Chapter IV: The Albigensian Crusade—the Early War (2)

At Narbonne there were present not only the legates, de Montfort and Raymond, but also Count Raymond Roger of Foix, and his suzerain the King of Aragon. Here Arnaut Amalric changed his tone and enlarged on the material wealth which would accrue to the Count of Toulouse should he participate in suppressing heresy—the houses and lands of the convicted would be his according to the law and custom of the time, and also a fourth or even a third of the captured castles whose owners had favoured heresy. Still Raymond refused. At the instance of King Pedro, the council next took up the case of the Count of Foix, who was anxious to recover his second best stronghold at Pamiers and others of his castles from garrisons which held them for de Montfort. After Raymond Roger, that inveterate favorer of heresy, had refused an offer of the return of everything that had been taken from him except Pamiers, on condition that he swear to obey the Church and cease resisting de Montfort, the King of Aragon went over the head of his vassal, promised to garrison Foix with his own troops and turn the place over to the Crusaders should its owner turn against them.

Pedro’s anxiety was natural. The Count of Foix was one of his most important northern vassals. The road running from the north-west over the Puymorens to the pass of the Cerdagne went by way of Pamiers, Foix, and the upper Ariege. The Cerdagne was the one broad and easy inland pass across the Eastern Pyrenees. By the Cerdagne also ran the shortest line of communication between the centre of Pedro’s power in the kingdom of Aragon on the one hand, and his outlying personal domains, i.e., the Roussillon and the lands of his northern vassals, on the other. Obviously, since the chances of an open break with the Crusade must have been ever present with him, he had no mind to see the north-western approach to so important a pass in de Montfort’s hands.

The Pope had been pressing the Aragonese to come out strongly for the Crusade. When at last Pedro obeyed he did so with a Spanish thoroughness, accepting de Montfort’s long refused homage for Beziers and Carcassonne, offering to marry his son Jaime, the heir of Aragon, with de Montfort’s daughter, and even handing over the young prince into de Montfort’s power as a sort of hostage. Probably the King, like Count Raymond two years before, thought that the best way of keeping the Crusade within bounds was to go along with it. That it was his real intention to continue playing a double game he presently proved by marrying his sister to the often widowed Count of Toulouse.

At Montpellier and Arles the same parties in interest, minus the Court of Foix, were present. For Raymond the conditions offered were hard: razing of his castles, unlimiting billeting rights throughout his lands for crusading soldiers, and, for himself, pilgrimage to the Holy Land “as long as the legates shall wish to prolong his penitence.” King Pedro took the matter calmly, remarking merely that the conditions needed amendment at the hand of the Pope himself. Count Raymond again broke off negotiations, and rallied his vassals to him by publishing far and wide the harsh conditions offered. This time the legates re-excommunicated him. Gradually, in spite of himself he was being forced into a position of open hostility.

Innocent sustained Arnaut Amalric and in April confirmed the renewed excommunication of Raymond. Still the latter failed to break completely with the Crusade.

Perhaps it was the Pope’s stronger line that had bettered recruiting for the Crusade in 1211 as compared with 1210. At any rate, as the campaigning season of that year came round, de Montfort found himself in a position to act with considerable vigor. The hitherto impregnable castle of Cabaret capitulated to him without waiting to be attacked, putting him at last in complete possession of his viscounty. He moved first to besiege Lavaur. Its capture would improve his communications with his northern base at Albi, and correspondingly threaten communications between Toulouse and Castres. He besieged it with his usual energy, and on their side the besieged resisted desperately, under the leadership of the lady of the place, an elderly “Perfect” of scandalous life, so said the orthodox. Early in the siege, Raymond visited de Montfort in camp, although he had previously sent some of his knights to help garrison the place. Accordingly he was upbraided for double dealing by certain northern barons, temporarily crusading, who were his near kinsmen. Soon afterwards, he had words with Bishop Fulk, who defied him and marched off to the siege of Lavaur with many of his Toulousain Catholic brotherhood at his back. Nevertheless, all this time, the Count allowed supplies to be sent to the Crusaders from Toulouse. Even when a body of German Crusaders, marching to take part in the siege, without proper precautions for security, was successfully ambushed and cut to pieces by the Count of Foix, who thereby broke the oath which King Pedro had sworn in his name, still Raymond held aloof. At last, the place was taken by assault, and the capture celebrated with the usual wholesale hangings, beheadings and burnings.

