Bad Things Afoot

On 13 April 1233, Pope Gregory IX officially established an inquisitorial system in France by announcing that he would be conferring unlimited authority upon the Preaching Friars (the Dominicans) to combat heresy. He appointed Fr. Robert le Bourge as General Inquisitor for the Kingdom. The Inquisition had come to the Languedoc. By the Treaty of Meaux, Raymond VII had ceded the Languedoc to the French Crown. French troops had also come to the Languedoc occupying what were now lands belonging to the monarchy and the Capetian dynasty.

Sworn to allegiance to the ruling monarchy and to be a good Catholic and take up again the fight against the heretics, Raymond VII made several half-hearted attempts to lay siege to the pog under the watchful eyes of the French troops and envoys of both Crown and the Inquisition in 1241. His forays yielded no result, and he declared that the pog could not be taken. This would be reported back to Paris and hopefully be the end of it. Raymond VII was stalling for time, and a window of opportunity to drive out the troops and take back his domains.

In addition, he had no legitimate male heir. He had only his daughter Joan, by Sancha of Aragon. By the Treaty of Paris (1229) with the French Crown, he had to give Joan in marriage to Alfonso, Louis IX’s brother. In this manner, the crown was assured of gaining these lands upon Raymond VII’s death. He was also trying to divorce Sancha so he could marry a woman who could give him a male heir, but the Crown and Church were balking this action to protect their own interests. It seems Raymond finally succeeded, for in 1241 he did divorce Sancha and married Margaret de Lusignan in 1243. Margaret was the daughter of Hughes X de Lusignan and Isabella d’Angouleme. Isabella had previously been married to John Lackland (‘evil King John’), who was a son of Raymond’s grandfather Henry II Plantagenet of England. The Church quickly played this trump card and declared Raymond’s marriage to Margaret void on the grounds of consanguinity. Even if he did have a son by Margaret or even another daughter, the child would not be a legitimate heir.

Whichever way he turned, things were looking bleak for Raymond. He must have felt tremendously frustrated, but he didn’t give up the fight. The question remains as to whether or not Raymond was ‘using’ the Cathars in his opposition to the French Crown having taken his lands. They represented resistance to the northern monarchy and there had to be a general cause to rally around. The Crusade and its results had left the local populace in opposition toward those who would take away their culture, their language and their lands. The ‘cause’ thus became more than something personal to Raymond and the other lords – at least outwardly. They were all struggling, however, to maintain their own titles and lands.

History has it that in 1242, Raymond was the architect of a plot that arose amongst the lords of the Languedoc against the Crown. This plot involved not only the counts of Foix, Comminges, Armagnac and Rodez, but the viscounts of Narbonne and Béziers, Hughes X de Lusignan (Comte de la Marche), and no less than Henry III Plantagenet. Reportedly, Frederick II the Holy Roman Emperor was also aware of it. Frederick was often at odds with the papacy himself over the Fifth Crusade, and was excommunicated four times. The plot was to form a rebellion against the Crown. It would seem however that Blanche and Louis became aware of the plot and determined to thwart it. It is thought that the following actions were deliberately undertaken to set the rebellion off before their adversaries could solidify their plans and positions. They had a previous model to work with in what happened with Pierre de Castelnau, and there was even more reason for the people of the Languedoc to hate the Inquisition since the Crusade.

In May of 1242, two inquisitors appeared at the castle of Avignonnet and set up a tribunal. The castle was commanded by Ramon d’Alfaro, the bailiff of Raymond VII. Ramon d’Alfaro sent a message to Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix at Montségur informing him of the presence of the inquisitors. Brothers Armand Guilhem of Montpellier and Étienne of Narbonne were both cruel and fanatical. They’d left many enemies and much bitterness in their wake. Pierre-Roger’s announcement of the news of the inquisitors’ presence at Avignonnet to the village and the troops of Montségur was the match that set fire to the planned rebellion. Those at Montségur had family and loved ones to avenge. Jean Markale reports:

“A group of about fifty knights and men-at-arms converged and made their way toward Avignonnet. While en route, their ranks were swelled by sympathizers who also had kinfolk to avenge. This expedition was in fact far from secret – everyone knew that the men were determined to murder the Inquisitors – but oddly enough, nobody alerted the future victims.” [Montségur and the Mystery of the Cathars – pg. 33]  

   

Ramon d’Alfaro guided the angry throng into the castle himself. The inquisitors, their notary and bailiffs were all murdered. The news spread rapidly as those involved returned home, and soon the whole region was up in arms. Moving quickly, Raymond took himself and his men to Albi and occupied it. Albi had once belonged to him, but the Crown had taken it. Like it or not, the rebellion had begun and he had no choice but to act on the plans that were in place.

