still further his relations with his nephew, and to lower still
further, if possible, Churchmen’s opinion of his crooked dealings
with them.

Innocent determined to play with the wretched count. Excommunicate
as he was, the fact that his agents had been received at Rome and
their complaints against Arnaut listened to at all may prove that the
Pope and his advisers had already considered such a plan. Certainly
Raymond’s repeated shuffling with the Church had been enough to wipe
out any further claim to consideration for him. His abject fear was
now to be used to put him into the power of Rome, so as to lessen
his ability to resist the coming Crusade, should he determine to do
so. As for renouncing the Crusade, whatever Raymond might do, that
was probably not considered for a moment. After ten years of failure
Rome was at last convinced that nothing could be done with heresy in
Languedoc except by terrifying that country. Further, now that the
crusading army was actually mobilizing, the Church could not call off
the expedition even if she so desired.

Accordingly, the curia fell in with Raymond’s request for new
legates. Without removing Arnaut Amalric, the Pope gave him two
new colleagues—Milo, a notary of the Lateran, and Theodisius, a
Genoese canon—who were to arrange the conditions of the Count’s
reconciliation with the Church. Raymond was overjoyed, and there
are indications that Arnaut Amalric and his colleague the bishop of
Conserans were correspondingly depressed, or at least puzzled at the
apparent success of the Toulousain ambassadors at Rome, with their
fluent tongues and their showers of presents.

Innocent made haste to reassure his earlier legates. Milo was
directed to obey Arnaut Amalric implicitly. The new appointments
were a mere ruse. The Pope quoted Scripture in defence of the use
of craft, and explained that, while seeming for a time to favour
Raymond, the lesser defenders of heresy could be the more easily
crushed by the Crusade. Raymond himself, should he make no move to
support his vassals, was at first to be left alone. Then, when those
who might have rallied round him had been disposed of, he could
be easily dealt with in his turn—that is, “should he persist in
his evil ways,” Innocent added for form’s sake. What had appeared
as a diplomatic victory for Raymond was only a move to make his
destruction more certain.

Through the spring and early summer of 1209 the pious comedy was
played. Raymond again solemnly swore (he must have known the formulas
by heart, he had sworn to them so often) to consider as heretics
those designated as such by the clergy, and to turn them over to
the Crusaders, together with their abettors and goods; to dismiss
his bandit-mercenaries, and never hire such troops again; to remove
such Jews as he had appointed to public offices; to restore the
Church properties he had stolen; to police the roads; to abolish his
excessive toll-rates, and keep the “Truce of God” on feast and fast
days. All this was familiar ground. What was new was the oath taken
by the “consuls” representing the municipalities of Avignon, Nimes
and St. Gilles, no longer to recognize him as their overlord should
he fail to satisfy the Church. More serious still was Raymond’s
delivery of seven of his strongest castles into Milo’s custody, thus
giving the Church party the whip hand in a military sense when the
crusading army should arrive. Only when this had been done did Milo
and Theodisius proceed with the ceremony of formal reconciliation.

On June 18, 1209, the humiliating ceremony of his public penance
took place at St. Gilles, on its bluff over the Rhône delta. The
town was the seat of Raymond’s remote ancestors, from which they had
gradually extended their power through four centuries. Its great
romanesque church had been built by his grandfather. A great throng
filled the square before the church, crowding, no doubt, upon the
broad flight of steps that rises to the façade with its wealth of
sculpture and its three round-arched bays. Before the central door,
the excommunicate Count swore upon relics of Christ, and of various
saints, to obey the Pope and the legates in everything. Milo then put
his stole about the penitent’s neck, and using it like a halter, drew
him along, naked to the waist, and stooping forward so that he might
the better be beaten with rods as he walked the whole length of the
church. Before the high altar he was absolved. Then came a hitch in
the proceedings. It had been planned that he should leave the church
by the door through which he had come, but the crowd had packed the
whole place so densely that their humiliated lord with his shoulders
all bloody had to be gotten out by way of the crypt; past the tomb
of de Castelnau which stood there—an unexpected change of plan which
added still another touch of drama to the vivid scene.

Readers of English history will be reminded of the similar penance
of Henry II for the murder of Becket. Two differences, however,
should be noted. De Castelnau (unlike Thomas of Canterbury) was never
canonized, and Raymond’s penance (unlike Henry’s) did not improve
his political position in the least. Within six days, before his
lacerated shoulders had ceased to smart, the crusading army marched
south from its mobilization point at Lyons. Raymond was to learn
that, like Ulysses in the Cyclops’ cave, he had obtained only the
privilege of being eaten last.

Before closing the account of the preliminaries of the Crusade and
taking up the Crusade itself, a word should be given to a short lived
but significant movement which came about in consequence of the
Papal mission. At the conference of Pamiers, a Spanish Waldensian
leader, Durand of Huesca, was converted to orthodoxy. It seems that
he and his immediate personal followers had, all along, considered
Waldensianism as an instrument for re-invigorating the Church rather
than for opposing her. Their strength seems to have been on both
sides of the Eastern Pyrenees, although we hear of their founding a
school at Milan. As the limits of what was and what was not heresy
were rapidly becoming more defined, their middle position became
untenable. They had finally been excommunicated and their school at
Milan torn down by the archbishop there. Now Durand went to Rome and
asked sanction of the Pope himself for the foundation of a community
of “Poor Catholics” (so called in contrast to the “Poor men of
Lyons” as the Waldensians called themselves). The members of the new
community were to be bound by strict vows of abstinence, chastity,
and especially of poverty. They were forbidden to possess anything
more than bare necessities, and were to beg their bread from day
to day. Their clothing was to be of the coarsest stuff, with shoes
of a special design so that they might be distinguished from the
Waldenses. The principal change from their former life was that they
promised no longer to attack the clergy as the Waldensians did, but
to preach against heresy instead. Innocent saw at once the value
of the proposed community, and in December 1208, accepted Durand’s
oath binding himself and his followers. Already, in 1209 there
were communities of “Poor Catholics” in Aragon, Narbonne, Beziers,
Uzès, Carcassonne, and Nimes. At this time, they must have quite
overshadowed the little band of preachers, as yet loosely organized
and bound by no rule, who had grouped themselves around St. Dominic.
But unfortunately for the “Poor Catholics” they were permanently
suspected as converted heretics. In those crusading days, it needed
no prophet or son of a prophet to predict that such a body would
survive with difficulty, if at all. That Innocent authorized it is
proof of his desire to spread the peaceful propaganda of Catholicism
by every possible means.

Meanwhile, events were moving swiftly. As has been said, the Church
had not the slightest intention of giving up the Crusade because
of Raymond’s submission. He had violated too many oaths. Besides,
they probably could not have persuaded the Crusaders to disperse, at
least without causing bitter disappointment, and very serious loss of
prestige to the Church among her own champions. Not more than a week
after Raymond’s humiliating penance at St. Gilles, the crusading army
moved southward from Lyons.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] “Innocent III, La Croisade des Albigeois,” by Achille Luchaire.
Published Hachette, Paris, 1911. Ch. ii, p. 47.

[30] Innocent III, “La Croisade des Albigeois,” Luchaire, p. 91.

[31] “Life of St. Dominic,” p. 40.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE—THE EARLY WAR.

The Albigensian Crusade lasted for twenty years, from the original
mobilization and march of the crusading army to the treaty which
finally ended hostilities. Naturally, for the greater part of this
long period there was no heavy fighting, the resources of the
opponents could not have supported any such continuous performance;
indeed throughout considerable intervals there seems to have been no
actual fighting at all. Nevertheless, for twenty years there were
hostile forces in being and a state of war existed.

The chief single episode of these twenty years is the astonishing
battle of Muret. It will be best, therefore, to consider separately,
first the earlier stages of the war, and second the campaign of Muret
and the subsequent events which that action made possible.

The early war falls naturally into two periods of unequal length.
The first, of only two months, comprises the original crusading
march with its overwhelming numbers, and the capture of Beziers
and Carcassonne. It ends with the appointment of Simon de Montfort
to govern the conquered territories, and the return of the great
majority of Crusaders to their homes. The second period lasts for
four years. Throughout this time de Montfort commands the Crusade,
maintains a government in Languedoc, and extends his power. This he
does, in spite of his slender resources, by virtue of high personal
ability. The period ends with the military intervention of King Pedro
of Aragon against the Crusade, and the general expectation that de
Montfort, with his greatly inferior forces, would be annihilated
forthwith.

All warfare, it is axiomatic, is merely a means to a political end.
One group attempts to impose its will upon another which asserts a
contrary will of its own and resists.

We have seen in the first chapter that the Middle Ages were
politically decentralized to a high degree, but that, on the other
hand, they had a strong sense of moral unity. Christendom was one
big family. Mediæval warfare was conditioned by these two political
factors. On account of decentralization in all its forms, the central
governments had only a slight power to compel the entire body of
their nominal subjects to move, irrespective of the individual wills
of those subjects with regard to the particular matter in dispute;
slight, that is, compared with the power of modern governments. On
account both of decentralization and also of the moral unity of
Christendom, wars between Christian men in the Middle Ages seldom
involved any great point of principle. There could be no opposition
between different and mutually exclusive types of civilization, as
between the French and German types to-day. Usually the dispute
concerned merely the opposing claims of two parties to ownership
of, and therefore feudal administration over, a patch of land.
Accordingly campaigns were apt to be short and inconclusive, and
warfare in general somewhat of an adventurous sport. It is true that
in the thirteenth century, a time still simple, war had not yet
taken on the unreality of aim and the elaborate trappings which are
the mark of the later Middle Ages. Already, however, it had become
something of a “gentleman’s game,” as were the dynastic wars of the
eighteenth century. Naturally, therefore, when a vital principle was
involved (as in the Crusade which we are about to study), operations
were always tending to relapse into the haphazard fashion fostered by
the contemporary idea of war as an affair in which nothing of great
moment to society as a whole was at stake.