The notorious elderly chatelaine had the distinction of being thrown into a well which was then filled up with stones. She was pregnant as a result of incest, so she is reported to have said herself, with her brother and her own son. St. Dominic was present at the siege and with the other clergy sang the “Veni Creator” during the final assault, but what part, if any, he took in the genial goings on which followed the capture is not recorded.

Having consolidated his positions towards the north by the capture of Lavaur, de Montfort made the bold decision to attack Toulouse itself.

A first-class city was nearly always too hard a nut for any mediæval army to crack. In this case there were grounds for expecting dissension within the walls, inasmuch as a bastard brother of Raymond’s had recently deserted to de Montfort, and Bishop Fulk’s Toulousain brotherhood had shown zeal at Lavaur. Therefore de Montfort’s permanent forces, amply reinforced with temporary Crusaders, moved against Toulouse with high hopes.

Nevertheless, the siege failed, constituting the first serious military check to the Crusade. The practically independent mediæval commune bred an intense local patriotism of which to-day our large nations have only the shadow. The citizens resisted as one man, Catholic confraternity and all. Fulk himself had not returned to his episcopal seat after the siege of Lavaur, having quarrelled with Raymond. Even Raymond, who with his vassal the Count of Comminges was in the place, now, when driven to the wall, showed a flash of spirit. By an irony typically mediæval, the favourer and patron of heretics was ardently engaged in building the new nave of the Cathedral, and forced the workmen to stick to their task in spite of stray missiles, for the building was near the walls. Such was the spirit and energy of the besieged that they not only kept their gates open for sorties but opened new sally ports by knocking breaches in their own walls. From the beginning, there must have been little chance of success if no factions arose within the place. De Montfort stuck to it for three weeks and then, seeing that the besieged held firm, raised the siege.

During this siege, a ceremony of some political importance was gone through. In full sight of the besieged, the Bishop of Cahors renounced allegiance to Raymond and did homage to de Montfort in the name of his city and its neighbourhood. On the charter attesting this act, last on the list of nobles and clergy stands the signature of “Brother Dominic, Preacher.”

The next move of the Crusaders was to ravage the county of Foix. No doubt their thorough devastation of the country round Toulouse had strengthened Raymond politically, by angering the Toulousains. At any rate, the Count now felt himself strong enough to take the offensive, and undertook to besiege Castelnaudary.

De Montfort, from his base at Carcassonne, was just in time to throw himself into the threatened castle. Apparently many Crusaders had gone home, as their aggravating custom was, for the force which he was able immediately to concentrate was far inferior in numbers to Raymond’s troops. Nevertheless the Crusaders were so superior in morale that the Toulousain could not extend his lines so as to blockade the place, but instead spent his time in heavily entrenching his own camp. The Count of Foix, that specialist in laying ambuscades, prepared to trap a reinforcement of Crusaders marching from Lavaur. The reinforcement discovered the ambush too late to refuse battle. They had just time to deploy and charge in the hope of cutting their way through. Hard pressed by numbers, their case was desperate when de Montfort, by a brilliant sortie, created a diversion and enabled them to gain the castle. Even after other bodies of Crusaders from Castres and Cahors had come in, the Toulousains still outnumbered the Crusaders, and matters seemed to be at a standstill. About this time word came that certain castles had gone over to Raymond on the strength of a rumour, spread by the Count of Foix, that de Montfort had been captured, flayed alive and finally hanged. To break the deadlock, the crusading leader decided to go himself to Narbonne and Beziers for reinforcements; whereupon Raymond, on learning that his redoubtable enemy was no longer in his front, mustered up courage to destroy his cherished entrenchments and retire.

On the whole, the third year of the Crusade had been successful, despite the check at Toulouse. Peter of Aragon had not been there to hinder, having gone off to southern Spain to fight the Moors. The European situation had changed little. Emperor Otto had conquered more Italian territory. Toward the end of the year, southern Germany had definitely declared against him, but the rebels were still the weaker party. John of England was still none the worse for being excommunicated to his face by a papal legate. Whether or not Otto and John aided Raymond, is not clear. One of John’s biographers says that it was their aid which enabled him to hold Toulouse against de Montfort, but no reference to John and Otto’s interference at this time appears in the historians of the Crusade itself.

