to those, who combated the infidels in the holy land. At the same time, he addressed similar letters to the duke of Burgundy, to the counts of Bar, of Nevers, and of Dreux; to the countesses of Troie, of Vermandois, and of Blois; and to all the counts, barons, knights, and faithful, of the kingdom of France. Before, however, these letters had produced any effect, a bloody catastrophe redoubled the rage of the pope and the bigots, and kindled the sacred war.

Count Raymond, when he signed the peace with his enemies, had engaged to exterminate the heretics from his states; but Peter de Castelnau very soon judged, that he did not proceed in the work with adequate zeal. He went to seek him, reproached him to his face with his indulgence, which he termed baseness, treated him as perjured, as a favorer of heretics, and a tyrant, and again excommunicated him. This violent scene appears to have taken place at St. Gilles, where count Raymond had given a meeting to the two legates.

1208. This lord, exceedingly provoked, threatened to make Castelnau pay for his insolence with his life. The two legates, disregarding this threat, quitted the court of Raymond without a reconciliation, and came to sleep, on the night of the 14th of January, 1208, in a little inn by the side of the

2 Innocentii III Epistolæ, lib. x, ep. cxlix.

Rhone, which river they intended to pass the next day. One of the count's gentlemen happened to meet them there, or perhaps had followed them. On the morning of the 15th, after mass, this gentleman entered into a dispute with Peter de Castelnau, respecting heresy and its punishment. The legate had never spared the most insulting epithets to the advocates of tolerance, the gentleman already irritated by the quarrel with his lord, and now feeling himself personally offended, drew his poignard, struck the legate in the side, and killed him. The intelligence of this murder excited Innocent III to the greatest excess of wrath. Raymond VI had by no means so direct a part in the death of Castelnau, whom the church regarded as a martyr, as had Henry II in the death of Thomas à Becket. But Innocent III was more haughty and implacable, than Alexander III had been. He immediately published a bull, addressed to all the counts, barons, and knights of the four provinces of the Southern Gaul, in which he declared that it was the devil who had instigated his principal minister, Raymond, count of Toulouse, against the legate of the holy see. He laid under an interdict, all the places which should afford a refuge to the murderers of Castelnau; he demanded that Raymond of Toulouse should be

3 Petri Vallis Cern. cap. viii, p. 563. Historia de los grans faicts d'armas et guerras de Tolosa, p. iii. This is a Languedocian chronicle inserted amongst the proofs of the third volume of the history of Languedoc.Chronol. Roberti Altissiodorensis, tom. xviii, p. 275.

publicly anathematised in all the churches; "and as," added he, "following the canonical sanctions of the holy fathers, we must not observe faith towards those who keep not faith towards God, or who are separated from the communion of the faithful, we discharge, by apostolic authority, all those who believe themselves bound towards this count, by any oath either of alliance or of fidelity; we permit every catholic man, saving the right of his principal lord, to pursue his person, to occupy and retain his territories, especially for the purpose of exterminating heresy."

This first bull was speedily followed by other letters equally fulminating, from Innocent III to all who were capable of assisting in the destruction of the count of Toulouse. He addressed Philip Augustus, exhorting him to carry on in person this sacred war of extermination against heretics, (who are, said he, far worse than the Saracens,) and to strip the count of Toulouse of all his possessions. He wrote, at the same time to the archbishops of Lyons and Tours, to the bishops of Paris and Nevers, and to the abbot of Citeaux, to engage their concurrence in this holy enterprise.5

Galono, cardinal deacon of Saint Mary dello Portico, whom the pope sent with these letters to France, does not appear to have obtained much credit with King Philip, who was, at that time,

4 Petri Vallis Cern. cap. viii, p. 564.

5 Innocentii 111, Epist. lib. xi, Ep. 27, 28. 30. 32, &c.

more occupied by his rivalry with the King of England, and with Otho of Germany, than with heresy. But the monks of Citeaux, who had, at the same time, received powers from Rome, to preach the crusade amongst the people, gave themselves to the work with an ardour which had not been equalled even by the hermit Peter, or Foulques de Neuilly. Innocent III, impelled by hatred, had offered to those who should take the cross against the Provençals, the utmost extent of indulgence which his predecessors had ever granted to those who laboured for the deliverance of the holy land. As soon as these new Crusaders had assumed the sacred sign of the cross, (which, to distinguish themselves from those of the East, they wore on the breast instead of the shoulders,) they were instantly placed under the protection of the holy see, freed from the payment of the interest of their debts, and exempted from the jurisdiction of all the tribunals; whilst the war which they were invited to carry on, at their doors, almost without danger or expense, was to expiate all the vices and crimes of a whole life. The belief in the power of these indulgencies, which we can scarcely comprehend, was not yet abated; the barons of France never doubted, that, whilst fighting in the holy land they had the assurance of paradise. But those distant expeditions had

6 Lettre de Philippe Auguste à Raymond, dans les preuves de l'Histoire de Languedoc, tom. iii, p. 210.

been attended with so many disasters; so many hundreds of thousands had perished in Asia, or by the way, from hunger, or misery, or sickness, that others wanted courage to follow them. It was then, with transports of joy, that the faithful received the new pardons which were offered them, and so much the more, that far from regarding the return they were called upon to make, as painful or dangerous, they would willingly have undertaken it for the pleasure alone of doing it. War was their passion, and pity for the vanquished had never troubled their pleasure. The discipline of the holy wars was much less severe than that of the political, whilst the fruits of victory were much more alluring. In them, they might, without remorse, as well as without restraint from their officers, pillage all the property, massacre all the men, and violate the women and children. The crusaders to the East well knew that the distance was so great, as to give them little chance of bringing home the booty which they had gained by their swords; but instead of riches, which the faithful were to seek at a distance, and tear from barbarians, of whose language they were ignorant, they were offered the harvest of a neighbouring field, the spoil of a house which they might carry to their own, and captives, abandoned to their desires, who spoke the same language with themselves. Never therefore had the cross been taken up with a more unanimous consent. The first to