As far as the technique of operations is concerned, the important
features are mail-clad cavalry and permanent fortification.
Axiomatically, infantry is worth more than cavalry in combats between
disciplined bodies of troops, but less than cavalry in raids and in
defence against raids, as in our own Indian wars, and in the Boer
War. Thus, in late Roman times and the Dark Ages, cavalry gradually
became preponderant over infantry, throughout the greater part
of Europe. The Franks who ended by setting up their chieftain as
successor to the Western Emperors, were an exception. It was not
until the great Viking harry of the ninth century, in which our
tradition almost went under, that the defenders of “Francia” began to
rely mainly upon cavalry. That arm alone was fast enough to overtake
the pirates whose first act on landing was to steal horses for
themselves. And it was in the repulse of the Viking, as we have seen,
that mediæval society crystallized.

Fortified points, as well as cavalry, take on additional importance
when the resources of one’s opponent seldom permit him to sit
down before them and maintain a blockade and regular siege for
a long time. A great deal of nonsense has been talked about the
“impregnability” of fortification before the discovery of gunpowder.
Any man acquainted with military things knows that, even irrespective
of blockade, any fortress must fall before besiegers in sufficient
numbers and possessed of armament and engineering skill equal to the
defenders, unless the defence can receive relief from outside. Thus
Philip Augustus took Chateau Gaillard, the strongest fortress of its
time, not by blockade but by regular siege.

On the other hand, it has been truly observed that mediæval
commanders of Philip’s type, and with his resources, were rare. The
value of fortification is that it gains time, and few men of the
Middle Ages had their troops well enough in hand to hold them long
at the monotonous drudgery of siege work—even if they had resources
sufficient to keep their force continuously in being at all. The
well-provisioned fortress could usually count on starving out its
besiegers before being starved out itself. Accordingly, if one party
to a quarrel felt himself to be weaker than his enemy, he was apt to
shut himself up promptly behind walls.

Furthermore, fortifications played a large part in mediæval warfare
because a fortress covering only a small area could resist a regular
siege as well as one of great extent. The importance of comparatively
small fortified points, that is of castles, sprang from the lack of
missile weapons capable of battering down stone walls. Obviously, as
the power, accuracy, and effective range of missile weapons increase,
the circumference of the first-class fortress must correspondingly
increase if it is to escape being overwhelmed by the converging fire
of the greater number of engines which the concentric position of the
besiegers enables them to bring to bear upon it. Conversely, when
the problem (as in the Middle Ages) is of close-in defence only, the
area to be defended matters little with reference to the siege work
involved. Whereas, on the other hand, the expense of construction
mounts as the circumference to be fortified increases. The resources
of the besiegers were sapping or battering the base of the walls; or
escalade from behind the cover of movable towers which could be set
up out of range, and then rolled up so as to let down drawbridges on
a level with the battlements.

Finally, the mediæval was no fool. I have made this point in my
first chapter; nevertheless, I repeat it here. We have seen that the
importance of cavalry and of fortification, especially of castles
(i.e., small highly-fortified points) resulted not from folly, but
from the conditions of the time. Social and political conditions,
again, were unfavorable to regular discipline, but no more so than in
our own American Revolution. Less so, in fact. It is true that there
was no regular study of war as an art. Nevertheless, our modern staff
colleges could not easily improve on the decisions of many mediæval
commanders. Even the lack of maps on which modern staff work is built
up did not necessarily blind the eye of the commander operating in
familiar or partially friendly country.

The men of the Middle Ages sometimes show the power of sizing up the
strategic essentials of a large theatre of war which they had never
seen, and had never even seen mapped. For instance, take the case of
Philip Augustus’s advice to his son with regard to the campaign of
1216 in England, that is that the Prince should first of all seize
the castle of Dover which commanded the English terminus to the
shortest possible sea route between England and France.

In the present instance, the mobilization point and the line of march
were intelligently chosen. It was clearly out of the question to
cross the “Massif Central,” the mountains of Auvergne, since armies
are compelled to seek the lines of geographical least resistance, and
must avoid, whenever possible, thinly peopled districts which cannot
keep them in food and shelter. The choice which faced the leaders of
the Crusade was whether to outflank the mountainous country by the
west or by the east.

It is only a guess, but I think that the decision to march by the
easterly route was mainly for political reasons. To march by the west
would have brought the crusading army close to territory still held
by John of England. That monarch was still firmly planted on both
sides of the lower Garonne, and had even held on to parts of Poitou
well to the north of that river. The much widowed Raymond of Toulouse
had married John’s sister Joan, who had since died. John had broken
with the Pope over the candidacy of Stephen Langton, later of Magna
Charta fame, for the archbishopric of Canterbury; and when Innocent
had replied by interdicting all England, John had been able to compel
most of the English clergy from enforcing the sentence. Since the
Crusade was obviously directed against Raymond, John might move.
It would be well, therefore, for the Crusaders not to give him an
opportunity of falling upon their flanks or rear while marching south
on the westward route.

Furthermore, there were geographical points to be considered.
Crusaders from Germany and the Slavonic lands east of the Adriatic
could more easily reach Lyons than, say, Limoges. Of course, most of
the Crusaders would be “French,” that is North French, but German and
Slavonic contingents were expected and did, in fact, turn up. East
of the mountains, the expedition would be in closer touch with Rome,
which might prove important in those days of slow couriers. Finally
Lyons, being a large town, would be more suitable for a mobilization
point than any smaller city further west, for cities draw armies like
magnets since only in cities is there enough surplus food and shelter
for large bodies of men. Lyons was, therefore, wisely chosen as the
concentration point, and the Rhône Valley as the line of march.

The main force which assembled at Lyons was extremely large. The
“Chanson de la Croisade” says twenty thousand knights and men-at-arms
plus two hundred thousand “villeins” on foot. Until recently it has
been fashionable for historians to disbelieve mediæval high numbers,
but fashions change. At any rate, a huge army assembled.

The weakness of the great force was that only forty days’ service
sufficed to fulfil the crusading vow. Hence the Crusade, if
prolonged, was bound to suffer (like so many American armies from
Washington’s to the Civil War) from the plague of short enlistments.

Besides the papal legates Arnaut Amalric and Milo, there were with
the army the Archbishops of Reims, Sens, and Rouen, the Bishops of
Autun, Clermont, Nevers, Bayeux, Lisieux, and Chartres, the Duke of
Burgundy, and the Counts of Nevers and St. Pol.

Just how the higher command was organized we do not know. Arnaut
Amalric seems to have been the strongest personality.

Inconspicuous, no doubt, among the lesser nobles was a Baron of the
Isle of France, also Earl of Leicester in England, Simon de Montfort
by name. Possibly people pointed him out as the only man in the
Fourth Crusade five years before to refuse to march against Zara,
so that when the Venetians persuaded the other Crusaders to pay for
their passage to the East by taking this Christian city he had left
the expedition and gone home. It seems quite clear, however, that at
the beginning he was of little authority in the Crusade.

In the last week of June the Crusaders moved south from Lyons,
keeping, apparently, to the east bank of the river where the main
Roman road ran.

In their march down the valley of the Rhône, with its glare and
white dust, they were met at Valence by Raymond of Toulouse himself.
Without hesitation, virtually on the morrow of his humiliating
penance at St. Gilles, with the welts of the monkish lash unhealed
on his back, this man, against whom the Crusade was principally
directed, himself took the Cross and joined the army which had
mustered to destroy him. Following out Innocent’s plan of “divide et
impera” (divide and conquer) he was permitted to join the army, which
continued on its march. Of course the Crusade was, officially, aimed
at the heretics of the south, and Raymond, with all his shiftiness,
was no heretic. Protestant historians have blamed the Churchmen in
charge of the policy of the Crusade for duplicity in this matter.
Of course, Raymond’s submission was accepted merely because it was
temporarily convenient for them not to have him for an open enemy,
although it was intended in the long run to ruin him altogether.
Still I confess that I cannot see that severe condemnation is
justified. He had played fast and loose too often.

Where the army crossed the Rhône we are not told; possibly at Orange
or Avignon, but more probably from Tarascon to Beaucaire, where the
main Roman crossing had been. Once across the Rhône, it took up again
the old road by Nismes into Spain which so many armies had followed
since Hannibal. At Montpellier, Raymond Roger Trencavel, Viscount
of Beziers and Carcassonne, and nephew to Raymond of Toulouse, came
to meet the chiefs of the Crusade, as his uncle had already come to
them at Valence, to make his peace. He was refused a hearing. It was
necessary that the great army should not disband without striking
terror into the heretical south and giving some, at least, of its
feudal lordships into the hands of proved and zealous Catholics.
Otherwise the effort involved in organizing the expedition would have
been wasted. Accordingly, for Raymond Roger to plead his own personal
orthodoxy and claim that only irresponsible subordinates had favoured
heresy, was not to the point. The “Chanson” says that Raymond of
Toulouse, with his usual shortsighted cunning, suggested an attack on
his nephew, with whom he had recently quarrelled. It would have been
so like the wretched Count of Toulouse to have done so, that we may
accept the story.

Raymond Roger hurried back from Montpellier to his own lands. Why
the Crusaders, after once having had him in their power, let him go
in peace to organize resistance against them is not clear. Perhaps
he had come in under some sort of guarantee like the modern flag of
truce, and was therefore protected by the highly developed military
courtesy of the day, which had grown up around the idea of knighthood.

