Hey, Hi, Hello, this is the History Wizard and welcome back for Day 9 of Have a Day w/ The History Wizard. Thank you to everyone who tuned in for Day 8 last week, and especially thank you to everyone who rated and/or reviewed the podcast. I hope you all learned something last week and I hope the same for this week. This week we’re going to be looking at infighting within Christianity. There are many differing opinions within the faith on the whos and whats and whys and hows, and very oft en they decide to kill each other over these, ultimately minor, differences. The Cathar Genocide, often known as the  Albegensian Crusade, was just such an event. It was a time when the Pope felt threatened by those who he deemed to be heretics and so decided to kill them.

But, first it’s time to craft our potions. Todays libations, gods I love that word, is called Melting Snow. Take two ounces of sake, 1 ounce of triple sec, 3-4 dashes of black lemon bitters, shake and pour into a rocks glass before gently pouring 1 tsp of grenadine syrup into it. The resulting drink should have the grenadine settle at the bottom initially making a lovely presentation. Though I’d mix it before actually imbibing.

With that out of the way let’s talk about who the Cathar were. The name Cathar comes from the Greek word katharoi, meaning “the pure ones”. Their other name, the Albegensians, comes from the fact that many adherents during the Crusade lived in or around the city of Albi. Catharism is described as a somewhat dualist, somewhat Gnostic heretical branch of Christianity. Though, it bears mentioning that both are likely exonyms and the followers of this particular faith often self identifies as Good Men, Good Women, or Good Christians.

So what is dualism and what is gnosticism? Well in the case of the Cathars they were pretty much the same thing. Dualism is the moral or spiritual belief that two fundamental concepts exist, which often oppose each other. Gnosticism draws a distinction between a supreme, and hidden God above all, and a lesser deity (sometimes called the demiurge) who created the material world. Consequently, Gnostics considered material existence flawed or evil, and held the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of the hidden divinity, attained via mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in concepts of sin and repentance, but with illusion and enlightenment. Gnosticism preferred people to have personal knowledge and experience with the divine, something that threatened the power of the early Church.

Cathar cosmology identified two Gods. One who created the perfect spiritual world and the other, the demiurge who created the imperfect and sinful physical world. The demiurge is often identified as Yahweh and is referred to as Rex Mundi, King of the World. All visible matter, including the human body, was created or crafted by this Rex Mundi; matter was therefore tainted with sin. Under this view, humans were actually angels seduced by Satan before a war in heaven against the army of Michael, after which they would have been forced to spend an eternity trapped in the evil God's material realm. The Cathars taught that to regain angelic status one had to renounce the material self completely. Until one was prepared to do so, they would be stuck in a cycle of reincarnation, condemned to suffer endless human lives on the corrupt Earth.

Also, while they revered Jesus Christ, they also denied that he was ever a mortal man, instead believing that both he and Mary were Angels taking the semblance of a human form in order to teach our sin tainted flesh to grow closer to the purity of divinity. Other Cathar beliefs included the pescetarian diet, their view that women were pretty purely to tempt men away from divine purity and some Cathars believed that Eve had sex with Satan and gave birth to a race of giants who were all wiped out in the Great Flood. Cathars also rejected the Catholic priesthood, labeling its members, including the pope, unworthy and corrupted. Disagreeing on the Catholic concept of the unique role of the priesthood, they taught that anyone, not just the priest, could consecrate the Eucharistic host or hear a confession. There were, however, men selected amongst the Cathars to serve as bishops and deacons.

Now, while the Cathar Crusade took place over a 20 year period between 1209 and 1229, the persecution against them began almost as soon as they were founded. The Cathars were denounced as heretics by 8 separate church councils between 1022 and 1163. However the true troubles wouldn’t begin until 1208 when Pope Innocent III sent a legate named Pierre du Castelnau to chastise Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse for his lack of action against these heretical Cathars who lived on his land. Castelnau withdrew from Toulouse after 6 months of Raymond basically ignoring him. On January 15, 1208 Pierre was assassinated. Innocent suspected, and acted on the suspicion that the assassination was carried out by an agent of Reymond, although this was never proven. 

Still, when has lack of evidence ever stopped the Church from killing people? The assassination of Pierre du Castelnau was causus belli for the Albigensian Crusade. The Albigensian Crusade, the Cathar Genocide, took place all around the area known as Languedoc, also known as Occitania. Today the province is a part of southern France, but for a while it was its own region with distinct culture and its own language. Occitan wasn’t very similar to French, it was not mutually understandable. In fact it was closer to Catalan than it was to French. Now, because Catharism rejected both the authority of the French King and the Pope in favor of a far more egalitarian relationship with their nation and their God many nobles from France embraced Catharism, at least at a surface level due to their desire to also reject the authority of the King of France. This made Catharism not just a threat to the spiritual and material authority of the Pope, but also a threat to the material authority of the King.

