Religious doubt in the Middle Ages seems, indeed, to have been as widespread and very similar in character to that which opinion polls reveal as present in our own society.

--Bernard Hamilton

In the early years of the 13th century, Papal priorities began to shift from the crusades to the Holy Land to heretical problems in Western Europe. The ensuing Albigensian Crusade was an example of the power struggle between local political adversaries who used the Church to justify their bloody ambitions. As illustrated in the horrific cruelty perpetrated on the inhabitants of the Levant by the Western Europeans, justification for destruction done in God's name became the norm as the honor and chivalry of the knightly codes became lost in the grim reality of wars of conquest in the name of religion.

Heresy was viewed as a crime in the Middle Ages as it involved the outright rejection and/or call for change in existing Church doctrine (Hamilton, pg. 15). The Church hierarchy would not stand for questions as to its own validity. The precedent for Church condemnation of heresy had been established almost a thousand years earlier in 325 A.D., when the Arrians had denied the divinity of Christ and were consequently persecuted for their beliefs (Shannon, pg. 38). Interestingly, Jews and pagans, not being Christians in the first place, were not considered heretics, Gormonda de Montpelier noting that heresy was considered a greater threat to the West than the Moslems (Siberry, pg. 167).

Church leaders went so far as to establish in the 4th Lateran Council that a noble who did not succeed in eradicating heresy from his lands would be excommunicated, his lands then becoming open to other Catholic nobles to take over. The greedy nobility of Western Europe needed little enough justification for waging war, which the Church managed to unintentionally provide.

It is not difficult to understand the fervor of the Church in opposing the Albigensian heresy, which disavowed the Catholic church, considered by the Albigensian supporters to be preoccupied with material possessions and tainted by a greedy clergy who lived off this wealth. The heart of the heresy was established in the wealthy province of Toulouse, located in Languedoc, or present day southern France.

Toulouse had been blessed with the good fortune to be located at the halfway point for returning Crusaders passing through on their way home from the Holy Land (Oldenbourg, pg. 23). Parts of the Toulouse region were claimed by England, France, the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Aragon, turning the area into a political battleground (Sumption, pg. 23). Throughout this period, various heresies, including the Albigensian, had been allowed to grow as the local nobles vied for popular support and power. These counts and viscounts as well as the invading Spanish attempted to destroy each other rather than pay attention to the religious beliefs of the populace. The Count of Toulouse, Raymond, had grown up with the heresy and did not morally oppose it, until compelled to by the Church (Sumption, pg. 65).

Pope Innocent III attempted to encourage Raymond to destroy the Albigensian heresy. When Raymond failed to comply, the Pope excommunicated him, offering his lands to 'good Catholics' (Hamilton, pg. 21). The Church was in no way tolerant of the heresy and the Pope undoubtedly felt that his political as well as spiritual authority must be retained in the face of the rising Albigensian popularity. The wealthy, free peasants of Toulouse were not impressed and it was not until the murder of the Pope's personal legate, in Toulouse on Papal business in January of 1208, that the Albigensian heresy attracted the undivided attention of the Papacy (Shannon, pg. 60).

There was no longer any question of Church sponsored military action. The Pope appealed to Western knights to launch a crusade against Raymond and his subjects, telling them to "Fill your souls with godly rage to avenge the insult to the Lord" (Sumption, pg. 77). But, as Robert of Clari noted, Pope Innocent wanted no Christians attacking others without just cause (Robert of Clari, pg. 45). He stated that "Those who bear the cross against us have deprived the sepulchre of help and assistance and that is ungodliness" (Siberry, pg. 164). Calling upon precedence for justification of military intervention, Innocent used Gratian's Decretum argument which stated that those with just authority (obviously himself) fought to defend the Church and therefore would not be condemned for killing other transgressing Christians. The ends would justify the means (Siberry, pg. 210).

As an incentive to participants, Pope Innocent placed the possessions, lands and holdings of the Crusading nobles under Church protection while they were doing 'God's work'. There would also be no interest charged on debts accrued for Crusading expenses and, unlike the Crusades to the Holy Land, Papal authorities promised rich lands for the warriors of Christ (Sumption, pg. 80). Such attractive inducements found many unemployed Western knights ready and eager to fight the Albigensian transgressors.

