Crusades Against Heretics
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Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here.

Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. Crusades came to dominate Europe and Near Eastern politics from the end of the 11th century at the latest. Fighting Muslims in the Holy Land or on the Iberian Peninsula was billed as a guaranteed ticket to heaven. Driving pagans out of Northern Europe earned the Teutonic Knights a kingdom of their own.

One crusade sticks out as taking place within Europe and being directed against those who identified as Christians but whom their enemies branded heretics. What was the Albigensian Crusade? What did the Cathars believe?

Well, today's guest, Mark Gregory Peck, has answers. His book, A Most Holy War, The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom, explores the crusade and also asks one key, very interesting question. Welcome to Gone Medieval, Mark. It's fantastic to have you with us. Hi, how are you?

I'm good, thank you. I'm really, really keen to talk. I've got a whole list of things I want to ask you about the Albigensian Crusade. So I hope you've got like a drink and a packed lunch and you're ready to go. Yeah, sure, I'll ask. I mean, I guess my first stupid question is why do we call it the Albigensian Crusade? What does Albigensian mean?

That's a great question. Why that's a really good question, because what's so fascinating is that when you can read guidebooks or even really good scholars, maybe in other fields, they always give you the incredibly wrong answer for why it's called the Albert Jensen crusade. They always say something like...

it's because Albi was a center of heresy and that kind of thing. It's interesting. We get sort of a first reference to it around 1178, I think it's 1170, where maybe it means a word like perhaps these are heretics or mercenaries, like a little war. But the really big issue is in 1208, right, when Innocent III proclaims the Holy War, the Crusade, against heretics in the lands of the Count of Toulouse, and he says heretics are worse than Saracens, so kill them.

What we have in early documents, particularly of northern French knights, is they'll say they're going into the lands of the Abidjandians, they're fighting the Abidjandians or something or other. You get that around 1208, 1209. What they mean is essentially southerners.

Because the interesting thing here is that Albi is the southernmost bishopric in the southernmost archbishopric, which is Bourges, of France, northern France, the French kingdom. And so when they're using it, initially, it doesn't have any connotations of heresy and so forth and so on. It really means southerner, right? Just means southerner.

We're going to go and bash some southerners. Basically, yes. I mean, this is one of those interesting things about the Aborigines Crusade. I mean, I've come to even alter some of my opinion on this, is I think some of the initial impulse was the excitement about going on crusade, right? That you could actually go to Toulouse, and obviously it gets diverted initially, but you had the same right as going to the Holy Land. And so I think there's a lot more...

impulse about that than, say, fear of heresy and so forth and so on. Anyhow, by about 1210, 1211, so within three or four years, particularly after the Siege of Béziers, Albigensian comes to have connotations of rebel, heretic. It starts taking on these meanings that we somewhat associate with it now, but it always, on the whole, remains a word of

the Northern French. The Inquisition never uses it. You know, what is the lands of the Count of Toulouse or this vast region that the papacy calls Provincia, they never use it. So we use it in the modern context, even when Northern French crusaders are still going in the 1220s, they'll say they're going into the lands of the

It's called the Abidjan's Crusade, now to get back to your short answer for the question, simply because that's what Northern French Crusade initially called it. And also when people were trying to explain it before we talk about other heresies, it

The common word for all these people were called Albigensians. So scholars writing in even the early 19th, even the 20th and 18th would just say it was the Albigensian crusade. So that's where it comes from. So basically, I mean, it's one of these things that like, you know, like all scholars were so petty. I kind of get annoyed when I see really smart scholars say, well, it comes from Albi because, you know, lots of heretics. It's got nothing to do with supposedly that being a center of heresy at all.

It's literally, it's just a word that means Southern, that then takes on all these other meanings. And that's why we call it that. But you know, Innocent III never called it that. No Pope ever called it that. That's really interesting. And the other thing that I would always associate closely with the Albigensian Crusade is the Cathars, so that it's a crusade against the Cathars. So I'm going to ask who the Cathars are, but maybe I'd be better asking you whether the Cathars are...

Yeah, that's a good, yeah, you know where you're going with this question. Yeah, I don't think the Cathars existed. Yeah. I just don't think the most famous heresy of the Middle Ages ever existed. And I think the straightforward answer is, I think Catharism is an invention of 19th century scholars who,

trying to answer and explain almost the question you asked me, why do you have a holy war against heretics? Why do we have the Inquisition? Why does it seem that we have an escalation in accusations of heresy spreading throughout Christendom from, say, 1150 onwards, 1170 onwards, particularly when what's so fascinating is that these accusations begin largely in the schoolroom around 1120 and then spread out. So to give

The great 19th century scholars there do. They were trying to explain something that seemed remarkable. Like, how do you explain that we go from a schoolroom accusation and then we spread throughout accusations throughout Christendom to a holy war that says by killing heretics, you're saving yourself and you're saving the world. To them, we have the Inquisition and so forth and so on.

I have always argued that what you see is that these 19th century scholars invented something called Catholicism because what they were opposing was the older idea. We get back to your first question, Albigensians, which particularly amongst Protestant scholars was like the Albigensians were proto-Protestants. And so there was a confessional quality to the scholarship on heresy, inquisition, crusades, so forth and so on. That if you were Catholic, you sort of basically sort of said,

the church was threatened. And if you weren't, you were sort of saying that the Aborigines were like proto-Protestants and therefore it was the Catholic church attacking you. And so when we talk about the rise of modern scholarship as a modern discipline in the 1840s, a modern scholarly discipline like history and maybe the history of religion, they were trying to escape this confessional model and at the same time trying to explain how

this sort of remarkable thing happened. And so what they did was, Cathar is a word. It's in the Council of Nicaea. It's like, what, 325? There was a few groups called Cathars in the medieval world, like 12th, 13th centuries, but it's an obscure word. It's not a regular word. So they plucked this word out to escape from that model. And then they themselves, because of how their own ideas about what makes religions and so on and so on, which we can get into if you like, they crafted a kind of

oriental agent provocateur coming from the East that was causing all heresy, that was connected like a Cathar church. So they create this quite a remarkable intellectual invention. It's just wrong.

