The Historians' History of the World 08

The doctrine of extermination was preached by all the organs of the pope: and the duke of Burgundy, the counts of Nevers, Auxerre, Geneva, the bishops of Rheims, Sens, Rouen, Autun, with many Germans and inhabitants of Lorraine, massed forces, and set out on the crusade. Three armies made irruption into the south of France, headed by Simon de Montfort, a feudal lord of the environs of Paris, ambitious, fanatical, and cruel. The count of Toulouse was not immediately attacked, the pope hoping to weaken his resistance by appearing ready to extend a pardon, and hostilities were all directed against the viscount of Béziers. When the latter’s town was taken, the victors, not being able to distinguish the heretics, hesitated whom to strike. “Kill all,” said the legate, “God will easily recognise his own.” Thirty thousand are said to have perished. Carcassonne also succumbed, and the knights of the Ile de France divided up the country under Simon de Montfort, who was made suzerain over all.

Raymond hoped to be spared, now that so sanguinary a sacrifice had been offered up on the altar of orthodoxy, and Innocent himself was inclined to clemency, but the legates were without pity; they would extend mercy to the count only on condition that he should cause all his subjects to don the garb of penitents, degrade his nobles to the state of villeins, discharge his hired troops, raze his castles to the ground, and himself start on a crusade.

The count laughed at these proposals, and again the legates gave the signal for attack. There flocked to the banner of Simon de Montfort a multitude from the north, rejoicing that the highly profitable campaign in the south was not yet at an end. Raymond VI was vanquished at Castelnaudry, and the victors divided up his domains among themselves: to the prelates fell the bishoprics, and to the soldiers the fiefs. The defeated noble had no resource but to seek the protection of Pedro II, king of Aragon, who at once advanced to the rescue, and was joined by all the petty nobles of the Pyrenees, being looked upon by them as their chief.

The battle of Muret, in which the king perished, decided the fate of the south of France (1213). Two years afterward the Council of Lateran ratified the dispossession of Raymond and of most of the other nobles; the legates of the holy see offered their fiefs to the powerful barons who had participated in the crusade; but all save Simon de Montfort refused to accept gifts bought at the price of so much bloodshed. A harsh measure was passed, forbidding widows of heretics who possessed noble fiefs to marry any but Frenchmen during the next ten years. In the grasp of hands so ruthless the civilisation of southern France perished, and all gaiety and poesy disappeared. Innocent III, meanwhile, began to be troubled, fearing to have committed a great iniquity. “Give me back my lands,” the count de Foix said to him, “or I shall claim all of you—property, rights, and heritage, on the Day of Judgment.” “I acknowledge,” answered the pope, “that great wrong has been done you; but it was not done by my order, and I owe no thanks to those who are responsible.”

In their extremity the people of Languedoc bethought themselves of the king of France. Montpellier gave itself up to him, and Philip Augustus sent his son Louis to plant the national standard in the south of France. Louis returned thither at the death of Simon de Montfort, who was killed before Toulouse—whither Raymond VII, son of the old count, had also returned; and Montfort’s successor, Amaury, offered to cede to the king his father’s conquered possessions, which he could no longer defend against the reprobation of the people. Philip, at that time on the brink of the grave, refused the offer, but five years later it was accepted.

WESTERN ASSAULTS ON THE ARABS

[732-1096 A.D.]

Before, during, and after the great Crusades which had the Orient for their scene of action and all the peoples of Europe for their personages, there was being carried on in the West another and smaller undertaking of a similar nature, which won nothing like the renown attending the greater expeditions, but which displayed a tenacity of purpose that kept it in operation during at least eight centuries. When Charles Martel and Pepin le Bref expelled the Arabs from France they simply drove them to the other side of the Pyrenees, seeming to look upon that strong mountain barrier as the confine of Europe and Christianity. Spain was a country to be sacrificed, to be delivered over with Africa to the Moslem races by which it had been invaded. Spain had been Christian, however, before the invasion, and the mass of the people remained so after, by no means all having been subjected. Outside the conquered districts there remained a point where the sacred thought of independence could find safe harbour, and this point was gradually to expand until it formed the nucleus of a new Christian domination.