1212 saw de Montfort growing still stronger. His theatre of operations was now to the north-west of Toulouse, where he took La Penne d’Agen and Moissac. At Moissac appeared the first signs of active disunion in any of Raymond’s cities. The inhabitants attacked the garrison which was composed of mercenaries and of Toulousain militia, and delivered the place to de Montfort. On the Garonne, Castelsarrasin, Verdun, Muret, and St. Gaudens opened their gates, while Raymond, now practically reduced to Toulouse itself and Montauban, attempted no counter-stroke. De Montfort, on his side, made no attack upon Toulouse.

Naturally, after so much success, the morale of the Crusaders rose higher and higher. In their enthusiasm they saw miracles, and they fought, massacred, and burned with a touching joy. De Montfort himself was the first to seek danger or hardship. After entering Muret with his knights, he found his infantry unable to ford the flooded Garonne after the horsemen. Mediæval infantry were accustomed to being despised, being recruited from men of low social class and considered of little military value, as we have seen in the opening paragraphs of this chapter. Furthermore, an attack from Toulouse was feared. Nevertheless de Montfort insisted upon recrossing the river to share the dangers and hardships of the “poor in Christ.” His wife, the Countess Alice, was hardly inferior to him in spirit and energy.

His successes were achieved in spite of many difficulties. He was often short of men, many of the Crusaders having to be brought up with a round turn by the legates for trying to make off before serving even their forty-day tour of duty. Money, too, was lacking. Once the commander could not even buy bread for himself, and had to go for a walk at meal times so that his poverty would not be noticed.

De Montfort was statesman as well as soldier. In December 1212, he called together at Pamiers the “three estates,” nobles, clergy, and townsmen, of his new dominions for a sort of constitutional convention. This convention discussed the whole body of North French law, known as the “custom of Paris,” for Languedoc, and ended by voting for its adoption. To the townsmen, the régime stood for order and the suppression of brigandage, a feat which the Counts of Toulouse had never achieved. To the clergy, the “custom of Paris” meant increased privileges and immunities. Of the nobles, most were by this time already committed to de Montfort. All parties concerned had the chance to “save face” by accepting the opportunity to vote freely in favour of the proposed changes. For de Montfort, the parvenu, the convention was a triumph. Clearly the Crusade was turning into a permanent government of Languedoc by the “French.”

With so much success, de Montfort had received but one check during the year. A temporary coolness had sprung up between him and Arnaut Amalric. The redoubtable Cistercian, having been elected Archbishop of Narbonne, wished to be Duke of that city as well. The title was hereditary in Raymond’s family, but by this time he was no longer worth considering in Languedocian politics; the sole contest for the office was between Arnaut Amalric and de Montfort. Angry at being opposed, Arnaut Amalric went off to join Pedro of Aragon and fought under him through the summer of 1212 against the Moors in Spain. Had the energetic legate remained in Languedoc, de Montfort’s great successes of the year might have been even greater. However, the estrangement between the two leaders of the Albigensian Crusade was only temporary. From de Montfort’s point of view, the serious thing about the Spanish campaign was its complete success and the increased prestige of King Pedro which resulted therefrom. Far to the south, at “Las Navas de Toulosa,” about the time that La Penne d’Agen fell to de Montfort, King Pedro helped to break the last great army of the African Moslems that Spain was ever to see. For the Albigensian Crusade to have its chief opponent known as one of the foremost champions of Christendom in Europe was an ominous thing.

All the time the Pope, the mainspring of the enterprise now rapidly outgrowing his original design, had kept clearly in his mind the religious purpose of the Crusade as opposed to its later political development. During the year he had again protected Durand of Huesca, writing letters in behalf of his following of converted heretics turned Catholic missioners to the bishops of France and Italy. By such action Innocent obstinately refused to go over to the extreme party that was for making an end of mildness and mercy even to the repentant sinner. Furthermore, outside Languedoc, in the previous year in the case of a canon of Bar-sur-Aube who feared for his life because of his heretical reputation in his own neighbourhood, he had insisted that the accused be protected from mob violence. The great Pope was a great lawyer and a great gentleman.

