God's Heretics by Aubrey Burl

Author:Aubrey Burl
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752494791
Publisher: The History Press

SIX

1214–1218: Toulouse

De facto lord of the Languedoc de Montfort may have been, the great nobles of Occitania dead or in hiding, castles occupied by crusaders, towns terrorised; but his titles had not been confirmed by Philippe-Auguste, and there remained three severe threats to his status: the Pope, the King of France and the dispossessed faidits.

Innocent III had begun to mistrust his Legates who were over-compliant to the wishes of a soldier. ‘Two things are above all, dear to me’, he said, ‘the liberation of the Holy Land, and the reform of the Universal Church’ and he was determined that the reasons for his crusade should be honoured. It had been corrupted by militarism. Heresy had been forgotten. He appointed yet another Legate, his sixth, Pietro di Benevento, who was to absolve the southern nobles but was forbidden to agree to any permanent arrangement in the Languedoc without the Pope’s direct consent. Most importantly, he was ‘on no account to be molested by Simon de Montfort’.1

These were religious considerations. There were also political ones. Philippe-Auguste, King of France, permanently engaged on the fringe of war with England, steadily but very slowly regaining lands in Normandy and Aquitaine, had reluctantly accepted that his realm was being eroded by the expanding territories conquered by de Montfort. Unable to retaliate, he longed for a chance of fate. ‘My Lords’ he sighed, ‘I still have hope that, before it prove too late, this Count de Montfort and his brother, Count Guy, may die in harness’.2

The Pope, the king, both too powerful to ignore, were many miles and therefore weeks, even months, away from interference. The faidits were not. They had nothing, nor had their supporters and families, and it would remain so unless they fought in battle, in ambush, in treachery. ‘A thousand noblemen were condemned to wander penniless across a land where they had once ruled’, lamented a troubadour.3 In October and November of 1213 there were outbreaks in Provence. Narbonne, Montpellier, Nîmes refused to open their gates to crusaders. The citizens of Moissac rebelled. Worse still, Raymond VI had gone to the court of King John in England, his brother-in-law through Raymond’s fourth wife, Joan, daughter of Henry II and sister of John and Richard I. The count pleaded with the king to help him regain his dominions.

Tempted by the prospect of repossessing parts of Normandy John, aptly nicknamed ‘Lackland’, agreed. An invasion was planned. On 15 February 1214, an English army landed at La Rochelle. In April it advanced to La Réole near de Montfort’s castle at Marmande only a few miles from his successes in the Agenais. Almost immediately the unreliable castle seceded and became an English garrison.4

A joint campaign was planned. The English army was to wait for the troops of the Holy Roman emperor, Otto IV, to invade from the north of France and the combined forces would then overcome Philippe-Auguste. It came to nothing. De Montfort was too decisive. In June the crusaders laid siege to Marmande, whose

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.