Albigensian Heresy – Who Were the Cathars?

Some events can change the course of history in a country or region, and the rise of the Cathars in the area known as the Languedoc was one of these important historical flashpoints. Today the Languedoc is a peaceful, largely rural, region in the south west of France, stretching from the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees in the west to the borders of Provence in the east. It is a landscape of sun baked plains planted with grape vines, craggy windswept mountains, ruined medieval castles and ancient traditions. But it is a landscape that is still haunted by the memory of the black-robed holy men, who used to travel the roads and mountain paths between the towns and villages in the Middle Ages, spreading their beliefs and arguing against the established orthodoxy of the Catholic Church, which at that time dominated the religious landscape of Europe.

Montsegur 

The beliefs held by these itinerant Cathars, were viewed as so threatening by the Church of Rome that they responded by inciting a Crusade against the Cathars and their supporters, which led to the destruction of towns, mass burnings of believers and ultimately to the founding of that precision instrument of terror known as the Inquisition. Because, make no mistake, the Catholic Church was determined that every last Cathar and any of their supporters had to be destroyed and that their terrible heretical beliefs totally excised from the pages of history forever.

The exact origins of the Cathars are still shrouded in mystery, but their doctrines were probably first introduced into Western Europe by Bogomil missionaries, who were a dualist sect centred in Bulgaria and the Balkans.  Catharism as an individual sect emerged in the mid-12^th century and flourished in Lombardy, the Rhineland and some parts of northern France as well as in the Languedoc. But it was in the Languedoc that the Cathars became part of the very fabric of society. It is important to remember that during the 12^th century the country that we now know as France did not exist.  The kingdom of France was a fairly small strip of territory surrounding Paris in the north that was flanked by the mighty duchies of Normandy, Burgundy, Brittany and Aquitaine. 

The Languedoc itself was a patchwork of different fiefdoms, the largest and most important of which was the county of Toulouse.  The Languedoc at this time was a wealthy, prosperous region that was rich in culture and learning. It was also a bit of a cultural melting pot, where new ideas and different religious ideas were more readily embraced than in the chillier regions of northern Europe.  The Languedoc was home to a large Jewish community that enjoyed much greater freedoms and prosperity than was usual in Catholic Europe, and it was also the birthplace of the poetical troubadours and the land of courtly love, where knights yearned from afar for their unattainable lady loves.  All in all, the Languedoc was the perfect place in the Middle Ages for a heresy to flourish.

So what did the Cathars believe in that the Church of Rome found so threatening?  The Cathar faith contained both dualist and Gnostic elements. They believed that the world was essentially an evil and corrupt place, ruled by a deity that was sometimes known as Rex Mundi, or the King of the World. The god that the Cathars actually worshipped was a spirit of light and goodness, which dwelt completely outside of the material plane. So essentially, to a Cathar, it was earthly existence that was hell, and they yearned to be free of its shackles and be released into spirit form or heaven. However, to be able to do this they had to lead a life of stringent asceticism and self-denial as a Cathar perfect. There were generally only a fairly small number of true Cathars or Perfect, as most Cathar believers or credentes lived ordinary lives centred on work and family. Becoming a Perfect was a matter of personal conscience, but the credentes were thought to be trapped in a never-ending cycle of reincarnation into this evil world, until that soul decided that they were spiritually capable of choosing the rigours of an ascetic life.

Living as a Perfect involved much self denial, as they had to pray frequently, preach and minister to the credentes, refrain from any sexual intimacy and fast as often as possible. When they did allow themselves to eat they were not allowed to eat any meat, and also had to abstain from eating any of the products of sexual reproduction such as milk, butter, eggs and cheese. They could, however, eat fish, as in the Middle Ages it was thought that fish spontaneously appeared in the water, and they could also drink wine. To achieve the yearned for freedom from the ongoing cycle of reincarnation these strictures had to be rigidly adhered to, as just one mouthful of meat or a passionate kiss, would be enough to lose them the status of a Perfect

As for the credentes, they could live pretty much as those chose, as the Perfects did not believe in temporal laws or any form of temporal power or control. As long as you were not committed to the life of a Perfect, it mattered little if you did not attend the parish church on a Sunday, paid your taxes, had sex before marriage, had Muslim or Jewish friends or even got drunk, as these were all rules imposed by earthly institutions, which were inherently corrupt, and possibly even evil, purely because they were of the material world. The Cathars believed in love, light and peace, and that any form of earthly power was incompatible with these principles. They thought that human souls had been pulled out of the spiritual realms of light at the beginning of time into the dense, corrupt world of matter, but that each soul still retained a spark of divine awareness, which was just waiting to be re-ignited.