At any rate, he was allowed to go, and made haste to put his two
chief towns, Beziers and Carcassonne, in a state of defence,
following the usual custom for the weaker party in a mediæval
conflict, i.e., to stand on the defensive behind walls. The Crusaders
sat down before Beziers on the 20th or 21st of July. They had
started from Lyons between the 24th and 30th of June, and had marched
close to 230 miles, making an average march of between 10 and 8¾
miles a day, a very creditable showing, and one which deserves to be
called to the attention of despisers of things mediæval. No doubt it
was desired to waste as little as possible of the short forty-day
enlistment before coming to grips with the heretics and their noble
patrons.

Before Beziers they were joined by two detachments, one from the
neighbourhood of Agen and the other from Auvergne. Each detachment
had won certain successes of its own on its way. The Agenais had held
to ransom two towns in the Aveyron Valley, Caussade and St. Antonin,
and were looked upon with some disfavour (mingled perhaps with envy)
by the other Crusaders, for having compounded with wickedness for a
money payment. One of the commanders of the Auvergnats bore the great
name of Turenne. His detachment had captured a strong castle and
burned the heretics found therein, the first but not the last time
that we shall hear of burning in connection with the Crusade.

Incidentally, the military aspect of this concentration deserves a
word. Lyons and Agen are 225 miles apart as the crow flies, with the
mountainous country of Auvergne between. Anyone with the slightest
military experience knows how hard it is to synchronize the movements
of distant columns so that they may meet at a common centre, even
with accurate maps and with all modern means of communication. In
this case, maps, telephone, telegraph, and all means of mechanical
rapid transit were lacking. Probably an advance concentration point
in the neighbourhood of Beziers was selected before any of the
columns commenced its march, and during the march communication was
kept up by an inter-weaving system of mounted couriers. The risk
of the comparatively weak centre and right columns being cut off
before they could join was practically nil because of the submission
of the Count of Toulouse, and because the entire countryside was
terror-stricken by fear of the Crusaders. Even so, the accurate
concentration of the three columns on Beziers was a feat of
considerable military skill.

Beziers, like most Mediterranean towns, had been an organized city
throughout the time of recorded history and before. Under mediæval
conditions it was easy to defend, being built on a hill. Heresy was
particularly strong there; we have seen in the last chapter how de
Castelnau, in 1205, had had to leave the place because of the fury
stirred up against his person and his defence of the faith. There
is even some reason for believing that the great majority of the
citizens were heretical, which was by no means the case in places
like Toulouse, where the utmost that the heretics dared do was to
hold their services at midnight. If there were only a few Catholics
within the walls, it is not surprising that the city refused to
surrender. Its bishop was with the Crusaders, and was allowed to
propose that the town should capitulate and hand over its heretics
for punishment in return for guarantees on the part of the Crusaders
for the persons and property of the Catholic citizens. This most fair
and liberal offer, from the crusading point of view, was rejected.
The besieged preferred to run the chances of war, probably not
because of any great solidarity between the heretical and Catholic
citizens (as certain modern Protestant historians do vainly talk),
but no doubt because the Catholics were few in numbers, and did not
control the decisions taken by the defence.

Having refused to treat, the inhabitants made a sortie across the
bridge over their river, killed a Crusader and threw his body into
the stream. The sortie was repulsed, and thereupon, according to
the account generally received, the camp followers of the Crusade
succeeded in rushing the defences. This surprising success was
achieved without orders, by divine inspiration as the legates piously
put it, while the chiefs of the Crusade were deliberating as to their
next step. Those in search of secular explanations may well suppose
that the assailants entered on the heels of the inhabitants driven
back in the repulse of the sortie before the gate could be closed,
or that defective dispositions of the defence had left some point
unguarded, or, finally, that a local panic among the men told off to
guard a particular tower or bit of wall had permitted the success of
the attack.

After the storming of the walls there took place in the crooked,
steeply sloping streets of the town, the massacre for which Beziers
and the Albigensian Crusade itself are principally remembered.
Priest and layman, woman and child seem to have suffered equally. Of
a great crowd which had taken sanctuary in the church of St. Mary
Magdalene, not one survived. With the sword came fire. Since, as
we have seen, the camp followers, probably mixed with the peasant
infantry, had been the first to enter, the knights began to drive
them out by force, for fear that they themselves would get no loot.
In their anger at this, the “villeins” set fire to the town, which
burned fiercely. The cathedral of St. Nazaire got so hot that the
stone vaulting cracked and fell in.

One admiring Cistercian contemporary makes Arnaut Amalric answer the
question as to whether the Catholic citizens should be spared with
the famous “Kill them all, for God will know His own,” for fear that
many heretics might escape by feigning orthodoxy. Certain modern
Catholic writers maintain that the lay chieftains of the Crusade had
determined beforehand upon a massacre, as a military measure, to
terrify the country. It would seem as if no such decision could have
been made by the lay nobles if the legates had opposed. Still the
point is not worth labouring, inasmuch as it has over and over again
on these occasions proved impossible to restrain armies much more
regularly and firmly disciplined than the Crusaders. The definite
reasons for doubting the completeness of the massacre are that the
church of St. Mary Magdalene, where the slaughter was heaviest, is so
small that not a third of the seven thousand supposed to have been
killed in it could possibly have packed into the place, and further,
that the corporate life of the town was so quickly reconstituted that
it was soon able to resist the Crusaders again.

At all events the impression caused by the massacre was tremendous.
As many as a hundred castles, some say, were abandoned by their
garrisons who fled to the mountains. The turbulent city of Narbonne
made haste to put itself on record by executing some heretics, by
contributing generously to the expenses of the Crusade, and by
allowing certain of its castles to be garrisoned by Crusaders as
pledges of good faith.

The next objective of the Crusade was the strong hill-fortress city
of Carcassonne. Thither Raymond Roger Trencavel had gone, leaving
Beziers before its investment. The massacre had strengthened his
determination to resist, and he had gone so far as to destroy all
mills near Carcassonne so as to hinder the provisioning of the
Crusaders should the expected siege be prolonged. The “soldiers of
Christ” appeared before the place on or about July 24, 1209, having
left Beziers the morning of the 22nd, the day after the massacre, and
covered the intervening distance of over fifty miles in forty-eight
hours, assuming that they went through Narbonne along the line of the
Roman road and the modern railway—another good piece of marching.

Carcassonne was a much tougher nut to crack than Beziers. The steep
escarpements of its hill were crowned by the remarkable circuit of
late Roman walls and towers which we see to-day. Only the château,
the outer town wall, the gates in the main wall, and a few large
towers easily distinguishable from the older work have been added
since 1209. The customary first assault to feel out the defence was
repulsed with loss, although the defenders also suffered. Another
attack carried the slightly fortified suburbs on the lower slopes of
the hill crowned by the city proper. This success was followed by a
pause of some weeks, during which siege engines of different sorts
were constructed.

Meanwhile diplomacy was active. King Peter of Aragon intervened
in the hope of making peace between the Crusaders and his vassal,
Trencavel. He was a picturesque person, a great lover of tournaments
and of women, what we should call to-day a sportsman; also a great
fighter against the Moslem. In language and culture Aragon was
then closer to Languedoc than Languedoc to Northern France. Peter,
himself a troubadour and a generous patron of troubadours, held the
Roussillon in his own right, and claimed from many of the southern
nobles a homage difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with the
homage they owed to the far-off king “of Paris.” Like the other
southern leaders, who sooner or later opposed the Crusade, he was no
heretic. On the contrary, he delighted to be known as “the Catholic,”
and had in person done homage to the Pope for his kingdom, as
recently as 1204, and received in return the title of “First Standard
Bearer of the Church.” His ferocious legislation against heretics
in general has been noted in the last chapter. On the other hand,
Spanish religious enthusiasm, in the early Middle Ages, was generally
directed far more towards belabouring the infidel than towards
discussing doctrine. Politically, King Peter necessarily disliked
any extension of North French influence in the south, and could
not sit still and see his kinsman and vassal Trencavel destroyed
merely because he had not been active enough in putting down heresy.
Finally, he was now brother-in-law to Raymond of Toulouse, whose
fifth and last wife was his sister. While there was no question at
this time of his resisting the Crusade by arms, he made haste to
offer his services as peacemaker.

Accordingly Pedro appeared at the crusading camp followed by a
handsome suite, and made straight for Raymond’s tent. It was soon
arranged that the Aragonese should enter the town to treat with
Trencavel. The Crusaders’ terms were hard. The young viscount would
be permitted to leave accompanied by twelve knights, but the town
must surrender unconditionally. Therefore, although a prolonged
drouth was causing the besieged in their hill city to suffer from
want of water, terms were refused; and King Peter, whose dignity
seems to have been ruffled, went off in a rage against the crusading
leaders.

Another assault was delivered, but was repulsed with the aid of
boiling oil and melted lead. To console them for their failure, the
Crusaders could boast of an act of personal gallantry on the part
of de Montfort, who went back into the ditch after the repulse and
rescued a severely wounded Crusader.

Meanwhile time was working against the besieged through disease,
aggravated by the want of water. They had expected a bread shortage
in the crusading camp, the mills having been destroyed far and wide,
but the expectation was not realized, on account of aid given by
certain nearby castles whose owners were friendly to the Crusades.
Calling the legates sorcerers, and the Crusaders “devils in human
form who could live without food,” failed to help matters, so that at
last the besieged surrendered, and were allowed to leave the town in
peace, abandoning all their goods. Trencavel was held a prisoner.

