes or quite literally melted away before their eyes. The Cathedral of St Nazaire, built some 80 years previously, was said to have 'split in half, like a pomegranate' in the ravening blaze, before collapsing in ruins. The congregation that had taken shelter there were burnt to death. Beziers was later rebuilt, but the damage had been so extensive that the work took some 200 years to complete.

Before the onslaught, the Catholics had been given the option of leaving the town to escape the punishment that was going to consume the Cathars. Most of them refused, electing to remain and share with their fellow townsfolk whatever fate might bring. This presented the crusaders with a difficulty. How were they to know Catholic from Cathar? It was said that Bishop Amaury ordered, 'Kill them all! God will know His own.' His order was obeyed down to the last drop of blood. Amaury was so elated with the day's work he wrote to Pope Innocent:

Our forces spared neither rank nor sex nor age. About 20,000 people lost their lives at the point of the sword. The destruction of the enemy was on an enormous scale. The entire city was plundered and put to the torch. Thus did divine vengeance vent its wondrous rage.

The Cathedral of St Nazaire ...was said to have split in half, like a

pomegranate' in the ravening blaze before collapsing in ruins. The

congregation that had taken shelter there were burnt to death.

THE  MASSACRE  AT  BEZIERS

The massacre that took place at Beziers was not spontaneous. It had been meticulously planned in 1208., even before the Albigensian Crusade began, when Arnaud Amaury, a lawyer called Milo (who was the Lateran Apostolic Notary) and 12 cardinals went to Rome to discuss with Pope Innocent III how the crusade should be conducted. The plan they formulated was consistent with the strategy adopted by Crusader forces in the Holy Land during the First Crusade, which had begun more than a century earlier in 1096. The blueprint for the massacre at Beziers was set out in a manuscript called Canso d'Antioca, which a crusader knight, Gregory Bechada, is believed to have written some time between 1106 and 1118. Describing the eleventh-century Crusader army, which the Albigensian Crusaders were to emulate, Bechada wrote:

The lords from France and Paris, laymen and clergy, princes and marquises, all agreed that at every stronghold the crusader army attacked, any garrison that refused to surrender should be slaughtered wholesale, once the stronghold had been taken by force. They would then meet with no resistance anywhere, as men would be so terrified at what had already happened.

VATICAN VOCABULARY

ANATHEMA

Anathema was the name given to a Church decree excommunicating an individual or denouncing an unacceptable doctrine. As a punishrrieht, however, anathema went beyond excommunication. In the New Testament, there is a reference in Corinthians that says, "If man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema'.' In Galatians, anathema is named as the punishment for preaching a rival gospel:

But even if we, or an angel from Heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you,he is to be anathema  

The book of John went even further.

He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ he hath both the Father and the Son. But if there come any unto you that bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

News of the atrocities perpetrated at Beziers soon spread through Languedoc and the rest of southern France. Lords and landowners whose lowland territories might be the next target for Amaury and his avenging army began to rethink their loyalties. One after another, they came to the encampment where the crusaders spent three days after their rampage through Beziers, to pay homage to Amaury and assure him of their support.

But one of the most powerful among the local lords, Raymond Roger III de Trencavel, Viscount of Carcassonne, Beziers, de Razes and Albi, adopted a different approach. Raymond Roger was the son of the renegade Roger II of Carcassonne and the nephew of the shifty Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, but he was more astute than either of them. When Raymond VI suggested teaming up to oppose Amaury and his crusaders, Raymond Roger, knowing only too well how perfidious his uncle could be, turned him down. He could not risk the chance that if the going got tough, Raymond VI would resort to his usual Plan B, which was to abandon any agreement they might make and cravenly submit to the enemy.

News of the atrocities perpetrated at Beziers soon spread through Languedoc and the rest of southern France. Lords and landowners began to rethink their loyalties.

If that were to happen, Raymond Roger III had too much to lose. For a start, he could find himself in personal danger and might even be forced to relinquish his lands because of his relaxed, tolerant attitude towards the multicultural society he ruled. Consorting with heretics, as the rabid zealotry of the time would judge this laissez-faire approach, was as bad as actually being a heretic, if not worse.

DIPLOMACY  FAILS

Though Raymond Roger was not himself a Cathar, a large number of his subjects belonged to the sect. His territory also included a community of Jews who had for years been responsible for running Beziers, his secondary seat of power after Carcassonne. Carcassonne also had its Jewish community and they, too, could be in grave danger. Amaury's army would undoubtedly have killed them, for the massacre at Beziers had given ghastly proof of how far crusaders were willing to go to express their 'religious' zeal. For this reason, Raymond Roger took the precaution of sending the Jews of Carcassonne out of the city before the crusaders could get there.

However, it was not as easy to shift the much larger Cathar population. For their sake, as well as his own, Raymond Roger first resorted to diplomacy, seeking to make a deal by promising to persecute the Cathars and any other heretics in his territory. Did he mean it? Probably not, but he may well have learnt from his father the value of dissembling to postpone an evil day. His promise was never put to the test for there was no deal. Amaury did not even grant Raymond Roger a meeting to discuss the matter. It was likely, though, that the crusader leader realized that if he were to guarantee the safety of Carcassonne and Raymond Roger's other cities, there would be nowhere else for his loot-hungry followers to pillage.

PREPARING FOR WAR

This cynical response set off alarm bells. Raymond Roger hastened back to Carcassonne and prepared for war. First, he implemented a 'scorched earth' policy so that the crusader army would be denied the chance to live off the land, as was customary in medieval warfare. Raymond Roger ordered the surrounding area to be laid waste: crops and vineyards were to be burnt, windmills and farm implements destroyed and cattle and other herds either slaughtered or driven

Consorting with heretics was

as bad as actually being a

heretic, if not worse.

into Carcassonne where they could shelter behind the city's huge defensive walls. That done, Raymond Roger's troops made their preparations. With their weapons primed they kept constant watch for the crusaders' approach.

Amaury's army came within sight of Carcassonne on 1 August, ten days after the massacre at Beziers. They quickly calculated that capturing the city, with its mighty fortifications and stout defenders was not going to be a straightforward task. There were no open gates, no weak defences and no easy pickings. In fact, Amaury did not dare let his forces make camp too near the city walls where they might come within range of the fearsome crossbowmen of Carcassonne. The crusader knights parked their tents and pavilions some distance away. So did Amaury's soldiers, who laid their fires and chose their sleeping places well out of the reach of the deadly crossbows and other long-range weapons arrayed against them in Carcassonne.

The defenders of Carcassonne made a brave show, but the truth was that they were totally outnumbered. They were also 'outgunned', for Amaury had at his disposal powerful siege machines and many more archers - the artillery of medieval warfare - than Raymond Roger could mass against him. The day after the crusaders' arrival outside Carcassonne, 2 August, was a Sunday, when making war was banned by papal decree. Amaury's forces had to wait until Monday but as soon as dawn broke, they quickly deployed their battering rams, laid ladders against the walls for heavily armed soldiers to climb, and poured a hail of arrows inside Carcassonne where defenders and citizens alike could be indiscriminately killed.

The bloody hand-to-hand warfare that took place during the battle for Carcassonne in 1209 is vividly depicted on this frieze in the Cathedral of St Nazaire in Beziers.

ATTACK  ON  CARCASSONNE

The site the crusaders chose for their first attack was Bourg, one of two suburbs of Carcassonne that lay just outside the city. Of the two, Bourg was the less well fortified and defended and after two hard-fought hours, the crusaders were able to force their way through and scatter soldiers and citizens alike. As they fled into Carcassonne proper, seeking the safety they hoped to find behind its walls, archers and crossbowmen standing high on the battlements loosed down blast after blast of fire upon the attackers, all to no avail. A mass of crusaders poured inside Bourg, but this time, they were not intent on slaughter. Their targets were the water wells by the River Aude. Soon they had these had under control together with the northern approaches to Carcassonne.