The Cathars also believed in the equality of women, and women could choose to become a Perfect, and many noblewomen in the region chose to leave their comfortable, privileged lives to set up Cathar houses in towns, where they taught young women to spin and weave and lived simple, frugal, productive lives. As the Catholic Church was as rooted in the temporal as much as the spiritual, it is easy to see why they were so repulsed by these beliefs. The medieval Church required obedience to an established set of rules, and brooked absolutely no dissent. The earthly power of Rome could be seen in the huge Cathedrals that were lavishly decorated, the acres of church estates, the tithes they collected from the populace and the wealth and pomp of the clergy. The fact that the lives of the Perfect more closely mirrored the life of Jesus than that of the average medieval bishop stung, and that the Cathars encouraged their followers to dismiss the teaching of the Church and even regard them with derision was like a red rag to a bull.

The Cathars were not particularly into written records or even religious texts, although they embraced parts of the New Testament and Jesus’ message of love, peace, tolerance and acceptance of all peoples. One of the things that the Catholic Church found abhorrent was the fact that the Cathars denied that Jesus could possibly have incarnated into this material, corrupt world and still remain the divine son of God. As far as the Cathars were concerned, any being on this planet was bound by it and was removed from the spiritual realms, and so could not be regarded as numinous in any way. Therefore the crucifixion and the symbol of the cross had no importance for them. The Church could not even scare the Cathars witless with the threat of eternal damnation as they did their own faithful, because as far as the Cathars were concerned they were already in hell by being on Earth.

The sacraments of the Church were also disregarded as being of the material world they were inherently evil, and the Cathar faith only had one sacrament or rite, the consolamentum. The consolamentum was the mechanism by which a Perfect was created, and could only be administered by another Perfect. This linked each new Perfect to the Perfect who had given them the rite, and it was thought that these links had been unbroken since the time of Christ and his apostles. The consolamentum consisted of the laying on of hands and repeated admonitions to lead a life of flawless simplicity, poverty and holiness. When a Perfect was approached by a credente, the credente would undertake the melioramentum which consisted of bowing and saying a prayer that asked for a good end to their life.

The word Cathar is thought to be derived from a Greek word Katheroi which means ‘pure ones’. The Cathars themselves simply referred to themselves as ‘good Christians’ or ‘good men’ or ‘good women’. Catharism permeated all levels of Languedoc society, from the castles of the nobles, to the shops of the merchants and the cottages of the peasants. Many a nobleman counted a Perfect as a member of his family, and several of their wives left them to form a Cathar house for women.  Even if someone did not believe in the tenets of Catharism, they often still sympathised with them, as they saw the Cathar Perfect lead simple, holy lives which were often in direct contrast to the corruption and low morals exhibited by their own clergy. 

Many of the senior clergy of the Catholic Church acknowledged that the behaviour of some of their own brethren left much to be desired and that many of the accusations against them were justified, but this was still not reason enough to let the Cathar faith grow and flourish. If a large part of the population of the Languedoc were allowed to pay little attention to the bullying and manipulation of the Church, the Church would lose its grip on the region and, even worse, the rot could spread leading to a loss of power and revenue and abject humiliation.

Carcassonne

Initially, Rome instigated peaceful attempts to convert the heretic Cathars back to the true faith, by sending Dominican monks into the region to preach and cajole the populace back into submission. They engaged the Cathar Perfect in wars of words, with long public debates often held in front of large crowds. But they found that the Cathar preachers were skilled orators and debaters, who also had a gift for making the envoys of the Church and their teaching look both ridiculous and hypocritical, without sliding into outright heresy. Events escalated with the murder of the Papal Legate, Pierre de Castelnau, on 15^th January 1208, by a knight of Count Raymond VI of Toulouse. A crusade was preached against the Languedoc by the Church in Rome and undertaken with a great deal of vigour and enthusiasm by the King of France and the nobility of northern Europe. It is sometimes called the Albigensian Crusade, and the massed armies of the North laid waste to the towns and fertile farmlands of the Languedoc, and everywhere they went they undertook mass burnings and torture of the Cathar Perfect and their sympathisers. 

