Albigensian Crusades (XIIIe siecle)

1999

The comparison between the confessional division in France and the Albigensian Crusade first emerged in polemic immediately preceeding the French wars of religion. The example of Louis IX, who was portrayed as having defeated the Albigensian heresy, was held up to François II and Charles IX by opponents of religious toleration to demonstrate how heretics could be defeated in battle. The theme of the Albigensian Crusade was used until the end of the wars of religion when it was appropriated by the Holy Catholic League and used against Henri III. Protestant martyrologists turned the comparison with the Albigensians around, and made them into medieval forerunners of the Reformation who had been unjustly persecuted by the papal antichrist. This interpretation first appeared in England where it was used to consolidate the interpretation of the millenium in Revelation as corresponding to the rise of the papal antichrist. Catholics had written against Albigensians and Waldensians indiscriminately which prompted Protestant martyrologists to consider them with equal respect.

The Albigensian Crusade was an internal campaign against the Albigensian/Cathar heretics in the south of France through the alliance of the Papacy and French Monarchy between 1209 and 1229. The Albigensians posed a great threat to the institutional Church with their unorthodox beliefs such as the rejection of baptism and church hierarchy. The reasons for the Albigensian Crusade are still a source of debate among the historians though there are many studies on the subject. This paper will try to contextualise the Albigensian Crusade by examining multifaceted factors that resulted in the mass persecution of the heretics. It will be argued that it is crucial to discuss the interaction of various factors such as the rising power of the Papacy, Crusading ideology, medieval heresy and socioeconomic and political conditions in the region to understand fully the Albigensian Crusade.

The English Historical Review, 1989

UNTIL the end of the twelfth century the Crusade was a weapon that appears to have been us/ed exclusively against the infidel, 1 and it was similarly for the purpose of combatting non-Christians that Military Orders were established during the twelfth century in the Holy Land and Spain. In the thirteenth century, however, a growing number of Crusades were launched against Christians. The faithful were encouraged to take the cross not only against heretics, schismatics and other enemies of the Church, but also in support of secular rulers whose cause was favoured by the papacy: in the 1260s, for example, Urban IV and Clement IV were both prepared to order the preaching of the cross against Henry Hi's opponents in England. 2 It is not surprising therefore that in the thirteenth century the role of the Military Order was also extended. Once fighting against heretics and other enemies of the Church was thought worthy of spiritual reward and regarded as a means of salvation, 3 participation in such warfare could be considered a fitting task for a Military Order. Of course, to divert the manpower and resources of Orders which had been founded for the purpose of fighting against the infidel might provoke criticism; and in thirteenth-century statutes of the Teutonic Order brethren were in fact expressly forbidden to give any aid to those embarking on military campaigns against Christians: nullus fratrum scienterprestet equitaturam vel aliud subsidium eunti ad exercitum contra christianos vel 1. The validity of this statement depend*, of course, on the precise way in which the term 'crusade' is defined; but see N. Housley, 'Crusades against Christians: their Origins and Early Development, c. iooc-I2i6\ in P. W. Edbury(ed.)> CTUSMU tndSettlement (Cardiff, 1985), p. 28: 'strictly speaking ... the crusade launched in 1208 should be regarded as the first fully-authenticated crusade against Christians'. 2. S. Lloyd,' "Political Crusades" in England, c 121 j-i/andc 1263-5', Crustde imd Settlement, p. 116. 3. This was happening well before the thirteenth century, although the practice did arouse criticism: Housley, 'Crusades against Christians', pp. 17-36.

2004

The attitude of the medieval church towards violence before the First Crusade in 1095 underwent a significant institutional evolution, from the peaceful tradition of the New Testament and the Roman persecution, through the prelate-led military campaigns of the Carolingian period and the Peace of God era. It would be superficially easy to characterize this transformation as the pragmatic and entirely secular response of a growing power to the changing world. However, such a simplification does not fully do justice to the underlying theology. While church leaders from the 5th Century to the 11th had vastly different motivations and circumstances under which to develop their responses to a variety of violent activities, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo provided a unifying theme. Augustine’s just war theology, in establishing which conflicts are acceptable in the eyes of God, focused on determining whether a proper causa belli or basis for war exists, and then whether a legitimate au...

Lecture delivered to the Plantagenet Society of Australia at Hornsby Library, 16 March, 2019

The Crusades are most often presented as religiously motivated wars between the Christian medieval powers, secular and ecclesiastical, and the Islamic world. The proximate cause of the First Crusade (1096-1099) included the defeat of the Byzantine Emperor Romanes IV Diogenes by the armies of the Seljuq Sultan Alp-Arslan at the Battle of Manzikert (26 August 1071), followed by the Seljuq conquest of Anatolia. Pope Urban II feared Constantinople might be conquered and preached the Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095. This tale is well-known; the Western occupation of the Middle East came to an end in 1291 when the final expulsion of Latin Christians from Syria occurred. However, there were Crusades in the Baltic States and north-eastern Europe, in which the military order the Teutonic Knights was prominent (compared to the Templars in the Holy Land). These began in 1193 when Pope Celestine III preached a Crusade against the Pagan Balts. The Teutonic Knights were active in Eastern Europe until the fifteenth century, building a huge Christian territory in Prussia and the Baltic region. This lecture looks at the critical lenses used to interpret the particular type of Holy War denoted by the term “Crusade” from the medieval era to the present.

2017