But I can't deny that it was a serious intellectual effort at trying to understand the problem, and this is what they came up with. What is problematic is when still, and I will totally agree that many great scholars even now, who I do admire, still stick to this model. Now, if you're going to ask me then, why do I think that? Because none of the evidence suggests there's a Cathar church. I mean, it's as simple as that. It's going to sound weird, and I'm sure people listening to this will say, oh, he's just making this up. There's all this evidence out there. There really is no evidence.

I mean, I don't know whether you want to ask me these questions, but there's no evidence in the Inquisition records, at least the early Inquisition. There's no evidence in the 12th century that there's this vast Cathar church with so-called perfecti, with bishops. As I said, there's no evidence in the early Inquisition, I have to say 1250. Even when we get sort of the more famous books like Monte or whatever, there's no evidence around 1300. And it is a little bit sometimes like hitting your head against the wall.

But it's like, I don't know anybody who in this argument has ever been able to make a case. Well, what is this thing called the Catholic Church that you keep clinging to? Because there just is no evidence for it. We can get into what evidence there is and what there was, but that's what I find so fascinating. And that's why I do think it's one of these interesting questions about historical truth, about history, ironically, as history is science.

Because, you know, it's incredibly rare to say that a whole field of study for more than 100 years is wrong. I don't just mean a little bit. This is not like debating if they got the stirrups right at the Battle of Hattin or something or other. This is like, you've got it wrong. And by getting it wrong, that means you've got the history of medieval Christendom wrong and the Middle Ages wrong. You've got the history of Christianity wrong, etc.

And so to me, it's like one of these fascinating things. What is an esoteric topic? Heresy, let's be honest. It's a rather esoteric topic, heresy, so forth and so on. But it has huge implication. And that sort of

Why fascinates me as this interesting question that is bigger than just the Middle Ages. But anyhow, you may want to ask me to pinpoint my disagreement with Collins of the 12th and 13th century. I think this is absolutely fascinating because in my head, I had this really clear idea that there were Cathars. They believed in two gods, a good one and a bad one. And that was described as heresy by the Catholic Church. Therefore, they go on crusade against them.

To think that all of that is just kind of not invented, but is a creation to try and fill the gap in what we knew about what it was that it's been wrong is a fascinating thing to think about because I had those ideas so clearly in my head. I mean, you're not the only one. I mean, you're far from the only person. I mean, this is going to sound a little, I should say, I'm Australian, so there's not total bias against the British. But it is interesting that you find more of this debate amongst French scholars of all people.

then, with the great exception of R.I. Moore, it is a bizarrely British-based scholarly phenomenon, I would argue, that continues this idea of the Cathars. And I'm not sure why, but I do find that a fascinating question. But no, you're right. I mean, this is just one of these things. I know you're saying creation rather than invention. And this is an interesting question because there has been debates about...

In the 12th and 13th century, among scholars, did the church invent heresy too? I actually don't think that word's appropriate for what these Latin Christian intellectuals were doing in the 12th and 13th century. I think it is appropriate for the 19th century. I think they invent a world religion, as they would have called it.

This is part of the invention, if you like, of the study of religion. It's really amazing that some of these great scholars who come up with the idea of what it is to study religion in the 19th century – Catharism is one of their other core ones, along with Hinduism, along with Confucianism, so forth and so on –

They all talk about Catholicism, right? Because it is a world religion to them. It explains so much of the Middle Ages by creating this phenomenon. And, you know, and as I say, they pinpoint bits and pieces of evidence and stitch it all together to create this wonderful tapestry. But the evidence just isn't there. It's so easy to pull the string and it just falls apart. I mean, when I say it now, I think sometimes Catholicism has survived because of what medievalist

particularly in America, you'd say, thought were proper topics of study, meaning that the American model comes out of the German model. And though one could argue it was German scholars initially, and then French scholars who helped invent Catharism based on their own theories of the study of religion, like famously the Religion Geschichte Historical School, that you sort of did all this comparative, but

The German historical model coming out of von Ranke was that the proper subject of study of historians was politics, institutions, state crafts, so forth and so on, not religion. Religion was something you just couldn't study objectively. That's the crucial thing. And the American model comes out of that, the German model. And so for a lot, you could argue, and even great scholars like my own advisor, Bill Jordan, and other great scholars, his advisor, Joe Strayer, who wrote a book on the Albigensian Crusade,

fundamentally, he barely talks about religion because that's not a topic that scholars... So I do think part of the continuity of Catholicism is that it just sort of was at the side.

religion is what vicars did or monks did. It's not what proper scholars did. And so at some level, the return of religion as a proper field of study is only 30 to 50 years old. So I do think Catharism is partially survived by just being in the background. Heresy wasn't a proper topic either. You've probably read it. I mean, Peter Brown's

recent intellectual autobiography, you can see it for very different reasons. British universities were the same, that religion really wasn't a topic you studied. Peter's very good at pointing out how he wanted to do this and how he sees himself. He's part of the phenomenon that caused it to happen. We see a shift in the 70s. So I do think

That's an interesting question. Also, its continuity is because it just wasn't considered a proper topic. It's fascinating. And I guess before we get into the detail of what happens in the Albigensian Crusade...

