§ 109.1. =The Albigensian Crusade, A.D. 1209-1229.=--Toward the end of the 12th century sects abounded in the south of France. Innocent III. regarded them as worse than the Saracens, and in A.D. 1203 sent a legate, Peter of Castelnau, with full powers to secure their extermination. But Peter was murdered in A.D. 1208, and suspicion fell on Raymond IV., Count of Toulouse. A crusade under Simon de Montfort was now summoned against the sectaries, who as mainly inhabiting the district of Albigeois were now called =Albigensians=. A twenty years’ war was carried on with mad fanaticism and cruelty on both sides, in which guilty and innocent, men, women, and children were ruthlessly slain. At the sack of Beziers with 20,000 inhabitants the papal legate cried, “Slay all, the Lord will know how to seek out and save His own.”[321] § 109.2. =The Inquisition.=--Every one screening a heretic forfeited lands, goods, and office; a house in which such a one was discovered was levelled to the ground; all citizens had to communicate thrice a year, and every second year to renew their oath of attachment to the church, and to refuse all help in sickness to those suspected of heresy, etc. The bishops not showing themselves zealous enough in enforcing these laws, Gregory IX. in A.D. 1232 founded the Tribunal of the Inquisition, and placed it in the hands of the Dominicans. These as _Domini canes_ subjected to the most cruel tortures all on whom the suspicion of heresy fell, and all the resolute were handed over to the civil authorities, who readily undertook their execution.[322]--Continuation § 117, 2. § 109.3. =Conrad of Marburg and the Stedingers.=--The first Inquisitor of Germany, the Dominican =Conrad of Marburg=, also known as the severe confessor of St. Elizabeth (§ 105, 3), after a three years’ career of cruelty was put to death by certain of the nobles in A.D. 1233. _Et sic_, say the Annals of Worms, _divino auxilio liberata est Teutonia ab isto judicio enormi et inaudito_. He was enrolled by Gregory IX. among the martyrs. Perhaps wrongly he has been blamed for Gregory’s crusade of A.D. 1234 against the =Stedingers=. These were Frisians of Oldenburg who revolted against the oppression of nobles and priests, refused socage and tithes, and screened Albigensian heretics. The first crusade failed; the second succeeded and plundered, murdered, and burned on every hand. Thousands of the unhappy peasants were slain, neither women nor children were spared, and all prisoners were sent to the stake as heretics. _THIRD SECTION._ HISTORY OF THE GERMANO-ROMANIC CHURCH IN THE 14TH AND 15TH CENTURIES (A.D. 1294-1517). I. The Hierarchy, Clergy, and Monks. § 110. THE PAPACY.[323]