The legates apologized by letter to the Pope for the comparative
mildness shown in not burning the place and massacring its people, as
at Beziers. The nobles, they said, could not control their troops in
the matter; which may well indicate that there had been a shortage of
food, so that the rank and file saw severe privations staring them in
the face if any more destruction was indulged in. As far as Trencavel
was concerned, from the crusading point of view, the aftermath of the
siege left nothing to be desired. The young viscount promptly died in
his prison. Dysentery was officially given as the cause of death, but
some suspected poison.

The month of August was now well along. Having accomplished the
prescribed forty days and won the crusading indulgences, the great
body of the army were preparing to return home gorged with spiritual
graces and not altogether lacking in temporal booty. The great force
was about to melt away (as Washington’s militia so often melted
away). But before the crusaders could return to their homes, they
had first to provide for the continuance of the campaign against
heresy. Someone must be set up in the viscounty of Beziers and
Carcassonne, left vacant by the death of Trencavel. Furthermore,
several other towns, including Albi and Pamiers, together with a
number of castles, had surrendered without fighting. These places
had been garrisoned, and the garrisons needed a central command.
The Duke of Burgundy, the Counts of Nevers, and of St. Pol, to whom
in turn the fief was offered, refused on the pretext that they had
lands enough already; but really, says the “Chanson de la Croisade,”
because they felt that they would dishonour themselves should they
accept the spoils of such a conquest. Perhaps the corpses of Beziers
were already beginning to stink in their nostrils, as they have stunk
in the nostrils of so many historians to this day. Furthermore,
dishonoured or not, the new viscount would be in an exposed position,
alone—a northerner, confronted by Raymond of Toulouse and Peter of
Aragon, with only the Church to back him. The Church had the feeble
Christians of Palestine to support; it had taken five years to launch
the Albigensian Crusade, and might take as long to organize another.
Altogether, there is nothing improbable in the story that only after
considerable pressure from the legates and much prayer on his own
part did de Montfort, the fourth candidate, finally accept the office.

With the acceptance by de Montfort of the viscounty of Beziers
and Carcassonne, and with the prompt disbandment of the original
crusading army, the first period of the Crusade comes to an end.
It had lasted little over the forty days required to win the
indulgences, and had been marked by the overwhelming superiority
in numbers of the crusading forces in the field. Throughout the
second period this superiority no longer exists, and for nine years
the military strength of the Crusade is found principally in the
qualities of its leader.

Simon de Montfort was one of those extraordinary men who deflect the
course of history. He was descended from Rollo the Norman, and took
his name from a small domain which he held in the Ile-de-France,
on the road from Dreux to Paris. Physically, he was blond, tall,
broad-shouldered, distinguished in appearance, and full of activity.
Naturally enough his character has been both praised and blamed
to the _n_th power. Peter de Vaux-Cernay praises his eloquence,
affability, faithfulness in friendship, his rigid chastity, and
rare modesty. Sismondi, in a famous passage, says of him: “an able
warrior, austere in his personal habits, fanatical in religion,
inflexible, cruel and treacherous, he combined all qualities
calculated to win the approval of a monk.” The important thing is
that de Montfort was, above all, a soldier, and a soldier of a type
not uncommon in French history, from the First Crusade to the wars
of the French Revolution, in that he was consumed with a sense
of the sacredness of his cause. As in so many determined men of
strict sexual morality, in him fairness was all but swallowed up in
fanaticism.

Such men are ill understood by men of English culture. It is a
commonplace, for example, that no character approaching the type is
to be found in the long gallery of Shakespearean portraits.

Meanwhile, although the student may smile at the fanatic, he will
do well to remember the greatness of the work done in the world by
fanatics ... those curious creatures. Directly, by keeping alive
crusading activity in Languedoc, de Montfort preserved the moral
unity of Christendom. That unity, rescued from the grave peril which
threatened it in the beginning of the thirteenth century, endured
until destroyed by the great sixteenth century centrifugal movement,
which is only just beginning to subside. Indirectly, he broke down
the Provençal culture, and established the French monarchy upon the
Mediterranean, thus establishing the permanent unity of the French
nation. But from de Montfort, as from all men, the future was hid.

Geographically, his position was strong. Of the two centres of his
power, Beziers and Carcassonne, Beziers preserved his communication
with the east, and, when war broke out, would help to cut off
Toulouse from the Rhône valley. Carcassonne was the capital strategic
point of the whole theatre of war, commanding as it did the main
Narbonne-Toulouse road from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. All
considerable west-bound traffic headed for Toulouse coming from as
far north as Belfort or Dijon would naturally pass under the walls
of Carcassonne. To do otherwise meant either a vast circuit by
Limoges or a struggle with the mountains of Auvergne. Similarly,
the main route to Toulouse from the south was, and is, around the
Mediterranean end of the Pyrenees, north to Narbonne and west by
Carcassonne. A man starting from as far west as Saragossa, or in
winter from far to the west of that point, would normally travel
thus. An alternative route existed by way of the Cerdagne: once over
that pass a road led north-east to Perpignan, and north-west by the
Puymorens to Foix and Pamiers. Its grades were steep, but traffic
could use it well enough at most seasons of the year. De Montfort’s
garrison at Pamiers, one of the strongholds occupied during the panic
caused by the great crusading army, threatened the Cerdagne route.
Should he gain Foix, he could close it almost altogether. From Albi,
the fourth of his main strongholds, he could threaten Toulouse from
the north-east, and, perhaps, operate in the Agen and the Cahors
districts.

Nevertheless, as he considered his position, he had military and
political difficulties enough to appal a weaker man. His military
resources were small. The crusading army had scattered to their
homes, leaving him with a mere remnant of about four thousand
five-hundred effectives, mostly Burgundians and Germans. The
crusading leaders had sworn to come and help him at need, but none
knew better than he how slight was the chance of their willingness
or even of their power to do so. Indeed, one is forced to believe
that so hard-headed a zealot asked for the promise more to keep
their goodwill by emphasizing his humility and comparative weakness
than for any other reason. He could count only upon such crusaders
as might chance to come from time to time for a forty days’ tour of
duty, and, permanently, upon those whom he was able to pay or to
attach to himself by gifts of lands and castles. Moreover, he knew
that many of his new southern vassals were bitterly hostile to him,
and he himself had alienated moderate opinion by sailing very close
to the wind of dishonour in accepting this new viscounty, won by
massacre, and made vacant for him (as many believed and whispered) by
poison.

Of the forces in opposition, Raymond of Toulouse alone, with all
his weakness of will and his recent humiliation at St. Gilles, was
far stronger in material resources than de Montfort. King Pedro of
Aragon had been angered against the Crusaders at Carcassonne, all
the more because their temporary numbers made it impossible for him
to oppose them, and Pedro had much credit at Rome. He persisted in
refusing to accept de Montfort’s homage as Viscount of Carcassonne.
John of England who held Gascony, Guienne, and parts of Poitou was,
like Pedro of Aragon, brother-in-law and friend of Raymond. John had
broken with the Pope for reasons of his own, and was, nevertheless,
flourishing like the green bay tree. Otto of Brunswick who had
crushed all opposition throughout Germany and most of Italy, and was
about to be crowned emperor by Pope Innocent, was John’s favourite
nephew. For the present, Otto was strongly pro-papal, but as emperor
he would be strong enough to make trouble even for such a pope as
Innocent, should he so desire. Altogether, there was ample material
for the building up of alliances against the Crusade, and possibly
against the Papacy itself.

Against all this de Montfort had chiefly his own stout heart and
resourceful brain. His cause was bound up with that of legate
Arnaut Amalric, who was prepared to go to any lengths. Innocent
would be a tower of strength, provided only King Peter of Aragon did
not get at him, and Arnaut Amalric ought to be able to manage the
Pope. Finally, Philip Augustus not only stood with the Pope on most
political matters but also, as King of France, would be delighted to
see “Frenchmen” (that is North Frenchmen) established in southern
lordships. While Philip was cautious and would always rather wait for
fruit to fall in his lap than risk a fall by climbing the tree after
it, still he might move if he saw his way absolutely clear, and he
and Innocent were a redoubtable pair.

De Montfort made haste to put himself right with Rome, while
insisting, at the same time, on his need for aid. He wrote promptly
to Innocent announcing his election, and his purpose of rooting out
heresy altogether. He owed allegiance, he said, only to God and
the Pope. He promised payment of local Church tithes held up by
the heretics, and a hearth-tax throughout his lands for the direct
benefit of the Holy See. On the other hand, he somewhat illogically
emphasized his need of money, offering to the Pope with one hand
while begging from him with the other. Even his men-at-arms, he said,
were demanding double pay, and without heavy Church subsidies he
could not long maintain himself in Languedoc.

Innocent confirmed Montfort’s acts and titles, and enlarged upon
the crushing successes in fulsome letters to Otto of Brunswick
whom the Pope himself had just crowned Emperor. But, with a bad
situation in Palestine on his hands, his definite financial support
of the Albigensian Crusade left something to be desired. The most
fruitful of his measures was to empower de Montfort to confiscate
all valuables which heretics had deposited for safe keeping with
Churchmen throughout Languedoc.

Meanwhile, the Church’s activities were not confined to the Crusade.
St. Dominic with his little band of followers continued going up
and down Languedoc preaching. Early in September the future saint
met de Montfort, and a warm friendship sprang up between them. At
the same time Durand of Huesca and his “poor Catholics” were also
active. Innocent had to write and reassure the Languedocian bishops,
scandalized because Durand and his followers had clung to certain
outward marks of their former Waldensianism; at the same time warning
the poor Catholics to cooperate with the regular clergy and not
try to act independently of them. The Pope understood clearly that
orthodox propaganda must be carried on more strongly than ever, if
possible, in the existing state of war.