If there were no real kind of Cathar threat in the south of France, what does drive people to go on crusade there? I don't like saying that medieval intellectuals like the popes, monks, eventually Dominicans, invented heresy. What I do think is interesting is that we have to

Think about the accusations of the 12th century, why we start seeing this widespread idea of these ideas spreading further. We see it beginning in the schoolroom, guys like Peter Abelard famously get accused of heresy by Bernard of Claveau and other people. But then we sort of see it expand around 1150 much further, so lots of other Christians.

I think part of that phenomena has a lot to do with, you could argue, coming out of the First Crusade, these ideas like imitatio Christi, like imitating Christ, that ordinary people, ordinary Christians can imitate or be like Christ and sort of achieve a kind of holiness that the church itself is starting to say, actually, only you can come through the church to achieve this. We should take quite seriously that there's a lot of the people accused of heresy in 12th century.

think of themselves as, from what I've read, we're Orthodox Christians. They don't think of themselves as radical. This is where I'd even go even further about this question about Catholicism than that. What I mean by this is Catholicism fundamentally only exists in its own historiography, right? It is of 19th century creation. It doesn't exist outside what scholars have written about since the 19th century. You will not find a Catholic church in the Middle Ages. This is distinctly different to, say, Jews, right?

The historiography of Judaism, it doesn't matter what scholars might argue, we know that living Jews existed in the Middle Ages. There were no living Cathars.

I would actually go further and say there were actually no living heretics in the 12th century if what we mean by that are people self-consciously doing and saying things that might lead to their deaths, their confiscation of property, all kinds of things. And I don't think we have that in the 12th century. We have people accused of it, but we have people just brushed it aside. So part of the interesting phenomena here is how does an accusation

get transformed into something that causes a holy war. But also the other thing is, I also don't think it's a conspiracy, right? I don't think these Latin Christian intellectuals are, it's a conspiracy theory. I don't think it's nudge, nudge, wink, wink in the monastery or something or other or the strip tour. They really believe that heresy is out there. They believe that these accusations, it's a way of explaining why people are doing things they disagree with. It's a way of trying to correct people. So there's lots of meanings behind it, but fundamentally,

The history of heresy, if you like, is a history of accusation. It's not a history of heretics, I would argue, until the 13th century. These people aren't making it up. They generally believe it's a form of heresy.

What I do find fascinating, and I sometimes think the scholarship doesn't pay enough attention to this, is that so much of it is, even in the third says this when he proclaims the Aborigines Crusade, it's that people don't realize they're heretics. And maybe we too may be poisoned by it. And so these metaphors of disease and plague and pestilence, like heresies of pestilence, heresies of cancer, we should take seriously these metaphors. You know, Bernard Claveau famously says, when heretics speak, it's like sweet honey that goes in the ear and it's like a cancer from within. You don't know you're poisoned with heresy.

And then 3rd says something similar, like when he proclaims the Aborigines' crusade, he says, look, if we don't destroy this heresy now, we too will be eaten from within. So there is a quality here that heresy is widespread, but we don't realize it. It's not like it is a form of sex or a Cathar church or whatever else is going on. But what is interesting about, to answer the further part of your question, why this region called Provincia, right? That's what the papacy calls it.

The correct translation is province, but it's not like modern-day Provence. But, you know, it's that region between the Gouron and Rhone rivers, what eventually becomes Languedoc after, what, 1271 or something. And then what we now call Southern France. Is that it is considered by the church to be unusually scarred, to be unusually fractured. The church itself is quite...

poor and powerless in this region because of the way her property works. What's interesting is a lot of these accusations of 12th century, they also tie a lot of that this region's scarred with mercenaries as well as supposedly heretics. I do think it has a distinctive, its own attitude or quality about how the culture works, which we can get into, but you know, it's just like what are called the good men and good women in these villages. But I would argue if we had other documents that

I think we'd find not the same, but we'd find similar phenomena in the rest of Christendom. R.I. Moore makes a good point about this. It's like, it's not unusual we might find similar things within places like England or something, but we don't have the information. But I would argue that this region has a distinct quality, and that's what the church is focusing on and condemning. What's interesting here is how

These accusations grow particularly about this region. But, you know, part of it is, you know, then a papal legate gets killed and so forth and so on. But I really want to emphasize, I think what's fascinating here is I don't think people in response to the Aborigines in crusade come because they fear heresy. I don't think they initially come because they think the world's being poisoned. I think that's very much an intellectual idea amongst clerics, popes, bishops, archbishops, so forth and so on, Cistercians, polytheists.

But what I do think is in that first year of the crusade, particularly the great siege of Béziers and so forth and so on, I think it transforms the crusade into an idea of heresy. And I think people start to think that maybe heresy really is poisoning the world. And then, you know, it goes on for 20 years and then we have the Inquisition. And it's a good example of how wars and persecution create sometimes the very thing they're going after. I think the Abidjan's crusade and the Inquisition end up creating a fear of heresy throughout Christendom in a way that...

I think people dismissed it, or at least they could dismiss these accusations in the 12th century. It's like, okay, sure. And we have so much evidence of people just being accused of heresy and going, yeah, okay. But that's not something you can do in the 13th century. Yeah. That's the kind of inadvertently changes the landscape. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. I even would go change the landscape in a really even...

weirdly physical sense, how you understand noise and light and darkness. What I do think, and if you were trying to disagree with me, I do think you could say, well, so you're telling me there's something different about this world. Yeah, I am. I'm telling you there's something different about the world of the Count of Toulouse or this region, that in these little villages there were these holy people called Good Man, Good Women,

But I don't think they thought of themselves as a sect. I don't think they thought of themselves as heretics. I don't think they thought of themselves as antithetical to the church. I think what we have to accept is that there were lots of people in the 12th century who

trying to achieve a kind of holiness for themselves in a changing world that had started in the 11th century and was developing in the 12th century. And what we see is a reaction of the church as it comes to have an understanding of itself as the only avenue towards holiness, as controlling the world, if you like, and all of Christendom, saying, no, you can't.

