1204.

CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

45

during which chance made Arthur prisoner to his uncle. All acquainted with the pages of Shakspeare know too well the young prince's fate. Philip was in the mean time checked in his projects by the court of Rome, which had laid an interdict upon him, on account of his divorce from Ingeburga of Denmark. And the preaching of a fourth crusade about the same time took from him the interest and the aid of many nobles and chevaliers. This expedition scarcely belongs to our history. It was undertaken in concert with the Venetians; but, instead of contributing to the defeat of the Saracens, the crusaders turned their forces against the Greek emperor, and made themselves masters of Constantinople, where they established a Latin dynasty. By the taking and sack of Constantinople the cavaliers of the West did more injury to the Christian cause than ever their victories in Palestine worked detriment to the power of the followers of Mahomet.

Philip was, during the same interval, engaged in the conquest of Normandy, which the imbecility and cowardice of John delivered to his arms without defence. Roger de Lascy held the fortress of Andelys for several months against the French, and was the only valiant servitor of an unworthy monarch. The barons and warriors of England disdained to fight under his banner. There was as yet none of that rivalry which afterwards sprang up betwixt the nations. The mon archs of both were French princes, speaking the French tongue: and, although subsequent historians have given a national color to the combats and conquests of Philip, the struggle was almost purely personal. Rouen, the capital of Normandy, surrendered to him (1204), without John's making a single effort to preserve it. And thus a few years of the reign of one weak prince more than counterbalanced the longestablished superiority of the monarchs of England.

It has been seen what use the French monarchs made of their courts of peers, and of the judicial supremacy allowed them, in extending their authority over barons heretofore independent. Philip dared to apply the same principle to the dukes of Normandy, which his father had successfully done with regard to the counts of Bourbon and Auvergne. He summoned John before his suzerain court, to answer for the murder of Arthur and other crimes. Henry II., or Richard, would have given fit answer to such a summons. The Norman princes always held their homage to be that by parade or courtesy, not homage-liege. But John had neither the sense of his dignity, nor the spirit to maintain it. He allowed the jurisdiction of Philip's court, though he feared to obey his summons; and he thus seemed to allow a legal right to

the usurpations of Philip. The latter, indeed, appeared to feel the want of dignity in the assessors of his court. Ali nobles holding their lands directly of the king were peers in his parliament; and thus the petty lords of the counties of Paris and Orleans ranked equally with the dukes of Burgundy or the counts of Flanders. Philip remedied this, by appointing twelve great peers, or rather by pretending that such a number had always existed since the twelve paladins of Charlemagne. Of these, six were clerics, six laics; the latter being the dukes of Normandy, of Aquitaine, of Burgundy, the counts of Toulouse, Flanders, and Champagne. T'his division of the aristocracy in the high and low nobility, was, however, as yet but nominal; the lesser barons still continued to consider themselves as the peers of the greater, and to have an equal voice in the royal courts. It is important for the reader to mark the rise of this feudal institution, and equally so to mark the difference of its fate and progress in France and in England. In the former country, the parlement became amalgamated with lawyers, and preserved to the last its judicial functions, whilst its legislative authority became but a shadow. In England on the contrary, it guarded the more precious privilege of legislation, abandoning a considerable portion of its judicial rights.

By the discomfiture of John, Philip Augustus united to the monarchy of France not only Normandy, but the provinces of Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and Poitou. Artois he had acquired as the dowry of his wife, Isabella of Hainault. The counties of the south remained still independent of his sway. They looked to the king of Aragon as their suzerain; and there existed far more congeniality of feelings and habits betwixt the Spaniards and Provençals, than betwixt the Provençals and French. Certain events of the reign of Philip, which we are about to relate, destroyed the independence of the people of the south, as well as their connexion with the Aragonese, and extended the authority of the French monrch to the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees.

Whilst Philip Augustus adroitly wrested Normandy and ts dependencies from the hands of John, a series of events ook place in Languedoc, which had the effect of destroying ts independence, and of bringing that fine region not only nominally, as it had hitherto been, but really under the dominion of the kings of France. The countries bordering on the Mediterranean had ever been foremost in the path of civilization. They were still so. The inhabitants of that part of France so situated far surpassed their northern neighbors in refinement, in enlightenment, and wealth. A thriving commerce was the chief source of these advantages, joined

1204.

THE ALBIGENSES.

47

with the municipal liberty, which they enjoyed even to a greater degree than countries around them. The towns were governed by consuls, like those of Italy; and, being freed from either papal or imperial pretensions, were far more tranquil than the republics of that land. The feudal lords lived in amity with the bourgeoisie, and shared its wealth; communicating at the same time to the middling ranks no small portion of their own chivalrous spirit. Little agitated, at least for that age, by the tumults and contentions of war, the Provençals gave themselves to the cultivation of those intellectual employments which wealth and leisure, peace and a fine climate, suggest. In their valleys the muse of modern times had taken birth. They were the first poets of modern tongues. Nor did the troubadours confine their strains to the celebration of heroic deeds or the pleadings of love; they were moralists and satirists, and undertook to lash as well as to amuse the age. The church was the chief object of their alternate ridicule and resentment. Dante and Petrarch, as well as our own Chaucer, afford samples of this spirit. They exclaimed against the licentious lives of the clergy; rallied them on their rigid upholding of abstract dogmas, and their lax observance of moral ones. The troubadours stood forth as the asserters and avengers of common sense. And thus the earliest of modern poets perhaps merit the honor of being esteemed the first reformers.