The loss of the wells was a severe blow to the defence of the city, but the people of Carcassonne fought on. On 7 August, when the crusaders tried to storm Castellar, the other, southern, suburb of the city, they were plastered with rocks, arrows and other missiles, which sent them running for shelter among the nearby trees. It was obvious to the crusader knights that the time had come to deploy the trebuchets, ballistas, mangonels and catapults - all formidable siege machines. Between them, these deadly pieces of equipment poured clouds of rocks, pebbles, flaming firebrands and anything else they could launch over the walls of Castellar and into the streets. Anyone caught out in the open was likely to be injured, maimed or killed.

AVENGING BEZIERS

Now that the walls were breached, the crusaders swarmed into Castellar and in the ferocious fight that followed, most of the defenders were killed. The crusader lords left a small garrison in Castellar and

The inhabitants of Carcassonne were allowed to leave the town after its capture by the Albigensian crusaders, led by Simon de Montfort IV. However, they were only allowed to take the clothes, they stood up in.

retired back to their camp. But revenge was not long in coming. Lords, whose lands lay in the highlands around the valley of the River Aude close by the Pyrenees Mountains, and supported by Raymond Roger, arrived. These men, unlike their more cautious lowland counterparts, were the type who preferred death to surrender and with Raymond Roger at their head, they charged out of Carcassonne and fell on the garrison, slaughtering them to the last man. Beziers, they might have thought, was avenged.

But the short, sharp action seems to have been observed from the crusader camp and suddenly, a large troop of armed knights, much more numerous than Raymond Roger's men, came riding towards them. Roger's men hastily retreated into Carcassonne and swung the gate closed. The city itself was once more secure, but within its walls a fearful drama was being acted out. The shortage of water caused by the loss of the wells was fouling the city's cisterns and

Amaury had at his disposal powerful

siege machines and many more

archers than Raymond Roger could

mass against him.

poisoning what little water they still contained. In the boiling August weather people, young and old, began to die. Sickness and fevers spread and a cloud of flies settled on the bodies of the dead as they lay rotting in the streets.

MONSTERS OF MEDIEVAL WARFARE

Huge siege machines had been a feature of war as long ago as the eighth century BCE, when the Old Testament recorded that during the reign of King Azariah of Judah, soldiers were using 'engines, invented by cunning men to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal'. Much later, the Greeks and Romans also employed siege warfare, subjecting town populations to days and nights of thunderings, shudderings, crashings and the sinister whistle of dozens of arrows raining down from the sky. Streets, squares, houses, churches — anywhere and everywhere townsfolk might be was susceptible to the damage and death dispensed by the siege machines.

By the thirteenth century when the towns of Languedoc came under siege during the Albigensian Crusade, the machines and the fearful destruction they wrought had hardly changed since the days of ancient Rome. A medieval army besieging a castle or town still used catapults, ballistae and battering rams, just as the ancient Greeks and Romans had done. They also employed scaling ladders and siege towers, as well as 'cats' or 'penthouses' to protect themselves against missiles flung down at them by defenders manning the walls.

KICK LIKE A MULE

One engine of war used by the Albigensian Crusaders in Languedoc was developed from the Roman onager (wild donkey). The onager got its name because it kicked like the rather bad-tempered animal. The trebuchet had a similarly vicious action, using a windlass that twisted ropes or springs. When the ropes or springs were suddenly released, the spoke 'kicked' at a crosspiece on the wooden frame of the trebuchet and the missiles contained in a large cup were propelled forward at speed. This method of firing was known as the 'counterweight' system. Trebuchets were normally used to hurl large stones, but they could also fling incendiary materials like burning pitch or flaming oil. Used this way they truly became weapons of terror and were greatly feared for the way they disfigured anyone standing in their path.

The ballista, which was invented by the Romans, was much like the hand-held crossbow but on a much

A siege tower enabled an attacking army to draw level with the defenders of a besieged town and fire their arrows directly at them. The battering ram was a crude but effective weapon for breaking down walls, while the sharpened stake could destroy a wall by picking its stones apart.

larger scale. Built exclusively of wood, it included a Tsry powerful spring frame that enabled the engine to throw a stone or other object weighing more than 22 kilograms over a distance of around 366 metres. The ballista could also be loaded with a mass of arrows that fell inside a castle or city in massively destructive and often inescapable showers.

FERE AND FEAR

The end of conventional siege warfare, as practised since Biblical times, arrived in the early fourteenth century, with the introduction of gunpowder and with that, firearms and field guns, such as the primitive but effective vasi, terror weapons of another more novel kind. The vasi, also known as pots de fer (iron pots) were first illustrated in an English manuscript of around 1327 as a vase-like weapon lying on its side with an arrow sticking out of its muzzle. At the rear end, a gunner stood with a red-hot rod poised over a firing hole. Vasi and their successors let off thunderous explosions, setting woodwork defences on fire and

In medieval warfare, mining was used to make the walls of a castle collapse by destroying their base. A fire was lit to destroy the wooden posts holding up the tunnel.

pounding walls, town gates and towers into a mass of rubble. Even the mightiest monsters of medieval warfare up to that date had been unable to achieve this destruction.

But 'mining', a silent, insidious method of warfare, proved even more terrifying than the siege engines. This involved digging under the foundations of a castle or walled city and temporarily shoring up the walls with small wooden stays. The resulting tunnel was stuffed with straw soaked in oil and anything else that would burn and then set alight. As the stays burned through, the walls collapsed. This tactic had a devastating effect at Carcassonne. The defenders of Castellar sited at the top found their foothold suddenly gone as they fell, along with a mass of loose stone that smashed to rubble as it hit the ground. Most did not survive.

THE  END  AT   CARCASSONNE

The situation could not go on. Around the middle of August, two weeks after Amaury's army arrived outside Carcassonne, an emissary from the crusaders arrived. He had a simple but chilling message: surrender now or share the fate of Beziers. Raymond Roger recognized the end when he saw it. He agreed to parley and under a guarantee of safe conduct, rode to the crusader camp to meet with the Count of Nevers, Herve de Donzy. Neither his family, nor his followers saw Raymond Roger, Viscount de Trencavel, alive again.

What happened in the privacy of Herve de Donzy's tent never became known and even contemporary chroniclers, usually eager for any shred of gossip and rumour, failed to reveal any clue. The only facts to emerge at this juncture were that, to their great relief and puzzlement, the Carcassonnois - Cathar, Catholic and Jew alike - were told they could go, but had to leave everything behind except for the clothes they stood up in.

Knights on horseback are shown fighting at close quarters during the siege of Carcassonne in this Languedoc manuscript.

They departed, passing one at a time through a narrow postern gate under the sharp eyes of crusader guards who watched out for any sign they were trying to smuggle out any of their possessions.