Famously, that's like the Waldensians, why they're different to, say, the Franciscans. Waldes, yes, did exist. Around 1170, he's in Lyon. Here's a troubadour song. He decides he wants to give away all his wealth. He wants to live like the apostles or imitate Christ, but live like the apostles and preach and serve them and so on.

And at first the church says, sure, this is a great idea. This is what we want. But, you know, you have to ask permission to preach. And they say no. But, you know, it's not clear that they think of themselves as heretics at all. And they certainly aren't necessarily accused. But the great difference is with Francis of Assisi, almost similar ideas. Francis totally says to Innocent III, absolutely. I won't do anything unless the church tells me.

So I think in some sense, I think this landscape is more widespread throughout Christendom. I think there's something distinctive about this world. And then you could say, well, why does this world in particular then cause the furor of the Pope? And I do think it's because it is unusually fractured. It's unusually scarred by small wars and mercenaries. The church is surprisingly less powerful in this region because of the way land tenure and tithes work.

And because of this, it's called Provincia, there's a notion that this is like the old province of the Roman Empire. And somehow if it's poisoned, then maybe we're all going to be poisoned. And so I do think there's that quality to it. Just as I also think that I generally think also that Innocent III thinks by proclaiming this crusade, he's going to wipe heresy out. But like there's an apocalyptic phenomenon. But like all apocalyptic phenomenons, you know, guess what? It's still there.

Then I think the crusade shifts and changes over 20 years. And then, of course, you know, it ends in 1229, but like what, 1230 and 1233, Pope Gregory IX then says, ah, but the serpent of heresy has risen again in Francia and Provence and we need inquisitions.

All I'm trying to say is it's like, yes, I think there is something distinctive about this region. And I do take that really seriously. But its distinctiveness is not that it's full of this Cathar church or its heresy. Its distinctiveness is that it has a certain kind of holiness embedded within the society, which I would argue is taking place elsewhere, but in different ways,

But this is so distinctive and seemingly, also I actually wouldn't even argue, I don't think Innocent III has any idea who these good men or women are. I actually don't think he does. I think he's more concerned about the fractiousness of this world and that and all this kind of stuff. And I would also argue that's the whole problem with Catharism. It actually solidifies what was a much more diverse world. I think there's lots of other groups in this region doing all kinds of different things who sort of get lumped in with these accusations of heresy and we all then call them

Cathars. It's just that the Inquisition, we end up coming to know that they're more obsessed with the good men and good women. I don't know. I'm not sure that answers you. I feel like I make it even more complex. No, I mean, complex is great. We really want to get into the detail and try and understand the issues around it. It sounds to me a little bit like this has maybe more to do with

church politics than it does with actual heresy in that this is Rome wanting kind of one church that it has complete control over and it spies this region that is looking dangerously fractured, kind of out of line, out of step with Rome. And that's enough to qualify for a crusade. Again, it makes it sound like I'm being some conspiracy theory of the church. I think we also have to take quite seriously that

particularly as the reforming church of the 12th century, the idea of what it means to be a Christian, particularly these popes, but innocent the third famously, there's an idea they want, they want Christians to have a similarity throughout Christendom. That's why, you know, canon law comes to have its coherence in the 12th century, famously Gratian's

concordance of discordant canon. It's easy to forget that even up until the 11th century, every region of Christendom, as Peter Brown famously called the micro-Christendoms, has its own variation of laws. And it wasn't always clear that you could recognize a Christian from one part of Christendom to another. And what the church is trying to say, no,

what it means to be a Christian has to be similar throughout Christendom. If you start arguing that, then you start can argue, well, this is what's not a Christian then. And that means heretics, Jews, Muslims. It's also, you know, what I make my recent book about also, I think it's growing in the 12th century is an idea of a confessional sense of self. So a sense of individuality, if you like, or personhood. So it's an idea of a

a linear sense of the self that what you did as a child affects what you did as an adult and also affects what you do older and also obviously in afterlife, hence purgatory and things like that. There is a real quality here of an obsession with creating a new sense of self, a similarity of all Christians throughout this world.

And you have famously Innocent III himself basically argues that all the world is Christendom and that all those who've ever lived and those who will live have had the revelation of Christ. And if they've had the revelation of Christ, but have turned against it, then they can be heretics, which is an argument that eventually gets used against Jews and even Muslims, right? Clearly Jews have had the revelation of Christ, but they're turning against it. It is absolutely coming from these intellectuals about the power of the papacy and all that, but

I guess I don't want to make it seem like it's an evil empire that's going to play. You know, this is like in the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The first canon is about the blood and bread. Innocent says, as we share his Christ's humanity,

He shares ours. So there's an obsession that we can be like the Godhead, which I would argue is what a lot of these people in the 12th century are doing. They're trying to be like Christ. So it's like the paradox is the church itself set in play the very things that then says, no, you can't do this. We have to control it.

And so part of it is, as I told you, you know, that the only avenue to holiness is through the church. And so you just can't do your own do-it-yourself Christianity, call it that. You can't shape the world in ways that you think are orthodox, that you think are still holy, that you still...

may go to the priest, but then may go to one of these good men or something or other. And yes, and I think in that sense, yes, crusading for Innocent III is about eliminating what he sees as potential danger within Christendom. He says a pestilential provocale, these people who live here, and their pestilence may eventually infect all of us. And if we don't wipe it out, and this is an important point, if we don't wipe it out, we too may be infected by it.

