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Updated: May 23, 2025
God gives us, as our weapon, the rosary. This has proven efficacious in the battles of the Church against heretics and heathen armies. Examples: Albigenses; Turks at Lepanto and Belgrade; many epidemics abated or averted by the power of the rosary. This devotion is just as powerful for the individual and for the family.
Hence the crusade against the Albigenses which Simon de Montfort commanded and Arnold conducted. Arnold's first exploit was the sack of the undefended town of Beziers, where he slaughtered twenty thousand men, women, and children, without distinction of religious belief. When asked whether the orthodox might not at least be spared, he replied, "Kill them all; God knows his own."
Hence, one of the first and greatest champions of the Church in controversy with the Albigenses Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny at the very beginning of the heresy, found no better means of opposing the new errors than attacking every thing coming from the East.
We have, moreover, to remember the Cathari, the Paterini, the Fraticelli, the Albigenses, the Hussites heretics in whom the new light dimly shone, but who were instantly exterminated by the Church.
He published a crusade against the Abigenses, a species of enthusiasts in the south of France, whom he denominated heretics, because, like other enthusiasts, they neglected the rites of the church, and opposed the power and influence of the clergy: the people from all parts of Europe, moved by their superstition and their passion for wars and adventures, flocked to his standard: Simon de Montfort, the general of the crusade, acquired to himself a sovereignty in these provinces: the Count of Toulouse, who protected, or perhaps only tolerated the Albigenses, was stripped of his dominions: and these sectaries themselves, though the most innocent and inoffensive of mankind, were exterminated with all the circumstances of extreme violence and barbarity.
Amicia, the heiress of the earldom of Leicester, was the wife of Simon, Count de Montfort, an austere warrior, on whom fell the choice of Innocent III. to be leader of the so-called crusade against the unfortunate Albigenses.
The poetry of the troubadours in Catalonia, as well as in its native home, belonged much to the court, and the highest in rank and power were earliest and foremost on its lists. From 1209 to 1229, the war against the Albigenses was carried on with extraordinary cruelty and fury.
The beginning of the thirteenth century was, as Machiavelli has remarked, the era of a great revival of this extraordinary system. The policy of Innocent, the growth of the Inquisition and the mendicant orders, the wars against the Albigenses, the Pagans of the East, and the unfortunate princes of the house of Swabia, agitated Italy during the two following generations.
The faithful of the Albigenses were divided into two orders, the "perfect," who wore a black dress, abstained from flesh, eggs, cheese, and from marriage; and the "believers" whose salvation was to be attained by a certain ceremony called the "consolation."
The wars of religion, the world's debate, become the war of creeds. "I am not come to bring peace among you, but a sword." Luther, for instance, declares war against the revolted peasants of Germany with all the ardour and fury with which Innocent III denounced war against the Albigenses.
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