Fathers and Sons

Raymond VI’s excommunication had been lifted in 1209 when he recognized the threat of the forces gathering against them. However, he was excommunicated again in 1211. Raymond was excommunicated several times. Raymond-Roger de Trencavel had gone to the leaders of the crusade and sought accommodation from them but was refused audience. The lords of the Languedoc banded together and had retaken many towns captured by the crusaders during the early years under the leadership of Raymond VI. However, the crusaders would return and take them back. The fortunes of the battle see-sawed back and forth like this for several years until the battle of Muret and Simon de Montfort’s eventual end in 1218.

The Fourth Council of the Lateran was convoked by Pope Innocent III by a papal bull dated April 19, 1213. The council was to gather at Rome’s Lateran Palace in November of 1215. The Third Crusade had failed miserably, resulting in the capture of Constantinople and large portions of the Byzantine empire by the Muslims. The results of the Fourth Crusade to this point had alienated the Church to the people and major lords of the Languedoc. Innocent felt was time to reinstate and reformulate papal involvement with the Crusades both in the Holy Land and on European soil. The Council declared the Fifth Crusade to free the Holy Land of the powerful Ayyubid Muslims of Egypt. Measures dealing with heretics were re-opened and discussed, as well.

The Council was attended by Raymond VI of Toulouse, his son Raymond (VII) and Raymond-Roger de Foix. They were there to dispute the threat of their territories being confiscated by the Church. Guy de Montfort, the brother of Simon de Montfort argued that the Church should confiscate their territories. Raymond’s son-in-law, Pierre-Bermond II of Sauve attempted to lay claim to Toulouse and was rejected.  Toulouse was awarded to Simon de Montfort. The lordship of Megueil was separated from Toulouse, entrusted to the bishops of Maguellone. The lordship of Megueil was Raymond VI’s by his marriage to Ermessenda, the Countess of Megueil. Provence, also one of Raymond VI’s possessions was also confiscated and kept in trust for Raymond VII – if he showed himself worthy of having it. That is, if he denounced the heretical Cathars and no longer aided them.

It was in 1215, the year of the Council that Simon was awarded Toulouse and Narbonne. In April of 1216, Simon ceded these lands to Philip Augustus II, the French King.

Innocent III died in July of 1216 and was succeeded by Honorius III, who was by all accounts a ‘kinder and gentler’ man, but the Fifth Crusade and the war on heresy were still high on his agenda. Philip Augustus was more concerned about his newly acquired lands of Toulouse and Narbonne than he was about the Cathars, for Raymond VI had retaken Toulouse in 1218. Amaury de Montfort, Simon’s son had taken up his father’s leadership of the Fourth Crusade, but Amaury was not the tactician or the warrior his father was. His attempts to retake Toulouse in 1219 failed and several more of Simon’s holds fell to the embattled Raymond and his allies.

In 1221, Raymond and his forces retook Montréal and Fanjeaux, forcing the Catholics to leave. Raymond VI died in 1222 and his son Raymond VII who had also been fighting battles to regain their territories took up where his father left off. Like his father, Raymond VII of Toulouse was excommunicated by the Council of Bourges in 1225 for his continuing fight against the forces of the Church.

Philip Augustus II died in 1223 and was succeeded by his son Louis VIII. Louis mounted a campaign in 1226 to take back his father’s lands. Louis was already well seasoned in battle, having spent his earlier years fending off John Lackland of England’s attempts to take back Normandy. You might know John better as the ‘evil King John’ the brother of Richard the Lionheart from tales of Robin Hood.

Roger-Bernard the Great, Count of Foix went to Louis ‘the Lion’ suing to keep the peace but Louis rejected his overtures. Roger-Bernard and Raymond VII had no choice but to take up arms against the new king. Many fortified towns and castles surrendered to Louis’ forces without a fight, until he came to Avignon. There Louis engaged in a three month siege and finally took Avignon in September of 1226. Louis returned to Paris after taking Avignon, but contracted dysentery on the way home. He died in November of 1226 in his chateau at Montpensier in Auvergne and was succeeded by his son Louis IX.

Louis IX was not of the age of majority to take the throne himself, and so the throne was taken by Queen Regent Blanche of Castile, Louis VIII’s widow. Blanche allowed the Crusade to go on under the leadership of Humbert de Beaujeau. Humbert took Labécède and Vereilles in 1227 and Toulouse in 1228. Queen Blanche then offered Raymond VII a treaty. She would recognize him as the ruler of Toulouse if he would enjoin the fight against the Cathars, return the Church’s properties that they’d seized, turn over his castles and destroy the walls and defenses of Toulouse. She also stipulated that he had to marry his daughter Jeanne to Alphonse, the brother of Louis VIII. This made Alphonse the Count of Toulouse and Poitiers. Their heirs would inherit Toulouse and Poitiers upon Raymond VII’s death. If they had no issue, which they did not, the inheritance would revert to the King of France. With little choice in the matter, if he wanted peace at long last, Raymond VII signed the treaty at Meaux in April of 1229. It is reported that he was then seized, flogged and imprisoned for a short time. The treaty nominally brought an end to the Albigensian Crusade, and put Raymond VII in a position that was not to be envied.