Meanwhile, far from the jealousies and violence of Languedoc, Francis
of Assisi was putting on his brown habit to mark himself the joyous
bridegroom of poverty.

During the martial summer of 1209, diplomacy had been silent. Now
she came out of cover and became active once more; indeed, for the
next four years the struggle is as much diplomatic as military. On
the one hand the fair-spoken, shifty, and unstable Count Raymond
and behind him (and more formidable) the chivalric sportsman King
Peter of Aragon sought to check, or at least to limit, the Crusade.
On the other, the legates, de Montfort, and the newly-imported,
irreconcilable, Languedocian clergy, all completely absorbed (as the
Pope was not) by the struggle, were out for the destruction of the
house of Toulouse.

To persuade the Pope was, of course, the object of both sides.
Innocent was determined to destroy heresy. In that he never
wavered. It was with reference to the implications of the job of
heresy-smashing that there was room for difference of opinion,
especially with regard to Count Raymond. Could a prince, himself
Catholic, be lawfully deposed for failing to suppress heresy? To the
men of the early thirteenth century it was by no means a foregone
conclusion that he could. We have seen even the zealous crusading
nobles shrinking from the “dishonour” of taking up the bloody titles
left vacant by the the death of Trencavel. Innocent was no more a
vulgar zealot than were these reluctant nobles. He had the high
sense of fairness often bred in upright natures by the study of
law, plus the exercise of power. Accordingly, his conscience was
troubled, and there were many who worked to keep it so. But, troubled
or not, the great Pope having set his hand to the plough was not
one to turn back. And, even should he desire to do so, the slowness
of communication was such as to make it almost impossible for him
effectually to control his agents.

Exactly how long it took for a despatch to pass between, say, St.
Gilles and Rome is not clear. By land, the distance was over six
hundred miles. By sea it was somewhat shorter, but a sea trip
involved waiting for a ship to start and might mean delay because of
storms or head-winds during the passage.

The first move in the complex diplomatic game was made by the
legates. Raymond of Toulouse had left the crusading army after the
capture of Carcassonne. Outwardly he kept on friendly terms with de
Montfort, and talked of marrying his son to de Montfort’s daughter.
But presently the legates demanded from the municipality of Toulouse
the surrender of a number of citizens accused of heresy, and at the
same time de Montfort wrote to Raymond threatening to attack in case
the demand was not met. The municipality protested vehemently that
theirs was a Catholic town, which had proved its orthodoxy by burning
heretics as long ago as the time of Count Raymond V and was still
doing so. They refused to surrender their accused fellow-citizens,
whereupon the legates promptly called a council at Avignon on
September 6, at which they re-excommunicated Raymond and laid his
lands under interdict. Municipality and Count severally appealed to
the Pope against this sentence. The legates, on their side, told
Raymond that the toilsome journey would profit him nothing. But when
he had made his will and departed in spite of them, they showed
uneasiness. Vehemently they insisted, in letters to Rome, that the
slippery count had failed to keep his former promises and would
be equally ready to make and break new ones. In particular, they
urged that the castles handed over by him as security for his good
behaviour were now forfeited because of his slackness in repressing
heresy, and that, for the same reason, the citizens of Avignon,
Nismes, and St. Gilles owed no more homage to Raymond but only to the
Church. Should the seven castles be restored to him, he would again
be in a position to resist. Finally, they urged that it would have
been better never to have undertaken the Crusade than to abandon it
with its work half-accomplished.

The foreboding of the legates was in some part justified. The Pope
pronounced himself satisfied with the Toulousains, and directed the
lifting of the interdict laid upon them. With Raymond, Innocent’s
play was more subtle. Outwardly he received him graciously and gave
him costly presents, a mantle, a ring, and a horse. The Count had
something of a case. He had surrendered the seven castles and agreed
to forfeit the three towns merely as guarantees for the execution
of the agreement made at St. Gilles the previous June. Some of the
clauses of this agreement he had already fulfilled; he produced a
list of churches whose former wrongs at his hands he had redressed.
Further, he urged that although never convicted of heresy and legate
murder, he had nevertheless submitted to heavy penance as if guilty,
and had been reconciled in due form. Innocent, therefore, gave
judgment that the castles and towns were not yet forfeit, “inasmuch
as it is not seemly that the Church should enrich itself with the
spoils of another.” Three months after receipt of the Pope’s letter
the legates were to hold a council to determine Raymond’s guilt.
There, if no one formally presented himself as his accuser, he was
to be admitted to canonical purgation; after which he was to be
publicly declared a good Catholic, and was to receive back the seven
castles. If he were accused, a hearing was to be held but no decision
taken. The record of the proceedings was to be forwarded to Rome,
where judgment would be pronounced. Because of Raymond’s personal
objections to Arnaut Amalric, a new papal agent, Theodisius by name,
without the title of legate, was appointed to arrange the details of
the Count’s reconciliation. The Crusaders were not to touch Raymond’s
lands. In appearance, the Pope seemed to come out strongly for
moderation.

Raymond’s diplomatic victory, however, was far more apparent than
real. Innocent secretly placed Theodisius altogether under the orders
of Arnaut Amalric, stating dryly that the new agent was to be merely
the bait by which Raymond was to be caught on the hook of Arnaut’s
sagacity. Meanwhile the seven castles, although not yet declared
forfeited, were to be held.

With regard to the reconciliation of Toulouse, Innocent had empowered
the legates to take guarantees and precautions. Accordingly Arnaut
Amalric set himself to humiliate the city, with the able but guarded
assistance of its bishop, the zealous Fulk. The ex-troubadour bishop
was fast increasing his influence. He had organized the more orthodox
Toulousains into a powerful brotherhood, in order to work against
heresy and usury. Finally, after much backing and filling, the city
contributed heavily in money to the Crusade and gave hostages to de
Montfort for future good behaviour.

Before the campaigning season of 1210 opened, de Montfort’s military
position had taken a turn for the worse. He and his remaining
crusaders were far too few to garrison effectively the multitude of
towns and castles which had submitted. Beziers, Carcassonne, Pamiers,
and it seems Albi were still held, but a number of smaller places,
such as Castres north of Carcassonne, and Lombez south-west of
Toulouse, together with many castles, returned openly to Catharism.
Furthermore, Raymond Roger Count of Foix broke with the crusaders.
This worthy and his family have already been touched upon in the last
chapter. As soon as the huge, terror-inspiring army of Crusaders was
disbanded, he returned to his normal policy of favouring heresy.
He was especially anxious to recover possession of his second best
stronghold of Pamiers; but a conference, arranged and presided over
by his suzerain Peter of Aragon, failed to come to any agreement with
the Crusaders.

During the year de Montfort took several castles in his new Viscounty
of Carcassonne, such as Bram about ten miles west of Carcassonne
itself on the road to Castelnaudary (where he put out the eyes of
a hundred of the garrison, leaving their commander one eye so that
he might act as their guide), Alairac to the south of Capendu about
ten miles east of Carcassonne overlooking the road to Narbonne,
and Puivert in the mountains west of Quillan. However, he had
force enough for two major operations, the capture of the strong
castles of Minerve (a hill fortress about seventeen miles north-west
of Narbonne, which looked down upon that city and threatened
communications between his two main bases of Beziers and Carcassonne)
and Termes in the south-east.

The first operation was not the act of the Crusaders alone, but was
accomplished with the aid of Narbonese militia. Mediæval cities were
normally willing to attack nearby strong castles which too often
served as bases for brigandage against their trade. In attacking
these eagles’ nests in the mountains of Languedoc, the chief task of
the besieger was to cut off the garrison from access to the brooks
or springs in the canyons below the ramparts. If this could be done,
then the besieged were compelled to depend upon cisterns and could
not long hold out. In this case, after a lively siege of about a
month, supplies and especially water in the castle ran short, so
that its garrison offered to surrender on terms. Its lord and the
Catholics within the walls were offered their lives. On strict orders
from Rome to fit such cases, even the heretical believers and Perfect
were to be spared, should they recant. The army murmured. The “very
Catholic” Robert Mauvoisin, de Montfort’s first lieutenant, expressed
the general disgust at accepting such forced conversions of wretches
whom they had taken up arms expressly to kill. “Calm yourself,” said
Arnaut Amalric, “the converts will be few.” In fact, only three out
of a hundred “Perfect” abjured. The rest did not even need to be
forced into the fire prepared for them, but cast themselves in. The
resistance had served to prove a certain solidarity between heretics
and Languedocian Catholics.

The siege of Termes lasted into November, and was finally decided by
want of water in the place.

Artillerymen should remember the name of Archdeacon William, de
Montfort’s chief of artillery (i.e., master of the catapults) during
the siege. This Parisian priest, a veteran of crusades against the
Moslem, was so fascinated with his machines that he afterwards
refused the fat bishopric of Beziers, “loving better to follow the
wars and handle the artillery”!

At St. Gilles, in September, was held the council to arrange for
the reconciliation of the Count of Toulouse. In a single interview
with Theodisius, Arnaut Amalric had fully convinced him that either
Raymond or the Languedocian Church must inevitably be destroyed.
How the Count was to be rebuffed in the face of Innocent’s positive
instructions to the contrary was a puzzle. After anxious thought,
a single phrase of the Pope’s was seen to offer means of escaping
his general tenor. Raymond, as we have seen, had fulfilled some
but not all of the conditions demanded of him. In particular he
had neither dismissed his mercenaries nor expelled heretics, both
groups being essential for his support. By the phrase in question,
Innocent had informed the legates that he himself had directed
Raymond to fulfil completely the conditions already demanded and to
do so before the council should meet. At the council, therefore, he
was told that, being false to his oath in these minor points, his
testimony in his own behalf on the two chief points of his personal
orthodoxy and his share in the murder of de Castelnau was worthless.
At this disappointment he burst into tears, which was interpreted
by Theodisius to the assembly as a proof, not of contrition, but of
innate despicableness. The wretched nobleman, saying that his whole
county would not satisfy the legates, broke off negotiations and rode
sadly away. Whereupon the legates promptly set themselves to write to
Innocent in such wise that the Pope might believe that the culprit
had not wished to clear himself.