After the assassination of Castelnau Raymond VI Count of Toulouse was excommunicated from the Church. Although there was a very brief period when Raymond sent embassies to Rome and exchanged gifts. They reconciled and the excommunication was lifted, only for him to be excommunicated AGAIN on the grounds that he didn’t properly meet the terms of reconciliation.

 And so it was that in 1209, after assembling an army of about 10,000 men near the city of Lyons that Pope Innocent III declared his crusade against the Albigensians, stating that a Europe free of heresy could better defend its borders against Muslim armies. This crusade against the Albigensians also coincided with the Fifth and Sixth Crusades in the Holy Land.

Most of the troops for the crusade came from Northern France, although there would also be volunteers from England and Austria. After some initial dispute over who would lead the quote righteous armies of the Lord unquote Papal Legate Arnaud Amalric was chosen as the commander. 

As the Crusaders assembled, Raymond attempted to reach an agreement with his nephew and vassal, Raymond Roger Trencavel, viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne, for a united defense, but Raymond Roger refused him. Raymond decided to make an accommodation with the Crusaders. He was fiercely opposed by Amalric, but at Raymond's request, Innocent appointed a new legate, Milo, whom he secretly ordered to obey Amalric. On 18 June 1209, Raymond pronounced himself repentant. He was scourged by Milo and declared restored to full Communion with the Church. The following day, he took the Cross, affirming his loyalty to the crusade and promising to aid it. With Raymond restored to unity with the Church, his lands could not be attacked. The Crusaders therefore turned their attention to the lands of Raymond Roger, aiming for the Cathar communities around Albi and Carcassonne.

Béziers would be the first major engagement of the Cathar Genocide, although at around the same time, another Crusader army commanded by the Archbishop of Bordeaux took Casseneuil and burned several accused heretics at the stake. The crusading armies arrived at Béziers on 21 July, 1209 and demanded that the Catholics of the city leave and that the Cathars surrender. Both groups ignored them and the city settled in for a long siege. 

The siege lasted for exactly one day. The troops within Béziers attempted to sortie beyond the gates of their city and after being routed they were pursued through the open gates of the city and it fell within 24 hours. Amalric then proceeded to order the slaughter of every single person, adult or child, within the walls of the city. What follows is possibly apocryphal, a phrase which hears means made up, but allegedly when asked by his troops how they should distinguish between Catholic and Cathar Amalric said “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius” The literal translation of which is “Kill them. The Lord knows those that are his own” There’s some dispute over whether or now Amalric actually said this, but it is agreed that it captures the vibe rather well as the entire city of Béziers was killed. There were no survivors. The death toll is placed at around 20,000 people, though this is thought to be an exaggeration.

Raymond Roger was not at Béziers when it fell. He had fled with most of his troops to the city of Carcassonne (yes, like the board game) intending to hold there. After the surrounding towns and villages heard about the slaughter at Béziers they all surrendered without a fight. This made Carcassonne the next major target of Amalric and his band of brigands. The 45 mile march to Carcassonne took the crusaders 6 days to complete. Once arrayed around Carcassonne they settled in for a siege that lasted slightly longer than the one at Béziers. But, after 6 days and after cutting the cities water supply Raymond Roger sought to negotiate. Amalric agreed to parley, but took Roger prisoner while speaking under truce. Carcassonne would not be the site of another slaughter though. All the people of the city were marched out of the city at sword point. They were naked according to Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay, a monk and eyewitness to many events of the crusade, but "in their shifts and breeches", according to Guillaume de Puylaurens, a contemporary. Rogers died several months later, either of dysentery or from being assassinated.

In each city the armies approached, they reacted differently and treated the people differently. The fall of Lastours and castle Cabaret took much longer than the others, although this was largely because of the onset of winter. The area around Cabaret was full of communes like Lastours, Minerve, and Bram. After Minerve fell to bombardment from siege weapons, destroying the main well of the commune, it surrendered. The crusaders, now under the command of Simon de Montfort wished to be more lenient to the people of Minerve. He allowed to defending soldiers, the Catholics, and the non-perfecti Cathars. Perfecti was the title of those Cathars who were considered adept in the teachings of their faith. They were roughly analogous to deacons. The Perfecti were given the option to recant their beliefs and return to the Catholic faith. Of the 143 perfecti in Minerve, only 3 elected to do this. The rest were burned at the stake, many walking directly into the flames of their own volition, not even waiting for their executioners to force them.

