§ 85. THE CRUSADES AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES. 507
ated by his spirit, and thus antedated his propaganda by nearly half a century.1
NOTE. Lit. bearing on the early \Valdenses. For the titles, see § 79. — A new era in the study of the history and tenets of the Waldenses was opened by Dieckhoff, 1851, who was followed by Herzog, 1853. More recently, Preger, Karl M tiller, Haupt, and Keller have added much to our knowledge in details, and in clearing up disputed points. Comba, professor in the Waldensian college at Florence, accepts the con clusions of modern research and gives up the claim of ancient origin, even Apostolic origin being claimed by the older Waldensian writers. — The chief sources for the early history of the sect are the abbot Bernard of Fontis Calidi, d. 1193; the theologian Alauus de Insulis, d. about 1200 ; Salve Burce (whose work is given by Dollinger), 1235 ; Etienne de Bourbon, d. 1261, whose work is of an encyclopaedic character, a kind of ready-reference book ; the Rescriptum hceresiarcharum written by an unknown priest, about 1316, called the Anonymous of Passau ; an Austrian divine, David of Augsburg, d. 1271 ; and the Inquisitor in Southern France, Bernard Guy, d. 1331. Other valuable documents are given by Dollinger, in his Beitrcige, vol. II. These writers represent a period of more than a hundred years. In most of their characterizations they agree, and upon the main heresies of the Waldenses the earliest writers are as insistent as the later.
The Waldensian MSS., some of which date back to the thirteenth cen tury, are found chiefly in the libraries of Cambridge, Dublin (Trinity College), Paris, Geneva, Grenoble, and Lyons. The Dublin Collection was made by Abp. Ussher who purchased in 1634 a number of valuable volumes from a French layman for five hundred and fifty francs. The Cambridge MSS. were procured by Sir Samuel Morland, Cromwell's special envoy sent to Turin to check the persecutions of the Waldenses.
§ 85. The Crusades against the Albigenses.
The mediaeval measures against heretics assumed an organ ized form in the crusades against the Albigenses, before the institution of the Inquisition received its full development. To the papacy belongs the whole responsibility of these merci less wars. Toulouse paid a bitter penalty for being the head
1 Felder, the Roman Catholic author of the able Gesch. der wissenschaftlichen Studien im Franziskanerorden, 1904, approaches this view very closely, recognizes the effort of the Waldenses to realize the ideal of Apostolic poverty, and says, p. 1 sq., that Francis of Assisi in his work was moved by " the idea deeply rooted in his age, eine tief gewurzelte Zeitidee."
508 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
centre of heresy.1 According to Innocent III., the larger part of its nobility was infected with heretical depravity, so that heresy was entrenched in castles as well as professed in the villages.2 The count of Toulouse, the first lay peer of France, — owing fealty to it for Provence and Languedoc, — brought upon himself the full wrath and punishments of the Apostolic see for his unwillingness to join in the wars against his own subjects. A member of the house led one of the most splendid of the armies of the first Crusade to Jerusalem. At the opening of the Albigensian crusades the court of Toulouse was one of the gayest in Europe. At their close it was a spectacle of desolation.
Councils, beginning with the synod of Toulouse, 1119, issued articles against heresy and called upon the secular power to punish it. Mild measures were tried and proved ineffectual, whether they were the preaching and miracles of St. Bernard, 1147, or the diplomatic address of papal legates. Sixty years after Bernard, St. Dominic entered upon a tour of evangelism in the vicinity of Toulouse, and some heretics were won ; but in spite of Dominic, and synodal decrees, heresy spread and continued to defy the Church author ities.
It remained for Innocent III. to direct the full force of his native vigor against the spreading contagion and to execute the principles already solemnly announced by oecumenical and local councils. To him heretics were worse than the infidel who had never made profession of Christianity. While Christendom was sending armaments against the Saracens, why should it not send an armament to crush the spiritual treason at home ? In response to papal appeals, at least four distinct crusades were set on foot against the sectaries in Southern France. These religious wars continued thirty years. Priests and abbots went at the head of the armies and, in the name of religion, commanded or justified the most atrocious barbarities. One. of the fairest portions of
1 The Fourth Lateran spoke of the city as quce magis hceretica labes corrupta. 2 Ep. II. 99 ; Migne, 214, 647.