Cathars and Catharism in the Languedoc: Cathar
Castles: Lavaur
In 1180-1181, well before the Crusade against the Cathars,
There was another military expedition, led by a Cistercian
against the people of the Languedoc. Henry
of Marcy, Abbot of Clairvaux had taken part in a failed
mission to the Languedoc in 1178. A little later, as Cardinal-Bishop
of Albano, he tried again. His failure as a preacher led
to him head a military expedition against the territories
of Roger II Trencavel, Viscount of Beziers, anticipating
Arnaud
Amaury, the Cistercian
Abbot who lead the Albigensian
Crusade. Commanding armed forces provided by Raymond
V of Toulouse, Henry successfully took Lavour in 1181,
forcing the submission of its lord and capturing two Cathar
Parfaits.
A generation later in March 1211, during the wars against
the Cathars of the Languedoc, Lavaur was besieged again,
this time by Simon
de Montfort. The town fell on 3rd of May, 1211, following
which the French crusaders excelled even themselves in cruelty
and disregard for the accepted rules of war. The head
of the garrison, Aimeric-de-Montréal, was hanged along with
his knights. His widowed sister, the chatelaine of Lavaur,
Gerauda (or Geralda) de Lavaur, was brutally murdered. The
Song of the Cathar Wars [laisee 68] relates the event,
pointing out that Gerauda had been famed for her generosity
to all:
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C'anc mais tant gran baro en la crestiandat
No cug que fos pendutz, ab tant cavar de latz;
Que sol de cavaliers n'i a ladoncs comtat
Trop mais de quatre vins, so me dig un clergat...
Estiers dama Girauda qu'an en un potz gitat:
De pieras la cubriron; don fo dols e pecatz,
Que ja nulhs hom de segle, so sapchatz de vertatz
No partira de leis entro agues manjat.
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Never so far as I know has so great a lord
Been hanged in all of Christendom,
Nor with so many knights at his side
More than eighty of them, there were, so a clerk told
me...
Beside this, they threw Lady Girauda into a well
And heaped stones on top of her, which was a shame
and a sin
For no one in this world, you may take my word for
it,
Ever left her presence without having eaten.
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As in all other cases, Cathar
parfaits declined to abjure their faith. 400 Cathars
were burned alive by the crusaders, "with great joy" as
the Catholic chronicler de Cernay noted. (The crusaders
generally burned people alive "with great joy"
- cum ingenti gaudio). One Parfait
allegedly renounced his faith. The rest sang canticles
as they were being led to the pyres. Here is the account
of the whole series of murderous events given by Pierre
des Vaux de Cernay (§227, p 117):
Soon Aimeric, the former lord of Montréal.
of whom we spoke above, was led out of Lavaur with up to
eighty other knights. The noble Count [de Montfort] proposed
that they should all be hanged from fork-shaped gibbets.
However, after Aimeric, who was taller than the others,
had been hanged, the gibbets started to fall down, since
through excessive haste they had not been properly fixed
in the ground. The Count realised that to continue would
cause a long delay and ordered the rest to be put to the
sword. The crusaders fell to this task with great enthusiasm
and quickly slew them on the spot. The Count had the Dame
of Lavour, sister of Aimeric and a heretic of the worst
sort, thrown into a pit and stones heaped on her. Our crusaders
burnt innumerable heretics, with great joy.
Des Vaux de Cernay clearly identifies his hero Simon de
Montfort as personally responsible for multiple murders
here. Even by the standards of medieval warfare the killing
of prisoners of war and captive women was not acceptable.
For the people of the Languedoc these were crimes against
paratge,
in modern terms, crimes against humanity. For des Vaux
de Cernay these actions were examples from a series of wonderous
victories for the soldiers of Christ.
A Gothic Cathedral at Lavaur was erected to commemorate
the proud triumph of these soldiers of Christ.
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