Suppression of Catharism

In 1147, Pope Eugene III sent a legate to the affected district in order to arrest the progress of the Cathars. The few isolated successes of Bernard of Clairvaux could not obscure the poor results of this mission, which clearly showed the power of the sect in the Languedoc at that period. The missions of Cardinal Peter of St. Chrysogonus to Toulouse and the Toulousain in 1178, and of Henry, cardinal-bishop of Albano, in 1180–1181, obtained merely momentary successes. Henry of Albano's armed expedition, which took the stronghold at Lavaur, did not extinguish the movement.

Decisions of Catholic Church councils against the Cathars at this period — in particular, those of the Council of Tours (1163) and of the Third Council of the Lateran (1179) — had scarcely more effect. By the time Pope Innocent III came to power in 1198, he had resolved to suppress the Cathars.

Saint Dominic encountered the Cathars in 1203 while travelling, and argued with them, concluding that only preachers who displayed real sanctity, humility and asceticism could win over convinced Cathar believers. His conviction led eventually to the establishment of the Dominican Order in 1216. The order was to live up to the terms of his famous rebuke, "Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth." In the final analysis, however, the theologians of the Catholic Church were unable to effectively counter the belief of the Cathars that the Doctrine of 'resurrection' is a Doctrine of 'Rebirth'. And it was for this reason that it became necessary not only to exterminate the Cathars, but to destroy their writings.

At first Pope Innocent III tried pacific conversion, and sent a number of legates into the affected regions. They had to contend not only with the Cathars, the nobles who protected them, and the people who venerated them, but also with the bishops of the district, who rejected the extraordinary authority which the Pope had conferred upon his legates. In 1204, Innocent III suspended the authority of certain bishops in the south of France; in 1205 he appointed a new and vigorous bishop of Toulouse, the former troubadour Foulques. In 1206 Diego of Osma and his canon, the future Saint Dominic, began a programme of conversion in Languedoc; as part of this, Catholic-Cathar public debates were held at Verfeil, Servian, Pamiers, Montréal and elsewhere.

In January 1208 the papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau was sent to meet the ruler of the area, Count Raymond VI of Toulouse. Known for excommunicating noblemen who protected the Cathars, Pierre de Castelnau excommunicated Raymond as an abettor of heresy. Pierre was murdered near Saint Gilles Abbey in 1208 on his way back to Rome, allegedly by a knight in the service of Count Raymond. As soon as he heard of the murder, the Pope ordered his legates to preach a Crusade against the Cathars. Having failed in his efforts to demonstrate the errors of Cathar theology, the Pope then called a formal crusade, appointing a series of leaders to head the assault. There followed over forty years of war against the Cathars and their allies in the Languedoc. See Albigensian Crusade.

This war threw the whole of the nobility of the north of France against that of the south, possibly instigated by a papal decree stating that all land owned by Cathars could be confiscated at will. As the area was full of Cathar sympathisers, this made the entire area a target for French nobles looking to gain new lands. The French barons of the north flocked south to do battle for the Church.

The crusader army came under the command, both spiritual and military, of the papal legate Arnaud-Amaury, Abbot of Cîteaux. In the first significant engagement of the war, the town of Béziers was taken on 22 July 1209. Arnaud, the Cistercian abbot-commander is said to have been asked how to tell Cathar from Roman Catholic. His reply, recorded by a fellow Cistercian, was "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius." — “Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own”[2]. The doors of the church of St Mary Magdalene were broken down and the occupants slaughtered. 7,000 people died there including women and children. Elsewhere in the town many more thousands were mutilated and killed. Prisoners were blinded, dragged behind horses, and used for target practice. The town was razed. Arnaud, the abbot-commander, wrote to his master, Pope Innocent III: "Today your Holiness, twenty thousand citizens were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex."[3]. The population of Béziers was then probably no more than 15,000 but with local refugees seeking shelter within the city walls, the number claimed, 20,000, is possible.

It was after the success of the siege of Carcassonne which followed the massacre at Beziers, that Simon de Montfort was appointed to lead the Crusader army. Prominent opponents of the Crusaders were Raymond-Roger de Trencavel, viscount of Carcassonne, and his feudal overlord Peter II, the king of Aragon, who owned fiefdoms and had other vassals in the area. Peter died fighting against the crusade on September 12, 1213 at the Battle of Muret.

The war ended in the Treaty of Paris (1229), by which the king of France dispossessed the house of Toulouse of the greater part of its fiefs, and that of the Trencavels (Viscounts of Béziers and Carcassonne) of the whole of their fiefs. The independence of the princes of the Languedoc was at an end. But in spite of the wholesale massacre of Cathars during the war, Catharism was not extinguished.

In 1215, the bishops of the Catholic Church met at the Fourth Council of the Lateran under Pope Innocent. One of the key goals of the council was to combat the heresy of the Cathars without explaining precisely what that heresy originated with: a different understanding of the Doctrine of 'resurrection'.

The Inquisition was established in 1229 to root out the Cathars. Operating in the south at Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne and other towns during the whole of the 13th century, and a great part of the 14th, it succeeded in extirpating the movement. From May 1243 to March 1244, the Cathar fortress of Montségur was besieged by the troops of the seneschal of Carcassonne and the archbishop of Narbonne. On March 16, 1244 a large and symbolically important massacre took place, where over 200 Cathar perfects were thrown into an enormous fire at the prat des cramats near the foot of the castle. Moreover, the church decreed severe chastisement against all laymen suspected of sympathy with Cathars (Council of Narbonne, 1235; see the Bulla of Innocent IV Ad exstirpanda, 1252).


Cathar Cross - The Inquisition required Cathar sympathisers - repentant first offenders - to sew a cross like this onto their clothes.[citation needed]Hunted down by the Inquisition and abandoned by the nobles of the district, the Albigenses became more and more scattered, hiding in the forests and mountains, and only meeting surreptitiously. Later insurrections broke out under the leadership of Bernard of Foix, Aimery of Narbonne and Bernard Délicieux (a Franciscan friar) at the beginning of the 14th century. But at this point vast inquests were set up by the Inquisition, which increased its efforts in the district. Precise indications of these are found in the registers of the Inquisitors, Bernard of Caux, Jean de St Pierre, Geoffroy d'Ablis, and others. Members of the Elect, Parfaits, rarely if ever recanted their faith and were burned alive in their hundreds. Repentant "lay" believers were punished but generally their lives were spared as long as they did not relapse. Having recanted, they were obliged to sew yellow crosses onto their outdoor clothing.

After decades of not only severe persecution; but, perhaps, even more importantly, the complete destruction of their writings, the sect was exhausted and could find no more adepts, and after 1330 the records of the Inquisition contain few proceedings against Cathars. The last known Cathar Perfect in the Languedoc, Guillaume Bélibaste, was executed in 1321.

Other movements, such as the Waldensians and the pantheistic Brethren of the Free Spirit, which suffered persecution in the same area survived in remote areas and in small numbers into the 14th and 15th century. Waldensian ideas were absorbed into early Protestant sects, such as the Hussites and Lollards. It is possible that Cathar ideas were too.

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