So it is an argument that heresy can spread even in those who think they're orthodox, if we don't wipe this thing out. So yeah, I guess I have to give you that. I suppose it does make it sound like, I don't think it's an evil empire, but you know where I'm getting. I mean, I do think it's a genuinely striving for holiness on the part of the church. I want to use the word sincerity, but I do. But it's inescapable with ideas of persecution. You know, it's inescapable with ideas of

of holiness and violence coming together. I mean, that's the fascinating thing about the Middle Ages. It is at once incredibly violent, and yet it's also beautiful. Like, the horror and the beauty go together in the Middle Ages. ♪

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Give the gift of scratches from the California lottery. A little play can make your day. Please play responsibly. Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play or claim. I'm loving this, Mark. I've so far asked you the first two of my long list of questions about the Albert Jensen Group. There you go. No, no, I'm talking too long. I'm talking too long. You're asking too many things. Honestly, I'm loving it. I'm really enjoying it.

I actually have returned to thinking about this topic. So it's fascinating you're asking me now. I had a kind of break from it for a few years, but I've just finished sort of another book on this topic that comes out next year. So you're catching me thinking about it again. It's all at the front of your mind, jumbling around. Yeah.

I did wonder if I could just ask you about a bit of the detail of the actual crusade itself for listeners who aren't so familiar with it. We're seeing the Pope Innocent III as maybe the driving force behind it. Who are the other key figures amongst the crusaders that we need to be aware of? Well, there's the papal legates, Amor Amorim, who's in at least the early years, what's really fascinating is,

the Count of Toulouse becomes a crusader. I mean, that's sort of one of the reasons that the crusade gets diverted into the lands of Carcassonne and Béziers, like the vicomte of Carcassonne.

Because though the crusade was proclaimed against the count of Toulouse, now they, he's never accused of heresy, the count of Toulouse. He's accused of tolerating the, I think Innocent says like heretics swarming, like, you know, pestilence throughout your lands, you're tolerating them. And because you're tolerating them, I'm going to give anyone who signs with the cross becomes a crusader can basically take your lands. I'm giving them the same rights as if they're going to Jerusalem.

I mean, by the way, it's a really interesting question too. You know, the first time we actually have a word for crusade is the Aborigines crusade, a crusada. It's like there is no word for crusading in the 12th century. And crusades are almost always called pilgrims. Even obviously in the first crusade, that's what they're called. Even in the 12th century, eventually, you know, the word crusignatus, you know, sign with the cross becomes our word for crusader.

But an actual word for crusading, as far as I can tell in other scholars, you see it in vernacular first and in Occitan or Provencal Crusader. And so related to this crusade and maybe related to the crusades of Spain. But this is the first crusade of

Christians guaranteed salvation for killing other Christians. I mean, this is, and that's something not to be dismissed here. I mean, Innocent III is saying killing Christians. Like he's saying, this is not like they think of them as outsiders or foreign. These are Christians poisoned with heresy. Innocent III is tolerating this heresy in these lands. You should go down there. He even says expunge the heretics from this world. He says, exercise them, expunge them, kill them, and so forth and so on. So it is absolutely an impetus statement

I will say to mass murder, but then Raymond, Raymond VI. And that's the Count of Toulouse. These are all the Raymonds who are Counts of Toulouse, yeah. That's the Count of Toulouse, sorry. Yes, yes. He does penance. He's accused of like one of his mercenaries of killing a papal legate beforehand, which is the initial impulse to why Innocent proclaims a crusade, 1208.

He does penance and he becomes a crusader. And also we have to take seriously that it's hard to estimate the figures, but it could easily be a couple of thousand of actually people from this region become crusaders, like these local petty lords and so forth and so on. So in that sense, not only is Innocent III an important crusader, but the others take, when we talk about other people, Innocent III says to Philip Augustus, the King of France, come on, come on crusade. And Philip says, no.

No way. He says, this region belongs to me. I mean, that's technically true, but the Kings of France, I mean, there's like, I think there's even a document, I want to say from like 1170 that refers to the King of France as a shadow king. Technically, the King of France has some fealty feudal rights over this region. But also, and he'd hated the crusade with Richard the Lionheart, you know, the third crusade. But he also says, no. But he said, okay, I'll let some of my French lords go. And famously, Simon de Montfort. Yeah.

He's not that famous yet, but he's one of these lords. If there is any leader, big leader, it's actually the papal legate.

Arnold Armory. It's, oddly enough, the Count of Toulouse. It's these groups of mostly French lords, but there are some English lords go, some Germans, a few Italians. What is fascinating about the Aborigines Crusades, it seems to me, is it has the largest number of ordinary Christians since the First Crusade, as in people who just...

decide to go because they're promised salvation as if they're going to the Holy Land. You know, you're promised all the benefits of going on crusade if you just wander down to southern France or at least, you know, Toulouse. And so they go down the Rhône and they go down the Mediterranean coast. And also, I should say, you know, by this stage, crusading in canon law has all these wonderful benefits. If you have debts, they're suspended.

If you do murders, you can't be tried to murder because canon law and so forth and so on. If you owe debts to Jews, they're suspended and all these kinds. There are benefits to being a crusader. But in these early years, in these first two years, yeah, they're the leaders. But then after Bézier, and I should say, then the Count of Toulouse, once he becomes a crusader, well, where do they go? What do they do? And so famously, Arnold Papal Legate, he still wants to get the count. He still thinks heresy is spreading from the County of Toulouse.

But then he sort of says, okay, it clearly has to have some relationship to Béziers-Carcassonne, to this region. And so they decide to attack, and this is the famous attack, they decide to attack the city of Béziers, which is sort of near the Mediterranean coast.

