Albigensians

ALBIGENSIANS. - 1. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. - With this denomination, deriving from the region of Albi (Lat. Albiga or Albia, a city of southern France), are commonly designated the Cathar heretics (v. CATHARS for the history of their origin and diffusion in the countries of Western Europe and for the exposition of their doctrines, morality, cult, organization), who contaminated in the 12th and 13th centuries the whole of south-western France, to which the expression "land" or "country of the A. or of Albigensianism" extends. The synonymy A.-Cathars came into use also in other regions; it sometimes replaced the Italian denomination of the Cathar sect of the Albanenses (v.). This probably arose from the resonance that certain episodes concerning the heresy had in contemporary literature; in fact, the mission conducted by the pontifical legate Cardinal Alberic, bishop of Ostia, against the heretical propaganda of Henry, called of Lausanne (v.), in the Languedoc, it was received very badly, on 25 June 1145, by the citizens of Albi; three days later, St. Bernard obtained mass conversions there, but they were not lasting. Furthermore, in 1165 Bishop Guillaume Peire convoked a synod of numerous bishops of the neighboring dioceses, of princes and of the people in the village of Lombers, in the territory of Albi, which had become a stronghold of the Cathar heresy; the heretics, led by their bishop Olivier, sustained the debate with the synod, which ended with a sentence of condemnation, and whose acts, widely circulated, contributed to making the region of Albi the place of origin and of the naming of Catharism. In reality there may have been a first hierarchical center of theirs there; already in the 11th century groups of heretics of dualistic or neo-Manichaean doctrine are reported in Aquitaine and in northern France, as well as in Italy.

Holding as authentic the acts of the Cathar Council of Saint-Félix de Caraman (Toulouse) of 1167, Albigensianism received there a doctrinal unification and a hierarchical organization: its representatives, through the work of the leader Nicetas or Niquinta, who came from the East, passed over to the absolute dualism of the Cathar church of Dugunthia (v. ALBANESI) and constituted the dioceses or heretical churches of Albi, that is Lombers, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Val d'Aran in Languedoc, and that of ancient France, which comprised the royal territories of the langue d'oïl; before 1230 the diocese of Agen was established, in 1225 that of Razès. The contemporary R. Sacconi (v.) in 1250 lists in his Summa de catharis the three churches of Albi, Toulouse, Carcassonne; their members, together with those of the vanished circumscription of Agen, amount to 200; they remained faithful to absolute dualism, because they followed the doctrine of the oldest faction of the Albanenses headed by the Cathar bishop Balasinanza of Verona. On the other hand the members of the ecclesia Franciae, that is of the regions of the langue d'oïl, had been dispersed by the anti-heretical action especially of St. Louis IX and had regrouped to the number of 150 in the Veronese region and in Lombardy; as for doctrine they had passed over to the mitigated dualism of the Cathar sect of the Bagnolesi (v.). In the second half of the 13th century we find Cathar leaders and rank-and-file members also from Languedoc exiled or emigrated to Lombardy and to Apulia, who then, at the end of the century, brought back, on returning to their homeland, beliefs and formulas of mitigated dualism, which were professed alongside the pure dualism of the ancient A. The action of the Inquisition and the dispersal of the centers combined to make Occitan Catharism disappear, which in the 14th century preserves only a few weak vestiges, the last ones.