When the news came to Rome, Innocent clearly had his suspicions;
inasmuch as he wrote to Philip Augustus saying that he did not know
whether or not Raymond had failed through his own fault in proving
his innocence. At the same time, now that the Count’s failure to
suppress heresy had been made the key-point, it is hard to see how
the Pope could fail to sustain the council. He therefore wrote
severely to Raymond, reproaching him for breaking faith inasmuch as
he continued to tolerate the heretics. On the whole, Arnaut Amalric
had carried his point, and made haste to press his advantage in
subsequent conferences.

Meanwhile, during the year the general position of the Papacy in
European politics had changed for the worse. Otto of Brunswick, once
crowned emperor, had rapidly become anti-papal. Indeed, he had been
so aggressive and successful in Italy that he might soon be in a
position to menace the Pope. Innocent had therefore excommunicated
him and had raised against him numerous German nobles who feared from
the new emperor a policy of centralization and regular taxes such as
marked the government of his near kinsmen the Plantagenets. But,
despite Pope and German rebels, Otto continued successful. In England
John was at the height of his prosperity. With an excommunicated
emperor and an excommunicated King of England on the Pope’s hands, a
better man than the Count of Toulouse might have turned the European
scale.

The same papal courier who had brought the Pope’s letter of reproach
to Raymond, also brought instructions to him, to the Counts of Foix
and Comminges, and to Gaston, Viscount of Bearn, demanding aid for
de Montfort and threatening to hold them favourers of heresy in case
they failed to give it. These letters resulted in the holding of
three councils in quick succession, at Narbonne in December, 1210,
continuing into January 1211, at Montpellier later in January, and at
Arles in February.

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.

CHAPTER V.

THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE.

MURET AND ITS SEQUEL.

We have seen that everyone, except perhaps de Montfort himself,
expected to see the Crusade annihilated. The event proved them wrong.
It is fair, therefore, to speak of the rest of the war and the final
surrender of the house of Toulouse as the sequel to the amazing
action of Muret. For although that final surrender was postponed
sixteen years, without Muret there would have been no surrender at
all.

Besides its immense result, the campaign of 1213 culminating in the
battle of Muret, is interesting as one of the very few conflicts
between men of European stock in which a small force has broken and
destroyed a force many times larger than itself. That the men of the
time realized both the importance and the extraordinary nature of the
action is proved by the abundance of record concerning it. Despite
this fact, no student of mediæval war will be surprised to learn that
the reconstruction of the battle itself remains difficult. It is
strange, however, that the evidence as to Pedro’s line of march is
almost altogether lacking.

It seems fairly certain that the Aragonese concentrated at Lerida.
They could not have marched by the great coast road of the Romans,
from Barcelona via Perpignan (a town of Pedro’s) to Narbonne, and
then west by Carcassonne on Toulouse, inasmuch as de Montfort
strongly held the Carcassonne country. Therefore, to march by this,
the natural low-grade route of peace-time, would have exposed the
King to the probability of having to fight before his junction with
his Languedocian allies. Eliminating the main coast road, there
remain two possibilities, the Somport and the Cerdagne, and between
them there seems to be no direct evidence whatsoever. To move by
Huesca, Jaca, the Somport, and so into friendly Bearn by Oloron,
would have put it out of de Montfort’s power to harass the march.
A phrase in Vaissete, repeated by Luchaire, to the effect that the
king “entered Gascony” appears to tell in favour of the Somport
hypothesis. So does the fact that the Aragonese entered Toulouse
before moving on Muret. Had he moved by the Cerdagne, Muret would
have been directly on his line of march to Toulouse. Nevertheless,
the probabilities seem to tell in favour of the Cerdagne. In the
first place, Belloc states that the Somport was disused (except
locally we may imagine) after “... the new civilization of the Middle
Ages had set in with the twelfth century....” The southern side of
the Somport, which the army would have had to mount, is excessively
steep. Moreover, the bulk of Pedro’s army, as we have already seen,
was not Aragonese but anti-clerical Catalan. For the Catalans, the
Cerdagne was by far the shortest line into Languedoc.

To move by the Somport would have compelled them to an enormous
detour, and, as matters stood, speed was all-important. Their
commander could not long keep up any shred of pretence that he had
the Pope’s approval of his actions, and must therefore make haste.
The choice of Lerida as the point of concentration tells in favour of
the Cerdagne. Had the Aragonese intended to move by the Somport, a
concentration at Huesca or even at Jaca would have been more natural.
Moreover, there is no great difficulty in assuming the Cerdagne
route, by the upper Segre to Puigcerda, the Puymorens Pass, and the
upper Ariege on Foix. The whole of the upper Tet basin and also the
head waters of the Aude were in Roussillon, which was Aragonese land.
It would have been virtually impossible for de Montfort, even were
he warned in time, to march from the Middle Aude country through
hostile territory by Axat, Mont-Louis, and Saillagouse to cut in on
the right of the Aragonese column. The forces in being, and friendly
to Pedro, in Languedoc put such a move out of all reason. Further on,
when Aragon had joined Foix, de Montfort had a garrison at Pamiers,
which might harass the flank of their column moving northward.
Still, Pamiers could have been avoided by going from Foix west on
St. Girons and the upper Garonne valley, and, in any event, Aragon
and Foix were in great force, and marching to the large and friendly
city of Toulouse, so that, granted any kind of reasonable care for
security on the march, there was little to fear from the Pamiers
garrison. It would seem, therefore, as if the weight of probability,
slight as it is, tells in favour of Pedro’s having marched by the
Cerdagne.

Whatever his line of march, the Aragonese effected a junction with
his allies, and together they sat down before Muret on September 10.
The place was held for de Montfort by a garrison of thirty knights
and seven hundred poorly armed infantry. The Languedocian barons were
in high spirits. A small garrison of de Montfort’s in Pujols, eight
and three-quarter miles east-south-east of Toulouse, had been cut
off and massacred. The militia infantry of the commune of Toulouse
were available for the attack on Muret, for the garrison of that town
threatened Toulouse closely on the south-west as Lavaur did on the
north-east. The choice of objective was wise, inasmuch as it made
the militia available, as well as for the main reason: that is the
importance of disengaging Toulouse (the Languedocian base) from the
nearest Montfortist garrison.

By contrast with the vagueness of our knowledge of Pedro’s movements,
those of de Montfort are known in detail. The crusading leader lay
at Fanjeaux with a small force including thirty knights. Then as
now, the early summer saw the high-water mark of the French energy,
and by September the greater part of the forty-day Crusaders of that
year had turned homeward. Although we know (from the interception
of a private letter of Pedro’s) that de Montfort had some sort of
intelligence service at work, nevertheless, his information seems
to have been defective, so that he was surprised by Pedro’s move,
perhaps because of its speed. When word came that the Aragonese was
in Languedoc in arms, de Montfort at once sent his wife, the Countess
Alice, to overtake certain temporary Crusaders who had just started
homeward and, if possible, persuade them to return. The energetic
countess made such haste that she gathered up at Carcassonne several
hundred of the departing Crusaders, including the Viscount of Corbeil
and that William des Barres who had commanded a “battle” (i.e.,
unit) under Cœur de Lion in the Third Crusade, including the bloody
repulse of Saladin at Arsouf twenty-two years before. Even when
these reinforcements had come in, de Montfort’s mobile force was
small. He had about two hundred and sixty knights, and six hundred
“sergeants,” that is cavalrymen heavily armed like knights but not
of noble blood. King Pedro and the southern lords were known to be
in great force. Most mediæval commanders, when gravely inferior in
numbers, were accustomed to decline battle from behind walls, but
Simon was an extraordinary man, and, moreover, he was driven by
political necessity. Only the terror of his name made it possible for
his small forces to hold down his thousands of unwilling southern
subjects. To lose a strong place like the Castle of Muret might prove
fatal to his prestige and be the signal for a general insurrection.
Furthermore, he had not only boundless faith in his cause, but also
a hearty contempt for the King of Aragon as an opponent. He knew
that the Aragonese and the Languedocians were not accustomed to
acting together, and would therefore have difficulty in deploying for
action, especially if suddenly attacked. He therefore decided to take
the field.

His decision made, on September 9 (as Pedro and the southern lords
were marching on Muret, but before news of the move had come in)
de Montfort moved west from Fanjeaux on Saverdun, making a slight
detour to the Cistercian Abbey of Boulbonne, near Mazeres. There
he dedicated his sword, laying it for a time on the altar while he
prayed. When the sacristan of the abbey asked him in wonder why with
his handful of men he was attacking so famous a chieftain as the
Aragonese, Count Simon drew from his pouch an intercepted letter from
Pedro to a mistress of his, the wife of a Languedocian baron, in
which the King had written that it was for her sweet sake that he was
fighting to drive out the “French.” “I do not fear this king,” said
de Montfort, “who opposes the work of God for the sake of a harlot.”
Already he was expecting an attack on Muret, the most exposed of his
garrisons. During the hot afternoon, couriers, who had ridden that
day upwards of twenty miles from Muret, brought word that the place
was attacked. The little crusading army pushed on, reaching Saverdun
at nightfall. Here a council of war was held, at which de Montfort
was for pushing on that night to Muret, which was ill provisioned,
but yielded to the opinion of the clergy with him, who urged that
the men and horses were fatigued from marching some 35 miles in
forty-eight hours, on top of the 17 miles that de Corbeil and des
Barres had already done from Carcassonne to Fanjeaux.

