CHAP. III.

Submission of the Albigenses-Revolt and New War to the Death of Simon de Montfort, 1214–1218.

1214. THE activity of Simon de Montfort always seconded his unmeasurable ambition. He never estimated riches and power any otherwise than as they might promote the acquisition of still greater riches and power. He had never known any other relaxation from his victories than the preparation for new conquests. He had never understood any other way of rendering himself acceptable to God, than by shedding the blood of infidels, nor felt any other religious emotion than the delight of being the spectator of their torments. Nevertheless he gained no extraordinary advantages from the battle of Muret. The crusaders, after that great victory, thought their task accomplished, and their duty towards God fulfilled, so that they, with one consent, hastened to their homes. The court of Rome hesitated, for fear of rendering its creature too powerful. Philip Augustus indirectly placed obstacles to the zeal of the crusaders, by publishing an ordinance to limit their privileges. He no longer permitted them to withdraw from the defence of their country, by

abstaining from marching at their lord's summons, though he still left them the choice between service and payment. He no longer permitted them to decline the jurisdiction of the temporal tribunals, either when they were accused of crimes, or when they pleaded for their fief or their manor.5 Besides, the Catalans and the Aragonese were indignant at seeing the son of the king, whom they had lost, under the tutelage of him who had shed his father's blood. They had declared war against Simon de Montfort, and were preparing to attack him on the side of the Pyrenees, whilst their ambassador to Innocent III, was endeavouring to obtain the interference of the court of Rome, in defence of their independence. And they laboured so effectually, that Innocent III, by his letter of the 23rd of January, 1214, commanded Simon to restore the young Don Jayme to his subjects; which order was executed, at Narbonne, in the month of April following."

A new legate, the cardinal Peter of Benevento, had this year come to the province. He had fixed his residence at Narbonne, and all the lords, who had been so ill treated in the last war, had flocked to him to obtain, by his intercession, their reconciliation with the church. Much more accommodating, at least in appearance, than his

5 Laurière, Ordonnances des Rois de France, tom. i, p. 32.

6 Innocentii III Epistolæ, lib. xvi, no. 171. Histoire gén. de Languedoc, liv. XXII, ch. lxvii, p. 259.

predecessor, he re-opened, to them all, the door of the sanctuary. During the month of April, the counts of Foix, and of Cominges, were reconciled to the church; the same grace was afterwards extended to Raymond VI, and, at last, to the inhabitants of Narbonne and Toulouse. It is true that by the oath which these lords, and the consuls of the cities, took to the legate, they resigned their bodies and goods to his disposal, without any guarantee; they engaged to obey all his orders; opened to him all their castles; reserved no lordship; nor made any stipulations in their own favour. Raymond, who had previously ceded all his rights to his son, withdrew, at the same time, from the Narbonnese castle, the ancient residence of the sovereigns, and went to dwell with his son, as a simple individual, in a private house at Toulouse, waiting the decision of the sovereign pontiff whether he should retire to the king of England, to the Holy Land, or to Rome.

At the very time when the lords of the Albigenses were thus submitting themselves to the discretion of the church, a new army of crusaders, conducted by the bishop of Carcassonne and the cardinal Robert de Courçon, arrived at Montpellier. "How great was then the mercy of God," cries the monk of Vaux-Cernay, "for every one

7 Hist. gén. de Languedoc, liv. XXII, ch. lxix, p. 261. Preuves, nos. cx, cxi, cxii, p. 239 et seq. Petri Val. Cern. Hist. Albigens. cap. lxxvii, p. 647. Guill. de Podio Laurentii, cap. xxiv, p. 680.

may see that the pilgrims could have done nothing great without the legate, nor the legate without the pilgrims. In reality the pilgrims would have had but small success, against such numerous enemies, if the legate had not treated with them beforehand. It was then by a dispensation of the divine mercy, that whilst the legate, by a pious fraud, cajoled, and enclosed in his nets, the enemies of the faith who were assembled at Narbonne, the count of Montfort, and the pilgrims who were arrived from France, could pass into Agenois, there to crush their enemies, or rather those of Christ. O pious fraud of the legate! 0 piety full of deceit.”8

Nevertheless, this treason, which the pious cenobite celebrates with such enthusiasm, does not appear to have produced results, proportioned to the admiration with which it inspired him. The campaign was devoted to the besieging and taking of several castles of Quercy and Agenois, some of which made a pretty long resistance, and cost much blood to the crusaders. In the greater part they found no heretics, which reduced the soldiers of the church to the necessity of mournfully burning the castle, or at the most of only putting the inhabitants to the sword, as in an ordinary But at Maurillac they were more happy. "I must not pass it over," says the monk of Citeaux, "that we found there seven heretics, of

war.

8 Petri Vall. Cern. Albig. cap. lxxviii, p. 648.

the sect called Waldenses, who being conducted to the legate, and having confessed their incredulity, were seized by our pilgrims, and burned with unspeakable joy."9

Simon de Montfort did not trust to his arms alone for making conquests. In 1214 he married his son Amaury, to Beatrice, daughter of Guigue VI dauphin of Viennois, in the hope that she would one day inherit Dauphiny; for this name had then been given to the heritage of the counts of Albon, which had passed into the house of Burgundy, and held from the kingdom of Arles; whilst those lords had taken the title of dauphins from their armorial bearings.1 On the other hand, a provincial council, summoned at Montpellier for the month of December, but which did not commence its sittings till the eighth of January, 1215, was to determine the fate of the provinces, formerly occupied by the counts of Toulouse, of Béarn, and of Cominges, whom the cardinal legate had reconciled to the church, without explaining the conditions that he should impose upon them.

1215. The inhabitants of Montpellier did not consider their lordship as one of those which the council, assembled in their city, had the right to

9 Petri Vall. Cern. cap. lxxix, p. 649.

1 Histoire de Languedoc, liv. XXII, ch. lx, p. 256, and ch. lxxi, p. 262. Histoire de Dauphiné, tom. i, p. 248.

2 Petri Val. Cern. Hist. Albigens. cap. lxxxvi, p. 654.