And that's the really famous attack that everyone, maybe anyone's ever heard of. Famously, the papal legate says, hand over all your heretics. They say, what heretics? And I would argue they're really... It's a genuine question. It's a genuine question. And they don't think there are heretics. But, you know, it's the famous one where the crusaders camp outside. But then all these beggar boys and all these teenage boys attack the city. They get in, they get through the walls, they get inside. And they're

They start massacring and killing people. And then the crusaders, oh, come inside and kick these boys out, famously. They kick them out like dogs. But then the boys start burning the city. And it's debated how many people were killed. Anywhere, maybe 10,000, maybe 8,000. It's hard to say. All these medieval figures are often highly exaggerated. But it's certainly the city is burnt and destroyed within an afternoon. What's interesting is after this,

The papal legate then sends a letter to St. Thern and says, you know, divine vengeance raged marvelously. We killed 20,000 to 25,000 people. God could never be so happy that what we've done here. This is one of those interesting debates about Bézier. Is it the genocide? I recently wrote something for the Cambridge History of World Genocide on the Albuquerque crusade. I've come to think it's probably at least the way genocide scholars define it. It may be a genocidal moment in the sense of I do think

They felt that in this massacre, they were saving the world and eliminating all heretics from the world and so forth and so on. I don't think the whole war itself was genocidal. I certainly think it promotes notions of mass murder. But I mean, I still think it's anachronistic. I mean, I'm part of the problem. I have actually argued it elsewhere.

But I think if you're going to make this case, I think it is at least about Bézier. And why I think it's important is that it does send shockwaves throughout Christendom. And I think that helps promote the idea that this really is a war against heresy, that there is something shocking here that we have to take seriously, that the crusaders themselves start having a new idea of why they're doing what they're doing. It's not just that we're crusaders, as in, you know, you're getting the same rights as

going to the Holy Land, maybe these southerners are weird and they've done something wrong and all this kind of stuff. And also I should say, it's not incompatible to think what you're doing is holy and also you're going to get land. This is often one of these weird debates that goes on with sometimes I think in monk scholars about crusader stuff. They're going against the demands of Christ or so. No, I mean, it's the middle ages. You can be deeply holy and think being holy and imitating Christ is to kill people, but also you can get land for it too. And so none of these things are incompatible.

In the Middle Ages. And also, as I said, I do really want to stress, they absolutely think they're being Christ-like. They're imitating Christ. And so then famously, they then capture Carcassonne. And that's when they have to find a leader for the crusade. And that's when famously they pick Simon de Montfort. ♪

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And just with my completely Anglophile head on, we're talking about the father of the Simon de Montfort who becomes famous in England, who is an incredible figure in his own right, much more famous in France than he is in England. But it's his dad.

Yes. I always forget this fact myself because, not because I forget English history. It says that's that other Simon de Montfort who has all the other things that people write books about in the 13th century. Yes. He is titular lord of Lesbos. That's one of Simon's title, the earlier Simon de Montfort's titles. He has some English titles. And so, yeah, so he becomes the leader of the crusade, if you like. What is interesting, you could say, about the Albert-Genghis crusade, and that's where we still are in this world of like the first crusade, is

is that a lot of crusaders leave pretty quickly after Bézier and 1210.

Yes, there's a 40-day commitment, but I still think this is where we could see the shift and change from the early medieval world to the high medieval world. That sense of an earlier penitential culture where if you do go on a pilgrimage or you do the penance of going on a pilgrimage like crusade, your soul's cleansed and then you leave. That's like the famous thing about the first crusade. On the whole, most crusaders go home after the first crusade. If my soul has been cleansed, what do I need to stay for?

Well, yeah, no, it is. I mean, I think it's Fulcher-Scharter says there's like 300 knights left. He's a chronicler of the First Crusade, 300 knights left, 1099 in Jerusalem or something like that. But yes, absolutely. And I do think that's a quality that comes out of the earlier world, where I think in that sense, you could say the First Crusade is like, it's an early medieval phenomenon, but then it's also a phenomenon that transforms as to what we now call a high Middle Ages phenomenon.

I think the Abidjan Crusade is another transformative crusade. It takes us into the realm of heresy, inquisition, but also this idea that some people generally start thinking they're heretics and they actually embrace being heretics. But also I think it takes us into a world where all the world is Christendom and that all those who've ever lived and so forth and so on. And so I think that's a real transformative moment, which I think the Abidjan Crusade

You know, it's a pretty high intellectual idea to say that you can imitate the Godhead by just doing stuff. Let alone fighting, but doing ordinary things. And so I think that's where wars and persecution, for good or ill, help promote ideas. And I think the Aborigines Crusade helps promote this idea that maybe there is heresy in Christendom, and that maybe we need to get rid of it, and that maybe we have to be aware of what we're doing all the time, which is what...

Eventually the Inquisition comes into play. So yes, Simon de Montfort and then the Crusades, they wage and then eventually shift the Crusade to Raymond, to the Count of Toulouse. And so it sort of rages on back and forth. You know, you've obviously heard the famous stories of cutting off noses and blinding 30 people and sending them. There's certainly a lot of what's been argued, overt cruelty about in this war. Now, is it any different to other medieval wars? Perhaps.

Perhaps not. I'm willing to say that. Having said that, though, there is a huge difference in the sense that it is a holy war. It is warfare that is powerful, the idea that you're saving yourself, you're saving Christendom.

And I think that makes it distinctive. It's not like other medieval warfare for this very reason. Innocent III says, 1215, Lateran Council, 4th Lateran Council says, Simon de Montfort's a Count of Toulouse. It belongs to him. But what's really interesting, and this is where we sort of get Innocent's own ideas about heresy, he suspends the crusade. He says, we've won. But he also suspends crusading in, if I remember rightly, in Spain, in Iberian Peninsula II.

But soon enough, before he dies, he says, no, let's go back and do it. Because he wants to promote what's called the Fifth Crusade. And then it still lingers on another 14 years. Can we pinpoint an end to it? Because you said it goes on for a while. It sort of stops and starts. The aims almost seem to change a little bit. And then the Inquisition does come in, which is almost a continuation of that. So are we able to pinpoint an end to it? I mean, this is why, you know,

Joe Strayer in his, I think, book from 71, 70, he called it the Albigensian Crusades. But yeah, there is Raymond's son, who's also called Raymond, who becomes Raymond VII. There's a quality where Raymond VI...