2. THE ARMED CRUSADE AGAINST THE ALBIGENSIANS

From the middle of the 12th century Catharism or Albigensianism in Languedoc organizes itself into hierarchical circumscriptions, convokes gatherings of great attendance, carries out an intense action of diffusion and conquest, openly and boldly defies the opposition of the magisterium and of the ecclesiastical institutions. The heretics grew strong through the armed support of the great feudal lords and of the civil authorities; the rigid asceticism of the "perfect" allowed simple believers and sympathizers every excess, while it assured them eternal salvation through the conferral in extremis of the "consolamentum"; heretical preaching against ecclesiastical property made it possible for the nobility, greedy to plunder it, to do so without any further moral obstacles. The defenseless populations let themselves be seduced by the austere life of the Cathar leaders, abandon churches and sacraments, take part in violence against the clergy and the monasteries; there is no lack of ecclesiastical dignitaries and parish priests who not only do not oppose the heretical invasion, but enter into understanding with the enemy and profit from it. According to cries of alarm, Occitan Catholicism was close to shipwreck; the Church and the Cathar nobility had established a center of threat to the peace of the nations and of Christian society. Raymond V of Toulouse in 1177 confesses in fear that spiritual weapons are powerless, that his material forces are not enough because of the desertion to the enemy of his vassals, that only the intervention of the king of France could change the situation. Only thirty years later, the historical moment would demand the use of armed force. In fact the missions of the pontifical legates, accompanied by Cistercian monks as preachers of the faith and protected by small military escorts, in 1178 and 1181, came to nothing. Raymond VI of Toulouse showed himself favorable to the heretics. Innocent III, who considers heresy as a crime of lèse-divinity, to be punished in the same way as the crime of lèse-majesté, increased the powers of the legatine inquisition, which acted with ordinary jurisdiction in matters of heresy, deposing the unworthy from ecclesiastical offices, demanding from magistrates and lords an oath of Roman faith and the provision of the secular arm for the proscription of heretics and the confiscation of their goods, under penalty of falling themselves under the same sanctions. To the aid of the legates Peter of Castelnau and Rodolfo, discouraged by the failure, Diego, bishop of Osma, and Dominic of Guzman with his first companions labored from 1203; they proceeded by the example of an austere life, evangelical preaching, and debate conferences, but had only partial successes. The count of Toulouse with a cunning conduct kept the work of the legates in check; on 5 Jan. 1208 one of his subjects, who remained unpunished, assassinated the legate Peter of Castelnau, thus creating the "casus belli". Innocent III had the crusade of arms against the heretics of the South preached, releasing the subjects from the oath of fidelity to Raymond VI, excommunicated. The king of France, Philip Augustus, remained waiting; he only permitted his vassals to become crusaders. The legate Arnold of Citeaux sets out from Lyon with a motley army and on 22 July 1209 takes Béziers and on 15 Aug. Carcassonne. The crusade gives itself a leader: Simon of Montfort, created viscount of the two aforementioned cities; the religious aim is linked with the political one, the minor nobility of the North intends to take possession of the southern fiefs. The crusaders are animated by a sincere faith and give proof of indomitable courage, but they unite their own interests with those of religion and abandon themselves to the cruelties of war. The ecclesiastical authorities renew the local hierarchy and purge the regions of the heretical infection. But Simon intended to supplant Raymond VI in the county of Toulouse; instead Innocent III, inclined to mercy, ordered the suspension of the crusade. This nevertheless continued under the political aspect;

Peter, King of Aragon, having allied himself with Raymond VI, formed a league with the intention of negotiating with the Pope against the crusaders; the plan failed because of the great victory won by Simon at Muret on Sept. 12, 1213. The Council of Montpellier of 1215 assigned him the city of Toulouse; Innocent III, at the Fourth Lateran Council, by a settlement, reserved for the son of the Count of Toulouse, Raymond VII, the lands not yet occupied and forced Simon de Montfort to request from the King of France the investiture of the fiefs he had conquered. 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 an army of his own to reap its fruits, taking possession of the entire country. But at his death (1226) the A. raised their heads again and the war continued until 1228, when Raymond VII, by then discouraged, expressed the desire to negotiate peace. The Treaty of Meaux of 1229, between the representatives of the regent Blanche of Castile and Raymond VII, secured for the French crown the lands of the south: the lower Languedoc was ceded to it, forming the sénéchaussée of Carcassonne and Beaucaire. Raymond gave his daughter Joan in marriage to the brother of Louis IX, Alphonse of Poitiers, thus assuring the succession of the Capetians in the domains remaining to him. This took place in 1271. The Count of Toulouse, moreover, subscribed to the measures for the defense of the faith. It cannot be denied that the crusade against the A. was a decisive means of crushing the armed protection of heresy and the complicity of the civil powers, so dangerous for the public good itself; Innocent III with superior honesty sought to curb the unforeseen deviations of political passions; it must also be recognized that the crusade served the interpenetration between the North and the South of France, marking a stage toward its unity. The ever-serious threat of heretical infestation prompted the institution by Gregory IX of the pontifical inquisition (v.), organized by his successors, which continued in France, as elsewhere, the repression of the various heretical sects.

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