What happened next happened very quickly, reinforcing the idea that the rebellion was deliberately provoked by the Crown. This will be told in the next installment.

Until then my friends!

Rayvn

Life on the Pog

Montségur was far from a monastic sort of enclave, such as we might think of today – i.e. as in a Buddhist monastery. In point of fact the fortress itself was a garrison and most of the people who lived in the village were not Cathars themselves. This can be said because large quantities of animal bones were found buried around and on the pog, and Cathars we are told did not eat meat except fish. The perfecti and credenti that lived there most likely lived in the village and only went into the fortress in times of siege for protection. Certainly the soldiers in the garrison were not Cathars, or they could and would not have been soldiers. Their wives and children may have been, but not the soldiers themselves.Village life was like life in any other village that supported itself and its people of the time. There were chores to be done, clothing to be made, things to be fixed and fashioned, as well as livestock to care for.

Cathars were spread all over the Languedoc-Rousillon and not all congregated in one area. There were even Cathars in Italy and other countries. They were however centered predominantly in what is now southern France. The lords of the Languedoc remained independent lords and answered to no king. This coupled with the fact that heretics lived in the lands of, and were protected by these lords was a recipe for trouble and a thorn in the sides of both Rome and the French monarchy. The monarchy wanted those lands and the Church wanted the heretics gone.

Given what we think the Cathars believe and the principles by which they lived, it is fairly well certain that the lords of the Languedoc were not Cathars themselves. They owned property and they engaged in warfare. They were powerful local lords fighting to keep control of their hereditary holdings and titles. We know they were at least nominally Catholic by the fact that several of them were excommunicated not just once but many times. That is not to say however that some of their wives and children were Cathars. We know that the daughter of Roger-Bernard I de Foix was a Cathar, Esclarmonde de Foix, who was a perfecti and is known as such in historical records. At the time she took her consolamentum, she did so with three other ladies of high rank, Aude de Fanjeaux, Fays de Durfort and Raymonde de Saint-Germain. Esclarmonde de Foix was present at the Conference of Montreal in 1207, an attempt at a peaceful debate and settlement with the Catholic Church, represented by Dominic Guzman. Dominic Guzman would become Saint Dominic, who later led the Inquisition. The year after the debate, Innocent III declared the Albigensian Crusade.

It is necessary as well to understand that women of noble status often retired to convents when they became widowed or divorced in these times and in times previous to this. By Salic Law women rarely inherited their husbands’ lands or titles upon the lord’s death, unless they were a ‘queen regent’ themselves – i.e. they were the daughter and heir of a king or a lord. Blanche of Castile was a queen regent, for she was the daughter of a king, Alfonso VIII of Castile and Eleanor of Aragon, who was also a queen regent. Even in this case, they acted only as regents in the kingly sense if the heir, a son, was in his minority – under aged. When the son reached his majority, he became king but his mother was still ‘the Queen Regent’, while his wife was simply ‘the Queen’. A ‘lady’ married to a king who became his widow was called a ‘dowager queen’, and inherited nothing unless it was her father’s lands and titles and she had no surviving brothers. While the lords of the Languedoc did not adhere to monarchies and their rules, they too inherited by Salic Law established by Clovis I, the first historically verifiable King of the Salian Franks, who came to be known as the Merovingians.

