The Cathars - Part 3

"Kill them all, God will know His own"

The major centres of Catharism in France were Toulouse, Albi, Beziers, Carcassonne, Narbonne, Foix and the entire Ariege valley.

There were also smaller towns that were firm strongholds of Catharism such as Limoux, Montreal, Castres, Lavaur, Avignonnet, Castelnadaury, Laurac, Fanjeaux, Mirepoix, Saissac, Cabardes and Minerve.

All quotes below are extracted from "Catharism: The Historical Setting" - The Treasure of Montsegur - Birks, Gilbert

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In January of 1208 matters were brought to a head when Pierre de Castelnau, the Papal legate (authorized representative of Pope Innocent III), after solemnly excommunicating the Count of Toulouse, was murdered by one of the latter's knights. The Pope at once called upon the King of France to drive the Count of Toulouse from his lands and give them to good Catholics 'who under your happy rule will faithfully serve the Lord'.

In July 1209 the Army of the Cross assembled at Lyon under the command of Arnaud-Amaury, the new Papal legate. The numbers are impossible to estimate, but they must have been considerable for the period. The army descended the Rhone river and entered Montpelier, which was still largely a Catholic city, without opposition.

On 22 July the Crusaders arrived before Beziers, which closed its gates. But the over-confidence of the citizens led them to attempt a sortie which, being repulsed, they were driven back in disorder and the Crusaders entered the city and captured it in the ensuing panic. A general massacre followed, and the Papal legate, in answer to the query how Catholics were to be distinguished from heretics, is said to have made the famous reply, "Kill them all, God will know His own".

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Anywhere from 7,000 to 15,000 people were slaughtered in this Crusader riot. The numbers involved fluctuate depending upon which historian is involved.

From Beziers, the Crusaders marched on to Carcassonne, which fell after a siege. In quick succession fell Montreal, Limoux and Castres. The Church's war on the Cathars, the Crusade against the "Albigensian heresy", continued apace for the next thirty-five years, culminating in the capture of Montsegur, a 4,000 foot high mountain fortress in the Pyrenees and the last refuge of the Cathar parfaits. During these decades of oppression and suppression, many atrocities were carried out, too numerous to expound upon here. Let the following suffice as a guide:

When a town was captured or capitulated, the Crusaders would force the inhabitants to make a choice: either renounce Catharism or burn at the stake. Surprisingly, many Cathars chose the latter and walked willingly into the fires of their own accord.

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The orders of the Pope to his legate, Arnaud-Amaury were to "drive out the heretics", which may explain the bloodless surrender at Carcassonne. But this could afford no satisfaction to the Crusaders, nor was it, from the point-of-view of the Church, any real solution, since it merely dispersed the heretics instead of extirpating them. On the other hand, further indiscriminate massacres like that of Beziers could clearly not be countenanced either.

The solution which reconciled these differences was that adopted when the castle of Minerve was captured in 1210. The conditions of capitulation were that the fighting men should go free and Catharist Credents ("believers") would also be free on the condition they made their submission to the Church. As for the true Cathars, 'clothed heretics' they were called on account of their distinctive dress, they were to have the choice of abjuration or being burned at the stake. The Abbot of Vaux-Cernai made an effort to preach to the latter in an attempt to save them but they refused to listen to him and hurled themselves voluntarily into the fire. At Minerve, those who perished were more than one hundred and forty, both men and women.

Thereafter this became the usual procedure and the capture of each castle was accompanied by the burning "with great joy" according to the chronicler, of the Cathars who had taken refuge in it. There was no trial, neither did the Cathars seek to dissemble their quality or hesitate to affirm their faith, and invariably went into the fire of their own accord without even requiring to be led to it. The greatest holocaust was at Lavaur in 1211 where between three and four hundred perished at the stake while the Catharist chatelaine (castle commander) was thrown into a well and stoned to death.

In this manner the elite of the Cathar Church were destroyed during the course of the Crusade.

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In conjunction with the physical extermination process being carried out by the crusading hordes on behalf of the Church, an Inquisition was ordered by Pope Innocent III (who chose that name for him?), Its purpose was to sift through the surviving populace, carefully weeding out Cathars-in-hiding or Cathar sympathisers. A bit more on this next.

Please note how the Church used the State as a proxy to carry out its murderous intentions. This has always been so. One need only refer back to how the Pharasaic Sanhedrin goaded and manipulated the Roman state into condemning the man Jesus to death. There are plenty of more modern examples, as well, if one examines history with an objective and critical eye.

This is the pattern.

~ g
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