§ 85. THE CRUSADES AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES. 511
ern France. His contemporaries hailed him as another Judas Maccabeus and even compared him to Charlemagne.1
In spite of the remonstrance of Raymund, who had joined the army, the papal legate, Arnold of Citeaux, refused to check its march. Beziers was stormed and horrible scenes followed. The wild soldiery heeded well the legate's com mand, " Fell all to the ground. The Lord knows His own." 2 Neither age nor sex was spared. Church walls interposed no protection and seven thousand were put to death in St. Magdalen's church alone. Nearly twenty thousand were put to the sword. According to the reports of the papal legates, Milo and Arnold, the " divine vengeance raged won derfully against the city.3 . . . Ours spared neither sex nor condition. The whole city was sacked, and the slaughter was very great."
At Carcassonne the inhabitants were allowed to depart, the men in their shirts, the women in their chemises, carrying with them, as the chronicler writes, nothing else except their sins, nildl secum prceter peccata portantes. Dread had taken hold of the country, and village after village was abandoned by the fleeing inhabitants. Raymund was again
1 Hurter, II. 325 sqq., dwells upon his virtues, including the virtues of humanity and fidelity. Hefele, also a Roman Catholic, V. 843, calls him cruel, grausam. The council of Lavaur pronounced him the "brave soldier of Christ and the invincible warrior of the Lord's battles," intrepidum, Christi athletam et invictum dominici prcelii bellatorem, Mansi, xxii. 887. The Fourth Lateran honored his services as having exceeded those of all others in fidelity and courage. By his mother, Alice, he inherited the earldom of Leicester which passed to his son Simon. See Stephen, Diet. Nat. Biogr.
2 Cwdite cos, novit enim dominus qui sunt cjus, Csesar of Heisterbach, V. 21; Strange ed., I. 302. And so Caesar adds, "an innumerable multitude were killed in that city." Hurter speaks of the " unbridled frenzy " of the troops, zugellose Wuth, II. 331. Describing other scenes of carnage during the crusade he uses such expressions as " horrible butchery," furchtbarer Gemetzel, "heartrending barbarities," emporende Graitel, pp. 420, 423, 427, etc. He expresses the charitable hope that the abbot of Citeaux did not say what was ascribed to him by so good and churchly a witness as Caesar of Heisterbach. Brischar, in Wetzer-Welte, I. 434, speaks with horror of the barbarities of Simon's troops.
3 Epp. Inn., XII. 108, 109 ; Migne, 216. 137-142. Ultione divina in earn rnirabiliter sceviente.
512 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
put under excommunication at a council held at Avignon.1 The conquered lands were given to Montfort. The war continued, and its atrocities, if possible, increased. New recruits appeared in response to fresh papal appeals, among them six thousand Germans.2 At the stronghold of Minerve, one hundred and forty of the Albigensian Perfect were put to death in the flames. The ears, noses, and lips of prisoners were cut off.
Again, in 1211, the count of Toulouse sought to come to an agreement with the legates. But the terms, which included the razing to the ground of all his castles, were too humiliating. The crusade was preached again. All the territory of Toulouse had been overrun and it only remained for the crusaders to capture the city itself.
Pedro of Aragon, fresh from his crushing victory over the Moors at Novas de Tolosa, now interceded with the pope for his brother-in-law. The synod of Lavaur, 1213, appointed referee by Innocent, rejected the king's propositions. Pedro then joined Raymund, but fell at the disastrous defeat of Muret the same year, 1213. It was a strange combination whereby the king of Aragon, who had won the highest dis tinction a year before as a hero of the Catholic faith, was killed in the ranks of those who were rebels to the papal authority.3 The day after, the victor, Montfort, barefoot, went to church, and ordered Pedro's battle-horse and armorial trappings sold and the proceeds distributed to the poor.4 By the council of Montpellier, 1215, the whole land, including Toulouse, was granted to Montfort, and the titles conferred on him of count of Toulouse, viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne, and duke of Narbonne.5
1 Hefele, V. 846 sqq. 2 Hurter, II. 383, 416.
8 Pedro's son, Jayrae, ascribed his father's defeat to his moral laxity. The Albigensian nobles had placed their wives and daughters at his disposal and, it is reported, he was so weakened the morning of the engagement that he could not stand at the celebration of the mass. Lea, I. 177. * Hurter, II. 567.
6 As an illustration of how the best of friends may fall out, Montfort's right to the title, duke of Narbonne, was vehemently contested by Arnold of Citeaux, who claimed it as archbishop of Narbonne, an office to which he had been appointed.