Esclarmonde de Foix was a widow in 1200 when she turned to the Cathar faith, which infers that before that she was probably a Catholic herself. It is therefore nothing exceptional or extraordinary in the fact that she ‘retired’ to live a more or less monastic life as a perfecti and spiritual leader. What is unique and extraordinary about her is that she became the symbol and the legend that she remains to this day. That however, is not entirely due to anything in particular that she did in her life. She was a good woman who made every attempt to help people: she established schools for girls and hospitals as well as a home for the elder parfaits. As far as anyone knows for certain, that is the extent of her doings. Such acts did qualify one for sainthood in those times on occasion, but Esclarmonde de Foix was not a Catholic. The story of her turning into a dove and flying away with the equally legendary Cathar Treasure, the Holy Grail, was most likely a fiction invented by Otto Rahn, the Nazi medievalist. To my knowledge, there is no mention of it before his telling of it. If indeed, as he claimed, he was told this by local shepherds it may have been a legend that had risen up around the fortress, the pog and the Cathars in the neighborhood. Places like Montségur tend to engender and invite legends, and not without good reason. But truly, it was the pog, the fortress and the crusade and its circumstances more than anything else that brought a certain fame, or infamy, upon the place – depending on whose side you’re on – and made it and Esclarmonde icons of the times and the Cathars themselves.

The reason for this will be revealed in the next installment. Until then, my friends, take care and be kind to one another.

Rayvn     

What Did the Cathars Believe? - Part II

The idea of a ‘divine spark’ most likely came from philosophies earlier native to this region of Afghanistan Mani visited, for this inner flame was simply a new version of the kundalini. The ‘coiled serpent’ sleeping at the base of the lowest muladhara chakra was the spark of the Divine Mother that again enlivens each and every created thing in the material world. This earlier philosophy however was seen as a part and parcel of the evil in the world by the Zoroastrian Persians on the other side of the mountains. The Divine Mother was the consort of the Divine Father in the form of Shiva. She had created the world for His pleasure to experience and observe Life in all its forms. Shiva was a rather ‘equal opportunity’ god, who forgave even demons their sins, if they did penance enough for them. This was usually accomplished by meditation, fasting and ascetic practices. This in turn carried over into Buddhism, which was far more forgiving than Zoroastrianism.

Zoroastrianism seems to have developed out of ‘Indian’ Brahmanism, where the supreme god was Brahma. Anyone familiar with the history and mythology of Vedanta knows that Brahma and Shiva didn’t exactly get along with one another early on, in spite of the fact they were two parts of the later trinity of gods of Vedanta. The third god was Vishnu, whose avatar Krishna was seen in several religions to be one of the prophets. This trinity can somewhat be compared in many ways to the Christian trinity, wherein Brahma is the Father; Vishnu is the Son who reincarnates in times of trouble, and Shiva as the Holy Spirit who is both male and female. Given that Jesus was said to have taken instruction in India and it is a documented fact that Thomas the Disciple ‘returned’ there after the crucifixion one might suspect that Mani was on to something.

As you can see, the Cathar beliefs are deeply rooted in what the Church and even certain Jewish sects considered to be heretical in nature. Mani sought to improve upon Christianity by incorporating what he learned and considered to be the best of dualistic Zoroastrian beliefs, as well as Gnostic Buddhism. This of course was anathema to the Church Fathers, because they were the ones supposed to be dictating dogma, not some heretic. Mani saw himself as the next and last prophet after Jesus – the Paraclete foretold in the New Testament.

Manichaeism had two groups of persons in its church, the ‘electi’ and the ‘auditors’. The electi were much like the Cathar perfecti. The auditors served the electi and hoped to become electi themselves one day. In many respects, the Cathar credenti served the perfecti as well and looked forward to the day or life when they too would become perfecti. Their ‘service’ however was of a more mundane aspect in learning from, providing and caring for those who were their holy ones.

Like the Manichaeans, the Cathars seem also to have originally believed that Jesus was a flesh and blood man who had ascended to heaven by the way in which he lived his life. They did not hold that he was the ‘son of God’ or in his pre-existence. Later on some groups did acknowledge these beliefs, but whether or not it was a matter of expediency in protecting themselves from the wrath of the Church remains to be seen. The beliefs of Mani’s father, with which he was raised, stated that you would be forgiven if you did something openly, as long as you did not believe it in your heart. Doing things for the sake of appearances is a tactic of self-preservation that has been adopted by several religious groups. Whether or not this was part of the Cathar doctrine or simply a way to protect themselves out of necessity is up for question.

