When Rome was threatened with the usurpation of it's influence in matters of knowledge and learning, it began the first crusade against local Europeans.
Golden cereal grain, and red grapes flourished in the fields of the Langue d'Oc. A vibrant area in and around Toulouse, France that paralleled the Spanish-French border, with the Pyrenees Mountains dividing them. With open azure skies and sunshine year round, it should have been lovely that year. Instead it's ancient abbeys villages and castles built into the hillsides of massive mountains like the Montsegur, saw an accumulation of crusaders sent by Pope Innocent III to destroy this vast center of learning.
Until now, among this people, you might have found a Jewish Mayor, a Christian farmer, or the nearby neighbor who was a Catholic, as your local marketeer or priest. It didn't matter. All were welcome in the Carcassone Valley. Poetry and Romance languages were the highlights of the day, and the arts flourished and grew. In fact, the area as a center of learning and knowledge was so quickly expanding that it threatened to engulf nearby countries and nations with it's influence. Less than welcome news for Rome.
We know the year as1208. It was the beginning of the Albigensian Crusade. The Cathar's knew it as Hell on Earth, with hundreds of thousands wading through indescribable death and torture.
The Tolerance of the Langue d'Oc of that day was affecting Rome. If the Carcassone was considered to be the center of knowledge and learning, then how could Rome make the same claim? The Langue d'Oc needed to be brought under control.
Before that fatal day, many of the nobility, royalty, and hundreds of thousands of commoners called themselves by the name of Cathar. Their name denoted intentions of becoming pure from the blood and sins of the world. Beyond that, the only thing that really survived to tell us of the Cathars were the writings of their enemies.
- To begin with the Church set up public debates to show the Cathars the error of their ways, but in open debate, the Cathars carried the day by their reasoning and common sense. A humiliating defeat for the best trained theologians of their time. These debates may have been an earnest endeavor to gather in the lost flock, but quite likely it was the next problem.
- The local Roman priests in some of these areas were joining the Cathar religion in frightening numbers.
- In many Cathar areas the tithes of the church had stopped altogether.
- Entire cities, such as the City of Orleans, defected enmasse to the Cathar' beliefs.
Under the pretext of the right to crown King's and Queens, and upon the death of the church's prelate Peter of Castelnau. The church called in all men and women everywhere to destroy the Cathars, who “thought themselves above law.” An interesting viewpoint considering the fact that Biblical law stated that the right to be a King was left to God, and descended through his royal bloodline in the House of David.
Neighbor oftime turned against neighbor in a bid to avoid the infant Inquisition.Greed played its role as well, since a traitor was given a commission from confiscated lands and goods, but most were those who simply refused to recant their chosen beliefs, and wanted the right to abide by their own conscience. More than a million people died during the Albegensian Crusade, for just that right.
