History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 172, the Crusade against the Cathars, Monsieur 1244.

Hello again.

Last week we saw Southern France stage two major pushbacks against the two new powers in the region,

the French Crown and the church. Count Raymond the seventh joined

a rebellion against the French king which was ultimately unsuccessful.

While the commander of the Cathar stronghold of Monsieur

led a sortie out of the castle, which tracked down and killed

to Inquisitor's and nine of their companions.

Somewhat surprisingly, both the Church and the French Crown seemed happy to forgive Count Raymond.

Shaking their heads at his persistent rebelliousness,

instead of squashing him like a bug and removing him from his title and lands, as was probably

the outcome most were expecting, both the Pope and King Louis instead forgave and forgot. Count Raimond with King Louis's support was once

again reconciled to the church, and this act seems to have humbled and quietened Count Raymonde.

Any hopes the local southern French nobility may have had that the Count of Toulouse would once again rise up against the French

crown vanished, along with the hopes of the Cathar heretics that Raymond might act as their protector and their sword against the Church of Rome.

After his failed uprising, Count Raymond was a changed man.

For the next seven years until his death in 1249, Count Raymond will keep his head down

and stay out of trouble, remaining firmly under the two thumbs

of the Church and the French monarchy.

If the Church and the French crown were prepared to forgive and forget Count Raymond's last stand against them, they weren't about to extend the same virtue to the Cathars. Going to war against a monarch could be forgiven,

tracking down and murdering two inquisitors could not. The castle of Monsieur in the county of Foix had been a Cathar stronghold since 1204.

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