Clearly Innocent was not the man to approve lightly of the transformation of the Crusade into a general deposition of the southern nobles, and their replacement by “Frenchmen.” Accordingly, the winter of 1212-13 and the following spring saw the diplomatic crisis of the Crusade. For some months past, the legates had been asking from Rome a sentence of deposition against Raymond and, for de Montfort, a confirmation in all the titles of the deposed. When that news reached Paris, Philip Augustus undertook to read the Pope a lesson in law to the effect that only the suzerain of a fief could dispose of it in case of confiscation. Innocent felt obliged to reply defensively, assuring the king that the legates had strict orders to safeguard the “honor and interests of the realm of France.” Meanwhile, Peter of Aragon, back from his Andalusian triumph over the Mohammedan, displayed great activity; went himself to Toulouse; took the place formally under his protection; and sent an embassy to Rome to plead the cause of the southern lord against de Montfort. Towards the end of 1212 the first fruits of the Aragonese diplomacy appeared in the shape of letters from Innocent to Arnaut Amalric and his co-legate the Bishop of Uzes, and other letters to the Bishop of Riez and Theodisius, whom Innocent over two years before had charged with the reconciliation of the Count of Toulouse. The Pope flatly refused to substitute de Montfort for Raymond, blamed the legates for even proposing to disregard the rights of Raymond’s innocent heir, and disavowed altogether the acts of the councils of St. Gilles, Narbonne, and Montpellier. Finally, he gave strict orders to the Bishop of Riez and Theodisius to arrange for Raymond’s reconciliation forthwith; to lay aside their lukewarmness and sloth, and to write the whole truth and nothing but the truth to Rome henceforward!

Still the Pope felt that he had not done enough. Towards the middle of January, therefore, he began to send out a whole series of letters to Languedoc. Already there had been a good deal of correspondence with de Montfort complaining of the scanty returns of the three deniers hearth tax. Now, on January 15th, 1213, Innocent again reproves the chief of the Crusade, this time for non-observance of his duties as vassal to Pedro of Aragon for his Viscounty of Beziers and Carcassonne. On the same day, another papal letter left Rome addressed to Arnaut Amalric directing him bluntly to cease preaching the Crusade and to come to an understanding with Pedro and with the “counts, barons, and other prudent persons whose assistance shall appear to be needed,” for the pacification of Languedoc in the interest of the Christians of Spain and Palestine threatened by the Moslem. Not content even with this, two more papal bulls, dated the 17th and 18th, repeated the orders to the legates and de Montfort to make an end of the Albigensian Crusade altogether. They repeated the imposing list of charges brought by Pedro and the Toulousains to the effect that Comminges and Bearn, vassal lands of Pedro’s, had been attacked by de Montfort at the very moment when their suzerain was fighting the battles of Christianity at Las Navas. The Pope therefore ordered the crusading leader to restore the lands he had taken from the vassals of Aragon. The charges against Arnaut Amalric, to wit that he had practised “usurpation” in directing the Crusade against Raymond’s lands, were also paraded over the papal signature and seal. Pedro had guaranteed, so Innocent wrote, that Raymond would do penance by crusading in Spain or Syria. The heir of Toulouse was to be the ward of Aragon during his minority, and was to be brought up by him as a good Catholic. These propositions were to be debated at a sort of constituent assembly of Languedoc, in which not only the higher clergy and the nobles but also the city “consuls” and the “bailiffs,” that is the mayors of villages, were to sit. This assembly was to report its findings to Rome, where the Pope would render the final decision.

While going so far in support of the Aragonese policy, Innocent nevertheless made two important reservations. In the first place, he did not take the decisive step of recalling Arnaut Amalric. Although the redoubtable Cistercian’s policy was disavowed, he was still given the job of calling the congress and of bringing the new papal policy into force by taking “suitable measures.” Secondly, the ancient and good tradition of caution in papal diplomacy was followed in that care was taken to state repeatedly that Pedro’s accusations against Arnaut Amalric and de Montfort were, after all, only charges not yet proved. Rome knew very well by long and no doubt often bitter experience how impossible it was to get full and accurate knowledge of affairs at a distance. The slow and fitful communications of the time made infinitely difficult the decisions and operations of a centralized system like the Papacy.