Again, much of what has been said about the Cathars and their beliefs comes from ‘confessions’ extracted under torture, condemnations and observations of Dominican inquisitors like Bernardo Gui and often echo similar confessions and condemnations of anyone with any power who fell out of favor with the Church, including the Templars. There are some very clear beliefs however that we may take away from this:

They believed in reincarnation; the sanctity of life; a dualistic world of good vs. evil; a simple life devoid of ostentation and frivolous belongings, and being responsible for their own ascension back into the Wholeness of Creation. They also believed in the equality of the sexes – that men and women were equal beings. They did not believe in marriage in the sense that it had taken in the Roman Empire – to protect ones properties and inheritances. People were united because they desired to be together and for no other reason.

Some of these things posed issues for those who were lords, sympathizers and defenders of the Cathars. We shall look into that a bit in the next article as well as continuing the story of the Albigensian Crusade.

Until we meet again, dear friends!

Rayvn

   

What Did the Cathars Believe? - Part I

There seems to be some uncertainty about the details of what the Cathars believed. It is noted that like many other religious sects or movements in ancient times, that there appears to have been some variations in the rules and beliefs of different Cathar groups. This was certainly true of early Christianity, itself. Let us examine in this article the roots of Cathar beliefs, so we may better try to understand them.

Catharism originally did not have a ‘church’ or bishops in the beginning of the movement. This came later and they styled their organization after the Church of Rome, ironically enough. They were simply groups of people who believed in certain ideas and concepts. Many of those ideas and belief appear to have come from other, earlier eastern gnostic belief systems.

They were divided into the two groups, the ‘perfecti’ and the ‘credenti’. The perfecti served as their teachers, guides and holy persons and were upheld to live their lives as ascetic exemplars of their faith. The credenti were not held to the same stringent rules as the perfecti, and were the average person who happened to be a Cathar.

The Cathars believed that each being was enlivened by a ‘divine spark’ that had fallen from heaven to become trapped in the material world which was created by an evil demiurge they called Rex Mundi, the King of the World. This is very similar to Gnostic beliefs, however it goes back even further than that to a belief system that was most likely developed in the Far East by a certain Iranian prophet named Mani. Mani’s philosophy became known as Manichaeism, but it was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Buddhism. Mani’s father was a member of the Messianic Jewish sect known as Elkasites, who were one of the many various groups of Christians in the early development of Christianity. These in turn were a branch of the Ebionites, who advocated voluntary poverty. They too were seen as heretical in their day by the early Church and most of what is known about both sects is largely derived from polemics against them by the early Church Fathers.

Like Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism is based in a rigid dualistic belief of good versus evil which are locked in a constant struggle for domination of the world and the souls of men. Like Buddhism, they believed in the sanctity of all life and that each person was responsible for their own salvation. Those who did not escape the bonds of the material world were reincarnated, according to how they’d lived their previous life. The Cathars also believed in reincarnation. There was always another chance to escape and become reunited with the Wholeness, the True God. No one could save you but yourself. Jesus was a prophet, much like John the Baptist and was not born of a miraculous union but was the flesh and blood son of Mary and Joseph, who rose above the material world.

It is said that Mani traveled to what is now Afghanistan and there learned Buddhism from the Caucasoid Saka (Scythian) people who lived there. These have also been called ‘Tocharians’. Their beliefs seem to have been a sort of gnostic Buddhism which may likely have been heavily influenced by the earlier teachings of the Greek Pythagoras. They were highly active in the development and spread of Buddhism in the Far East. Speculating now, Pythagoras may have in his turn been influenced by one of these same people and their beliefs for he was an Ionian Greek. The Ionians were well known in India and were called Yavana. They were originally Mycenaeans and like the Tocharians, the Mycenaeans also had A and B languages, the B language being that of the common folk.

To be continued in Part II.

Ad abolendam: Heresy and Heretics ~ Part II

Recall what is said in Part I about nobles “who did not join in the struggle against heresy when called upon to do so would be excommunicated and their territories placed under interdict”. In light of this, the refusal of the Counts of Toulouse, Foix, Beziers and other districts in the Languedoc becomes a blatant refusal to be manipulated or controlled by either the King of France or the papacy. One might suspect that this really stuck in Innocent’s craw.

