It started with a murder.
It ended with a massacre.
In 1208, the Papal Legate traveled from Rome to Southern France to meet Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, the powerful ruler of the area. His purpose, presumably, was to request that Count Raymond stop abetting the Cathars. Unfortunately, he seems to have overstepped his brief, and excommunicated the Count. Naturally, Raymond was furious, and in return, threatened violence. Unsurprisingly, this Papal Legate was murdered shortly thereafter, on his return to Rome.
So, who were the Cathars? And why did they upset the Pope so much?
Modern scholars are somewhat skeptical of their existence. But it is safe to say, that many people – peasants and nobles – who lived in the south of France held beliefs that the Catholic Church frowned upon. One was their belief in two gods – one good, the other evil. Then there was the Endura, the practice of fasting to hasten the onset of death. Perhaps, most dangerous of all, the Cathar religious practices involved a horizontal structure in which people could perform their own rites without the need of bishops, deacons, or church authorities dictating to them what they could do. The Catholic Church did not like this at all.
As with so much else, greed played a role in this sorry story. When Pope Innocent III heard of the murder, he launched a cruscade against the Cathars, pitting the French nobles of Northern France against those of Southern France. The Pope sweetened the deal by declaring that those who vanquished the Cathars would be given the confiscated land of the Cathars and their supporters.
Perhaps I should mention here that at this point in French history, the King of France actually ruled over very little of France. He ruled over the Ile-de France, where Paris sits. But he did not rule over the Channel Islands, the Pale of Calais, or Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, Poitou, or Aquitaine. These lands were held by the King of England.
Or to put it shortly, the King of England ruled over vast amounts of France, while the King of France just had a teeny-tiny kingdom around Paris.
And so, it is not surprising that the King of France and his nobles would be interested in a land grab in the southern part of France.
More than thirty years later, on 16 March 1244, after the Catholics captured the fortress of Montségur, the Cathars were lead down the mountainside singing, before they walked into the waiting flames.
The Catholics seemed to have won.
But when I traveled to Montségur in the summer of 2010, I found the local people very eager to talk about the Cathars, and proud to keep their memory alive.
