5

sometimes they were out of patience with their antagonists, for being so unskilful. But when the missionaries had embarrassed their adversaries, or had vanquished them according to all the scholastic rules, then they said to the inhabitants of the places where they had found them, "Why do you not drive them out? Why do you not exterminate them?"-"We cannot," they replied to the bishop of Ozma; "we have been brought up with them, we have relations amongst them, and we see the goodness of their lives.-"Thus," says a contemporary writer, "does the spirit of falsehood, only by the appearance of a pure and spotless life, lead away these inconsiderate people from the truth."

Another cause, it is true, abated the persecution. The inquisitors had, by their arrogance, offended all classes of society, and had raised up against themselves à cloud of enemies. Some bishops they accused of simony, others of negli

5 In a dispute between the bishop of Ozma and some heretics of Verfeuil, he asked them how they should understand the name Son of Man, which Jesus always gives himself in St. John, and in particular this passage of St. John iii, 13. “Also no one hath ascended up into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven." They answered, that Jesus acknowledged himself as the son of a man who was in heaven "But," rejoined the bishop, "the Lord has said in Isaiah, 'the heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.' The legs of that man who is in the heaven must then be as long as the distance which separates the heavens from the earth." "Without doubt," they replied. "The good God curse you," said the holy bishop, "stupid heretics as you are. I thought you had more subtilty than that." Chronica magistri Guillelmi de Podio Laurentii, cap. viii. Duchesne Scr. Franc. tom. v, p. 672.

6 Guillelmi de Podio Laurentii, cap. viii, p. 672.

gence in the fulfilment of their duties; and under such pretences deposed the archbishop of Narbonne, and the bishops of Toulouse and Viviers. They offended also all the regular clergy; and at the same time tormented the count of Toulouse, and all the lords of the country, by accusations continually renewed. Thus they deprived themselves of the means of kindling so many fires as they could have desired. To gain a little popularity, therefore, they took great pains to confound the heretics with the routiers, or hireling soldiers. The companies of these, generally composed, in a great measure, of strangers, were still known, in the South, by the name of bands of Catalans, as they were, in the North, by that of Brabançons. The routiers were lawless banditti; they pillaged the churches and the priests, but had, in truth, no connexion with the heretics, and took no interest in doctrinal questions and controversies. They, however, were offended with the preachings directed against them, and in their turn avenged themselves against the missionaries and inquisitors."

The count of Toulouse, Raymond VI, who had cultivated the friendship of the routiers, and who had employed their arms in his frequent wars, shared also their resentments. We know but imperfectly the history of the count of Toulouse before the crusade. Raymond VI, who succeeded

7 Hist. Gen. de Languedoc, liv. xxi, p. 138. Guillelmi de Podio Laurentii, cap. vi, p. 670.

to his father, Raymond V, in 1124, at the age of thirty-eight, had already, at the head of these routiers, of whom he had made himself captain, made war against many of his neighbours. He had disputed with the barons of Baux, and with many of the lords of Languedoc and Provence, as well as with some of his own vassals; and this was apparently the reason of his seeking the alliance of Peter II, king of Aragon, whilst his father and his ancestors had, on the contrary, endeavoured to repress the ambition of that house. Raymond VI married his fourth wife, Eleanor, sister of Peter II, about the year 1200; and in 1205 he promised his son, afterwards Raymond VII, to Sancha, daughter of the same king, who was but just born.

Raymond VI was, in the spring of 1207, upon the borders of the Rhone, occupied with the war which he was carrying on against the barons of Baux, and other lords of those countries, when the legate, Peter of Castelnau, undertook to make peace between them. He first made application to the barons, and obtained their promise, that if Raymond VI would acquiesce in their pretensions, they would employ all their assembled forces in the extermination of the heretics. After having agreed with them upon the form of a treaty, the legate returned to the count of Toulouse, and required him to sign it. Raymond VI was nowise inclined to purchase, by the renunciation

of his rights, the entrance into his states of a hostile army, who were to pillage or kill all those of his vassals whom the priests should indicate. He therefore refused his consent, and Peter of Castelnau, in his wrath, excommunicated him, laid his country under an interdict, and wrote to the pope, to obtain the confirmation of the sentence.R

Audacious as was the conduct of his legate, Innocent III was determined to support him. He appears to have sought for an opportunity to commence hostilities; being well persuaded, that after the progress which had been made in the public opinion, the executioners were not sufficient to destroy heresy, but that the whole people must be exposed to the sword of the military. To confirm the sentence of excommunication pronounced by his legate, he wrote himself to count Raymond, on the 29th of May, 1207, and his letter began with these words: "If we could open your heart, we should find, and would point out to you, the detestable abominations that you have committed; but as it is harder than the rock, it is in vain to strike it with the words of salvation: we cannot penetrate it. Pestilential man! what pride has seized your heart, and what is your folly, to refuse peace with your neighbours, and to brave the divine laws by protecting the enemies of the faith? If you do not fear eternal flames, ought you

8 Petri Vallis Cernai Hist. Albigens, cap. iii, p. 559. Innocentii III, lib. x. ep. Ixix.―Histoire de Languedoc, liv. xxi, ch. xxvii, p. 146.

C

not to dread the temporal chastisements which you have merited by so many crimes?. . . . . ."9

So insulting a letter, addressed to a sovereign, must have revolted his pride; nevertheless, the monk, Peter de Vaux Cernay, tells us," the wars which the nobles of Provence carried on against him, through the industry of that man of God, Peter de Castelnau, and the excommunication which he published in every place against the count, compelled him, at last, to accept the same conditions of peace, and to engage himself by oath to their observance; but as often as he swore to observe them, so many times he perjured himself."1

Neither Peter de Castelnau, nor the pope, knew any other means of conversion than war, murder, and fire. In this same year, 1207, Innocent III thought, for the first time, of preaching a crusade against the sectaries; and since the princes of the country appeared too slow in exterminating them, he projected the calling in of strangers to accomplish this work. On the 17th of November, he wrote to Philip Augustus, exhorting him to declare war against the heretics, the enemies of God and the church; and promising him, in reward, in this life the confiscation of all their goods, and in the other, the same indulgences as were granted

9 Innocentii III, lib. x, ep. Ixix.—Hist. Gén. de Languedoc, liv. xxi, ch. xxxiii, p. 150.

1 Petri Vallis Cernai Hist. Albig. liv. iii, p. 159.