When the Crusade eventually broke up and the knights with their troops and siege engines returned home, the newly formed Inquisition took over and spent the following decades ferreting out the remnants of the Cathar faith, questioning them, torturing them and finally turning them over to the secular authorities so that their bodies could be burned.  This crusade eventually led to the region being brought under the direct control of the French crown, but the economy and vibrant culture of the Languedoc had been fatally wounded. Even now, hundreds of years later, this is not one of the richer parts of France, and it could be said that Languedoc never really recovered against this brutal assault against its own people.

Montsegur Image Jean-Yves Didier Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Carcassone Image Colocho Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution Share 2.5 Generic

Cathar Heresy – Count Raymond VI of Toulouse

During the time of the Albigensian Crusade, the most powerful nobleman in the Languedoc was Count Raymond VI of Toulouse.  When we look at momentous events in history like the Albigensian Crusade, it is sometimes only too easy to lose sight of the fact these were real people that were involved. That it was the personalities and temperaments of these individuals that helped to shape the events that unfolded around them and in the case of someone as powerful as Count Raymond, even be pivotal in deciding what happened next.
So what did it mean to be the Count of Toulouse at the end of the 12^th century? Raymond was born into the mighty Saint Gilles family in 1156, at a time when the Languedoc was a prosperous and cultured region in the south west of France. It was a patchwork of petty nobles and fiefdoms, with the Counts of Toulouse holding the largest swathe of territory.  His many titles included Marquis of Provence, Count of Melgueil, Duke of Narbonne and Count of Agen. 

The largest portion of Raymond VI’s lands he held as a vassal of the King of Aragon, but he also held lands in Provence from the Holy Roman Emperor, the King of England and the King of France. This inevitably led to conflicting loyalties and the need for a great skill in diplomacy when dealing all these different interests. At the end of the 12^th century, the city of Toulouse was one of the largest in Europe, with only Venice and Rome being bigger.  It was a centre for the poetry of the troubadours, courtly love, commerce and was also very welcoming and tolerant of different cultures and religions.

So what type of person was this pre-eminent nobleman of the Languedoc? In contrast to some of the other nobles of the region, who liked nothing better than waging war, besieging castles and raiding monasteries, Raymond VI preferred using diplomacy to secure his estates and further the interests of his dynasty.  He was a cultured man and a poet, but he also enjoyed a reputation as a lecher. In this he seems to have been a chip off the old block, as he spent much of his early career stealing his father’s mistresses. His own mother, Constance, fled back to the court of her brother the King of France after Raymond’s father allegedly mistreated her and had her marriage annulled.

This was another pattern that Raymond would repeat, as he was also  to enjoy many marital adventures, marrying at least five times, and maybe even six.  His first wife was Ermessende, Countess of Melgueil, who died after only a few years of marriage in 1176. Raymond VI then married Beatrice of Béziers, a strategic match as she was a sister of Roger II Trencavel, another powerful Languedoc nobleman. They had one daughter Constance of Toulouse, who grew up to marry King Sancho VII of Navarre.  The couple divorced in 1189, with Beatrice apparently choosing to become a Cathar Perfect.

His next marriage to Bourgogne, a daughter of King Amalric II of Jerusalem, also ended in divorce in 1194. Then in 1197 he won the hand of Joan of England, who was a sister of Richard the Lionheart and the infamous King John. Joan was so impressed with her marriage she ran away from Raymond in 1199 to become a nun.  The poor lady died in childbirth shortly after, providing Raymond with his only male heir, the future Count Raymond VII of Toulouse (1197-1249). It is believed he then married a daughter of Isaac Comnenus of Cyprus, or at least had a relationship with her. The last of his wives was Leonor, a daughter of King Alfonso II of Aragon and Sancha of Castile. It would seem that being an ideal husband was not one of Raymond’s strengths.

It would seem that in the early days Raymond VI of Toulouse enjoyed a near perfect life as a medieval nobleman; he was wealthy, powerful and knew how to enjoy himself. However, there were clouds gathering on the horizon, and his nemesis would prove to be none other than the Catholic Church.  Unfortunately the Vatican would come to regard Raymond VI to be almost as big a menace as the Cathar heretics he refused to persecute.  For Raymond VI was to find himself truly stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place and was destined to turn excommunication into an unfortunate career choice.