The Crusaders came from throughout northern Europe amidst popular but less than universal acceptance. Guillaume le Clerc criticized the Papacy for the crusade which the Englishman Roger Wendover claimed was motivated by greed (Siberry, pp. 166-167). Philip of France, previously reluctant to invade even under the auspices of Papal authority (he feared King John of England and did not trust leaving his lands to their fate while invading Toulouse), now gauged correctly the public outrage in Europe over the assassination of the Papal legate and became a self-proclaimed righteous champion of the Church. Opportunism, a hallmark of Western European leadership from the 10th century on, once again became the prime motivation in the decision to go to war.

Count Raymond of Toulouse, hearing reports that thousands of greedy knights were preparing to converge on his domains appealed in vain to Philip of France and the Holy Roman Emperor, Otto IV, before finally going directly to the Pope, begging him to call off the Crusade (Sumption, 82). Innocent would not abandon his plan for eradicating the heretical Albigensians, actually having the Count stripped and publicly flogged for his impertinence. After his humiliation, Raymond pleaded with Innocent to have the Church ban placed upon him removed, promising that he in turn would rectify his wrongs by joining the Crusade and waging war against his own wayward vassals (Shannon, pg. 62). The Pope accepted and Raymond surrendered his lands to Papal legates. He also took the cross, thus adroitly regaining his lands back, thanks to the immunity offered a Crusader knight by the Papal incentives. Raymond had turned his previous misfortunes into a potentially profitable endeavor as he now had an excuse to wage war against his rivals, especially one Raymond-Roger Trencavel, Viscount of Beziers (Sumption, pg. 84).

The Albigensian Crusade from the beginning was completely different from the previous religious crusades. There was no fixed date of service and no eventual target city, the capture of which would end the crusade (Sumption, pg. 84). Motivation was not spiritual, but of secular greed, with religion an excuse to plunder and gain new lands relatively close to home. There existed no expensive, perilous trip to a faraway land to blunt the excitement and exuberance of glorious battle. Additionally, the promise of Papal indulgences and salvation were inducements for those individuals wishing to make their peace with God. The result brought a cruel, brutal and genocidal war of attrition waged with frustration and hatred. After the capture of the fortress of Beziers, for example, all persons with no exception for age or sex were slaughtered (Shannon, pg. 62). According to apocryphical reports, Arnald-Amaury, one of the Crusader leaders, encouraged the butchery, ordered his troops to "Kill them all; God will recognize his own" (Sumption, pg. 93). The mass slaughter set a horrible precedent and the Crusaders reportedly only regretted that the consequent fire, which destroyed the town, also incinerated most of their expected plunder (Sumption, pg. 94).

The Crusade also ignited the political struggle, which had been simmering for the last twenty years in southern France. Peter II of Spain, angered by the prospect of the newly Catholicized Raymond of Toulouse recovering his forfeited lands... lands which Peter sought to add to his own, saw the newly devout ruler as a threat to his own possessions (Sumption, pg. 98). Raymond did not try to hide his hatred for the Spanish king. Though others saw differently, each leader looked upon his cause as just, for, as Thomas Aquinas had pointed out, only a just war could be spiritually blessed, promoting good while avoiding evil because "If a person fights for sovereign of for justice by God's authority, he does not deserve to be punished" (Aquinas, pp. 81-84. This official Church view, motivated by fear and intolerance to any usurpation of its power, had opponents, however.

The story-tellers were not so certain of anyone's just cause in taking and destroying Christian lives and homes. As a rudimentary gauge of public opinion, the contemporary troubadours regarded the Albigensian Crusade as a territorial, political fight; some even encouraged the Crusaders to leave the south of France and go to the Holy Land to fight (Siberry, pp. 161-162). Others exhorted Raymond to fight against the French and defend his people, not destroy them, and condemned the Crusade outright (Siberry, pg. 163).

Out of this conflict of Church doctrine and public opinion, an attempt to maintain a chivalrous, knightly code appeared. The Church wanted to cloak the Crusade in respectability and regain favorable public sentiment. Arnaud of Citeaux encouraged the Crusaders to "...abandon wine, extravagant meals, and fine clothes" (Siberry, pg. 107). Thomas Aquinas wrote that "Actual fighting calls for courage, but its direction calls for prudence, especially that of the good generalship of the officer commanding", and "...military business...is dedicated to safeguarding the general good of the whole community" (Aquinas, pg. 93).

At the end of 1209, both of these rulers, calling their respective cause 'just', prepared to deal with the other. They soon had other things to concern themselves with.

The Albigensian Crusade Simon de Montfort vrs. King Peter of Spain: 1213 A.D.

Introduction
Simon de Montfort, the Flail of God
The Battle of Muret 1213 A.D.
Aftermath