Raymond of Toulouse

“ They owed their tastes, not only to their Roman blood, and the survival of their old love for rhetoric and poetry, but also to their intercourse with the Mahommedans, their neighbours and enemies, and their friends when they were not fighting. Under Raymond of Saint Gilles, at the end of the 11th century, the county of Toulouse began its great career, but Raymond’s ambition to become an Oriental prince, which led him—and the hundred thousand men who, according to the chroniclers, followed him—away on the first crusade, left a troubled heritage to his sons Bertrand and Alphonse Jourdain. ”

“ His army, deprived of his command, broke and dispersed, and the whole of the infantry of Raymond and his allies were either put to the sword, or swept a way by the current of the Garonne. Toulouse immediately surrendered, and the whole of the dominions of Raymond submitted to the conquerors. At a council subsequently held at Montpellier, composed of five archbishops and twenty-eight bishops, De Montfort was unanimously acknowledged as prince of the fief and city of Toulouse, and of the other counties conquered by the Crusaders under his command. ”

“ The ruin of the house of Toulouse was essential to their comfort—they might well believe even to their personal safety—and it was pressed unswervingly. As legates, Master Theodisius and the Bishop of Riez presided, while the assembled prelates of the land were led by the intractable Arnaud of Narbonne. All forms were duly observed. The legates, as judges, asked the opinion of the prelates as assessors, whether Raymond should be admitted to purgation. ”

“ At the same time, a kinsman of both princes was setting the Pope and the French king alike at defiance. Count Raymond of Toulouse, the husband of John’s sister Joan, had from the outset favoured the heretics who for the last two years had kept southern Gaul in turmoil; in 1211 he openly allowed them to concentrate in his capital city, and headed their resistance to the forces which Innocent and Philip had sent against them under Simon de Montfort. ”

“ A treaty made between 1160 Henry and Louis of France in May 1160 contained a provision for a year’s truce between Henry and Raymond of Toulouse, during which Henry was to keep “whatever he at the date of the treaty had of the honour of Toulouse, Cahors, or Quercy.” [17] This was probably not much, as his troops had already been withdrawn from the conquered territory; the greater part of it seems to have fallen back into Raymond’s hands, and we hear nothing more of the relations between him and Henry for nearly thirteen years. ”

“ Raymond alone met with some resistance. Made aware of the victory of the Christians by the cries of the Mussulmans, the clash of arms, and the tumult from the interior of the city, he roused the courage of his soldiers. These brave men, impatient to join their companions, abandoned their tower and their machines, which they could no longer move. They planted their ladders, and sticking their swords into the walls as steps, they mounted to the ramparts; they were preceded by the Count de Toulouse, Raymond Pelet, the Bishop of Bira, the Count de Die, and William de Sabran. ”

“ And it is well known that their churchly narrow-mindedness brought the people of southern France, under Raymond of Toulouse, soon enough into direct opposition to the other participants in the first crusade. For the majority of the princes who had taken the cross were by no means willing to work for the sole advantage of the church, but wished to further their own worldly interests at least as much as they did those of the pope. ”

“ Pierre de Castelnau left his colleagues and visited Provence to make peace among the nobles, in the hope of uniting them for the expulsion of heretics. Raymond of Toulouse refused to lay down his arms until the intrepid monk excommunicated him and laid his dominions under interdict, finally reproaching him bitterly to his face for his perjuries and other misdeeds. Raymond submitted in patience to this reproof, while Pierre applied to Innocent for confirmation of the sentence. ”

“ He boldly asserted his innocence, demanded a trial, and claimed the restoration of his castles. Innocent seems at first to have been touched by the wrongs inflicted on him and the ruin impending over him ; but if so the impression was but momentary, and he returned to the duplicity which thus far had worked so well. The citizens of Toulouse he pronounced to have justified themselves, and ordered their excommunication removed. As regards Raymond, he instructed the Archbishops of Narbonne and Aries to assemble a council of prelates and nobles for the trial which Raymond so earnestly demanded. ”