For in the lands of Count Raymond of Toulouse, there flourished a heresy that was anathema to the Church of Rome. This heresy was Catharism, a form of Christianity that believed the world and our material life was inherently evil and the god they worshipped was a purely spiritual being that only dwelt in the heavenly realms. As the Catholic Church was an earthly institution, the Cathars regarded it with the same suspicion they held any other material entity. Although outwardly a good Catholic, Raymond was very supportive of the Cathar cause.  Many of his own family and friends were Cathars, as were many of his retinue and vassals.  He also appointed Jews to official positions in his administration, in direct contrast to the lot of Jewish population in most of the rest of Christian Europe.

When Innocent III became pope in 1198, one of his first acts was to pardon Raymond VII, who had been excommunicated for his somewhat irregular dealings with the Saint Gilles monastery. However, Innocent III was expecting substantial rewards for this act of clemency, and that reward was for Raymond VI to start showing some real zeal for ridding his lands of the stains of Cathar heresy and also to rein in his noble’s enthusiasm for appropriating Church property and murdering priests.

The local churchmen, however, were themselves a problem and Raymond VI was a great friend of one its most degenerate members, Raymond of Rabastens, the bishop of Toulouse. This enterprising clergyman had managed to bankrupt his diocese by paying mercenary troops to wage war against his own flock, which did nothing to endear him to his superior in Rome and did nothing to boost Raymond’s reputation either.

Events began coming to a head in 1207. The petty nobility of the Languedoc, who were vassals of Raymond, were busy fighting amongst themselves and employing mercenaries to do so. They were also in conflict with their liege lord, Raymond.  A papal legate, one Peter of Castelnau, travelled among these nobles exhorting them to drop their private wars and turn their energies towards persecuting the Cathars instead.  They agreed to this demand, but Raymond refused. He had no stomach for persecuting his own people and moreover, needed the paid mercenaries to achieve his territorial ambitions.

His punishment was to be excommunicated once again, which office the papal legate Peter of Castelnau performed in front of a large crowd, publicly humiliating Raymond. Unfortunately, being excommunicated meant that, in theory, Raymond VI was now once more beyond the pale and that his nobles and followers were no longer under any obligation to their liege lord.  To get out of this bind, Raymond made the promise he would rid his lands of both Cathar heretics and mercenaries, which led to him being restored to favour in August 1207.

However, it soon became apparent to the Pope that Raymond had no intention of fulfilling either promise and a list of his offences against the Church was drawn up. This extensive list of misdeeds included stealing Church property, being a Cathar sympathiser, allowing Jews to hold public office and not showing senior clergymen their due respect. He was once more excommunicated, so he invited the papal legate Peter of Castelnau to spend some time at his estates in Saint Gilles so he could renegotiate his position.

These negotiations, predictably, did not go well and culminated in Raymond threatening his papal guest in front of witnesses. Peter de Castelnau left in high dudgeon, but unfortunately for Raymond, disaster struck when he was murdered on the road by an unknown assailant. The identity of the murderer was never discovered, but it more than suited the Church to make Raymond VI responsible for this crime, although he was never tried for it. 

The murder was the spark Pope Innocent III needed to spur the monarchs and nobility of northern Europe into action.  In 1209 a Crusade was amassed to march south on the Languedoc and, although Raymond VI protested his innocence, he had to voluntarily subject himself to a public whipping in the square at St Gilles in order to have his excommunication revoked. He was also ordered to get on with eliminating the Cathars, purge his retinue of Jews, renounce any of his rights to the monasteries on his land, and make an apology to any clergymen that he had upset.

In order to protect his estates, Raymond VI reluctantly gathered together a fighting force and joined the Crusade; his logic being that if he was with the advancing army they would give his lands a wide berth. To say this move did not go down well with the other large landowners of the Languedoc, such as the Trencavels, was an understatement as it meant the Crusade would inevitably concentrate their efforts on their lands instead.

The towns of the Languedoc were besieged and fell one by one. First Béziers was sacked and the inhabitants were massacred and then Carcassonne was taken by trickery.  At the end of the campaigning season the ruthless northern baron, Simon de Montfort was named the new Viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne.  Raymond VI returned to Toulouse, where he still refused to persecute the heretics and also gave sanctuary to Cathars fleeing from the lands of Simon de Montfort, who was zealous in upholding his Catholic duty when it came to matters like heresy. Rather predictably, this led to Raymond once more being excommunicated in 1209. To make matters even worse, the civic government of Toulouse was also excommunicated and the city placed under interdict, so no religious sacraments could be carried out.