'Not even the value of a button were they allowed to take with them,' one chronicler recorded. Or, as another chronicler expressed it, the Carcassonnois took away 'nothing but their sins'. Precisely how Raymond Roger managed to obtain freedom for his people in Carcassonne was, and remained, a mystery, although it has since been suggested that the real purpose of the crusader attack was not the destruction of the Cathars, but the elimination of its dangerously tolerant viscount who preferred to consort with heretics rather than follow the 'true' faith of Christ. However that may be, once the city was empty and

It has since been suggested that the real purpose of the crusader attack on Carcassonne was not the destruction of the Cathars but the elimination of its dangerously tolerant viscount who preferred to consort with heretics rather than follow the 'true' faith of Christ.

the now destitute Carcassonnois had gone., Raymond Roger was brought back in chains, forced down into the depths of his castle, the Chateau Comtal, and manacled to the wall of its dungeon. On 10 November 1209, 13 weeks later, he was found dead. He was 24 years of age. Raymond Roger left behind a five year-old son, Raymond Roger IV, but despite efforts over many years, the heir to Trencavel never received his patrimony. Instead, the Trencavel lands were given to Simon de Montfort IV, father of the more famous baron of the same name who became Sixth Earl of Leicester and pioneered parliamentary power in England later in the thirteenth century. On 15 August 1209, the elder de Montfort was made Viscount of Beziers, Carcassonne and all the other possessions once owned by the Trencavel family.

The Chateau Comtal, built in the late 12th century, was the inner fortress of Carcassonne and was selected as a UNESCO World Beritage Site in 1997.

SIMON DE MONTFORT IV

Subsequently, de Montfort, who succeeded Arnaud Amaury as military leader of the crusade, blamed the death of Raymond Roger on dysentery and added a vague mention of 'divine punishment' for sheltering and supporting the heretic Cathars. The idea of direct punishment from God for sins was very seductive to the medieval mindset, for it demonstrated God's active involvement in human affairs. Even so, many Languedocoise were unconvinced and strongly suspected foul play. They were not alone, although six years passed before anyone voiced these suspicions in public, at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. The occasion was significant for Pope Innocent III himself summoned the Council. Innocent was present when Raymond de Roquefeuil, one of the lords who also attended the Council directly accused Simon de Montfort of murder. De Roquefeuil went further, and implicated the Pope. He told Innocent II:

As the (crusaders) have killed the father and disinherited the son will you, My Lord, give him his fief and keep your own dignity? And if you refuse to give it to him, may God do you the grace to add the weight of his sins to your own soul!

These were fighting words few would have dared address to a pope, but Innocent, it seems, merely answered: 'This shall be seen to.' The murder charge was no news to Pope Innocent who had already told Arnold Amaury in 1213 that Raymond Roger had been 'wretchedly slain'. All the same, nothing was done to restore the rights of Raymond Roger IV and the Trencavel family.

After the fall of Carcassonne on 15 August 1209, the city, silent and deserted, was thoroughly looted and despoiled. Once that sordid task was done, Amaury and his crusaders went home, carrying fortunes in gold, silver, jewels and other prizes so rich that even the most impoverished among them were set up for life. The few weeks they had spent in Languedoc, punctuated by atrocity and pillage and tainted with innocent blood has long been accounted one of the most sordid episodes in Christian and papal history. But though they severely damaged the Cathars, killed them by the thousand and created a tide of refugees that swelled the population of other cities in Languedoc, the crusaders failed to destroy them or disturb their beliefs. Nor did they convert Cathars to the Catholic faith in sufficient numbers to claim a decisive triumph over heresy.

LOOT, LAND AND POWER

Evidently, the work of 'purifying' the Church of heresy was not yet finished, which was why the Pope issued the call to crusade every year. But, the purpose behind it began to change after news of the Albigensian 'success' at Beziers and Carcassonne alerted new recruits from all over Europe. Before long, thousands came to join the party. For large numbers of them, their first thought was not to perform the work of God and the Church, but to satisfy the prime motives of feudal warfare: the acquisition of loot, land and power. The chief beneficiary of this new, materialistic ethos was Simon de Montfort IV who ranked quite modestly

Amaury and his crusaders went

home carrying fortunes in gold

silver jewels and other prizes

so rich that even the most

impoverished among them were

set up for life.

among the great feudal lords and landowners of the time until he was given the Trencavel holdings in Languedoc. Before that, de Montfort's estates in France were few. A more substantial inheritance was his half share, with his mother, in the Earldom of Leicester in England. This, though, became purely theoretical in 1207 when John, King of England confiscated the earldom and appropriated its revenues. In this context, de Montfort, a courageous, but cruel commander known for his 'treachery, harshness and bad faith', was bound to seek recompense by some

It took Pope Innocent III some time

to discover that de Montfort and his

new 'crusaders' were serving

themselves rather than God

and before he did more cities were

attacked and plundered more

populations were terrorized and

more atrocities were committed.

other means. Languedoc gave him his chance, and once in command of the crusader army, he made the most of it.

It took Pope Innocent III some time to discover that de Montfort and his new 'crusaders' were serving themselves rather than God, and before he did, more cities were attacked and plundered, more populations were terrorized, more atrocities were committed even though the appearance of crusade was provided by the killing of hundreds more Cathars. Eventually, in 1213, Innocent ordered an end to the crusade against the heretics of Languedoc. The soldiers of Christ, he believed, had better things to do, such as ending the power of the Muslim Moors in Spain or reconquering Jerusalem, lost to the Saracens in 1187.

The Pope's decision came too late. By 1213, after four years of war and persecution, the Albigensian Crusade took on a life of its own in which the elimination of the Cathars was entwined with the territorial ambitions of feudal lords and kings and one vital, inescapable fact: despite all the damage the Crusade had done so far, the destruction of castles and cities, the slaughter of thousands of people and the

Simon de Montfort IV suffered a bizarre death. He was hit on the head by a stray stone from a nearby catapult during the siege of Toulouse in 1218.

ruin of as many lives, the Cathars, though weakened, had survived with their heretic faith intact. This, Pope Innocent was told by the strong-minded Arnaud Amaury, was no time to leave the field. The fight, in which Amaury had already invested so much time and effort, had to go on. Innocent had no option but yield

The Cathar War,

as the Albigensian Crusade was also

called dragged on for another

16 years and outlived some of its

chief protagonists.

to the logic of the situation, and he rescinded his call for an end to the Albigensian Crusade only five months after issuing it.

THE END OF THE CRUSADE

But the ultimate downfall of the Cathars was not brought about solely by military action, as Arnaud Amaury probably envisaged, or by wholesale conversion, as Pope Innocent may have hoped. The Cathar War, as the Albigensian Crusade was also called, dragged on for another 16 years and outlived some of its chief protagonists. Pope Innocent died in 1216. Simon de Montfort was killed in 1218 when a stray stone from a catapult struck him on the head during his seige of Toulouse. And Arnaud Amaury died in 1225.

Four years later, the Albigensian Crusade came to its close after the French defeated Raymond VII of Toulouse, son of Raymond VI. It was reckoned that in the 20 years it lasted, one million people were killed as the horrors of Beziers and Carcassonne were repeated over and over again. At the Treaty of Paris, signed on 12 April 1229, Raymond VII ceded his castles and his lands, which by that time included Languedoc, to the French King, Louis IX. This was a belated triumph for Louis' grandfather, the wily and treacherous Philip II Augustus, who entered the Wars late (in 1215), but 14 years later, posthumously scooped the pool. With this, Raymond's landholdings shrank to a limited area, with the city of Toulouse as his only notable possession.

This, though, was not all. On the day the Treaty was signed, Raymond was made to suffer the utmost humiliation. The start of the Crusade 20 years earlier had been signalled by the public penance of Raymond's father, Raymond VI. Now, his son marked the end of the Crusade with the same punishment. Forced to endure public penance, Raymond VII was whipped with a bundle of birch twigs in the square outside the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Afterwards, he was thrown into prison. Most significant, though, was the promise extracted from him to use his army to aid in the persecution of the Cathars.