And all that, they sneak back into Toulouse. And so Simon de Montfort is out putting out a fire of rebellion. Was it 1218 or something like that? So what you eventually have is Simon's besieging outside his own city. And famously, his head is crushed by a catapult worked by little girls and women, women.

So he dies, 1218, and there's famous troubadour, the anonymous troubadour of the cancer of the Abidjan Crusades, you know, gives a really bitter speech about him that says something like, if killing children and massacring women makes you holy, then Simon sits on the right hand of God.

But then Simon's son, who's kind of a loser, basically, he takes over and he sort of fumbles and fails miserably. And this is where you're right. What becomes important is that Louis VIII, at the time Prince Louis, the son of Philip Augustus, he decides, no, this is important. And he then undertakes, is it 1225? A royal crusade.

He says, no, no, basically, this is something I must undertake myself. He even talks about going into the lands of the Algigensians. I want to say Philip the Chancellor. In Paris, he gives a speech where he says Christ's hand is nailed in Jerusalem and nailed in Toulouse. The crusade itself in the 1220s gets transformed into a royal crusade. I should say, just stepping back slightly, in 1213, there's famously the Battle of Las Navas de Toulouse, which is sort of

of in the Iberian Peninsula, like Christian lords in the north against the Amurids in the south. It's considered, if you like, that's when you reconquest it. It sort of is over, but then they stop for 200 years. But famously, the same papal legate, he's actually there.

And he gives a speech about saying at this battle that he links the Saracens, the Muslims in Spain to, he says, schismatics in Greece, right? Because we've just had, after the Fourth Crusade, we had the Latin Empire and heretics in Toulouse. So he sees a whole connection that the Abidjan Crusades is linked to all these various phenomenon. But anyhow, it's a royal crusade in the 1220s.

Louis, who becomes Louis VIII, as a prince goes there, then he keeps going when he becomes Louis VIII, but he dies. He dies going back to France from the Crusades, one of his expeditions. And by this stage, let's say 1228, on the whole, the Kingdom of France controls all of the lands of what were the V-Compe of Carcassonne, those places. So the County of Toulouse is being fenced in.

And so eventually Raymond just gives it. Oh, by the way, Raymond VI has died. So we're talking Raymond VII. And Raymond VII says, okay, I have to give in. Like he surrenders. Famously he goes to the out front of Notre Dame. He strips off to his waist. He submits himself to Louis IX, who I think's about 14. And so in the Albertans' crusade, in that sense, comes to an end.

And the argument by that stage is, yes, it has become a royal crusade. The kings of France saw it as their duty to eliminate these Abidjantians from not just their kingdom, but by eliminating it from the kingdom, they're eliminating it from Christendom. Famous story is Raymond gives his little daughter, Jean, to Louis' brother, Alphonse. I think she's like seven or eight and Alphonse is like 10 years.

And she goes and lives with him and says they're going to get married. But the idea is if they have children, then those children can obviously become the Count of Toulouse, right? Raymond dies. I think it's 1248, Raymond dies. But Alphonse and Jeanne, Alphonse, I think, becomes Count Toulouse. He only visits it all up maybe a month, something like 30 years. Louis IX dies of dysentery in Tunis in like, what, 1270? Yeah.

Jean and Alphonse die around a year later. They never had children. And so the county of Salouz gets absorbed into the kingdom of France. And that's when we can, if you like, without being anachronistic, you can start calling it Languedoc, if you like, or the tongue of Ock. And so that's one of the long-term consequences, at least in the creation of France, is out of it. But that's in the last decade of the crusade, where it becomes this royal crusade, this idea of the French monarchy conquering

has to eliminate heresy because that's part of the goal of what it is to be a holy king, which obviously is powerful with Louis IX and his various crusades. And then we have the Treaty of Paris, which has all these things that people in this region have to do about, obviously, questions of heresy. Then, as I said, in 1233, it's often debated. There's two various edicts, but let's say 1233. Gregory IX says, wow, the serpent of heresy has come back, and therefore he calls upon the Dominicans

to undertake inquisitions into heretical depravity, to, he says, eliminate this serpent. And just like we should say, the Dominicans, the orders of Friar's preachers, they're founded by Dominic during the Abidjan crusade. They founded the Preach Against Heresy. That's their whole purpose, is to preach against heresy. And they're founded...

because of what they say is widespread heresy within this region, the lands of the Countess Luz, and then they take over the Inquisitions, they become the first Inquisitors, I should say, in 1233. So, I mean, this is why they always have an interesting problem about Francis does get the stigmata, so the Franciscans always say he really was Christ. So what do you do with Dominic? Particularly when Gregory IX wants to canonize Dominic, and the Dominicans are kind of

indifferent about Kenner, but then they have to sort of say, Christ came to persecute, like Christ is a persecutor. And so to hunt heresy is to be as holy as Christ. And that's what he would have wanted. And then famously, we have the Inquisitions, which I would argue end up creating the very thing they're hunting after. I do think not all people, but I generally think some people come to embrace the very idea that

Thinking certain things, doing certain things may lead to their deaths or confiscation of property. And if that's what we mean by real heretics, then I think for all intents and purposes, then you could say they really are heretics, say after 1250. Though it's possible to argue even in the last decades of the Abidjan's crusade, there are some individuals who,

some of these good men and women who are clinging to their status, because this whole world has now been fractured, that you may want to argue they have come to accept, okay, if you're going to say I'm a heretic, then maybe I am a heretic. But this is an interesting question about what we mean by the reality of heresy. And that's what also interests me, is that how we go from an accusation in a schoolroom, how those accusations leave the schoolroom,

