ALBIGENSES
134
ALBIZZI
eentmy the Cathari were very numerous in Southern France. At the beginning of the thirteenth century a crusade was formed for the extirpation of heresy in Southern Europe, and Innocent III enjoined upon all princes to expel them from their dominions in 1209. The immediate pretence of the crusade was the murder of the papal legate and inquisitor, Peter of Castelnau, who had been commissioned to extirpate heresy in the dominions of Count Raj-mond VI of Toulouse ; but its real object was to deprive the count of his lands, as he had become an object of hatred from his toleration of the heretics. It was in vain that he had submitted to the most humiliating penance and flagellation from the hands of the legate Milo, and had purchased the papal absolution by great sacrifices. The legates, Ar- nold, abbot of Citeaux, and Milo, who directed the expedition, took by storm Beziers, the capital of Ray- mond's nephew, Roger, and massacred 20,000 — some say 40,000 — of the inhabitants, Catholics as well as heretics. "Kill them all," said Arnold; "God will know his own!" (For a full and graphic account of this crusade, see Milman, Latin Christianity, iv, 210 sq.) Simon, count of Montfort, who conducted the war under the legates, proceeded in the same relent- less way with other places in the territories of Ray- mond and his allies. Of these, Roger of Beziers died in prison, and Peter I of Aragon fell in battle. The conquered lands were given as a reward to Simon of Montfort, who never came into quiet possession of the gift. At the siege of Toulouse, 1218, he was kill- ed by a stone, and counts Raymond VI and VII dis- puted the possession of their territories with his son. But the papal indulgences drew fresh crusaders from every province of France to continue the war. Ray- mond VII continued to struggle bravely against the legates and Louis VIII of France, to whom Montfort had ceded his pretensions, and who fell in the war in 122G. After hundreds of thousands had perished on both sides, a peace was concluded in 1229, at which Raymond purchased relief from the ban of the Church by immense sums of monej', gave up Narbonne and several lordships to Louis IX, and had to make his son-in-law, the brother of Louis, heir of his other pos- sessions. These provinces, hitherto independent, were thus for the first time joined to the kingdom of France ; and the pope sanctioned the acquisition in order to bind Louis more firmly to the papal chair, and induce him more readily to admit the inquisition. The her- etics were handed over to the proselytizing zeal of the order of Dominicans, and the bloody tribunals of the inquisition ; and both used their utmost power to bring the recusant Albigenses to the stake, and also, by in- flicting severe punishment on the penitent converts, to inspire dread of incurring the Church's displeasure. From the middle of the thirteenth century the name of the Albigenses gradualhr disappears.
So far as the Albigenses were a branch of the Ca- thari, they were Dualistic and, to a certain extent, Manichsean. For their doctrines and usages, see Bo- GOMILES; Cathari ; Paulicians. But as the name " Albigenses" does not seem to have been used until some time after the Albigensian crusade (Maitland, Facts and Documents, p. 96), it is likely, as has been remarked above, that many who held the simple truths of the Gospel, in opposition to the corruptions of Rome, were included in the title by the Romish authorities, from whom our knowledge of these sects must chiefly be derived. Indeed, the gross charges brought even against the Cathari rest upon the statements of their persecutors, and therefore are to be taken with allow- ance. In tin! reaction from the mistake of Allix and others, who claimed too much for the Albigenses, there is little doubt that Schmidt and others of recent times have crone too far in admitting the trustworthiness of all the accounts of Bonacorsi, Rainerius, and the other Romanist sources of information, both :is to the Albi- and the pure Cathari (Ilase, Church History,
§ 228). "With the exception of the charge of rejecting marriage, no allegation is made against their morals by the better class of Roman writers. Their con- stancy in suffering excited the wonder of their op- ponents. " Tell me, holy father," says Evervinus to St. Bernard, relating the martyrdom of three of these heretics, " how is this ? They entered to the stake and bore the torment of the fire, not only with patience, but with joy and gladness. I wish your explanation, how these members of the devil could persist in their heresy with a courage and constancy scarcely to be found in the most religious of the faith of Christ?" Elliott, in his Horm Apocalypticce, vindicates the ortho- doxy of the Albigenses, however, too absolutely. For arguments in their favor, see Allix, History of the Al- bigenses (Oxford, 1821, 8vo) ; Faber, Theology of the Vallenses and Albigenses (Lond. 1838); Baird, History of the Albigenses, Vaudois, etc. (N. Y. 1830, 8vo). On the other hand, C. Schmidt, Histoire et doctrine de la Secte des Cathares (Paris, 1849, 2 vols.) ; Hahn, Ge- schkhtc der Ketzer im Mittelalter, vol. i (Stuttgart, 1845) ; Maitland, Facts and Documents illustrative of the Ancient Albigenses and Waldenses (Lond. 1832, 8vo); Maitland, Dark Ages (Lond. 1844, 8vo). Compare Fauriel, Croisade contre les Albigeois (Paris, 1838) ; Pe- tri, Hist. Albigensium (Trecis, 1015); Perrin, Hist, des Albigeois (Genev. 1678); Benoist, Hist, des Albigeois (Paris, 1691) ; Sismondi, Kreuzzitge gegen d. Albigenser (Leipz. 1829) ; Maillard, Hist. Doct. and Rites of the an- cient Albigenses (Lond. 1812); Barran and Darrogan, Histoire des Croisades contre les Albigeois (Paris, 1840) ; Faber, Inquiry into the History and Theology of the an- cient Vallenses and Albigenses (Lond. 1838) ; Chambers' Cyclopaedia ; Princeton Rev. vols, viii, ix ; North A mer. Rev. lxx, 443 ; Neander, Ch. Hist, iv, 560 sq. ; Mosheim, Ch. Hist. cent, xi, pt. ii, ch. v; Gieseler, Ch. Hist. per. iii, § 86 ; Lond. Qu. Rev. April, 1855, Art. i.