No less than seven bishops, Fulk of Toulouse, Arnold of Nismes,
Bernard of Beziers, Raymond of Agde and Peter of Comminges (together
with the future St. Dominic) were present, an imposing array with
which it was doubtless hoped to impress King Pedro. On the morning
of Wednesday the eleventh, de Montfort confessed, and made his will,
directing that it be sent to Rome for confirmation in case of his
death. Mass was said, and the Counts of Toulouse, Foix, and Comminges
were again formally excommunicated, together with the Toulousains
and all who might oppose the Crusade. Significantly, the King of
Aragon was not mentioned by name, and to him Bishop Fulk despatched
a mounted courier asking safe conduct for the clergy who were with
de Montfort in order that peace might be made. Having crossed the
Ariege at Saverdun, the little army moved north up the left bank of
that river. About ten miles on their way, at Hauterive, the courier
sent to Pedro returned with the refusal of all that Bishop Fulk had
asked. Along the twelve miles between Hauterive and Muret, the march
was delayed by marshy country which had been made more difficult
by recent rains. Fierce Languedocian summer showers drenched the
advancing column, one being so severe as to drive many men to shelter
in a little wayside church which their leader had entered to pray.
When the shower had passed the advance was resumed, and towards
evening the massive red brick ramparts of Muret came in sight. No
enemy had been seen during the day, but now, in full view of the
enemy so that their own numbers could be closely estimated, the
Crusaders crossed the bridge over the Garonne and entered the place
unopposed. The lack of opposition surprised de Montfort, Antony says.

Under mediæval conditions, Muret was naturally strong. The general
shape of the town is a right triangle with a short base. The Garonne
flows north-east along the perpendicular of the triangle; the winding
Louge flows in a general direction east along the hypotenuse and
falls into the Garonne at the apex of the triangle where the castle
then stood. Adjoining the castle was the old town or “bourg.” The new
town or “ville” occupied the space between the “bourg” and the base
of the triangle. The road from Toulouse crossed the Louge on a bridge
and entered the “ville” by the Toulouse Gate which was pierced in the
wall of the northern hypotenuse side near the north-west corner. The
Sales Gate opened through the wall of the base near the right angle.
On the eastern side, a roadway ran along the Garonne bank under the
wall from the south corner of the town past the bridge over the
Garonne to the bridge of St. Sernin, which crossed the mouth of the
Louge under the walls of the castle, at the apex of the triangle. At
the right angle, i.e., the south corner of the town, an outwork or
chatelet protected the Sales Gate and the entrance leading to the
road along the Garonne bank. The defences of the castle were strong,
those of the “bourg” less so, and those of the “ville” were weak.

The Garonne at Muret is unfordable, about a hundred and fifty yards
wide, and flows rapidly between steep banks averaging over thirty
feet high and nearly forty feet just below the mouth of the Louge.
The Louge is a good sized brook between fifteen and twenty-five
feet across; fordable in all seasons, except just at its mouth,
but a first-class military obstacle because of the height and
steepness of its banks, nearly forty feet, as we have seen, at its
mouth, and over fifteen just above the town. Half a mile up, its
banks are low and gentle and it is no obstacle at all. From a point
about three-quarters of a mile west of the town a low ridge runs a
little east of north. This ridge (called near the town “the Hill of
Perramon”) is not over fifty feet high and of a very easy slope.
Between it and the Garonne the ground is quite flat. About a mile
north of the town lies a slight marshy depression called in the local
dialect “Les Pesquies,” i.e., the fish-pond or fishery, and from this
patch of swamp a tiny rivulet runs east to the Garonne, between banks
all of ten feet high and fully thirty degrees in slope at the top—an
obstacle impossible for charging cavalry.

Pedro, Raymond, Foix and Comminges had made camp on the hill of
Perramon. Under cover of the fire of six mangonnels (i.e. catapults)
they had promptly attacked the walls in the neighbourhood of the
Toulouse Gate, forced the defences of the “ville” and driven the
garrison of thirty knights and seven hundred poorly armed infantry
into the bourg and the castle. The assault seems to have been the
work of the Toulousain militia infantry, the knights and Catalans
disdaining siege work. No sooner was the “ville” occupied than word
came of de Montfort’s approach. Thereupon Pedro, in high glee,
ordered a retirement outside the walls, reckoning that if the
Crusaders would only enter the place they would be caught in a trap.
The place could then be besieged on all sides and the war finished at
one blow. Hence the unopposed entry which surprised de Montfort.

The allies spent the early hours of the evening in consultation.
Raymond proposed to entrench the camp so as to secure it against a
cavalry charge, and give to the defenders the opportunity to shoot
at the Crusaders without fear of being ridden down. Such tactics had
at least enabled the Toulousain to bring off his army safely from
the unsuccessful siege of Castelnaudary two years before. To the
sporting instincts of Pedro, however, this seemed mere cowardice, and
he not only rejected it but allowed one of his barons bitterly to
taunt Raymond for having made the suggestion. The idea was dropped.
Raymond was so completely in Pedro’s power that we do not even hear
of his resenting the insult offered him. Two monks now appeared, sent
by Bishop Fulk of Toulouse to treat either with the Aragonese, or
with his own Toulousain flock. The Toulousains promised an answer and
detained the monks. This matter disposed of, Pedro began a night of
revelry. Many of the barons of Languedoc, who were completely in his
power, had put their wives and daughters at his disposition, and he
debauched himself so strenuously that at mass, in the morning (so his
own son writes), he was so exhausted that he could scarcely stand for
the reading of the gospel.

Even had he thought of the military position seriously, the King
had no reason to hurry matters. All his own troops had not yet
joined, and in all probability he knew of the shortage of provisions
in Muret, which must soon sap the strength of his opponents. That
de Montfort would lead his little band to the attack never entered
Pedro’s head.

De Montfort, on the other hand, saw clearly that he himself must
attack. The same political necessity that had drawn him to Muret made
a quick success desirable; the shortage of food in the town made
it imperative. He had had four years in which to estimate Pedro,
and must have felt reasonably certain that the sportsman king would
conduct operations haphazard. His own great inferiority in numbers
might be neutralized if he could effect a partial surprise. Possibly
he had this in mind when, on the morning of the 11th, he ordered
that the Toulouse Gate, which had been forced on the previous day,
should be neither closed nor barricaded. The enemy might be tempted
to attack it again and be thereby prevented from giving their whole
attention to the proposed countermove. Possibly it was the bishops
who wished to show that they did not consider diplomatic relations
broken off. The ruse, if ruse it was, succeeded. The savage Count
of Foix and certain Catalans charged mounted into the town by the
open gate, but were driven out by the Crusaders, under Count Simon
himself. He had seven hundred infantry, and even mediocre infantry
(provided they kept their heads at all) had the advantage of mounted
men cooped in the narrow and winding streets of a mediæval town.
The unsuccessful attack served the further purpose, of forcing the
consent of the clergy to the rash plan, as they considered it, of a
sortie. Bishop Fulk, nothing daunted when the Toulousains sent back
his two monks with the message they could do nothing with King Pedro,
had intended to go barefoot at the head of the clergy present, to beg
peace in the very camp of the besiegers.

Now de Montfort, heated with directing the repulse of Foix and the
Catalans, strode into the priory and demanded permission to sally
out and fight. Meanwhile the southerners, in preparation for a new
attack, began a heavy fire of all sorts of projectiles. When missiles
began to fall upon the priory roof over their heads, the clergy
abandoned all idea of negotiating and gave Count Simon leave to
attack.

This permission granted, the crusading leader, who was on foot, made
for the castle where he had left his horse. On his way he entered
St. Sernin, where the Bishop of Usez was saying mass, and prostrated
himself before the altar. As he rose, the supporting strap of one of
his chainmail leg-pieces broke, but, quite neglecting the evil omen,
he merely had it replaced and continued on his way. His horse had
been brought out to him on the high castle terrace, but, as he tried
to mount, two more discouraging portents took place. First the saddle
girth broke. He calmly had it repaired and again put his foot in the
stirrup. Just as he swung into the saddle, the horse jerked up his
head and struck him on the forehead so that, for a moment, he was
stunned. Some Toulousains, posted in observation north of the Louge,
raised a mocking yell to which he defiantly shouted back, “You mock
me now, but I trust in the Lord and I hope right well to cry after
you this day as far as the gates of Toulouse.”

We may fairly assume that the Toulousains were out of easy
bowshot—say a hundred and fifty yards off. Their gestures could
therefore be seen and their mocking cries heard, whereas Count
Simon’s exact words could not come to them clearly: had they been
understood they might have jeopardized his intended surprise.

Mounted at last, Count Simon rode down to the Ville and formed his
nine hundred horsemen on the spacious market-place, the “mercadar”
making three squadrons or “battles” each, we may safely assume,
of about three hundred, i.e., one hundred knights and two hundred
sergeants. The first displayed all the banners of the host, so as
to concentrate the enemies’ attention upon it. It was commanded by
William d’Encontre, accompanied by de Montfort’s half brother, the
veteran William des Barres. The second was under Bouchard de Marly
and included a handful of knights who had sworn an oath to kill King
Pedro. De Montfort himself commanded the third. When formed, he
addressed them and explained the proposed manœuvre, stressing the
need to file out by a gate not closely observed by the enemy, so
that, while deploying, their horses should not be exposed to missile
weapons: the men themselves would have nothing to fear thanks to
their chainmail armor with its quilted lining. His orders were to
charge and fight as a unit and on no account to break ranks in order
to attempt some individual feat of arms.

