The Cathars: The Most Successful Heresy of the Middle Ages by Martin Sean

Author:Martin, Sean [Martin, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781843444169
Publisher: Oldcastle Books
Published: 2014-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

4

The Inquisition

While French troops reduced the Languedoc to the sort of barren wasteland we might more readily associate with Arthurian myth or the nightmares of Bosch and Bruegel, a nightmare of another sort was being planned in the Lateran Palace. Pope Honorius had died in 1227, and was succeeded by Gregory IX, who was as much an activist pope as his great forebears Gregory VII and Innocent III had been. Gregory – born Ugolino dei Conti di Segni – was one of Innocent’s nephews, and was as legally minded as his uncle had been. Gregory realised that if the Cathars were to be effectively destroyed, then the Church needed the tools to pursue individuals as much as, and perhaps even more than, the ability to intervene militarily, as it was apparent that the dualists were still active in the Languedoc and in other parts of Europe; the discovery of Cathars in Rome in 1231 can only have hardened Gregory’s resolve.

The Inquisition was based on procedures drawn up under Innocent to tackle wayward priests which gave Inquisitors – usually Dominican friars – the powers of arrest and trial. What started as a method for keeping the clergy in line was to become ‘one of the most effective means of thought control that Europe has ever known.’73

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