Albigensians

ALBIGESI. - 1. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. - This designation, derived from the region of Albi (Lat. Albiga or Albia, a city in southern France), is commonly applied to the Cathar heretics (v. CATARI for the history of their origin and diffusion in the countries of Western Europe and for an account of their doctrines, morality, worship, and organization), who contaminated the whole of southwestern France in the 12th and 13th centuries; hence the expression “land” or “country of the A. or of Albigensianism.” The synonymy A.–Cathars also came into use in other regions; at times it replaced the Italian designation of the Cathar sect of the Albanians (v.). This probably resulted from the resonance that certain episodes concerning the heresy acquired in contemporary literature; in fact, the mission undertaken by the papal legate Cardinal Alberico, Bishop of Ostia, against the heretical propaganda of Enrico, known as of Lausanne (v.), in

Languedoc was received very poorly on 25 June 1145 by the citizens of Albi; three days later, St Bernard obtained mass conversions there, but they did not last. Moreover, in 1165 Bishop Guglielmo Peire convened a synod of numerous bishops from the nearby dioceses, princes, and people in the town of Lombers, in the territory of Albi, which had become a stronghold of the Cathar heresy; the heretics, led by their bishop Olivier, engaged in disputation with the synod, which ended with a sentence of condemnation. The acts of the synod, widely disseminated, helped make the region of Albi the place of origin and the source of the name of Catharism. In reality, it may have been their first hierarchical centre; as early as the eleventh century, groups of heretics holding dualist or neo-Manichaean doctrines are reported in Aquitaine and northern France, as well as in Italy.

Taking the acts of the Cathar Council of Saint-Félix de Caraman (Toulouse) of 1167 to be authentic, Albigensianism there received a doctrinal unification and a hierarchical organization: its representatives, through the agency of the leader Niceta or Niquinta, who had come from the East, adopted the absolute dualism of the Cathar church of Dugunthia (v. ALBANESI) and established the dioceses or heretical churches of Albi, that is, Lombers, Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Val d'Aran in Languedoc, as well as that of ancient France, which comprised the royal territories of the oli-speaking peoples; before 1230 the diocese of Agen was established, and in 1225 that of Razès. The contemporary R. Sacconi (v.) in 1250 lists in his Summa de catharis the three churches of Albi, Toulouse, and Carcassonne; their members, together with those of the vanished jurisdiction of Agen, amounted to

200; they remained faithful to absolute dualism because they followed the doctrine of the oldest faction of the Albanesi, headed by the Cathar bishop Balasinanza of Verona. By contrast, the members of the ecclesia Franciae, that is, of the oli-speaking regions, had been dispersed by the anti-heretical action chiefly of St Louis IX and had regrouped, numbering 150, in the Veronese territory and Lombardy; doctrinally, they had adopted the mitigated dualism of Bagnolesi (v.). In the second half of the thirteenth century, we also find Cathar leaders and followers from Languedoc exiled or emigrated to Lombardy and Apulia; toward the end of the century, upon returning to their homeland, they brought back beliefs and formulas of mitigated dualism, which were professed alongside the pure dualism of the ancient A. The action of the Inquisition and the dispersion of the centres helped bring about the disappearance of Occitan Catharism, which in the fourteenth century retained only a few faint traces, its last remnants.