THE INQUISITION RETURNS

At this time, the hunt for Cathars and other heretics was entering a new and much more deadly phase. Gregory IX who was elected pope in 1227 was not content, as previous popes had been, to call for a crusade and then leave it to the military to do the dirty work. He had a better, though much more chilling idea. He reinvented the Episcopal (bishops') Inquisition, as a method of dealing with heretics that was first introduced in 1184 but had never quite fulfilled its purpose.

The bishops who had been supposed to conduct the Inquisition seemed to have little taste for

The bishops who had been

supposed to conduct the

Inquisition seemed to have little taste

for hunting heretics and even less

for the terrifying punishments

they had to impose.

hunting heretics and even less for the terrifying punishments they had to impose. Some bishops were unable to recognize heresy when they saw it. Others were too closely tied to the families in their diocese to contemplate the possibility that they might find themselves persecuting their own kin. These problems effectively stymied the bishops' Inquisition for as Pope Innocent III put it in 1215:

It often happens that bishops, by reason of their manifold preoccupations, fleshly pleasures and bellicose leanings, and from other causes, not least the poverty of their spiritual training and lack of pastoral zeal, are unfit to proclaim the word of God and govern the people.

In some places, the people were, in any case, barely governable, for the mob frequently took charge when an alleged heretic was uncovered and immediately administered their own summary justice.

The new, papal or Roman Inquisition introduced by Pope Gregory was not only meant to discourage such abuses, but to bring better organization, more efficiency and greater dedication to the business of saving souls from heresy, and punishing - severely - anyone who refused to recant. In this more retributive form, the Inquisition became, and remained for centuries, a byword for torture, terror and unimaginable suffering.

In 1231, Pope Gregory IX, who was elected in 1227 near the end of the Albigensian Crusade, introduced the Inquisition which even today, remains a byword for terror and suffering.

………………..

TO  BE  CONTINUED

IT  SHOULD  BE  CLEAR  THAT  NONE  OF  THIS  KILLING  AND  WARFARE  WAS  COMING  FROM  THE  TRUE  CHURCH  OF  GOD,  THAT  WAS  THE  "LITTLE  FLOCK"  -  "THE  SALT  OF  THE  EARTH"  AS  JESUS  CALLED  IT.  BUT  IT  WAS  COMING  FROM  THE  LARGE  POLITICAL  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE,  THAT  WOULD  HAVE  ITS  "CHRISTIANITY"  FROM  ROME,  RULING  THE  WORLD,  AND  THAT  BY  FORCE  IF  NEEDED.

Keith Hunt

GENOCIDE: THE CATHARS, PART II

The Inquisition introduced by Pope Gregory IX in 1231

was designed to fight all heresy wherever it occurred in Catholic Europe,

but its first target was the unorthodox brand practised

and preached by the Cathar

The danger the Cathars presented to the established Church lay in their vast numbers., the support of high-ranking nobles, like Raymond VI of Toulouse and his son, Raymond VII, the spread of Cathar territory in southwest France and northeast Spain and the resilience that enabled them to survive, with beliefs stubbornly intact, the 20 gruelling years of the Albigensian Crusade. However

The mass burning of Cathars at their stronghold of Montsegur in 1244 finally broke the back of the Cathar faith. Pope Gregory IX appointed the Dominican friars as chief investigators of heresy

the sequel to the Treaty of Paris, which brought the Crusade to an official close in 1229, was even more punitive and lasted even longer. Ultimately, the fight against heresy was to outdo most other conflicts of medieval times in the cruelty and terror that was used to achieve its ends.

EXTREME MEASURES

As far as the medieval Church was concerned, extreme measures were justified when heresy placed Christianity in mortal danger. The foundations of society itself were at stake, for the freethinking heretic, who rejected the 'one true Church' and chose

The freethinking heretic

who rejected the 'one true Church'

and chose his own beliefs and

practices was a fundamental

threat to the faithful.

his own beliefs and practices, was a fundamental threat to the faithful. The Church, after all, was the bedrock on which their peace of mind rested, and its teachings were central to their certainties. Rob them of that, and mayhem would follow.

Over the next quarter of a century, the sieges of towns and castles and the massacres of their inhabitants continued, but it was not the mixture as before. It was infinitely worse. Pope Gregory's Inquisition gave an extra edge to atrocity as inquisitors exploited the wide-ranging powers he allowed them. Even their job description, inquisitor hereticae pravitatis (inquisitor of heretical depravity), was a terrifying term with its overtones of madness and the link that superstition made with demons, devils and their evil.

NO QUARTER GIVEN

The Cathars were fully aware that no quarter would be given once the Dominicans got down to work, and when the Inquisition was set up in Languedoc in the Spring of 1233 thousands of them fled to safer places

Pope Gregory's Inquisition

gave an extra edge to atrocity

as inquisitors exploited the

wide-ranging powers he 

allied them

such as Caudies de Fenouilledes or Montsegur, both of them on the French side of the Pyrenees. Montsegur was remarkable for its fortress, sited high among the snow-capped mountain peaks. It was easy to feel safe in such remote refuges, but not everyone was able to elude the Inquisition or seek safety elsewhere.

Inevitably, a climate of dread and suspicion began to pervade Toulouse and other cities of Languedoc where anyone, Cathar or not, could be betrayed to the Inquisition and so incur its terrible penalties. Loyalty to the Church and its teachings was supposed to be the prime motive for leading inquisitors to heretics. But there were other agendas at work. Piety was all too often outmatched by a range of personal reasons, such as the chance to pay off old scores, get rid of an inconvenient rival or otherwise satisfy the warped imaginations of mischief-makers and misanthropes.

DOMINICAN INQUISITORS

The Dominicans, members of the Order of Friars Preachers, who were to be the pope's chief inquisitors were a special type of monk, purposely trained by their Spanish founder Dominic de Guzman to mirror the asceticism, poverty and piety of the Cathar Perfects. De Guzman, who was canonized as St Dominic only 13 years after his death in 1221, perceived that the Perfects' humble, self-denying way of life was the key to the devotion they earned among the Cathars. The Dominicans, he decided, must match the Perfects for piety and self-sacrifice if they were going to succeed in saving Cathar souls for Rome. They had to live in the world, not within the confines of the monastery, and like the Cathar Perfects, communicate directly with the people and eschew all luxury, and the self-indulgence too eagerly embraced by too many churchmen.

Unfortunately, Dominic did not take sufficient account of the self-righteousness inherent in the strictly puritan way of life, nor of the way it produced a sense of moral superiority that ran counter to the self-effacement he tried to instil in his followers. In addition, extremes have always bred extremists, and fanatics who would today be classed as psychopaths were drawn to the Order of Friars Preachers by the chance the Inquisition offered to use barbarity disguised as righteous zeal. The pope may or may not have recognized them for what they were. But just the same, he welcomed them to the ranks of his inquisitors and dispatched them to France and elsewhere in Europe where many Dominicans became notorious for conduct that was horrific even by the brutal standards of the time. It was no wonder that, ultimately, the Dominicans became widely known as 'The Black Friars'.

St Dominic, founder of the Dominican Order, is shown here performing self-flagellation. The practice, also called 'mortification of the flesh', was eventually outlawed by the Catholic Church in the 14th century.

THE APPALLING FATE OF MADAME BOURSIER

Madame Boursier, an elderly Cathar lady and native of Toulouse was on her deathbed when Dominican inquisitors arrived at her home a few doors down from the city's cathedral on 5 August 1234. She was about to endure a shocking fate.