However, it was rare even then that agents on the spot were able so completely to oppose the will of their distant master. Even as the formidable January letters were being written by the scribes of the Lateran, the Council (called in obedience to the Pope’s orders of the previous autumn to proceed with Raymond’s reconciliation) was meeting on the “dark and bloody ground” of Lavaur prepared to go clean counter to the spirit of its instructions. It consisted only of the papal legates and agents, and about twenty Gascon and Languedocian bishops. Raymond feared to put himself in de Montfort’s power by coming. Therefore, in the absence of the accused, and in the teeth of the Pope’s express wish, the Council proceeded to declare that his testimony in his own behalf would have been worthless in any case. Since his return from Rome where, so the Council solemnly held, the Pope had treated him much better than he deserved, he had failed to restore Church property formerly stolen by him, had persecuted bishops and abbots and had not shown the slightest sign of dismissing his bandit-mercenaries or of banishing heretics. Since he had sworn to do all these things, the Council formally held that the oath of such a hardened perjurer was worthless and should not be received, even should he offer to give it. Raymond’s counter proposition, made for him by one of his notaries, that Theodisius and the Bishop of Riez should cause the oath to be administered to him at Toulouse or at some other place not held by de Montfort’s troops, was not even discussed. The decision of the Council, so the commissioners reported to the Pope, forbade its being considered. They ended their written report by turning Innocent’s own phrase against him and solemnly stating that “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” of the matter was contained therein.

Raymond thus disposed of, King Pedro next addressed the Council. He wished to discuss, he said, the restoration of the fiefs of the three Counts of Toulouse, Foix, and of the Viscount of Bearn. Arnaut Amalric demanded written proposals under the royal seal. King Pedro thereupon asked for an armistice while the documents were being drawn up, during which time the Crusaders “were not to do evil” to their opponents. “I will not cease from doing evil,” replied de Montfort, “but for a week I will abstain from doing good, for it is not doing evil to pursue the enemies of Christ. I consider that, on the contrary, a good work.”

As far as promises went, the Aragonese proposals were fulsome enough. All four accused nobles were prepared to give full satisfaction to the Church, and asked only the restoration of their lands. If restoration was refused in Raymond’s case, then at least a guarantee was asked as to the legitimate rights of his son who was to be brought up a good Catholic under the guardianship of King Pedro. Meanwhile, Raymond himself would do penance by crusading in the Holy Land or Spain. For the four nobles, the King of Aragon said he had come to ask mercy rather than justice; more especially as the Crusade in Spain made it more necessary than ever that Christians should not fall out among themselves.

The Council may or may not have known that this programme had already been proposed by Pedro to the Pope. Neither the Council nor Pedro could possibly know that the Pope had already accepted it. In any case it was clear enough that, in case of its acceptance, its value would depend entirely on the King’s willingness to enforce its terms upon the four nobles, with whom he had already shown his sympathy. Besides, every cleric sitting at Lavaur was steeped in the bitterness of a long, fierce, and still doubtful struggle. Therefore, they refused the Aragonese proposals. The Pope, so they truly told the King, had expressly reserved to himself the final decision in the matter of Raymond’s reconciliation with the Church. Therefore, since the excommunicated count refused to appear before them and take the preliminary steps, they were powerless; and in actual fact the papal commissioners might not have been safer in going to Toulouse than Raymond would have been, even with King Pedro beside him, in venturing to Lavaur. As for the other three nobles, Bernard of Comminges was believed to have stirred up the Toulousains to oppose the Crusaders in arms. Raymond Roger of Foix, they reminded the King, was a notorious patron of heretics and despoiler of churches, and had failed to keep even the recent convention agreed to in his name by Pedro himself. Gaston of Bearn had protected the assassins of Castelnau, persecuted the Church, and fiercely opposed the Crusade. He maintained bandit-mercenaries who had violated the Cathedral of Oloron, defiled the consecrated Host and parodied the mass. Even so, should Foix, Comminges, and Bearn come for absolution and submit all would be forgiven them. The Council took pains to preface their refusal to treat on the Aragonese terms with a paragraph full of personal compliments and courtesies to the King. Nevertheless, they ended with a warning, reminding him of the honours he had received from the Pope, of the oaths he had taken to suppress heresy, and the suspicion which must fall upon him if he continued taking the part of excommunicated persons accused of so grave a crime. If he was not satisfied with their answer (which was quite likely inasmuch as they refused him everything he asked) the Council would lay the whole matter before the Pope.