2. THE ARMED CRUSADE AGAINST THE A

From the middle of the twelfth century, Catharism or Albigensianism in Languedoc organized itself into hierarchical circumscriptions, convened large gatherings, engaged in an intense campaign of dissemination and conquest, and openly and boldly defied the opposition of the magisterium and ecclesiastical institutions. The heretics drew strength from the armed support of the great feudal lords and civil authorities; the strict asceticism of the “perfect” allowed the simple believers and sympathizers every excess, while assuring them eternal salvation through the conferral of the “consolamentum” at the point of death; the heretical preaching against ecclesiastical property enabled the covetous nobility to seize it without further moral obstacles. The defenceless populations allowed themselves to be seduced by the austere life of the Cathar leaders, abandoned churches and sacraments, and participated in violence against the clergy and monasteries; there were even ecclesiastical dignitaries and parish priests who not only failed to oppose the heretical invasion but entered into dealings with the enemy and profited from II. According to the alarm calls being issued, Occitan Catholicism was close to shipwreck; the Cathar Church and nobility had established a centre of threat to the peace of nations and of Christian society. In 1177 Raimondo V of Toulouse confessed, in alarm, that spiritual weapons were powerless, that his material forces were insufficient because his vassals were defecting to the enemy, and that only the intervention of the king of France could alter the situation. Only thirty years later would the historical moment require the use of armed force. Indeed, the missions of the papal legates, accompanied by Cistercian monks as preachers of the faith and protected by small military escorts, achieved nothing in 1178 and 1181. Raimondo VI of Toulouse showed himself favourable to the heretics. Innocent III, who regarded heresy as a crime of lèse-divinity, to be punished in the same manner as the crime of lèse-majesté, increased the powers of the legatine inquisition, which exercised ordinary jurisdiction in matters of heresy, removing the unworthy from ecclesiastical offices, requiring magistrates and lords to swear allegiance to the Roman faith and to provide the secular arm for the proscription of heretics and confiscation of their goods, under penalty of themselves incurring the same sanctions. To assist the legates Pietro di Castelnau and Rodolfo, discouraged by their lack of success, Diego, bishop of Osma, and Domenico di Guzman with his first companions began working from 1203; they proceeded by the example of an austere life, evangelical preaching, and disputations, but achieved only partial successes. The Count of Toulouse, through his devious conduct, kept the legates’ work in check; on 5 January 1208, one of his subjects, who remained unpunished, assassinated the legate Pietro di Castelnau, thereby creating the “casus belli.” Innocent III had the armed crusade preached against the heretics of the South, releasing Raimondo VI’s subjects from their oath of loyalty to him, since he had been excommunicated. The king of France, Filippo Augusto, remained on the sidelines; he merely allowed his vassals to become crusaders. The legate Arnoldo di Citeaux set out from Lyons with a makeshift army and on 22 July 1209 captured Béziers, and on 15 August Carcassonne. The crusade acquired a leader: Simone di Monfort, created viscount of the two aforementioned cities; the religious purpose became linked with the political one, as the lesser nobility of the North intended to take possession of the southern fiefs. The crusaders were animated by sincere faith and displayed unyielding courage, but they combined their own interests with those of religion and gave themselves over to the cruelties of war. The ecclesiastical authorities renewed the local hierarchy and purged the regions of the heretical infection. But Simone intended to supplant Raimondo VI in the county of Toulouse; Innocent III, instead, inclined toward mercy and ordered the suspension of the crusade. It nevertheless continued in its political aspect;

Peter, king of Aragon, having allied himself with Raimondo VI, formed a league with the intention of negotiating with the Pope against the crusaders; the project failed because of the great victory won by Simone at Muret on 12 September 1213. The Council of Montpellier in 1215 assigned him the city of Toulouse; Innocent III, at the Fourth Lateran Council, through a settlement, reserved for the son of the count of Toulouse, Raimondo VII, the lands not yet occupied and compelled Simone di Monfort to request from the king of France the investiture of the conquered fiefs. The action against heresy continued in accordance with ecclesiastical and civil legislation; but the military campaign underwent alternating fortunes, until Louis VIII, son of Philip Augustus, intervened with his own army to reap its fruits, taking possession of the entire country. But upon his death (1226), the A. raised their heads again, and the war continued until 1228, when Raimondo VII, by then discouraged, expressed his desire to negotiate peace. The Treaty of Meaux of 1229, between the representatives of the regent Blanche of Castile and Raimondo VII, secured the lands of southern France for the French crown: lower Languedoc, which formed the seneschalships of Carcassonne and Beaucaire, was ceded to II. Raimondo gave his daughter Giovanna in marriage to the brother of Louis IX, Alfonso of Poitiers, thereby securing the succession of the Capetians in the domains that remained to him. This took place in 1271. The count of Toulouse also subscribed to the measures for the defence of the faith. It cannot be denied that the crusade against the A. was a decisive means of breaking the armed protection of heresy and the complicity of the civil powers, so dangerous to the public good itself; Innocent III, with superior integrity, sought to restrain the unforeseen deviations of political passions; it must also be acknowledged that the crusade served to bring North and South France into closer union, marking a stage in its unification. The ever-serious threat of heretical infestation prompted Gregory Inquisition (v.), systematized by his successors, which continued in France, as elsewhere, the repression of the various heretical sects.