The Cathars of Toulouse had kept quiet about their beliefs, hoping to avoid persecution, and till now, the dying and delirious old lady had been one of these secret credentes (believers). Until, that is, she was betrayed to the Dominicans by one of her own servants. One of the Dominican monks, Guillaume Pelhisson, was an official inquisitor, another, Raymond du Fauga, Bishop of Toulouse was a man with an overdeveloped taste for cruelty and guile. When the two Dominicans entered Madame Boursier's house and climbed the stairs to her room, her family became terrified: they had long been under suspicion of heresy and believed that now, they had reached the end of the line. This was certainly so for Madame Boursier.

One member of the family, hoping to warn the old lady of her dangerous visitors, whispered to her that the 'Lord Bishop' had arrived. But Madame Boursier was too far advanced in her delirium. She imagined that the Cathar Perfect, Guilhabert de Castres was at her bedside. Raymond du Fauga let her go on believing it and pretended to be the Perfect as he encouraged her to be true to her Cathar beliefs for, as he told her: 'The fear of death should not make you confess anything other than that which you hold firmly and with your whole heart.' To the horror of her relatives, the poor old lady condemned herself out of her own mouth and the Bishop, having made certain of his victim, declared his true identity and pronounced the death sentence, effective immediately.

In a scene rarely matched for sheer malevolence, even in the annals of the Inquisition, the helpless old woman was tied to her bed, carried downstairs and along the street outside to a field that lay beyond the city limits. There, a bonfire had already been lit, and in front of a large and curious crowd, Madame Boursier and her bed were flung into the flames. Barely conscious, the old lady may have been too far gone to be aware of what was happening to her, nor to ever have known how her own servant had been tempted to accept the payment offered by the Inquisition to anyone who denounced a heretic.

THE INQUISITOR ARRIVES IN TOWN

The papal inquisition did not care about motives. Its inquisitors were trained to net all the victims who were betrayed to them and at the same time close any loopholes that might enable them to escape the 'justice' they were supposed to dispense. First in was an inquisitor who arrived in a town, consulted the local clergy and then called on all males over the age of 14 and all females over the age of 12 to declare their loyalty to the orthodox Catholic faith. Needless to say, those who refused were instantly classed as sinners and, most likely, heretics. The inquisitor gave them one week to think over their position, confess their wrongdoings and denounce themselves.

After that, those who still refused to cooperate were summoned to appear before the Inquisition and its frightening, insistent interrogators. They presented themselves, knowing full well that no one was safe, not the dying, like Madame Boursier, nor the sick, nor the lunatics whose ravings were accepted as solid evidence.

Where the late Pope Innocent III had used the gentle, diplomatic approach, sending Cistercian monks among the Cathars to debate their beliefs and hopefully convert them, Gregory IX was much more proactive. He preferred to manipulate the situation and exploit baser human instincts in order to gain the results he wanted. Inevitably, where Innocent failed, Gregory succeeded. To achieve his ends, he gave preference to

Piety was all too often

outmatched by a range of personal

reasons such as the chance

to pay off old scores.

Dominicans who were adept at terrorizing witnesses and so confusing them that they soon reached a state where they could barely think straight.

INSISTENT INTERROGATION

Did they know of any heretics? Had they seen them, how often, where and when? Who was with them? Who visited them? Had they seen anyone treat a Cathar with reverence or revered him themselves? Did they know of any bequest made to heretics and, if so, how much was it worth and who drew up the deed? Faced with this persistent pressure, designed to trip them up

BURNING  THE  REMAINS  OF  THE  DEAD

Even the dead were not immune from this orgy of telling tales. The 'accused' soon learnt - or thought they learnt — how to elude the inquisitor's need for more and more fodder for their endless probing and quizzing. When required to give a list of names, the longer, the better, they identified dead men and women who, they imagined, could escape any punishment the inquisitors could impose. How wrong they were. The next thing they knew, the interrogators had appeared in the local cemetery to dig up corpses. No matter what their state of decomposition, the bodies were piled on a cart and taken to a specially designated place of 'execution'.

As the cart rolled through the streets, the priests accompanying them intoned: 'Whoso does the like, will suffer a like fate!'

Once they reached their destination, the rotting cadavers were bound to stakes. The fires were lit and they were ceremonially burnt. It was a macabre, utterly grotesque sight but the rest of the punishment was carried out as if the dead 'heretics' were still alive. Their houses were razed to the ground. Their families lost everything they owned. Some were imprisoned, or were forced to wear yellow crosses to show that they were indelibly stained by the sins of a 'heretic' relation.

The 'accused' as they were called in the manuals of the Inquisition, were not allowed to know whether or not they were themselves suspected of heresy.

or make them contradict themselves, most people would say anything, not matter what, to escape the barrage of quick-fire questioning. Loyalty, love, friendship, decency and honesty were all abandoned as victims, sensing danger, made desperate bids at self-defence. The 'accused' as they were called in the manuals of the Inquisition, were not allowed to know

Cathar heretics are abused and beaten as they march to a fiery death in this 19th-century colour lithograph.

whether or not they were themselves suspected of heresy. Fear-filled imagination drove them to divulge scores of names and so provide the Inquisition with yet more suspects.

INQUISITORS UNDER ATTACK

The burning of dead 'heretics' and other excesses committed by inquisitors provoked widespread disgust, and this soon led to serious revolts and even murder. In 1235, two years after the Inquisition first arrived in Languedoc, three inquisitors died after they were hurled down a well some 30 metres (100ft) deep. Another, Arnold Catalan, whose sphere of operations was at Albi, was set upon by an infuriated mob after he condemned and burnt two heretics and did the same to several corpses he had exhumed.

In his history of the Inquisition in Toulouse between 1230 and 1238, Graham Pelhisson, a Dominican who was himself an inquisitor, described what happened next:

The people of Albi sought to throw him into the River Tarn but at the insistence of some among them, released him, beaten, his clothing torn to shreds, his face bloody...

The burning of dead 'heretics'

and other excesses committed

by inquisitors provoked widespread

disgust and this soon led to serious

revolts and even murder.

The victims of the sadistic Konrad von Marburg, the Pope's inquisitor in Germany, soon learned that it was a waste of their final breaths to ask him for mercy.

This, though, was not an isolated incident for as Pelhisson continued:

The chief men of the region, together with the greater nobles and the burghers and others, protected and hid the heretics. They beat, wounded and killed those who pursued them...many wicked things were done in the land to the Church and to faithful persons.

Another victim of this violent backlash was Konrad von Marburg. In 1227, the year he was elected pope, Gregory IX engaged von Marburg to wipe out heresy in his native Germany. Konrad was already an infamous sadist at the time, but as a reign of terror, his work in Germany outdid everything he had previously 'achieved' and inevitably led to his murder in 1233.

THE  TERRIFYING  KONRAD  VON  MARBURG

Before he was appointed a papal inquisitor, Konrad von Marburg had acted as advisor and confessor to Elisabeth, the widow of Prince Ludwig IV of Thuringia, who died of plague in 1227. Before long, Konrad held the unfortunate Elisabeth in thrall. He replaced her favourite ladies-in-waiting with two termagants and punished her for lapses by slapping her on the face or hitting her with a rod. It was an exceptionally harsh regime which, combined with the ascetic lifestyle she led after her husband's death, damaged her sufficiently to kill her at the age of 24. She was afterwards canonized as St Elisabeth and became for many an icon of misused womanhood.

There was more than a hint of what Elisabeth had gone through at the hands of the brutal Konrad in his later conduct as the pope's inquisitor in the German districts of Hesse and Thuringia. A rumour that he was in the area could create panic. According to some reports, panic changed to hysteria if he appeared in person, riding through a town or village accompanied by his grim-faced assistant, a man called Dorso, and a character named John, who had only one eye and one hand.