Remained the task of persuading the Pope to sustain the Council, as he was by no means eager to do. Accordingly, advice was rained upon him from every corner of Languedoc. From Lavaur the Council itself despatched letters by the hands of agents of Arnaut Amalric and Count Simon. The letters reminded Innocent that he himself had proclaimed the Crusade and afterwards entrusted de Montfort with its command. The crimes of the Count of Toulouse were paraded. Had he not asked help of the excommunicated Emperor Otto, and not only asked but received it (in some measure) from the notorious Savary de Mauleon, who commanded in Aquitaine for the excommunicate King John of England? Had he not committed the abominable crime of insulting all Christendom by sending an embassy to ask aid from the Sultan of Morocco? Should the enemies of religion, by their appeal to Pedro, succeed in “thwarting” the Pope, so that the axe might not be laid to the evil tree of Toulouse; then indeed Christianity in Languedoc was ruined. Another symphony on the same theme was furnished by a second regional council, composed of the higher clergy of eastern Languedoc and the valley of the lower Rhône country, which met at Orange under the presidency of the Archbishop of Arles. Orange rivalled Lavaur in its violent words against the “Toulousain tyrant.” Solos were contributed by the Archbishops of Aix and Bordeaux, and by the Bishops of Bazas, Périgueux, and Beziers. The tone of these prelates varied somewhat, from His Grace of Aix (the immediate neighbourhood of his cathedral city had as yet seen no fighting and he was comparatively moderate in consequence), to the Lord Bishop of Beziers who called Toulouse “a nest of vipers” which must be utterly crushed. But through all variations of tone, the same motif was heard: Tolosa delenda est. The house of Toulouse must be destroyed.

At Rome, the diplomatic struggle must have been bitter. It was not a light thing to ask Innocent publicly to eat his words, and to act on the assumption that the Aragonese version of matters was a mere tissue of lies. On the other hand, I repeat, any central authority in the Middle Ages was far more at the mercy of its agents on the spot than is the case to-day with rapid transit and the telegraph. For the Pope to sustain the Aragonese and disavow Arnaut Amalric and his supporters would have been to go clean counter to the expressed opinion of practically every important Churchman north of the Pyrenees within a radius of 200 miles of Toulouse. Nevertheless, the issue was so evenly balanced that for five months, while the agents of Aragon and of the Crusade continued to set out their respective positions, no decision was reached.

While the whole future of the Crusade thus hung in suspense, Paris seemed for the first time ready to move. Philip Augustus hoped to round off his successes against the Plantagenet by taking from him England as well. But before a French army could cross the Channel, the fullest possible diplomatic assistance from the Papacy was desired. Therefore, in March 1213, the King of France called a general assembly of his barons to decide what force should follow his son, Prince Louis, crusading to Languedoc. To work up sentiment, the zealous Bishop Fulk of Toulouse and Guy de Vaux-Cernay, Bishop of Carcassonne, journeyed to Paris, the latter having appointed the future St. Dominic to administer his diocese in his absence. To oppose them, came the Bishop of Barcelona, as Pedro’s ambassador, armed with Innocent’s January letters putting an end to the Crusade and disavowing the legates! Here was a pretty complication. Philip Augustus knew how to be shifty himself on occasion, but even he must have been puzzled as to the true state of affairs in Rome. However, it was decided that a large force should move south under Prince Louis. Only Innocent’s own command received about a month later, that Philip should take up the Pope’s quarrel with John by sending the young Louis to invade England, prevented the French Monarchy, then and there, from taking its part in the Albigensian Crusade.