“ Not only was the king requested to send a special deputy to the infected district, but the pope wrote directly to the royal lieutenant, Charles de Banville, reproaching him for his protection of heretics, and threatening him if he did not mend his ways. Certain nobles who had become conspicuous as favorers of heresy were significantly reminded of the fate of Raymond of Toulouse; the prelates were scolded and stimulated; Amedeo of Savoy was summoned to assist, and the Tarantaise was added to the district of Provence that nothing might interfere with the projected campaign. ”

“ The marquisate of Provence, beyond the Rhone, a dependency of the empire, was given to the Church. Raymond thus lost two thirds of his vast dominions. In addition to this he was obliged to destroy the fortifications of Toulouse and of thirty other strongholds, and was prohibited from strengthening any in their stead ; he was to deliver to the king eight other specified places for ten years, and to pay fifteen hundred marks per annum for five years for their maintenance ”

“ In 1158 Eleanor’s claims to overlordship over the county of Toulouse led Henry to lead an expedition against Count Raymond V., who had succeeded his father Alphonse in 1148, and by his marriage with Constance, sister of Louis VII., and widow of Eustace of Boulogne, King Stephen’s son, had united himself against the Angevin with the houses of France and Blois. The personal intervention of King Louis saved Raymond from absolute submission, though the peace transferred Cahors and the Quercy from Toulouse to the duchy of Aquitaine. ”

“ After Count Raymond had been reconciled to the Church, he returned in July to his dominions, followed by the Cardinal-Legate Romano, to see to the execution of the treaty and to turn back the armed “pilgrims” who were swarming to fight for the Cross, and who revenged themselves for their disappointment by wantonly destroying the harvests and creating a famine in the land. In September a council was assembled at Toulouse, consisting of all the prelates of Languedoc, and most of the leading barons. ”

“ But Raymond, who was of brighter abilities, received Chorges, and increased it wonderfully by the addition of Arles, Narbonne, Provence, and Limoges. Again, he purchased Toulouse of his brother who went to Jerusalem many years previous to the grand crusade; but these things were achieved by a considerable lapse of time, and a life expended on the labour. Thus, ever engaged in war, he had no desire for a legitimate wife, enjoying himself in unrestrained concubinage. ”

“ Raymond was assumed to have been found guilty of heresy and of despoiling the Church. All that part of the Toulousain fief held by the Crusaders was made over to de Montfort with the title of Count of Toulouse. And yet, with the usual papal policy of reservations, it was stipulated that the new settlement was not to override the rights of any Catholic man or woman; which might well have been made a ground, had Innocent lived, for Raymond’s return. ”

“ The Treaty of Meaux and the extension of the royal domain to the Mediterranean, 1229. A notable result of the triumph of the crown was the settlement of the question of Toulouse by a compromise that was all in favour of the monarchy. The Albigensian Crusade had died away amid the storms of civil war, and against so orthodox a prince as Raymond VII. it had never been more than a sorry pretext for aggression. In 1229 Raymond concluded the Treaty of Meaux with the regent, by which he retained, though on humiliating conditions, a portion of his sovereignty. ”

“ At this particular juncture, a fanatical love of religion and glory induced many European warriors to take up arms against the infidels. Raymond of Bourgogne, and his kinsman Henry, both French princes of the blood, Raymond of Saint-Gilles, count of Toulouse, with some other cavaliers from among their vassals, crossed the {95} Pyrenees with their retainers, and fought under the banners of the King of Castile. Thus assisted, that sovereign put the Egyptian commander to flight, and compelled him, soon afterward, to recross the Mediterranean. ”

“ From the middle years of the 12th century the people of Toulouse seem to have begun to free themselves from the most oppressive feudal dues. An act of Alphonse Jourdain (1141) exempts them from the tax on salt and wine; and in 1152 we have traces of a “commune consilium Tolosae” making police ordinances in its own name " with the advice of Lord Raymond, count of Toulouse, duke of Narbonne, and marquis of Provence." ”