They start being thrown around Christendom, a great holy war. We end up with Inquisition. And then some people come to actually adopt the accusations as their very identity. We can find it in Inquisition records of the 1270s where people say there's nothing so beautiful as a death by fire. Now, no one says that to the Inquisition before 1250. No one says that. Always within the Franciscan order, you could always say there was a strain, easily elite heresy. And there is a group, weirdly called the Beguines, but again, at the end of the 13th century, who absolutely believed

embrace the persecution of the Inquisition because it helps them think they're like early martyrs. But that's not what people in the beginning think. In the beginning, what I think is fascinating about this is these early Inquisitions, particularly there's this great Inquisition in 1245-46, about 6,000 people are questioned in roughly 200 days. It makes them see things they never thought. They thought were innocent, basically. It makes them see things they thought were innocent. Sometimes we're going back to the 1170s, like people's memories are like 50 years old or even longer now.

And the inquisitors point out to them, no, this was heresy. It's a total transformation. And to use your word landscape, earlier you said it is a real transformation. People start worrying if they see someone at dusk. They start worrying if they hear noises in streets, like debates, people arguing about holiness or whatever. The fact they even heard this and didn't tell anyone, and the inquisition said, oh. And so people start worrying, is my life going to be destroyed because I looked out a window and saw someone? And I should say, yes.

Just to get back to the initial question, none of these early inquisitors think they're chasing Cathars. They never use the word Cathar. They don't say they're chasing Cathars. You will not find the Cathar church in these inquisition records. I mean, you will find organized structures if you like, but that comes out of the society that was already there. What is interesting is that you could say by the end of the 13th century, some people like reborn heresy have started adopting the game of

some ideas. This is where we get back to the questions of dualism and all this. Despite what scholars say, the dualism in the 12th century is only in people attacking other people as accusations. And that goes back to like Manichaeism. They're sort of, they're talking about continuities. Do I also think

Part of it is these accusations about what's also happening in the 12th century is the idea that your body and soul are connected. And if you don't grasp that, then clearly you must be a dualist. And almost, I can tell you, if you look at all the accusations of dualism in the 12th century, it'll be like, oh, these people don't have sex, but they're also having orgies. These people don't believe in this, having children, but then they're having... So it's never a coherent philosophy. To say there's widespread dualism is also one of these myths about Catholicism too, is

It's just not there. And if it is there, I think you only see that the end of the 13th century was some people have embraced the idea of what it means to be a heretic, of what it means to go against the church or these other issues. So I also think that's part of the phenomena here is then you see a shift that takes us into the end of medieval world.

No, that's been absolutely fascinating. It sounds like I came in with a bunch of questions and a lot of preconceptions about the Albigensian Crusade. It sounds like it's a much more complex in its beginnings than I ever thought it was. There is the bloody intensity of the fighting in the midst of it. And then it has this really long and complex legacy and tale to it as well that almost changes Christianity in terms of

internally within the Christian church, it begins to look at itself differently. And as you say, it almost gives birth to the idea of heresy as a result of chasing heretics that weren't really there. You've said very well. That is actually what I would argue. That's absolutely what I would argue. No question. I don't think it's conspiracy. I think the church really believed this. I think the church really worried that Christendom was being poisoned from within. And then that's why Innocent Proclaims the Crusade

I then think the crusade itself helps create and format the very idea of heresy in this region. But then, of course, I generally think innocent thought heresy will be wiped out. It's not, obviously. The war ends. Gregory IX sees heresy elsewhere. And then, you know, we then get the Inquisitions. As I say, you know, for instance, it's inconceivable to even understand the

When accusations are made against Jews of the heretics, right? And when we talk about burning the Talmud or something like that, or there's a converted Jew, I want to say in Paris around 1275, who refers to Jews being like heretics during the Albertans' crusade. He said, you know, as we wipe them out in the Albertans, we have to eliminate all Jews. And so his name is Paul Chrétien. Yeah, it has these long reverberating aftershocks.

I think there's even a canon lawyer who writes a canon, like I want to say 1216 or something. He says that heretics are to be found in a city. It's all right to burn it. And also, you know, all these theories of just war, you know, as I say, it's like even going back to the 12th century when Gratian in his concordance,

gives examples of just war, his examples of just war are not crusading. It's against heretics. He says heretical bishops, but he says it is a just war too. I mean, obviously, it's one of these things in thinking about, but I think it's impossible to imagine or rethink about the high Middle Ages

at least in these centuries, without having a grasp on heresy because that's the great shaping accusation, shaping understanding of what it means not to be a Christian. This is still a world where magic, witchcraft, maleficium, that's a form of heresy. Heresy is this great classifying phenomenon and it only breaks down at the very end of the medieval world. That's why I think it's a big deal to get it right.

Or rather, I think it's a big deal that catharsis never existed or catharsis never existed because I think we get the Middle Ages wrong. And I think we get, it's going to sound awfully corny now, but I think it does matter. We have to understand why people hurt each other in the past, want to kill each other in the past, want to persecute each other in the past.

And I think it's a much more complex and interesting story if we take out the Cathars. Yeah, no, no, it's brilliant. I've learned so much. I've got so much to go away and think about now as well. It's been absolutely incredible to be able to chat about this with you, Mark. It's been great. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for joining us on Gone Medieval. Yeah, no worries. Thank you very much, Mark. Okay, thanks a lot.

Mark's book, A Most Holy War, The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom, is available now if you'd like to explore this further. You can find out more about the Simon de Montfort who made his name in England in the second of two episodes with David Carpenter on Henry III. And you can discover more about a key figure in Iberian religious wars, El Cid, in a recent episode with Eleanor.

There are new instalments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back and join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval.

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