There were some successes for the Cathars though. The siege of Termes almost ended with the Cathar being slaughtered, but in the end them managed to abandon the city and escape before the walls could be breached, owning in part to a massive rain storm. 

In May of 1211 the castle of Aimery de Montréal was retaken; he and his senior knights were hanged, and several hundred Cathars were burned. The crusade was turning towards its end. Montfort began to position his troops around the city of Toulouse meaning to crush one of the last major Cathar bastions in France. The Cathars, in their fear, turned to Peter II of Aragon for aid and support. Peter’s sister Eleanor was married to Raymond VI. Peter, named a valiant hero for his actions against the Moors was able to use his influence to get Innocent to call a halt of the crusade and used that time to try and negotiate peace.

When those peace negotiations failed Peter decided to come to their aid of Toulouse against Simon de Montfort, fearing that Montfort was becoming too powerful and gaining too much influence within the Catholic Church. This alarmed Innocent III who immediately declared the Crusade begun again. Meanwhile Raymond VI had had his excommunication lifted and then reinstated AGAIN during this time.

Unfortunately for the Cathars and for Peter II, he would die in his first major engagement with Simon’s forces. The Battle of Muret saw a devastating loss for Peter’s forces. Despite outnumbering Simon’s armies Simon had better tactics and carried the day. The next few years was a flurry of activity and victory fo Simon, who was eventually named the new count over all of Raymond VI’s lands that had already been captured. Any land that had not yet been captured  would fall under the control of the Catholic Church who would hold onto them until Raymond VII, who was currently in England with his father, having fled a few years ago, was old enough to govern them himself.

The crusade would continue for a few years more, though there were periods of confusion and relative peace. One such period was when Pope Innocent III died suddenly and unexpectedly and the crusade was taken over by the much more cautious King Philip II of France. The crusade was resumed with greater vigor in 1217 on orders from Pope Honorius III and for the remainder of it would center around Toulouse and maintaining control of it. By 1222 Raymond VII, who had returned from exile with his father had reclaimed all the lands that he had lost and the crusaders were firmly on the backfoot.

Come 1225 Raymond VII was excommunicated, like his father (now deceased) and King Louis VII of France, son of Philip II (now deceased) renewed the Crusade. The Cathar heresy was going to be dealt with one way or another. The exact number of troops that Louis brought with him to renew the Crusade is unknown, but it is known that it was the largest force to be brought against the Cathars throughout the entirety of the genocide. Louis began his campaign in earnest in June of 1226 and quickly recaptured the towns of Béziers, Carcassonne, Beaucaire, and Marseille, this time with no resistance. Eventually the armies surrounded Toulouse and Raymond, not having the manpower to resist surrendered and signed the Treaty of Paris at Meaux on April 12, 1229.

Now, something important to be aware of is that Historian Daniel Power notes that the fact that Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay's Historia Albigensis, which many historians of the crusade rely heavily upon, was published only in 1218 and this leaves a shortage of primary source material for events after that year. As such, there is more difficulty in discerning the nature of various events during the subsequent time period.

With the war over we would transition into the next phase of the genocide, that of destroying Catharism as a cultural element and forcing surviving Cathars to repent and convert.

With the military phase of the campaign against the Cathars now primarily at an end, the Inquisition was established under Pope Gregory IX in 1234 to uproot heretical movements, including the remaining Cathars. Operating in the south at Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne and other towns during the whole of the 13th century, and a great part of the 14th, it succeeded in crushing Catharism as a popular movement and driving its remaining adherents underground. Punishments for Cathars varied greatly. Most frequently, they were made to wear yellow crosses atop their garments as a sign of outward penance. Others made obligatory pilgrimages, which often included fighting against Muslims. Visiting a local church naked once each month to be scourged was also a common punishment, including for returned pilgrims. Cathars who were slow to repent or who relapsed suffered imprisonment and, often, the loss of property. Others who altogether refused to repent were burned. The vast majority of those accused escaped death and were sentenced to a lighter penalty.

Still, Catharism as a distinct religion was all but destroyed. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word "genocide" in the 20th century, referred to the Albigensian Crusade as "one of the most conclusive cases of genocide in religious history". And, at the risk of making an appeal to authority fallacy, if the guy who invented the term and died fighting for its recognition in national and international law calls it a genocide, it is one.

That’s it for this week folks. No new reviews, so let’s get right into the outro.

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