“ The most powerful vassal of the houses of Toulouse and Aragon was the Count of Foix, whose extensive territories on both sides of the Pyrenees rendered him almost independent in his mountain fastnesses. Count Roger Bernard II., known as the Great, had been one of the bravest and{53} most obstinate defenders of the land, and, after the pacification of 1229, Raymond had been obliged to threaten him with war to force him to submit. His memory was proudly treasured in the land as “Rogier Bernat lo pros et sens dengun reproche.” His family was deeply tinctured with heresy. ”

“ To celebrate such a treaty Henry forgot his thrift. The two kings of England travelled with ostentatious splendour to meet the Count of Maurienne in Auvergne in January 1173. The King of Aragon and the Count of Toulouse met them at Montferrand, and a peace which Henry concluded between Toulouse and Aragon declared the height of his influence. Raymond bent at last to do homage for Toulouse, an act of submission which brought the dominion of Anjou to the very border of the Mediterranean. ”

“ King Louis was also appealed to and was urged to hasten the marriage between his brother Alfonse and Raymond’s daughter Jeanne. With the spectre of all Europe in arms looming up before him Raymond could do nothing but yield. When, therefore, the legate summoned him to meet the inquisitors at Carcassonne he meekly went there and conferred with them and the bishops. The conference ended with his promise to return the bishop and friars and clergy to Toulouse, and this promise he kept. The friars were duly reinstated September 4, after ten months of exile. ”

“ In 1232 the Catharan bishops Tento of Agen and Guillabert de Castres of Toulouse, with a number of ministers, foreseeing, in the daily increasing pressure of persecution, the necessity of some stronghold which should serve as an asylum, arranged with Raymond that he should receive and shelter all fugitives of the sect and guard the common treasure to be deposited there. His castle, situated in the territories of the marshals of Mirepoix, had never opened its gates to the Frenchmen. ”

“ Raymond, count of Toulouse, was the richest prince in Europe when Innocent III. set on the dogs of rapine, by preaching a crusade against him and his beautiful country. In the crusades to the Holy Land many more had been attracted by the fabulous accounts of the riches of the East, than by any care about the redemption of the holy places, so, in this European crusade, the wealth of Toulouse was the principal incentive to the adventurers who flocked to the plunder. At that period, individual enterprise was perhaps stronger than at any other: a prince of Lorraine had235 become king of Jerusalem ”

“ Shortly afterwards another meeting was held at Montpellier, equally fruitless, except for de Montfort, who made a treaty with Pedro and received from him his infant son Jayme, to be held as a hostage. Even in the spring of 1211 Raymond again visited de Montfort at the siege of Lavaur and allowed provisions to be supplied for a while to the Crusaders from Toulouse, although he had fruitlessly endeavored to prevent the marching of a contingent{167} which the Toulousains furnished to the besiegers. ”

“ The interests of the Church and of religion being thus provided for, the marriage of Jeanne with one of the king’s brothers was treated as a favor bestowed on Raymond. It was tacitly assumed that all his dominions had been forfeited, and the king graciously granted him all the lands comprised within the ancient bishopric of Toulouse, subject to their reversion after his death to his daughter and her husband, in such wise that whether there was issue of the marriage or not, or whether she survived her husband or not, they passed irrevocably to the royal family. ”

“ Two years later, the Albigenses held a general council at Toulouse, their chief centre of activity. The Cardinal-Legate Peter made another attempt at peaceful settlement (1178) , but he was received with derision. The Third General Council of the Lateran (1179) renewed the previous severe measures and issued a summons to use force against the heretics, who were plundering and devastating Albi, Toulouse, and the vicinity. At the death (1194) of the Catholic Count of Toulouse, Raymond V, his succession fell to Raymond VI (1194–1222) who favoured the heresy. ”