There was good reason for this terror. Konrad saw heretics everywhere and those he did not see, he fancied were hiding from him in castles, churches and even in monasteries and nunneries. Actual guilt or proof of guilt became superfluous because Konrad would accept almost any accusation as fact and judged suspects guilty of heresy unless they could prove they were innocent. This was easier said than done, for Konrad employed mobs whose task it was to find heretics, terrify confessions out of them and burn them at the stake if they refused to recant. Victims had one chance to avoid this fate: they could denounce more 'heretics', not from any real knowledge, but by deliberately falsifying evidence. Hundreds, maybe thousands, Cathars and Catholics alike, were accused of heresy, and, in their turn, offered the chance to live if they would agree to incriminate others. If they refused, Konrad was not one to hang around waiting for them to make up their minds. Many of his 'heretics' were burnt at the stake on the same day they were charged.

Konrad did not confine himself to snaring minnows for the Inquisition. He aimed for the top, implicating priests, aristocrats and other high-ranking notables in sins and shortcomings that qualified them for punishment. One of his victims was the Provost of Goslar, Heinrich Minnike, another was Heinrich II, Count of Sayn, who was found guilty of participating in 'satanic orgies'. Minnike burnt at the stake, but the Count fought back and was exonerated by the bishops of Mainz. They refused to reverse their verdict as Konrad demanded.

Needless to say, Konrad made enemies wherever he went and after he left Mainz to return to Marburg, the inevitable happened. On 30 July 1233 while on the road, Konrad was waylaid by knights who murdered both him and his assistant Dorso. It was suspected, but never proved, that the assassins were in the pay of Heinrich II.

In 1230 Pope Gregory IX ordered his chaplain and confessor, St Raymond of Penaforte, to compile a collection of ecclesiastical laws and rulings. He is seen here being handed the collection, known as the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX.

POPE GREGORY'S GUILE

The killing of the pope's man, whatever the circumstances, was usually treated as a great scandal, virtually an insult to the pontiff himself. The death of Konrad of Marburg, however, drew a guileful response from Pope Gregory IX. He could not have been unaware of Konrad's barbarous doings and yet he wrote to the archbishops of Cologne and Trier in terms that subtly shifted the blame onto them.

'We marvel' the pope told the two archbishops 'that you allowed legal proceedings of this unprecedented nature to continue for so long among you without acquainting us of what was happening. It is our wish,' Gregory continued disingenuously 'that such things should no longer be tolerated and we declare these proceedings null and void. We cannot permit such misery as you have described.'

……….

TO  BE  CONTINUED

THE MURDEROUS ROBERT LE BOUGRE

Gregory had to be much more direct when it came to handling Robert le Bougre, another of his extremist inquisitors who was, it seems, a former Cathar turned Dominican monk. The zeal of the convert can be a terrible thing and Robert certainly proved that dictum through the way he conducted the fight against heresy in his designated area, which was Burgundy in east central France. There, Robert was responsible for a wave of executions, notably at Charite-sur-Loire where he ordered the burning of 50 heretics. This brought him into conflict with the Archbishops of Rheims and of Sens who saw the executions as an infringement of their rights. They had to concur, they maintained, before heretics were convicted. Some bishops claimed the right to amend sentences passed on the guilty and others demanded inquisitorial courts of their own.

Pope Gregory, a master of dissimulation, professed surprise at this reaction. By appointing Robert le Bougre and other inquisitors he had, he claimed, sought to lighten the bishops' workload. What he had actually done, of course, was to erode their legitimate powers. Nevertheless, Gregory met the aggrieved bishops halfway. In 1234, he suspended Robert le Bougre, barely a year after appointing him. But Robert was not dismissed. After an interval to allow tempers to cool, he reappeared with a new title, Inquisitor General of the Kingdom of France, and he made his previous depredations look like small beer.

For three years, between 1236 and 1239, Robert headed the Inquisition in Chalons-en-Champagne, Cambrai, Peronne, Douai and Lille, and burnt another 50 victims. He returned to the province of Champagne in 1239, where the Cistercian chronicler Alberic de Trois-Fontaines was eyewitness to a mass execution at Mont-Aime in which no fewer than 183 'heretics' were burnt to death. Subsequently, nothing more was heard of Robert le Bougre, apart from a rumour that he died in jail after long years of imprisonment.

Reigns of terror, as conducted by the likes of Korrrad of Marburg or Robert le Bougre, were inevitable when the weapons provided by the pope for his inquisitors to use included those that most terrified the medieval mind. Excommunication and interdict, for example,

The killing of the pope's man,

whatever the circumstances, was

usually treated as a great scandal

virtually an insult to the

pontiff himself.

meant exclusion from the Church and its sacraments. More worldly punishments, such as imprisonment, dispossession, exile and even torture were also used to bring people to heel and make them cooperate with the Inquisition. Refusal was, of course, considered tantamount to heresy and incurred the same punishments.

Two Dominican brothers, Peter Seila and William Arnald, who were commissioned as inquisitors by the pope in 1233, deployed virtually the full range of papal penalties in Languedoc, the chief target of the Inquisition. One of their methods involved speed, with arrest, trial, conviction and penalty following each other in quick succession. This was how the most eminent Cathar Perfect in Toulouse, Vigoros de Bacone, came to be burnt at the stake before his friends and supporters were able to organize a defence for him. Seila and Arnald went on to exhume the bodies of alleged Cathars and burn them. They imprisoned scores of people, Cathars or Catholics, they seemed not to care, and bullied the authorities in Toulouse into providing them with armed soldiers to help in the work of arresting, detaining, trying and executing 'heretics'.

Eventually, after more than two years, Count Raymond VII of Toulouse had had enough. Raymond had been forced to accept the Inquisition, and this far, he had cooperated, if reluctantly, with Seila and Arnald. His reasons were simple: he could not afford another war like the one that had all but ruined him in 1229. But once Seila and Arnald went too far, Raymond felt impelled to report them to the pope.

He complained that the two Inquisitors were 'noxious' and appeared 'to be toiling to lead men into error rather than towards the truth'. Raymond had the backing of Queen Blanche, the mother of the French king, Louis IX, who told Pope Gregory that his inquisitors had breached the bounds of decency.

A  FORMIDABLE  FOE

The Count and the Queen were fortunate to catch the pope at a difficult moment. Gregory was embroiled with Frederick II, King of Germany and Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor, a secular-minded ruler whose aim in life was to spread his own power throughout Italy at the expense of papal influence. According to the pope, Frederick was 'the beast that surges up from the sea laden with blasphemous names...his gaping mouth offending the Holy Name...hurling his lance at the tabernacle of God and His Saints in heaven'. With such a formidable foe confronting him, Gregory had to win allies wherever he could. He was even willing to enlist heretic Languedoc on his side. It was known that Frederick had designs on Provence, in southeastern France and Raymond, seizing his chance, offered to aid the pope

This 15th-century manuscript depicts the Great Schism of 1378 to 1415, when there were rival popes based in Rome and at Avignon in France, prompted by the death of Gregory IX.

Queen Blanche of Castile (top left) who protested against the excesses of the Inquisition, was the wife of King Louis VIII of France and the mother and regent of King Louis IX. Famous for her clemency, she is shown in the lower part of the picture releasing unjustly imprisoned serfs.

in thwarting him. Raymond's price, however, was the withdrawal of Seila, Arnald and the apparatus of the Inquisition from Toulouse and Languedoc.

