The Inquisition : $b a political and military study of its establishmentNickerson, Hoffman
History
The Inquisition : $b a political and military study of its establishment
Nickerson, Hoffman
Albigenses; Christian heresies -- History -- Middle Ages, 600-1500; Inquisition; Prohibition
Although beaten on the main point of Raymond’s deposition, Innocent
nevertheless continued to do what he could to limit de Montfort’s
triumph. It was said that he told Raymond that something would soon
be done for him. The younger Raymond, a high spirited and attractive
young man of eighteen, was entertained as the Pope’s guest in Rome
for some time after the Council adjourned. Even the terms of the
immediate settlement, which were published in a papal decree on
December 15, were by no means a blanket endorsement of de Montfort’s
ambitions. 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.
Besides this general reservation, there were four lesser specific
ones. De Montfort was to hold his dignities on condition of swearing
homage to his proper overlord, the King of France. Thus, if the
crusading leader had ever seriously hoped to make himself an
independent sovereign, the hope was denied him. Raymond’s wife was to
retain the lands of her dowry. Raymond himself, although condemned
to exile, was to have an annuity of 400 marks a year payable from
the revenues of his former possessions. Most important of all,
the younger Raymond was confirmed in possession of so much of the
Toulousain fief as was not in the hands of the Crusaders, that is to
say Nismes, Beaucaire, and the “Marquisate of Provence” to the east
of the Rhône. Finally, a papal letter of December 21 put in question
the legitimacy of the measures taken by de Montfort against Raymond
Roger of Foix, directing the Bishop of Nismes and the Archdeacon
of Conflans to take over the Castle of Foix and hold an inquest to
decide whether the place should be returned to its original owner,
which was later actually done.
Innocent’s letter reopening the matter of Foix was the great Pope’s
last recorded act in Languedoc. Six months later, too soon for him
to hear of the anti-French reaction there, he lay dead in Perugia,
in the full vigour of middle age, for he was not yet fifty-seven. He
had lived only for his passion to make the papacy and (through the
papacy) the Church, supreme; and he had raised the See of Peter to a
height of unquestioned power which it had never before, and has never
since, attained.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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