The speculations of the theologian and the scruples of the devout soon came to swell a passing disgust into permanent dissent. A numerous sect sprung up in Languedoc, which, abjuring much of the corrupt morality and absurd tenets of the Romish church, was led of course to deny the authority of the pope and of his priesthood. For a long time the Holy See seemed not alive to the importance of this sect. It was pope Innocent II. who first perceived its dangerous tendency, and who took certain steps for its destruction. He issued interdicts agains' such princes as should favor them, and offered the spoil of the heretic to whoever should subdue and slay him. The principal lord of the south of France was at that time Raymond VI. count of Toulouse; and he at least tolerated the Albigenses, as those primitive reformers were called, aware of their moral purity and sincere devotion. Peter of Castlena, the pope's legate, reproached the count of Toulouse with his want of zeal, and was indignant at his forbearance to extirpate the new opinions by fire and sword. The legate used no measured language; he not only excommunicated Raymond, but insulted him in his court, and then took his departure. The count of Toulouse expressed his indignant feelings before his followers as Henry II. did after the

insolence of Thomas à Becket, and with the same fatal effect. On the day after, Peter of Castlenau fell under the dagger of a gentleman of the count's, in a hostelry on the Rhone where he had stopped.

Pope Innocent was driven to transports of rage on learning the assassination of his legate. He not only excommunicated the count of Toulouse, but promulgated a crusade against him. He called on all the nobles of France, on its princes and its prelates, to join in the holy war, to assume the cross, as being engaged against infidels. And the same privileges and indulgences were granted to the crusaders of this civil war, that previously were bestowed on those who embarked fortune and life in the perilous attempt to rescue the Holy Land from the Saracen. Spoil, wealth, and honor in this world, together with certain salvation in the next, were now offered at too cheap a rate to be refused. Crowds of adventurers flocked to the standard; and a formidable army was assembled at Lyons in the spring of 1209, under the command of the legate commander, Amalric abbot of Citeaux. The pope at the same time created a new ecclesiastical militia for the destruction of heresy. The order of St. Dominick, or of the friars inquisitors, was instituted; and these infernal missionaries were let loose in couples upon the hapless Languedoc, like bloodhounds, to scent their prey, and then devour it.

Raymond count of Toulouse had neither the force nor the courage to oppose so formidable an invasion. He repaired to the crusaders' army, delivered up his fortresses and cities, and suffered the humiliating penance of a public flogging in the church of St. Giles. The count's relative and feudatory, Raymond Roger viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne, regions infected with the heresy of the Albigenses, came also to make submission. The abbot of Citeaux, who was prudent enough to accept that of the count of Toulouse, feared to lose all his prey. He refused to admit the exculpation of the viscount of Beziers, and plainly told him that his only chance was to defend himself to the utmost. The young viscount courageously accepted the advice. He summoned the most faithful of his vassals, abandoned the open country as well as towns of lesser consequence to the enemy, and restricted his efforts to the defence of Beziers and of Carcassonne. He shut himself up in the latter. The fury of the crusaders first fell upon Beziers: they had scarcely sat down before the unfortunate town, when a sally of the garrison was repulsed with such vigor that the besiegers entered the town together with the routed host of the citizens. Word of this unexpected success was instantly brought to the abbot of Citeaux, and

1217.

SIMON DE MONTFORT.

49 his orders were demanded as to how the innocent were to be distinguished from the guilty. "Slay them all," exclaimed the legate of the vicar of Christ; "the Lord will know his own.' The entire population was in consequerce put to the sword; nor woman nor infant was spared. Jpwards of 20,000 human beings perished in the massacre-the sanguinary first fruits of modern persecution. Carcassonne was next invested, bravely attacked, and as valiantly defended; the young viscount distinguishing himself in defence of his rights, while Simon de Montfort earl of Leicester was the most prominent warrior of the crusaders. At length the legate grew weary of the viscount's obstinacy, and offered him terms. He gave him a safe-conduct, sanctioned by his own oath and that of the barons of his army. Raymond Roger came with 300 of his followers to the tent of the legate. Faith," said the latter, "is not to be kept with those who have no faith;" and he ordered the viscount and his friends to be put in chains. The inhabitants of Carcassonne found means to fly. In a general assembly of the crusaders, the lordships of Beziers and Carcassonne were given to Simon of Montfort, in reward of his zeal and valor; and to make the gift sure, it was accompanied with the person of his rival. The unfortunate viscount, the victim of the legate's perfidy, soon after perished in prison.

The victory of the crusaders was of course followed by executions at the stake and on the scaffold. The friars inquisitors of the order of St. Dominick did not relax their zeal. A general revolt against De Montfort was the consequence, in which the people of Toulouse joined. The Provençal army was headed by Peter king of Aragon, the uncle of the late viscount of Beziers. It was he who had persuaded the unfortunate viscount to trust himself to the legate, and to him in consequence fell the duty of taking vengeance. The cross, however the profaned cross-was still successful. The Provençals were routed by Simon de Montfort at the battle of Muret, and the king of Aragon was slain. This victory seemed to establish the power of De Montfort in Languedoc. He took possession of all the provinces of his rival, even of the town of Toulouse; and an assembly of prelates sanctioned the usurpation. But the cruel spirit of De Montfort would not allow him to rest quiet in his new empire. Violence and persecution marked his rule; he sought to destroy the Provençal population by the sword or the stake, nor could he bring himself to tolerate the liberties of the citizens of Toulouse. In 1217 the Toulousans again revolted, and war once more broke out betwixt count Raymond and Simon de Montfort. The latter formed the siege of the capital, and was en