According to web sources Pierre de Castelnau was ‘born in the diocese of Montpellier’. This diocese was located in southwestern France. Given his name, Pierre was most likely born in Castlenaudary.  He was a monk of the Cistercian order, also known as Benedictines or Bernardines. This is the same order to which Bernard de Clairvaux belonged. Bernard was said to have had significant ties with the Templars and was involved to a great degree with the Second Crusade. The Cistercians supported themselves by farming, raising sheep for wool and brewing liqueurs.

These same sources state that by the year 1199, Pierre de Castelnau had become the archdeacon of Maguelonne. He was appointed by Innocent III to lead the way in the suppression of the Cathar heresy. Castelnaudary lies in the heart of this particular Cathar country, and so the archdeacon would have been very familiar with not only the particulars of the area, but the politics and ways of the people as well.

In 1207, Pierre de Castelnau became involved in a dispute between Raymond de Foix VI and the Count of Baux. Some sources state that this may have had more to do with the monk’s death than his other involvement with rooting out the Cathar heresy. By other reports [1], the monk met with the lords and in particular with Raymond VI, the Count of Toulouse and Marquis de Provence. The author of the referenced document reports that the monk threatened Raymond that if he did not abjure his associations with and protection of the Cathars, he would forfeit his lands, title and other rights mentioned above as a heretic. It is also reported herein that Raymond did in fact threaten the papal legate with death if he continued on this track. This same source states that it was not a retainer loyal to Raymond or even a family member who slew Pierre de Castelau, but that Raymond hired an assassin to do the job. Other sources state that it was one or more of Raymond’s knights who slew the monk. For that matter, it could be said that Innocent hired an assassin to slay Pierre de Castelnau to force the issue for reasons explained in the final paragraph here. It is not unheard of, as the Borgia popes did such things. This, however, is purely a speculation and one that would not find great popularity.

In any case, it can be said that NO ONE knows for sure what happened that fateful night and speculation has run rampant down through the years. Those speculations are colored by which side of the fence one is standing – the side of the Church or the side of the Cathars. We have seen that the Church was not averse to making up things – devising false documents such as the Donation of Constantine and the collection of the “False Derectals of Isidore” mentioned previously. Personally, in spite of his feelings for the Church of Rome and the Papacy, I don’t think Raymond would have been so blatantly stupid as to threaten the papal legate. Raymond was about 52 years old at this time and hadn’t held on to his lands or titles by being an impetuous hot-head. Furthermore, this was a private meeting between the lords and the legate, so how would anyone know whether de Castelnau was threatened or not, save those directly involved? It comes across as pure supposition on the part of pro-Catholic ‘historians’ who would prefer to see Innocent III as justified in launching the slaughter of thousands of innocent people, men, women and children – from infants to elders - Cathars and Catholics alike.

Pope Innocent III did indeed take the event and run with it, declaring Raymond VI of Toulouse excommunicated. He called for the King of France to take up arms against the Albigensians in the Languedoc. At this particular time Phillip II was the King of France. Due to previous confrontations with Innocent III to do with his own throne, Phillip was not particularly keen to enjoin the battle. Phillip was more interested in the finer pursuits of education and construction. Under his guidance, Paris became the first city of teachers the medieval world had known. He continued the construction on Notre Dame which had begun shortly before he took the throne, and he had the Louvre built. Phillip left it to those who came after him to take up the call to arms. If one studies the history of these particular times, it will be seen that these were times in which everyone seemed to be at war with everyone else – often due to disputes with the papacy and who should or should not be king.

Until we meet again my friends take care and be well,

Rayvn

[1] http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=16889493



Ad abolendam: Heresy and Heretics ~ Part I

In November of 1184 Pope Lucius III issued a derectal and bull from Verona. It was called Ad abolendam which means ‘toward abolishing’. The document prescribed measures to abolish any and all ‘heresies’ that threatened the sovereignty and authority of the Church of Rome. Pope Lucius III was one of the popes under which Lotario dei Conti di Segni served. Lotario was later to become Pope Innocent III.