FIGHTING BACK

Pope Gregory declined to go that far, but he did attempt to rein in his inquisitors and pressure them to be more lenient. Gregory even travelled to Languedoc,

Pope Gregory even travelled

to Languedoc, in an effort to

soothe the outrage caused by his

overzealous inquisitors.

in an effort to soothe the outrage caused by his overzealous inquisitors. Encouraged by these concessions, Raymond prepared to adopt a harder line with Seila and Arnald. He was almost pre-empted when the inquisitors ordered the arrest of several courtiers in his personal entourage who had Cathar sympathies. But Raymond succeeded in getting them away, beyond the reach of the Inquisition. At his behest, the soldiers detailed to arrest the courtiers escorted them out of Toulouse to the safety of the surrounding countryside. Seila and Arnald were infuriated and tried to get their revenge by turning on several consuls serving in the government of Toulouse. They failed to get far, though, for they soon found themselves unceremoniously dumped out of the city. Other Dominicans, together with the Archbishop of Toulouse, were assaulted by a furious mob who threw stones at them as they fled all the way back to Carcassonne. Once there, the Dominicans excommunicated their attackers and put Toulouse under interdict.

They soon returned under Gregory's orders. However, the pope had to be careful not to punish Raymond too harshly because he needed the Count as an ally in the struggle with Emperor Frederick. For this reason, the pope lifted the interdict on Toulouse and appointed a watchdog to rein in the Dominicans and their taste for brutality.

WORSE  THAN  THE  DOMINICANS

Stephen of St Thibery was a Franciscan friar from an order known for its gentleness and diplomacy, but he was a disastrous choice. Far from holding back the Dominicans, as Pope Gregory expected, Stephen outdid them in his zeal to expunge the Cathars and their heresy by the most retributive means at his disposal. The ruthless questioning began again, and the dead were exhumed once more and burnt along with the living. Suspected 'heretics' were bullied into confessions and, to save themselves, betrayed others.

The pressure they exerted was so great that it cracked two of the most prominent Cathar Perfects in Toulouse, Raymond Gros and Guillaume de Soler, who informed on scores of other Cathars and betrayed details about their families, their friends and their activities. Needless to say, Gros and de Soler became marked men and the Inquisition had to organize protection to save them from the fury of Cathars and others who had once trusted them implicitly.

DECEIVING THE INQUISITORS

The two traitors were safe enough, for any move against them would have identified their attackers as Cathars and heretics. Instead, the Cathars became cunning and hid behind a screen of deception. Some Perfects shed their simple robes for the less easily identifiable clothes worn by ordinary people. Perfects had been vegetarians, but now they ate meat and made sure they were seen doing it in public.

Perfects had been vegetarians

but now they ate meat and

made sure they were seen

doing it in public.

Probably the most drastic change in their habits involved the separation between male and female Perfects who, traditionally, were supposed to keep strictly apart. Now they went out in pairs so that

ASSASSINATION  AT  AVIGNONET  

During the morning of 28 May 1242., the Franciscan Stephen of St Thibery together with the Dominican William Arnald and eight scribes were journeying through the countryside between Toulouse and Carcassonne. On the way, they halted at various villages to hear confessions from accused heretics and see their names inscribed in the Inquisition registers. There was nothing unusual about this, for the Inquisition seemed to be everywhere in Languedoc, and was likely to turn up in any town or village at any time to ferret out incriminating information. It was all part of the terror they spread throughout the province. The likes of Stephen and William Arnald often relied on the power of intimidation which they exercised over the Languedocois who went in mortal dread of being 'sent to the wall', the dungeon in Carcassonne where prisoners were kept in small, damp cells and left there to subsist, if they could, on a diet of bread and water. However, what was unusual this time was a lack of bodyguards and other armed protection to see Stephen, William and their scribes safety from one destination to the next. That evening, they reached the fortified town of Avignonet where Raymond d'Alfaro, (Raymond VII's bailiff and brother-in-law) was waiting in the castle to receive them. Lodgings for the two friars had been arranged in the castle keep where they were eating their evening meal when William-Raymond Golairan, one of d'Alfaro's men checked up on them. Satisfied that Stephen and William Arnald suspected nothing, Golairan left the castle and rode out to AntiochWood, a small group of trees where he met up with Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix, Joint Lord of Montsegur with the aged Raymond de Pereille, and his group of heavily armed knights. All of them were Cathar credentes who normally acted as guards at Montsegur. This meeting was, of course, prearranged. Peter Roger chose a dozen or more knights and at dusk, sent them off to Avignonet, their battleaxes slung from their belts and a troop of horsemen following behind. By the time they reached Avignonet, it was pitch dark. While the Cathar knights hid in an abattoir beyond the town walls, Golairan returned to the castle keep and saw that Stephen, William and their scribes had retired to bed. Then, he went outside, to the castle ramparts and opened the gate to admit Peter Roger's knights. Silently, they made their way over cobbled streets to the castle entrance where some 30 Avignonetois awaited them, armed with meat cleavers and clubs. Together, they slipped into the castle courtyard and made their way towards the keep. They proceeded in silence up the stairs and along the stone corridors until they reached the heavy oak door that led to the inquisitors' quarters. There were no guards protecting it. One of the Cathar knights swung a two-headed battleaxe at the door, which split with a tremendous crash.

BLOODY ASSAULT

Before anyone inside knew what was happening, dozens of men were in the room, slashing with knives, slicing with axes and cleavers and bringing cudgels and clubs hammering down on their heads. The assault went on and on until the attackers were sure that everyone was dead, by which time a deathly silence hung over the room and the stone floor was slick with blood. The assassins lit torches and grabbed everything they could see — candlesticks, money and the one thing they were really looking for: the inquisitors' register of names. All the pages were torn up and set alight. Before long the Inquisition's 'evidence' was nothing but a pile of smoking ashes. The assassins left Avignonet without being detected and returned to Antioch Wood where Peter Roger was waiting for them. He was expecting a special gift, the skull of William Arnald, which he planned to make into a drinking cup. Roger was disappointed to be told that the skull had been left behind, shattered into pieces by the fury of the Cathars' onslaught, but its state at least told him how successful the raid had been.

anyone who saw them, including the Dominicans, would assume that they were married couples. The best defence was of course, to leave the towns altogether and there were numerous Cathar Perfects sheltering in the safety of Montsegur, but they did not neglect their followers. Perfects would slip back into town in disguise, their pastoral visits known only to a very few local Cathars. Their business done, they left the same way, in strict secrecy.

The Inquisition was well aware that something clandestine was going on in Languedoc, but was generally unable to catch the perpetrators. Inquisitors were, needless to say, thoroughly detested. To protect themselves and their entourage of clerks and scribes at Albi and Carcassonne, they had to borrow armed guards from the French in order to function. Sometimes, the inquisitors were locked out and were unable to enter some towns, like Toulouse, but there was always the surrounding countryside to be raked over, potential heretics to interrogate and punishments and penances to be handed out.

ANOTHER REBELLION

As time went on, the level of hatred increased until, in 1240, it provided an opportunity for Raymond Roger IV de Trencavel, the son of the tragic Raymond Roger III who had died mysteriously at Carcassonne in 1209, to intervene. Now aged 35, Raymond Roger IV had been living in exile for 30 years but had not given up hope of winning back his lost inheritance. He assembled an army of exiles in Aragon, northeast Spain, and marched them across the Pyrenees Mountains into Languedoc. He enjoyed some small initial success, liberating Limoux, Alet and Montreal from the French. But serious business began when Raymond Roger laid siege to Carcassonne where he was welcomed into the suburbs of Bourg and Castellar. From there, in fewer than five weeks, he launched eight assaults on Carcassonne proper. This, though, was where his run of success came to an abrupt end.

