Memorial to the slaughter of the Cathars at MontsegurIn memory of the Cathars of Montsegur
who were murdered for opposing evil,
tyranny and hypocrisy
It's 1206, the High Middle Ages.
The place: Languedoc, in what is now Southern France. At this time however, Languedoc is not under the authority of the French king but is under the control of various nobles. It is an area of high culture, a melting pot of travellers from other places and their ideas. The troubadours and their tales of courtly love originated from here.
The various independent nobles who occupy this region are very resistant to interference from the nobles of Northern France under the French king, and just as resistant to interference from the Pope. There is good reason for this: in Languedoc, the majority religion is no longer Catholicism. The Cathars, a Christian sect with dualist and gnostic tendencies, are rapidly gaining popularity in the face of Church hypocrisy and corruption.
The Cathar elite, the Perfecti, did not believe in violence, not even to animals. They didn't eat meat. They did not believe in war or capital punishment. They didn't believe in hell or purgatory. They did believe in reincarnation. They believed in the equality of the sexes. For every one of the Perfecti, there were dozens of lay people who looked up to them, but who did not have to live to as high a standard.
To the Catholic Church, it is no exaggeration to say that these were the most dangerous men (and women) alive. The Cathars were not only a heresy, they were a heresy supported by the local nobles. They were not only a heresy, they were spreading rapidly. They were the largest heretical sect since the first centuries of the modern era. The Church called them by some of the names of their old enemies: Paulicians, gnostics, Manichaeans, Bogomils, Albigensians.
When Pope Innocent III (highly ironic name, that) ascended to the throne of St. Peter, he was determined to rein in this heresy. At first, he took the path of peaceful conversion. He sent priests into the Languedoc to debate the Cathars and try to bring them back to Rome. Some independent monks tried to do the same thing, such as St. Dominic. What all of them say, is that the Cathars were highly resistant to being converted. One cleric appeared before the Cathars, dressed in all his wealth and finery, and started preaching to them. Whereupon they laughed him to derision, telling him that he needed to either "give up his wealth or give up his sermon." This was in an era when the wealth of priests and monks could be conspicuous, and when they made crucifixes of Jesus on the cross with a money bag at his hip, symbolizing that it was okay for clerics to handle large sums of money. Monasteries at this time were like major multinational banking corporations today: repositories for vast amounts of capital.
The Pope responded to this failure by removing the local bishops or stripping them of some of their authority. The local bishops were tolerant of the Cathars and intolerant of papal interference. The Pope sent papal legates to act directly for him. One such legate, Pierre de Castelnau, tried to bully the powerful Raymond IV of Toulouse into cooperating by threatening excommunication and even military intervention. Raymond sent him packing and was excommunicated, and the next day Castelnau was murdered, presumably by Raymond's men.
Thus begins the 20-year-long Albigensian Crusade, a crusade not against foreigners but of Christians killing other people who also called themselves Christians.
The Pope, who was not able to raise an army just for the "glory of God", wound up appealing to rather baser motivations. He told the nobles in Northern France that they could seize the properties of the nobles in Southern France if they were willing to fight in this crusade. Of course, nothing appeals to a nobleman like stealing property.
In 1209, the "crusaders" took the city of Beziers, utterly annihilating its population. The estimates of the dead vary between 15 and 60 thousand.
The city of Carcassonne fell without much of a fight, and the crusaders magnanimously allowed the population to leave.... wearing their underwear only. All their property was seized.
Several towns after this fell without a fight.
In June 1210, the heavily fortified town of Minerve fell. Everyone was given the opportunity to recant, but 140 persons refused and were burned alive.
After a universally successful first year for the Pope, the crusade stumbled a bit but the native population didn't do a whole lot better. Pope Innocent (lol) died, and the crusaders were briefly in disarray.
Finally the King of France, who had been more or less sitting on the fence this whole time, got involved. He raised a tax and raised an army to go conquer the Languedoc and defeat the Cathars. One by one, the fortresses fell. Finally the crusaders turned to the remote and well-defended stronghold of Montsegur. After a siege of 9 months, Montsegur surrendered. Approximately 220 Cathars refused offers to convert and were burned alive. There were so many of them, they had to build an enclosure, stack firewood in it, put the Cathars in it and burn them all at once. The Cathars were gone. Wiped out. Exterminated. The last recorded Cathar in the Languedoc was Guillaume Bélibaste, who was executed in 1321
People who believed in peace, were systematically exterminated by a Catholic Church which believed in war, by way of mercenaries which believed in money. It must have seemed like the devil himself was waging war on them.
Which probably wasn't that far wrong.
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