Raymond and his advisors travelled to Rome to plead their case directly with Pope Innocent III, who partially restored Raymond back to ecclesiastical favour and ordered a tribunal to be set up to investigate. The tribunal had been ordered by the pope so that Raymond VI would have a chance to exonerate himself, but the papal legate Arnold Amaury had no intentions of letting Raymond off the hook lightly or with any dignity. He spoke first at the tribunal, and put forward a defence that Raymond should not be allowed to speak, as he had been proven to be a liar and a perjurer. Raymond was not given the chance to defend himself and was punished by having his excommunication indefinitely extended. 

To support Raymond VI, who was his vassal, King Pedro II of Aragon totally bypassed the rightful Trencavel heir and recognised Simon de Montfort as his vassal in his place. The implicit deal was that by making this conciliatory gesture, the papal legates should return the favour by restoring Raymond to his lands and the full favour of the Catholic Church.  However, Arnold Amaury the papal legate, was not prepared to play the game and handed Raymond VI a document containing terms that left him and King Pedro literally stunned.

The legate demanded that all of Raymond’s property and possessions were forfeit to the Crusaders, that Raymond was to demolish all of his castles and strongholds, that Raymond and his subjects could only partake of one meal containing meat a week and that they all had to dress in rough, brown robes. And the real sting in the tail was that Raymond was to take himself off to Palestine and remain there until the Church allowed him to return.  Not surprisingly these terms were not acceptable to Raymond VI and he rode back to his estates, never to join the Crusade again.  Equally not surprising was the fact that Raymond was excommunicated again.

Seal of Raymond VI of Toulouse

During the campaigning seasons of 1211 and 1212, Simon de Montfort and his force of Crusaders rampaged through the lands around Toulouse burning, destroying and massacring. Eventually in 1215 Simon de Montfort besieged the city of Toulouse itself, which led to Raymond VI having to accept the insulting conditions laid out by the papal legates.  He had his lands taken off him and he had to flee to the sanctuary of the court of his former brother-in-law, King John of England. However, such was the depth of papal spite against the beleaguered Count of Toulouse that the Pope threatened King John with excommunication if he continued to harbour him, so Raymond was soon sent packing from the English court.

Raymond decided to once more plead his case directly to Pope Innocent III and went to Rome to attend the Fourth Lateran Council accompanied by Raymond Roger of Foix. The Pope initially was sympathetic to Raymond’s pleas and he started to believe there might be a positive outcome. But the usual behind scenes politics took place and the outcome was that Raymond was forced to hand over his lands and possessions to Simon de Montfort. The only consolation he was given was that he retained the titles of Marquis of Provence and Beaucaire for his son and heir.

Once more an exile, Raymond VI sought sanctuary at the court of Aragon where he amassed an army and retook his city of Toulouse in 1217. Simon de Montfort and the Crusaders besieged the city in 1218 in an attempt to gain it back, but the mighty warrior that was Simon de Montfort was killed in June of that year. A major thorn in Raymond’s side was now gone and de Montfort’s son Amaury was not the fighting machine his father had been. 

So by the time of Raymond’s death in 1222, he managed to retake most of his lands.  However, because his last excommunication had never been lifted, he had had to abdicate in favour of his son before his death or his estates would have been forfeited.  The final indignity of Raymond VI’s life was that because of his excommunication at the time of his death he was denied a Catholic burial – a truly Christian act!

‘May you live in interesting times’ is a Chinese curse, and Count Raymond VI of Toulouse certainly enjoyed some very interesting times in his life. As the Catholic Church saw it, he had brought it all on himself because he refused to light the bonfires for the Cather heretics to roast on across his domains.  But although Raymond VI had to duck and dive at times and make promises he had no intentions of keeping, surely this was more honourable than persecuting his own family, friends and vassals for their religious beliefs?

Raymond VI may have been a lecher, paid mercenaries to do his dirty work and was happy to help himself to Church property, but he was also a tolerant man who refused to bow to any pressure to persecute heretics, even if this put him beyond the favour of the established Catholic Church for eternity.

Image Raymond VI of Toulouse Wikimedia Commons Public Domain