Lucius III condemned any and all persons who preached or offered scriptural interpretations without the authority of the Church, either publicly or privately. He also condemned any persons who supported such heretics openly or covertly. They were all to be excommunicated. Those who supported the heretics were also considered heretics. They were deprived of their rights to hold public office, the right to a trial, the right to draft a will and the hereditability of their lands and offices. They were to be handed over to the authorities to receive their ‘due penalty’ – whatever that might mean in each case.

The Ad abolemdam seems to have been drafted somewhat in response to Lucius’ answer to settling his dispute with the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa over the disposition of the territories left by the passing of Countess Matilda of Tuscany. Frederick made what seems to be a fair proposal that wasn’t going to break the backs of the locals on these lands. They apparently were not to Lucius’ liking. He wanted the land itself, not just a tithe of the imperial income. This was not the only bone of contention between the Pope and the Emperor but it seems to have sparked the need for wording in the derectal to the effect that: all counts, barons, rectors, and consuls of cities and other places who did not join in the struggle against heresy when called upon to do so would be excommunicated and their territories placed under interdict. He declared that these provisions joined the apostolic authority of the church with the sanction of imperial power. With this sort of wording, he made Frederick and any future Emperor complicit in and answerable to this decision. 

In a move much like todays ‘corporate sales goals’, Lucian III obligated all his patriarchs, archbishops and bishops to re-announce these rules and the excommunication on certain feast days and holidays. If they didn’t do this for three consecutive years, they were stripped of their offices. They were furthermore obligated to seek out heretics in their bi-annual or tri-annual rounds of their dioceses, by visiting places rumored to harbor heretics and questioning people about heretical activities in the area.

Those they questioned were required to swear their testimonies of anything they knew about heretical activity under an oath. If they were later found to have been lying in any way, they too were considered sympathizers and condemned as heretics. If those found guilty were landed persons, their lands were seized by the Church. In this way, the Church became wealthy in lands and fiefs. Any ecclesiastic who did not turn up a heretic now and then became suspect himself, so it was to their benefit to find one or two on occasion. This wasn’t the official beginning of the Inquisition, but it set the stage for it and for the Fourth Crusade, also known as the Albigensian Crusade.

There were several specific sects mentioned in the Ad abolendam – among them were the Cathars, the Humiliati, the Waldensians, the Arnoldists and the Josephines. In 1211, under the pontificate of Innocent III, more than 80 Waldensians were burned as heretics at Strasbourg. It was a specter of things to come.

Continued in Part II

By the Powers Invested...

Many people are not aware of the various intrigues and outright manipulations that went on in Rome. They are possibly aware of some of the more infamous popes like the Borgias through the popular media, but in reality, the Church of Rome was rife with such things and still is. The Papacy is not, as they would have you believe, infallible.

Pope Innocent III held various ecclesiastical positions through the short reigns of four different popes before he became a Cardinal-Deacon in 1190. That is to say that he was well acquainted with how things worked from within the Church. As Pope, he played a major role in shaping canonical laws. He did this through the issuance of conciliar canons and decretal letters. Whatever he, as the Pope, said was the law. It is said that he believed fervently in the supremacy of the Church and its universal authority to rule the empire, but in retrospect it might be more properly said that he was an over-zealous control freak who put his position to good use. He became increasingly involved in imperial/royal elections. I have no doubt that he felt justified in doing so by the Donation of Constantine.

 

The Donation of Constantine is a forged Roman imperial decree by which the emperor Constantine I supposedly transferred authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the pope. During the Middle Ages, the document was often cited in support of the Church of Rome’s claims to spiritual and earthly authority over the right of kings. The Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla is credited with first exposing the forgery with solid philological arguments. Doubts on the document's authenticity had already been cast by the time Valla exposed it. Scholars have since dated the forgery between the eighth and ninth centuries.