The French reacted swiftly, sending an army into Languedoc and chasing Raymond Roger IV out of Carcassonne and all the way to nearby Montreal. Now

Known to Catholics as the 'stronghold of Satan', the Cathar town of Lavaur near Toulouse was assaulted and pillaged by the Albigensian crusaders on 3 May 1211. The population was massacred.

Montsegur, the last major stronghold of the Cathars, was built at a height of 914 metres (3,000ft) near the Pyrenees mountains in the south-west of what is now France.

the besieger was besieged as the French surrounded the town. The fighting, however, was so fierce and so costly that both sides opted for a truce. Afterwards, Roger Raymond was forced back into exile in Aragon.

If Roger Raymond had hoped to receive help from Count Raymond VII of Toulouse, he was disappointed.

Perfects would slip back into

town in disguise., their pastoral

visits known only to a very

few local Cathars.

At that time, Count Raymond had to cover his own back, because he could not afford to offend Pope Gregory IX. But by 1242, times had changed. Pope Gregory died in 1241 and was succeeded by Celestine IV, who expired, probably of old age, after only 17 days. Celestine's successor, Innocent IV, was involved in a power struggle with Gregory's old foe, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Innocent IV felt so insecure in Rome that he eventually fled to Genoa and remained there until Frederick's death in 1250.

The confusion this caused in Rome gave Raymond VII the opportunity he had awaited for 13 years. His nobles too were itching for a chance to get at the detested French and reclaim their own lost lands and estates. In addition, Raymond had gained support from the kings of England and Navarre and Castile and Aragon in Spain. At last, Raymond was able to make a bid to free his former territories from the grasp of the French and drive away the Dominicans, the Inquisition and their ghastly apparatus of cruelty and death.

Raymond Roger IV had been

living in exile for 30 years but had

not given up hope of winning

back his lost inheritance.

The inquisitors, rather than military objectives, were Raymond's first targets in the rebellion that began on 28 May 1242. Although he was not actually present to see the deed done, there was little doubt that Raymond was behind the murder of the inquisitors that took place a few days later and the destruction of their supposed 'evidence' against heretics in Languedoc.

CELEBRATIONS  IN  LANGUEDOC

News of the killings at Avignonet flashed across Languedoc, where the hard-pressed Cathars and Catholics celebrated this strike against the dreaded Inquisition. One clergyman even rang the bell of his church to mark the occasion, and the assassins were received back at Montsegur as heroes. The raid at Avignonet had, however, been only a prelude to a series of military attacks on castles, the Dominicans' houses and the palaces of bishops, all of them legitimate targets for the vengeance the Languedocois wrought against the hated French and the Inquisition they promoted. Meanwhile, towns and villages across the province seemed to be energized by Avignonet and rose up to seek revenge for the atrocities, indignities and cruelties the Inquisition had brought to once peaceful and affluent Languedoc.

But sadly, inevitably, both revolution and rejoicing were short-lived. Despite the illustrious names who had signed up to back Raymond VII - King Henry III of England, Hugh de Lusignan, whose family were prominent crusaders, Roger Bernard, Count of Foix - all of them crumbled before the forces of France. The King and de Lusignan were thrashed in battle, and the Count, though a son and nephew of Cathar

The inquisitors ... were

Raymond's first targets in the

rebellion ... there was little

doubt that Raymond was

behind the murder

of the inquisitors that took

place a few days later and the

destruction of their 'evidence'

against heretics in Languedoc.

Perfects, defected to the enemy and used his army to hammer Raymond VII to a defeat that would prove permanent. Raymond's other allies in Aragon, Castile and Navarre read the runes and quietly backed out. Once again, in January 1243, Raymond and King Louis IX signed a treaty that turned back the clock to 1229, when Languedoc had come under French rule at the Treaty of Paris.

INACCESSIBLE  MONTSEGUR

The assassins of Avignonet were never caught, but Montsegur, the fortress where the plot had been conceived, remained as the last major outpost of Cathar resistance in Languedoc. Catholic clergy and

The mighty castle of Montsegur, which was built after 1204 in preparation for the day when, inevitably, the Cathars would have to make a stand against their persecutors.

An illumination from a Languedoc manuscript shows Montsegur finally captured by troops commanded by Hugh de Arcis, seneschal (steward) to Louis IX of France.

inquisitors had long called Montsegur the 'Synagogue of Satan' and as far as they were concerned, recent events had shown how fully it lived up to that name. Montsegur had to be destroyed because it was not just another fortress, but a safe haven where hundreds of Cathars, Perfects and credentes alike, had sought the asylum that only the high mountains and inaccessible crags of the Pyrenees could give them.

In 1242, some 500 refugees, both Cathars and Catholics, were living inside Montsegur. Of these, 200 or so were Perfects who made their homes in huts and caves around the castle. Knights, men-at-arms and their wives, mistresses and children, many of them related to the Perfects, had also moved in to take advantage of the protection offered by the fortress. There was also a continuous flow of credente pilgrims who secretly visited this symbol of the Cathar faith for spiritual guidance and then returned home as secretly as they had come.

Montsegur served these purposes for nearly 40 years, ever since 1204, when its ruling lord, Raymond de Pereille, realized that one day, the Cathars would have to make a standagainst the Church that had labelled them heretics. To prepare for that day, de Pereille rebuilt the castle that overlooked the village of Montsegur from its dizzying height of 914 metres (3000ft), high enough to provide a panoramic view of the woods and valleys that covered the landscape for miles around. Over the years, Montsegur had sheltered dozens of Cathar Perfects on the run from persecution. Later, they returned for refuge again and again, whenever the witch-hunt was renewed. But the crisis conditions caused by the Inquisition, and its excesses were a hint of something much more serious in the future - the 'final solution' to the Cathar question.

Just how close that solution had come was made plain in the spring of 1243 when the view from the castle revealed troop movements in the terrain far         below. On the orders of Hugh de Arcis, seneschal to King Louis IX, knights, soldiers and their equipment began arriving from Aquitaine, Gascony, and other

There was also a continuous

flow of credente pilgrims who

secretly visited this symbol of the

Cathar faith for spiritual

guidance and then returned home as

secretly as they had come.

regions of France and an encampment was set up on the eastern side of Montsegur.

One Church dignitary, Pierre Amiel, Bishop of Narbonne, pitched his elaborately ornamented tent directly beneath Montsegur. The scene was soon festooned with flags carrying the fleur de lys, the symbol of France, or the Cross to emphasize the holy purpose  of the enterprise.

The monument to the 221 Cathars and others who died at the stake in the 'Field of the Burned' at Montsegur on 16 March 1244.

The thousands of men camped below provided a daunting sight, but this did not, as yet, denote that a siege was imminent: much more manpower was required before Hugh de Arcis had enough forces to surround the fortress. Even then, he could not achieve total encirclement. The perimeter of Montsegur measured more than three kilometres (2 mile) and was not continuous - defiles and ravines that could provide escape routes from the castle interrupted it here and there. It was also impossible to use siege machines on the slopes of the Pyrenees that backed Montsegur.

………………..

THIS SHOULD BE ENOUGH FROM THIS BOOK, TO PROVE THE POPES WERE NOT FROM GOD; YET MILLIONS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BELIEVE HE IS FROM GOD, OR AS ONE YOUNG LADY ABOUT 20 YEARS OLD, IN A SOUTH AMERICAN COUNTRY BEING VISITED BY THE POPE—— SAID, "HE IS GOD ON EARTH!"

Keith Hunt