At last, in Rome, the die was cast. About June 1, Innocent wrote in his usual vigorous tone to Pedro, Simon, Arnaut Amalric, and Fulk of Toulouse. The Pope had found, he said, that the ambassadors of the southern lords had lied to him. He, therefore, disavowed his January letters, withdrew his protection from the citizens of Toulouse and from the Lords of Foix and Bearn; until such time as Fulk might absolve the Toulousains, and Arnaut Amalric the three nobles, after due and complete submission in all cases. Pedro was reminded of the favours he had received from Innocent, and blamed for having shown so little wisdom and piety as to have protected heretics and favourers of heresy, more dangerous than the heretics themselves. He was ordered not to attack de Montfort and, finally, was warned that strong measures would be taken against him, darling of the Church though he was, should he disobey. The extraordinary spirit of the great mediæval Popes, their enormous sense of power and their bold determination to use it to the uttermost, vibrates in the letter. With the Emperor and the King of England both excommunicated and defying the Church, Innocent nevertheless threatens to move against the foremost champion of Christendom against the Mohammedan! As before, he made one reservation. He granted the Aragonese request for an additional new legate, and notified King Pedro that he was sending the Cardinal Robert de Courcon to act in that capacity. But this concession was but a drop in the bucket. The new papal policy left the Aragonese practically no choice between war and abandoning Languedoc to de Montfort.

Before the Pope’s decision was known, the first Standard Bearer of the Church had chosen war. Without breaking openly with the Pope, he decided that it was worth risking much to save Raymond, who had himself married one of Pedro’s sisters and had married the heir of Toulouse to another. It is characteristic of the man and of the time that, even while he was ordering a general mobilization of his forces against the Crusade, he was at the same time obtaining from Innocent the renewal of a papal bull of the year 1095 which provided that no interdict could be laid on the dominions of his house except by the Pope in person, thus blunting the spiritual sword in the hands of the redoubtable Arnaut Amalric. Meanwhile he formally took Toulouse, Foix, and Bearn under his protection and began to bestir himself mightily to raise troops, calling upon his lieges to pawn their possessions and follow him to the rescue of his brother-in-law whom clerics and “Frenchmen” were seeking to despoil. Conformably to the immemorial traditions of Europe, Catalonia was already, as it still is, inclined to be anti-clerical over against devout Aragon. Accordingly, although the Aragonese held aloof and showed little spirit for the war, the Catalans swarmed out briskly so that by springtime Pedro had a large force equipped, as the “Chanson” expressly says, not only with pack transport but also with wheeled transport as well, and ready to march.

All these preparations were pushed on through the late winter and early spring. Towards the end of spring, when mobilization was complete, there seems to have been a pause. The anti-crusading party in Languedoc were anxiously waiting for Pedro, as an extant troubadour poem vividly shows, but the Aragonese delayed. No doubt before he moved, he preferred to know how he stood with Innocent, who was so long in coming to a decision. Should the Pope’s verdict be favourable to the King, then he would certainly not have to use as much force, perhaps he might not have to move at all. On the other hand, should Aragonese diplomacy lose at Rome, then Pedro must win some substantial military success quickly, so as to present Innocent with an accomplished fact as a basis on which to treat. At last came two abbots; charged by de Montfort and the legates to show the King the papal letter of June 1, in which Innocent came out flatly against Aragon. The King answered the two abbots by promising to obey the Pope. De Montfort sent a knight, Lambert de Thury by name (to whom he had entrusted the castle of Puivert about fifteen miles from Quillan on the road to Foix), with a letter in which he told Pedro, “without any of the ordinary salutations,” that the Aragonese must withdraw his protection from the Languedocian nobles, “on pain of being proceeded against like all other enemies of the Church.” To which Pedro returned no answer, except to threaten the life of the messenger, and crossed the Pyrenees with the greater part of his large force, leaving the rear echelon to follow as fast as it could and proclaiming that he was acting under orders from the Pope in taking up arms against the Crusade.

Pedro’s intervention promised to be decisive. For four years, in the face of heavy odds, Count Simon had snatched success out of the jaws of hostile circumstance. But now the odds were so overwhelming that only one result seemed possible. In the summer of 1213 any man (no matter what he desired in the matter) estimating the chances of the future would have told you that de Montfort and his little band of Crusaders would be wiped out.