Purportedly issued by the fourth century Roman Emperor Constantine I, the Donation grants Pope Sylvester I and his successors, as inheritors of St. Peter, dominion over lands in Judea, Greece, Asia, Thrace, and Africa as well as the city of Rome with Italy and the entire Western Roman Empire, while Constantine would retain imperial authority in the Eastern Roman Empire from his new imperial capital of Constantinople. The text claims that the Donation was Constantine's gift to Sylvester for instructing him in the Christian faith, baptizing him, and miraculously curing him of leprosy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine]

Keep in mind that this is a forgery – one of many that is included amongst the collection of documents known as “The False Derectals of Isisdore”. Constantine’s leprosy and miraculous cure are a fiction, as most likely is his vision that caused him to convert. Constantine was in fact baptized only on his death-bed, and by an unorthodox bishop at that. This completely undermined the authority of the Papacy as far as the Latin Rite Catholics were concerned. Something needed to be done about it. That something was the Donation of Constantine and the lies that went with it. The dating of the Donation seems to have appeared during the pontificate of Pope Stephen II between 752 and 757 CE. Constantine died in the year 377 CE. Given that there is a collection of these false derectals, it would seem that the Church was at this point in time doing any and everything conceivable to consolidate its authority over the known world.

Constantine did not ever in his life give Rome the right to choose kings. Rome gave itself that right, so it could control the masses through the kings it chose that would be more amenable and agreeable to its purpose. This fact becomes evident, when one puts the history of the Church and the nobility of Europe and Asia under the microscope.

As an example of Innocent’s involvement in the election of Kings and a matter of public notice, I provide for you here his papal decree known as “Papal Decree on the choice of a German King, 1201”. There were three men vying for the emperor of Germany. They are named in the document:

“It is the business of the pope to look after the interests of the Roman empire, since the empire derives its origin and its final authority from the papacy; its origin, because it was originally transferred from Greece by and for the sake of the papacy...its final authority, because the emperor is raised to his position by the pope who blesses him, crowns him and invests him with the empire....Therefore, since three persons have lately been elected king by different parties, namely the youth [Frederick, son of Henry VI], Philip [of Hohenstaufen, brother of Henry VI], and Otto [of Brunswick, of the Welf family], so also three things must be taken into account in regard to each one, namely: the legality, the suitability and the expediency of his election......Far be it from us that we should defer to man rather than to God, or that we should fear the countenance of the powerful....On the foregoing grounds, then, we decide that the youth should not at present be given the empire; we utterly reject Philip for his manifest unfitness and we order his usurpation to be resisted by all....since Otto is not only himself devoted to the church, but comes from devout ancestors on both sides.....therefore we decree that he ought to be accepted and supported as king, and ought to be given the crown of empire, after the rights of the Roman church have been secured.” (from Medieval Sourcebook: Innocent III: Letters on Papal Policies)

        

Pope Innocent III was fond of using derectals himself. A derectal is a pontifical decision on matters of discipline, or a papal exegis or interpretation of what should be done in the case of an apparent violation or transgression of the general laws of the Church. This allowed for a great deal of leeway for the pope who authored the derectal to put his personal spin on canonical law. The recipient of his letter, usually a bishop, was expected to communicate the papal answer to the authorities in the district to which he belonged. These authorities were expected to act in conformity with that decree when these analogous cases arose. Innocent III in this fashion became one of the great legislators of papal law in his time.

Innocent III was also fond of writing letters to powerful people. While he never came out and stated his intentions or agendas directly, the overall intent is contained within the gist of the letter. Let me provide you with an example here:

“Just as the founder of the universe established two great lights in the firmament of heaven, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night, so too He set two great dignities in the firmament of the universal church..., the greater one to rule the day, that is, souls, and the lesser to rule the night, that is, bodies. These dignities are the papal authority and the royal power. Now just as the moon derives its light from the sun and is indeed lower than it in quantity and quality, in position and in power, so too the royal power derives the splendor of its dignity from the pontifical authority....” (from Medieval Sourcebook: Innocent III: Letters on Papal Policies)

     

He most definitely had a way with words.

Perhaps now you can better understand the mind of this man and the circumstances of the age in which we find him zealously rooting out heresies and in particular this one known as Catharism. It would seem he was so intent upon quashing the Cathars that he was even willing to throw one of his most devoted archdeacons Pierre de Castelnau under the proverbial bus to accomplish this. When we look at Innocent’s intellect, mind-set and the information he had at hand, he must have known what would happen – that is, if he did not make it happen himself in the name of expedience.  

Until next time my friends, be well and take care.