Finally, before moving out, they were solemnly blessed by the
bishops. Early that morning mass had been said, and all the soldiers
who had not previously done so had made their confessions and
received the Host. Fulk, in his mitre and vestments, held out a
fragment of the true cross for each man, in turn, to dismount and
kiss it.

This ceremony, of course, dragged so that the enthusiasm of the
troops began to suffer until Bishop Peter of Comminges, with a more
practical spirit than his brother of Toulouse, cut matters short by
gently taking the relic into his own hands and held it up in sight of
all present, promising to those who should fall the glory of martyrs
and the remission of purgatory. Afterwards, when the little column
had moved off, the clergy made for the church, and throughout the
engagement continued to implore the throne of grace in behalf of the
Christian arms with such fervor that “... they might be said to have
howled rather than prayed.”

It is impossible to establish the numbers of the force which the
Crusaders were about to attack. Pedro had mobilized a thousand
knights, all of whom had not yet come in, but the number of his
“sergeants” we do know. There are no figures as to the men brought by
the Languedocian nobles, although we do know that two years before at
Castlenaudary, their forces had heavily outnumbered de Montfort at a
time when Pedro was not in the field. The calculations of different
authorities vary widely. In cavalry alone, the Crusaders were
certainly outnumbered at least four to one.

The southern infantry strength, including both feudal infantry and
communal militia, has been estimated at forty thousand. No figures
seem to exist for the Toulousain militia, but they were undoubtedly
in considerable force. On the other hand, the morale of the allies
was below the superb morale of the Crusaders; and there was friction
between Languedocians and Spaniards, as we have seen.

The reconstruction of a mediæval battle is a matter of the greatest
difficulty, as every scholar knows who has attempted such a task.

Even when (as in the present case) half a dozen contemporary accounts
are at hand, nothing approaching a technical description of the
action is to be found in them. Occasionally, as in the chronicle of
Jaime of Aragon, which enumerates the different errors committed
by the troops under his father, we get a flash of true military
appreciation, but never more than a flash. Irrelevant but picturesque
incidents, such as the series of mishaps suffered by de Montfort in
mounting, are dwelt upon, while the fundamental points of an action
are left vague.

The historian is therefore compelled to test his authorities by
minute study of the terrain, by an examination of local tradition,
and by all he has of common sense combined with military judgment.

With respect to this matter of military judgment yet one more
difficulty appears, i.e., our complete ignorance of mediæval minor
tactics. In most other respects, our ignorance is qualified. We know
that our European ancestors of seven and eight hundred years ago
could and did move large armies from France to Palestine, both by
land and overseas. Therefore we are compelled to credit them with a
considerable degree of discipline and an effective commissariat and
intelligence service; to deny such obvious conclusions is merely
to make a fool of oneself. We are well informed concerning their
fortifications and siege work, which played so important a part in
their wars. But as to the details of their tactical formations and
especially as to the regularity of those formations we know nothing
at all. Hence it is possible for highly educated veteran soldiers of
to-day to argue that there was, for instance, no generally understood
and practised method of passing from column to line and back again!

Accordingly it is not surprising to find that scholars disagree
fundamentally over the Battle of Muret, and that no full
reconstruction seems possible.

Nevertheless, after comparing all the evidence now available, an
accurate outline of the action can be fixed. This I shall now attempt.

The Crusaders went out by the Sales Gate. The evidence seems to
show that they traversed the chatelet or outwork, and left the
fortifications by the eastern gate through which they had entered
the town. They then followed the road between the eastern wall and
the river, marching all the time with the least possible noise as to
avoid attracting attention. Evidently the first part of the movement
(i.e., the passage through the outwork) was a feint at retreat
deliberately shown to the enemy in order to mislead him, and the
second (the march along the river bank) a concealed move, in order
to obtain the effect of surprise. The column followed the route by
which they had come until the bridge over the Garonne was reached.
Then, instead of turning to the right and crossing it, they went
straight ahead, passed under the walls of the castle, and (still
unobserved by the enemy) crossed the St. Sernin bridge at the mouth
of the Louge. As soon as the first squadron had crossed, it deployed
to the left and charged down upon those of the enemy (i.e., part of
the Toulousain militia reinforced by certain Catalan knights, under
the Count of Foix) who had that morning unsuccessfully attacked the
Toulouse Gate. William d’Encontre and William des Barres surprised
them completely, and scattered them in a few moments, “like dust
before a gale.”

The technical phases of this part of the action seem never to
have been considered by historians. Inasmuch are they are of some
interest in themselves, and furthermore, shed light upon the flagrant
indiscipline in the southern army, they are worth a moment’s
consideration.

The known elements of the problem are these: first the undisputed
facts that the surprise was complete and that the successful charge
was made only by some three hundred horsemen; second, the weight of
evidence in favour of the route just described as that of the sortie.

The time element involved remains to be computed. The full distance
from the Sales Gate, past the town, over the bridge, and up the
abrupt ramp leading to the plain, is nearly 700 yards. From the
numerous mediæval gates extant, together with the extant brick
remains of the northern abutment of the bridge in question, we may
be certain that the formation was a column of twos. We may be almost
equally certain that the gait was a walk, for (in the first place) it
would have been nearly impossible to trot up the final steep ramp,
(secondly) silence was desired, and (thirdly) to trot through such a
long narrow space would have exposed the cavalry to the risk of a
serious snarl in case a single horse fell or behaved badly—_in which
case the whole operation would have been compromised_. Assuming the
gait to have been a walk, we are entitled to reduce the distance
occupied by each horse to three yards, leaving a bare one foot
between nose and crupper. The length of the entire column must
therefore have been at least 450 × 3 = 1,350 yards, nearly double
the distance to be traversed, and the length of each squadron must
have been 450 yards. Before falling out to eat and drink, we may be
sure that the Toulousains and Catalans must have retreated at least
150 yards north of the Toulouse Gate in order that so large a target
as they would present might be out of long bowshot. Therefore the
head of the crusading column would come into full sight practically
as soon as it topped the ramp and gained the plain, and historians
who assume that the deployment could have been made out of sight of
the Toulousains and Catalans have simply never troubled to walk over
the battlefield. Assuming a walking gait to be four miles per hour,
i.e., 117 yards per minute, the rear of the first crusading squadron
would be in the plain almost exactly four minutes after the van had
come in sight of the enemy in front of the Toulouse Gate. The greater
part of the 600 yards separating the Crusaders from the enemy would
almost certainly be covered at a trot of say eight miles an hour,
before breaking into a gallop for the final shock. Two minutes, plus
the time necessary for deployment, must therefore be added to the
original four. In all, nearly ten minutes must have elapsed between
the first observation of the Crusaders by Foix’s command and the
delivery of the crusading charge.

Inasmuch as Foix’s men far outnumbered the first crusading squadron,
the fact that they were unable (when their seven minutes’ grace was
up) to make even a few moments effective resistance shows their
discipline to have been wretched. We know that they had committed the
imprudence of falling out to eat and drink, that most of the Catalan
knights had put off their armour, and that no proper measures of
security had been taken. Nevertheless, it seems that the Crusaders
should at least have been delayed a few moments. Not one of Foix’s
Catalan knights was killed!

Meanwhile, the main body of the besiegers was getting to horse,
crying “Aragon,” “Foix,” or “Comminges,” according to their
allegiance. The Spaniards formed, but the formation was ragged. In
part this may have been due to haste, although they must have had
over twenty minutes in which to get in line, assuming a minimum of
ten minutes from the disclosure of the operation to the deployment
of the second crusading squadron, and an additional minimum of
ten minutes for the second squadron to catch up with the first
and for the two together to do the mile which separated them from
Pedro’s people. In part it certainly resulted from the folly and
indiscipline of the Spanish knights; every important man among
them (so Pedro’s son King Jaime tells us) wanted to fight his own
battle with the enemy, making strict alignment and combined action
impossible. Furthermore, as we learn from other chronicles, Pedro
himself exercised no effective command, but yielded to his chivalric
enthusiasm by exchanging armour with one of his knights and posting
himself in the front ranks—a piece of generous but unmilitary folly
surprising in a soldier of his considerable experience since it lost
him all control over his forces in reserve. The Aragonese were facing
south astride the Seysses road about a mile out from Muret, with the
Pesquies marsh covering their left.

Having broken Foix’s command, the first crusading squadron had to
wheel half right in order to strike Pedro. By spurring hard, the
second, with a straighter course to follow, was able to catch up, and
both together went at the Aragonese, sweeping before them some of
Foix’s routed horsemen. Count Simon’s orders on no account to engage
in individual jousting but to charge boot to boot were so well obeyed
that the shock was simultaneous all along their line. It was so
violent that the Crusaders plunged into the horsemen opposed to them
“like a stone dropped into the water.” Pedro’s people stood firm and
closed round them, hiding them from the third “battle,” and the melée
swayed back and forth with a din “as of countless axemen hewing down
a forest.”

De Montfort, with the idea of charging in on Pedro’s left, worked
rapidly north and east around the marsh until he found himself
blocked by Pesquies ravine, which the chroniclers describe as a
“fossatum” (i.e., a ditch or trench). Cut in the steep banks of
this obstacle was a narrow path, blocked at the farther end by a
strong Aragonese combat patrol or covering detachment. Such covering
detachments were familiar enough, as we learn from the “Siete
Partidas” of Alfonzo the Wise of Castile, written about 1260, in
which they are called alas or citaras. If it be objected that Pedro